A Faithful Life
The following video transcript has been lightly edited
I had this joyful moment yesterday when I was with my four kids. My older two girls are home from college, and we were at a family birthday party for my niece. And it was one of those moments where you look around the room, and you're just thankful. Thankful for my siblings, thankful for my kids, and the laughter and the joy.
Like, man, life is such a gift. And while we don't always feel that way, I think that that's true for us. We feel like the life we have is something that's been given to us. And so we at times are like, okay, how do I be faithful? How do I be faithful to this gift of life that I have been given?
And so what I wanna talk to you about today. And what I think we're going to discover is three things that in order to be faithful with the life that we've been given, we wanna develop a certain mentality. There's a temptation that we want to avoid. And there's a truth that empowers it. And so I want to share that with you.
And we're going to do that through a parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 25. And the parable goes like this. There's a master and three slaves. And the master gives each of the slaves a different amount of money. What the scriptures call a talent. And so one of them gets five, one of them gets two, and one of them gets one.
And he goes away and he comes back. And the first one has taken those five talents and produced five more, so he gives the master ten talents and the master says, well done, good and faithful servant. The second slave has been given two talents and he makes two more and gives it to the master and the master says, well done, good and faithful servant.
The third who has one talent, basically says, Hey, Master, I knew you were harsh, that you, uh, reaped where you didn't sow. And so I was honestly sort of afraid of you, and so I just hid it in the ground, and so here's your one talent back. We're all fair and square. And the Master to that says, well, if you knew I was such a hard person, you should have at least put it in the bank, gotten me some interest and so you're a lazy slave. And I'm gonna throw you out. Sounds harsh. And in some ways the message is harsh, because Jesus is trying to tell the Pharisees and the nation of Israel that they haven't been faithful to the life they've been given. See, God gave, freed Israel from Egypt so that they might be this holy priesthood.
He gave them the temple and his presence within it, and he gives them the law to steward in there to be a blessing to all nations, there to be a people that love God, their neighbor and those around them. And they've failed to do this. And over and over and over again, they've complained. They've actually said, God, where are you?
Why have you been unfaithful to us? Why have you been such a hard master? And so Jesus teaching is that Israel has been the one who's been the complainer. And that they've been unfaithful with what they've been given. And here's a lesson for us. While this message, this passage, is really a message of rebuke or challenge to Israel, it's also a message to us of like, hey, what does it look like for us to be faithful with our life?
How do we not waste our life? Well, the first is this, what we see in Servant 1 and 2 is one has 5, one has 2. They both double the 5 and double the 2, so it's 10 and 4. And the message from the Master is the same, well done, good and faithful servant. There's a couple important lessons, I think, for us in this.
One, we have to recognize that life is a gift, so we acknowledge that what we have is something that we've been given. We like to imagine that it's all because of what we've done. But if we're honest, we recognize that there's a whole lot of things that are true about our life that are just true because it's a gift.
It's something that exists and we didn't have any control over it. So we want to accept that life's a gift, but two, we want to be good stewards with it. We want to be stewards with this gift we've been given. Well, what does it look like to be a steward? Well, a couple chapters before in Matthew, he, Jesus talks to the Pharisees about how being a good steward is one who pursues justice and mercy and faith versus all of the systems and the rules and regulations that they use to manipulate and control people And so that's what it looks like for us to be a good steward.
It's not about gaining more It's not about gaining more possessions or more money or more wealth or more power or more privilege. It's about being a good steward by being a person who pursues justice, mercy, and faith. In the simplest way, it's really about making other people feel like human beings. And we can do that in our family, we can do it in our workplace, we can do it in the checkout line.
We can be the kind of person that sees the life we have as a gift. And choose to act in such a way that reflects this grace and mercy, this gratitude that we have. And so that's one of the ways we want to develop this mentality. So that we can be a people who are faithful to this gift of life we've been given.
Second, we want to avoid a certain temptation. And that temptation is that last servant who basically accuses the master. Oh, the reason I didn't do anything with my life is actually all because of you. You're harsh, and you reap where you don't sow, and you break all the rules. And so I was just trying to stay away from you.
And again, this is... A call out against Israel because they said this a lot to God in their history. But it's a reminder, too, for us that there's always a temptation. That there's something seductive about things like blame and justification and victimhood. I want to give you a quick disclaimer. There is injustice in the world.
And there are times where we are, in fact, victims. And while we can't always control what happens to us, we can control how we respond to it. And what we want to do is we want to shy away from this temptation that somehow blame, justification and victimhood is going to help us. You know this to be true because anytime you're in a difficult conversation and someone uses any one of those, you're like, wait, come on.
Now we can't actually have a productive conversation. We should just remember that when we blame others, it creates bitterness and stagnation in us. We don't grow. When we're always justifying, that's how we become like the Pharisees or like that crooked politician or that person in power that seems to take advantage of others.
Somewhere along the way, they've justified their behavior. And lastly, when we make ourselves a victim, we remove our own power to act in love. And so I think that's why Jesus tells us that being good stewards is loving God and loving our neighbor and loving even our enemies. Because that prevents us from always falling into that victimhood.
And so if we want to be faithful to this gift of life we've been given, we want to resist that temptation. The seductive nature of blame and justification and victimhood. And we want to embrace this mentality of being good stewards. Really about loving others and making others feel like human beings.
Why can we do both of these things? Well, that's the last thing. That's this truth that empowers us. It's that grace overcomes brokenness. So the end of that parable sounds pretty harsh because the slave who returns the one talent gets thrown out where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, thrown out into the darkness.
And when you listen to that, you think, man, that is harsh. Is that the way God operates? But we forget where the place in the story is. So what happens is Jesus actually becomes that slave. Jesus is the one who's thrown out into the darkness in the midst of the crucifixion. And through Jesus' death and suffering, Jesus conquers death and suffering.
And in that little bit, it talks about how those who have will be given more. And in fact, that's what Paul pick up, picks up that line in in Philippians, and talks about how Jesus, the son of God, who came and humbled himself to death on a cross. Is then honored by giving, by being given the name above all names. So who, he who has, has now more.
And so while that passage sounds harsh to us, it's because we can't ever live up to it. But we don't have to. And that's the truth we want to hold on to. That grace overcomes brokenness. So both in our own shortcomings and, and the brokenness we experience in the world, we want to continue to be faithful to this gift of life we've been given.
By embracing the mentality of being good stewards and resisting the temptation of blame and justification and victimhood. So that we can say, hey, I took this life, this gift of life, and I used it to multiply grace and goodness in the world. And it turns out when we do that, that's where we experience God, that's where we experience joy, and that's where we experience fulfillment.
And so we can say, I've been faithful with this life I've been given. Hey, I hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving. Grateful to share this with you and look forward to seeing you again soon.
