To Everyone Who Has, More Shall Be Given

I want to start by asking you a question. If you had to gauge how many times in a day you think or say, that's not what I expected, or that's not what I thought was going to happen, or I didn't plan for that. Is this a thought you have daily? Okay. Undoubtedly it is. Is it a thought that you have more than once a day? Hourly? You have toddlers, right? You have toddlers, so, you know, every two or three minutes. Right. What's that, Di? You don't plan. Di doesn't plan. You don't plan. Dan plans. And then his plans get changed, you know. Very often it's the case that when we, well, another way of saying it is, I don't think there's much in our lives that we don't have expectations for.

All we have to do is hear an idea, see something, and we all of a sudden have expectations or hopes. We have a desire associated with whatever it is that we lay our eyes on or our hearts find. I want it to go like this. I want it to be like that. I want this to go away. I want it to change like this. It's just the breath of our life. It's just constant. It's just constant that we're forever looking and saying, well, it's going to be like this. It's going to be like that. And it's also constant that it doesn't go the way we want.

Because we wouldn't say, I didn't think it was going to go like that, or I was planning on it going differently, unless our expectations were not met. And so I want you to see from the very beginning of our text this morning, before we even jump into it, that you and I are full of expectations. You have a way something should go for everything. For everything. Some of us are more vocal about it. Some of us just kind of... You know, get real depressed. It doesn't go the way we want. We just hang our head and it's like, yeah, I suppose, yeah, you know, it's just the way it is. Some of us are more fiery and we say, no, that's not how it should be and I'm so sick of it going that way. I want it to be different. It shouldn't. And you're frustrated and you get angry. And there's other responses to this. But every one of us has expectations, just constantly. And they're not being met. And I want you to think for a minute, what are you tempted to do when you realize that the majority of your expectations for life go unmet?

You get frustrated. You get bitter. I quit. Are these foreign temptations to you? Or is this what you think? Now, then enters the tension, right? Because you go, I'm going to quit if it keeps going like this. But in your mind, you go, I can't quit. And so you live in this tension. I can't quit. I want to quit. But I know I shouldn't quit. And somewhere mixed in all of this is, Lord, where are you at? Where are you at in all of this? You start thinking, do I want the wrong thing? Am I crazy? Do I want the wrong thing? Am I just out in left field with my desires and my expectations? Am I nuts? Or not? Because if I'm not nuts, if I want the things that you say you'll provide, why am I always not getting what I think I should have? And these are the well-worn paths in the back of our mind with regard to our expectations. Now,

If you have expectations for your life regarding any part of it, your money, your health, your house, your job, your marriage, your kids, any of that, you have expectations for all of it. If you're wrong about those expectations, it's one thing. But this morning in our text, we're going to see that the disciples had a wrong expectation, but their expectation wasn't about that stuff primarily. Their wrong expectation was about what God's kingdom was going to be like. and what their part in it was going to be. They're with Jesus. He's been working his way up to Jerusalem. Next week, we're going to be studying his triumphal entry. So he's right on the doorstep of Jerusalem. And he's got all these crowds and all these people coming with him because they've seen the miracles. They've heard his teaching. They say, surely you're the son of God. You can do everything. And what do they expect to happen when he goes to Jerusalem? Well, they expect he's going to set up his kingdom. Those Romans, they're gone.

They're going to be out of here. No more of those Romans going to be in here occupying us and taxing us and telling us how we can live. You're going to kick them out. And I'm going to go with you because you're a man. And so as Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, he knows that that's what his people expect. And so he teaches them a parable to help correct their expectations. That's the lead up to our text. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word? From Luke chapter 18, verses 11 through 27. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. So he said, a nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return. And he called 10 of his slaves and gave them 10 minas and said to them, do business with this until I come back. But his citizens hated him.

and sent a delegation after him, saying, We do not want this man to rule over us. When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves to whom he had given the money be called to him so that he might know what business they had done. The first appeared, saying, Master, your mina has made ten minas more. And he said to him, Well done, good slave. Because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be an authority over ten cities. The second came, saying, Your mina, master, has made five minas. And he said to him also, And you are to be over five cities. Another came, saying, Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief. For I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man. You take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow. He said to him, By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man?

taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? Then why did you not put my money in the bank? And having come, I would have collected it with interest. Then he said to the bystanders, Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas. And they said to him, Master, he has ten minas already. I tell you that everyone who has, more shall be given. And from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine, who do not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to touch just briefly again on the people's expectations. Our text says that Jesus knew they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. And we understand that to mean that there was a military overthrow about to happen. You remember when they came to arrest Jesus, what did Peter do?

He whips out his sword and he lops off the ear of one of the guys. He's like, this is how we're going to win. We're going to fight. We're going to win. You can raise people from the dead. You can give the blind sight. You can heal the lame. You can do all this stuff. Surely you can overthrow the Romans. They think that Jesus is going to rise up and destroy them and deliver the people from their oppression. Now, it is true that Jesus is going to rise up and he is going to deliver his people from their oppression, but not at all in the way that these people anticipated.

Where they thought that the Romans were their oppressors, the Romans was the problem, they're wrong. It is true that the Romans were there. It is true that they were taxing them. It is true that they were an occupied state. But that wasn't what was oppressing them. Not really. What was oppressing them was their sin. The weight of their sin. And Jesus didn't come to free them from the Romans. He came to free them from their sin. And so he's not going to do that militarily. He's going to do that through his death. That's what he's entering into Jerusalem to do. To free his people from their oppression.

From their sin. He knows that what the people expect isn't anything like what's going to happen. So he tells them a parable. Now parables are an interesting thing. Because parables are stories. And if you read the parables of Jesus, some of them are very clear and easy to understand. And some of them are really veiled and hard to understand. Even to the extent that the disciples come to him and say, what was that all about? We didn't get it. We hang out with you. We're with you all the time. We didn't follow what you meant. And then Jesus will explain to them. The parable of the seeds, for instance. Well, the seed is the word of God and the soils are these types of people. They didn't get it. He said it, no one understood. Not even his disciples. And so parables have a range of understandability, comprehension. This parable, he tells, is not flat, like plain. It's not the lowest shelf easiest to understand, but it's not a very difficult one to understand.

And it's important that we bear in mind that he tells this parable to correct the people's expectation. That's why he tells it. So our point of reference has to always be the people expected that Jesus was going to walk into Jerusalem and God's kingdom was going to appear like that. That is why he says all of this. So every part of the parable has to do with that expectation. And so for us to understand the parable, we're going to have to basically walk down two paths together. We've got to walk down the path of the parable. Okay, who's the nobleman? Who are the subjects? What's the kingdom? What's the meaning? We've got to figure all that stuff out so that it makes sense to us. But we also have to go, every one of those things has to do with the people's expectation. And so what's the translation of the parable to the people's expectation? How does it inform it? What is he teaching them? Now, what is Jesus teaching them? Well, he's saying in a nutshell, if you wanted the one sentence summary of this parable, it's that,

the kingdom of God isn't going to be anything like what you expect. And you're not about to become princes and noblemen in this kingdom. You're workers in it. And you've got stuff to do right now. That's it. That's really the point of the parable. So let's go in and flesh that out a little bit. He starts off the parable saying, a nobleman went into a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then to return. So who's the nobleman? That's the first question. Who's the nobleman? Well, the nobleman is Jesus. He's the nobleman. And what distant country is he going into to receive? Where is this distant country and what is this kingdom? Well, the distant country is earth. It's this ball. He came from heaven to earth to establish his kingdom on earth. Scripture tells us all over the place that's what the Messiah was going to do. He's going to come. He's going to establish his kingdom. He's going to save his people from his sins.

Jesus is the nobleman coming to the far country, far away here to receive a kingdom. And then it says that he's going to return later. And we're going to come to that in a minute. But before we move on, I want us to remember that last week, just a verse before this, nobleman coming into the far country, Jesus is talking about his work. And he says that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And that's how he... establishes his kingdom, that's how he grows his kingdom. He came to earth to seek and to save that which was lost. That's his work. That's what he's doing. And this kingdom that he receives is not given to him. He purchases it. Now, if a nobleman says, I want, if you had all kinds of money and you said, you know what I want? I want a big old piece of property. What do you have to do? Yeah, go buy it, right? Yeah, go buy it.

Occasionally, rarely, you'll receive that as a gift. But most of the time, if you want something, you can't go pay for it. So that holds true here. Jesus has a kingdom in a far off country that he's going to go and he's going to receive and he's going to have to buy it. So what's the currency that he buys it with? Do you buy it with money? No, he doesn't buy it with money. Remember, he's going into Jerusalem. The kingdom's about to get set up. He's talking about a kingdom and he says, I'm about to show you what it's going to take to buy this kingdom that's going to be mine. I'm going to die. He's going to buy it with his blood. And once the kingdom has been purchased, the nobleman will come back at a later time to finalize the transaction. Can you go back a slide? Thank you. See, at this very end, it says that the nobleman went to the country to receive a kingdom for himself, and it says, and then return. And what that means is he's going to come once.

He's going to receive the kingdom. He's going to set up the kingdom. He's going to go away and then he's going to return. And it's important that we realize that that's what this means because in that interim between when he comes to establish his kingdom and when he comes to dwell in his kingdom, he gives the slaves of his kingdom work to do. And that's the time that we live in. And that's the time that the people who are going up to Jerusalem with, that was time they were about to start living in. And so they needed to know what they needed to do in that time.

They weren't just going to walk into heaven. They were going to have work to do. This is what the kingdom of God being established on earth meant for his people. They have work to do. And so he goes on through and explains the work. But before we get to the work, there's this little aside. He calls his slaves, he gives them money, and he says, do business until I come back. And then it says, but his citizens hated him. And they sent a delegation after him saying, we don't want you to rule over us. And so we need to pay attention to the subjects of this kingdom, what they're like. There's different types of people in this kingdom. And some of them aren't going to make it in the kingdom. Some of them are. So we realize from the very beginning, when he establishes his kingdom, there are people that he is now lord over who reject it. And they say, uh-uh. Now, who's he talking about in his time? Well, he's talking about the Jews. He's coming into Jerusalem and

What's his reputation like in Jerusalem? Well, it depends on who you're talking about. With the people, they hang on every word he has to say. But the religious leaders, they want to kill him. They don't want anything to do with Jesus. Now, if you were walking up to Jerusalem and you were expecting Jesus to set up shop, what do you think is going to happen with the Jews? Well, you have to presume that they're just going to turn on a dime and all of a sudden go, you're the Messiah. You're the one. We love you. And he says, no. When I set up my kingdom, there's going to be people who say, we don't want you to rule over us. That was the case with the Jews then. That's the case with the Jews still today. And it'll still be the case with some of them when he returns. They will not want him to be lord over them. And it's not going to end well for them. They don't have some other path to heaven. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if they don't accept him, they aren't going to go where he is. So that's who was in view.

in this time? Who's in view now? Well, us. We're the religious people of the day. Are there people in church, are there people who call themselves Christians that have no interest in Jesus ruling over them? Yes, there are. Every one of us has that temptation, at least in our own hearts. I was just in the membership class teaching about pastors and elders and what our work is, and I said, you know, our work is to take care of your soul. And it's a glorious work. It's the most rewarding part of the job. It's difficult and it comes with its liabilities, though. Because, you know, whenever we get told to do something, every one of us, you know, it's like, wait, who do you think you are to tell me what to do? It's just in all of us. It's in our kids. It's in us. None of us are like, oh, thank you so much. I knew I was being foolish. Thank you. Maybe we come to that point. Hopefully we come to that point.

But initially, if, you know, there was this joke earlier on in the church, and it was about the walk, right? Luis, remember the walk? Yeah. You know, the pastors come and say, hey, man, you know, we didn't have a building. We meet, you know, one small group is like, hey, Luis, hey, can we go for a walk? And it's like, that was the thing. And it was like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. He's going to tell me something that I don't want to hear. He's going to be all in my business. And, right? Luis went on a lot of walks. And now he's a deacon. Because he listened. But did you always like what had to be said to you? Did you like what's said? It's easy for you now though, right? Now when someone comes to you and say, you're being selfish and lazy, you're like, oh, you're right. That's just how you respond, right? So are you like Luis? Are you like me? Are you some other sort of thing? There's people that are a part of God's kingdom in this interim time who aren't going to be a part of it when he returns. And that's a warning to us.

That's a warning to us. It's not something we go, oh, yeah, I know, but that's okay. I'm going to be one of those good people. I was in a conversation with a guy this last week, and we were just talking. There was a group of us around, and he says, well, I think I'm going to go to heaven. I'm a pretty good guy. And I looked at him, and I said, bud, what makes you think you have any idea what it takes to get into heaven? Well, I just feel like it. And I said, sir, I'll just say sir because you don't need to know his name. I said, How often do you go to church? I pray every day. I said, I didn't ask you if you prayed every day. I asked, do you go to church? And he said, I pray every day. And I, you know, I have a relationship with Lord. And I said, bud, you need to consider whether you're right or wrong. You don't answer to me. It's not about me. But if you're wrong, if you're feeling about your relationship with Jesus is wrong, the consequences are final and they're terrible. He smiled and he laughed and he left.

He was on his way out. We're talking. And I've had conversations with him before. It was four or five of us around. I don't know that any of them are Christians. And here we are talking. And, you know, a pebble in the shoe. What makes you think you know? Do you do the works of your father or do you not? The answer is you do. So who's your father? Is God your father or is Satan your father? That's the stuff that I'm going to get to with that guy. That's my goal, my desire with him. That's my goal and that's my desire with you. That's the goal and desire with me. Because there are people in this interim time between when Jesus came and died and when Jesus will return who are members of the kingdom. But when he comes and he reckons with them, they're going to be cast out. And it's not my desire that that would be true of me or any of you. And so we need to be careful not to just dismiss that danger. So before the nobleman left his new kingdom, after he has established it,

He gives some money to the slaves and he tells them to do business until he returns. And when he returns to his kingdom, he calls the slaves to him and there's a judgment to see what business they had done while he was away. And before we get into the results of their business, you know, I took your mina and it got 10 and I took your mina and it got five and I took your mina and here it is. I want you to think for a minute, what were they supposed to do with this money? Now, a mina in terms of like, well, how much money were they given? Because there's a lot of parallels between this account of the ten minas and the parable of the talents. Now, a talent is a really large sum of money. Tons and tons of money. A mina is a very small amount of money. Somewhere between, you know, modern day translation, somewhere between $20 and about $17,000. Okay? And some of you might be like, well, $17,000 is a lot of money. And I say, well, it depends on what you're supposed to do with it.

$17,000 is a lot of money if you can do whatever you want with it. $17,000 isn't much of anything if you're supposed to do business with it. Here's seed money. You want to start a business? Here's $17,000. Go ahead and start your business. You start a business with $17,000? You can, but boy, you better be, you don't have much margin for error because that's not much money, right? But the master nobleman tells the slaves, go and do business with it, trade with it. So what were they supposed to do? He's come, he's established his kingdom, he's leave. He's going to come back in a little while. What are they supposed to do with that money? Well, they're supposed to set up his kingdom. They're supposed to establish it. You know, if you were starting a business and someone gave you seed money, they're giving you the money to do business with, to do transactions, to grow the business. That's what the nobleman is telling the slaves to do when he says, go do business. Grow my kingdom. You are my subjects. You are my slaves. This is my money. This is my kingdom. I'm going away.

grow it while I'm gone and I'm going to come back. So they're supposed to take that money and they're supposed to grow his kingdom. Think of it like a house. I remember a really helpful way of thinking about maintaining a house was when I talked with Jamie. I don't, where are you? You're over there. Last year, we did some work at Jamie's house and he said, you know, my parents just taught me growing up that you basically take one house payment a year and just assume that that's going to, you're going to spend that much, at least that much in maintenance on your house. Whatever your house payment is, Just figure one more of those and you're going to spend that just to maintain it. And what happens if you don't do that? Well, because it will become very expensive because the house is going to deteriorate. Things are going to break. Things are going to wear out. Things are going to get torn up. And so if you're not proactively putting energy and effort into growing it, maintaining it, it's not going to stay just how it is. It's going to break down. It's going to become less valuable.

And so the slaves weren't given money and he says, here, just hold on to this until I get back. When I come back, we'll start this work of growing my kingdom. He says, no, here's this money. When I come back, I want to come back to something more than I left. That's what you're given this money to do. So then the slaves, you know, the master returns. The slaves come in and they report on their business. The first two slaves come in and they say, master, your mina has turned into 10 more minas. Your minas turned into five more minas. And his response is favorable toward them. Well done. You've been faithful with a very little thing. I'm going to put you in charge of a lot. You get 10 cities. Now, it is interesting to note that what would be the title you would give to someone who was in charge of 10 cities? What do you think? King? Nobleman? Prince? What? Reverend? Governor? Yeah. Slave? He's no longer a slave.

He's no longer a slave. You realize that he's, through his faithfulness, through these men's faithfulness, they were given money as slaves. They were faithful with a little. And when the Lord returned, when the noblemen came back and reckoned with them, they became noblemen. Their station changed. So what are you supposed to learn from that? Well, the one thing that you learn is that if you'll trade and if you'll do business and you'll be faithful, you will find increase. And it'll be different from different people. Who worked harder, the one who came back with 10 or the one who came back with five? Well, you don't know which one worked harder. I don't know. Maybe you know. I don't know, Sarah. I don't know for sure. I want to think that the one who came back with 10 worked harder because, you know, you reap what you sow. And there's some wisdom in that. But in the parable of the talents, they were given different amounts of talents, right? One was given five, one was given two, one was given one. What did the one with five come back with? He came back with five more. He doubled it. What did the one with two come back with?

Well, he came back with two. He doubled it. So which one of them worked harder? Well, we don't know. The principle is not, what am I going to get? If I do this work, what am I going to get in return? That's not the point. It's not the point. That's a reductionistic, minimalistic way of living life. What is the bare minimum I have to do to get what I'm willing to have, what I want? What's the lowest bar I have to get over? And people who live that way don't find increase in their lives. They don't grow in faith. They don't grow in wealth. They don't grow in joy. They don't grow in children. They just don't grow. They just, well, I'm going to maintain. I just want to maintain. I just want to hold on to it as long as I can. And then hopefully, you know, by the time I'm dead, it'll be okay. Well, what's left when you're gone? Nothing. There's no way to live, especially not for a Christian. So these two slaves come back. We've multiplied your wealth. And the result of it is they've become like their master.

They sought faithfulness and their master rewarded it greatly. 2 Timothy 2, 11 and 12 says, it's a trustworthy statement for if we died with him, we will also live with him. And if we endure, we also will reign with him. And who is that spoken to? Well, it's spoken to a young pastor man during a time of persecution. He says, if you persevere and you follow in my way and you do what God says, if you die with him, you'll reign with him. So persevere. If you don't persevere, you won't. That verse goes on to say, if we deny him, He'll deny us. If we're, if we're faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. And so there is a, there is a, a ironclad rule for Christians to understand that we get out of Christianity, out of faith, what we put into it. You put nothing into it, you are going to get nothing out of it. The other slave who came, he didn't put anything into it, did he? Came with, he said, got given a mina. I got my mina. Okay.

Do the work with it. Just like all the rest of them were supposed to do their work with it. He didn't do anything with it. Now it is interesting. He didn't spend it. He could do that, right? He could say, I don't have anything of yours. I thought you were a jerk and greedy and stuff. And so I thought the right thing to do would be to spend your money on me. But you realize how that would be wrong. So he didn't do that. He said, you gave me some money. Here's your money back. Just like you gave it to me. Now, if I gave you a box, with a $100 bill in it. It's a note on top of it that says, this money, the contents of this box are for your great, great, great, great grandchildren. Not for you, for them. Your job is just to pass it down to them, generation to generation to generation, just pass it on down. When we get to that grandchild and it's their box to open up, they open it up. $100 bill in there. What's it worth compared to when it was put in the box?

Yeah, it's not worth anything. This is the nature of money. If you have any interest in it or any money to invest, you know that if you just hide money away, it loses value because of inflation. If you have a job, you know what a cost of living adjustment is, a COLA raise. It means they say, this is how much we anticipate inflation being this year. You're going to get, this is the bare minimum we can give you as a raise so that you will be able to maintain the same standard of living that you had previously. And so if you were to work a job at this salary and your salary stayed the same, presuming it's not exorbitantly high, it's reasonable, and it stayed the same for five years, you would realize that your money each year becomes less valuable. It buys less, right? And the reason is because of inflation. Now, what you see this slave doing is exactly this thing. I'm giving back to you what you gave to me, but it's not true. It's not true that he's giving back what was given to him. And yet he doesn't just say, here's your money back to you. He gives something approximating a reason, a justification, an excuse for his behavior. He says, I was afraid of you because you're an exacting man. You take up what you did not lay down, reap what you did not sow.

Think for a minute. If you're afraid of somebody, what do you do when they tell you to do something? You do it. And you do it because you're afraid of them. Right? So he says, and I think in our minds, we want to carve out this place that says, no, I was so afraid. I was paralyzed with fear. And it wasn't my fault. I'm the victim here. No. No. No. You don't get to be the victim here and say, I couldn't be faithful because. Let's presume he was afraid. Do you think he was the only slave that was afraid? Do you think the other slaves might have been afraid? Do you think it might have had something to do with why they turned his one mina into ten or his one mina into five? Do you think fear had anything to do with it? If he was telling the truth, I was afraid. Then we can presume the rest of them were and that they did the right thing with fear. They remembered and they were faithful. You remember what Moses said just in our scripture lesson this morning to the Israelites when they're terrified and they say,

He's going to kill us if we talk to us. You talk to us. He says, don't be afraid. Not because there's nothing to fear. He's done this as a test. Why? So that you will remember and not go into sin. Let's say the slave was afraid. He didn't remember his fear, not in any helpful way, because he didn't act on it. What do wise people who have money do with money who are really, really scared? Remember I said they're wise. They're not stupid. But people who are incredibly conservative, very low risk tolerance, but they have money. What do they do? They bury it in the coffee can in the back, right? No, that's not what they do. That's what a fool does. What they do is buy savings bonds that earn like a percent. It doesn't even keep up with inflation. But even they have the knowledge that I got to get some growth out of this money. I got to do something because I'm afraid.

that I won't have enough when I need it. Only a fool would bury it in the backyard. And yet that's effectively what this slave does. And so the king calls the slave to account according to his own words. He says, by your own words, I will judge you. Did you know that I'm an exacting man taking up what I did not lay down, reaping what I did not sow? Effectively what he's saying is, if what you said about me was exactly true, exactly true, that I was a greedy, lazy man, who used my power and my wealth to oppress other people for my gain, even if that's what's true of me, and you knew that to be true of me, why didn't you put my money in the bank? If you knew there was going to be a day of reckoning, a day when I was going to come and expect you to have worked for me, why didn't you act in accordance with that knowledge? And by this question, the king, the nobleman, exposes the slave's true thoughts, which were, as I said, that the king was a greedy and lazy man.

that he didn't want to work for. Effectively, he said, I don't want to be your subject and I don't want to have you rule over me. You remember at the beginning, there was a delegation that sent after the king and said, we don't want you to be king over us. This slave was one of them. He's given as the example in the parable of the one who doesn't want the king to rule over him. He's not faithful with what he's given. He was unfaithful with the little he'd been given, which is worth noting was no less than what anyone else was given. He wasn't at a disadvantage. You might feel like they were, you know, in the parable of the talents, that the one that was given just one talent was disadvantaged. But here they're all given the same amount. He was not disadvantaged. He didn't start the race back, you know, yet he was unfaithful. And you have to hear what the king says to him when he comes back. He does not say, you meant well. He does not say to him, I understand you were afraid. Try again.

He doesn't say, well, yeah, I can be a jerk sometimes. Doesn't say any of that. What's he say to him? Well, he doesn't say it to him. What's he say? Take what he has away from him. Take it away from him. Which is kind of a monstrous thing if you think about it for an authority to do. How many times in our lives have we gone to people that we've been unfaithful with? Whatever responsibility we have to them. And we just presume that they will forever in a day give us another chance. Do we presume upon grace? Do we presume upon mercy such that it becomes the justification for doing whatever it is that we feel like doing? Don't forgive me. It'll be okay. I'll get over it. Have you ever ran into a circumstance like this where you went in and they said, enough, no more, you're done. You're done. It's like cold water in the face. You're like, okay.

Judgment. Judgment just happened. There's no second chance. There was no coming alongside. There was no like, we're Christians here. It was like, we're done. You're done. There's the door. And if you're like me, you think if that ever happens, ever happens, you think they're not acting like they should. And I say, maybe they're not. They're sinners. Maybe they are being inappropriate. But the fact is, there's going to come a day when you're going to stand before a judge and that's exactly how he's going to treat you. He's either going to say, you've done what I expected you to do. Here's your blessing. Or you have not done what I expected you to do. Get out. And there's not going to be anything to say in response. You hear people talk about, when I get to see God, I'm going to say this and I'm going to say that. And I think, you fool. You may be a lot of things, but you are for certain one thing. You are a fool. Because when you see God, you aren't going to have a thing to say. Not a thing to say.

The Israelites at the mountain said, we're going to die if he speaks to us. In Revelation, it says, when he comes, the people are going to cry out for rocks and hills to fall down on top of him. If they could, they want to crawl underneath a mountain to get away from God. And Jonah says, even when I was in the depths, I was known to you, you could see me. There's no getting away from it. There's a judgment to come. And those who've been unfaithful with what they've been given, will face the consequence of their unfaithfulness. And it's important that we bear that in mind. It's not something that, it's not a pleasant thought, not to me, not to you. Who wants to think that there's going to come a day when what I think and all of the lies and machinations and all the stuff that goes on in my head isn't going to count for anything because the judge of heaven and earth is going to be standing in front of me. And what am I going to say? What am I going to say?

There's not going to be a thing to say. You ever been in a conversation just in your life where you got so scared and so intimidated, cat got your tongue? Got nothing to say. All of a sudden you got scared. No more words. You thought you had things to say, but then you didn't have anything to say when there was time. I've been in those kinds of situations. You feel like a deer in headlights, cat got your tongue. You know, we've got these sayings that are little tiny pictures into what it will be like when we stand before God. You won't have anything to say.

It'll be too late to say anything and it'll be too late to do anything, but now it's not too late. And so when you think of these things and you think of judgment and you think of faithfulness and you think, oh, woe is me, don't quit. The bridge is burning behind you. If you tell yourself a lie long enough, you'll start to think it's true, but it doesn't make it true. It just means you're wrong. And so the people who live in this nobleman's country can only be one of two ways. They can be faithful. Or they can be unfaithful. And you have to push yourself to the point of saying, am I faithful or am I unfaithful? Not like I want to be faithful. Not like I try to be faithful. Not like I will be faithful. Not I hope you'll make me faithful. Are you faithful with the little things that you have now? Or are you not? And some of us are like, well, no. I hate that question because the answer has to be no, I'm not faithful.

I haven't been faithful. I haven't done what I should do. So what? Despair? This is the stuff that goes on in our heads. So what? I've tried to be faithful. I've prayed. I've asked. I've tried. I've held my tongue. I've said these things. I've not said those things. I've done these. I've tried to be faithful. Ask yourself this question. Are you willing to wait until you stand before Jesus to receive your reward for that faithfulness? That's the diagnostic question. Are you willing to wait for your reward. If you're not willing to wait for your reward, then you're probably wrong in calling it faithfulness. But if you're willing to be faithful, to seek faithfulness, to pursue it all the days of your life until you stand before Jesus, then you call that faithfulness. And it won't be because there's not unfaithfulness mixed in there with it. Inevitably, there will be. Are you willing to wait for your reward? These slaves worked and worked and worked. That's how they got from one to ten or one to five. They were faithful.

Now, if you've ever invested money, is it always just straight on up? If you invest, it's always just straight on up. Never failures, never dips. What's the trajectory? Are you faithful? Do you believe there's a reward for your faithfulness? And are you willing to wait for it? Will you pursue it to the end of your life if that's when you'll finally receive it? Will you pursue it that long? Or are your expectations of God's kingdom completely out of line with that? Jesus is going to show up. And he's going to fix my life. All my struggles, my temptations, and my sins, and all that is just going to be gone. Or at least I'm waiting until it's gone. Is that what you expect the kingdom of heaven to be like in this interim time? Do you expect that my sin will go away when it decides it's going to go away? I want you to know that that's an inappropriate expectation for what being a Christian is like.

You could describe the crowds. They didn't understand what the kingdom of God was going to be like. You could use different words and say, they didn't know what it meant to be a Christian. They didn't know. They didn't know it was going to be hard. They didn't know it was going to be difficult. They didn't know they were going to be traitors instead of princes on this earth. They had some other thing. Oh, I thought Christians had some other good thing going for them. That they somehow, God doesn't let difficulties come into the lives of his people. He doesn't. Look at your own life if you're a Christian. Look at scripture. Very difficult things come into the lives of Christians. And it's no indication of God's unfaithfulness to them. So are you faithful? He ends by saying, when the king comes back into the land and he takes away the mina from the one slave and gives it to the one who has 10 and the people are outraged. Master, he has 10 already.

unfair. It's so inappropriate. But God's not about fair. God's about faithful. The one with 10 was faithful. So he gets more. And the one who had one and was unfaithful gets it taken away. If you had $10 that you could give to 10 people and one of them came back and said, here, I made $10 with your dollar. And another one came back and said, here's your dollar. What would you do with that dollar? I'm going to give it to the guy who went and made $10 because he's got a clue. I'm not going to let you keep it. He says, these enemies of mine who do not want me to reign over them. And it's worth noting, how is it that they indicate they don't want him to reign over them? Well, they're unfaithful. They're unfaithful. They don't want to do what he says. These enemies of mine who do not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence. It's often the case that those who are unhappy don't think their situation can get worse. And they're wrong. It can't get worse than this. Well, yeah, it can.

You imagine if you were Job and all of your wealth and your family, save your wife, wiped out. Could it possibly get worse? Who? Well, we say, yeah, we know because we know it gets worse. But if you had lost all of your wealth, all of your family, except for a wife who was a temptation to you, it's like her purpose. Could it get worse? No, it couldn't possibly get worse. And yet it did get worse for him. Satan comes back to God and says, Let me afflict his body then. There's something I haven't touched yet. Let me afflict his body. It can get worse. Could it have gotten worse for Job beyond the loss of his family, the loss of his wealth, and the boils? Could it have gotten worse for Job? No, it couldn't possibly have gotten worse. What else do you have to lose? Your soul. What would have happened to Job at the end of the book when the Lord shows up and he takes Job to task?

And Job doesn't fall all over himself saying, I am a complete and utter fool. And I have no business speaking in your presence. He could have said, you took everything away from me. What'd you want me to do? And it would have gotten worse for him. And so those who are unhappy, when you're unhappy in your life, your expectations haven't been met, and you don't think the situation or the circumstance can get worse, see in this text that it can. And I don't say that to you because I'm trying to grind you into the ground and say, you miserable, awful people don't deserve anything except the most awful, hardest lives possible. That's not what I think. That's not what I want for you. It's hard for me when I see you guys suffer. It's encouraging to me when I see you suffer by faith. But I wouldn't ask the burdens that you bear onto you. And some of the things you guys deal with, I don't know how you deal with them. But I trust God that if you're faithful, you won't be sorry. Not at the end.

You won't be the one who says, is among the number that are slayed in his presence. You'll be among the number that they said, well done. You've been faithful with a little. That little came with a lot of adversity and yet you were faithful. Enter into the joy of your master here. That's what I want to see for you. That's what I want to see for me. And so you have to be faithful. You can only go forward from where the Lord has you. You can't go back. Past is over and it's done. And if God makes a point when he forgives us of our sins, removing the guilt of them, as far as the East is from the West, and he doesn't remember them anymore, then here's a thought. You shouldn't either. The past pains and the past difficulties and the past hardships that you've faced in your own life, and there it lays. Why, God? If he's forgiven, and he's cleansed, and he's healed through what his son is about to go do in Jerusalem, then you're not to hold on to it any more than he does. It happened.

It was awful. And it's over. Praise God that it's over. Move on. Go forward. You can't go back. Life is like, it's like a turnpike. You know, you ever drive on a turnpike? There's no U-turn. You can't turn around. You know, it's just one way. And you go, I missed my turn. Well, you gotta find, you know, there's no just, oh, well, I'll just back up and... There's none of that. Life is one way. You can't go back and live the past again. You can learn from it. And you should. But you can't go back and fix the past. God can redeem it. He can heal it. He can save you from doing it again. But the fact is, the past doesn't need to be changed. Because we press on and we look up to Jesus and to what we will be and where we will be. And we look forward to that. And we leave behind the things behind. So what are you going to do with all the hurts and the past and the bitterness and all that stuff? You leave it behind. But that doesn't seem Christian. Well, it is. What else are you going to do with it?

Quit being a Christian because you can't get over it? Would that be better? No, you move forward. Destruction is the path of going back. And so go forward in faith. Repent where you fail and go forward. Trust God and he will reward you. Let's pray.