Understanding the Kingdom of God (Pt 14) : Growth and Responsibility: Investing Your God-Given Talents for Kingdom Impact

And we talking around the kingdom of God and we talked last week about the church being a beachhead,

a place that God has put in place to have an impact.

I just want to recap quickly just to remind you that if someone... I've had a couple of people ask me.

So Greg, what's the vision of the church going forward?

Now just remember our vision is what you see and I want you to know our vision going forward

is simply Jesus, our Lord, our Savior. That's our vision.

Ask me next time what's our mission? Because our mission is to go and plant connect groups

to plant churches as beachheads through South Africa and beyond,

as was prayed in our prayer meeting this last Thursday night.

Our goal is to take this gospel to every single person who needs to hear it.

A front footed church in terms of what we do.

And those connect groups we're talking about now, those church plants that we're going to be starting,

they're going to contain all sorts of people in different parts of their journey from little ones to mature.

And in a sense a church should be a little bit like a hospital.

That's only one expression of the church, but it kind of starts off a little bit like a hospital

where people are in different stages of healing, health growth, receiving treatment, progressively getting better.

Please don't criticize broken people for coming to church.

Is that alright? They're broken.

Don't criticize a blind person for walking into a tree.

He can't help it, he's blind and his dog wasn't looking.

So you need to... What I'm trying to say is people are allowed to come in as they are because...

But then there's a process by which the Holy Spirit is going to work on them called sanctification.

And there needs to be a grace period.

You know why a lot of churches don't grow? Because people arrive and they feel I don't belong here.

I'm not like these people.

That would be most of us on the 1st of January at the gym. I don't belong here.

I'm not like these people. Look how trim they are.

Some people only eat salad in December because they want to look good on the beach.

I think it's a pride issue, but you never know.

Don't criticize people. We've got to be welcoming in our hearts for all the kind of people who are coming.

Some will be in intensive care, etc.

Some will go out into the world with the stare of purpose in their eyes because the church changes.

When you've been with us for a couple of months, the church changes from being a hospital

to a battleship where you get the projection of power.

God wanting to take the power of the Holy Spirit from the church into the community.

Jesus said go into all the world. He never said bring them all to church.

He said go into all the world.

This is a crucial time for you and I and I bless God that so many of you come out every single Sunday morning.

I'm looking out at the moment realizing it's not long before we got to open the balcony,

not long before we're going to add a couple more meetings.

But I want to say to you that this is great and I celebrate what God is doing.

But our effectiveness isn't here. This is our celebration, our training, our equipping,

our being family, coming under the presence of God so he can deal with us and work with us.

Our works of service is Monday to Saturday.

It's being out there as a battleship.

If you can picture an aircraft carrier just projecting power into the nations,

sending people from its decks to go out and do the work.

When they need fuel, they come back and they get refueled.

It's the imagery I want you to see of the church.

It's a front footed community full of people with purpose.

We're not a place of perfection. We're a place where we live with one another in love under the power of God.

It's the only, think about it. It's the only community in the world

where people from different races, from different languages, different cultures can come together

and lay their lives down for each other because of the love Jesus has put in our hearts.

It is a supernatural activity.

Which leads to the question I ended off last week with: who does this?

Who carries the load in church life so that the kingdom of God is extended?

Let's re ask it, who's supposed to carry the load?

Let's answer it by doing this. Don't say it loudly, but why don't you whisper to your own body right now

and say who carries the load?

Because I tell you the moment a part of your body doesn't carry the load,

the rest of you knows about it and runs off to a doctor, isn't it?

You require your own body to carry the load.

Every part is useful and so it is in the church and we raise up our people to become leaders

and the kind of leaders that we recognize, raise up and release.

We will determine the effectiveness of this ministry and for how long that effectiveness is going to last.

You got to keep producing key leaders and let me make one more statement.

We don't produce leaders for our church only.

We are producing leaders for the world.

We are producing leaders for other churches.

Some people over time feel a calling God to go and support, lift up, strengthen other churches.

Having been equipped with us, we're a going, sending community.

Do we understand that God has actually called us to something?

Ephesians 1:4. Ephesians 4:1. My last scripture for last week says,

Ephesians 1:4 Ephesians 4:1

therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling

because you've been called by God.

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with one another.

If you don't know how to be patient, have a kid you don't know how to...

You know, the Bible says, you know love covers a multitude of sins and you forgive 70 times 7.

You don't know how to do that. Get married.

There are things God has put in place to help you make allowance for each other's faults

because of your love.

Make every effort to keep yourself united in the Spirit, binding yourself together with peace.

For there is one body, one spirit. You've been called to one glorious hope for the future.

It's you and I who's called to do this.

You and I together are called to reach the world.

That's a recap from last week and it took me 6 minutes and 22 seconds.

What I want to do this morning is do part 14. Growth and responsibility.

Growth and responsibility.

Book of Genesis, chapter one and verse 27.

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God.

He created them. Male and female. He created them.

Then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth.

Listen and govern it, reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky,

and all the animals that scurry along the ground.

We're going to pause here for a moment. Just think about the implication.

You are made in the image of God.

You are made in the image of God.

Think for a moment if that wasn't true. Don't you think?

We as a human race have demonstrated our insignificance and our ability to be inhuman.

Our base and sinful responses to one another, suffering, death, decrepitude.

Sometimes there is the total absence of love in this world we're living in.

The devil has successfully instituted the principle that might is right.

And the sanctity of human life has been thrown away.

If we are left to ourselves without recognizing we're made in the image of God.

It is power over power.

It is each one does what they want to do at the expense of others.

It's the hungriest dog wins the fight.

If you take out the fact that we are made in the image of God and subservient to him,

all that's left is I do what I can while I can, getting everything out of self reliance

and self aggrandizement.

Yet it is the greatest idea in the scriptures that God puts intrinsic value

to every single human being to the extent that in the incarnation of His Son,

the Word becoming flesh, he demonstrates to you and I, through the death, the burial

and the resurrection of Jesus, that human life matters, that we are beautiful in his sight.

And then we began to understand that because God not only loves us,

but because he loves the world so much, the world that is fallen.

He saves you and I and then he gives us a kingdom mandate into the world

to restore the fallenness, the brokenness of humanity back to the place

with the dignity that God intended them to have.

Do you realize that we were made to take charge of a certain amount of things around us?

You were made to take control of areas of your own life.

Each of us has a domain.

We have a kingdom, if you like, over which we have say,

where things are done the way we've decided to do them.

Things like our bodies, our homes, our time, our money, our priorities, our choices.

Every human being exercises an area of responsibility.

God has given you, if you like, a little kingdom.

Each of you can wake up every morning and have a yawn. I'm the king of my kingdom.

It's just how you exercise that little kingdom that we need to talk about this morning.

Because God gave humanity dominion over the creation.

And he said, I want you to look after this creation.

And nowhere does scripture say that when we sinned, God took the mandate away.

He gave it to us and he kept it with us.

We have the job of managing the earth.

We to rule over it, we're to care for it.

But we're never meant to do this in isolation from God.

We work under Him. He leads.

It's his kingdom, it's his creation. We are simply stewards thereof.

The problem is that our sin and our separation from God leads toward corruption and death.

Isn't it sad to know that we have enough resource and money to be able to help

every single human being on this planet to live well?

There need not be poverty, brokenness, the horror of abuse.

It need not be. We have all the resources on this planet.

The problem is there are selfish human beings filled with sinful desire there who have

moved away from the presence of God, gone into isolation from God

and there's a constant struggle and a constant mess because we're uprooted.

And then God comes to the church and he says, I expect you to step into the governing domain

in partnership with him.

So let's hit some points for this morning. Number one, intended to rule.

My subheading is this. Get back to your rightful place.

You were made to rule. You were made to have a say over things.

If you don't believe that you're intended to rule, why don't you try and get in the way

of someone who wants to do what they want to do?

Have you ever tried to convince someone who set on something they want to do

to do something else without even knowing it?

They exercise their sense of self, rule, try and interfere were the choices

some people have made.

And now I got the larger problem of not only do people make all their own choices,

but we're together in the same space where our goals, our desires and our choices don't match.

And that's why we have problem with social groups, families, nations at war, marriages.

And then Jesus came announcing the availability of the kingdom of God.

An invitation for you and I to harmonize our individual kingdoms together

so that we can live together.

God didn't want us antagonistic or isolated.

He didn't intend that the present little kingdoms he gives us today

are supposed to be lived in conflict with each other.

We're invited to live together under two great commandments.

Jesus said. One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus

and asked him this question.

Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus replied, what does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?

The man answered, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind

and love your neighbour as yourself, right?

Jesus told him, do this and you will live, you will have life.

How do you live well in this world? How do you exercise kingdom dominion?

How do you exercise rulership in the space that God's given you?

Shall I tell you how? Love well and you will live well.

Can you imagine on Monday morning, traffic in Jo'Burg at half past six, seven o'clock in the morning.

Everyone was loving well. Can you imagine? A taxi.

Sorry sir, Please, can I help you? Is this alright? Would this be...

Can you imagine we'd be so busy apologizing for each other we'd never get to work

that we'd make sure everything happened. We'd all be happy.

And Jesus says, if you want to live well, love well, because what you sow, you're going to reap.

And the church of which we are growing hugely across the world.

Imagine we went into the kingdoms of this world that are in conflict with one another.

And we came as one kingdom under one God, with one set of rules working in harmony,

living well because we love well.

People would look at us and say, wow.

So my first point for you this morning is there's an intention to rule.

So take your place back, govern your life.

If things are drifting and falling out of place, we need to start figuring out

how do we get back to what God intended for you and I.

Can I say, it starts in the morning.

Your alarm clock goes off. You get up and you sing, oh, what a beautiful night.

You don't start swearing.

You get up in the morning and you make your coffee and you open your Bible

and you spend time with Jesus and you get all excited, take control again

over the things that slip.

You know what I did this morning with my coffee? I had one biscuit, not three.

Look, I decided I'm not doing three Romany creams anymore. It's a sin.

I'm gonna do one for now, till I get a new conviction.

You hear what I'm saying? That's number one.

Number two, faithfulness. Number one, take your place.

But where you've got your place, please be faithful there.

Faithfulness. Be ever growing. Taking faith risks.

You and I are unceasing spiritual beings created with an eternal destiny in God's universe.

You don't cease to exist when you die.

That's why we said God made us in his image. God doesn't die.

And when you're born, an eternal spirit is given you.

And it can be a dead spirit or an alive spirit, but it's still a spirit when you die.

It's not the cessation of all things.

When you close your eyes on this earth for the last time,

you go straight to the judgment of God.

You are an eternal being.

And the eternal destiny for a Christian is described in Revelation chapter 22 and verse 4.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

They will see his face. His name will be written on their foreheads.

There will be no nightmare, no need for lamps or sun, for the Lord God will shine on them.

Have you thought for a moment that reigning with God in his universe

is the eternal destiny for which you were created?

There's enough examples in scripture about living well and putting treasure in heaven.

My question to you, sir ma'am, is why do you need treasure in heaven?

Those who rule well on earth will shine like stars in heaven.

There will be rulership given in heaven.

Do you understand that these brief 70, 80, 90, 100 years of your life

are simply a trial for living there?

That we have an eternity with which we will live and co govern with God.

That's why he wants us to get over all the small little nitty gritty issues we have in this life.

Because do you know, you take your personality with you.

You still you. There will be no sin.

But if you have the intellect of a five year old because you've refused to live in love,

that's where you start.

Some people have a mindset that when I die, it's just me and Jesus.

I look exactly like him. I behave and think like him.

So therefore I can live like I want in this world.

Because with the reset, I just become you, are you.

Your sin is taken away, but you're still going to have to grow,

you're still going to have to mature into your relationship with God.

There is an eternity waiting.

Like some of us, we spend our whole lives putting retirement money in

for those last 10 years when you can't spend it because you can't even bend

to tie your own shoelaces.

And we put away, we put away for those last 10 years.

How about putting away for eternity?

How about being faithful with what God has given you?

You're going to eternally worship, eternally serve and have eternal responsibility.

You will receive a similar nature to the angels when you die.

Luke 20:36. They will never die again in this respect.

Luke 20:36

They will be like the angels.

They are children of God and children of the resurrection.

And sometimes we can't see that because we're so busy living in this world.

We see very little in our visible landscape that identifies with the power of God.

And sometimes, would you agree, even in Christian work, it's like Christians

are pushing and pulling in their own flesh, not allowing the presence

and the power of God to do the work.

We're not keeping in step with the Spirit enough.

We're still living with our heads in the hole too much.

This happens when we haven't learned to place our lives at God's disposal.

People want to come into church and leave again.

I've said this a number of times. I'm going to say it another number of times.

I stayed there to witness every single water baptism.

This morning me and I watched Brett and Steve baptize them.

I did not see one of them get into the water with their wallet, their cell phone or their keys.

They all made sure they left it outside.

Have you seen how in picture form, Lord, I baptize.

I go under the waters of immersion.

I just leave my money, my wallet and my possessions unbaptized.

I'll come under with that stuff.

Well, I didn't do it this morning, but I did think to myself,

those who enter, the family members say, give me his wallet, just chuck it in quick, baptize it all.

Because really that's what happens, isn't it?

But what we do is people come to church, but they're not saying,

I want to place myself at God's disposal.

I don't want to live and act in faith.

I got a comment for you this morning.

As we learn faithfulness in the small things that make up our lives,

God begins to teach us more about the invisible landscape of his kingdom.

And when you live in the small things and you're faithful at it,

you've stood in your place, you're faithful.

God begins to show you how principles of the kingdom work in and around your life.

And as you're faithful with little things, he makes you faithful with even more.

It's training for the future.

Point number three, gain your pounds, don't lose them.

Think of your long term future.

The way this works out is like this.

God expects us to take charge over the things around us, including our bodies,

and use them in reliance on him to create good.

So Jesus goes and he wants to show.

So what Jesus does is he picks up an illustration we're going to read.

And his illustration is about money.

And the reason I think Jesus picks on money is because money equals power.

If you don't have any, you don't have any power.

If you have money, you have power.

I remember I said to a friend of mine once, it's amazing to me how people change when they get money.

And my friend said to me, no one changes when they get money.

All money does is enable you to act out what was there originally.

I thought, that's a very good point.

And so what Jesus does is he's going to give us an illustration that's actually on stewardship,

but he's going to do it with money because he knows how important money is to all of us.

It's a teaching about silver, about minas M I N A S, about talents.

It's actually a teaching about responsibility.

And Jesus takes money to teach a valuable life lesson.

In the story we're going to read now, a nobleman gives various people some money

and he goes on a journey.

He leaves it with them to invest and be responsible for it.

Jesus tells this story on his way to Jerusalem on his final week before his crucifixion.

Him and his disciples had just eaten at the home of Zacchaeus.

Remember, we brought down from the tree, just eaten with them and...

And Jesus is knowing that the Son of Man has come to seek and save the lost.

It's his last week before his crucifixion.

And he tells the story because as much as he's going to die and rise from the dead,

he's going to purchase something that his disciples are meant to take into the world.

And that's the talents, that's the miners, that's the silver.

It's the content of what God gives you.

It's the revelation of the kingdom he gives you that he wants to release to you.

Luke 19:12.

Luke 19:12

If you have a Bible, A nobleman was called away to a distant empire

to be crowned king and then return.

Before he left, he called together 10 of his servants and divided among them

10 pounds of silver, saying, invest this for me while I'm gone.

Now you and I look at this today. We don't know what's going on there.

What would happen is the emperor of the day would often call a nobleman

or a rich ruler or someone who's had influence would call him to Rome,

would anoint him a king over a province, an area of the empire, and would send him home.

And that's what's about to happen here.

Jesus is about to go to heaven and be made king of all through his sacrifice.

And he's saying this as I've been called to my father.

A nobleman has been called to Rome just for interest sake.

Who was the king in that time? Herod.

Herod was king of Judea in the Roman senate, appointed in 40 BC.

He had proven abilities. He was loyal to Rome

and so Caesar gave him a Roman army to help him gain control of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem's always been at war to gain control over Jerusalem.

Establishing his rule over Judea.

Herod is known for his huge building projects.

He rebuilt the second temple in Jerusalem. He expanded its base.

For those of you who have been to Israel looked at the western wall, the wailing Wall,

that was built by King Herod the Great, his son, another Herod was Herod Antipas.

He's the one who killed John the Baptist, allowed for Jesus to be crucified.

It was his son, Herod Agrippa, who presided over the trial of Paul the Apostle at the end of Acts.

It's an infamous family this.

And they all understand what it's like when a nation is under the authority of a nobleman.

So this nobleman goes now and he leaves silver with his servants.

And by the way, each pound of silver was worth roughly a hundred days wages,

almost a third of a year's salary.

It's a good bit of money.

And then verse 14 throws in an aside quickly, which is actually quite important.

But his people hated him and sent a delegation after him to say,

we don't want him to be our king.

In other words, this nobleman's gone off to Rome.

So they send a delegation, get to Caesar before Herod gets there to say,

we don't want him as king.

What is Jesus saying? He came and turned the known religious world

upside down through his belief system.

And they looked and said, we don't want a God like this.

We don't want him.

You see, if you acknowledge you have a king, you have to acknowledge you're accountable to him.

And verse 15 continues.

After he was crowned king, he returned and called the servants to whom he had given money.

He wanted to find out what their profits were.

This first servant reported, master, I invested your money

and made 10 times the original amount.

That's a thousand percent earnings.

All the servant had been told was, take charge of it and use it.

Do you notice he wasn't specifically told how to use it.

He wasn't told what to do with the money.

He was given the power of initiative.

What is God saying to us? When you wake up in your life and you understand

your gifts, your talents, your abilities, your supernatural enabling,

if you look at the physical blessings God has given you,

he says, I'm telling you to go and invest it.

Growth and responsibility.

The Holy Spirit will show you and will tell you, take what you've got

and make a thousand fold earnings increase.

Sow your life for the kingdom, forget about you and give yourself for the sake of your king.

We're to be involved in God's business.

We invest our lives into the gospel.

The question of course is, how do you do this?

This is what you do. You have an opportunity to talk to God about it.

It's called prayer.

Lord, you've gifted me. I've got talents, abilities, I've got a bit of resource.

What do you want?

And when you go and secret yourself in your prayer closet and allow the Lord to talk to you,

it's in the place of prayer that God speaks.

God commissions. God gives you faith. God releases his power to you.

That's why for me, a value in this church is that we pray on Thursday night together

we gather to pray, to worship, to seek the Lord.

I think your prayer life is the most important part of your life.

Thanks for all the Amens.

There needs to be an understanding. If I go to my father,

the nobleman who gave me the talent of silver, the hundred days worth

Lord, what do you want me to do? Sit at his feet and listen to him?

He gives you a unique purpose.

It's called prayer.

And in verse 17. Well done.

The king exclaimed. You are a good servant.

You be faithful with the little I entrusted to you.

You will be governor of 10 cities as a reward.

That's quite a reward.

You've been faithful with the little.

Do you notice the little? Jesus is addressing the people?

Because too often we believe we have very little.

I can't serve God much in this church. I don't know what influence I could have in Joburg.

I have too little.

Sometimes we assume we get think we have too little.

And then the converse is, and God is asking too much.

That's what you're going to see with the last guy now.

God gave me so little and he expects so much.

They don't understand.

All God says is where you find yourself in your home, your life, your work.

Right now. Take authority and reign there.

Let my will come there.

Don't worry about another guy's kingdom, worry about yours.

Don't worry about your neighbor, worry about you.

Sort out this kingdom, put it to work.

Your intellect, your talents for the one who was faithful with little.

The nobleman said, you will be governor over 10 cities.

You see, this governor had 10 cities to give out.

They had just been given to him.

I think being in charge of 10 cities would be a challenge.

Some of us aren't in charge of the plate of food we eat.

How are we going to be in charge of 10 cities?

People constantly complain about our government. The government.

The government. The government.

I look at you sometimes.

I've never said this to you. I just think it.

Sometimes I look at you and you complain about the government.

And I think, you know, if the government was run like you run your life,

where would we be?

Would we be any better off?

You experts. I think. I think my own lives mess up.

But I think. I think the government. The government.

Do you see that?

The nobleman gave this young man a talent to see if he would be faithful

in governing little in order to advance him by helping him govern much.

The faithfulness is proved in the little you given before the match.

This is a wise king.

What demand will responsibility make on your character?

I always get overlooked at work. No one ever sees me.

Have you ever looked in a mirror?

Can your character handle growth? Can your character handle responsibility?

You may feel overlooked, but God has been testing you in small little areas your whole life.

There's been little things he's asked you to do for him your whole life.

And sometimes to serve the bigger. We've neglected the small things.

Then you wonder why God overlooks from time to time.

I gave you a talent and 10 of you. I gave you the same.

Not the same gift mix. I gave you the same opportunities.

What have you done with the opportunities you've been given?

Can you be trusted with responsibility and authority?

And obviously, the story goes on, the second servant was given one and he earned five more.

Not everyone handles the same.

And that's what is so beautiful about Jesus story.

Listen, that guy made a tenfold increase. That guy 5.

The amount of increase isn't the point. The faithfulness is the point.

We can all be faithful with what he's given us.

He has to test him. I want to put you in charge of a city.

Can I just put you in charge of something small?

Some of you may think to yourselves, this is the responsibility I've given.

I'm not going to put a whole lot of time and effort into it because I'm looking at the big things.

This qualifies you for that.

Do well in this, you'll do well in that.

I think some people have too high an opinion of themselves

and other people don't have a high enough opinion of themselves.

Number four.

The joy of the Lord in your work.

Try and look at your reward not being the responsibility,

but your reward is pleasing your Father in heaven.

In the Matthew 25 version of the story, the Master says this.

The Master was full of praise. Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful in handling this small amount.

So now I'm going to give you many more responsibilities.

Let's celebrate together.

The NIV says, come, share your Master's happiness.

The ESP says, enter into the joy of your Master.

Do good for others. Live in a world where the gospel is being promoted

and you know what's going to happen.

God says, when you and I fellowship together,

hopefully every day in your devotions.

When you and I fellowship together, come and enter my joy.

I want to celebrate every morning with you this morning.

I hope the Lord was able to celebrate yesterday with you

tomorrow morning in my devotion. I want the Lord to celebrate today with me.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? Because you know this is what God does.

God's joy is to create and to create good.

When God created the earth, he said, this is good.

When he made man and woman, he said this is very good.

In Luke 15:7, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner

Luke 15:7

who repents and returns to God than over 99 others

who are righteous and haven't strayed away.

When people respond to the gospel, there's joy in heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:17. Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

2 Corinthians 5:17

The old life has gone, the new life has come.

God is joyful and he wants to create good in our lives.

And often he'll do it through others who've been given their talents.

God has infinite creative will. Yeah.

He looks at your life and you may think, oh, this year is going to be like next year.

You know, God is infinitely creative.

He looks at your life and he's got so many thoughts he can do with you

if you just say yes.

As we learn to be responsible with little, we put in charge of much.

You never serve in the church for ego or self advancement.

You only serve in order to serve more people.

If you need to grow spiritually, you need to understand

you're already in charge of some things.

How are you doing with what you're already in charge of?

And the last one is this the one bag of Silverman.

Please don't bury your head in the sand.

In both versions of the story, the master, the nobleman reveals the heart attitude

of the one guy who did nothing with what he was given.

In the Matthew account he says, I knew you were a hard man.

I knew this guy had a wrong view of his master.

Many people have a very wrong view of God, don't they?

The way they grew up, the way they were fashioned,

things that happened in their lives, stories they've read.

Please don't get all your knowledge of God from a TikTok.

Please hear me look at the God of the Bible.

Not even of your favorite preacher.

Do you know there's a reason why every single Sunday for years on end now

every elder and deacon in this church gets a full set of my notes.

Not only to help in the connect groups, but look at it. Is this right?

We have to measure ourselves by scripture if we want to be a biblical people,

then let's go to Scripture, not tradition.

Someone wants to find tradition as peer pressure set by dead people.

Tradition is what I say. Peer pressure set by dead people.

Why do you do that? Remember the story of the woman who gets married as a man?

The guy looks and she cuts off the end of the chicken. Just the end.

Has a good meal, but he's checking that peace out.

This bothers him a bit. OCD bothering him the whole time.

He goes to her, he says, why did he cut that off?

He says, because my mom did.

So the next meeting he goes to the grandmother, he says,

mom in law, I'm just curious, why do you cut the end of the chicken off?

She says, because my grandmother did. My mother went to the great grandma

who's still alive, says, great grandma, I've got to ask,

why do you cut the end of the chicken off?

She goes, in my day, the pots were so small the chicken couldn't fit in.

And sometimes we just do things because we inherited it.

And because we inherited it, we say that's the way it must be.

And some people bury their talents because they say that's how it must be.

I never knew. Oh, I did know you.

I knew. I know what you like.

If you truly knew what God was like, you knew that he would bless you with talents.

He will bless you with pounds of silver so that when you serve him,

he'll give you more to serve him with.

God is the most generous God, you can't out give out, grow out anything.

God, your excitement is palpable.

This guy's got foot in mouth disease.

He carries on. Master, I knew you were a harsh man.

Harvesting crops you didn't plant, gathering crops you didn't cultivate.

I was afraid I'd lose your money, so I hid it in the earth.

Here's your money back.

What's he saying? Quid pro quo, God, I don't think you gave me much

and I don't trust you.

So you know what? The little you gave me, I'm giving right back.

You gave me a little life. You gave me an insignificant life.

I'm giving the same back to you.

This guy's heart attitude is bad from front to end.

And how does Jesus look at him? Because God won't be manipulated.

He says, as you've said, on that day when you face judgment,

don't you come to me and tell me. Look what I'm going to tell you what you did.

You chose the life you live.

You chose the decisions you make.

You chose to take the little and bury it. Not me.

I gave it to you to multiply like all your brothers.

You were all on an equal footing.

This servant was going nowhere.

The Bible ends now. You've got to put it in.

The Bible ends the story in Luke 19 with these words.

Verse 22, you wicked servant, the king roared.

Your own words condemn you.

Now, I'd love to sugarcoat that.

I'd love to go around it and say, but God is so good and so kind,

it doesn't matter what you do with your life.

You can mess it up completely and he's gonna reward us all.

The master says, this, you made in my image.

You are created to rule and to reign.

I have given you a kingdom. I have given you talents and abilities.

And all I asked you was invest your life in the kingdom

in the gospel for my sake. That's all I asked you.

And out of three servants, two did and you didn't.

And you that didn't are telling me it's because you misjudged my character.

Actually, you misjudged your own.

You determined how your kingship is going to look and you ruled that way.

Because everyone in this room rules their own kingdom.

Unless you're under the age of 10 this morning, nobody told you what to wear.

I can proudly tell you, I chose these shoes myself.

It may be true that some of us have teenagers who came out,

presented themselves. We said, not a chance.

Go back, find something clean and ironed.

It may be, but you chose how much food.

You hear what I'm saying? You, in your own kingdom,

determined a whole lot of stuff before you even got here this morning.

And God is saying, now kick that on for the sake of the kingdom,

give your life away or you're going to lose its value.

He did not value the generosity of his master.

I close with three comments. You ready?

Number one, identify your silver, your money, your mental ability,

your physical ability, your family, your work, your skills,

your spiritual gifts.

Identify what God's given you.

You identify what God's given you.

If you don't know, then go on a spiritual course, a spiritual gifts course.

Figure it out.

Look at your natural talents and abilities.

Look at the gifted material we did all that time ago.

Go and say, okay, I know what... Identify it. I know what I've got.

I may be a one, five or ten talent man, but I know what I've got.

Number one, identify it.

Number two, take responsibility for it.

I'm responsible for what God's given me. I am no one else.

This person's responsible for their stuff. I'm responsible for mine.

Number two. Number one, figure it out.

Number two. So, number one, identify it.

Number two, take responsibility for it.

And then number three, go and invest it.

Look at people around you. This country of ours is full of need.

Ask yourself the question.

How do I invest what God has given me?

You know what the funny thing is? You start to serve God with the smallest little areas.

Before you know it, your kingdom grows.

Your sphere of influence begins to grow. Suddenly you're influencing others.

And when your kingdom comes into conflict with another person's kingdom,

remember the umbrella under which you sit is the greatest commandment.

Love well in order to live well.

And when you get that right, the kingdom of God.

The gospel increases because you're increasing your kingdom space.

Because God says, be fruitful and multiply and rule over what I've given you

and just rule well.

And you bring the presence and the power of God.

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,

but of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.

Bring that everywhere we go.

And watch how this kingdom of light flips over the dominion of darkness

on a daily basis.

Not Sunday, when you're here with me now. Monday through Saturday.

Let's go out.

Servants of the kingdom, stand with me.

Maybe this morning. You like?

Do you remember that woman who lost a coin in her house

and she couldn't find it again and she had to search everywhere

till she found the coin. And when she did, she celebrated.

I wonder how many words have been spoken over you.

I wonder how many things, little instructions the Lord gave you

that you didn't pay attention to you so you forgot.

Would you be okay if I prayed right now that God brings to remembrance

the little lost coins, the little things he asked you to do.

He doesn't hold it against you.

He'll bring it back to your remembrance.

So, Lord, across this room right now, we pray that where you've given instructions

we didn't do anything about, we actually forgot them.

We lost it in the room of our minds somewhere.

We ask you over this next week just to bring to remembrance

by your Holy Spirit the things you've asked us to do.

Because you know what, Lord? We actually want to be obedient.

We just forget.

So we ask you to remind us again, help us find the little lost coins

in our homes, that we just go and do the little things you called us to do.

We pray.

Especially someone that's scared, like, oh, what?

I don't even know what my talent is.

And then we pray, Lord, together as a people,

as we look at you and your generosity and your call in our lives,

we say to you, Lord, we're going to take what we've got

and we're going to invest it for the kingdom.

Give us lives to touch.

Give us people to impact.

Give us situations, Lord, these coming weeks where we can take

the gift mix you've given us and sow it into their lives

so that their kingdoms which are broken can be fixed.

Help our lives, Lord, to be so useful this coming week.

For the sake of your gospel, we pray,

lead each of us every step of the way by your Holy Spirit,

we pray in Jesus name and God's people said Amen.

Thank you so much for being a part of our meeting today.

Can I just ask two things? The first is if today the...

The message has in any way been useful to you,

would you mind just maybe liking it or putting perhaps a statement down

or a comment down that we can know how the ministry has helped you,

Maybe a thumbs up, maybe you can subscribe to the channel,

do whatever, just so we can know what impact this message may be having on you.

And secondly, you may be someone who's saying,

greg, I hear you and this hope that Jesus has for us

can come into my heart and it can change me.

But the reality is that I don't even know if I know Jesus.

I want to say two things to you right away.

The first is he's near you right now.

The Bible says if you believe in your heart that he is the Lord

and if you confess him with your mouth, you will be saved.

Which means you just need to where you are,

turn to the Lord Jesus Christ even now and just say,

lord, here I am.

I recognize who you are.

I confess my sin to you.

I acknowledge you as Jesus Christ, the Lord of all,

the Son of the living God.

And I want to follow you.

I want to become a disciple of yours.

I want to, I want to give my life to you, Lord.

And you can pray that prayer right now between you and the Lord.

Secondly, you can get hold of us.

We could either send you some material,

we can put you in touch with a really good church near you.

If you live in our area, you can come to us,

you can follow us on YouTube.

But it is good to get connected into the family of God,

to get connected into a local church that your life changes

being surrounded with the family of God.

Please stay in touch.

God bless you.