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In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, last week in the parable of the ten virgins, Jesus would have us set our eyes on the coming day of judgment and to be ready for that day, to know that he is the bridegroom who is delayed, and to be ready for the wait with faith and expectation.
But Jesus today, in the parable of the talents, is working our way backwards. He’s saying that what we expect on the last day, in fact, matters for how we live and act and speak and go about our business now. In other words, the ten virgins is warning us that we should act now in light of the coming judgment, and the parable of the talents says that the coming judgment works its way back into the way we act. It’s kind of a backwards and forwards kind of thing.
Jesus says that the kingdom of God, or the day of the Lord, is like a master who leaves on a journey, and he leaves with his three servants different amounts of money for investing: five talents for one, two talents for another, and one talent for another. We remember that a talent is a year’s wage, so this is not an insignificant amount. And they, these three servants, act differently.
The one who receives the five talents goes and invests it, and he doubles the money; the same thing with the one who has two talents. But the one who receives one talent goes and maybe he invests in a shovel, and he goes and digs a hole in the ground and buries the talent. So when the master comes back, he goes and digs it back up so that he doesn’t lose anything. He sits, maybe, you know, you kind of get the picture that he’s guarding it, that he’s, everything that he’s doing is because he’s afraid.
And we wonder why, why the difference in the three servants, but it comes out in the end. Because when the master comes back, he blesses the first servant and blesses the second servant, and then when it comes to the third servant, we hear the whole point. He says, “I know you to be a harsh man, reaping where you didn’t sow, harvesting where you didn’t plant, so I buried your talent, take what’s yours.” And the master condemns that servant as wicked and lazy. He says, “You knew that I’m a hard man, so I will be for you a hard man.”
And this is the first mystery that I want us to consider, and I just in some ways almost have to apologize that I do not know how to teach this mystery better. I’m still trying to understand it myself, but here’s the mystery. You have the Lord as you expect to have Him. What matters in the parable of the talents is not how you take care of the talents, but rather how you think of the Master. If you think the Master is a hard man, a rough man, and therefore you go about your business with fear and trepidation, then you find Him to be exactly that way – fearful, harsh, condemning.
But if, on the other hand, you expect the Master to be kind and gracious and generous, and you go about your business expecting that, then you find Him to be kind, kind and gracious and generous. It’s not that our expectations actually change who God is; that’s not the case. God is kind and God is generous, but if we don’t believe Him to be that way, then we don’t have Him that way.
I came across this as a young theologian in Psalm 18. I’m going to read you a couple of verses. Psalm 18, verse 25 to 27, says, it’s a prayer to the Lord: “With the merciful, you show yourself merciful. With the blameless man, you show yourself blameless. With the pure, you will show yourself pure. And with the devious you will show yourself shrewd.”
I remember that verse because when I first read it, I think it was in the King James, and it said, “With the froward you will show yourself froward.” And I still don’t know what the word froward means. I think it means, I think devious is probably a good translation here. With the devious, it says, this is the Lord, to the devious you show yourself devious. And then the conclusion, the theological point, verse 27: “For you save the humble people, but you bring down haughty looks.” To the humble, the Lord is gracious. To the proud, the Lord is proud.
To the humble, the Lord is kind. But to those who exalt themselves, the Lord exalts himself even higher. To those who would have the Lord by faith according to the death and resurrection of His Son, you will have Him according to the death and resurrection of His Son. But to those who expect the Lord and who want to stand before the Lord on their own terms, who want to stand before the Lord in their own works and whatever, then they will have it that way.
You see, the Lord has two acts, two ways of dealing with humanity, two modes of… He has His essential actions of love, and then he has what the Bible calls his strange work of judgment. Here’s the text, Isaiah 28, verse 21: “‘For the Lord will rise up at Mount Perizim. He will be angry, as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his alien act.”
There is a strange work that the Lord does, a work that he doesn’t want to do in a lot of profound ways, a work that is not who he is as we know him to be the God of love. There is a hard side, a judging side, a condemning side, a side of the Lord that punishes those who would stand on their own merits. And those who don’t know His love will have the Lord that way.
Now we know that the Lord is, this is the point, that the Lord is merciful, the Lord is pure, the Lord is kind, the Lord is patient, the Lord is loving. The Lord, in fact, has sent His Son so that none would perish and none would come to death, but all would have eternal life. But to those who do not know Him according to Christ, He is none of those things. He is harsh. He is unkind. He is full of unrelenting justice that will all come to manifest itself on the last day.
Now that’s the first mystery: you have the Lord as you would have Him. But then there’s a second mystery that Jesus is unfolding, and that is this: how we would have the Lord shapes how we ourselves are. The phrase to kind of capture this is that you are what you idol. You are what you worship. As you worship the Lord who is kind and merciful, you are shaped into that kindness and into that mercy. But as you worship God according to his wrath and his anger, so you become wrathful and full of anger.
The key text for this is Psalm 115. Now this is, again, this is a spiritual mystery here, but it’s profound for us to meditate on. Psalm 115, verse 3: “Our God is in heaven. He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak.” Talking about the idols here. “They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t handle. They have feet, but they don’t walk, nor do they mutter with their throat.”
“Those who make them are like them, and so is everyone who trusts in them.” If you have a God that doesn’t act, that doesn’t talk, that doesn’t know, that doesn’t see, then you yourself become spiritually blind and mute and deaf. If you have a God who acts only according to judgment and to wrath, then you yourself become fearful and full of wrath.
So the third foolish servant, who expected only the harshness of the master and acted accordingly, received that harshness, but not so with us.
And this is the point: What do you expect to happen on judgment day? Do you expect God to come back with a long list of all the things that you’ve done wrong? Do you expect the Lord to somehow display every wicked act that you’ve done and judge you according to it? What do you expect to see on the Lord’s face on that day? His frown? His great disappointment in you? That expectation, in fact, will prove to be true.
But we know better. This is what Saint Peter preached to the Thessalonians. He said, “You are not in darkness that that day will surprise you like a thief. You are children of the light. You are children of the day. You have the breastplate of faith and love. You have on your head the helmet of the hope of salvation.” You know, and listen to these words, that “God has not destined you for wrath.” Let me say that again: “God has not destined you for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we live for him.”
This is an encouragement for us, and this builds us up. The one who’s coming back, now this is the point, the one who is coming back is the one who died. The one who’s returning is the one who sacrificed himself. The one who will judge the quick and the dead is the one who took your condemnation in your place on the cross.
And so he comes not with wrath, not for you, not with judgment, not with fear, but with forgiveness and kindness, love and blessing. There’s a reason that at the end of every service we have these words, the words that God commanded Moses and Aaron to speak on the people: “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.” That shining face of God means the smiling face of God. God smiles at you.
I know you’re a sinner, he knows you’re a sinner, Jesus died for that sin. God smiles at you and on the last day when the heavens are torn apart you will see the face-to-face and on his face a smile because of the blood of Jesus. So we live our lives not in fear of that day but in hope for that day, in longing for that day, in confidence that that day is the great last day of joy and peace as we enter into his life everlasting.
And living in that confidence matters for how we live today, not in fear of a harsh master, but in the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.