WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:07.360 So, my wife's grandfather passed away this week. That's why she's not here. She had to fly home to 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:14.000 be at the memorial service. He was…he had just at the beginning of this month turned 100 years old, 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:24.160 and so they were reflecting back on the hundred years of life that Alan had before passing away. 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:31.760 And as this has been happening over this past week, it just got me thinking, as things like this do, 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:39.840 it got me thinking about life and about what it means to live a successful life. I began to think 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:46.879 if I knew the date that I was going to pass away as that date approached and I look back on my life, 00:00:47.519 --> 00:00:53.359 what would I think about my life? What would other people think about my life, right? What does it 00:00:53.359 --> 00:01:01.679 mean to have a life well lived? And what kinds of things should one celebrate after someone passes? 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:06.319 And I realized even as I was thinking about that this week that I most often don't think about this 00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:14.879 kind of thing. And I think that probably most people would agree that very often we are so pulled into 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:24.000 the weeds of our lives. We are…the tyranny of the urgent and the day-to-day demands that confront us 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:32.319 mean that it's hard to step back and think big picture about our lives as a whole and how we're 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:38.959 living them and what we're prioritizing. And yet, as we read the lectionary this morning, all of these 00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:44.399 readings are essentially pointing us to this fact. That is a question we should be asking. 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:51.919 That is something that we should reflect on because the day will come when we will all be called to 00:01:51.919 --> 00:01:59.519 give an account for the life that we have lived. And we're going to focus on the Gospel reading this 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:06.239 morning, Matthew 25, what we just read. And what we'll see is that this is a parable that Jesus is 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:12.639 sharing with His disciples, and it's part of a series of parables. Jesus tells one parable after 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:20.639 another, and all of them are designed to provoke these same questions about life. Jesus is pointing 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:30.079 to the fact that He is going to leave, and then one day, nobody knows when, He's going to return. So, 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:36.640 after His life and death and resurrection and ascension, there'll be an undisclosed period of 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:45.200 time, but one day He will return. And the question that Jesus is provoking us to ask is, how shall we 00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:53.600 live until Christ comes again? How are we to live? And if I could summarize the point of this parable in 00:02:53.599 --> 00:03:03.840 one sentence, it would be this, don't waste your life. Don't waste your life. We're going to answer 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:10.479 three questions this morning. What is God's purpose for our lives? What keeps us from living for God's 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:17.039 purposes? And then finally, what can we do about it? Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word, 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:27.439 and sometimes it delights, and sometimes it comforts, sometimes it confuses, sometimes it challenges or 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:36.239 even offends us. Lord, in whatever way we receive Your Word this morning, we know that You are giving 00:03:36.239 --> 00:03:42.719 us what we need, whether we need comfort or whether we need to be challenged and provoked. And we know that 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:48.400 You do Your work through Your Word because You love us, and we pray simply that we would have hearts 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:54.560 that are open to receiving the words that You speak, and that even as we open Your written Word, 00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:00.079 we would come face to face with Your living Word, Jesus Christ. And it's in His name that we pray. Amen. 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:08.719 So first of all, what is God's purpose for our lives? Jesus tells a parable about a rich master who 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:15.759 goes away on a long journey, and before He leaves, He entrusts His wealth to three of His servants in 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:23.839 the form of talents. And a talent is a unit of monetary value. It's equivalent to about 20 years' earnings. 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:33.360 So one talent is the equivalent of about 20 years' earnings for the average laborer in this time. And so, 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:41.360 the first servant gets five talents. That's a lifetime's worth of earnings. The second servant 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:48.160 gets two talents, and the third servant gets one talent. And the first thing that we need to see is 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:55.520 that this is not just about money, right? It's a parable. The master represents God, and each 00:04:55.519 --> 00:05:05.199 servant represents a human life. So think of each servant as representing a human life. And the talents 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:13.279 represent everything that God entrusts to us over the course of our lives. So from the moment that you 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:19.839 are conceived, from the moment that you are conceived, everything that you have is a gift. 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:33.599 And it's been given to you by God. Your DNA, your temperament, your body, your mind, the breath in your 00:05:33.599 --> 00:05:41.839 lungs, your family that you're born into, your friends along the way, your formative childhood experiences, 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:47.679 your education, your aptitudes, your skills, your spiritual gifts, your money, your career, 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:55.840 your home, your kids, your networks and associations, all of it comes from God. All of it has been provided to you. 00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:05.040 And God gives us all of these things for a reason. Think of it as God's capital investment 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:14.160 in the world. It's God's capital investment in creation. God is the owner of all of these things, 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:24.320 things, and then we are the brokers, and God has entrusted His capital to us. And the single 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:35.440 overarching purpose of our lives is this, to invest God's capital into God's kingdom, to take what has 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:43.760 been entrusted to us and to invest it into God's kingdom. And we say, well, what does that mean? 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:50.319 Well, God's vision for the world, God's vision for creation is summed up in the word shalom. 00:06:51.759 --> 00:07:00.719 And shalom is a big word. It means wholeness. It means peace. It means flourishing. Shalom means people 00:07:00.719 --> 00:07:08.000 loving and serving God and one another. Shalom means an interdependent community full of justice 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:13.439 and righteousness and righteousness and peace where people are relying on one another and blessing one 00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:18.720 another and spending what they have into making the world better. That's shalom. 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:28.800 And when human beings rebelled against God, everything was broken, and shalom was lost. It came crashing down. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:38.560 But Jesus is now at this very moment leading a revolution to restore shalom. And this is what 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:45.040 He means when He says at the beginning and throughout His ministry, He says, the kingdom of God has drawn 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:52.400 near. The kingdom of God is coming, but this isn't a military revolution. It's not a political upheaval. This is a 00:07:52.399 --> 00:08:00.239 spiritual revolution that will then have massive implications for the physical world and the social 00:08:00.239 --> 00:08:08.799 and the political. But it's a spiritual revolution. And at the heart of it is Jesus who is the rightful 00:08:08.799 --> 00:08:19.919 King who has come to take back the world that turned against Him. He's the rightful King who has come to offer 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:27.600 salvation to all people to restore all that has been broken and to renew all things. This is the kingdom. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:35.200 And so, Jesus calls His followers to join in that work. And that's what we mean when we talk about 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:41.680 investing God's capital into God's kingdom. It means pouring your life and pouring your resources 00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:49.039 into the work of the kingdom. This means living as a radical counterculture that displays God's 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:55.839 character to the world. This means sharing the gospel. This means seeking the common good. This 00:08:55.839 --> 00:09:03.439 means extending the rule and the reign of Christ into all of life. It means that whatever your vocation is, 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:10.240 whether it's business or education or policy making or hospitality or home making, 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:16.639 whatever your vocation is, it means that in that vocation, you are aiming at the values and the 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:23.679 priorities of the kingdom. It means that you are continually asking, how can I advance the kingdom 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:36.319 through my work? Now, the first implication for us to realize is that there is a purpose that is meant 00:09:36.319 --> 00:09:41.039 to give meaning and direction to your life. And that if you're here, and especially if you're not a 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:45.840 Christian or if this is the first time that you've come to Church of the Advent, and maybe one of the 00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:52.800 questions you're asking is, is there more to life? Is there more behind my existence? Is there a reason 00:09:52.800 --> 00:10:02.720 that I'm here beyond biological happenstance? And what this tells us is that God made you the way He did 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:10.720 for a reason. You know, our culture says you should be free to make your own meaning in life, determine your 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:16.800 own purpose. And technically that is true in our society. No one's going to stop you if you want to 00:10:16.800 --> 00:10:21.920 make your own meaning of your life. We live in a free society where you are allowed to do that. You can 00:10:21.920 --> 00:10:30.320 make whatever meaning you want. But I have a hunch, I have a hunch that that's not really what we want. 00:10:31.680 --> 00:10:38.000 I mean, you can do it. You can go out and do it. But I actually think that deep down, regardless of what 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:43.679 religion you claim, I think that deep down as human beings, we know that that's ultimately 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:50.240 unsatisfying. Right? We don't really want to have to make it up. I think that deep down we actually 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:56.000 want someone to tell us our purpose. I mean, think of all of our favorite stories and movies. 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:04.879 Right? Think of all of the most beloved stories that stand the test of time, that the best stories 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:11.759 are not about someone who goes out and just makes up meaning. Right? Who says, you know, 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:17.439 I think this will be my purpose. Those are not the stories that stand the test of time. The stories 00:11:17.439 --> 00:11:23.519 that we love are the stories where there's someone who discovers their purpose. They don't make it up, 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:31.440 they discover it. They're living their normal life and then some old sage or ancient prophecy 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:38.000 reveals to them that there is actually an objective purpose to their life. And it's something that they, 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:43.840 once they discover it, they have to embrace it. They have to take on that responsibility and live 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:49.840 into it. And through that journey, they become who they were always meant to be. Those are the stories 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:54.960 that we love. And I think the reason is that we long for that to be true about us. I don't want to 00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:59.600 make it up. I want someone in authority to say, this is why you're here and this is what you're called to do. 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:09.600 And Scripture says, the reason that we feel that way is because these stories all point to the truth, 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:17.200 that there is a purpose and you can discover it. But God is the only one who can tell you what that is. 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:22.160 And until we realize that, our lives are really never going to make sense. 00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:25.440 And we can make our own meaning. 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:31.040 Technically allowed to do that. But it's going to be very unsatisfying. 00:12:32.400 --> 00:12:36.000 So what are some of the things that, that's the first point I want to make. Now we want to ask, 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.879 what are some of the things that, assuming we come to begin to understand what that purpose is, 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:44.480 what are some of the things that get in the way of us living for God's purposes? 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:49.440 What keeps us from doing this faithfully? Well, it's interesting in this parable, 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:56.240 while the master's gone, the first two servants invest their talents and they make a return. 00:12:57.039 --> 00:12:59.840 And then the third servant does something different. He buries his talent. 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:05.120 And then the master returns and very interestingly, he rewards the first two servants saying, 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:09.039 well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little, 00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:12.320 I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. He says, 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:18.080 you've shown me that you understand the purpose of the things that I've entrusted to you. You've 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:22.960 done what I hoped you would do. You've shown me what you can do. And now, because I know that, 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:27.600 I'm going to put you over so much more. I'm going to entrust so much more into your care, 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:32.400 because I know that you know what to do with it. I know that you understand your purpose. 00:13:34.400 --> 00:13:40.560 But then when he finds out what the third servant has done, he calls him a wicked and slothful 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:46.559 servant. And he casts that servant into the outer darkness. And we have to ask, okay, 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:53.119 what's this all about? And look at what the master says to the servant in verses 26 and 27. Basically, 00:13:54.159 --> 00:14:02.239 he says, you know, the servant claims that he's afraid of the master. And basically, he says, listen, 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:08.560 if you were truly afraid of me, if you truly believed that I was the kind of person who would, 00:14:08.560 --> 00:14:13.840 who would, who would, you know, reap where I didn't sow, that you would have at least taken my 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:19.279 money to the bank where I could earn some interest. But that's not what you did. And then we see the 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:25.519 real reason behind this servant's choice to bury the talents. The master accuses this servant of being 00:14:25.519 --> 00:14:35.360 wicked and slothful. Sloth. Sloth is the reason. Now, what is sloth? A lot of people think of 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:39.679 slothfulness as laziness. And you know, I used to, for years I would read this parable and I would think 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.439 the servant just kind of wanted to sit around and play video games. He didn't want to work. And so, 00:14:43.439 --> 00:14:48.399 he just buried the talent, went and played video games until his master came back. That's not sloth. 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:53.439 I mean, it can be sloth. Sloth can be a kind of laziness, but there's way more to it than that. 00:14:54.400 --> 00:15:00.320 A slothful person can actually be a very busy person. A slothful person can actually look like 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:07.040 a very productive person. But here's the thing. A slothful person is very busy doing everything 00:15:07.040 --> 00:15:13.120 except the thing that they should be doing. They're busy doing everything except the thing 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:19.920 that they should be doing. It's like, you know, when I know that I have to do something that I don't 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:25.360 want to do. When I know, you know, there's a pile of dishes and I have to do the dishes and I really 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:30.159 don't want to do the dishes. And so, I spend two hours reorganizing all the books on my shelf. 00:15:31.439 --> 00:15:35.519 Right? What am I doing? Do the books need to be organized? Not really. The dishes need to get done. 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:41.599 It stinks in there. But I'd rather reorganize the books. Right? That's a form of sloth. John Ortberg, 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:46.960 I love. He says, sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Like 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:53.920 the kamikaze pilot who flew 17 missions. Right? It's, you're doing everything but the thing. And 00:15:53.920 --> 00:16:01.680 the thing is, sloth like this starts in one's mind. It starts by focusing on the wrong things 00:16:01.680 --> 00:16:08.160 instead of the right thing. There's a guy named Apollo Robbins, and I love him. He's the world's 00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:13.439 best pickpocket. You can go out and watch his TED Talk. It's just, I won't spoil it for you, 00:16:13.439 --> 00:16:18.079 but watch it. It's really, really cool. And people wonder how can he do this? He'll pull people up on 00:16:18.079 --> 00:16:22.799 stage and he's, as he's talking to them, he's taking their watch, he's taking their wallet, he's taking 00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:27.439 their, the rings off their fingers, and then he's putting it all back or putting it in different places. 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:31.559 And the entire time, the person has no idea it's happening. And you're like, well, how does somebody get 00:16:31.559 --> 00:16:37.120 to be that good at pickpocketing? And when they ask him, the answer is this. What a pickpocket really does is, 00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:41.039 it's not really about the dexterity, although that's part of it, it's really about attention. 00:16:42.159 --> 00:16:48.860 He is a choreographer of attention. And he is really, really, really, really good at getting people to pay 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:56.240 attention to exactly the wrong thing. Right? So, he gets your attention focused over here, and while you're 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:04.220 focusing over here, he's robbing you blind over here. And you see the people's attention just, he's just kind of 00:17:04.220 --> 00:17:08.079 moving them around, and as he's doing it, he's just taking everything away from them. Right? 00:17:08.299 --> 00:17:16.680 That's what pickpocketing really is. And so, sloth, sloth in a way, is a condition whereby, 00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:23.380 because we are focusing on the wrong things, we are being pickpocketed. We're being robbed of one 00:17:23.380 --> 00:17:29.720 opportunity after another to do the thing that we should be doing. Right? So, what are the things that 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:34.339 we spend our time focusing on that keep us from investing in God's kingdom? I'll give you a few 00:17:34.339 --> 00:17:43.100 examples that come from what I most often see in my life and in the lives of people that I care for. 00:17:43.660 --> 00:17:51.360 Number one, we tend to focus on, some of us tend to focus on escaping rather than embracing the 00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:56.339 responsibilities that we have. You know, it's interesting that the real problem with the wicked 00:17:56.339 --> 00:18:02.699 servant is sloth, but notice what he says when the master first confronts him. The master says, 00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:07.099 okay, where's the money that I gave you? What'd you do with it? And he says, well, here's the thing, 00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:14.139 master, here's the thing, okay? I knew that you're a really scary guy, and I knew that you're really mean, 00:18:14.259 --> 00:18:20.659 and behind your back, everybody kind of knows that you're kind of a jerk, and so this is what I did. 00:18:21.179 --> 00:18:25.839 And the master sees right through this, he recognizes this as a form of blame shifting. 00:18:26.899 --> 00:18:31.939 He doesn't want to take responsibility, and so he says, actually, I only did what I did because 00:18:31.939 --> 00:18:36.619 you're the kind of person that you are. It's kind of like a bit of like a gaslighting dynamic, 00:18:36.619 --> 00:18:42.480 although I doubt that Jesus would have used that term. And ultimately, he doesn't want to be held 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:47.319 accountable, but the master sees right through it. And, you know, but some of us really do. We sort of 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:52.099 live our lives avoiding having to take responsibility for things. You know, everything is somebody else's 00:18:52.099 --> 00:18:58.059 fault. So, we don't invest because that would mean having to actually step up and make something 00:18:58.059 --> 00:19:05.339 happen and take responsibility. But what we see in this parable is that you can only avoid 00:19:05.339 --> 00:19:12.139 responsibility for so long. You can only avoid accountability for so long. One of the points 00:19:12.139 --> 00:19:15.659 that Jesus is making in all of these parables and that we see in the Old Testament reading 00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:21.600 and all throughout the Bible is that the day will come when even if you've successfully avoided 00:19:21.600 --> 00:19:25.720 accountability all your life, the day will come when you have to stand before the Lord 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:28.360 and you will be held accountable for your life. 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:36.399 Right? So, at some point, we have to be willing to step up and take responsibility for the things 00:19:36.399 --> 00:19:40.979 in our lives. So, that's the first thing, focusing on trying to escape rather than actually take 00:19:40.979 --> 00:19:46.859 responsibility for the things in our lives that demand our attention. Number two, we tend to focus 00:19:46.859 --> 00:19:52.819 on what we don't have instead of what we do have. We tend to focus on what we don't have rather than 00:19:52.819 --> 00:19:56.939 what we do have. You notice what we don't see in this parable, but, I mean, if it were me, 00:19:56.940 --> 00:20:04.799 it's probably one of the first questions I would ask. Like, hey, wait a second. Well, why does that 00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:09.900 guy get five talents and I only get two? Right? And then the person with one talent is kind of like, 00:20:10.420 --> 00:20:15.160 why do I only have one talent? And the first thing that you would do would be to start looking 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:19.960 down that line of sermons and wondering, what the heck? This isn't fair. And, you know, 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:25.380 this is something that we do all the time in our lives, right? Why is that person so much more athletic? 00:20:26.940 --> 00:20:32.620 Why do they have that and I don't? Why is that person such a good public speaker? And every time 00:20:32.620 --> 00:20:38.900 I get up in front of people, I just lock up, but it's so easy for that person. Why is that person so 00:20:38.900 --> 00:20:45.820 much more attractive and successful than I am? Even on my best day, I could never look like that. 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:56.320 I could never fit into that, right? We start making comparisons. We start feeling insecure. We start 00:20:56.319 --> 00:21:01.639 feeling envy and jealousy. Or we start feeling superior. You know, if you're looking this way 00:21:01.639 --> 00:21:06.059 at the five-talent person, you're like, man, I'm so insecure. And sometimes it makes you feel better 00:21:06.059 --> 00:21:11.879 to look down at the one-talent person and be like, oh, I guess it's not that bad. And you feel better. 00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:17.019 You know, this happens online all the time. We want to know kind of how we stack up. 00:21:18.299 --> 00:21:22.519 And I think this happens all the time when people move to D.C. I mean, maybe back home, 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:26.660 you were a two-talent student in a school of one-talent students. 00:21:28.220 --> 00:21:32.660 You know, and you were kind of a big deal. You were valedictorian. You were student class 00:21:32.660 --> 00:21:37.059 president. You were voted most likely to succeed. And then you move to D.C., and it's like you're 00:21:37.059 --> 00:21:43.539 surrounded by all of these five-talent Ivy League freaks. And they all…they're all Fulbright 00:21:43.539 --> 00:21:47.980 scholars and Rhodes scholars, and they all have, like, multiple graduate degrees, and they're only, 00:21:47.980 --> 00:21:57.680 like, 22, you know. And nobody's impressed by your measly two-talent resume. Nobody cares. 00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:02.880 Right? And you're like, what do I do in a world like this? Well, a lot of people just say, well, 00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:09.259 I got to hustle, and I'm going to become a five-talent person. And so you have all of these 00:22:09.259 --> 00:22:15.440 people out there hustling, trying to up their game and improve their resume, right, to sharpen it, 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:20.660 to make it better, to make it more impressive so that you'll be proud of it and so you'll feel 00:22:20.660 --> 00:22:24.559 better about yourself. Because when you're making those comparisons and you're looking at all of 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:28.400 these people and then you're looking…you feel very small and you feel very worthless. 00:22:29.779 --> 00:22:33.320 And so when you feel like that, you don't invest because you say, well, what's the point? 00:22:34.779 --> 00:22:39.720 That person's so much better than me, why would I invest? Who cares? It doesn't make a difference. 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:46.220 That's when you're focusing on what you don't have instead of what you do have. But what this 00:22:46.220 --> 00:22:52.160 parable does is if we understand how to apply this parable and how to apply what a talent represents 00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:57.120 in a human life, we have to understand that we all have different talents and abilities and gifts 00:22:57.120 --> 00:23:05.839 and resources. And nobody has five talents across the board. Nobody. So you might be a one-talent 00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:11.459 mathematician. You know, I really, really at one point in my life wanted to go into physics. I wanted 00:23:11.459 --> 00:23:15.720 to be…I loved physics and I took a couple of classes in it and then I ran into the math. 00:23:16.699 --> 00:23:20.419 And I realized that to be a good physicist, you have to be good at math and I'm not good at math. 00:23:21.139 --> 00:23:26.279 I'm just not. I'm a one-talent mathematician. Maybe you're a one-talent mathematician, 00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:31.740 but you can throw a five-talent dinner party. That's what I tell myself. I love to cook. 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:38.960 Maybe you're a one-talent athlete, but maybe you have a five-talent ability to build relationships. 00:23:40.700 --> 00:23:49.480 Right? So the point is this. Who cares what God has given to other people? Your job, 00:23:49.579 --> 00:23:56.579 your responsibility is to figure out what has God entrusted to you? What has God put into your care? 00:23:56.579 --> 00:24:03.359 If we're focusing on ourselves, we're going to make those comparisons. If you're focusing on your 00:24:03.359 --> 00:24:07.460 master, focusing on your master, you're going to be asking, what has He entrusted to me? 00:24:07.899 --> 00:24:14.819 And then number three, we tend to focus on the world's definition of success rather than God's 00:24:14.819 --> 00:24:20.000 definition of success. I mean, some of us, with all due respect, are terrified of failure. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:28.160 We're terrified of failure. We think that if we try and fail, it will destroy us. We think that if I 00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:35.920 try and fail, it means I'm a failure. Some of us have a very all-or-nothing definition of success. 00:24:36.299 --> 00:24:40.500 You start doing something, and you kind of think, unless I can be the best at this thing, 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:49.779 it's not worth doing. Unless I can be the best, why try? And that's a very 00:24:49.779 --> 00:24:56.599 black-and-white way of thinking about success. So, a lot of people don't invest because we're just 00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:00.399 afraid of the risk. We're afraid of risking failure or risking not being the best, which in 00:25:00.399 --> 00:25:07.700 our minds equates to failure. But this parable shows us that God doesn't measure success at all 00:25:07.700 --> 00:25:13.980 the way we do. The first servants notice, they get the exact same reward, even though one servant 00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:20.339 returns more talents than the other. They get the exact same response from their master. 00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:26.680 In other words, listen, you can be a five-talent musician on an international stage, 00:25:26.900 --> 00:25:33.720 but that does not impress God. It's impressive in the world's eyes, but it does not impress God. 00:25:33.720 --> 00:25:44.400 You can sell…you can break all the records, have all the…you know, you can have the biggest 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:51.279 selling sort of global music phenomenon. It does not impress God. And in fact, I believe God would 00:25:51.279 --> 00:26:00.740 be far more delighted by a one-talent singer belting it out in her bedroom if she's using that gift to 00:26:00.740 --> 00:26:08.940 glorify Him. That's how God defines success. What matters to God, what matters to the Master, 00:26:09.079 --> 00:26:15.140 is whether or not we are living for His purposes. Are you investing God's capital into God's kingdom? 00:26:15.339 --> 00:26:21.720 That's what He cares about. But, you know, the problem is even at our best, we're going to do 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:26.620 this imperfectly. Even at our best, there are going to be times when we will avoid taking responsibility. 00:26:26.619 --> 00:26:31.679 There are going to be times when we struggle with envy, when we make comparisons. There are going 00:26:31.679 --> 00:26:37.219 to be times when we are duped by the world's definition of success. It's impossible for us to 00:26:37.219 --> 00:26:43.819 get it right. And so, we have to ask, okay, what ultimately can we do about it? Is this parable simply 00:26:43.819 --> 00:26:50.559 meant to point us to get your act together? And the answer is no. Ultimately, this parable is meant 00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:56.599 to point us to point us to Jesus. And this is why it's such good news that Jesus has come, because 00:26:56.599 --> 00:27:03.319 what we need to see in this parable is that Jesus is actually the true faithful servant. 00:27:04.419 --> 00:27:10.919 Jesus is the one who not only fully devotes His life, He fully devotes His life to the purpose for 00:27:10.919 --> 00:27:16.779 which He was sent. And we see as we reflect on these reasons a moment ago that Jesus never fell into 00:27:16.779 --> 00:27:21.759 the traps that we fall into. Number one, Jesus fully embraced His God-given responsibility. 00:27:22.639 --> 00:27:28.539 I mean, He never shied away from it, even though He was strongly tempted to do so. Even in the garden 00:27:28.539 --> 00:27:34.420 when He prayed, may this cup pass from my lips, He never once shied away from the purpose that God 00:27:34.420 --> 00:27:39.859 had given Him, to live the life that we should have lived, to take the sins of the world upon Himself, 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:44.039 to give His life to redeem us. He never shied away from that. 00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:52.539 And number two, Jesus never compared Himself to others or gave in to envy because He was so 00:27:52.539 --> 00:28:00.559 singularly focused on the will of His Father. And because He was so secure in the love of His Father, 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:08.200 not only did He not focus on what He had relative to other people, but He was willing to give up what 00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:16.120 He had. He was willing to give up everything for the sake of the world. And then thirdly, Jesus 00:28:16.120 --> 00:28:23.519 transforms the entire way that we think about failure and success. You know, at the end of this 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:30.920 section of teaching in Matthew, after He tells these parables, it says this in Matthew 26 verse 1, 00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:37.400 when Jesus had finished all of these sayings, He said to His disciples, you know that after two days, 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:43.240 the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. And they realize 00:28:43.240 --> 00:28:48.640 all of a sudden, this is why Jesus is telling us these parables. It's because in just a few days' time, 00:28:48.700 --> 00:28:57.840 He's going to be executed. But what we see is that on the cross, Jesus offers the world an entirely 00:28:57.839 --> 00:29:05.639 new definition and picture of success. In the eyes of the world, the cross meant a total failure. 00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:12.019 The job, the design of the cross was not just to torture and kill, it was to humiliate. It was to 00:29:12.019 --> 00:29:20.859 show this person is the failure of all failures. You cannot fail worse than this. This means you have 00:29:20.859 --> 00:29:29.199 utterly screwed up in your life. And yet, in God's eyes on that cross, Jesus is achieving the greatest 00:29:29.199 --> 00:29:36.059 victory ever accomplished. He's giving Himself up for the love of the world. He's dying to overcome sin and 00:29:36.059 --> 00:29:42.819 salvation. He's accomplishing salvation for all people. He is vindicating and fulfilling promises that have been 00:29:42.819 --> 00:29:52.839 laid down throughout history. And so, the Christian definition of success is a person pouring out their 00:29:52.839 --> 00:30:00.480 life to love and to serve others. That's what we see on the cross. You know, I was listening to a podcast 00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:08.579 the other day about financial investing, and in my life, I've listened to maybe one podcast about 00:30:08.579 --> 00:30:16.799 financial investing, and this was it. And it was an interview with James Choi, who's a professor of 00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:23.399 finance at the Yale School of Management. And so, after an hour, the whole podcast for like an hour, 00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:29.480 is talking about, you know, high fee index funds and diversified portfolios. I actually learned quite a 00:30:29.480 --> 00:30:37.119 bit. But at the very end, the interviewer asks him, okay, he says, one final question. How do you define 00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:45.339 success? And this is an hour of talking about how to be a good, you know, money manager and invest well and make a 00:30:45.339 --> 00:30:53.779 good return. And here's what Choi says. He says this, well, I'm a Christian, so I think that ultimately, it's about 00:30:53.779 --> 00:31:00.299 being who God has created you to be and to have a relationship with Him and to love Him and to love your 00:31:00.299 --> 00:31:06.279 neighbor and to serve. He says, I think that I've been given certain talents and certain opportunities 00:31:06.279 --> 00:31:13.099 and certain platforms in which I can serve. So, it's about asking, how can I use these things to serve 00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:23.779 and to help people? And I just thought, that's it. That's it. This is a person who has been shaped by the 00:31:23.779 --> 00:31:31.039 cross. This is a person whose vision of success in life has been shaped by Jesus on the cross. 00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:39.980 And so, as Christians, that's our guiding image. And so, when we invest, we invest not hoping for 00:31:39.980 --> 00:31:48.460 an immediate return, although that's great. We invest hoping for an eternal ROI, right? We know that 00:31:48.460 --> 00:31:54.700 every investment we make in God's kingdom will yield a return. It may not be one that we can see. It may 00:31:54.700 --> 00:32:01.880 not be one in our lifetime. But one day, when the kingdom has fully come, all of those investments 00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:07.440 are going to pay off. And all of the other things that we've spent time and energy investing in, 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:14.740 they're not going to matter at all. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word, 00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:21.440 and we thank You for the cross. And we thank You that through the cross, we see what looks like 00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:28.799 failure emerge as great victory. And we pray that our lives would be guided by that vision. 00:32:29.779 --> 00:32:37.099 Lord, that as has been written, we would not seek to build our resume virtues, but we would seek 00:32:37.099 --> 00:32:45.039 to build our eulogy virtues. We would prioritize those things that bless and serve the common good 00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:52.659 and that glorify You, Lord. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, that He would be our guide, 00:32:53.059 --> 00:32:57.759 even as He makes it possible for us to fulfill all that You call us to do and to be. 00:32:58.119 --> 00:32:59.699 We pray this in His name. Amen.