Q3, S09 The Talents

Quarter 3, Session 9: The Talents

WILL YOU INVEST IN MY KINGDOM?

Passage

Matthew 25:14–30

Concept

This session falls under Jesus’ ninth question: Can you see my kingdom as a farm? Jesus told a parable about three servants who were entrusted with their master’s money. The ones who took risks to invest his money were rewarded when they gained more money for the master. But the servant who hid the money in fear was cast out. Jesus’ calls us to be good stewards of the gifts he has given us. Good stewardship according to this parable looks like taking risks to invest in God’s kingdom.

Key Question

Are there any areas in which God may be calling you to take a risk now for the sake of investing in his kingdom?

The Farm Tool

Do you see our Farm tool being played out in Matthew 25:14–30? With whom? How so?

The Talents

We all love affirmation. What kind of affirmation do you want most? Are you longing for affirmation in your role as a father or mother? Would it be amazing to hear your kids say that they love you and that you’ve done a great job of loving and raising them? Or maybe that same affirmation of your parenting would mean more coming from other people? Or perhaps your own parents? Or maybe you’d like to have affirmation on your role as a son or daughter. Would you love to hear your parents say they are proud of you and who you’ve become? What about affirmation as a spouse? What would you give to hear your husband or wife say they love you and that you’re doing an amazing job of loving and caring for them? What about from your boss or some kind of professional organization?

What kind of affirmation do you want most? The kind of affirmation we’re seeking reveals something about our hearts. It says something about what we’re pursuing in life.

In this parable, Jesus describes a scenario in which God says to some of his people, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Is there anything you’d like to hear more than those words? Is there anyone you’d rather hear those words from than God himself?

If that sounds appealing—if it sounds like the sentence you’d love to hear above all others, from God above all others—then you’d better pay attention to what Jesus is calling us to in this parable.

1.     Read Matthew 25:14–30. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?

Entrusted

In this parable, Jesus says the master entrusted his property to his servants. That means he “handed it over” to them. It’s not that they now own the property. It’s entrusted to them. The master still owns it, but the servants now work with it.

Right from the start we see an important distinction that we’ve noticed before. Everything we have has been given to us. Entrusted to us. It’s not our stuff to do with as we please. It’s God’s stuff. His talents. His gifts. His resources. His people. His time. And we are called to use it wisely because it will be handed back to him eventually.

Being entrusted means we have been given freedom to accomplish the tasks the master has left for us to do. God entrusts us with things and gives us freedom to use those things for his purposes. It’s not about the “how,” it’s about what gets produced. The expectation is that something will be produced by the gifts we’ve been given. He gives us freedom to pursue that production in the way that seems best, based on our personalities, our setting, and the gifts themselves. But we can be sure that if we simply disregard our gifts, that is when we have failed.

Another important concept here is that each servant receives a different amount initially. And each servant produces a different amount. The corollary is that God gives us resources, but he doesn’t give us all the same resources. We can’t sit around moping that we don’t have the same gifts as someone else. Again, God isn’t as concerned about how we go about using his gifts, he’s more concerned that we use them. And how we use them will have to correspond to how much we’re given, and the nature of what each of us has been given. Fairness is not a high value in God’s kingdom. Justice is, but fairness is not. The point is not weighing the fairness of it, the point is the faithfulness of his servants.

We have tremendous freedom in how we go about pursing and distributing God’s kingdom. You can pass out tracts, host a Bible study in your home, befriend individual people—you can do whatever you believe God is calling you to do, he just wants you to be using what God has given you to pursue his kingdom. The call is to take stock of the gifts God has given and to get to work pursuing his kingdom by means of his gifts.

2.     What “talents” do you believe God has given you?

3.     Have you taken any steps to invest these talents into building his kingdom?

Security

An old saying states: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” That’s the mantra of security. Better to stick with the one thing you do have than to risk it going after the two things you don’t. When you’re younger, you tend to not be overly concerned about security. As you age, however, you often try harder to avoid unnecessary pain. This isn’t always a function of age, of course. When you invest your money, you have to assess what your risk tolerance is. There are higher potential gains if you’re willing to invest more aggressively, but you have to weigh the risk.

There is a tremendous pull in our hearts to security. If you’re building a tree house, you’ll find that you’re constantly fighting against gravity. It’s a constant pull that wants to bring you and everything you’re building back to the ground. That’s how it is with risk. As you take on risk in pursuit of your goal, you’re constantly fighting the pull to security.

Whereas the first two servants invested the money with which they had been entrusted—an act that necessarily involved risk—the final servant decided to opt for total security by burying it in the ground. But that’s not what the master wanted. They all knew he wanted a return on his money. This is the very reason he entrusted the talents to them. Rather than accept the risk of pursuing reward, this servant chose the path of security. He lost no money, but he gained no money either. He took no risk, but in choosing this path, he rejected the task the master had entrusted to him. He may have felt good about this for a while, but the results were ultimately devastating.

This same dichotomy is active in our spiritual lives. Wherever we’re pursuing God’s kingdom, it takes risk, faith, and bravery. For example, if you’ve never gone on a missions trip before, it will require risk and bravery to follow the Lord’s prompting in that area. If you’ve never hosted a small group in your house before, it will take risk to take on such a task. If you’ve never talked to someone about Jesus, it takes risk and bravery to say what you believe you need to say. If you’ve never tithed before, it takes risk and faith to give money that you can’t exactly spare to invest in what you believe God is doing. As we follow Jesus, our security is found in him, not the avoidance of risk.

If all you ever do is sit in a church building and listen to sermons, you’re basically burying your talents in the sand. It may sound strong, but ultimately, this is an act of cowardice. What else would you call it if you know what God is calling you to do and you resist doing so because you’re afraid of what could happen? Cowardice is when we know what we’re being asked to do and we just don’t do it.

4.     Are there any talents you believe you may have buried?

5.     In what areas might you be giving in to the pull toward security?

Trust vs. Recklessness

God is not calling us to be reckless. He’s calling us to trust him. He calls us to do things that are actually good for us. Healthy for us. We are called to trust him in that. It’s not reckless when God is calling you into something that is actually better than what you would naturally do.

There are only two outcomes in this parable: those who are rewarded, or those who are cast out. It doesn’t matter how much was made, the point is that there are some who were faithful with what they were given. The call is to take a risk by stepping out in trust that the master knows what is best for us. The ones who invested wisely are invited to enter their master’s joy. The one who buried his talent is told that he never knew his master at all. That’s devastating. If you hide the talents you were given by the master, then you simply did not know the master. But if you know the master well enough to know what he’s asking of you, and then you take the necessary steps to follow him in that, you get to experience his joy.

The call is for each of us to trust God enough to step in and do our part. God loves our world so much, but he often chooses to show his love through the followers he has placed in each setting. Perhaps the most tragic implication of this parable is the realization that God’s love will not be fully seen in this world if some of us are burying our talents. Every piece we all bring is needed. Only when we all answer the call to invest, to act, will we see his kingdom on display in all its glory.

6.     Have you ever taken a risk based on God’s calling and seen it pay off? How so?

7.     Are there any areas in which God may be calling you to take a risk now for the sake of investing in his kingdom?

8.     Spend some time in prayer. Thank God for the gifts he has entrusted to you. Ask God to give you the courage to try what he’s calling you to do.

Key Question

Are there any areas in which God may be calling you to take a risk now for the sake of investing in his kingdom?