Enter into the Joy of the Master

Well, good morning. It is a real joy for Megan and I and our whole family to be with you. For those of you who don't know us, we've been supported missionaries of this church for about 10 years. Usually, about every two years, we're able to come back to the States and spend a Sunday with you. It's, you know, not easy for us to be out of China for as long as we've been out of country now. But it is a blessing that we get extended time with our supporting churches. So grateful to be with you over the next number of months and really grateful for your hospitality. I mean, every day this week people have been showing up with bikes and furniture and meals and you guys have been very kind to us. So keep it coming. No, I mean, just thank you. Thank you. And glad to be able to open the scriptures with you this morning. We're gonna be looking at the 25th chapter of Matthew. Grateful for the kids coming in and making us think about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, what we call Palm Sunday. The text we're gonna be thinking about is a couple of days after that. As things begin to become contentious, you know, they go from Hosanna to crucify over the course of a week, As things become more contentious, one of the things that Jesus does is pulls his disciples aside. So they go out of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, down through the valley, and up the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem, and he preaches a sermon to them. It's called the Olivet Discourse. It's the final sermon in the Gospel of Matthew, and it's all about the future. Jesus wants his disciples to be ready for what's going to happen. And what's going to happen is that they are going to be left alone in some sense. He is going to ascend into heaven ultimately 40 days later. He's going to send the Spirit to them. But then there is going to be this delay, this time period where they have to live in between the two comings of Christ, the first coming and the second coming. And so this sermon that we're going to be looking at is all about how they and us, how we live in this time as we wait for his return in the end of the age. And now our particular passage is interesting because Jesus is going to plunge us into the world of money and investments to help us think about that. I don't know how you feel about money and investing, I imagine there are differences among us. Some of us are up on the status of the Dow and the NASDAQ in a daily sort of way. Some of you may read the Wall Street Journal. I don't know how you do that. Some of you throw on acronyms like ROI and EPS. Maybe some of you invest money for a living. Others are motivated to do it as a hobby, and some of you are quite good at it. And others of you are more like me. We just hope that our output doesn't exceed our intake, so our upkeep isn't our downfall, right? We're just hoping to squirrel away a little for a rainy day, maybe have a little something for retirement. When Megan and I go to weddings, we still laugh at the line in the wedding vows where the preacher asks you to say, with all my worldly goods, I thee endow. Because there's always one person that's getting the better end of that bargain, right? And in our particular wedding, you know, I got the better end of that bargain because it was extremely easy for me to say to Megan, with all my worldly goods, I thee endow. I had emptied my bank account to buy the engagement ring. And until the paycheck came the next month, there was nothing in there. So easy for me to say she had a car, she had a Saturn, so I made out on that deal in lots of ways. As the song goes, I didn't have anything to my name, just a couple of college credits and my top-notch brain. You'll notice as you read through the Gospels that Jesus is always talking about money, and I think there's a reason for that. Money connects immediately with our ability to survive in the world, right? It connects with our sense of safety, our sense of security. And because of that, it's intimately connected with our hearts. What we love and value, what we feel anxious about, often revolves around the world of money. So in the parable we're going to look at this morning, the world of money and investing becomes a lens. It becomes like glasses that we can put on to consider how Jesus wants us to live our lives. He actually wants to push us to think like a professional financial investor would think, somebody who's been entrusted with money on behalf of someone else. It's kind of the world he wants us to step into. So I invite you to turn in your copy of God's Word to Matthew chapter 25. I'm gonna read to us verses 14 through 30, and then I'll give you an outline and we'll go from there. So Matthew chapter 25. Read verses 14 through 30. For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, master, you delivered to me five talents. Here, I have made five talents more. His master said to him, well done. good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." And he also had received the two talents, came forward saying, Master, you delivered to me two talents. Here, I've made two talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. He also, who had received the one talent, came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours. But his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? And you ought to have invested my money with the bankers. And at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10 talents. For to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Our main idea here is that Jesus entrusts his disciples with responsibilities now and rewards them later. Jesus entrusts his disciples with responsibilities now that will be rewarded later. We'll study the passage in three points. You may want to write these down if you're taking notes. I encourage you to do that. We'll think, number one, about the responsibility, the responsibility Number two, we'll think about the reckoning, the reckoning. And then number three, we'll think about the right view of the master, the right view of the master. So the responsibility, the reckoning, and the right view of the master. Well, let's dive in. Number one, the responsibility. Our text begins by saying, for it will be like a man going on a journey, that it is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus has been telling a number of parables about the kingdom of heaven. Actually, three of them have come in a row, and all of them have had this same theme of a delay of some kind. So you could look at the end of chapter 24, he tells a parable about a master who's delayed, and then he returns at a surprising time. He finds some of his servants who are about the master's business, and some who are just having a party. They're giving themselves the hedonistic pleasure. They're getting drunk and partying. Then there's a second parable at the beginning of chapter 25, the parable of the 10 virgins, where the bridegroom is gone, And some women prepare for his return, and some women don't. Here we have a man going on a journey who calls his servants to him and entrusts property to them. That's what we see in verse 14. Then if you skip your eyes down to verse 19, we see that after a long time, the master of those servants comes and settles accounts with them. Just right at the start, why delay, delay, delay? Why does Jesus keep wanting us to think about this idea of a delay? Well, because he knows six weeks later, as I said, he's going to be leaving, ascending to heaven, and there's going to be at least a 1988-year delay, right? From then until now, at least, disciples are going to have to be waiting for his return. He wanted them and us to know how to handle the delay, how to live in the delay. Now, in the parable here, there is some cultural distance for us to cross. A few things we need to unpack it, it would have been somewhat common for a wealthy landowner to, to leave his estate in the care of servants, especially if he's going to be gone for a long time. And we can understand that they didn't have investing abilities quite like we have it today. So I was just thinking how. how weird it would have been to people throughout history. I mean, right now, you could probably move money from your checking account to your savings account during the sermon. Now, don't pull out your smartphone and do that, but you could do that with online banking, right? In that day and age, if you're going to invest some amount of money, somebody's physically going to have to take money and go put it to work somehow. They're going to have to do something to figure out how to use it. So we're told that the master entrusts his property to his servants, these talents. Now, we actually, one thing that can be a little confusing is we get our modern word talent from this parable. That's the etymology of the word, but we use it to mean aptitude or ability, right? When that day and age, a talent was just a unit of weight. So speaking about a unit of weight of gold or silver or some other precious stone, it became used for thinking about money. You may have a footnote in your Bible like I do in mine. Mine says that a talent is about 20 years of pay. Now that's taking the talents to be gold. So a talent of gold would be 6,000 drachmas, and maybe you could earn a drachma a day if you're a day laborer. That's how they kind of calculate how much we're talking about. Anyway, I've read estimates all over the place. We're talking about either thousands of dollars in today's money, all the way up to millions of dollars, somewhere in between there. It doesn't really matter exactly how much. We're talking about a significant amount of money. The point is that it's very clear what the master wants to be done, right? I mean, his intention is clear. The first two servants, one with five talents, one with two, notice they go at once and get to work trading. We're curious, what kind of trading? Well, I don't know, it doesn't matter. What matters is that over the course of this long time the master has gone, they double the money 100% yield. But the third instead goes and digs this hole and buries the money. Now that would have been something that is done. There was an earlier parable about trying to bury money to keep thieves from getting it. So in that day and age, sometimes they would bury their money in a place only you know. But the hearer of the parable wonders, is this okay? I mean, what's, what's the master going to think about this when he returns? Now, we need to decode the parable a little bit. The master obviously stands for God, right? The servants are us, those entrusted with things from him. As we interpret the meaning, we should first recognize that there's a sense in which this parable applies to all people. God, like the master, and human beings are like the servants. Because God has made us, he has a rightful claim on us and all that we have. So if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, think about the fact that you don't actually have anything that you haven't received, right? That you didn't make a world where life could exist. the time and the circumstances of your birth you had nothing to do with. You could have been born in a war-torn country like Yemen is today, or in a country where there's famine. What your family gave to you, what opportunities existed in society around you, again, nothing to do with you. Now, you might say, well, Mark, I've done pretty good with the opportunities that I've been given. And that may be true. But there still isn't anything from your innate abilities to the opportunities that you've had to use them that originated in yourself. So this text asks you, why have you not acknowledged your creator who gave all of this to you? Why would you not make your creator your Lord? But I think in the context of Jesus' sermon, the parable applies most directly to professing Christians. Because here we have servants who acknowledge God as their master. They understand what they're supposed to be doing, what their marching orders are. This is a parable to be preached as a message and a warning to those who call themselves Christians. So we turn to consider what it means that property has been entrusted to us. What property? Well, that's a thought-provoking question, isn't it? What has he entrusted us with? The idea of entrusted property is where the language of stewardship comes from. We are stewards of the master's resources. What has he made me a steward of? On one level, we could say everything, right, our very lives. Everything about us could be considered a stewardship, but we get more specific and we can think about our time and our talent and our treasure. Do you realize that you're a steward of your time? It's a resource given to you, it's limited. It can be used for good or ill. Think about how often in these days of COVID, I've heard on Christian radio, the person joking about binge watching TV shows. I just think to myself now, listen, I've been binge watched a TV show or two in my day. But when we think about time, just remember that we're accountable for how we use it. Think about your talent. We're all stewards of the natural abilities we have. These are also a resource that we can use or squander. Ask yourself specifically whether you're using your gifts in the context of your local church. Every church that I've ever been a part of has a group of people who are faithfully working with all that they have, and then another group who need to get in the game. If the latter is you, think about going to the elders of the church and just saying, how could you put me to use? How could you deploy me? And our treasure, our money is a resource. The message is clear that it isn't ours. It's not most properly just to be thought of as something to increase our standard of living. A Christian with extra money should be praying over what to do with those resources. But beyond time and talent and treasure, we could go on and think about the different opportunities that have opened up to us. I mean, just think about all the different opportunities that are associated with you being you. You see people that I don't see. You know people that I don't know. Your day job puts you in positions of influence with others. Where you live means that you have access to neighbors the rest of us don't have access to. Those of you working in education have a stewardship of those you teach. Those in business are stewards of your clients. We could go on and on thinking about all the opportunities associated with each of us in this room. So that is our application point here from this first section. Brothers and sisters, we need to realize that whatever we have isn't ours. It is someone else's property. We are those who realize first by creation and second by redemption. That we are not our own. We were bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus. So we're to use everything according to kingdom priorities. Our home is to be used for kingdom priorities. Whatever education we've received, our time, our career, our children. Do you live like all these things belong to the master? And as we ask ourselves that question, kind of evaluate how we're doing, we should also remember the at once. Right? We try to teach our kids as they're toddlers about the definition of the word obedience. You know, obedience is right away, all the way, and with a good attitude. Anyway, that's the goal, to teach them that. But obedience isn't obedience if it's not right away. If the Lord is telling you to get at work investing what you've got, well, next week won't do, friend. When it comes to giving, this is why the Lord always has his people give of the firstfruits. Ahun gave a great message this past Wednesday night at the prayer meeting, thinking about the meaning of firstfruits. You go and give a portion of what you've gained at once to the Lord and trust that the rest will be enough. When you see someone who's in need, go at once to help them. So the first point of the parable presses on us the responsibility that we have to steward the master's property. Let's think about the second point, the reckoning. The reckoning, really the rest of the entire parable, starting in verse 19, is about this day of reckoning. After a long time, the master comes, settles accounts with his servants. This is pointing to the second coming of Jesus, in keeping with this whole section of Matthew. The first interaction there in verse 20 is with the man who has received the five talents. Look there, he brings the five talents more that he's made, and then the evaluation of the master is given in verse 21. Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. Notice that the evaluation here is both of the job, which is well done, and of the character of the servant, which is good and faithful. Then the reward is laid out also in two parts. So when he says, you've been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. This is speaking of the important point in Christian theology that the work is cursed after the fall. It was not originally so. Work was a good thing. And apparently in heaven, we will still be entrusted with things. We will be set over much if we have been faithful. I don't know exactly what that looks like, but it's described here as a vastly greater stewardship. But notice also the second part of the reward, which is entering into the joy of the master. I think that this right here might be the greatest description of heaven in the entire Bible. Enter into the joy of the master. That's what heaven is like, entering the joy of God. Did you know that God is a happy God? The text that led off our service, Psalm 115.3, our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases. We can't even imagine a being that can do anything he wants to do. Paul in 1 Timothy speaks of the glory of the blessed God. Blessed is another word for happy. He's speaking about the glory of the God who is happy. God is a being of infinite joy, and heaven is entering the joy of God the master. Well, what about the second servant? We see him come forward in verse 22, and I want you to see this. Look down at your text and compare verses 20 and 21 with verses 22 and 23. First servant and the second servant. Just look at those verses. What's the difference? I read word by word, the only difference that I can see is that the number two is instead of the number five. And I think that teaches a really important point to us, namely that the amount of the stewardship doesn't matter, right? They're given different amounts, but the evaluation is exactly the same. I wonder if this story might offend modern sensibilities about fairness. I wonder if there's some that would take objection to the parable Jesus tells. But there's nothing wrong with the master giving differing resources to different servants, is there? It's his money. When it comes to God, he's given the different abilities as well as the different practical resources. I think there are a lot of applications for us here, One is for those in Christian ministry who might be tempted to wonder why Bobby's church is big and my church is small. That's a real temptation for pastors sometimes. We need to often come back to those words written by the elder John Brown to a young student of his who had taken over the pastorate of a small country church. He wrote this, I know the vanity of your heart. and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small in comparison with those of your brethren around you, but assure yourself on the word of an old man that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ at his judgment seat, you will think you have had enough. But the same truth applies to all of us, doesn't it? We're all gifted differently. It doesn't matter how many talents he's given you. Maybe you feel like what you've been given to work with is not a lot. You teach children. You help keep the church grounds. You try to serve your neighbors. Your tithe seems like two pennies. Friends, it's not how much, it's how faithful, isn't it? And notice in the parable, Jesus doesn't have the second servant comparing with the first servant. Hey, hey, what's up with the talents here, man? Can you spot me a talent or two? Let's even this out a little bit. When we compare ourselves with others, we're saying that the master didn't know what he was doing. Don't do that. Be content with what you have and use it well. In verse 24, we come to the climax of the parable with the evaluation of the third servant. He comes and makes his speech. He says he knew the master was a hard man, reaping where he did not sow and gathering where he scattered no seed. So he was afraid and went and hid the talent in the ground. He hands it to him, thinking that this will be sufficient. Verse 26 is his evaluation. Notice instead of good and faithful, he's called wicked and slothful. Again, the first is his character, who he is. He is wicked. And this leads to what he does, which is be lazy, slothful. The master recounts what should have been done, since by the servant's own words, he knew that a reaping and a gathering would be required. He could have at least invested the money with the bankers to get the interest. Then in the final verses, 28 to 30, we see the punishment. What he has is taken, it's given to the first servant. Verse 29 and 30 point to the reality of heaven and hell, don't they? For to everyone who has will more be given. and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Heaven is described here as a place of multiplying abundance. Those who inherit eternal life get more. Heaven has been well described as a place of eternally increasing joy. Hell is described here as outer darkness without light. God's presence is always described as full of light. Here it is, the absence of light. It's a place where there's no joy, there's only pain, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. So this is the day of reckoning. An accounting must be made. It seems sadly to be a part of our fallen nature to live in denial of that fact. We live as if debts never come due. I was trying to think of a good way to illustrate this. I couldn't come up with anything better than our country's national debt. Do we even know how much that is now and how much we're passing on to our children? Our nation collectively seems oblivious to this. We see it in the gambling culture around us. One of the things that struck me as I moved back to the US this past year is that you can't check for a sports score without being asked if you wanna place a wager on something. It's not as if the research is inconclusive in gambling. Sports bookies make 30 to 60% of their income on compulsive gamblers, people who can't stop. But we run into those sorts of things as a society as if they will have no effect. in the long run. Living in denial is easy. It's as easy as it was for me as a teenager to keep playing basketball every afternoon as if that school project was never going to come due. It's just how we are. But friends, debts always have to be paid. The day of settlement does come. You don't have to live as if you're a steward of all that God has given you, but that doesn't change the fact that you are. You will stand before the master and you will give an account. And that, I think, is the single greatest fact about your existence and mine. Do you realize that? The single most important fact. It's more important than your health or your wealth. It's more important than your fame or your fortune, your accomplishments, or your acclaim. That day, That great day, that all-important day, do you live like a day of reckoning will come? Responsibility, a reckoning. There's a third thing that this parable presses on us, and it's what makes the crucial difference. Let's consider thirdly the right view of the master. You know, Jesus taught in parables because they're such great teaching tools. You may forget nearly everything that I'm saying to you this morning, but this parable is worth meditating on in your life. I believe it will stick with you. You can turn it over again and again. We find ourselves wondering why the third servant buried the talent and what his words to the masters reveal about his heart. I wonder what you make of the third servant here. Three things seem clear to me from what the wicked servant says. first is he has a wrong view of the master. He has a wrong view of the master. He calls him a hard man, reaping where he did not sow and gathering where he did not scatter. He doesn't like the fact that he's going to do the work and the master is going to reap the benefit. He doesn't want to work for someone else and be accountable. Seems like he'd rather be self-employed, right? Maybe some of you can relate to that in your current employment. But the reader here scratches his head because we know that it's the master's property. And he's a servant of the master, so why this attitude? I think Jesus told the parable this way, because this is the default condition of every human heart. A fallen human nature at its core has a desire for autonomy, a desire to be our own Lord, to live unto ourselves. We're at war with every authority from our birth. First, our parents and our teachers and the government's authority, most of all, God's authority, of which all the rest are just derivative. The modern war on a Christian view of gender and sexuality is just a manifestation of this same attitude. Who's God to say I'm a man or a woman? Who is God to say what should define marriage? Who is God to say what I should do with my body? Well, if there is no master, if there is no God, maybe you are. But it's hard to square this with knowing there is a God and calling yourself his servant. Now, what we see here is that the third servant isn't really a servant of the master at all. He doesn't know his master. Is the master a hard man? The others didn't find him so. The third servant is wrong and he doesn't realize it. So that's number one, he has a wrong view of the master. But number two, his wrong view of the master leads to an unwarranted fear. Look there at verse 25. He asserts his autonomy, but where does that lead him? Verse 25, I was afraid and I went and hid your talent. That's always the biblical pattern. Fear leads to hiding. It was so in the Garden of Eden. It's so in your life and mine. When we do what we want, rather than what we know is the Lord's will, we imagine ourselves to be gaining some freedom. What we find is a prison of our own making. I think one of the clearest things we can see happening around us in our society, as it runs from an acknowledgement of God's authority, is a pervasive sense of fear. Could you feel it this past year in the time of coronavirus? Just a fear that pervades everything. You can hear it in the constant narrative of victimhood, where there's this constant fear that maybe someone somewhere is taking advantage of me. It's because people feel so vulnerable, so alone, so afraid. But when it comes to God, the fear is misplaced. Acknowledging God as the master and you as his servant leads to freedom, not bondage. When the Lord is your shepherd, he makes you do what? Lie down in green pastures, go beside the waters, have your soul restored. What happens when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death? You shall not fear. This wrong view of the master leads to an unwarranted fear. But I think there's a third thing we can see about his attitude, and that's his unwarranted fear covers an irrational inactivity. His unwarranted fear covers an irrational inactivity. It just doesn't make any sense. In many of Jesus' parables, it's like this. There's this glaring insanity on the part of the characters. And we read them and go, well, what did you think was gonna happen? When the master returned, you thought you could just do what you wanted, be slothful, not prepare, give yourself to self-indulgence, and somehow it would just be fine? The master points out how irrational the servant is. He says, if you thought I was a hard man and a taskmaster, just using my servants and all the more reason for you to be afraid and at least do something, put the money in the bank. A wrong view of God leads to an unwarranted fear which leads to an irrational inactivity. Now, what does Jesus mean for us to do with this parable this morning? Well, he wants to save us from the fate of the third servant, right? Which, to be clear, is a servant in name, but whose behavior shows him not to be a true servant at all. He is a nominal Christian. That word nominal means in name only. Third servant thinks he's a Christian, but he isn't. How do I avoid that? When I get to the end of my life, how can I be the servant who hears the words, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little, I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of the master. That's what we want. But you may think, oh Mark, if you knew the mess that I've made of my life, there's no hope of me ever hearing those words. Well friends, realize that Jesus came to save wicked and slothful servants. Because truth be told, that's how I've lived most of my life. That's how you've lived most of your life. Living for ourselves, burying the master's property in the ground, harboring the wrong view of God, who he is. We deserve the fate of the third servant too, don't we? Outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth. How could we ever escape that? Well, the same man who spoke these words was the only person who ever lived, who never squandered God's resources. From his birth to his death, he lived out the words he spoke to God. I have come to do your will. And you know what the father said of him? Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. With him, I am well pleased. So when sinners like you and I come and trust in Christ, his good and faithful servant-ness is counted to us. And our wicked and slothful servant-ness is accounted to him. where he paid for it on the cross. Now his spirit comes to live in us and empower us for following Jesus and living our lives for the master. We don't do it perfectly, but we do it very differently than we otherwise would have done. The faithful Christian has every reason to expect to hear these words at the return of Christ. So friends, repent of your sins and trust in Christ today. But there's a further application for the Christian here. Maybe you've heard the quote, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. It's true. What kind of a master does God show himself to be in the parable? A master who provides resources for his servants, invites them to labor with him, and then rewards them with commendation and an invitation into his eternal joy. He's not a hard man at all, is he? Have you fallen into the trap of thinking about God as a hard man? Maybe it's because you're in a time of difficulty, a time of suffering right now. Maybe because the delay seems long. Is serving God a duty or a delight to you? Beloved, set yourself to know the master as he really is. You know, that's a great way for you just to think about your times of Bible reading in the week up ahead. Start your day opening the Bible and reading a passage and thinking, what does this passage reveal to me about who God is? Where do I see his goodness and his love? It's on the pages of scripture from beginning to end. So think about the character of God. Maybe get a book like Knowing God or Gentle and Lowly, something that helps you reflect on the character of God and replace those thoughts that thinking of him as a hard man with what is really true about his grace and his love. We should conclude. A responsibility we all have, a reckoning that will surely come, A right view of the master that makes all the difference. We began by talking about money and investments. I would guess your money situation is often on your mind. I hope that you can see it doesn't really matter how rich or how poor you are. What matters is how faithful you've been with what the Lord has given you. Let's pray together. Our Father, it is a joy for us to be your servants. I pray that by your spirit, you would help make us faithful. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.