Christ, The Lord Of Our Talents – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For every Olympic track star, there are 10,000 runners who never make the team.

But that's no reason to give up. Many believers with few talents approach life with a clenched fist rather than an open hand. Today we'll see why God prefers the letter. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, the steward who wasted his opportunities, was judged pretty harshly. What does that mean for us today?

Dave, you have asked an excellent question. What does that mean for us today? I want to clarify that there are two very important judgments in the Bible. In the book of Revelation, we find the great white throne judgment. That is for unbelievers only. But we're talking here about the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. And that's a judgment seat to which all of us shall appear.

Oftentimes it is referred to as the bema, because the Greek word is bema. But let us remember 1 Corinthians chapter 3, where the apostle Paul makes it very clear that the time is going to come when our works will be subjected to fire. And that may be figurative, but the point is very, very lucid. They will be subjected to fire, and there will be gold, silver, and precious stones, but the wood, the hay, the stubble will burn away. What it means for us is something very critical, because it actually will help us to understand the loss of rewards or the gaining of rewards. These are the kinds of issues I try to make clear in my book entitled Your Eternal Reward, Triumph, and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ. And for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. Here's what you do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Allow your life to be transformed by recognizing that we shall give an account to God as believers, because the issue will have to do with rewards. I've seen God use people that I wouldn't use if I were God. And yet, you know, God in his mercy and his grace makes us all different. And when we are feeling inferior, the criticism is directed ultimately toward God. We're saying, why did you create me thus?

And that's the third mistake he made right there. He had a wrong attitude toward the Lord, a wrong attitude about himself, a wrong attitude toward life, and a wrong attitude about the Lord. He says, verse 24, Master, I knew you to be a hard man. You reap where you did not sow, and you gather where you scattered no seed. And so I was afraid, and I hid your talent in the ground.

Here it is for you. And notice what he's saying. He's critical of God. He's saying, God, you're just exploiting us.

You know, you expect us to make money with the money that you've given to us, and then you come and you receive all that money. And that's true, by the way, and the reason that God can demand that is because the money that he gives us is his, and our ability to multiply it is his as well. But you see, he was critical of God.

And there are many people who are very critical of God. They say, God, why is it that you have put me in this predicament with my limited abilities, with my limited resources? Why is it, oh God, that I have been asked to play this role?

You are harsh and you are demanding. And he actually becomes angry where the Lord is saying, you are not fair to me. Well, you know, God wasn't pleased. You know, after an explanation like that, I guess he expected the king to say, well, you know, that really makes sense. I understand your viewpoint. I'm trying to see life through your lenses.

And so I think that that's fine then. But I'll tell you, he doesn't hear that. He hears some very harsh words. You wicked, lazy slave.

Wicked, lazy slave. He had dug a hole for his talent. What he didn't realize is that he had actually dug a hole for himself.

That's what happened. Because he thought that his service for the master, because he had only one talent, was unimportant. Now, I want you to notice what this man lost. And he lost big.

He lost big. First of all, he lost the approval of his master. There was no well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord. As he looked into the eyes of the king, there was no word of appreciation.

There was no word of thanks from the man who was most important. I suppose that's the one thing that causes me to tremble a little bit. I have in my brief life received quite a bit of praise of men. But you know, actually, when I stand before the Lord, I won't be able to say, Lord, look at all those letters that we received from a radio audience. They won't make one bit of difference.

Not one bit of difference. If Jesus says to me, Lutzer, you served with the wrong motives. You served with the wrong desires.

You squandered your time. As far as I'm concerned, the opinion of somebody else, even the opinion of the world applauding me, will not make up for it from now until eternity. Because only what Jesus thinks matters.

In the final analysis, there is no other recourse. And so he missed. He missed the approval of his master. And you know, the Bible says that we should live in such a way that we'll not be ashamed at his coming. I know that most of us think that the judgment seat of Jesus Christ is just going to take a moment. If we did poorly, 10 minutes into eternity, everybody will forget how badly we did. And therefore, it won't make any difference.

Oh, it'll make a big difference, as we're going to see in just a moment. But he missed the approval of his master. And that's really what counts. And you see, that's why it's possible to be faithful even when you're misunderstood.

That's why it's possible to be faithful, even though there are those who are saying things about you that aren't true. It's because ultimately the opinion of the other slaves is no big deal. It's the opinion of the master that is important. He missed or lost the approval of his master. He lost the opportunity for growth in character. You'll notice that the other slaves receive the wonderful words, thou good and faithful servant. But he didn't hear those words.

No opportunity for spiritual growth. And then he missed, of course, the privilege of greater responsibilities. All of the others were taken and they were brought into the kingdom and given more responsibility. In a parallel account, Jesus said that what happened is if you had 10 talents and you were faithful with those 10 talents, you got to serve over 10 cities in the kingdom. And here's somebody who doesn't get to serve in any of the cities in the kingdom, but actually is thrown into a place of outer darkness. I take him to be an unconverted person, even though Jesus in another parable tells a similar story where the man apparently is a Christian.

But here he is not. But I want you to understand that there are some lessons from this parable that are so explosive that if we were to take them seriously, today would be a major turning point in our lives regarding faithfulness. Number one, your talent. And here we are talking about money as well as ability. Your talent is your trust. It's your trust. I want you to know that you do not own the money that God has given you the ability to make. You do not own the gifts and the talents that you have. Notice what the text says right from the beginning. It says, verse 14, for it is just like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.

These aren't theirs. By nature, we're greedy. By nature, we grasp. By nature, we cling. By nature, we say, this is mine. By nature, we say, I have a right to hide this money in the ground or in the bank.

By nature, we are like that. And you see, when the Holy Spirit of God works deeply into people's hearts, it is said that there are two conversions. There is the conversion of the heart and then there's the conversion of the pocketbook.

Some people are only half-converted, you know. We began to recognize that all that we have is God's. All that you have is God's. Some of you businessmen are so gifted in your ability to organize and to manage. Please remember that Jesus watches you every single day to know whether that talent and ability is being invested for him or whether you think it's something for which you have the right to say, this is mine.

Every day we're being monitored. Your talent is your trust. You have the ability to write letters to friends, to missionaries. You have the ability to encourage. You have the ability to usher. You have the ability to usher. You have the ability to do whatever it is that God has called you to do, and I want you to know that God holds you accountable. It is a gift of God. It's a gift of God.

Secondly, not only is your talent your trust, but secondly, your talent is your test. It's your test. I've been studying the life of Joseph. When Joseph was thrown into the prison, the Bible says in the Psalms the Lord tested him, falsely accused. He had done right, falsely accused of attempted rape. He resisted temptation, and that's what he gets for serving God. You know, I mean that's what you get. He said no to Potiphar's wife, and of course God blessed him, right?

No, he gets prison term for two years, and the text says that God tested him, but you know that that's true of all of us. Our talent is our test. What do I mean? Why do you think that you're on this earth? One of the reasons, one of the most important reasons, is so that God might know how and where to slot you in the coming kingdom.

That's why. It's like a college entrance exam. Why do you take college entrance exams? Well, you don't know whether or not you're ready for advanced French or freshman French.

You don't know whether you're ready for advanced mathematics. They don't know where to put you, and so they say what we're going to do is to give you a test so that we'll know where you're slotted once school begins. That's what God is doing. He's saying, Daryl, I'm giving you the privilege of either being a ruler over 10 cities or five cities, and the way you serve here on earth is going to determine where you're going to be slotted.

And he's saying to you and to all of us that that's exactly what's happening in this world is is in the world to come are you going to rule over 10 cities, five, or none at all? That's why your faithfulness or lack of it upon planet earth is going to have to some extent repercussions throughout all of eternity, throughout all of eternity, because it'll depend on the responsibilities given to you in the kingdom. You say, well, everybody in heaven is going to be happy, surely.

Oh, yeah, everybody in heaven is going to be happy. But there are some people who are going to be given more responsibilities. If you had a kingdom here on earth, you'd have some people who would serve the king more directly. They would be at the king's table, and there would be others who would have other responsibilities, and in the very same way in the coming kingdom everybody's going to be happy, everybody's going to be serving, everybody's going to be plugged in somewhere. But where you're plugged in is determined by whether or not you're so faithful that you're in church on time, whether or not you prepare your Sunday school lesson, whether or not you give consistently or regularly or only whenever you feel like it. All of that, you see, is being put into the equation as to where you're going to fit into the kingdom.

That's why this idea that somehow we can fritter our time away in the kingdom of the Lord and then in the end here, well done, thou good and faithful servant is nonsense. Your talent is your trust. Your talent is your trust. Thirdly, third lesson, third lesson, whatever you don't use, you will lose.

Whatever you don't use, you will lose. You may say, well, you know, I think that the king was unreasonable. Well, isn't that interesting that you would think that?

Guess what? God's not asking you your opinion. Sometimes I give all kinds of opinions to God even though he doesn't ask me my opinion. I give him mine anyway.

It just feels good to know that at least I let him know what I think. But notice what the king does. He says, take the one away. You may say, well, you know, at least, at least he presented his, his one talent to him that he was given. You know, there are some people who think, well, you know, as long as I have not sustained any losses when I see Jesus Christ, as long as I can still prove to him that I have essentially what I started out with, that that'll be good enough.

Oh, really? The king said, take what he's got and give it to somebody else. Person like that is unworthy.

And by the way, you know, we say that we have unconditional worth. Notice that this, this person is talking, spoken about as being an unworthy servant, unworthy, in the worst sense of the word. I'm concerned, folks, about our lack of enthusiastic, exciting involvement in the ministries of Moody Church.

Whether it has to do with the attendance and permitting, whether it has to do with the attendance in Sunday school, the, the utter disdain with which we sometimes look at the work of God in comparison with the way in which we serve in other capacities. If you have a job down in the loop, you know that your boss would never say to you, well, you know, the poor thing is, you know, you've been on time three out of five times. I guess that's okay. You'd say that would be intolerable. They don't work like that down at LaSalle Street.

But this also is LaSalle Street. And it makes little difference, does it, sometimes, whether we're on time, whether it, whether we give consistently, because you see, the point is, we think to ourselves, we can do as we like. How about those of you who pay for a mortgage, and my wife and I do, it's that monthly experience of having to write out the mortgage, how many of you think that your mortgage company would say to you sometime, you know, actually, you've paid 10 out of 12 times last year. That's, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

We'll accept that. And yet when it comes to giving to the church, we may not give regularly with any kind of regularity. We say, well, you know, I gave three out of eight Sundays.

That's pretty good. Why is it that we treat our daily work, which obviously should be done for God and our financial institutions with so much more respect and honor and concern and faithfulness, than we attend to the blessings and the ministry of the church, when we know that we're going to have to look into the eyes of Jesus and say, I'll tell you, this is really what happened. And we also know that he's not going to be too quick to accept excuses.

You lazy slave, throw him out. It gave him all that money and all that he did is fritter it away, kept it. Sometimes we fritter it away, and this is all that he's got to show. I like to tell that story about some men who are walking through a desert and they came to a well with a pump. And those of you who know anything about pumps, you know that pumps frequently have to be primed. And on the well, there was a can of water that said, use this can of water to prime the pump. If you do that, you will have enough water for yourself and for those who are traveling with you. And so you hear you have a group of people who are thirsting to death.

They have the option. They could drink the water in the small pail, and that would be certain. You know, that's something, sure, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Or they could take the risk of pouring it down into the pump and trusting that the note was right and that the pump would work and that there is water. That's what God does. He says, are you willing to take the risk of letting me become king and Lord over your talents, over your money, over absolutely everything?

And if you do, trust me to multiply it for you, and I'll even give you more. You see, most of us are saying, Lord, if you give me more, I promise to be faithful. God says, you be faithful and I'll give you more. That's the teaching of scripture, to be able to say, I'm willing to give it all to you in faith that you will do well with me. One footnote. If you're here today and you've never received Jesus Christ as savior, the biggest mistake that you could possibly make is to think that what I'm saying here today is that you must be very, very faithful in order to be saved.

That's a big mistake. The Bible teaches that when Jesus died on the cross, he made a sacrifice for sin and therefore that those who believe in him as savior are saved. They receive the free gift of eternal life. They come helplessly to look to Jesus Christ. After you are saved, that's the time then to be faithful to give an account to Jesus Christ. But if you're here and God is distant and you don't know how to be rightly related to God, it is not a matter of going out of here and saying, I'm going to be faithful.

It's a matter of saying, I come as a sinner and I receive the free gift of eternal life. Whatever God has talked to you about today, would you respond to him? Let's pray. Father, I pray that you might take these words so inadequately spoken and I pray that you might use them to shake all of us to reality, to realize that we are going to give an account to you. And so many of us, as we look at this one talent person, feel exactly as he did. We're intimidated in the presence of others who are more gifted than we are.

We feel self-conscious just like he did. We have all the emotions that poured over his spirit, and yet you were displeased because he wasn't faithful with what he had. Lord, make us faithful.

Help some people who have never been involved to break out of that awful cycle of insecurity and to say, by your grace, I will. I will. In Jesus' name, we thank you. Amen.

I want to pick up on what I just said. Whatever God is talking to you about, please respond to him. I want to emphasize again that if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, we are saved as a result of his righteousness.

But having said that, we are still going to be evaluated, indeed, evaluated in detail for our faithfulness or lack of it. For a gift of any amount, you can receive the book Your Eternal Reward, Triumph and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ. One day, I received a letter from a couple who said that this book changed their lives.

In fact, it changed their vocation because they began to recognize that they were accountable to Jesus Christ, and that the idea of standing before him and not hearing, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, so convicted them that they began to live differently. Now, I take the point of view that not everyone is going to hear, Well done. If you want to know the distinction and the basis upon which we will be evaluated, once again, I refer to the book Your Eternal Reward, Triumph and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ. For a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write this down.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, because I do believe that this resource will be transforming for you, I'm going to be giving you that contact info again. And from my heart to yours, I want to thank you so much for your support of this ministry. Together, we are making a difference.

Even today, I heard some good news of the continued expansion of Running to Win, reaching millions of people, all because of people just like you. Ask for the book Your Eternal Reward. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. For many of us, the subject of money is always a hot one, especially when times are hard. Next time on Running to Win, join us as Erwin Lutzer talks about Christ, the Lord of our finances. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.