God expects us as his servants to invest 100% of what he gives us into things that glorify God and fulfill the mission of Christ, and he expects a return on his investment.

Well, the parable you just heard probably sounds familiar to you, but not quite the way you remember it. There’s a much more famous version of this story recorded in Matthew 25, often called The Parable of the talents. And as you probably know, teachers reuse illustrations and stories to teach similar points all the time. For example, if you compare Jesus sermon on the Mount that’s recorded in Matthew chapters five through seven, and you compare that with Jesus sermon on the plain that you have here in Luke, you have similar but not identical wording to make similar but not always identical points. And that’s why this sounds familiar to you. You probably remember Jesus illustrating the importance of good stewardship. But you don’t quite remember it ending with people being slaughtered. We’ll get to that in just a little bit. But for now, I’ll say about that, that what Jesus says didn’t really happen because this is a made up story. This is a parable. But what Jesus means is worse than it sounds. This parable and the stories that we’ve heard over the past few weeks of Jesus interactions with the ruler and the beggar and Zacchaeus have got me thinking a lot about limited resources and stewardship. What I mean is, the rich ruler had all this stuff, but he couldn’t follow Jesus. The blind beggar had nothing, but all he wanted to do was follow Jesus. And Zacchaeus had everything, but he stole it, and he had to get the money out of his heart.

And he had to get the wrongs that he had committed, righted so that he could follow Jesus as his Lord. I’ve been thinking about that relationship between my commitment to following the Lord and the good things in my life that can either benefit my worship of Christ or prevent it. It can either be invested in the mission or it can be squandered. And on top of that, time is a resource. The length of our lives on earth is a resource. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to waste stuff. I don’t want to waste stuff. I like to get the most out of whatever I’m doing with whatever I’ve got. And if the last few weeks have got you thinking like that, thinking like me, just know I’m right there with you. I’m right there with you. Our passage today is a parable that helps to answer the question, what does God expect of us right now? What does he expect of us right now, here in this life, here on earth with growing blessings, dwindling time? What is God asking us to do so that we can faithfully follow him? So that this time and these resources are not wasted. Well, if we listen to Jesus carefully in this parable, he’s saying God expects us as his servants to invest 100% of what he gives us into things that glorify God and fulfill the mission of Christ.

And he expects a return on that investment. If you left last week wondering what to do with your money after watching Zacchaeus rid himself of the worship of money, today’s parable is going to help you. But we’re not just talking about money this morning. Every resource, okay, every resource is in view here. Your vocation, your education, family, marriage, your free time, your health. God has given us so many resources for his glory. How do we use these resources in a way that matters? Because these resources do matter. What you’ve been given matters. These are Jesus investments in us, intended for reinvestment to produce things that glorify God. So keep your Bible open this morning. If you have it, open it up to Luke 19:11-27. You’re going to keep that in front of you today. You’ve heard it read, but you’ll want to refer back to it. And there are three groups of people in this story. There’s people, three types of people, people who reject the master’s reign, good servants and wicked servants. And I’m going to use the terms rejectors, investors and wasters. We meet these people in that order. So we’ll we’ll take them in that order. But first we need to understand why Jesus tells this story. It starts by saying that as they, the crowd, heard these things, Jesus tells them this parable.

So right away we know that this story we’re about to read relates to what they just heard, which is they’ve heard Jesus saying things like, I’ve come to seek and to save the lost. They’re watching Zacchaeus heart change in real time right in front of them. And Jesus declares that salvation has come into his house. They’re seeing a blind man get up off the side of the road, receive his sight, and begin to follow Jesus, because Jesus said to him, receive your sight. They’re seeing words come out of Jesus mouth and immediately things are happening. They’re hearing Jesus speak miracles into existence. They’re watching the transformation happen right before their eyes. It’s all happening now. And Jesus can see that there are two factors that are about to come together that will bring this crowd to the wrong conclusion about what’s about to happen. The first factor is that he’s pretty close to Jerusalem. He’s very close now, a few miles away. The crowd knows that that’s where he’s going. They’re expecting him to establish his kingdom when he gets there, which he will, but not in the way that they expect. See, they’re expecting the removal of the Romans and the re-establishment of the nation of Israel. But Jesus is going to accomplish the removal of Satan and the establishment of his worldwide spiritual kingdom with all of God’s people. So his proximity to Jerusalem is in anticipation of this thing that’s about to happen.

And the other factor is that the crowd thinks that Jesus kingdom is going to be fully established as soon as he gets there. They’re not thinking that the kingdom will start small and grow. Even though he’s been teaching them this, he’s been saying, look, the kingdom is like a mustard seed, okay? Really small. It’s going to go in the ground, it’s going to become really large in time. It’s going to grow to become big. He’s been saying that, but they’re not tracking with that. They think that they’re about to see in real time the culmination of the kingdom of God, that Jesus is simply going to speak and it’s going to happen like a blind man seeing again. What they’re actually going to see, though, is the beginning of the kingdom. What they’re going to experience is the start of the hard work of the mission to build the kingdom of God, not the end of it. So Jesus prepares them. He gives them a short story here to orient them to what’s really about to happen, so that they can get their understanding of the kingdom of God correct and all that that entails. The first thing is that not everyone is going to accept Jesus as King. A nobleman is about to go off and receive his kingdom, but before he goes, he calls his servants together to give them instructions.

We’re going to get to those servants here in just a moment. As he’s leaving, there’s a group of people who live on this nobleman’s property. They call them his citizens, and they don’t want him to come back. So they put together a little team of people to send out after the nobleman, to let him know, we don’t want this man to reign over us. Essentially, we’re glad you’re leaving. Don’t come back. Don’t come back. We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. Do you know what happens legally if the residents of a nobleman’s land request that he not be in charge anymore? Do you know what happens legally? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. See, the citizens who live under a king can believe however they want. They can act however they like while he’s away. But it doesn’t change their status. They’re still under his reign. The only thing that happens is that when the king returns, these rejectors will be under his judgment instead of receiving his approval. So what is Jesus getting at here? What is he saying? Well, he’s talking about unbelievers who reject Jesus reign over their lives. See, the nobleman here is clearly Jesus himself. Okay. He’s clearly talking about himself. He’s introducing the idea that the kingdom of God is about to get started. But there’s going to be a delay in its completion and its culmination.

That’s what the traveling is about here. And that delay is what we’re in right now. We as a church. We’re in this delay now. We are between Jesus first coming 2000 years ago and his return. The kingdom is going to grow and it’s going to spread through the world as Christians take the gospel to the ends of the earth. I’m excited next week. You heard earlier in the service during the announcements that that Adam Talbot will be with us here from EFCA’s Reach Global. And he’s going to teach us. I’m excited to hear what he has to say about the spread of the gospel. He’s particularly focused on North Africa and the Middle East, which to me is fascinating. To take the gospel where it hasn’t yet gone. So be sure to come next week for that. This is why we engage in this work with people around the world. The kingdom is growing, right? And it’s spreading in anticipation of Jesus return. However, we are all aware that there are plenty of people who reject the kingship of Jesus Christ. These people are made in the image of God. They are. They are created by Jesus and they are created for Jesus, according to the Apostle Paul. They have no escape from that reality. They have no existence apart from God’s allowance. They can’t leave his creation. They are his creation. And nothing they think about Jesus changes any of those facts.

But despite all of that, they reject Jesus as their King. They say to God, you don’t reign, I do. You don’t command me, I command me. And so their attitude toward Jesus is essentially, don’t come back. Don’t come back. We don’t need you here. Specifically, Jesus is likely thinking here of the Jewish leaders who were about to call upon the Romans to crucify him. See, they’re going to use his reign, his claim to be the king against him to get the Roman government to crucify him for treason. They will do everything they can, including lying to themselves and lying to the authorities to rid themselves of Jesus so that they can get back to life as normal, living for themselves apart from God’s say so. I’ll skip to the end of the story so you can see where that leads. In verse 27 it says, the king returns and he commands that these enemies of his who did not want his reign be brought before him and slaughtered. This is a parable style picture referring to final judgment that follows Jesus return. You can read more about it in Revelation 19. Everyone who stands before Jesus without having received Him as Savior and submitted to him as Lord and King are judged for what they have done. It says that they are cast into a lake of fire, which envisions eternal punishment with Satan and his demons forever.

Rejecting Christ as King doesn’t make him any less king. It simply means that instead of enjoying the benefits of his reign over your life, you receive the fate of a rebel. I know this is a doctrine that a lot of people, even in the church, wrestle with. I know that. I know that this is a difficult, difficult doctrine to accept. How can a gracious God condemn people like this? There are multiple answers to that question from Scripture, but for now, let me just point to the one answer that is obvious in this parable, and that’s that God judges those who reject his reign. The salvation that comes through Jesus Christ that is proclaimed in the Good News is right here. It’s right here for us. It’s right here in front of us. All you have to do is repent of your sin and submit to Jesus as your King, and you will have eternal life. Starting now for eternity. But people pushed Christ away. If you don’t want God’s authority in your life, guiding your decisions, shaping your mind and heart, he allows you to push him away. But understand what you’re doing. Okay, if that’s you this morning, if that’s where you’re at with this gospel and this good news, and this Jesus who claims to be Savior. If that’s what you’ve done, you’ve sort of pushed him away. He’s not a part of your life.

I want you to understand what you’re doing. You’re saying that you’re willing to pay the consequences of your sin. Because in rejecting Jesus as Lord, you have rejected Him as Savior. Jesus people come and follow him and live for him. That’s who saved. And this is why we carefully and consistently share the gospel and rehearse the gospel here at Calvary over and over again. It’s why we talk about it all the time. It’s this important. These eternal consequences. They’re this important. A friend of mine who was a pastor, who is a pastor, I guess. I suppose he still serves there. But he was my pastor and Rachel’s pastor in seminary in Chicago area. And, he used to say this. He used to say, we want to make it hard to go to hell within 20 miles of this place. That was his way of describing what they were doing at the church. We want to make it hard to go to hell within 20 miles of this place. We preach the gospel here at Calvary because we want to make it hard to go to hell in Rochester, Minnesota. That’s why we do it. It’s not the only reason we do it. It’s one of the reasons. We want to make it hard. We want to make it abundantly clear that Jesus is King. He’s the one who controls all of this.

Because the alternative to having Jesus as your king is damning. There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. The opposite of rejecter is a receiver. But the way the parable describes a receiver is not just as a person who gets something. It’s a person who gets something to invest. Before the nobleman leaves, he calls ten of his servants together, and he gives each of them a mina, which, depending on which scholar you read, is 3 or 4 months wages. Now, these are servants, okay? These are not the same people as before, not simply citizens. These are not just people in the world. These are people who in some sense identify as servants of the nobleman, and they’re given this money and they’re told, engage in business until I come. So there’s an expectation that the servant is going to take this money and he’s going to get to work. See, servants are there to build up the nobleman’s kingdom. They’re workers. Servants are doers. They’re not just receivers. They’re not just sitting back enjoying the kingdom of God. They contribute to its development on behalf of the nobleman. It says in verse 15 that the nobleman got back from his trip, and he gathered the ten servants, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. You see, when he gets back, he wants to know, what have you done with the stuff I gave you? How did you actually work it out? This business that I told you to do.

The first servant steps up and says, Your mina has made ten minas more. Do you see that wording there in verse 16? Right. Your mina, not my mina. Your mina, not look what I have now. Your mina has made ten minas more. Your mina has multiplied ten times through my effort. Here’s your minas. It’s the same with the next servant. Verse 18 Lord, your mina has made five minas. It didn’t make me five minas. It made five minas. You gave me the resource. I put in the effort. Here’s what it became. The Lord looked at these servants and he said, well done, good servant. Now I know he technically in this story only says it to the servant and not the second. But I don’t think that means that only the ten mina guy is a good servant because both of them are rewarded. They both succeeded in what they did because both are rewarded in proportion to what they produced. They both are put in charge of cities within the nobleman’s kingdom, like governors of a region. So ten mina guy gets ten cities, five mina guy gets five cities. What is Jesus saying here about his kingdom? I have so many thoughts about this. But let me just share two of them with you.

The first and most obvious is that servants are investors. Servant equals investor. God doesn’t give his servants anything he doesn’t expect to invest and multiply. That’s what we do. Now, we might ask here, and it’s a good question, what does a mina represent? What is that? To answer that question, I need to introduce an aspect of the story that’s a little bit hidden in our translations. The word translated servant here is the word slave. Given our history as a country, this is not a word that we use lightly. But we need to understand that in the first century, a servant living under a master’s rule would be bonded to the master’s welfare. He would not own anything himself. That meant that he served at the bidding of the master, because the servants family’s entire success was dependent on the success of the whole household. So everything a bonded servant was given was not his property, but it was his responsibility. We are bond servants of Christ. That’s how Paul identified himself. He loved this title for himself. We are servants, bonded servants, slaves of the Lord Jesus. So what does a mina represent here then? Well, if we don’t own anything in the kingdom of God, then it’s anything that we’ve been given. That’s what a mina represents. It’s all God’s stuff that’s been given to us. Church, I can’t impress upon you enough how important this concept is for keeping your heart right with God, no matter how much or how little you have, if you remember nothing else I say this morning, get this concept, because this will change everything about how you see your world, how you see your stuff, your family, your existence in this life.

If you start to regard everything in your life as God’s property given to you for investment, you will be released from idolatry. You will. No matter what you have or what comes your way, it won’t take the place of Jesus in your heart. Why? Because you’ll see it as something God is handing to you for investment. And so you’ll stop saying, what do I want to do with my stuff? What would I like to do with my stuff? And you’re going to start saying, what would God have me do with this thing that he’s given to me so I can make a return on his investment? That’s how I got to live as a servant in this household. What do I got to do to make a return on this investment? And then money won’t be your pursuit. The glory of God will be your pursuit. And then you will see money as a tool to get the thing that you really want. God’s commendation. Well done, good servant. You want the glory of God to shine. And so everything you have is an investment in that.

That’s the first thing. And the second thought I have that comes directly from this passage is this. The reward of effort is greater responsibility. Do you see that there? It’s greater responsibility. Notice what the investors get for their hard work. More work. You see that? They get more work. How would you like it if that’s how you got paid at your job? Oh great job. Here’s more job, right? Oh, hey, ten minas. Nice job. Guess what? You get ten cities to oversee. Wow. Five minas. Here’s five cities worth of my territory in the Kingdom of God, and you are now in charge of it. Jesus says you were in charge of very little. You did a great job with it, so now you get a bigger job. It is hard to say exactly what this picture of rule over cities correlates to in the New Earth when Jesus returns. But the principle is pretty clear. Faithfulness in the small things leads to more opportunities. I believe there is a hint here about how eternity will be structured. We’re not going to be just sitting on clouds playing a harp like Looney Tunes taught us, okay? It’s going to be work. There will be work because work for God’s glory is worship. We were made to work for God’s glory. But this principle holds true even prior to Jesus return, because clearly two different servants with the same amount of resources can produce different levels of return.

So our hard work for God’s glory leads to more opportunities to work for God’s glory. We get to experience greater joy in Christ and greater responsibility in his Kingdom as we pour ourselves out more and more. Church, I don’t know how your heart responds. I don’t know what’s going on in your mind. I don’t know how your heart turns on the idea of more responsibility, more opportunity to glorify God when you do well. But I’ll tell you what it does in me. It fills me with overwhelming excitement. I love this! If God gives us something and then we multiply it for his glory, he’s going to then fill us with joy and give us more to manage, which we will then increase our joy. And then the cycle is just going to continue and continue. Sign me up. Sign me up. That’s how I want to live. If you’re wondering where I’m getting the idea of joy and I’m mixing it in here, you say that’s not what the passage says, right? I’m getting that from the other parable. The parable of the talents, where the master says, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. So it’s joy there, and it’s work here, which tells me our work for God’s glory is also joy. To pour yourself out for the glory of God to the gospel of Christ and to spread God’s kingdom leads to a multitude of joyous work now and for eternity.

And that’s the life I want to live. That’s the life I hope you want to live. To pour yourself out for the glory of God. That’s the life of the upper call of Jesus. To follow Jesus is to invest everything he’s given you for his glory. But not everyone who calls himself a servant sees things this way. And here’s a very grave caution. A third servant steps forward and he’s got something wrapped up in his hand. It’s the master’s mina. It’s safe. It’s there, wrapped up in a handkerchief. And he says, look here’s your mina back. And if you’re tracking with me, you know this is not good. This is not good for this servant. See, a servant who doesn’t own the mina and was given instruction to do the master’s business does nothing but hand it back to him. Why? Is he lazy? Is he lazy? Is he too concerned with other things? Maybe? But what we’re told here is something different. It says that this servant didn’t follow the instructions because he was afraid of the master. He says in verse 21, I was afraid of you because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit. You reap what you did not sow. This is quite a charge. I know it’s a little bit antiquated. The language is a little difficult for us.

So let me let me try to tease this out a little bit so you understand what he’s saying here because it’s pretty harsh what he’s saying. The servant is saying, I didn’t follow instructions because if I made a gain on my hard work, you’d take it. You’d take it. You’d reap what you didn’t sew. He’s saying if he does the work, he won’t keep the results. Why? Because he has a severe master who just takes it all away from him anyway. And if the servant doesn’t get good results, if he loses the mina, this harsh master will just take it out on him because he didn’t sew it. It’s not his fault. He’ll just blame the servant. What this tells us about this servant is he doesn’t know this master. He doesn’t know this master. But why? Because we’ve already seen what this master does. We’ve already seen who this master is. This is the one who rewards faithfulness. This servant doesn’t know this master. And he’s also showing us that while he’s in the household, posing as a servant, he’s not actually a servant. Because why? Because a servant serves. It’s right in the word. A servant serves. What we have here is an impostor, and the impostor is exposed for who he is based on his misuse of the resources that God has given him. The best way I can describe this in terms of the church today is nominal Christianity.

Christianity that’s just in name only. That’s what nominal means. They’re glad to be considered part of God’s servant people right there in and around the church. They’re sort of tagging along. They like some things about being part of a church, but they don’t know God. They’re glad to be considered God’s servant, but they don’t know the character of God at all. So therefore they’re not submitted to the Lord Jesus. They don’t live in his service. They live for themselves. And the evidence for that is that they only do the work that rewards themselves. That’s what they’re in this for. They’re in this for themselves because that’s the reward they really want. Not God’s reward. They’re not looking for kingdom benefit. They’re looking for self benefit. And God sees this as a waste. This is a waste of money and time. All those things that I mentioned before. And in the end, the judgment of this servant who really isn’t a servant is the same as it was for the rejecter. God takes away what he has. It’s more explicit in the parable of the talents, but there are indications of judgment here too. Jesus calls this servant wicked. Evil. The servant has no role in God’s eternal kingdom. God takes it away from this impostor, and he gives it to the one who has been most faithful to the shock of all who are watching. Do you see that there in verse 25? Even the people standing around. Lord, that guy already has ten minas. Why are you giving it to him? And the nobleman says, yeah, but he gets one more because look what he’s doing with them. He understands why they were given. So he gets more. Church, back to our original question, what does God expect of us right now? What does he expect of us right now? He expects us to produce. God expects us to produce, Not perform. Okay? Not perform. We’re not working hard to put in a good showing so Jesus will save us and accept us to try to impress God in some way. But in light of our calling as servants of Jesus, our call is to invest everything that God gives us and not waste it like impostors who claim Christ, but who are really about building their own kingdoms. I like to think of things on macro and micro levels. I was taught to do this by my teacher, Tim Witmer at Westminster. Macro thinking is for the whole church. Micro thinking is for each member of the church or each family of the church or each couple within the church. However big or small your family unit is. These are resources at both levels and they need to work together. So we have to ask the question, the macro question, what does God expect of the whole church in its use of resources.

And then we have to ask the question, what does God expect of you as servants of Christ? What does God expect of your household? Leadership here at Calvary is often wrestling with the macro question. But I would invite you this week to wrestle with the micro question. How do we as a family, how do I, as an individual, use everything God’s given me to produce kingdom gains for God’s glory? That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy some of it, right? That doesn’t mean that. I’m not saying that this morning. I’m not saying you can’t go out to dinner or buy a new couch or whatever it is that you need to do, right? But what does it mean that you begin to see every item that God has given you as fuel to carry out his mission to the best of your ability, with the Spirit’s power at work in you and through you? Do you think like that? Is that the way you see things? If not, there’s got to be an adjustment here. Because what happens is you’ll begin to look at all of your wealth as God’s wealth given to you to be invested in his kingdom. Let me leave you with the words of the church Father Clement this morning. Clement was a late second-century, early third-century theologian who ministered in a very wealthy town in the northern part of Egypt called Alexandria.

He was known as Clement of Alexandria. And he preached a sermon entitled, Who is the Rich Man Who is Saved? I love that title. It’s a good title, right? Very catchy. I lean in when I hear a title like that. Who is the rich man who is saved? Well done on that title. Through the sermon he makes the same case that I’ve laid out for you here today. Makes very similar points in that sermon. Riches are our tools to be used for kingdom purposes, for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to care for people for God’s glory, right? That’s why we’re given these things. If you internalize that value, okay. If you internalize that value that same way, it doesn’t matter how much or how little you have, it won’t ever matter how much or how little you have. But Clement puts this whole idea in terms of business and exchange in a way that I find very compelling and inspiring. And so I want to close with his words. He said this. What splendid trading. What divine business. You buy incorruption with money. You give the perishing things of the world and receive in exchange for them an eternal abode in heaven. Compass the whole earth if need be. Spare not dangers or toils that here you may buy a heavenly kingdom. Let’s pray.