The Servants and the Talents

Opening and honoring Christian

We’re continuing on in the parables, and I get to speak on the parable of the talents, or the parable of the servants, depending on how you look at it.

Before we get into it, I want to point something out. Christian has been serving here for six years, running the media department, doing all of that work. It’s a thankless job in the background. He’s spent countless hours over the years, especially after the fire, getting things set up, running wires, doing all the stuff, coming in for events that happen on the side. At the river we talk about asking the Father what you’re supposed to do, and only being responsible for the things you’re supposed to do. Christian has been incredibly faithful, but he’s felt the Father tell him to move in a different direction, and today is his last day running the media department. Christian, we thank you very much, and I’m so excited about what God has for you in the future, and that you’re hearing him and moving into the next things. And if anybody here is interested in getting involved in media, we have openings, so talk to me afterward.

This series has been interesting. When we go through the parables, we realize a lot of us learned them early, as some of the first stories we hear when we become Christians, and we learn them well, but then we don’t really revisit what they mean. As a church, The River Community Church is an ambassador of the Father’s Heart message, and we’ve dove deep into understanding the Father’s heart. When you go back and look at the parables through that lens, there’s such a deeper, richer understanding to a lot of them. If you’re at all interested, our YouTube channel has all of the different parables from this series, and they’re worth going back to.

We’re heading to the A School soon, and I’m excited to go. If you asked me, I’d say I’m pretty good at the Father’s Heart message, I give myself a gold star. But something I’ve discovered through my journey of learning God as a father is that I’ll get to a certain depth, think I really understand it, and then God will show me there’s a whole other level to go deeper. I think, “okay, that’s it, now I’ve arrived,” and then I take another step and it gets deeper again. It just keeps going, and it never runs out. So I’m excited to go get a deeper, fresher revelation of what the Father means to me and to the church at large.

So, today we’re talking about the parable of the talents. The story actually shows up twice in the Bible, in Matthew 25 and in Luke 19, and it’s a different context each time. In Luke 19, Jesus is telling the story to his disciples and to people listening to him, but there are also people very critical of his ministry listening in, and he changes some of the details for that audience. We’re not focusing on Luke 19 today, we’re going to Matthew 25, but if you’re interested, go look at how the two compare. That’s homework for you to do later.

What a talent actually is

In some translations it’s called the parable of the servants, in others, the parable of the talents. I always thought it was way too convenient that it was called talents, like we’re supposed to use our talents for the kingdom, okay, I get it, that’s the moral of the story. Kind of. Actually, it’s the opposite, and this is valuable information: a talent was a unit of measurement. It was about 100 pounds, and it was specifically designed to weigh out about 100 pounds of silver.

I have today about a pound of silver that I borrowed from a collection of someone I know. This is 10 troy ounces, and this is 5 troy ounces, so that’s 15 troy ounces, which works out to about 16 and a half ounces on your kitchen scale. So that’s about a pound of silver right there. In the original Greek, the word was talenton, and a talenton was about 100 pounds of silver. So when they say “a bag of silver,” we’re talking about a 100-pound bag.

The English language actually gets its word “talent” from this story, not the other way around. Jesus didn’t use the word to reference the things we’re good at, like somebody being a talented basketball player. That’s not what he meant. He was referring to this incredibly valuable, precious thing being entrusted to someone. Over time, the English language began to associate the word talent with a special dispensation given to you personally, according to your skills, according to who you are, something special entrusted to you. That’s where we get the word. But in the story, a talent is 100 pounds of silver.

In today’s Canadian market, a pound of silver is worth about $1,200. So 100 pounds of silver would be about $120,000. Significant value.

Reading Matthew 25

With that background, let’s read the story. Matthew 25:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last, dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip. The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earn five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time, their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used the money. The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’ The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling a small amount. Now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together.'”

I’m just going to pause there and say this is not cast in a negative light. Jesus is saying capitalism is not bad. Okay.

“The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’ The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together.’

“Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant, and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’ But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, if you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant, and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten it back with some interest.’ Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But for those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'”

Before we get into what all of this means, has anybody here ever felt like the useless servant? I think all of us, at some point, compare ourselves with what we assume is valuable in God’s eyes, and we don’t measure up. We see evangelists, missionaries, people doing industrious things for the kingdom, and we don’t feel like we’re measuring up. I must be on that negative side. Well, not so. That is not the case. But what does it represent?

The master and the servants

First, Jesus says this represents something about the kingdom of heaven. So the whole thing is meant to help us understand some of the mechanics of how the kingdom works. When the Bible says the first shall be last and the last shall be first, that’s a kingdom principle, that’s how the kingdom works. People who show up at the end sometimes get to be at the front of the line, people who end up the poorest in this life will be the richest in heaven, and we’re to expect that. That’s a bit of how the kingdom works. This parable illustrates some of that. Not that the kingdom is capitalism, just to be clear. But it’s okay.

Who is the master? He goes away for a long time, entrusts what’s precious to him to those under him, and after a long time returns to take account. Kind of sounds a lot like Jesus, right? Yeah, I’m going to go with that.

Who are the servants? Those entrusted with what is precious to the master. That sounds like us, the church. Probably. I’m going to go with that too.

What does the silver represent? It’s not really clear what it means, but we’re going to dig into that, we’re going to spend the majority of our time on that question.

Jesus is the master, kind of. He goes away, leaving what’s precious to him in the charge of those under him. He’s coming again one day, looking for an account of what they did. In Matthew 12:35, Jesus said, “A good person produces good things from a treasury of a good heart.” This entire passage has a lot to do with what we’re producing with what God has given us. God has given us something valuable, and we’re producing something.

“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.” The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you. A lot of people feel a sense of guilt from that verse, thinking about how many idle words they’ve spoken. How’s the weather? How about them Canucks? Maybe those are aggressive words, I don’t know, but in the kingdom of heaven, those are idle words. We’re going to have to give an account of our words. Are we supposed to be producing something? We’re supposed to be investing in this kingdom experience we’ve been given, to some degree, which is a choice each of us has to individually make. Jesus is the one who’s coming back to take an account, of our idle words, or of how we used the silver he gave us, whatever the silver is.

Harvesting what he didn’t plant

What’s with this harvesting things that aren’t his? It sounds corrupt, but let me throw this into the mix: what does Jesus harvest? Souls. Paul talks about one person sowing seed and another person harvesting, and they’re talking about people becoming Christian. Sowing seed is witnessing. Jesus talks about the sower who goes out and throws seed into different places, and where the crops grow, that’s the soil, those are souls, those are people coming into the kingdom, those are new children of God. That’s amazing.

So what this master is doing, even though in a natural context it seems corrupt or outside the lines, in a spiritual context, the one opposed to the master is the enemy, is Satan. Satan wants to keep souls. Jesus is saying the master gets to define the boundaries of his receiving to whatever degree he wants to. When we know that, it completely changes the way that looks. The master gets to receive all of that.

Orphan lens vs. Father’s heart

So he’s kind of like the master, kind of, and we’re the servants, kind of. Looking through the lens of an orphan, it could feel like you’re left alone with a responsibility, and you’re going to get in trouble if you don’t do good enough. That’s how most of us interpret this to start with: the master has left us, he’s left me with this pile of silver, I don’t know what to do, I don’t have the skills. How many people here consider themselves a good entrepreneur? Right, there’s a couple. If I gave somebody here 100 pounds of silver and said “take this and do something with it,” are you confident that if I came back in a couple of years there’d be more? There’s a few of you, but not everybody possesses that skill.

If you’re looking at it from an orphan perspective, you’re saying, “I don’t know how to do this, I don’t have that skill, I don’t know how to take the church and make it bigger, I don’t know how to get on a plane and be a missionary, I must be the useless servant.” That’s orphan thinking. That’s not what God wants. We know we are children of a father who wants an intimate relationship with us.

The other lens, obviously, is the Father’s heart. You’re not alone. You’re not supposed to tackle things on your own. You’re only supposed to do what he’s telling you to do right now. This parable only works through relationship with the Father. The only things you produce with orphan thinking are orphan things. If you want to produce relational family things for children of God, you’ve got to do it as a child of God. The individual servants receive in proportion to their abilities, and each is held accountable to their own individual choices. There are things we’re supposed to do, things we’re supposed to be accountable to, but that only comes into play as children of God.

What does the silver represent?

So then, what is the silver, and what production was expected? Obviously it was something precious to Jesus. The receivers didn’t have it before he gave it to them. Once they had it, it could be invested, grown, used in production, or even buried. That’s the criteria for what the silver is. Jesus doesn’t say what the silver is, so don’t get dogmatic about the interpretation. It might mean different things to different people, and I guarantee you it does. But Jesus talks enough about earthly treasure versus eternal, heavenly treasure that we know it’s not money. It’s not about growing in personal wealth. The story doesn’t cast capitalism in a negative light at all, growing in personal wealth is something we should all try to do, but that’s not what this is about.

So let’s look at it from the other angle. What does the Bible say about production, what are things we can produce as Christians that might count as “silver”? It’s worth noting that the literal story is about investment, but spiritually speaking, biblical production is not about physical things. Matthew 6:31 says, “Don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” So it’s not about physical things, not about growing in what we have or figuring out how to take care of all our physical requirements.

The Christian life is not passive. James 2:18 says, “Now, someone may argue, some people have faith, others have good deeds. But I say, how can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” Doing good things, making a choice to get invested and involved, is something positive.

I know somebody who is almost 80 years old, and they’ve never had any money in their life, never had anything extra. They recently, through a series of amazing events, received an inheritance from their parents who died about 30 years ago, a significant chunk of cash. I was talking with this person, and they needed a new car. I said, “no, absolutely not, you cannot go get a new car, you have to go talk to a financial advisor, somebody who knows how to invest and get a return on investment. I don’t care if they’re prophetic, I don’t care if they’ve had a successful business and sold it and are living off the wealth of that, I want you to talk to somebody who has invested and gotten a return.” They said, “but I really need a new car.” I said, “you have to promise me you’re going to do this.” So they did. They called me this last week, very excited, they’ve earned almost enough in interest since that conversation to now buy a car without touching the initial investment. This was a choice that had to be made. It would have been just as easy, in terms of effort, not to make it. It’s actually more difficult to go and have that conversation, after 80 years of never talking to a financial advisor, but it’s a conscious choice of will to have it, and then reap the rewards. It’s like getting up and going to the gym, it’s a choice you make, and it’s just as easy not to make it. Things that are easy to do are also easy not to do.

Growth, gifts, church, relationship

So there are several things that fit into this category. One of the interesting ways to look at what the silver is comes through the epistles. Jesus talked about this silver being precious, and that we should invest in it and grow it. Then the church was developed, and for about a hundred years or so the apostles and their disciples were moving around, and letters were being passed from church to church encouraging the church on how to live out their life. I believe the early church was doing what Jesus was showing them, working in the kingdom of heaven, growing in the ways God expected them to grow with the precious thing they’d been given, this new early church. So if we look at the epistles, all the letters written by those guys, we should be able to see all the ways the church is being encouraged to grow, and come up with a list of things that might represent the silver. Those are: grow in the knowledge of Christ; grow in faith, by practicing, by believing, having something come through, and then believing more; grow in love that abounds; grow in the character and virtues that are actively added; grow in holiness; and grow in maturity, measured by the stature of Christ. Those are all things precious to God, to Jesus, all things added to the church as it’s going, all very positive. How many of you have received some of this, but you’re not all the way there yet? Knowledge of Christ, faith, love, character, holiness, and maturity. We’ve all got places where we could choose today to be more invested in growing, especially when we walk in relationship with the Father.

Another possible definition of what the silver could mean: spiritual gifts. Jesus said he’s going to go to the Father, and he’s going to send another helper who’s going to be with us and teach us all things. The disciples didn’t have the Holy Spirit until Jesus left and gave them the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ, which is obviously valuable to Jesus. So that fits. Is it possible to stifle the Holy Spirit? The Bible warns about not stifling the Holy Spirit, that’s something you can bury. It says to pursue spiritual gifts. You could make a choice to sign up for a prophetic training class, practice the spiritual gifts, ask God for a word and give it on a Sunday morning. There’s a lot you can do to grow in your spiritual gifts. Paul, in 1 Timothy, encourages Timothy to practice his spiritual gift, to embrace it fully so that his improvement would be evident to all. In other words, he had room for improvement, and he needed to get better, and it was going to be obvious to people if he wasn’t good, and he needed to get better by practicing his spiritual gift, until he got to a point of being good at it. That’s something where you could invest in what’s precious to God and see it grow, see it double. Spiritual gifts.

What if it’s the church? Is the church valuable to Christ? Yeah. Did the church exist before Jesus left? No, he started the church with Peter, “on this rock I will build my church.” That started with Peter. Peter ended up being sent to the Jews, Paul got sent to the Israelites, and each person had a dispensation of growing the church. Is growing the church something we can do? Can we sit on our hands and not help grow the church? So that’s another place we can invest, where we can double, where we can produce, where we can invest in this spiritual capitalism. The church.

And the last thing it could potentially be is relationship, especially the relationship with the Father. Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.” We come to the Father because he makes us righteous because of what he did on the cross. The silver could be the relationship we get with the Father because of what Christ did on the cross. How many of you know the relationship with the Father is valuable? How many of you know that relationship is something you can grow in? And how many of you know that’s also a choice you have to make, or you can let it go, let it sit?

So the silver is going to mean different things to different people. Each one of us in this room knows God has given us something special. We talked at the beginning about how the word talent comes from a special dispensation given to you. You’ve received something special from God, unique to you, according to your ability. And with relationship with God, you have the ability to go invest in that and see it grow, have more added to it. But don’t let it just sit. Don’t let it be buried. Don’t let it be dormant.

But don’t feel guilty if you have let things in your life be dormant, if you’ve let things sit without growing, without investing, without making decisions to improve those areas in your life. Don’t feel guilty, because I’m going to tell you something.

Growth isn’t linear

Production on this scale is not linear. This person I know, 80 years of their life, no investment, no growth, nothing moving, and now they’re starting to see it all after 80 years. It wasn’t linear. We make decisions. I bought a business, I invested in that business, COVID hit, I got kicked down, I had to sell, I had to get out of the business, I needed to cover all the debts. God was very faithful, it was amazing. But I ended up at the end in a worse place than I started, kind of, because I knew a lot more. And now I’m in a better place than I was then, because it’s not linear. Sometimes it goes a little up and down.

So we all have an opportunity today. We don’t know when the servant who took his five bags of silver and turned them into ten made his final transaction, he could have made the trade that doubled the money the day before the master came home. We don’t know, because that’s the way production works. So don’t worry about what you’ve done for the last however many years, or what your spiritual journey has looked like up until now. Just make a decision about what you’re going to do today. Are you going to invest in growing the thing God has given you that’s special? That’s it. That’s what this parable means.

Closing prayer

Let’s close in prayer. Let’s everybody stand up.

Father, we thank you. We thank you that you see each of us according to our abilities. While I’m praying, I’m going to invite the prayer team to come on up, and I’m going to invite some people to come forward at the end of this. If you have something in your life you really feel like God wants you to help grow and develop, and you’re not sure how, and you want to partner with the Father to make that happen, we’re going to pray with you about that. So while you’re thinking about that and coming forward, we’re just praying as a group.

Father, we thank you that you see us each individually, that you value us for our skills and for what we bring to the table, for who we are, that you see us as precious children and you’re so proud of who we are. Father, help us to walk this out individually, that we would each know what you’ve given us, that we would each know how to invest in that, and how to walk closer in relationship with you in it. Father, as a church, you’ve made us ambassadors of the Father’s heart message, ambassadors to the church, to see things through this perspective of knowing you as a father and being your children. So Father, we want to invest in that, we want to grow in that as a church, we want to tell other people about that. Give us those words, give us the ability to represent that well. I pray for an anointing over this church and over every person who calls this place home, that they would be ambassadors of your heart, that they would share that with the people around them, that it would bring life to them and joy to you, and open the eyes of people who haven’t seen it yet. In Jesus’ name we thank you, Father, thank you for this word. Amen.

So if any of you would like to receive prayer, please come forward. Amen.