Bible Text: Matthew 25:1-46 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 2022 | We just heard three parables from Jesus, all with the same theme, that He will return and He will judge the living and the dead, and He wants us to look forward to that day, to pray that it comes quickly, as we just sang, “O Jesus Christ, do not delay, but hasten our salvation!” Or as Revelation ends, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” This is the Christian’s great desire – whatever else we look forward to in life, wonderful things, babies being born, the foundation of a new college, Thanksgiving, graduation, marriage, vacation, retirement, whatever other good things God gives us, these are only steps on the way to the great goal of seeing Jesus face to face and hearing Him say those words we don’t deserve to hear except by the merit of His blood, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
The three parables belong together. The first parable of the ten virgins waiting for the Bridegroom addresses the heart. There are five wise virgins and five foolish. They all look the same on the outside. All do the same outer works. But inside their vessels, hidden from view, is the great difference. Five bring no oil. Five have oil to the full. The oil stands for the Holy Spirit and so for genuine, true faith in Christ and hope for His return and love for Him who has so loved us.
When we say that the Holy Spirit dwells in us Christians, when we say God gives his Holy Spirit to us in Baptism, that He gave Him to Finley two weeks ago and now to Lydia today, we are not talking about the Holy Spirit taking up space inside of you. The Holy Spirit doesn’t take up space; He created space; He contains space; space doesn’t contain Him. The Holy Spirit’s indwelling is the Holy Spirit’s active working, it’s His inspiring faith in Jesus, and hope for His return, and love for Him and for His Church. This is what the Holy Spirit begins to do in babies, and what He continues to do in us, until we reach the goal of all our believing and all our hoping and all our loving – and that goal is to see the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.
The Holy Spirit does it all by the Word, the Word that sets our Jesus before us and says here is your righteousness, here is the forgiveness of all your sins, here is deliverance from death, here is the God who has become your Brother, here the Savior who faced hell for you and rose again to give you life.
By the same Word, the Spirit inspires hope and hope does not disappoint because it looks forward to seeing the Savior who will come, despite all the delay, He will come as He promised. Job expresses this hope better than any, when he has lost everything, when everyone mocks and torments him and tells him God’s against him, when all is pain and misery around him, then he bursts out with those beautiful words, “But I know that my Redeemer lives and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Hope is the yearning of the heart to see Jesus. And with it comes love, love for our Lord Jesus and for the Church He has redeemed with His blood to be His own Bride.
So first Jesus addresses the heart – where your treasure is there your heart will be also. You will not run out of oil, you will never run out of faith, you will never stop hoping for Jesus’ return, never stop loving Him, so long as the Holy Spirit is working in you. And He works through His Word. So hear it and meditate on it and treasure it and bring it into your homes and don’t let any of the expectations of fools in this world pull your heart away from the great goal of seeing the Lord Jesus.
If the first parable has to do with what you believe in your heart as you wait for the Lord, the second has to do with what you do, how you live your life, as you wait for Him. Here Jesus tells the story of a Lord who leaves his land for a time and gives five talents to one servant, two to another, and one to a third. A talent is a unit of money – a lot of money, actually, as we heard last week. The first two servants put the talents to use and they double what their Lord gave them. The last servant is lazy and fearful and envious and so buries his talent in the ground. When the Lord returns, he rewards the first two servants. The last one he condemns, takes his talent from him, and sends him to the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The English word talent comes from this parable. Because that’s what the talents signify in this parable, your talent, the gifts God gives you. Looking forward to Christ coming is not simply a matter of waiting, twiddling our thumbs, and hoping He comes back some day. It’s a matter of working, of using the talents God gives us to the glory and honor of our Lord and His Kingdom. Work while it is day, before the night comes when no one can work, Jesus says. There is no separation of the faith of your heart and the action of your life. Faith that does not work itself out in love is no faith at all.
But not everyone has the same talents. Jesus makes this very clear. He gives one servant five talents, another two, another only one. Jesus doesn’t do what is so common in our day, and so ridiculously unbelievable. He doesn’t tell everyone they’re heroes and that they all can, if they work hard enough, become the president of the United States. That’s a mathematical impossibility. And you don’t want most of the people you meet to be president of the United States. Not everyone has the same talents. There are differences between us, different roles to play. God gives different talents to different people. Some are less talented than others. Michael Jordan is better than you at basketball. Dan Graham can beat you at cornhole. I will destroy you in a Latin reading contest. Some are rich and some are poor. Some are smart and some not so bright. Some are really good at money, some are really good at singing, some have a knack for language, some are good with children, some are good with their hands.
And it would all seem very unfair if the point of it all were to see how much you have and compare yourself with other people and try to get what they have. But that’s not the point. The master doesn’t expect the guy with two talents to present him with five more. And he doesn’t expect the servant with one talent to present him with two more. He expects that we use the talents that He gives us. Not that we envy others for their talents. This should be as far away from our thoughts as possible within the body of Christ. If I see someone very good at organ, my response should not be envy, if only I could be as good as her, but rejoicing that God has given that talent to His child for the benefit of His church of which I am a part. If I see another Christian very rich, whether because he was born with a rich family or because he worked hard for it, or a little of both, my response should not be envy, why didn’t God give me that money, but joy that God gave it to His child and prayer that God give the rich generosity to further the Kingdom of Christ. Because that’s what we care about.
Whatever gifts God gave you, whatever talents, whatever wealth, whatever abilities, small or great, one talent or five, He gave them to you to use for His Kingdom, if you are a mom or dad, that’s using your talents to raise your children in the Christian faith, if you are the provider for your home, using your talents to make a decent income, if God gives you much money, using it to benefit your family and your church and the poor.
It is the fearful servant who goes and buries his talent in the ground and then ends up blaming the master for it. “I knew you were a harsh man and reaped where you did not sow, so I buried the talent. Here, take what is yours.” He blames God. This is the bitter life, the envying life, the life pushed incessantly by the secularists in our day. Be discontent, see those people over there who are privileged, and desire what they have and complain because you don’t have it and demand that they give it to you.
The Lord doesn’t tolerate this for a second. It is pure laziness and selfishness and envy. God gave you your talent. Use it. Don’t worry about what other people have and what you don’t. God put you where you are and He gave you everything you need to thrive. Don’t think above your station, don’t think below it. But whatever you do, do knowing that your Lord gave you your talent and you will stand before Him in the end and your great desire is to hear Him say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with very little, I will make you master of very much, an heir of paradise, of the glory of God.”
The last parable finally shows us what we have to look forward to. The Lord Jesus comes. We who trust in Him and live our lives for Him stand before Him. He welcomes us into paradise, calls us the blessed of His Father, tells us that from eternity a home has been prepared for us with God. And then He praises the works we have done. Not because these works are so amazing, so great in themselves, not because they earned us anything either – he doesn’t say, because you paid for the construction of a church in Haiti or because you were the greatest teacher the world has ever seen – no, because whatever you did to the least of these my brethren, you did for Me. Because you trusted in Jesus and looked forward to seeing His face and so your work, in raising kids, in teaching them the faith, in feeding them; your work in supporting your church; your work in coming to church and singing and confessing the faith, your work in taking care of your mother and father in their old age, of caring for the single moms in your congregation, of visiting the sick, of supporting your pastors, all of it you did looking forward to seeing the Lord Jesus who created you and gave you all you have and redeemed you by His blood.
Jesus does not say, Come you who have never sinned, come you who did everything perfectly, come you who never failed. He says, Come you blessed of my Father. The blessing of the Father is that He loves you so much that He sent His Son for you to live for you and pay by His suffering and His blood to wash you clean of all your sin. The blessing of the Father is that He baptized you and calls you by His name and gives you Christ as your perfect righteousness. The blessing of the Father is that He gives you the feast of your Savior’s body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. The blessing of the Father is that He showers you with talents, some more, some less, and gives you a life of purpose to live, looking forward always to the sight of your Savior on the Last and blessed Day. The blessing of your Father is the life you now live as Christians, the life now granted to little Lydia, the life bestowed on you in your Baptism, the life worked out by the power of the Holy Spirit, listening constantly to the Word of Jesus, and so looking forward with hope that will not disappoint to seeing the Son of God face to face. And so through all your busy life, in all you do and say and think, pray from the heart, “Come, Lord Jesus, Yes, come quickly.” Amen.