Today's scripture reading is from the book of Matthew, chapter 14, verses 14 to 30 and maybe found on page 9, 7, 0, in the Bible underneath the sea in front of you. Matthew 25, 14 through 30. Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold to another two bags and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. The master, he said, You entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, he said. You entrusted me with two bags of gold. See, I have gained two more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. Master, he said. I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sewn and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. His master replied, you wicked lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I have not sewn and gathered where I have not scattered seed. Well done, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags for whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the word of the Lord. Good morning. It happens every 65 minutes on average. And every time it happens, summer or winter, spring or fall, it sends about 10,000 gallons of water heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit up into the air about 150 feet. You know what I'm talking about? Of course, old faithful, the most famous geyser in the Yellowstone National Park. If somebody gave you a nickname, would it be old faithful? How about young faithful? Would they think of faithfulness when they think of you? We've been looking recently in the book of Matthew at a series of thoughts and messages called living missionally every day. If we're going to live missionally, faithfulness is one of the things we need. And that's the subject of this parable that you heard read just a moment ago. In this parable, Jesus challenges us to live a kind of life that would merit the nickname of faithful. This parable is called the parable of the talents. The version of the Bible that you heard keeps using the word bags of gold, but actually the more familiar term is talent. And that might be the word used in your version. It is in mine as well. It's called the parable of the talents. It's part of what is known in the New Testament as the Olivet Discourse. It's called that because Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives. It starts back in Matthew 24. It goes all the way through this and this chapter, Matthew 25. Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the future. There's a little bit of debate about whether some of what he talks about in this discourse is the near future or the far distant future. But there's a little doubt that when we come here to Matthew 25, he's looking into the distant future at his return. And the thing that he emphasizes over and over and over again in these chapters is to be ready for his return. To be found faithful when he comes back. So let's talk today about faithfulness. And I want to tell you three things. First, let's review the parable itself. And then let's think about the warning of the parable and finally the comfort of the parable. So let's go back to the parable itself and let's review it. It's a story with four characters. It's really pretty simple. It's not hard to follow. First, you have this wealthy businessman who is generous and trusting in the extreme. Look at verses 14 and 15 where it says that it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one, he gave five talents of money to another two talents and to another one talent, each according to his ability. And then he went on his journey. Now let's talk about a talent. Because you and I, when we hear that word talent, we think of playing the piano. We think of being a good speaker. That's not what is meant by this word talent. Instead, a talent in Bible times was a unit of weight. It was a unit of weight equal to about 75 pounds or so. So that's really why bag of gold is not a good translation of this thought of talent. It amounted to about 6,000 denari. One talent was worth about 20 years wages for the ordinary person. Did you hear me? 20 years wages. Take your salary, multiply it by 20. I don't care if you're not paid very much at all. 20 times that is a lot of money. And that's what one talent is. And actually, if you've got an NIV Bible, there's a footnote probably that says that a talent was worth more than a thousand dollars. That's way off. It was worth a lot more than that. And one of the servants got five talents. So 20 years worth times five is quite a lot of money. So to say the least, this man, this master is giving his servants a vast sum of money to take care of. That's why I say he is generous in the extreme. Those servants are not his slaves. There's partners. Really, aren't they? They're his shareholders. He values his servants highly and he's giving them a lot of money to take care of. Anyway, this master says leaves for a long time. He puts this enormous sum of money into his servant's hands. And then he goes away and expects his servants to be good stewards or good managers of the money that he has left them. So that's the master. And then the other three characters in this story are the three servants, two of whom are rewarded and one who is rejected. Verses 16 and 17 of the story say that the servant who had received five talents invested his money, right? He took some risk. He built up a business and he doubled his investment. He now has ten talents of money to give back to the master when he returns. And then the servant who had received two talents did the same thing. He put his money out on risk. He invested himself in a business and he earned two more talents of gold and now he has four. But then you have this third servant. It says in verse 18 that this one who had received just the one talent. And I hesitate to say just the one talent because we're still talking about 20 years worth of salary. But this servant who had received the one talent of money digs a hole and buries it. So a long time goes by. Finally this master comes back and he calls his three servants into his office. Picture him sitting behind this large oak executive desk. He's sitting in a high back leather chair and across the desk from him are the three servants. It looks a little bit like an episode of the apprentice. Donald Trump on one side, the three employees on the other. That's very similar of what we see here. The man pulls out his ledger and he asks the three servants for an accounting. It says there in verse 20 that the first servant comes out with master. I have been given five talents. I invested them. I've been able to gain five more. Here are your ten talents. And for that says that the master commends this one servant in verse 21. He says well done good and faithful. See the word faithful servant. You've been faithful with few things. I'm going to let you be faithful with many. Come and share my happiness. My joy is actually the word. Similarly, the second servant in verse 22 says master, you gave me two. I've worked hard. I've done my faithful duty. I've brought you two more. Here are four talents. Well done, he says in verse 23. Come and share my joy. Same exact words that he gave to the first servant. And then both of these servants, the first one and the second are rewarded for their faithful service. The master tells both of them that because they were faithful with a few, he's going to put them in charge of many things. And presumably, what that means among other things is that they'll have a large share of the prophets. That's a great reward. But then it's the third servant's turn. And he says there in verse 24, master, I knew that you are a hard man. You reap where you don't sow. You gather where you don't plant. So I was afraid. I was afraid of you. I was afraid of failure. I buried your talent in the ground so that when you got home, I could dig it up and give it back to you. So master, here's your one talent. Safe and sound. I was trying to sort of picture that scene and I came up with my dog, Davo. I told you about my dog the last week. He'll be the subject of many sermon illustrations, I'm sure. Davo is a puppy. He still has a few accidents now and then inside the house. And sometimes he'll have an accident. And I'll be looking at Davo. And I'll be looking at the accident. And Davo will just look at me as if it were to smile. And I look over at him with a frown on my face and he's saying, what? What? I think that's the third servant's look on the face. What? Here it is. Here's your one talent back. I didn't lose it. Verse 26, the Donald speaks. And he says, you wicked lazy servant. So, so, you think I reap where I haven't sung? You think I harvest where I haven't planted? Well, if that's so, you should have at least bought a CD or put it in a savings account where it could have at least made a little bit of interest. But as it is, verse 28, give your one talent to that first servant. Because either you use it or you lose it. And then the master pronounces those terrible words of doom in verse 30. So, that worthless servant out into the darkness and literally the Greek is outer darkness. Throw him out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's the story. It's pretty clear. I think there is no misunderstanding of the plot of the parable. But what I want to do is look at it in two ways. First, the warning of the parable and then the comfort of the parable. The warning first. Need I elaborate on the warning? Do you need me to spell it out? I think it's very, very clear. The warning of this parable is that there's coming a day of accounting. Is someday in the future we can't put a date on it. We have no way of figuring out how close it is to us now. How far away it is yet. But there is men and women coming, a day of accounting for what you've done with your gifts and with your opportunities in this life. Jesus is like the master in the parable. He has given you many talents. What's a talent? Again, don't think immediately of a natural talent, although that is included in the word. But a talent in this light is anything and everything that God has given to you in order to know him and to serve him. Your mind, your time, all of the money that you have, your knowledge of his word and of other things, your spiritual experiences that he's given to you in the past. Your job is part of your talent. Your relationships, the mentors that you've had over your lifetime, your education, your various abilities, your passions, your health is a talent. Have you ever thought of it being that way? The health that God has given you as part of your talent, your privileges, the places that you have visited, the schools you've attended, the sermons you've heard, the books you've read, all the other things that God has provided for your spiritual health and for your happiness. That's why the talent is enormous when you begin to enumerate the things that God has given to you, to know him, to understand this world and to be of service in this world. It's part of your talent. Jesus may have given you a large number of such blessings, or maybe you would say he's given you a smaller number of those blessings. But however in his wisdom and providence God has blessed you, he expects you, here's our theme this season, to live missionally. He expects you to take your talent and invest it and use it for his glory and the world's good. Right now Jesus is on a long journey, isn't he? He's been away 2,000 years. It may be another couple of thousand years that he'll be away. Who knows? But one day in the future Jesus is coming back. You don't know when. You're living between, you might say, verse 18 and verse 19 of this parable. We're still investing. We're still managing, still being stewards, awaiting the day when our master returns. And when he comes back, there's going to be a day of accounting. There's going to be a reckoning. Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10 says that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one of us may receive what is do him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. So in the meantime, what's the lesson here? Be about your master's business. Be about his business. Be an old faithful. Be a young faithful with the gifts and the opportunities that he's giving you. Break it down a little bit more. Don't hoard your time as if it is all yours. Don't hoard your money as if it's your money to do with as you will. Don't squander your gifts. Don't throw away your education. Don't waste your job. Don't waste your life as a title of a book by John Piper would go because when Jesus comes back and this day of judgment we're talking about has arrived, you'll be either rewarded or rejected based on what you've done in this life. Now let's be clear about that. You're saved by grace. We celebrate that. That's the gospel. You're saved by grace. We talked about that last week. I said last Sunday you inherit eternal life by virtue of the relationship that you have with your father. He gives it to you as a gift based on faith alone in Christ alone. That's what your eternal life depends on. But I would not be a faithful pastor. If I didn't also say that on this day of judgment your works will come under God's scrutiny. The deeds you've done. The deeds you've left undone. I don't know what that's going to look like. I just know the Bible talks about it. Revelation 22, 12, Jesus says behold, I am coming soon and my reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. The works are an important part of the Christian life. They are the necessary evidence. Hear me well. Works are the necessary evidence of being born again. Works are the corroborating evidence that you're in the faith. So if you're like servant one and servant number two. That is if you're faithful with the gifts and the opportunities that God has given to you. If you strive to use your brain, your creativity, your time, your money, your abilities to serve the Lord, then you'll be rewarded. You will. The Bible does not apologize about talking about rewards on the day of judgment. Jesus will say to you when he comes back well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Come and share my joy. You'll hear those words. Your life will corroborate your salvation. You'll be with Christ for all eternity. But here's the warning and you can't miss it in this parable. If you go the path of servant number three. That is if you are unfaithful with your gifts and opportunities. If you waste your brain, your creativity, your time, your money, your abilities. That may be. Hear me well. That may be evidence that you were never a Christian to begin with. And if that's so, and if you don't get right with God while there's still time, then on judgment day, you will hear those terrible words of verse 30. Throw that person outside into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Friends, that is just an awesome and terrible truth, but it's in the Bible. Am I trying to scare you? No? Am I trying to shake you up? Yes. Am I trying to make sure you hear what God's word says? Yes, I don't want you to be caught by surprise. I don't want you to be like this third servant that buried his talent in the ground and thought it would be okay. Here, safe and sound. I didn't do anything with it, but I didn't lose it either. It's not okay to say that. It's not okay to waste your life. So that's the warning of the parable. Is there comfort in the parable? Yes. Let's go to the comfort. There's so much comfort in the parable of the talents, and I'd like to show it to you. Look at verse 24, and we're going to get to the comfort sort of through the back door. Verse 24 says, and this is the third servant speaking. He says to the master after the master has returned. He says, master, I knew that you are a hard man. Now, look at that word hard. It's the Greek word scleros. Have you ever heard arteriosclerosis? Yeah. Hardening. That's where we get the word. It comes from the Greek word scleros. It means hard or harsh. Another translation of the word means a bully. It means to be unbending, ungenerous, grasping, tough, demanding, severe. So the third servant says, he looks at his master and says, master, I knew you're a bully. I knew you're harsh. You're ungenerous. You're demanding, and that's why I did what I did. Now, let's ask the question of this third servant. Is there any evidence at all in the story, and maybe reading even between the lines a little bit, is there any evidence whatsoever in this parable that this master was a bully, was harsh, was ungenerous? How opposite the picture that we're given of the master? He is generous to an extreme. He is outrageously generous, giving this first servant ten talents of gold, a five rather, giving the other five to the other one, even the one guy gets the one talent that's an enormous amount of money. Didn't this third servant have no reason at all to say that? And let me ask you this, did he have any evidence at all to think that he should be afraid, that if he invested that one talent and failed, the master would be harsh and punitive and severe and brutal? No. I said earlier, he's like Donald Trump. He's not like Donald Trump. Not at all, he's a man of incredible grace, and look at the rest of verse 24. The third servant goes on, after he said, I knew that you are a hard man. He goes on to say harvesting where you've not sewn and gathering where you've not scattered seed. So I was afraid. Now look, is there any evidence whatsoever that the master merits and accusation like that? The third servant is pointing his finger at this man and accusing him of being unjust and unfair of being a cheat and nothing in the story suggests that. In fact, it only suggests the opposite. No wonder, friends, no wonder the master calls this third servant in verse 26, a wicked man. Because it's absolutely wicked to say those things about such a good master. Instead of accepting the blame and owning up to his failure to be faithful, this third servant points his finger at the master and he says, it's your fault. It's your fault that I buried my talent. It's your fault. You have no right to say that I'm wicked and lazy because it's all your fault, master. You know, this third servant reminds me a lot of Adam. Go back in your mind to the Garden of Eden. You know, what happened in the Garden of Eden? Obviously, Adam and Eve rebelled against God. They sinned against it and broke his commands. And in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, God comes to them. He's walking in the Garden in the cool of the day and he says to Adam, Adam, have you eaten from the tree that I had told you you could not eat from and Adam's response is the woman you put here with me gave it to me and I ate. It's her fault. No, God. It's your fault. It's the woman you gave me. Adam pointed his finger at a good and generous and gracious God and said it's all your fault. You're just unjust. You're a hard God. See, that's exactly what this third servant does to his master. Adam said, Lord, you gave me this defective wife. And if it hadn't been for her, if it hadn't been for you doing that, I would have been obedient. I would have been just exactly what you have wanted me to be. So here we get to the very heart of what's wrong with this third servant. The problem with the third servant was his view of the master. It was a wrong view. The problem with the third unfaithful servant was his wrong view of the master. He thought his master was hard, but he wasn't. Was he? His master was good and generous and fair beyond belief. I'm wondering about you and I'm wondering about me. Are you being faithful? Are you investing the gifts? Are you using the opportunities that God has given to you? Are you like servant one and servant two and doing the best you can do to bring glory and honor and service and value to the name and fame of Christ? Or are you like this third servant? Are you burying your talent because you got a wrong view of God? You might think he's hard, but he's not. He's a God of grace. He's a God of ridiculous grace. He's a God of outrageous grace. God is like this master who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to these three servants. God has done far more for you because he gave you Jesus. The one who is fairer than 10,000. The one who loved you from everlasting. The one who was faithful into death. You think God is unjust? No, he's not. He's a God who always does what is right and just and fair. You think he won't forgive you if you should fail? He will. He's the God of second chances. He's the God who doesn't count your sins against you. He's the God who loves people who fail. He's the God who justifies the ungodly. He's the father you've always wanted to have. That's your God. That's the right view of God. That's the God of the Bible and he says to you and he says to me, come to me. All who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. He's a God of grace, God of love. Why can I say that? Because I know and you should know that he sent his son Jesus to become our sin and to die in our place on the cross. And so there's comfort in this parable. There's comfort through the back door because God is not like the God of the third servant. He's the opposite. He's the God of generous and ridiculous and outrageous grace. So what can we conclude? We conclude that you can be faithful and not live out of fear. You can be faithful with your gifts and opportunities and not be fearful in the sense of the third servant being fearful, hiding from God, hiding your talent from God, doing nothing with the opportunities that he's given you because you're afraid you're going to fail. So let me leave you with some points of practical application. Six things to take away from this passage and this sermon this morning. Number one, God does not call you to success. He calls you to be faithful. Success as the world defines it is sometimes not what God wants for you. He wants you to be faithful and not focus on mere success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in God's economy, faithfulness is success. What does it look like to be faithful? Well, it means to be reliable, industrious, creative, trustworthy. It means to finish what you start. It means to use your gifts and opportunities to the best of your ability, whether you succeed or not, whether you win or not. That doesn't matter. It's whether you do what God gives you to do, whether you get pats on the back in this world or not, be faithful. Did you notice that in this parable, the first two servants get the exact same words of praise from the master? Even though they had the first servant had twice the gifts and twice the success of the second guy, they both heard from the master well done, good and faithful servant. So it's not success that matters to God. It's faithfulness. Second thing to take away, accept the deck that God has dealt you. God deals every single human being a deck of cards, a deck, let's say, of talents, of gifts, of opportunities. Whether you're a one-talent person or a five-talent person, the way you respond to your gifts and abilities is critical to the advance of the kingdom. Take your one-talent if that's what it is. Take your one-half-talent. Take whatever it is that God's given you and use it and invest it for the glory of God and the good of others. Third thing to take away. Remind yourself often of who you are. You're a steward. You are a steward of the opportunities and the gifts God has given to you. That's your identity, a steward or a manager. Everything you have is a gift from God. Don't ever forget that. Number four, set realistic goals for yourself and stick to them. Don't take on more than you should. Learn to say no. I don't know about you, but I get myself in deep trouble when I start saying yes to too many things. And then I'm not faithful with anything. Do an inventory of your life and come up with a not-to-do list. When I thought about that, we're always coming up with two-do lists. How about a not-to-do list? Figure out what you don't have to do and then stick to that list as well as your to-do list. Number five, don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to fail. Did any of you watch the Florida State Clemson football game last night? Yeah, well, I'm not sure if I'm happy or not. I pull for both teams. I've got a son at Florida State. Clemson's always been my favorite team, but it was a great game. It came down to the last two or three seconds. The score was 13-13. Everybody figured it's overtime time, right? But Florida State had the ball. They were on somewhere around the 40-yard line. It was going to be a 55-yard field goal. Now, this guy Dustin Hopkins blew it last week when he tried to kick a 40-yard field goal. He didn't do so well last night either. So here, this kid has an opportunity to kick a 55-yard field goal and win the game in the last two seconds. I love the fact that the camera showed you Dustin Hopkins and coach Jimbo Fisher on the sidelines just before Hopkins went out on the field. They gave each other the little fist. I could see Jimbo looking at him and smiling. I could imagine that what he was saying to him was something like this. Don't worry. Just do your best. Now, think about it. The score is tied. It's naturally going to go to overtime. So Hopkins couldn't lose the game, right? The worst he could do is simply miss the field goal and that go into overtime and have another chance to win. He couldn't lose. So Jimbo Fisher says to him, you can't lose. Just do your best. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, don't worry about it. Just do your best. Hopkins goes out there and kicks a 55-yard field goal. Two seconds left. They win the game 16-13. I think it was the fact that Hopkins was so free to fail that he actually ended up succeeding. If I'm talking to a believer in Jesus today, guess what? You are free to fail because God loves you because He loves you. He doesn't love you because you succeed. He loves you because you're in Jesus Christ. So go out there and do what you do and if you fail, so what? You've still done it for the glory of God and the good of others. So be willing to fail. Martin Lloyd Jones said, the man who tries to do something and fails is infinitely better off than the man who tries to do nothing and succeeds. Sixth and finally, get to know God better. If you want to be faithful, get to know God better. As I said earlier, that was the fault. That was the problem of the third servant. He didn't really understand his master. He thought he was a hard man. He wasn't a hard man. So if you want to be more faithful in life, the secret is getting to know your God better. If you think he's hard, you don't know him very well at all. He's holy, yes, but not hard. He's a God of outrageous grace. And I would add this because earlier I talked about being rejected by God on the day of judgment. If there's anyone here this morning who worries that you're not prepared for that day, you know what you need to do? Go to Jesus and talk to him. Confess your sins to him. Ask him to forgive you. Ask him to make you his child. God is so willing and gracious to forgive. It says in 1 John 1, 9, this verse right here, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness. So I implore you, if you are worried about your relationship with God, there's what you need to do. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you that you were faithful for us. You went to the cross. You bore our sins. You carried the wrath of God on yourself. So we didn't have to. And in light of your faithful love, in light of your outrageous grace and of your amazing generosity, Lord, would you enable us to be a faithful people? Would you be, would you be, enable us to be a faithful church, faithful with the opportunities we have, faithful with our gifts, faithful with our time? And we thank you, Lord, that you're the God of God, who far from being hard is welcoming, is forgiving, is patient, is kind. Lord, may we know that about you and live so securely that we're even free to fail. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.