A Ten Talent Church

Luke 19:11-27

^11 While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. ^12 He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. ^13 So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’

^14 “But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’

^15 “He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

^16 “The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’

^17 “‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’

^18 “The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’

^19 “His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’

^20 “Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. ^21 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’

^22 “His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? ^23 Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’

^24 “Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’

^25 “‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’

^26 “He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. ^27 But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’”

Which scenario works the best—when you follow your own plans or when God intervenes and show you a better way? I went to Green Bay last weekend for a district conference. The first night was for a separate meeting of about twelve pastors. Naturally, whenever I travel I want to have a roommate to save on hotel costs so I emailed each of these pastors to see if I could room with any of them. I even promised them a snore-free experience, but no one emailed me back. About a week before the conference I tried again and it turns out that all of them were bringing their wives to the conference and didn’t want me hanging around. My plan was to do all I could to find a roommate, but that was not God’s plan. The very moment I arrived at the guest counter, Ken Moberg, the director of the Wisconsin district, had just arrived and greeted me. He said, “Rich, I want you to meet your roommate Chris, and by the way, I am paying for your hotel room.” I am convinced that this is why I was not able to find a roommate before because God wanted me to share a room with Chris.

Chris is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. He was born into the Banjara tribe of India—a tribe of 33 million untouchables—the lowest caste in India. Chris literally was born in the mud during a rainstorm. He became a Christian and was tortured and nearly killed by his Hindu father. He did not see immediate fruit in his ministry, but now he is accomplishing amazing things. Let me list a few of them.

·    He translated the NT into his native Banjara language and financed the printing of 50,000 copies.

·    He runs an orphanage with 1000 orphans—soon to be 2000

·    He operates a nursing school with 90 students

·    He has a Bible school where he trains church planters.

·    127 native missionaries are planting churches and some planters see several hundred  converts per year.

·    Chris has personally baptized over 7,000 people

·    He operates a gospel crusade with 100,000 in attendance

·    He has written over 300 worship songs

·    He is overseeing a construction project of 300,000 square feet

·    Chris is only 40 years old

Our church currently supports Gospel for Asia and some of you are familiar with K. P. Yohannen. Chris knows K.P. and lives five minutes from his office.

Chances are that you and I will never be a Chris Boda. As James wrote of the prophet Elijah—“[He] was a man just like us” Chris is man just like us—an ordinary man that God has empowered to do extraordinary ministry. We are not Chris Boda and God is not calling us to be a Chris Boda, but what does Chris have that you and I also have? According to our passage in Luke 19, you, I and Chris have been given a single mina and that mina represents the gospel of Christ. Jesus told a similar parable recorded in Matthew 25, but in that story, each man is given a different number of talents—five, two and one respectively. I believe those talents represent the spiritual gifts and abilities of each person. Everyone receives a different type and amount of gifting. But in this parable, each person is given the exact same amount—one mina—roughly equal to $10,000 in today’s economy. The nobleman instructed each one to “put this money to work until I come back.” In other words, the command is to receive the gospel and be faithful with the gosepl. In Matthew 25, the parable of the talents is about giftedness, this parable is about faithfulness. “But I am not as gifted as this other guy—how can God expect me to accomplish so much for him?” Are you saved? If you are a believer, you have been given a single mina. You don’t need two minas—you don’t need ten minas—you only need one—because it is the gospel. And the gospel is the most powerful force in the universe.

If I could put this parable into a formula, it would look like this:

The Gospel + Faithfulness = Fruitfulness

This is what Chris Boda does. He received the gospel and through his faithfulness, God is blessing him with tremendous fruitfulness. I will say again—you and I are not Chris Boda. The challenge is to be inspired by Chris but not try to somehow imitate Chris. God is not asking us to be Chris, God is asking us to be faithful.

But not everyone receives the gospel like Chris did. In v. 14 some people said. “We don’t want this man to be our king.” Who is the king in this story? He is none other than Jesus Christ. If you doubt for even a moment that Scripture is relevant for today, just think about this one verse—“We don’t want this man to be our king.” Doesn’t this sound like our modern culture? “Jesus? We don’t want him to be our king.” People may not express it in these exact words, but that is what they mean. A rejection of the gospel is a rejection of Jesus, because they are one and the same—Jesus is the gospel and the gospel is Jesus. Westerners especially don’t like to be ruled over by anyone or anything. But everyone is ruled by something. If Jesus is not your king, then someone or something else is ruling over you.

Many are ruled over by their passions. Our passion for food causes us to eat too much food or too much comfort food. You know what comfort food is, don’t you? Comfort food has the capacity to soothe your mental and emotional state. We all have our comfort foods. Our family doesn’t buy a lot of ice cream, but one time I said to Karen, I’m going to run to Walmart and buy some ice cream. She knew what I meant. We were both feeling a little down and we wanted some ice cream to temporarily soothe our emotions. You may not be aware of your comfort food, but you have some. An occasional bowl of ice cream is not a big deal, but food can be a ruling passion in our lives and can also be a substitute for God-directed passion.

Others are ruled by their passions for sex. Someone addicted to pornography is being ruled over by their sexual passions. At that point, pornography is their king and master. Here is the irony. The world can say, “I don’t want Jesus to be my king,” yet they are perfectly content having pornography as their king. People who shake their fist and declare, “I don’t want a king—I am in charge of my own life,” may not even be aware that they have many masters ruling over them. There is no such thing as a person with no king. Every person on the planet has an allegiance to someone or some thing. If someone says “I can’t change who I am—that’s the way I was born” they have just identified their allegiance. Anything that is master over you is also your king.

People also reject Jesus as king because they have a false view of his character. The man who hid his mina in a piece of cloth used the excuse that the king was a “hard man. That you take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.” This is a horrible description of King Jesus. First of all, it should have been self-evident to the man who said it. How could the king try to reap where he didn’t sow when he had already sown a mina? He gave the man $10,000 and all he asked was that he make an attempt at earning some interest on the principal. Pharaoh is a good description of a ruler who tried to reap what he did not sow. Do you remember when Pharaoh became angry with Moses and decided to no longer supply the Israelite slaves with straw in order to make bricks? Pharaoh was, as the saying goes, trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. He was demanding to sow a crop but he refused to sow and seed. Pharaoh was a hard man, but this king was a generous man. He gave the servants an enormous gift which they did not and could not have earned.

This man was not among the group who declared, “we don’t want this man as our king,”, but his actions proved otherwise. On one hand the man was right. Who would want to serve a king who was a cruel taskmaster and demanded the impossible? Anyone would become hopeless under such circumstances. It would be like being a prisoner in a Nazi prison camp—at any moment you could be executed or slowly starved to death. If you were given a morsel of bread, it would not give you hope because the guards could come and take away your last piece of bread. In reality, this last servant hated the king, but he was too afraid to say anything. He served the king with his mouth but hated him with his actions—all because he had a false view of the king. But in reality the king was abundantly generous. He have a single mina to each person—a gift they did not deserve, then as a reward of faithfulness, the king presented a fantastically generous gift—the right to rule over many cities.

Do you see Jesus here? Each of us have been given a single mina—the gospel and gift of our salvation—a gift we did not deserve and one we could never earn. At his return, Jesus will reward faithfulness with even more generosity. Do we deserve heavenly rewards? No, but the character of our King is pure generosity and he will reward us.

Look again at the generous character of our king.

The Gospel Gift + Our Faithfulness = Fruitfulness !  Great Rewards

Jesus gives us the perfect gift of salvation. In response to that gift all he asks of us is faithfulness to him—faithfulness to serve him and share his gospel with others. When you add his gospel to our faithfulness you get fruitful ministry. But where did the fruit come from? It is yet another gift, is it not? We do not produce the fruit. He is the vine, we are the branches. The gospel is a gift, the fruit is a gift, then when King Jesus returns he will give us massive, undeserved rewards. Our king is not a hard man—reaping where he does not sow. Instead, he allows us to reap where we did not sow.

But sometimes we still doubt his character. When life is tough we wonder why God has abandoned us. When it seems that our prayers go unanswered, we begin to think that maybe Jesus is a cruel taskmaster. We do this because we have lost sight of the gospel. When does the gospel transform? Many Christians believe the transformation of the gospel happens only at salvation. Our salvation is the heart of transformation, but the power of the gospel does not stop there. Take Chris for example. He became a Christian at age 16, but he did not even own his first pair of shoes until he was twenty years old. How could he serve a God who would not even give him a pair of shoes? Chris could have easily concluded that his king was not very generous. But Chris did something very important. Instead of looking at his feet with no shoes, he chose to cast his gaze on the gospel. Chris chose to look at the greatest gift and the great gift-giver, instead of looking at the absence of a single gift—his shoes. Chris’ own tortured him and intended to kill him, but rather look at the absence of love from his earthly father, Chris chose to look at the love of his heavenly father. This is gospel transformation that does not stop at conversion, but continues for a lifetime.

Look down at your feet. Whad’ya know—you’re wearing shoes! We have shoes, but we are all missing something in life—the love of a mother or father; a broken relationship; an unfulfilled dream. We are all missing something, and the longer we look at the missing piece, the more we begin to doubt the character of the king. We would never speak the words out loud, but deep down we question his character. That’s what happens when we look at the missing piece and forget the gospel. Our king is generous and he allows us to reap where we have not sown. All he asks in return is our faithfulness.

We have a great opportunity to cultivate faithfulness. The da Vinci outreach is only five weeks away. If others are to be transformed by the gospel as we have, how will they hear? We must invite them! Please pull out the blue cards found in your bulletin. This is your invite and prayer list. I want you to take the next 30 seconds and start writing down the names of people you can invite. Write down their names and take more than enough invite cards home with you. But before you invite anyone, make sure you pray for them first. This is a simple tool to help us be more faithful. I am sure we all have good intentions to invite others, but usually our good intentions don’t always materialize. If you use this card it can help you to be faithful in prayer, faithful in inviting others and faithful in trusting God for the results. Try to fill up at least one card. I remembered that I have a dentist appointment in a few weeks, so I wrote down my dentist’s name. Our bikes needed some work so I took them to the new cycle shop in town, so I wrote down the bike repair guy’s name. I had to pick up the da Vinci posters from the printer so I wrote down their names. Write down your list of names, pray for them and invite them. It’s up to God to do the rest.

Rich Maurer

April 30, 2006