This is a lesson from Pastor Lars. I thought it was an awesome lesson on our gifts that God blesses us with. Enjoy! Pastor Bob

The Story About Investment Matthew 25:14-30 (The Message)

14-18 “It’s also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand dollars, to a third one thousand dollars, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master’s investment. The second did the same. But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master’s money.

19-21 “After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’

22-23 “The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master’s investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’

24-25 “The servant given one thousand said, ‘Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.’

26-27 “The master was furious. ‘That’s a terrible way to live! It’s criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.

28-30 “‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this “play-it-safe” who won’t go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.’

Some people would say that this man was a harsh and unfair man. I want to show you that this man was kind and extremely fair and how this story relates to you.

He was kind because he trusted his servants with large sums of money while he was away.
A talent was a unit of measure concerning silver or gold. One talent was about as valuable as 20 years of wages. Let’s look at it in today’s value. In 2003 the average salary in the United States was $36,764 but for our example let’s make it $35,000 even. One talent would equal $700,000, two talents would equal $1,400,00 and five talents would equal $3,500,000.

Here is a man who trusted his servants with a great deal of wealth. He simply placed the talents in their hands and trusted they would value it as if it were their own. The man given the five talents invested it and gained five more and the man given two talents also invested what was trusted to him and increased his master’s wealth by two talents. The one given one talent did not see the kindness of the master but instead saw harshness instead and went and hide the money. He did not take a risk to increase his master wealth because of fear.

The wealthy man was fair in rewarding what the servants had done because he gave to them what they expected from him. To the two who expected kindness and took a risk to increase his wealth he gave rewards and to the one who expected harshness from him and who out of fear did nothing the man banished him from his presence.

You might ask, “What does this story have to do with me?” “God has not left me great wealth to invest.”

This passage is sandwiched between the story of the Ten Virgins in which five were wise and five were not and the story of the separation of the sheep and goats. Oil can refer to the Holy Spirit and talents can refer to the spiritual gifts we receive when we accept Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit.

If we do not respond to the Holy Spirit’s movement in our life and use the gifts that God has given us in service to others we will end up standing before Jesus and not being able to identify any time we served Him. God has trusted the imprisoned, the downtrodden, the addicted, the rejected, the dejected and us with gifts to invest in the lives of the sick. When we take a risk and invest in their lives we increase the Kingdom of God and when we don’t because of fear we end up sitting on potential increasing the wealth of the Kingdom.

Maxwell Maltz wrote “Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving toward an important goal.”

What goal could possibly be more important than investing in the lives of others in the name of the Kingdom of God? You have been given the talents now go and invest.

Notes: 1 Talent = 20 years of wages – 1 year = $30,000
5 thousand talent servant = $3,000,000
2 thousand talent servant = $1,200,000
1 thousand talent servant = $ 600,000

A talent is representative of our gifts.
“Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving toward an important goal.” — Maxwell Maltz, 1899 – 1975

Pastor Lars
REAL Men RoCK
http://www.ourchurch.com/member/r/REAL_Men_RoCK/

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Bible Study, Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.