This mornings text was Matthew 25:14-30.
This is the parable about the Master who gave his servants 1,2,and 5 talents and then left on a journey, saying that he would be coming back.
This parable has always made me a bit uneasy.
There are no room for excuses here.
I can't say,"I was hurt in church and I don't want to risk using my talent and getting hurt again."
I can't say, with false humility,"Oh, everyone else can do this better than I can."
There are so many things I cannot say.
I am without excuse when it is all said and done.
The Master gave the servants their talents according to their ability. Not everyone has the same amount of ability. God not only gives the talents, He also gave the ability in the first place. This leaves no room for judging one another. (Or comparing ourselves to one another.)
The Master says, "I am coming back. Take care of this talent. Invest it. I have entrusted it to your care. I am coming back to see what you have done with it.
In terms of money, the servants were given 10, 40, and 100 years worth of salary respectively.
That's alot of money.
It's not up to us to decide who gets what.
But to those who are given more, more is required of them.
Something is required from everything that has been given us.
10 years of salary is not so shabby of a talent.
The 1 talent guy was perhaps lazy.
He made excuses.
He said, "I know that you are a hard master...I was afraid."
And the Master didn't mince any words.
He said, "You wicked and lazy servant..."
Sometimes, we say we are afraid.
Sometimes, we misjudge the character of God.
And we are just plain slothful and lazy.
(We want to make excuses for how we've turned out.
We don't want to be responsible for who we are.
No wonder the Master gets angry.)
The lazy servant went to quite alot of work to bury 10 years of wages.
He could have taken it to the bank and invested it so the master could have made interest on it.
A slothful person is going in the right direction but going too slow.
"I don't want to wait until Heaven to hear the words, "Well-done, my good and faithful servant. "
I want to know now if I am doing it right or wrong."
We need to be passionate. Those servants who were given 2 and 5 talents did something with them immediately. They didn't wait around. They had passion and they had vision.
Without a vision, people perish. Without a passion, people perish.
Nehemiah was a man of vision and passion. When he was building the walls back up and some bad guys came to harass him, he said," Why should I leave my passion and come down and deal with you." He refused to be distracted.
Be faithful with what you've been given.
Do not let it be a burden to you.
Do not go out back and bury it.
If we operated in our potential based on the talents and abilities we've been given,
there would not be enough room in our church building to hold all the folks who would come.
What can I do immediately with what I have been given?
The Master is coming back and He doesn't want an even trade.
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When I was up at the altar and wondering what exactly was my talent or talents, I got the sense that only one thing is really needed. I need to sit at His feet and love Him and everything else will flow out of my relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We could 'do' our talents and 'use' them on people but if we do not know Him and He does not know us, what profit would there be? People used their talents and cast out demons in His name and did all kinds of things in His name and He said, 'Depart from me, I never knew you.'
I think that if I live and move and have my being in Him, His life will flow through me, and He is very talented indeed. I will have all of His life as a source to my life and there are no limitations in Him.
Perhaps one of the talents we've all been given is the talent of waiting on Him. This is different that laziness and doing nothing. Waiting is active and humbling. It is doing nothing apart from what the Father is doing. This is how Jesus lived on earth. He did not just take His gifts and run. He listened and worked. He waited and worked.
One thing I am quite sure of is this-the talents we have been given are not something we have to strive for. They are gifts, therefore we are gifted in the area of our talent. Therefore, we might not even realize what the talent is because it may be something we are doing naturally.
Our talent is most likely something that we enjoy doing.
We need to be faithful in enjoying it.
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