Money | Matthew 25:14-30

Good, good. Let's go. Let's go. Let's get to work. Get your Bibles out. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 25. Matthew 25, we're going to pick it up in verse 14. We'll take it through verse 30. If you've got your journals with you today, your keyword again. I know you're pumped about this. Again is money. I know y'all we're hoping. I hope we talk about money again next week because he just wasn't forceful enough last week. So you're in luck. We're talking about money again today. Now for my money, the best baseball player that I ever saw play was a man named Ken Griffey Jr., many of you will remember him. I was in college in Cincinnati when he came to the Cincinnati Reds in the year 2000, me and my buddy, Andy, my roommate, Andy, and a bunch of our other buddies, we skipped some class. In fact, I skipped a test that day, and ironically enough, I went to Bible College, the gospel of Matthew, which is what I'm preaching out of today. So if it goes bad today, it's because I skipped that class. You know what I mean? I've read it, I promise. And so we skipped class, we went to see Ken Griffey Jr. play. And fortunately, my Bible College professor, he was a big baseball fan. So he was like, bro, if I could have been there, I'd have been there. You're fine. Take the test later today. And the reason we all wanted to go see him play was because he was a generational talent. He was what we call a five-tool player. This dude, he could run, he could throw, he could steal bases, he could catch, he could hit for average,

he could hit for power, he could do it all. And on top of that, he had the out-of-benefit of genetics. His dad played in the major leagues for like over 20 years. So he literally had it all. But here's the question. There's a lot of five-tool players out there that you've never heard of. So what's the distinction between the five-tool player that you have heard of, Ken Griffey Jr. And those who you have not heard of. And that's really the truth that we're gonna be chasing after today, which goes like this. How much you're given, man, that's up to God. What you do with it? Yeah, that one's up to you. Like how much he decides to entrust me with and entrust you with, that's his sovereign decision. That's what he's gonna do. But what we do with it once he's entrusted it to us, man, that's something we got a lot of influence over. And so Matthew chapter 25, Jesus is teaching and this is what he says. He says, "For it will be like a man going on a journey "who called his servants and entrusted to them, "notice his property." Now, the first question we should be asking is, "Hey, what's the it?" It's like, what is he comparing a man going on a long journey to? What is the it? One of the mega themes, probably the mega theme

in the book of Matthew is what Jesus consistently referred to as the kingdom of heaven. And other gospels, it's called the kingdom of God. It's an interchangeable phrase, but it simply means the way things operate under God's rained rule and blessing is his operating system both now and not yet. In other words, it is now, but it is growing and it is expanding. You also have the same thing in your home. You have a way things work in your home. And when someone comes into your home, they're kind of expected to kind of figure out the way things work in your home under your brain and under your rule. The second thing I want you to notice is this word, entrusted. He entrusted his property to them. He handed it over to them to be stewards of something that belongs to him. And it's his property. Now, from our frame of reference, we're thinking like, oh yeah, I've had people house it before. But let's be honest, when you have someone house it, it's a very low bar of expectation, isn't it? It's like, don't burn it down. Make sure the pets don't starve. And as long as it's relatively in the same condition is what I left it to you in, then I'll square up with you and I'll pay you the money that I owe you. That's our frame of reference.

We're gonna find out it's a drastically different frame of reference here. Like when you have a house sitter, you don't think, well, I hope that they put an addition onto the home. I hope that they put a new roof on and they increase the value of my home while I'm gone for two weeks. That's not what you're thinking. But there is a dynamic at play like that in this story that Jesus is gonna tell. He says to one, I want you to notice the discrepancy, he gave five talents to another two and to another one, to each according to his ability and then he rolls out. He goes away. And what I want you to notice is that Jesus is intentionally trying to provoke a response out of me and you that goes all the way back to like our most childish days, okay? Let me give you an example. How many of you are parents? Raise your hands high, okay? Keep them up if you had to teach your child to say the word no. Anybody? You had to teach your child to say the word no, okay? They just kind of come up with that one on their own, don't they? That just naturally comes out of them. There's a phrase that you don't also, you don't teach your children.

If you go to the four-year-old room across any of our campuses today, you'll hear this phrase whenever we perceive an inequity, the child will declare that's not, give me the word, fair. That's not fair. Jesus is trying to provoke because we like to believe that we value fairness and equity above everything else, and he's trying to get us in our most childish sense to be provoked to go, well, that's not fair. How come one gets five, one gets two, and one gets one? Again, we like to believe that we value these things, and we want God to do the same thing, but what God seems to be doing is exercising something called wisdom based on his evaluation of who's gonna be faithful with what he's going to entrust to them, and so he gives different things to different people, different levels, and we don't like that, because we like to live under the illusion that we value fairness and equity, but you don't value fairness and equity, not with what's most important, do you? I mean, they just started school back at UK and all the other campuses. Did you decide to go shopping for a money manager from the freshman econ majors and go here. I think it would only be fair to give you a chance with all of my money. Why don't you go manage it? No, you didn't do that because you're wise.

You have a higher bar than fairness and equity. If you got multiple kids like me, I got adult children and I got children, they're still in the home. Guess who gets to like house sit and watch the other children, the older ones who are adults, the 13 year old can decry all day long. Well, that's not fair. I wanna be in charge while you and mom go on vacation. Not gonna happen because I can see his abilities and they haven't risen to the level of being able to not burn down the house. Like we're not gonna do that. If you're a coach and you have a competitive team, your highest value is not. Despite the cries of all the parents who like to text you, fairness and equity. You have a higher value called winning and so you entrust to the players, the ones that can actually win because you exercise wisdom with what's most important to you. See, we like to live under a lie and an illusion. And a lie and the illusion is simply this. God, if you would give me more, then I would be more obedient than I currently am with what I currently have. And that's not true. You and I would do the same thing with more that we're currently doing with what we have. And so we have this wise master who has these servants. He entrusts them with his property

and the property is referred to. This is interesting as a talent. Now, we hear talents and we think talent. We think like natural God given abilities and talents. Jesus's listeners would have heard money because talent was money in his day. It was actually a unit of weight, a measurement of weight. So it was a gold or silver or maybe even copper. So if he's talking gold, this is what, this is the amount of wages that five talents would have been the equivalent of. 20 years worth of wages. This is a massive responsibility. Two talents, still a very big responsibility. One talent, still nothing to bat an eye at. And so that's what's happening in this moment. And he says, he who had received the five talents, notice this, man, he went at once. And he traded with them and he made five talents more. He doubled it. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. He does the exact same thing. But he who had received the one talent, what he do, he went and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. And what I want you to notice is the urgency of the five talent guy. He doesn't wait around. He doesn't buy his time. He no analysis by paralysis by analysis.

He just goes and leverages what's been entrusted to him immediately. And I think that speaks to the wisdom of the master. He's like, I knew he would do that. I knew that he's the one with the most courage. I knew that he was the one who was willing to take the most risks. I knew he's the one who would be the most disciplined and diligent. So I gave him the most. But man, the two talent guy does the same thing. And he does so without protesting. Did you notice? He doesn't yell, hey, that's not fair. How come he got five? And I got two, no, he just, same urgency. Gets to work, goes and doubles his master's money. That's what he does. But we also got this one talent dude who for some reason, he picks a different path. So we have two different strategies being employed here. And Jesus is using those as an example. And we're about to find out which one works under the rule and reign of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Here we go. Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more. Saying master, you delivered to me five talents here.

I have made five talents more. Notice the word bringing. We talked about it last week. He doesn't give to his master. He brings back to his master. He brings back to his master knowing that he had been entrusted with something that ultimately belongs to him. And he leveraged it for everything that he could. here's what I've done. So let's see what the master says in response. His master said to him, this is what we all want to hear. Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. Those are the words we want to hear. I think that every one of us is, I mean, I know there's the five love languages. I think we all are wired to want to receive words of affirmation. The problem is, we go trying to get those words of affirmation from all the wrong places and all the wrong people. And ultimately, we got to keep our eyes set on Jesus going, what I do next, I want to be in line with something that would cause Jesus to go well done, good and faithful servant, and then do it again, and then do it again. Do the next right thing so that you can, at the end of your life, be able to go, man, I didn't do it perfectly, but I did the best I can to just leave it all on the field

so that one day Jesus will look at me and go well done, good and faithful servant. And faithful with what, a little? He calls it a little, that's crazy. This is 20 years worth of wages, and this master calls it a little, listen to me. Can you fathom how high, how wide, how deep are the resources of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Here's the answer, no, you and I have no ability to comprehend His preeminence. We have no ability to comprehend His resources. The Bible teaches, He owns a, He has the cattle on a thousand hills, man, it all belongs to Him. In other words, this is so important for us to understand. Do you understand that God is in heaven and He is not in awe of Elon Musk? He's not impressed by Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. He ain't looking for stacks of cash. What's he looking for? He's looking for faithfulness, and he's looking for sacrifice. That's what he's looking for. In fact, let's take a, let's take a little detour in the Bible, this is an easy one to get to from Matthew. You just flip over to Luke chapter 21. Luke chapter 21, and Jesus is in the temple, and He's doing something He did really, really well. He's ranting and raving about religious people. This should give us pause, right? 'Cause here we are, I mean, we're at church. We're doing the thing, we got our Bibles in our labs.

And He's saying, "Man, look at all these religious students "and all their pretense. "They pray these big old lofty prayers. "They make a big deal out of it when they pray. "They make a big deal out of it when they give." But the problem is they devour widows' houses. They abuse the most marginalized and the vulnerable. And then right on cue, check this out. As Jesus is in the temple saying all that, Jesus looked up and He saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box. And then He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And He said, "Truly, I tell you, "this poor widow has put in more than all of them." How can that be? For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on. If all you got is two pennies rubbed together, it's hard to part ways with it. What she did was sacrificial. Meanwhile, Jesus sees the contrast. Everybody else is noticing the rich putting their offerings in these metal containers and these stone jars with coin money, just emptying out bags of money. And it's so loud, everybody sees them. And that's exactly what they want. They want everyone's attention. But notice who gets the attention of Jesus.

This widow who walks up and just tink, tink, drops in all she has to live on. And Jesus says she gave more because what she gave actually cost her something. Y'all have gotten to know my friend and brother, Carl Kool, because he's such a phenomenal preacher. Every time he preaches here, he does a great job. But what you don't know about him is he's an equally good, if not even better, coach of preachers. And one of the things that he will say to any preacher who's willing to say, "Hey man, coach me up." He'll say, "He'll look at him after hearing a sermon and he'll go, 'Great job, bleed more, bleed more.'" People need to see that this costs you something. Were you vulnerable? Did you share something you struggle with? Did you say the hard thing that you know will make people not like you, knowing that it would cost you something. Preaching should cost you something. And I assure you this costs a lot, but I also assure you it's worth it because of what we talked about last week, which is that Jesus is preeminent. He's first. He went first. He's best and he's done what is best. He moved towards us and the immeasurable riches

of his grace or what we get to live under. And when we keep all of that in clear focus, we can joyfully and sacrificially serve him like that poor widow did. Now, back to our parable. Let's see how this pans out. Saying, master, you delivered me two talents. Here I made two talents more. And what I want you to notice is the master says the same thing. Well done. Good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. In my opinion, the two talent guy doesn't get enough press. Like if you were to-- like you know, those of you who know me, I am a huge Kentucky Wildcats basketball fan because I'm a Christian. That's the way that works, all right? Amen. And if I were to say, hey, guess my favorite Kentucky basketball player of all time, I bet I could give you 20 guesses, and you still wouldn't guess my favorite basketball player of all time. Put on that uniform. His name's Anthony Epps. See, some of you guys will remember 1996. Yes, we hung a banner, and we had a team full. In fact, we had a JV team and a varsity team that year, both full of five talent, future NBA dudes.

And I'm telling you this, we don't hang a banner without Anthony Epps, who Rick Petino tried to run off because he didn't think he was good enough. And he just said, I will show you. And he wrung himself out on behalf of Big Blue Nation, and we hung a banner because a two-talent dude said, I'm going to give you everything I got. He didn't waste time wondering why he didn't get five talents, like Antoine Walker or anybody else on that team. He just did with what he was entrusted with the best that he could. Two-talent people in the kingdom of heaven can make a massive difference. But what about the one-talent dude? He also, who had received the one-talent, came forward saying, master, notice his perception. I knew you to be a hard man, briefing where you didn't sow, gathering where you scattered, no seed. So I was afraid. And I went and hid your talent in the ground. So here, have what's yours. Notice that perception. I've said this two million times, I'll say it a million more. But your whole life will be determined by what you believe are God's intentions towards you. For good or for bad? So like if you believe lies about God, you're going to live your life out of that. If you believe truth about God, you're going to live your life out of that.

Your perception of reality will shape what you do. So this guy's believing lies. He's believing lies about the master. And maybe you're doing the same thing today, like maybe you think that God's out to get you. Maybe you think he's out to play a big cosmic game of gotcha. Maybe you think that his plan for you is to keep his distance from you. Maybe you think he's out to condemn you. Let me just tell you what he would have done if that was his goal. Here's the answer, nothing. We were already condemned, do you understand? If he wanted to keep his distance from you, he would not have sent Jesus to you, but he did. So my question today is simply this. Would your perception be shaped by the words that probably you already know, at least the first verse, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have he turn a life." And did you know the next verse, "For God didn't send a son to the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." He's not interested in your condemnation or keeping his distance. He literally sent his son, his first and his best, to you to close the distance, to do for you what you could never do for yourself. So maybe today you brought a perception in here

of just lie after lie of the father's intentions towards you and you need to hear this truth today. He loves you and he wants good for you and he's done everything necessary for you so that you could be brought back into a relationship with him. And if you ever doubt that, all you have to do is look to a day in human history. This is a fact where Jesus Christ went to a cross and he was butchered, nail pierced hands and feet crowning thorns on his head, spear run through his side, ripped off of that cross, his dead body thrown in a dark and empty tomb. The light of the world was thrown into darkness, but here's the words that really matter, but God. Amen is right, right? But God breathed life into him and so he restored him back to life watch, conquering our three biggest enemies of sin and Satan of death so that you could walk in freedom and newness of life is that we're celebrating today. It is because he's first, he's best, he's preeminent, he closed the distance and he freely gave at great cost to himself, but none to us, he freely gave us this thing called grace. And the question is, are we going to receive it or not? because there is another person in there. remember, you wicked and thoughtful servant, you knew that I reap, or have not sown and gather, where I scattered no seed. Well, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and my coming.

I should have received what was my own without interest. In other words, he's calling his bluff. Oh, you thought that of me? Well, if you thought that of me, then you would have acted differently. I give you actually thought that I go gather where I haven't sown seed. If you actually thought that I was a hard man, who I go take things that don't belong to me, here's what you actually would have done. You would have put my money in a high-yield savings account so that when I came back, I would have gotten what was mine and the interest, but that's not what the problem was. You didn't believe I was coming back, did you, bro? That's what he's saying. And make no mistake, y'all, Jesus is coming back. And he's not, listen, he's not coming back as a baby in a manger this time. You understand? It's not flannel graph, Jesus is coming back. Blue sash, baby sheet, you know what I'm talking about? They didn't make a flannel graph of Jesus is coming back with fire shooting out of his eyes, a robe dipped in blood, sword coming out of his mouth, tattoo on his thigh. It says, Lord of Lords, king of kings, who's gonna sort things out and set things straight. And this is how he's gonna sort things out and set things straight. So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has 10,

four to everyone who has more will be given more and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He's gonna sort it out. And the question is gonna be on that day, not did you go to church, not did you have a dusty Bible sitting on your bookshelf, not did your grandma take you to vacation Bible school, the question is gonna be, did you receive the free gift of grace that came at great cost to him? Where did you decide not to receive it? And you may be sitting here right now going, hey man, I thought we were gonna talk about money. This seems like it's about more than money and you'd be right, it's about way more than money. But make no mistake, it's not about less. The principle remains, like we are called to be a conduit of what God has given to us, not a cul-de-sac. Do you see the difference? What's a conduit? Something that something flows through to something else. That's what me and you are called to be. A conduit of God's blessing and his grace, not for just our own benefit, but also to be a blessing to others. What's a cul-de-sac? Something that everything just circles up in.

It's a dead end. And if our master is wise and he is, if I become just a cul-de-sac of his blessing, he would be wise to stop blessing me because it's just terminating on me. See this parable paints a picture really of two deals on the table. You can either as it pertains to God's blessing and grace, you can bring it or you can bury it. You can bring it back to him having done everything you can to leverage it for his glory, his name and his kingdom and his people or you can be like this lazy servant. Just go, "I don't want that." And out of fear, go bury it and not truly receive it. So we talked about this last week. What does it look like to bring as it pertains to money? It's your tie that you're first and it's your best back to God through your local church, Southland Christian church. Next week we're gonna, I'm so excited about this. Next week we're talking David and Goliath. So buckle up, come on, we're gonna be back here. Next week is gonna be an awesome week. The thing about David, end of his life, he didn't finish well, did you notice? Have you ever noticed that a lot of men don't finish well? A lot of chaos, a lot of confusion, a lot of disorder, a lot of sin, a lot of passivity, a whole bunch of things lead to a whole bunch of chaos in David's life and in his kingdom, he didn't finish well.

So towards the end of his life, he has this moment where he's gotta bring a sacrifice, he's gotta make a sacrifice. And because he's the king and he's got all this power and everybody's afraid of him and everything, it's offered to him that he can actually have the land where the sacrifice needs to take place. So it'll come to him at absolutely no cost. And the same person's like, and you can have the oxen so that when you go to slaughter the sacrifice, it'll be my oxen, not your oxen. You can just have it, you can just have it. And King David is, even in the midst of the chaos and the sin of the end of his life, he's wise enough and obedient enough to say these words. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord, my God, that cost me nothing. It's not a sacrifice, if it doesn't cost me something. I'm just telling you, my wife and I, we give more than a tithe. But from this point on my hope and my prayer and my decision is that we're going to, until the day we die, increase that every year. 'Cause what am I gonna do, take it with me? And I just want to just build bigger barns. It's just monopoly money. If I don't leverage it for his kingdom and his glory and his fame and his name and his renown, like I'm gonna spend it on the things of the kingdom that will help reach lost and broken people.

I wanna pray big prayers like Jesus taught us to pray. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Where on earth as it is where in heaven. And I wanna see that actually happen as it's been happening around here and continue to happen. I just wanna be in a word faithful. I wanna hear those words. Well done, good and faithful servant. I wanna be able to look in the eyes of Jesus one day, know that I stand in his grace, his mercy, his love, his righteousness, and at the same time, be able to say, man, I left it all on the field for you. I left it all on the field for you. I didn't hold anything back due to fear. So here's a tough question I wanna ask today. And then we're gonna look at one more passage and then we're gonna respond. The question is simply this. Do you feel it when you bring it? When you bring your financial blessings back to your local church, do you feel that? Or does it not cost you anything? And if you feel it, that's great. Because this is about sacrifice. This is an easy one to get to. So if you're in Matthew right now, just flip a few pages back to Malachi. It's the last book of the Old Testament. Go to chapter three.

There's only four chapters. And in it, God is making accusations to his people on a whole bunch of things. They're not worshiping him correctly. They're not living out their marriages correctly. And they're not handling his money the way that he had directed them to handle his money. And so he makes this accusation in Malachi chapter three, beginning in verse eight. He says, you're robbing me. And you'll see this pattern over and over again in Malachi. God anticipates the arguments of his people back to him. He says, but you say, I don't know if you've ever noticed this or not, but God is sovereign. He knows what our arguments are gonna be. He knows what our limited minds are gonna try to attempt to run around his unlimited mind. And so he says, you're robbing me, but here's what you're gonna say. How have we robbed you? And here's what God says, in your tithes and contributions. Because of that, you're cursed with the curse. For you're robbing me, the whole nation of you. You're a cul-de-sac, you're not a conduit. I didn't roll out my blessing on you and for you only. I gave you this blessing so that you could be a blessing. And so God not only indicts his people, but he prescribes for them what the path back

of repentance looks like. And he simply says this, here's our word. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby, this is mind-blowing. Put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. And so some of you, because you're in the gifted class, you're like, hold on, man. Bible bells and whistles are going off right now. Didn't Jesus say to Satan, thou shall not put the Lord your God to the test? You'd be right. There's two different kinds of testing. What Jesus is saying to Satan is simply this. You don't play games with me, man. You don't play games with me. But in this instance, when God commands his people to test him, what is he commanding? Faithful obedience, which literally just means the only, listen, the only way you're gonna know that God is who he says he is and always keeps his promises is if you act in faithful obedience to him. Otherwise, it's just theoretical. So do you really wanna know if God is who he says he is and will accomplish everything he's ever promised? Up to and including in Micah 3.8,

then here's the prescription. Be faithful from now on. Be faithful from now on. 'Cause when Jesus' return happens, I bet you're like me. You wanna be found doing then on that day, what we will be doing with all of our days. With our knees bowed and our tongues confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, saying I wrung myself out for you with these very few days I had on this earth. And now I get to enter into eternity and spend the rest of my days bringing you praise. We're gonna praise. Here in a moment, we're gonna stand and we're gonna sing. And listen, this is the primary reason we gather, is to praise His name. It's not to network, it's not to be seen. It's not to dress different, it's not for any of that stuff. It's to exalt and glorify the name of Jesus. That's why we're here, to praise His name. And we're gonna pray, man. We're gonna pour our guts out to our Father. That's what this area is, down front, across all of our campuses. These rugs are here for us to do business with the Father. Let me give you three things to be praying about today. This space is always open, always, every week, for you to come down here and pray for your one more. Pray for someone who's near to you, but far from God, and to plead with the Father that He would save them

and draw them near. Or maybe that person is both far from God and far from you. You got a prodigal son, you got a prodigal daughter. Come down here and pray for them. Pray for others. But also pray for yourself. Maybe these past two weeks have just identified one of the primary idols of your heart. Our hearts are idol factories, mine included. And so what do we do in response to that? We repent. We lay down before the Father and say, would you realign my heart with yours? So come down front and pray today. And on the third thing we do around here as we respond is we partake. We partake in the beautiful reality of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. As often as we get together, Jesus told us, take some bread and break it. Take some juice and drink it and remember his body broken on our behalf and his blood poured out so that he could pay the debt that we owed. And so we are going to respond today to this reality. Jesus paid it all. I'll begin our response time by opening in prayer and let's be willing to move. Father, I come before you right now. And we are so grateful. We're so grateful.

We just want to proclaim who you are and what you've done. We want to sing it. We want to say it. Father, we don't want to only do that. We want to believe it deep in our bones. So Father, would you, by the power of your Holy Spirit, move these realities beyond just our minds to deepen our hearts and our souls and our spirits? Father, I pray for anyone who today who does not know the saving grace of your son, Jesus, that they would not leave any of our campuses today without receiving this beautiful gift and blessing of eternal life, surrendering their life and the waters of baptism. We'll keep those baptistries open all day, Father, because we want to be faithful and obedient. Father, I pray for anyone right now who's going-- I've got idols, false gods that I'm worshiping. I'm laying down my life for things that are temporary at the expense of you who's eternal, Father. I pray that you move in their hearts to repent. Father, I pray that in our day, we'll get to see and we'll get to witness. You pour out even more abundant blessings in this place and through this place than we have already seen. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.