The Use It or Lose It Parable - Paul Kropf

Good morning to each one's blessing to be here again

this morning, and I also want to get you in

the name of Jesus, the one who I trust, we've

come to worship. Even though it's kind of a rainy

fall day, it's a good day because it's a day

to praise and to worship our great God. I'd like

to just take this opportunity before we begin the message,

to invite you to our revival meetings this coming week

is beginning tomorrow evening seven point thirty. Whether Eric Whitmer

is evangelist this year, so we'd be glad to have

visitors with this. Well. This morning, I like to look

at a parable of Jesus at home. I've been preaching

through some of the parables. I guess I didn't realize

how many parables that Jesus actually gave, and I'm not sure.

I don't really have a good count either. It's a

little hard to know what is a parable and what's

just what Jesus used as a simile or a figure

of speech. But I would guess probably anywhere from fifty

to seventy five. So I don't plan to look at

every parable, but I kind of I've enjoyed looking at

some of these parables this morning. I'd like I've given

the title to use it or lose it parable, if

you would turn with me to Matthew twenty five, like

to begin at verse fourteen. And this parable is often

called the parable of the talents, And here in Matthew

twenty five there's a lot of similarities with another parable

of the pounds in Luke chapter nineteen. And I don't

plan to have a comparison study this morning, but I

will maybe grab a few things from over in Luke

nineteen here now and then there's a lot of similarities here.

So without further comment, I'd like to just read this parable.

It's kind of a longer, one of the longer parables

Matthew twenty five, verse fourteen. For the Kingdom of Heaven

is as a man traveling into a far country, who

called to his own servants, delivered unto them his goods,

And to one he gave five talents, to another, two

to another one, and to every man according to his

several ability or his individual ability, and straightway took his journey.

Then he that received the five talents went and traded

the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise

he that had received two he also gained other two.

But he that had received one went and digged in

the earth and hid his lord's money. After a long time,

the lord of the servants cometh and reckoneth with them.

And so he that had received five talents came and

brought other five talents, saying, Lord dowst delivered unto me

five talents. Behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.

The lord said unto him, well done. Now, good and

faithful servant, spend faithful over a few things. I will

make the faith ruler over many things. Enter thou into

the joy of thy lord. He also that received two

talents came and said, Lord, thus delivered, deliverest unto me

two talents. Behold, I have gained two other talents beside them,

the Lord said unto him, well done, good and faithful

servant has been faithful over a few things. I will

make the ruler over many things. Enter thou into the

joy of thy Lord. Then he which received the one

talent came and said, Lord, I knew that thou art

a hard man, reaping where thouse not sown, gathering where

thous not strawed, and I was afraid, and I went

and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo there thou

has that is nine his lord Hansard, and said, unto him,

now wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap

where I sowed not, and gather where that I had

not strawed the artists. Therefore I have to put put

my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming

I should have received mine own with usury. Take there

for the talent from him, and give it unto him

that hath ten talents. Front everyone that hath shall be given,

and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath

not should be taken away. Even at which he hath

cast you, the unprofitable servant, into outer darkness, there should

be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So in introducing this parable,

I'd like to especially look at the context a little bit,

for I think it's noteworthy to think about this parable.

It's kind of sandwiched in between the parable of the

ten virgins and also the judgment that is coming. Christ

is returning verse thirteen, as the son of Man. You

don't know the day or the hour he's going to

come again. And then in verse thirty one, he's returning

with all his holy angels as king and as a

discerning judge. So in between we have this parable of

the Lord returning and handing out the rewards for faithfulness.

You know, in the parable the ten virgins, they were

waiting for the return of the bridegroom. But in this

past parable they were to occupy until I come, were

to be busy servants, trading the talents that were given

during their master's absence. And this parable in this chapter.

These parables here were spoken to the twelve disciples, but

I believe in a broader sense it's addressed to all believers,

and that includes each one of us. Here this morning, says,

the Kingdom of Heaven is like. So I'd like to

notice three things to begin with. First of all, we

see a man of wealth and authority going traveling to

a foreig country. Secondly, we see the responsibility the use

of the men's wealth was delivered or given to his

servants according to their ability, or we'd call that stewardship.

And the third thing, the Master then returns rewards the

faithful and also the unfaithful. So I'd like to look

at these things just a little closer. The Master goes

away to a far country. Now, Jesus plainly told his disciples,

I am going away John sixteen, verse sixteen a little while,

and ye shall not see me. And again a little while,

and ye shall see me, because I go to the

Father Mark thirteen, verse thirty four. For the son of

Man is as a man taking a far journey, who

left his house, gave authority to his servants, to every

man his work, and commanded the porter to watch John fourteen,

very familiar passage. And I go to prepare a place

for you. And if I go and prepare a place

for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.

That where I am there, ye may be also. So

almost two thousand years have come and gone, and Jesus

has not yet returned. But in this parable it's it's

kind of like it's it's already happened. It's not a

matter of if, but it's of when verse thirty one,

When the Son of Man cometh shall come. Now, I

think we need to have that settled in our minds,

that Jesus will return as he promised. You know, we

don't know when. I don't know the day or the hour,

but he will come. The second thing, Jesus calls his

servants to action. He made them responsible for the wealth

of his kingdom. So I'd like to think a little

bit about the talents that Christ gave to his disciples,

to all of his followers, to each each. So what

is meant by this thing of talent or talents? Talent

in a strictly ordinary sense, was a large sum of

money somewhere. I got it that it may have been

about a year's wages. Maybe it was more than that.

I don't know, but even one talent had considerable amount

of purchasing power. Well, today we might use the word

talent or talented to describe someone with maybe outstanding natural abilities.

Maybe they're able to do something well without seemingly a

lot of effort. I think of people that have a

photographic memory. They can read or hear something and ten

years down the road they can say it in detail.

For me, it's I can't do that. Some have a

natural ear for music, maybe others can't carry a tune

in the bucket. But talent is used here by Jesus,

and maybe I'm kind of splitting hairs a little bit,

but it doesn't mean something that we possess, but rather

it's something that He possesses, and he loans it to us.

And all the talents in this prayil belong to the Lord.

They were handed out to his servants to be used

in trade. And I believe God can use our natural abilities.

I don't want to discount that necessarily. James one seventeen says,

every good gift, every perfect gift, it's from above, from

the Father of lights, no shadow of turning with him.

First Corinthians four seven. And for who maketh thee to

differ from another? And who what hast thou that thou did?

Did'st not receive enough that it didst not? Did? Excuse me? Now,

if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory? As

if thou hast not received it? So the things God

gives to us, and that could include our natural abilities,

but their gifts talks about His goods there in verse

fourteen to two. They're given to us to be used

for His kingdom, for his glory. And I think sometimes

we tend to get that backward, you know, we like

to use his goods for our benefit. Maybe it's to

build our own little empire, to use his goods for

personal achievement or glory. It's kind of like the Pharisees.

He loved the praise of men more than the praise

of God. So what are these goods that he handed

out to his servants to trade with? I believe it

could be a call to Christian service. There's a call

with great responsibility, spiritual wealth secured at infinite cost at Calvary.

We could say salvation. It's offered to the world. It's

not just to ourselves. God has also given a power

X one A. You shall receive power after that. The

Holy Ghost has come upon you, going to be witnesses

at home, everywhere you go, even to the uttermost parts

of the world. And this power is not our own.

Like you just turn to Ephesians chapter three. Maybe sometimes

we think what do we have to offer anyway in

service to the Master? But I'd like to listen. You

listen to these words of the apostle Paul, his vision

for the goods that were given to him. You know,

I love this chapter. It's kind of hard to know

where to start and stop reading. But I think I'll

start a verse seven, read a few verses here and there.

Wherefore I was made a minister according to the gift

of the grace of God, given unto me by the

effectual working of His power, unto me, who am less

than the least of all saints. Is this grace given

that I should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches

of Christ, to make known, that to make all men see,

what is the fellowship of a mystery which, from the

beginning of the world hath been hid in God and

created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that

now into the principalities and powers and heavenly places might

be known into the Church by the manifold wisdom of

God according to his eternal purpose. But she purposed in Christ,

Jesus our Lord, going down in the verse seventeen, that

Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, she may

be rooted, rooted and grounded in love, may be able

to comprehend with all saints. What is a breadth and length,

and depth and height to know the love of Christ

which passeth knowledge, that she might be filled with all

the fullness of God now unto him that is able

to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,

according to the power that worketh out there somewhere. You know,

it's that workein us under Him be glory in the

Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end. Amen.

It's an amazing chapter, right. But I think God is

able to use each one of you, each one of us,

in ways that are far beyond what we can imagine.

And I think Paul had that vision of trading in

the King's business, in that stock market of the Kingdom,

in the stock markets of the world, there are those

with high risk, medium risk, low risk. You know, there's

you have those risk management groups and people that are

trained to reduce the risk of volatile mark It's we

know the possible. Many many other followers of Christ, even

down to the present day, have chosen the high risk approach.

Paul said in Acts twenty twenty four. None of these

things move me, neither count I my life. Dear into

myself said, I have finished my course of joyed and

the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus,

to testify of the gospel of the grace of God.

That's a challenge to me, what am I willing to risk?

Are you willing to risk even life itself? For the

glorious gospel that's committed to the saints? To you and

I this morning? Well, as important as this responsibility, this

opportunities that are given to us, how do we bring

this down to just the humdrum church life every day

living well? I think it's important to remember that the

responsibility to call it the gospel. You know, it's not

always exciting. Maybe sometimes it is might not be on

the mission field, way out there or in the public eye,

but I believe God is calling every believer to faithfulness,

to service. Ephesians chapter four talks about the diverse gifts

given to the Body of Christ. I don't know, I

think I'm going to take time to read a lot

of that, but verse seven there but then to every

one of us is given grace according to the measure

of the gift of Christ. And he goes on to

talk about the different parts of the of the body

the calling. You know, we're not all called to face

a shipwreck on high seas, or maybe being beaten within

an inch of our life, or to speak on Mars

Hill to in front of those great philosophers. But God

is seeking faithfulness where we're called. And again we can

look at verset Corinthians twelve. The diversities of gifts. That's

the same spirit. Some would say parts of the body.

It seem like they're more necessary, some are more feeble,

you know, they're every part is necessary. Well, I'd like

to just look at the unequal distribution of the talents.

It says he gave to one five to another, two

to another one according to their individual ability. Because God's

servants differ in capacity, So the Spirit bestows his gift

gifts as he pleases. We have that in first Printings twelve.

But all these worketh the one and the self same spirit,

dividing to every man severally as he will. It's not

up to us to necessarily choose which gift or which

gifts are given to us. As one writer put it,

God does not attempt to put a lake in a bucket. Now,

those with larger capacity, maybe knowledge and wisdom, have a

larger privilege of service, but they also have heavy responsibility

of faithfulness and perhaps richer rewards. You know, the sovereignty

of God is seen in the allocation of his gifts.

You know, I think even today there's the Peters and

the Paul's, and they have outstanding gifts, along with the Timothy's,

you know, the Silas, the john Marks, those maybe that

are kind of in the background Romans twelve, five and six.

So we being many, are one body in Christ, everyone

member one of another, members one of another, having had

gifts differing according to the grace given to us. So

some have been allotted only two talents, and as someone suggested,

or the majority of us, we've only been given one.

But every one of us are equally responsible for what

has been given. You know, I know this morning that

there's probably a lot more gifted preachers that are sitting

here this morning. But I think the true art of

life is to accept our limitations by divine appointment, not

to struggle about it or grumble about it. Tewod Corinthians eight,

verse twelve. For there if there be first a willing mind,

it is accepted according to that a man hath, and

not according to that he hath not. So God accepts

us for who we are, our limitations, and it's better

to have last place, or maybe just one talent in

God's service with faithfulness, rather than five talents. With no faithfulness.

And remember that more is expected from the five talent

servant than the one with two or the one. But

in the long run, God commends and rewards not the genius,

the brilliant, the popular, but faithfulness without human recognition or plus.

So this morning, if you can't be Moses, don't despair.

Maybe we can be an Eron or her. Just lift

up the hands that droop. Maybe we can just be

that unnamed lead by offering his service to the Lord,

or those unnamed saints that ministered to the needs of others.

And you know, to those with two or five talents,

maybe it's kind of easy to become critical of those

with just one. You know, why can't they be more useful?

Why aren't they doing at least what I do? You know,

it's just not fair to have such a heavy load

and they hardly lift a finger. And God sees faithfulness

in doing our best wherever we're called. There was an

article in the Beside the Seal Waters. I don't know

how many if you read that, but it might have

been a couple of weeks ago. It was titled Blooming

in the crawl Space. He wrote of that tiny little

flower with these colorful petals. It was blooming where no

one seemed to notice any went on to say that

person's crawl space may be that of inner struggle, adversity,

quiet desperation. You know, others might appear to be flourishing

with a lot of success that cheered on and acknowledged,

and there's a lot of applause. You know what fine

Christians they are, and how useful they are in the

Kingdom of God. But over here in the crawl space,

it's just that little shaft of light coming in. There's

this unnoticed small flower shedding its fragrance and its beauty.

And yet the Master sees in one day is going

to acknowledge the unnoticed, but the faithful life. So I

don't know, maybe as young Christians here this morning, or

maybe it's the older ones that feel their usefulness is past.

How can it be of any use to the kingdom.

Don't have a lot to offer, But I believe your

faithful life, your encouragement, your prayers, they're so important for

the Kingdom of God. You know there is a place

for you in the battle, and God will reward your faithfulness,

even if it may seem small. Maybe go unnoticed on

Mark fourteen. You have the story there of Jesus coming

to the house of Simon the leper, and they were

eating this meal together. This nameless woman comes in, and

she's uninvited. She breaks open this expensive alabaster box and

annoys the head of Jesus and some of the people

looking on. They were kind of disgusted. Jesus said, let

her alone. She hath wrought a good work on me.

She hath done what she could, you know, in the

whole scheme of things, the whole planet salvation. This didn't

seem like a very big thing, did it. But Jesus

said that wherever the Gospel is preached throughout the world,

what this woman done did would be remembered. She hath

done what she could. And so sometimes we think our

efforts are pretty feeble, it's not maybe worth very much.

God rewards faithful service, giving it our best. Okay, I'd

like to look a little bit at the use and

the abuse of talents that were given In several other versions,

it says in verse says the first and the second

servants went straightway or without delay, and began to use

or to trade the talents that they had been given.

They didn't waste their time. You know, these stewards didn't

know how long the Master would be absent. They traded,

they bartered until they doubled the money one hundred percent

more than they had at the beginning. And while the

first servant with five received more than the second servant

with two, they were both diligent and they were both faithful.

You know, as I thought about this, of course, questions

start coming to your mind, and you know, how can

I measure my diligence or my faithfulness? You know, have

I gained fifty seventy five per one hundred more grace,

more power, more growth then at the beginning of my

Christian life? Well, I trust there is some growth, and

maybe it's not necessarily ours to measure, but rather our

job is to just continue on in faithful service, doing

our best for the Master, and his reward is going

to be just and fair. We'll talk about that a

little later. Also somewhere I was going to bring this

in that this parable is is not just about doing

a lot of good works two kind of spin the

right wheels to obtain our salvation. You know, it's it's

also not about living our lives in fear of judgment.

You know, what's God going to, what's what's the out

come going to be? But it's it's in faithful service

where God has called us what he has called us to,

and it's really out of a heart of love for him.

But I think the tragedy of this story is the

man with only one talent, he failed to trade, He

failed to multiply what had been given him, and he

went out tug a hole, wrapped it in the napkin,

buried it. Whose money was that it wasn't his own,

it was his lord's money. Maybe he buried it for protection.

Isn't it pathetic when men fear losing what they will

not use. Maybe just the fear of getting our hands dirty,

the fear of what others might think or say if

I use the gifts that are given me from God.

But we will never lose what we use. And so

while the other two busy servants were busy trading their talents,

this man was idle. You know, his failure was not

that he it just had one talent in such a

small amount, but rather it was he was disobedient to

his master. And his disobedience was you'd call it maybe

a passive disobedience. You know, he didn't damage his mother,

his master's property, he didn't waste it, he didn't indulge

in it foolishly, didn't become indebted with it. But he

failed to make any profit for his Lord, failed to

risk what he had been given for the kingdom, so

that he hid his light under a bushel. Now, could

we say this servant maybe represents nominal Christianity. Those who

have all the privileges of the Gospel never use the

opportunities to share those privileges with others, little desire for

spiritual growth for God's word, just keep it to yourself.

And I think this man also had some attitude problems.

You know, God, you're just not fair. He lived in fear.

I know you're a tough boss to work for. I

just knew one day I was going to get on

your bad side. As Lord said, well, why didn't you

at least take it to the bank and get a

little bit of interest from it? And I'm not sure

how you interpret all those details, but perhaps he is

really saying you could have done something rather than nothing.

And yet sometimes I think we can get caught up

and kind of just frittering away our time with things

with little kingdom value, maybe as little as that thing

in our pocket, just scrolling away. Now I'm talking to

myself things, you know, putting our priorities in all the

wrong places. Just the other day, I was sitting down

and pulled out my it's going to pull out my phone. Ohops,

it wasn't there. So you know, I want to just

take this time to pray. You know, that's something I

think we can all do, simply putting our priorities in

the wrong place. I'd like to look a little bit

at the reward of Christian service. So the day of

reckoning comes, the Lord returns to take account of his

talents that were on loan. Each servant gave a count

of himself personally. It wasn't you know our church did this,

and you know the Western Fellowship did this, but it

was a personal count. Romans fourteen twelve says, So then

every one of us shall give an account of himself

to God Galatians six four and five. But let every

man prove his own work, and then he shall have

rejoicing in himself alone, and not another. For every man

shall bury his own burdens. If you noticed when I

read that passage. These first two servants received the same commendation,

even though their talents different. There's twenty one, well done, Now,

good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a

few things. I will make the ruler over many things.

Enter down to the joy of the Lord Verse twenty three.

It was the very exact same words. I believe, well done.

You know the joy of the Lord. I trust you

have it this morning, But someday it's going to be full.

It can never be improved upon. Some say sixteen eleven,

says that will show me the path of life. In

thy presence is fullness of joy. That right hand there

are pleasures forevermore. But to the other man, it was

a solemn judgment that fell on this servant that buried

his talent, and his twofold charge was being wicked and

lazy or slothful. You now, this man didn't have anything

more to say. He was silent. He was condemned. The

Master says, take that talent and give to the one

that has ten. And so he had lost what he

had carefully kept. So I think the lesson for us

this morning is to use it or lose it. The

unprofitable servant that was cast into outer darkness, place that

doesn't have any light. There's no joy associated with the

punishment of the wicked, Hebrews says ten twenty seven, and

fearful looking for a judgment to fire and indignation. You know,

really his fear had come true. Well this morning, maybe

to sum this all up and bring it to a

close again, God expects us to do our best with

what has been entrusted to us. It's not just a

frenzy of good works. It saves us, but it's really

what are we doing with what has been entrusted to us.

Whether few talents, whether we have many, neglect brings loss.

The proper use of ability these and opportunities brings a

wider sphere of service and our Master's commendation and the

joy of eternal life, the joy of that eternal kingdom.

So let's be faithful this morning to use the opportunities

that are given for His kingdom for his glory. Lord,

bless you.