Matthew 25:14-30. "How Should I Make Use of My Gifts from God?"

Who do you think God is? Do we absolutely know what to do with the gifts God has provided us with? The three servants within this parable explore how to make use of the gifts provided by God. In Matthew 25 verses 14-30, we find the answer. This episode goes into depth explaining the opportunities given tailored to their abilities. The perception perceived by one can led to the refusal of carrying out God's will. Jesus tells us to look inside our hearts, see who God is, by asking how we use what he's given us.

This Sunday sermon, based on Matthew 25 verses 14-30, was preached at Grace of God Lutheran Church on November 19, 2023. Scripture selections come from the New International Version.

Our services are at 9:30am every Sunday morning, at our campus in Dix Hills on Long Island. Visit our website for more information, at www.graceofgod.church

Transcript

How Should I Make Use of My Gifts from God?
Matthew 25:14-30

Who do you think God is?
I usually start off my sermons – you know this – with a little greeting. “Peace is yours in Jesus’
name.” “Grace and peace to you from God through our Lord Jesus.” Something like that.
But today’s text makes us consider, “Do we believe that?” Do we indeed believe that God is
good and gracious; that he has given us peace as a gift – or do we hold other convictions
about God? Who do we think he is? In the parable Jesus tells here, it’s what the three servants
think of their master which leads to the differences in their actions.
The first two men think identically of their master. They know that he is an astute judge of
character. Jesus says this is why different amounts are given. Each is entrusted with an
amount commensurate to his “ability.” Five bags to one; two to the next; one to the last man.
Jesus tells a very similar parable to this in Luke chapter nineteen. In that story, however, rather
than money being given out according to judged ability, ten servants are all given the same
amount of money. Nine put it to work in various investments, but the tenth hides his away, and
gives an explanation of his actions that’s identical to the one given in this parable. These two
parables are told under a week apart in Jesus’ life; the Luke parable, shortly before Holy
Week, and this parable, during Holy Week.
Knowing that timeframe is important to understanding Jesus’ point in both parables. When he
is gone – whether three days in his grave, or as he now is, gone to heaven until his return – he
intends for his followers to put the gifts he gives them to work. That’s true whether we think
he’s given us less than he’s given others – à la this parable – or if we recognize that we’ve all,
fundamentally, been given the same gifts – à la the parable in Luke. Either way, both parables
make this clear. What you do with what God has given you depends on who you think God is.
The last of the servants thinks that his master is a “hard” man. The Greek word used there is
very picturesque; skleros. In English, we have the word “sclerotic” from that Greek word.
Sclerotic refers to something rigid and unyielding. In medicine, sclerosis describes a number of
conditions. A common one is arteriosclerosis, the hardening of blood vessels. When arteries
become sclerotic, blood can get backed up and clots are produced. It creates all number of
health problems. This word is never a positive word in the Bible. It’s the word that describes
hardening one’s heart against God. The deacon Stephen uses it to decry the Jewish ruling
council, calling them “stiff-necked” as they raged against the Gospel.
The servant goes even further. He says that his rigid, severe, unyielding master is a fraud.
“You take what you didn’t work for,” he says. He’s accusing the master of laziness! He isn’t
saying that the master harvests from fields which belong to other landowners. He’s pointing out
that the master profits from work done by the hands of others.
Well, the master erupts. “You wicked, lazy servant!” If the servant is going to accuse the
master of laziness, the master will turn it right back on him. “If I truly were lazy, surely I would
have been satisfied with the interest this would have earned at the bank. That would have
been enough for me.” A lazy master would have been easily satisfied.
But that isn’t the master’s character. He isn’t lazy. Indeed, he was clearly engaged in profitable
commerce during his journey, for he’s able to reward his faithful servants with even greater
wealth to manage. He had already given them vast sums of money, to be clear. The word
translated “bag of gold” here is “a talent,” a sum of money worth twenty years’ pay for the
average laborer. So even the one who was given the least was entrusted with managing
hundreds of thousands of dollars. What unfathomable riches must the master have at his
disposal, that he calls such sums “a few things,” and promises even more!
But not to this servant. “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.”
The servant considered his master a harsh man. So he thought he would be keeping himself
safe by inaction. He viewed that as the no-risk option. But the master had not given him this
money to not risk it! It was to be used! The servant’s inaction defied the will of his master. Such
defiance was met with the very harshness he had hoped to avoid.
What was the difference for the other servants? Simply, they recognized the will of the master.
He had given them this money to put it to work. So we read that they “at once” went out and
invested it. There was no question for them about what they should do. The master had trusted
them to put his wealth to work. Moreover, they knew that he knew them. They knew that they
were being given opportunities tailored to their abilities. Their master was not a lazy,
one-size-fits-all, absentee landlord. He knew them. He put work before them which he knew
they could accomplish. He trusted them; so they trusted him.
The third man did not trust his master. The master invited him to trust. He gave him
opportunity, access, power. But the servant still didn’t trust him. He still regarded him as harsh
and unfair. That perception led to his refusal to carry out his master’s will.
Jesus tells us in this parable that we can get an accurate look inside our hearts, we can see
who we really think God is, by asking how we use what he’s given us. I mentioned that the
Greek word for “bags of gold” here is “talent,” tálanton. Our English word talent literally only
exists because of this story Jesus tells. Another way in which Christianity has irreversibly
shaped our world; the world “talent” wouldn’t exist in English without this parable. Why did this
word that means “a big bag of gold” come to mean “one’s unique skills and abilities”? Because
those are the “bags of gold” you and I have been given. Our skills and abilities, our time, our
energy, yes, even our actual money - all of these are the wealth God has entrusted to us.
So we can take a big lesson out of this parable. Use the gifts you’ve been given. But we could
have gotten that lesson from a version of this parable without the third servant. Right? Jesus
could simply have told a story about a master who gives some servants some money to invest
and then rewards them for their work. The third servant gives this parable its point by making
us ask, not just, “What do I do with what God’s given me?” but “Who do I think God is?”
If we view God as harsh and demanding and lazy, then we set low bars for our management of
his gifts to us, and we expect him to be satisfied. We tell ourselves that so long as we aren’t
regularly engaged in obvious sin, we’re okay. “So long as I’m not watching porn - cheating on
my spouse - doing drugs - then God has no right to expect anything more of me.” Or in our
relationship to our church; so long as we’re more involved than other people, we’re doing just
fine. Pastors can set ourselves low bars by thinking, “So long as I get up front each Sunday
and have something non-heretical to say, God has nothing more he can ask of me.”
But the Christian life is not summed up by the avoidance of obvious sin. The gifts God has
given us are not to be buried in the ground, dug up when he returns, and presented to him as if
we had done something wonderful and praiseworthy! Jesus’ last command before his death
was not, “Don’t sin.” It was, “Love one another.”
Love requires action. It requires risk. And you cannot and will not love others if you are so
afraid of a sclerotic and vengeful God that you lock yourself away from the often-messy task of
using the gifts God has given you! But if that’s who you think God is, that’s what you’ll do.
So if you’re thinking over your life now - as this parable leads me to think over my own - and
you’re looking at an area where you have told yourself that God can’t ask more of you than the
low bar you’ve set there, understand two things. He does expect more from you than you’d like
to believe. He has also gifted you with far more than you could ever have hoped for.
God is not satisfied when you clear the low bar of “not sinning.” God is only satisfied by
perfection. And God has mercifully, faithfully, gloriously gifted perfection to you through Jesus.
That gift was given to you outside of anything you did or avoided doing. Paul writes in Romans,
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Before you even had the opportunity to set
yourself any goals or standards or ideals, God had offered up Jesus to reconcile you to him.
That is who God is! He is not sclerotic and unkind. He’s gracious, and eager to reconcile.
Generous to a fault. He is willing to do what we are so often unwilling to do. He is ready to risk.
To entrust. In everything he has given you, he runs a risk. He has given you hands. Will you
use them to feed someone or to strike them? He has given you a mouth. Will you bless with it,
and speak truth, or will you curse, and spread lies? Your Lord is willing to run those risks. In
fact, Christ was so willing to face risk that he offered up his very life into our hands.
You know what humanity decided to do, once we got God in our hands.
But that event - the cross of Jesus - shows that everything I just said about risk doesn’t actually
apply to God. He doesn’t run risk in giving you these gifts. He didn’t run any risk in offering up
his own life. He had the authority to lay it down and the authority to pick it up back again. And
here’s the critical thing about the gifts he gives you: He’s the one responsible for the increase.
The gifts - opportunities - which God gives you, he knows are appropriate for you. And he will
provide the increase. It will occur through the hands he’s given you; the mouth he’s given you;
the energy and time he’s given you; but it will all be his doing. There’s no risk involved.
The first two servants showed that they understood this about their master as they went out
“at once” and put their gifts to work. We also show what we think about our master as we put
our gifts to work. We show that we think he’s generous and wise as we employ them. We show
that we think he’s hard and wicked as we bury them in the ground.
Every one of us can see both attitudes at work in our lives. Maybe we consider our roles as
employees and see faithful hard work. But then we look at our roles in our families - as parents
or spouses or children - and see that we’ve challenged God to be satisfied by bare minimum,
low-bar commitments. Maybe we reverse those; it doesn't matter. Here’s what does matter.
When you walk out that door, you will be breathing. God is continuing to entrust you with the
gift of life. If you’re a part of a family, that’s a gift God is continuing to entrust you with. If you
have a job, God is entrusting that treasure to you. See: It is by giving gifts that God creates
faith. He gives us the gift of forgiveness in Jesus, announced in the Gospel. That gift creates
our faith. When Jesus feeds us with his Supper, that gift sustains our faith. And every other gift
which we’re given in this life is another gift he uses to increase our faith in him.
This parable speaks about the time when gifts will be taken from us. There are two ways that
this happens. One - when Christ returns. That’s certainly the primary point of Jesus’ parable.
One day he will return, and we’ll have the opportunity to present to him what we did with what
we were given. He promises that he will provide the increase as we use them. Because we
believe that promise, we will put them to use. Faith in his promise comes before our works, not
the other way around.
But this parable also speaks to us about daily life. Christ gives us gifts, and as we put them to
use we find ourselves entrusted with more and more. But when we neglect and misuse his
gifts, we’re apt to lose them.
My counsel to you in that: Don’t confuse the loss of one gift with Judgment Day. Not a one of
you is only managing one bag of gold, that your life is summed up in having it or not having it.
Christ, who is gracious above all, has poured out generous blessings on each and every one
of you. When this or that gift is removed, have the attitude of Job. “The LORD gave and the
LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” Amen