Matthew 25:14-30 - Called to Account

Matthew chapter 25, Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention Matthew 25 · chapter mention

We're nearing the end of Jesus' last teaching section in the Gospel of Matthew.

We started this back at the end of April looking at what's called the Olivet Discourse, the Olivet Discourse, which is the last of five major teaching episodes in Matthew's Gospel.

It's called the Olivet Discourse because Jesus taught it on the Mount of Olives, which is the hill across the Kidron Valley just to the east of Jerusalem proper and on the east side of the temple complex.

This teaching episode lasts two chapters, all of chapter 24, all of chapter 25.

That's what the Olivet Discourse is.

This teaching episode of Jesus comes at the end of a long, long day filled with conflict and difficulties in the temple.

And it culminated with Jesus issuing a series of woes against the religious leaders of Jerusalem.

At the end of that, Jesus departed the temple and made his way down to the Kidron Valley and up the other side to the Mount of Olives.

And while they were doing so, the temple and the complex was clearly visible to him and his disciples.

And his disciples looked back and saw the splendor that was that temple complex and marveled over it, launching the conversation that we've been looking at for the past few weeks.

I just want to kind of bring us back into this.

We were out of it last week because of our guest speaker.

And I want us to bring us back into this a little bit.

When you scan over chapters 24 and 25, you're going to find some structure to it.

You're going to find two comments, one by the disciples and one by Jesus in verses 1 and 2, in which the disciples remark about the temple, and then Jesus makes this prediction, not of its grandeur, but of its destruction, uprooting the disciples' notion of the permanence of the temple and of the nation and even of the world itself.

All of this prompts two questions, which are offered in verse 3.

And the bulk of chapter 24 is in answer to those two questions.

So you see two comments, two questions, and two answers.

And beginning in verse 45 of chapter 24 is the start of three parables.

There's a parable that finishes off the chapter, parable at the beginning of the chapter 25, down to verse 12, and then our verse 13, and then starting at verse 14, where we will be this morning, is the third of those three parables, the parable of the talents.

So you got the parable of the faithful and wicked servants, the parable of the 10 virgins, and what we'll look at today, the parable of the talents.

And then following this, that we're looking at today will be one final judgment that begins in verse 31 all the way to the end of chapter 25.

Last month, when we started our look at this section, I asked you to keep your eye on it for things of personal significance in your walk today.

To not get carried away, as some people have done with this section of scripture, by looking for some prophetic, sensational timeline, trying to prize apart these statements that Jesus makes in order to determine the dates or the time of the world events ahead of us.

As we've gone through this section of scripture, Micah and Kevin have helpfully steered us through the bulk of chapter 24 and the first part of chapter 25, reinforcing to us that to be ready for the Lord means to be waiting and watching and working actively until he comes.

And so this morning we're going to sort of move a little deeper into that.

Those ideas are going to be very much what we're going to listen to today as Jesus teaches.

And we'll understand just how vital it is for us to wait, to watch, and to work.

Let me just sort of look at the parable a bit.

You can see it in verse 14 all the way down to verse 30.

It's called the parable of the talents.

And no, it's not a parable about a person who sings really well, a person who plays a piano really well, or a person who can do stand-up comedie, comedy in short order.

It's not that kind of talent that we're talking about here.

A talent is a weight of measure or a measure of weight, and it carries a certain monetary value.

We'll talk about it in just a minute.

But it's called the parable of the talents.

And it starts off in an odd way.

In verse 14, you'll notice this.

For it is just like, well, that's pretty ambiguous, for it is just like, doesn't tell us what it is or any of that.

So, but if we look at the story before it, the parable of the ten virgins in verse one, the kingdom of heaven will be like, we know we're still dealing with the same theme.

We're still dealing with Jesus' parables about the kingdom of heaven.

There's several similarities we see in these string of three parables.

All three of these parables that Jesus gives, the one at the end of chapter 24, and these two in chapter 25, all refer to the departure and absence of the central figure.

There's a master in the first one, there's the bridegroom in the second one, and again another master in the third one.

All three of them have some unexpected time of delay.

Also, that delay of the central figure in coming the subordinates is unknown as to when it will come to an end.

The first two parables use the word delay.

Delay.

And then this third parable in verse 19 uses the phrase after a long time.

And so the similarities of these parables tell us that this feature of delay or a long time is a significant part of what Jesus is trying to bring across to us.

That there is an unexpected length of time, a long time perhaps, between Jesus ascending into heaven and his return.

So what we understand by way of these three parables is that Jesus is using all of them to equip us and to prepare us that we were to experience life in this world and may do so from generation to generation to generation, facing persecution and facing opposition, even as we proclaim the kingdom of our Lord Jesus in the midst of it.

And while we do so, to continue to wait and to watch and to work.

All three of these parables have similar frameworks of contrast and comparison.

You've got the faithful and the wise servants, and the wicked and the indolent servant.

You've got the five wise and ready virgins, the five foolish and unprepared virgins.

Here you have two conscientious servants, and you have one cavalier servant.

All three of these parables end with a commendation of the watchful and a condemnation of the foolish and the careless.

Again, driving this one nail deeper and deeper and deeper, Jesus is continually teaching us of the necessity of being continually ready as we await for his coming.

This is what he's driving home to us as of chief importance.

Now, here's where we get to a distinguishing feature of this last parable.

The second parable, the parable of the ten virgins, focuses on the readiness by way of waiting.

Waiting.

This parable teaches us by way of focusing on the working while we're waiting.

The first one talks about being stationed and ready, whereas this last one talks about us being ready by way of constant serving.

Constant serving.

And both of these form together a balance for how we should live our lives, looking forward with eager anticipation, the coming of our Lord, and yet living a life of preparedness by continuing to serve in this world.

It's easy for us to go one side or the other and not to keep these in balance.

And I think this is why the Lord is sort of just driving this home to us.

Waiting, watching, waiting, and working.

So this morning I want us to look at this passage of scripture.

And I want to begin by looking at three characteristics of faithful servants, three characteristics of faithful servants as our first point.

As we look at these three characteristics, they'll sharpen our focus as we anticipate the return of the Lord and how we might be watching, waiting, and working.

And the first part of this, first characteristic is this that a good steward labors according to his ability.

A good steward labors according to his ability.

Take a look at verse 14 with me.

Or it's just like a man about to go on a journey.

He called his own servants and entrusted his possessions to them.

To one he gave five talents, to another, two talents, and to another one talent, depending on each one's ability.

Then he went on a journey, and immediately the man who had received five talents went and put them to work and earned five more, in the same way the man with two earned two more.

So before setting off on his journey, this wealthy man calls in three of his servants, and he hands over to them a sum of money in proportion to their personal abilities.

And you'll notice immediately that there's a different amount: five talents, two talents, one talent.

Obviously, one of them is clearly marked out as more capable than the rest.

One other man seems to be doing well, has some ability.

And then there's another person of lesser ability.

And so he gives five, two, and one to these three people, depending on their capacities.

This amount of money, we're a little challenged to understand.

A talent was, as I said, a measurement of weight.

And it could be a measurement of weight of different materials.

It could be silver or it could be gold.

Obviously, the value of that's going to change significantly if you're weighing out silver or if you're weighing out gold.

A talent was about 75 pounds.

About 75 pounds.

Someone sort of trying to understand this looked at some details of the culture and said that A Tyrian talent was probably worth about 6,000 denarii, which is one day's labor for a common worker.

So the monetary value of this one talent would be about half a lifetime's work, say 20 years worth of work.

So he gave one person 20 years' worth of work, another person 40 years' worth of work, and the last person a hundred years worth of work.

So the guy with five talents was handed over to him about nine million dollars.

The second person received about three and a half million dollars.

And the third person received just under two million dollars.

This is a large amount that this master has placed into the hands of his servants.

This is not some pocket change we're talking about here.

Now, what do these talents refer to?

Well, they don't represent the abilities of each of these, though it's based on the abilities of each of these.

They're given the talents in proportion to their ability, but the talent isn't their ability.

And because we in English use talent as abilities, it's often easy for us to sway ourselves that direction very, very quickly.

It's not talking about whether or not you have one ability, two abilities, or five abilities.

What this is talking about is the advantage of the opportunities that lie before you in measuring up what you do with your natural endowments.

And so this parable talks about the wealth of opportunities to be in service to the Lord, the responsiveness that you have to those responsibilities.

So instead of thinking of capacities, think of opportunities by when you read that word talent.

I think that might help.

Don't think capacity, think opportunity.

So the question we would ask ourselves is what am I doing with what I've been given?

What am I doing with what I've been given?

I think that's a great way to ask the question.

So when we do talk about spiritual gifts, for instance, again, knowing I'm walking close to the line of blurring this distinction of opportunity and capacity, the writers make a distinction.

So for instance, Peter, when he says, just as each one's received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God in 1 Peter 4.10.

If anyone speaks, well, let him be as one who speaks God's words.

If anyone serves, let him be as one who serves from the strength that God provides, if so that God could be glorified through Jesus Christ.

So there is this if you have those capacities, seize the opportunities, is what it's talking about.

Step into the opportunities.

Paul says something similar there.

According to the grace given us in Romans 12:6, he said, We've been given different gifts.

Romans 12:6

If prophesy, then use it according to the proportion of your faith.

If service, use it in service, if teaching, then teach.

If exhorting, in exhortation, in giving with generosity, with leading with diligence, in mercy with cheerfulness.

There is the opportunities.

Here's how you seize those opportunities by way of your diverse giftedness.

This ambiguity, I think, is built in here, into this parable, so that we don't land on one particular spot and just fixate on it, but that we might have it in a more general framework so that we might be able to bring it to a larger degree of application to our lives.

One man I met several years ago in Romania, we sat down in the back of a house, sitting down for some lunch together, and he told me why he was there.

He was a businessman in the Pacific Northwest, and he owned a company that made surgical screws, and it was very, very successful.

And one day while he was driving around, he was a believer in Christ, and he's driving thinking about where he might be able to build or buy a bigger house, and he's driving around in a nice car, and he's considering also where his children might be better placed in a private school.

And it dawned on him that he was only surrounding himself with worldly things.

He already had a nice house.

His kids already went to a nice private school.

He didn't need to do any more than what they had already were enjoying.

And it stopped him cold.

And he said, What am I doing with my life here?

I'm using the opportunities for indulgence rather than service.

And it really moved him down a trajectory of examination of his life.

He didn't change his lifestyle at all, but what he did is he began to turn his profits of his business toward ministry.

He was married to a Romanian woman, and it began to grow in a heart's desire and concern for the people of Romania to understand the Word of God better.

And so there I was many years later, sit seated in Romania at a picnic bench in the back of someone's house, with him and a couple other guys speaking to a conference of Romanian church leaders.

And they were launching a Bible training center there, all of it funded by the prophets of this guy's business that made surgical screws.

And he realized that his talents needed to be, his opportunities needed to be weighted to service and not to indulgence.

So I think the reason why we have this open-ended discussion here is to be able to help us understand that we can take this and move deeply into opportunities of our life, and it can be as diverse as all of us are.

So the first characteristic of a faithful servant is someone who labors according to their abilities.

One talent, two talents, five talents.

We may not be business owners.

We may not be able to fund a Bible conference and launch a training center in a city, but there are things that we can do according to the abilities that have been given to us.

The second point I see here is that good stewards appreciate the responsibility placed in their hands.

Good stewards appreciate the responsibility put into their hands.

Now take a look at this parable here.

This master gives what could be an astronomical amount of money, nine million, three and a half million, just under two million dollars into each of the hands of these three people.

No instructions, no detailed list of what to do with it.

They were left to their own understanding of what to do with what had been put into their hands.

He wanted them to trade as best they could with what he had left them.

And he didn't want to tie them down with binding instructions, changing circumstances while he was away.

He didn't want them locked in.

He wanted them to be able to be interested, engaged, ingenuity full of ingenuity and interest.

So he gave them the money and he left.

And whether he was gone a short time or a long time, when he came back to talk to these servants, he would have found out their opportunities to have served.

The first servant didn't just make one good investment and rest the whole time.

The way it's described here in the Greek, it talks about trading and trading and trading and trading, moving from one opportunity to the next, perhaps moving into several opportunities at the same time.

But he kept engaged in the efforts while he was waiting for the return of the master.

The second one did the same.

And they appreciated it.

And so they maximized their opportunities.

And as we look at the contrast here, there is this difference between the good servants and the and the bad servant, between the successful servants and the failing servant.

But you'll notice that the failing servant isn't that he did anything wrong.

Failure is the fact that this guy didn't do anything at all.

He just sat on it.

And so this parable is about maximizing opportunities and not wasting them.

To be ready for the master's return means to use the intervening time that we have, our life, to the maximum effect, which means to be active in the circumstances we're in.

How many times have we said in our hearts, I could serve God better if, or I'll serve God when, or I'll wait till this happens, and then I'll be freed up to.

And what are we doing?

We're presuming on the present, and we're presuming on the future that we have mapped out for us just how our life is going to be lived.

And that once that happens, that I sort of marked out in the future will occur, and then I'll have the strength of mind, I'll have the I'll have everything I need to go forward with my abilities in my service.

These servants took what they had and did what they could with what they had at the moment they had it.

They didn't wait till the wait till I get married, wait till I get my first big job, wait till I retire, wait till my children are out of diapers, wait until my children graduate, wait until Jesus is saying, you you can't think that way, because the master could come at any time.

Life is short, opportunities are not endless.

Step into them today.

Another characteristic of a faithful servant is a generous perspective toward the master.

A generous perspective toward the master.

And this is seen in the readiness of these two servants to hand it all back.

I mean, if you were given$9 million, would you give 18 million back to the guy?

Or would it be 17 and a half million?

Yeah.

They were ready to give it all back to the master.

And when the master returns for the accounting, take a look at verse 20.

The man who had received five talents approached and presented five more talents and said, Master, you gave me five talents.

See, I've earned five more talents.

No, he's coming, he's saying this, and he's not saying it in some sort of self-congratulatory way.

He's not as though he's boasting, he's merely speaking the truth.

But you can feel some passion there, can't you?

It's like the intimacy of this relationship is there.

See what I've gained.

This is wonderful for all of us.

One commentator put it this way, and I like how he described it.

He said, the man's eyes are sparkling, he's bubbling over with enthusiasm, thrilled as it were, and invites his master to start counting.

There's that idea of connection between the servant and the master.

He's been given a treasure, he's dealt with it responsibly, and he's overjoyed to show the fruit of the labor before him.

The man is waiting for this moment to make the presentation.

And the master seems equally delighted, doesn't he?

Well done, he says.

An identical commendation.

The Apostle Paul, at the end of his life, said that he was ready to be poured out as a drink offering, and the time of his departure was at hand.

He said, I fought the good fight, I've finished the course, I've kept the faith.

In the future, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day.

Paul wasn't boasting, but he was anticipating a day of glory.

And he knew that the fruit of faithful service, maybe not fruitful service all the time, but faithful service, was going to issue into an eternal reward that he eagerly looked forward to.

So, what is the thrust of all of this first section here?

These three characteristics that I've mentioned.

Well, the obvious point is that the delay between the Lord's ascension and the Lord's return is a place of service and not just waiting.

That this time is filled with opportunities and responsibilities for us.

The Lord cautions us to watch and to wait, but he doesn't mean get dressed up and go sit on your rooftop and just hang out there until I come back.

No, he's telling us to be engaged, to be engaged in a world full of opposition and difficulty.

You see, this readiness is not a passive waiting, it's an active engagement.

Colossians 4.5.

Act wisely to outsiders, making the most of the time.

Ephesians 5.16.

Pay attention to how you walk, and walk as wise, and make the most of the time the opportunities.

The writer of Hebrews, watch out for one another, provoke one another, stimulate one another to love and to good works, encourage each other and all the more as you see the day approaching, as you await for the coming of the Lord day by day.

Increase in your love, increase in your encouragements, increase in your service.

That leads us to the contrast.

The characteristics of faithful service, but let's look at the characteristics of unfaithful service, or perhaps faithless service.

Like the other two servants, this man belonged to the master.

He was given a great amount of money, just like the other two.

But his identification with the master is superficial, and it's marked out by two characteristics.

First of all, it's marked out by idleness.

This man produced absolutely nothing with the talent that had been given him.

He didn't even make an attempt to use it at all for any way for his master's benefit or profit.

He didn't misuse it.

It wasn't like he pilfered it and sought to use the money for himself.

It wasn't like he embezzled it or stole it.

He simply disregarded his stewardship altogether.

This is in much the same way, like people who live in God's universe, who live on the world that God created, that breathe the air that God created, that enjoy the benefits of his common grace, of giving us peaceable lives, seasons and harvest, and plenty on our tables and families full of love and a society that has law and order, enjoying all the environment of these things that God has given without any regard of him at all.

Perhaps even closer to home, those who are given the exposure of the truth of the word of God, who have Bibles in their homes and Christians in their family, and churches that they attend that teach the Word of God faithfully and yet totally disregard what it has to say.

In spite of any of the privileges, this man took no positive response to do anything with what he had been given.

So not only was he idle, he was also insolent.

He was rude and he was disrespectful.

His behavior and his speech are marked not only by distrust, but disdain for the master.

He's insolent.

He resents him.

And he makes insults about his character.

Look at verse 24.

The man who received one talent also approached and said, Master, I know you.

You're a harsh man, reaping where you haven't sown and gathering where you haven't gathered seed.

So I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground.

See, what you have is yours.

This man is insolent, disrespectful, rude.

And he's charged the owner with being unmerciful and dishonest.

He's charged the master with being distant, uncaring, unjust, undependable.

Take whatever derogatory terms you want to use.

This man's probably got them in handfuls.

And instead of judging himself in the light of the character, the true character of his master, he judges his character, the master's character in light of his own perceptions.

He's in charge of the reality of life.

And I know you, master.

I know just the kind you are.

Not only justifying himself, but justifying himself at the expense of his master.

Sadly, how many people do that with the Lord?

Who look at the Lord through the lens of their own experience, through their own understanding, who skip over the Lord's kindness, the Lord's grace, the Lord's compassion, the Lord's mercy, the Lord's honor, the Lord's majesty, the Lord's glory, and just look at him narrowly through the lens of this wasn't the way I wanted it to be.

Therefore, you're an evil, unmerciful God, and I hate you.

This man didn't surrender to his master at all.

He's afraid, not of reverential awe, but of contempt and distrust.

As his own words testify, he resented and despised his master.

He had no love or respect for him at all.

His relationship to that master was one that was filled with hatred and not peace, that was filled with enmity and not love, that was filled with rejection rather than faith.

That's why he wasn't just unfaithful.

He was faithless.

He was a faithless servant.

The distinguishing mark of the first two servants is that they took their opportunities to serve.

They were genuinely eagerly awaiting the return of their master to be able to show him the fruits of the things that they'd been given and what they had done with it.

This man, on the other hand, just put the stuff in the ground and walked away and did his own business until the master showed up.

I'll live life the way I want to live it.

I'm not going to concern myself with him in any way.

What's he got to do?

He's he could get his own anyway if he wanted to.

He gets what people don't, what he doesn't own.

That leads us to the last part here.

The return of readiness and the return of faithlessness.

The settling of accounts that begins in verse 23.

It depicts divine judgment, appearing before God.

The first two servants have invested their lives and their resources, the opportunities provided them in an honorable way.

Come into the master's presence, and they receive several things.

They receive, first of all, the praise of the master.

The master commends them.

Well done.

Well done.

And you'll notice that his commendation is more about their attitudes than it is about their acquisitions.

He's not saying to them, Well done, you gave me five more than I had before, you gave me two more than I had before.

He says, Well done, good and faithful servant.

The Lord looks at their character and commends it, not their accomplishments.

He expresses the excellence of their service.

What a remarkable this thing is.

That this figure represents the Lord of glory.

Can you imagine what it would be like to enter into the presence of the Lord and just contemplate this holy, just, true, living God speaking the beautiful words of reception and welcome in your life?

That will be in his presence blameless and without spot.

Or any such thing.

That will be received with a fullness of welcome.

That the Lord Jesus likens to the embrace of a father, of a prodigal son who's returned, of the rejoicing in heaven of the angels in the repentance of one sinner, and the glad reception echoing as we enter in.

What a wonder.

Not only a commendation from the Master, but a partaking of the Master's joy.

Enter into the joy of your master.

This is our gain.

Not my gain, he says.

This is our wealth.

This is our delightful day.

This is about the kingdom.

It is for all of us to take part in.

That joyful expectation of the day when the Lord reigns over everything and gathers in his people and says to them, You are my people, and I am your God.

And there will be no need for the sun or the moon, for he will be the light by day and by night.

That it will be nothing but fullness and health and life.

Enter into the joy of your master.

And then he says that they'll be given greater avenues of service.

You've been faithful over a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

I don't know what that means, but there's this prospect of ever-increasing episodes of joy as the faithful servants move into new arenas and new pleasures and new acquisitions and new commendations over and over and over again.

Seen in this profuse enrichment.

And there's just a little hint of it in verse twenty eight.

Take the talent from him who gave it to the one who has ten.

That's kind of a strange comment.

It doesn't say, take the one talent from the faithless servant and let the guy had it who gave me the ten.

Interestingly, it says, take the one talent and give it to the guy who has the ten.

It's almost as if their gain is their reward, right?

The Apostle Paul said to the churches, are not you my joy, my rejoicing, my crown of glory in the day of appearing?

That somehow the fruitfulness of abundance is what you actually gain as a reward.

The delight of seeing the work of God through you into the effect of the lives of others is the joy of reward that you will receive.

The riches of faithfulness.

But there's also reward of refusal here.

We read what the man said to his master.

I know you, you're a harsh man, reaping where you haven't sown, gathering where you haven't scattered seed.

I was afraid, went off, and hid your talent in the ground, see what you have as yours.

But notice in verse 26 the response of the master.

This man doesn't receive the commendation of the master, he receives the disapproval of the master.

And he speaks to him about his irresponsibility and his indifference.

And he speaks to him about his character.

And he says to them, He said, You think I'm a hard man?

You think I'm a person that harvests things that don't belong to me?

If you really thought that I would gain from what doesn't belong to me, why didn't you do something with what I already have?

And the man's argument falls apart.

It's a lame excuse.

If you knew I was so ruthless that I would gain profit by what I don't deserve profit from, why didn't you invest what I gave you that is mine and do something with it?

Though the servant doesn't understand the master's character, the master understands the servant's character.

Oh so well.

And he divests him of any of the benefits.

He strips away from him what he had been given.

And then he's deprived of place.

Take the talent from him, verse 28, give it to the one who has ten, and everyone who has more will be given, and he will have more than enough.

But from the one who does not have even what he has will be taken away from him, and throw this good for nothing servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The servant forfeited a reward, he forfeited the commendation, he forfeited the place in the household of the master.

He was punished, driven out of that house into the dark, dangerous night where he was vulnerable, into that outer darkness where there would be nothing but the agony of wasted opportunities haunting him from that day forward.

Agonizingly understanding that his misunderstanding of the master had led him down a pathway of destruction that was not going to end.

What a horrible picture this is.

And I say that with the deepest amount of compassion in my heart.

This man's lame excuse was seen as the empty bubble it was.

It was picked apart in a heartbeat.

No matter how long he had contrived to try to justify himself in a flash, his justifications were gone.

And he was left naked and vulnerable and at the mercy of a master he had despised.

It's very sobering, isn't it?

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, the day of judgment will come, and he said, Every mouth will be silenced, and the whole world will be accountable before God.

In the Old Testament, the prophets said, I looked for a person who could stand in the gap, and I found none.

None.

None.

Left to ourselves, we are no different than this faithless servant.

Left to ourselves, we are full of self-concern, disregard of the master of the universe, happy to enjoy life as we see it fit, so long as he doesn't get in the way of it.

And if he imposes anything upon us that we should do simply for his benefit, we chafe under the weight of it all and try to find a way to neglect it, just like this man did to his master.

And for all of us, we deserve to hear these very same words from the mouth of the God of heaven and earth depart into outer darkness.

In the next parable, Jesus will talk about the separation of the sheep from the goats.

And he said the goats will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life, giving us a window into the realities of which these parables speak.

That this just isn't a picture of a dissipation of life.

This is talking about the destruction of eternity here.

This is not just about the wasted efforts of the moments of your days so that you could end them at 65 or 75 or 85 or 95 with a fullness or an emptiness, but rather about when you go before the living God and he calls you to stand before him.

And there will be to those who try to have an excuse to justify why they've done what they've done.

A condemnation, a disinvestment, and a disbarring of place in the presence of the Lord.

Darkness outside.

Our excuses might seem logical to our neighbor.

Our excuses might even give us a sense of self-justification for ignoring the living God.

But they're not going to stand on that day.

They're not.

And they were filled with an appreciation of what had been given them by the master.

And their life was filled with a responsiveness to this trust that had been put over into their hands.

And that their delight is not seeing just the amount climb up, but the sparkle in the eyes of the Master himself as he saw and delighted together with them in the bounty that they shared.

And the only thing that made them that was not because they had decided one day just to be a good servant, but God in his mercy had transformed them from faithless ones into concerned servants.

So Jesus here is talking about that day, that indeterminable day when he will return.

And he's calling his people.

Watch, wait, but serve.

Work while you're waiting.

Be engaged in the opportunities.

Look to the eye of the master.

The day will come when the difficulties and the opposition and the hardships will be over, and the accounting will be done, and you will be brought into the everlasting joy of the eternal abode, full of glory and honor at his appearing.

Where's your heart right now?

Which way did you identify?

Did you identify with the first two or the last one?

Did you say, Oh, I need to shore up some of my understanding of my life and the opportunities ahead of me.

I want to engage that.

Or did you say, I am just like that faithless servant.

I've got every excuse in the book to charge God for how bad my life has gone.

Where do you gravitate?

Where you gravitate is a revelation of your heart before the Lord.

And I would encourage you to bring yourself to him.

Bring yourself to him now before he brings you before him on that day.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this sober and yet important proclamation of our Lord Jesus, who teaches us about the importance of our lives now and not just about the wonder of our lives hereafter.

And Father, we pray that as those people who know you, who've been brought into the saving relationship with you, that we would be those who recognize that we live in the light as children of light, and that we are not to engage anymore in the works of darkness, and to realize that the day is coming when these opportunities will cease, and that, Father, we will speak to you about them all.

We pray, Father, that we might be eager, diligent, faithful, loving servants of yours, engaged in the kingdom work, speaking about our Savior Jesus Christ in every possible way and in every possible opportunity.

And Lord, I pray for any in our midst who might not know you, whose hearts felt exposed by the words of Jesus, who realized just how thin their excuses are, and just how vulnerable their everlasting soul is.

Amen.