The Talents April 30, 2017 Matthew 25:14-30 I invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew 25. If you can remember back as far as last week s message, we studied vv. 1-13, the parable of the Ten Virgins, or Ten Bridesmaids. The point there is that there will be a delay in the return or appearance of the groom that necessitates readiness on the part of those who are waiting for His appearance. You must be prepared for His return at any time, even if it seems like He is delayed. Remember? This week, we take the very next passage, the Parable of the Talents. This parable too features a period of time with the Master away, followed by His return. The issue here is what you do with what He has given you while He is away. Does it click that we are still on the same topic? Of course it does. You could think of it as this Parable of the Talents is what you do with your oil, what is the oil in your lamp. And then next week, we take on the very next passage, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. The subject matter there is an assessment of people s lives based on what they did with what they had, with the result being heaven or hell. Same topic? Of course. My hunch is most of you are like me and have not often put these three parables together. We know the one, we know the others, but we don t see them as intricately connected together, but they must be. We must take them together. They build on each other. So, this morning we have the parable of the talents. Now, we must start by defining talent. In this parable, it has nothing to do with skills or giftedness. This is not like, America s Got Talent. The word talent here is a measurement of weight, often used of precious metal, therefore an amount of currency. A denarius is a coin or currency roughly equivalent to a day s wage by a common laborer. A Roman drachma would be similar. A talent would be thousands of such coins. There is disagreement over the exact amount, but I am just going to round it off to tons. It is not really that much (2,000 lbs.), but tons makes the point. It is a lot. So, one talent is a large amount, a ton of something, like There were tons of people there. Now you are ready to hear the parable. Remember, the parable before made reference to the expectancy necessary to be ready and prepared for the Second Coming, even if it is delayed. READ Matthew 25:14-30.
Main point: The Master expects His servants to make good use of whatever He has entrusted to them. He expects a return, a yield on His investment with you. And He expects it regardless of the amount He has entrusted to you. He is responsible for the amount He has invested in you. You are responsible not only for the protection of that amount, but also for a return on that investment. He expects you to DO something with it. We will see that clearly. We are going to utilize our three-step process once again, but the bulk of the time will be spent on the last two steps. I. Setting: the delay in the return of Christ. As I ve already said, this parable simply follows the last one, which featured a delay in the appearance of the bridegroom, followed by judgment based on whether the maids had prepared for the delay with extra oil for their lamps. And then we see here that there is a period of time in which the Master is delayed. He is gone, He has left the scene. This is the setting. Now, so it is clear where we are headed this morning, when was/is/will be this delayed time before His arrival? Now. The last 2,000 years. The next years until His arrival. This era, this now extended period of time is the setting for this parable. It is written expressly for the audience of people awaiting Christ s return. And the issue is how we should view this period of time. While we wait, what should we do? Should we sell everything, sit around a campfire and sing songs? Or, should we get busy? To answer that question, Jesus tells a parable which gives the Father's perspective on what should be happening during this era, this indefinite period of time, which will end (from last week) definitively, abruptly, with no time to make adjustments. The end of this time could come at any moment. So, our parable is set in this indefinite period of time while the Master is away.
II. The Master expects a return on the investment He has left with His servants. vv.14-28 The Master has entrusted assets, lots of assets with his servants and He expects a return. He will judge his servants on whether they produced gain. v.14- Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. Again here reminds us that we are on the right track in taking these parable together. This one follows that one. This time, the characters in the parable are a master and his servants. They work for him. They are indebted to him. They are his. But he treats them as valuable. He entrusts his assets to them. He gives them that which is his and then leaves the scene. The whole story is about what they do with that which they are given. 15 To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. Notice he does not claim to give them equal amounts. They all get tons, but some get more than others. It is not equal. But also notice that they receive the tons of money based on their ability. He has assessed their capacity to handle such assets and given them out accordingly. This is key. Fair in this case is not equality. The master has assessed his servants and allotted his investments accordingly. Those who received more got more because he knew they could handle more. Those who received less got less because he knew they would have trouble handling more. And then he left. He entrusted, empowered, enriched them and then left them to make decisions on his behalf. Clearly, he trusted his servants. Clearly he was not a micromanager, a controller. He was a risk taker, but a wise and prudent risk taker. 16 The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17 So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18 But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master s money.
We then are introduced to three of those servants, all entrusted with assets, but varying amounts: five, two or one talent, or 5, 2, or 1 tons of money. They all had lots, but some had more. Then we notice that one set right out to utilize the money to make more money. It is not that he put it out at interest right away, but utilized it in a way that the money was working, it was producing. The same with the servant with 2. But not the servant with one talent. He dug a hole and buried it for safe keeping. By this description, we can already see that the ones who used the money to make more money could lose a bunch, but they could also gain a bunch. With the one who buried the money, he could not make a return, but it probably was the safest place to put it. In other words, he probably wouldn t lose any, but he certainly wouldn t gain any. 19 After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. This settling of accounts ought to make us cringe a bit. In Scripture, settling accounts usually leads to people receiving bad news. Some of those settling accounts are going to be extremely disappointed with the results. When the master returns, there will be a settling of accounts. 20 The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more. 21 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 first servant did well. He turned 5 into 10. He doubled the master s investment. Notice the terms used by the master: well done. Good and faithful. He did well. His work was commended. Providing a return was considered faithfulness. Faithfulness is the issue, not the size of the return. We will see that in the next servant s accounting. Then we see two results: increased responsibility and sharing the master s joy. This one might confuse us a bit because if this is the end, then what might
be the future increased responsibility. The parable does not tell us. All we know is that God rewards faithfulness with increased responsibility. And then we are allowed to share his joy. He allows the servant to join the party. The master will celebrate and the servant is allowed to accompany him. He will be treated as more than a servant, rather a friend. 22 The man with the two talents also came. Master, he said, you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more. 23 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 second accounting had the same result, joy and acceptance from the master and reward for the servant. Even though the return was less than half the first servant s, still the praise and reward was the same. Again, faithfulness is the issue. There was less than half as much return because there was less than half invested. The rate was the same, but the actual amounts varied. Notice they both get the same commendation. 24 Then the man who had received the one talent came. Master, he said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. This is where we see the problem. The one who was given 5 produced 5 more. The one who was given two produced two more. But the one given only one produced none. He simply returned the one he was given. Then we have the excuse: he viewed his master as hard and manipulative. He tries to play the fear card. I was afraid of you. (This sounds to me like Adam in the Garden, I was afraid so I hid. ) In short, he blamed God. In my mind, his proclamation about his master is quite harsh. You are a master who has no compassion, quite demanding, getting other people to do your work for you. That is his statement. You expect others to work while you go on vacation. So, rather than blow it and make you upset with me, I decided to simply bury it to keep it safe. But what does this tell us the servant did while
the master was away? Nothing. He did nothing. He did not serve. He simply sat and waited. 26 His master replied, You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28 Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. The master replies that if this was your view of me, then why did you not at least gain me something? Perhaps you did not allow the money to work for you, but you could have given it to someone else who would have made it work for them, who would give you a portion of the gain. You could have put it in a bank. You could have earned a return by doing next to nothing. Putting it in a bank is not much of a risk. Yes, it is a risk, but not much of one. Yes, the profits would have been small, but at least it would have been something. Instead, you did nothing. Why did I give you my money? And so, he takes away the one protected talent from him and gives it to the one who had turned 5 into 10. There, that is the parable. What do we notice? The master was a risk taker. The master rewarded faithfulness. The master was not tolerant of no return. The master would rather have risk and loss, or less risk and interest over burial and safety. We learn that the servants were expected to do something with what they had. We learned that fear of the master s wrath resulting in a high priority on protection of assets did not please the master. In other words, the master was well aware of the risks involved with the investment. Indeed, he gave more to some than to others. He didn t have an equal investment portfolio. He knew the risks and invested anyway.
III. Application: Our Master expects a return on that which He has entrusted to us. He sees this time until He returns as time to multiply His assets. He sets His servants (us) up as those tasked to do so. And, He is a risk taker. He would rather expose His assets to risk than keep them safely hidden. It angers Him when people hide rather than use His assets. 29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This principle drawn from the parable itself is logical, but goes against our senses. We think that fairness would require making things equal, giving more to those who have less, and taking some from those who have a lot. That may be true in some areas, but not so with investments. You risk more with those who have proven they can handle it. You take away from those who have proven not to get it. But it is even worse for the one who does not produce: destruction. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Woah! Isn t this going too far? After all, didn t he keep his master s investment safe? But that misses the point. This last servant s problem was that he did not love his master. He harbored wrong views of his master. His actions showed his heart s attitude toward his master. He would have been okay with simply gaining interest. But burying the asset showed contempt for the master. But we must come to grips with the fact that our heavenly Father is a risk taker. If He had wanted to keep His assets safe, He wouldn t have entrusted them to us. He is all about multiplication of assets. The growth of His kingdom necessitates risking assets. He s okay with risk. And if He has given you assets, then He knows you can handle them. If we believe this passage is the Word of God, then what should be different about our lives?
1) We will make ourselves aware of all the things God has entrusted to us, which is everything, money, life, health, people, property, time, giftedness, neighborhoods, workplaces, tools, relationships. It is all His. 2) We will set out to faithfully use them to advance His Kingdom. 3) We will value risk and return over safety. 4) We will see this time of delayed return as time to fulfill His plans for the growth of His kingdom. 5) We will value faithfulness over size of return.