The Parable of the Minas - Luke 19:11-27 (Aug. 9, 2026)

For the rest of us, you can go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

And that's where we're going to find ourselves this morning as we pick up again in the our series in the parables, the stories of Jesus.

That's where we'll find ourselves in Luke chapter 19, verses 11 to 27.

Luke 19:11–27

And remember this, we're talking calling this series the stories of Jesus because that's what a parable is.

A parable is a story that Jesus uses to reveal spiritual truth to us.

And here's the question that I want us to kind of consider together this morning.

What makes something a worthwhile investment?

What makes a worthwhile investment?

Often when we hear a term like investment, we might think something along the lines of profit or gain, especially in the business world.

We think about an asset or a fund or something like that that we would want to go up and to the right.

We'd want profit or stability or something like that.

But what about our homes?

What makes maybe investing time and energy and effort into our homes a worthwhile investment?

Well, it's not just, okay, in the end you're gonna end up getting more money out of it than you put into it.

It's more than that, right?

It's it's we want a home to be homey and warm and cozy, not just so that we maybe get profit in the end, but because of the memories that we make through it, the life that we get to enjoy in our homes.

Or maybe what about children?

What makes children, with all the sleepless nights and energy and effort that we have to put in, what makes that a worthwhile investment?

Some people might say, well, it's not, but they probably don't have kids because they are such a joy.

There's nothing like the love that you share and have for your own kids, even when it's hard.

There's nothing like seeing them grow and learn and change and even maybe make a difference in the world.

Children are a worthwhile investment because of the relationship that you have with them.

And also, they're gonna carry on your legacy beyond you.

You're investing into something lasting.

So, what makes a worthwhile investment?

Well, I think in some ways, through all of these, it's the payoff.

It's in some ways the payoff in the end that we're looking to, looking forward to.

And so when we think about the things and ways that we invest our life and our time and all these things, we think about is it worth it?

Well, the question that we're gonna see and maybe think about answering this morning is is it worth it to invest our lives for Jesus?

Is that a worthy payoff?

You see, especially when Jesus does tell us, we see all the promises of Scripture that tell us that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, that in him we have an inheritance that's undefiled and imperishable and unfading, kept in heaven for us, that that's all that we have.

And yet, if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes we admit we don't always live like that's a worthy payoff, a worthwhile investment of our lives.

But Jesus this morning wants us to see how we might live as if that really is a worthy investment, like that's a worthy payoff.

How do we be servants who live now, placing our hopes on that kind of inheritance, on that kind of reward that we have?

So our main idea this morning is this faithful servants invest all they've been given for their true king.

Faithful servants invest all they've been given for their true king.

And go ahead and turn with me again to Luke chapter 19, and we're gonna go ahead and read our whole passage in Luke 19, 11 to 27.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Says, as they were listening to this, he, Jesus, went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away.

Therefore he said, A nobleman travelled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then to return.

He called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas, and told them, Engage in business until I come back.

But his subjects hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, We don't want this man to rule over us.

At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those servants he had given the money to, so that he could find out how much money they had made in business.

The first came forward and said, Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.

Well done, good servant, he told him, because you've been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.

The second came and said, Master, your mina has made five minas.

So he said to him, You will be over five towns.

And another came and said, Master, here is your mina.

I've kept it safe in a cloth, because I was afraid of you, since you're a harsh man.

You collect what you didn't deposit and reap what you didn't sow.

He told him, I'll condemn you by what you have said, you evil servant.

If you knew I was a harsh man, collecting what I didn't deposit and reaping what I didn't sow, why then didn't you put my money in the bank?

And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.

So he said to those standing there, Take the minor away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.

But they said to him, Master, he has ten minas.

I tell you, that to everyone who has, more will be given.

And from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away.

But bring here these enemies of mine who did not want me to rule over them and slaughter them in my presence.

So let's go back to verse 11, the beginning of Jesus' parable here.

What we have and what we've just been seeing in the book of Luke that we've not been necessarily studying up to this point, but what's been happening is there's this growing excitement among Jesus' disciples that he's now coming into Jerusalem, this holy city of God's people, and he's this promised Messiah, and they're excited because they think he's gonna be king.

He's gonna take out Rome, he's gonna be this victorious king who's gonna give us the kingdom.

They're excited about how Jesus is gonna bring the kingdom.

And Jesus wants to shape their expectations of this kingdom because what they think is gonna happen now is actually a long way off.

It's actually in the distant future, and so he wants them to see that right now, what he will have for them in the near and distant future, or near future, is for them to live as faithful servants of this king.

Even when the kingdom hasn't yet come.

Even when they don't see the payoff, he wants them to live as faithful servants.

And that's why we need this too this morning.

We need to know how do we invest our lives now as faithful servants in light of our returning king.

So from our passage, we're gonna consider maybe two reasons that might keep us actually from being faithful servants.

And then at the end we'll think about two applications.

But first we're gonna look at these two reasons or declarations actually from our text.

The first is this we don't think this man should be king.

That's the first declaration or first thing that we actually see in the passage.

It's in verse 14, but we'll get there in a minute.

See, Jesus' parable begins as it often does by setting the scene and introducing us to the characters.

So we're gonna focus primarily here in this first point on verses 12 to 14.

So that's where you can look with me.

And we see three primary characters here.

In verse 12, we learn about this nobleman.

He is one who is going to travel to a distant land to go get authority to be king.

Now that might seem a little bit strange to us, but this is a common practice in Jesus' day.

We think about the empire of Rome, and it was all under imperial authority, which means the emperor was the one who ruled all.

But the way that he ruled these vast lands is he would set up all sorts of kings and governors and people in different places who would rule for him.

And so, in some ways, this guy is like that.

He's like a governor or somebody like a nobleman who's going to Rome and he's petitioning for kingship, for authority in a particular region.

And so that's what this nobleman is doing here.

So we see the nobleman, and then we see in verse 13 another character or group of characters here, the the ten servants.

These are the servants of the nobleman.

They're those who would live with this nobleman, they're those who are in the house, and we see that they actually are going to keep his estate while he's gone.

They're given ten minas, which is a sum of money equivalent to about three months' wages.

And they're given these minas entrusted to them to take care of while the master's gone.

That's what they're given.

And so these are the servants.

And then we find another group, a different group, in verse 14.

This is the subjects.

So though they both begin with S, the servants and the subjects, they're different.

They're different people here.

So the subjects here we see these are those who are gonna be under the rule, under the authority of this king.

If he does get king, if he does get to be king, then they're gonna be under his rule.

They're citizens in the territory or area where he is gonna rule.

And they're holding petitions and rallies saying, we don't want this man to be king.

So what we find is, for one reason or another, these subjects, they don't want him to rule.

And so that's what we're gonna think about, consider together in this first point.

These subjects and their response to the king.

We might wonder, is their hatred justified?

Is it right for them to think this way about the nobleman?

I mean, maybe they're just being democratic.

Maybe they're just exercising their right to vote and say, I don't want that guy to be king.

Well, the text tells us the answer, how we should think about this in a few ways.

First, the fact that he's called a nobleman is not just that he has a high rank in society, but it's also that he's a noble man.

He's a noble of character, he's good.

That's the way we should think about this nobleman.

And so their hatred is actually unjustified.

Another way that if we were to zoom out of just this parable and see and think about where we're at in the book of Luke is to think that right now Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.

That's where he's heading.

And spoiler alert, if you know anything about what happens next, he goes and he dies.

He goes to the cross and is crucified by who?

Well, his own subjects.

The citizens of God's kingdom he's crucified by in Jerusalem.

And so, in some ways, this parable is meant to show us a little bit of the scene.

That these subjects are a picture of the Jews, the citizens of God's kingdom who don't want this man to be king.

And the nobleman then is reflective of Jesus, the king of the kingdom.

And so they don't think that this man should be king.

They hate this king.

In some ways, they're saying, we don't think this king should have authority over us.

You know, the truth is, this declaration is alive and well in our culture today.

See, some look at the kingdom, they look out at this world, and they say, if this is how God rules, if this is the way he treats his subjects, if this is the way things go, well then he is surely not a good king.

He's not worthy to rule.

Some look at our world and think, it's just a bunch of stuff, it's just a bunch of matter.

And so people can be free to live however they want to live.

No one has the right to tell me how to be king or how to live.

So our world is in many ways constantly teaching and instructing each one of us that there's no authority but you.

You get to determine your life, you get to live the way that you want to live, you get to love who you want to love.

You can be whoever you want to be, change your identity, your image, your gender, your preferences.

You have authority over everything.

And honestly, our culture tells us if there's anyone who stands in your way, well, that person's toxic and you can get rid of them.

Right?

That's that's what our culture says.

There's no authority but you.

Our world doesn't want Jesus to be king.

Because he claims to have authority in every area of life.

See, Jesus' claim to the throne is not met just with indifference, like I don't care.

It's met with hatred.

And what we see in these subjects' response is not just out there in the world, but it's actually in the heart of every single one of us.

That each one of us responds this way because we're sinners.

Which means that we reject God's right to rule, his authority over all.

We we rebel against that.

That's what sin is.

It's an unwillingness to submit to God's authority.

We want to declare autonomy from Him in every area of our lives.

Sin that lies inside of us is like a rejection of this God as king.

It's not, it's not like some insignificant, small little oopsie.

Not like a little child who maybe puts their hand on the stove.

Something they probably shouldn't have done.

It's gonna hurt, it's painful, it's not the way they should have done, but kind of just foolish.

No, sin is hatred of the king.

That's what we see in this passage.

Sin is hatred of this king.

And that's what these subjects do.

That's what we do.

Every time we choose to disobey God's commands and live as if we get to call the shots in our lives and live as if there's no authority but ourselves.

Well, we're saying, I don't want this man to be king.

We can't be faithful servants of this king if we declare our right to the throne, if we're so often preoccupied with ourselves and making sure we get everything that we want, and then when we don't get those things, we lash out at others.

In all these ways, we we're saying, I don't want this God to be king.

And this declaration, what we see actually at the end in verse 27 is that this puts us at odds with this king.

The end is judgment, justly for those who oppose this king.

So, friend, maybe this morning, that's where you sit.

Maybe you don't want God to be king in your life.

Or maybe you're not really sure what you think about God being king in your life.

Maybe you just come to church simply because you you want to find out more.

Maybe it just makes you feel like, in fact, you yourself are a good person.

Maybe a good ruler of your own life.

That's why you come to church.

You're not really interested in submitting to this king.

Or maybe you're in one of the buckets that I've already kind of described this morning.

You're those who you're not sure if this king that rules the world or the king that Christians believe in is really good or worthy.

You wonder if it's worth it to follow him.

If you really should.

Every single one of us submits our life to some king.

It might not be the true king, it might not be Jesus, but it's some king.

It might be yourself, it might be maybe a particular version of the good life that you're after, that everything in your life submits to that thing.

It might be a particular number in your bank account, it might be a relationship, but we all submit to someone or something.

And the question then is as you invest your life in that, is the payoff worth it?

Is that a worthy payoff for you to invest your life into?

Is it delivering on everything that it promises?

Is it providing everything that you hoped that it would?

Are you finding the peace and joy and purpose that you want for your life by submitting your life to that?

You see, every servant invests what they have for their king.

But faithful servants invest all they've been given for the true king.

So this is the end of the second declaration that we're going to look at this morning.

This comes not from the subjects in verse 14, but rather this comes actually from the lips of a servant.

From the lips of a servant, as we see that it comes out, and this is not so much as clearly an outright rejection of this king.

In fact, I think this is far more dangerous for us, church, to be found in this sort of way and with this sort of statement towards our king.

The statement is this I know you to be a harsh man.

I know you to be a harsh man.

And you see that down in verse 21.

Again, we'll get there in just a minute.

This this point we're going to consider comes from the servant and the lips of the third servant.

We see in verse 15, when the king returns, he comes and summons his servant to give an accounting of what they've done with the minas that he's entrusted to them.

He's come to find out what they've done with the command he's given them.

Engage in business until I come back.

Now, this is a simple command.

We notice that as he gives this minor to each of the servants, they all in some ways get the ability to carry out what's entrusted to them in the way they see fit for the service of the king.

They don't have to do it the same way.

And we see that this minor, remember, is a hundred days' wages.

So it's not this unbelievable amount of money.

It's kind of a way in which the master is trying their faithfulness.

How will they serve the king in this time where he's gone?

How will they use and engage in business and be profitable and put to work what he's given them?

We see that when he returns, this wasn't an unbelievable, uh unbelievably difficult task, something impossible, or he had some lofty expectations.

No, we see that both of the first two servants, they receive praise.

They receive generous blessing from this master when he returns.

But then we find another servant in verse 20, who's not like the others.

He's a servant, but he lives more like a subject.

Look again at verse 20 and 21.

It says another came and said, Master, here's your mina.

I've kept it safe in a cloth, because I was afraid of you, since you're a harsh man.

You collect what you didn't deposit and reap what you didn't sow.

See, again, we might read this declaration and wonder, is this servant justified?

Is he right in the way that he thinks about the nobleman and the in the ways that he perceives him?

Again, a few features in the passage help us know that that's not the case.

First, the character of this servant is revealed by what he does with the mina.

Because anyone listening to Jesus would have thought about this servant and thought, that's a wicked, careless, lazy servant.

Because here's the deal.

If all you were concerned about, like this servant says that he is, if all he was concerned about was protecting the mina, if he just wanted to keep it as safe as possible, you wouldn't put it in a cloth.

You would bury it in the ground.

Think like buried treasure.

In those days, that's what they would do if they wanted to keep something extra safe.

And this guy just puts it in a cloth.

We know this too, right?

In our house, if I want our kids not to touch something, you know what I do not do?

Put it under a blanket.

I do not put it under a blanket and say, hey kids, don't touch this.

It's really important.

This is important stuff over here.

What are they gonna do?

Go get it.

They're gonna pick up the blanket, they're gonna uncover it, they're gonna look at it.

That's not where you put something safe.

And we see that from the way that this guy treated what was entrusted to him.

The servant was careless.

He gave no thought to protecting it, he didn't engage in business.

And honestly, we even see he didn't even act on who he thought the nobleman was.

That's what verse 23 tells us.

The master, he's he comes to him, he says, I'll condemn you by what you've said.

If you knew that I was a harsh man, why didn't you put my money in the bank?

And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.

Why didn't you at least give it to the bank, to a lender?

You know, the safest place in some ways for money is to put it in the bank.

You're not gonna get much interest or much return, but at least it's kind of safe there.

And he's saying, at least after all the years that I've been gone, I would have gotten something.

See, the truth is this servant gives no real thought to the nobleman.

If he thought he was so harsh and was just trying not to make him mad, he would live that way.

But this accusation that he has is actually really just an excuse.

That's all it is.

An excuse to say why he actually didn't serve the nobleman.

See, this servant is lazy, careless.

It's clear in some ways he's not really a servant.

He doesn't care about this king, he doesn't obey his commands, and most of all we see he doesn't know this king.

He doesn't know this king.

Remember his declaration?

I know you to be harsh.

I know you to be a harsh man.

Who does he know him to be that we see in verse 21?

He's he's demanding, he's exacting, he's easily angered, he he reaps what's not his.

He's saying to this king, you're a thief and a tyrant and you're a jerk.

This is who he knows the nobleman to be.

You see, this is so important for us, friends.

That who we know the nobleman to be.

Who we know the king to be is gonna determine whether you're gonna be a faithful servant or an unfaithful one.

That's gonna determine the way you live for this king.

What we see here is the true character of this nobleman, of this king, is that in relationship to these faithful servants, he's generous.

He's lavish, he gives so much.

When these two faithful servants they come back and we might look at what they've done, this one mind of turning it into five or ten, and we might think, wow, that's amazing.

But in some ways we we we have to understand here, this is not that incredible.

Now, certainly, they obeyed the commands, they were they were faithful servants to the king.

But in some ways, they were given something like a sum of a thousand dollars, and they turned it into five thousand or ten thousand, which certainly is a good return, but not gonna make him incredibly rich.

Not gonna completely change his life if he inherits this.

One commentator said that the ten towns would hardly be enough to buy even one barn.

But what's the reward?

The reward is is authority over ten towns.

He gets to rule, he gets to take charge of, inherit ten towns or five towns for the other guy.

We live in a world where so often we get what we put in.

If You work hard, then you earn an appropriate paycheck.

If you put in the work and the effort to get good at something, then eventually that's gonna pay off in the end.

But this sort of blessing is extravagant.

It's unreasonable.

It's reckless for this master to, this, this isn't, these guys aren't worth it.

They're not that amazing of servants.

This is lavish generosity.

See, this master, he's not cold, calculating, but generous.

He's not power-hungry, but even shares his authority over these towns with these servants.

The king's generosity is also seen even in verse 24.

A passage or a point that we might have missed.

He says to those standing there, take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.

Wait a minute.

Who's the one who has ten minas?

Shouldn't it be the king?

Well, no, you see, the king's not only entrusted these minas to these servants, but then blesses them with their faithful service.

They get to keep what they've earned or what they've earned on what he's given.

You see, service to this king is not a give and a take.

No, it's clear when you serve this king, he doesn't take, but he gives and gives.

That's the kind of king that this is.

He's generous.

This minor was the king's to begin with, but he gives it to them.

He entrusts it to them regardless of how he knows them to be faithful or unfaithful.

The unfaithful one still gets entrusted with a minor.

And then those who are faithful, in the end, what do they receive?

They get to keep the prophet that was actually his.

And then he shares with them this authority that now he's received.

See, faithful servants of this king know he doesn't take, but gives and gives.

And the problem for us is that we're so often like this third servant that we think of God like this third servant and not like these other ones.

We may not say it with our lives, but how often do we live as though the payoff of serving this king isn't really worth it?

We think of God maybe more like he's a harsh man, hard to please, demanding, exacting, stingy.

So the question we have to think about is who do you know this king to be?

And you reject his authority is because you don't think he's good.

Maybe what you've heard about him is that he's just got a bunch of rules, a bunch of do's and don'ts.

That's the way that he tells his servants to live.

Do this, don't do that.

His standards are impossibly high and no one can really reach them.

Or maybe you think that he's not a good king because if he would allow this to happen in my life, fucking can't be good.

You see, I don't want him to be king because I know him to be a harsh man.

See, this third servant, he actually didn't have a harsh master.

That's what we must see.

That this third servant, he didn't have a harsh master.

No, he projected the harshness that he heard in his own heart onto the master, onto the nobleman.

And then that shaped the way that he thought about this nobleman.

Friend, I wonder if for you, maybe the harshness that's in your own heart is actually then projected onto God.

And that that's who you think he is, because of what's in your own heart.

You you think and you're constantly living under the pressure of expectations that you can never meet.

Trying to be someone that you just feel like you're always not.

All sorts of other people, you look around and you see them being successful, leading lives that are going so well, and you just feel like I can't do that.

And you just feel crushed under the weight of all that you hope for your life, and it's not turning out to be that way.

Friends, I wonder if the harsh master is in your own heart.

Because this king has made you for himself.

You see, we are all citizens in the kingdom of God's world.

He's our creator, which means he gets to tell us how best to live.

But how best to live is actually that we were made for him.

See, the truth is we can hate him, we can live our whole life in rejection of his existence.

But that payoff is actually not gonna end well.

Verse 27 tells us how that's gonna end in judgment.

You can live like he's a harsh man.

But this God has made you for a relationship of love with him.

He created us to share himself with us.

But our rebellion against him, our saying, I don't want you to be king, God, it separates us from him.

We can't be near him, we can no longer be his servants, we're unworthy, we're unfaithful.

And so what he did was he sent his son into a far country.

He sent his son to the own kingdom to not only tell us stories like this that would say, I'm a generous God, see, but actually to show us by sending his son to die on a cross for the rebels and those against him.

Jesus paid the price for all of our sins.

That you and I could no longer be the citizens who hate him and reject his authority, but that we could be his servants, who know that this king gives and gives.

Jesus wants you to know what he's really like this morning.

No harsh man.

Just think of this third servant, if he knew what this king was really like, if he knew who he was, how eagerly he praised his faithfulness, how he meant that what he entrusted him to actually bless him, this service was actually gonna profit him in the end, if he knew the kind of rewards that awaited him, oh, how he would have served him differently.

Friend, that's Jesus' point for us today, so that we won't make the same mistake as this third servant.

And so, Christian, I wonder for you, have you forgotten what your God is like?

The one who you are servant of?

That he is no harsh man.

No, he's generous.

He gives and he gives, that he's gracious and merciful.

I think too often the reason it's hard for us to live as faithful servants of this king, investing everything that we have for him is because we think he's harsh.

We think he's cold, we think he's calculating, we think he's demanding more than he gives, expecting more of us.

I wonder if you ever have a picture in your mind of kind of maybe this scene when Christ returns and he kind of summons you before him, and you kind of are there and you're like, he's asking you, what have you done with what I've entrusted to you?

And as you picture that scene, uh maybe you're a little bit like me and you're a little bit sheepish, timid.

Well, here's what I've got.

I and you kind of know that feel like it's not all that it could be.

You kind of feel that maybe he's gonna judge it harshly, and maybe the way that he's gonna look at it is like he hoped for more.

We can sometimes think that that God is gonna be to us, maybe like Pablo Picasso or Vincent Van Gogh, these great painters would be if a five-year-old was to come before them and present their work of art.

Five-year-old comes and they look at it and they're like, I mean, you've kind of smeared the colors here.

I don't even know what you were going for.

I it kind of is just a hodgepodge of different things.

There's no texture.

You you haven't even painted anything over here.

Like, what were you doing?

What were you thinking?

I mean, we kind of think that God might be like that when he sees our work and what we bring before him.

But there's another person who could value and look at that painting.

It's a loving father.

And when that child, that five-year-old, brings the art project to them, what is he gonna say?

Oh, I love what you've done here.

Tell me about what you were making.

Show me the colors that you put in here.

Tell me about this.

Oh, yes, I love the way that you've done that.

See, our father, our God, is not a harsh critic, but a loving father.

And so the reason, friend, that we know that we are gonna hear well done, good servant, if we are in Christ and have trusted him, it's not because you've done something incredible that no one else could do.

It's not because you've made something unbelievable and priceless, invested so much in every way.

We'll hear well done, good servant, because of Christ.

Look at our work and see it as priceless because of the precious blood of Christ that was spilled for you.

So that you could not only be a servant, but a child.

And being a child, receive all of his love, and so that all of your works done in and for Christ would be looked at as precious in his sight.

You're made righteous by him.

And so that all that we do for him in his glory, he rejoices over.

He says, Well done, faithful servant.

Oh, how I'm proud of you.

See, our king is not a loving, or is not a harsh critic, but a loving father.

And so if we know this, and we know the payoff and the reward that he shows us, then how should we live?

So I want us to think then about two ways that we might apply this.

Two ways we might give service to this king that's like this.

The first is this spend what you've got now for eternity.

Spend what you got now for eternity.

See, what did the faithful servants do with the minor that's entrusted to them?

They used it.

They spent it because they knew this king.

And they used it in a way that they saw to engage in business.

Our parable wants to show us that there's these abundant rewards and generosity from our king.

So that we would see that if we serve him, it's gonna be well worth it.

The payoff is gonna be worth it to serve him.

We can be all too tempted too often to live our lives and spend our lives on things just for today, things just for tomorrow, things that give us immediate gratification and quick fixes.

We can be tempted to spend our lives and invest it in all sorts of things like that.

But Jesus is telling us the only way to really have anything in the end is to live like it's not really yours.

To live like it's been entrusted to you by this generous king, and then to spend everything in service to him.

Remember the servant in verse 24?

He's the one, he got to keep the minus.

He got to keep all the prophet.

The king blessed him with what he'd already given him.

1 Corinthians 2 9, it tells us what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared in store for those who love him.

See, you can't even fathom the generosity of your God.

Like this is just a little picture of how good our God is and how he rewards those who serve him.

And so if you try to hold on to what you have, as if you're just trying to protect it and keep it and make sure it's yours, in the end you're gonna lose everything.

That's what verse 26 is really about.

He says, Everyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away.

It's the idea that if you think that this is yours to have and to keep, in the end you'll have nothing.

You'll miss out on eternal joy with God.

You'll lose the riches of your inheritance in Christ that you could have.

So, faithful servants, they're gonna spend everything that they have.

So we might think about what are the minas that God's entrusted to me?

What are the minas that He's given me in my life?

For us, we have a lot.

We might think about the money that God has given us.

How might I spend that in service to Jesus?

Or maybe think about the time.

He's given me another day of life.

How might I use my life and my time to serve this king?

Maybe not complaining about all the burdens in my life, but rather rejoicing that he's given us another day.

He's given us homes.

How might he we employ those to do good to other people?

He's given us families for most of us, or at least a family here in the church.

How might we use that?

Use our life, spend for the sake of others in our service, in the way that we help the next generation know about Christ?

Maybe if you're single, what unique ministry opportunities does God have for you in this season of your life?

Maybe if you're a student?

How about your middle school and high school years?

What if you used those years in your life not to make yourself great, but to make Jesus great?

Maybe if you're a grandparent or retired, how can you invest the wisdom and experiences that God's given you into his kingdom and not just to retire early and enjoy yourself?

See, faithful servants are gonna aim their investments at eternity.

They're gonna spend for what lasts.

And so I think that means really two quick things, too.

It means you're gonna spend and invest your life in people.

Because people are eternal.

People will last.

If you spend your life with others, encouraging them, discipling them, pointing them to Christ, they're gonna spend eternity somewhere.

So that matters.

And then any time that we spend with our Cain, you can also be sure that's not gonna be a waste.

Jesus may be to the second application too.

The second way that we can invest all we've been given for Jesus is to know the God who gives and notice what he's given.

Know this God who gives with all of your life.

Spend your time and your life knowing and enjoying and treasuring and seeing this God and notice what he's given.

In some ways, this is a little bit of what he's drawing out again in verse 26.

To everyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away.

I think what Jesus is saying here is that there's a way to have things that leads to being given more.

And then there's a way to have that leads to losing everything.

See, the difference is not between the haves and the have nots, but how you see what you have.

By this statement, Jesus is teaching that the only way to get the payoff is actually to live now and see that what you have is actually his.

And it's actually for him.

This is why faithful servants don't merely invest what they have, but they also notice what they have.

See, there's a world full of people out there who are often thinking, and we can be consumed with this mindset too, of all the things we don't have.

I don't have this, I don't have that house, I don't have that money, I don't have that car, I don't have that control, I don't have that comfort, I don't have that.

All the things they don't have.

What are people who have?

I think there are people who are thankful.

People who are thankful, who notice what it is that God has entrusted to them and they thank this God who's given it to them.

I wonder how differently we would live if we stopped to consider just all the things that God has given us.

And not only think about using those, but also just thank him for them.

Just receive them as a gift from him and not something that we've done and we've earned.

Remember this third servant?

The main difference here was how he thought about the nobleman.

I think A.W.

Tozer is right when he says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

See, who you believe your God to be will shape the way you serve, the way you live.

And so we are to know this God of lavish generosity and see all that he is and all that he gives.

We want to be like Paul, who writes to the Ephesians, those who already know Christ, and he says, I'm praying for you that you would grasp the height and the depth and the width and the length of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

He's like, if you could just know one ounce of all of this love and generosity of this king, it would change everything.

If you could live like that.

Dana, he says it like this he says, the Christian life from one angle is the long journey of letting our natural assumption about who God is over many decades fall away, being slowly replaced with God's own insistence on who he is.

So we must let God tell us who he is and live in response to this generous king, thanking him, noticing all that he gives to us.

And it's by knowing this God, noticing what he gives, that faithful servants will invest all they've been given for this king.

Let's ask that God would make much of what he's entrusted to us through our faithful service to him.

Let's pray.