295: Cam Beeler - The Parable of the Talents (Matt 25)

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to Good Chris Selfie and talks. I’m Levi. And I’m Chris, and I’m Brian. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week with the short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you’re about to listen to.

2. 0:33

   And now, let’s talk more about this week’s talk. This week’s talk is a Sunday School class given at the San Diego Ecclesia just last Sunday May 5th of this year. My brother Cam Beeler. I was really thankful to get this suggestion from a member of that Ecclesia that was in the audience and I guess to be clear about my bias I’m a huge fan of Cam a friend of his we we we check in with each other throughout the year and so I was obviously I was excited to listen to the class and and I’m excited to share it.

3. 1:19

   But though I am fairly biased being a just having a relationship with Cam, but I do think it’s a very good study on kind of Matthew 25 and the parable of talents. He touches on a lot of different subjects, so it does kind of he kind of takes a couple trips down different paths.

4. 1:40

   But there is a main focus on kind of our role and how we should respond to what has been given to us. And he has a kind of an interpretation of Matthew 25, which I hadn’t considered before that I thought was helpful. I also think Cam has a unique way of talking in a a really American accent. I was thinking for, you know, the majority of our listeners are not from North America.

5. 2:04

   So I think it makes for a good podcast as well. And he has a lot of great kind of 1 liners in here that even if you don’t follow kind of the organization of what he’s saying, I still think it’s a an easy listen and should be a a good, a good, good episode. So I was excited to to share it.

6. 2:23

   So here is Cam Beeler on the parable of the talents. But I want to start with kind of a a thought. I want to, I want to collect some observations about our role. Now, last week I did part of this. This is like a 5A5 series course that I’ve all crunchled up until, you know, 22 Sundays.

7. 2:44

   And it may look like that. Last week we talked about God’s master plan. Anybody want to pop off what what God’s master plan is from the Habakkuk verse, Earth should be filled with the knowledge, the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And that is a very nicely encapsulated statement that has a broader expression.

8. 3:07

   And the broader expression is that what God is doing? You know, because the glory of the Lord’s expressed in Exodus 33 and 34, when when Moses asked God to reveal his way. What God is doing is he’s developing a community of people who will be his family, who operate with each other with compassion and graciousness, slow to anger, you know, patience and abounding in love with one another, right.

9. 3:32

   And we see that when when you see that and you elaborate on that plan in that way and you say, well, what does that look like, right? Because I think it’s, you know, it’s like any, any map of the destination. If you want to get to the destination, you got to know what the destination is. And God has in in little pieces and with riddles and with metaphors and with the, you know, the history that’s been laid out is continuing to show us what it looks like both. For Kingdom expression and the breaking of Kingdom expression, right?

10. 4:06

    So that we can take any part of the Bible, any story, any account and we can link it back to what God is doing and say OK that makes sense here, God is showing a contrast, right? The sin in the garden is a contrast with what God is developing. And yet God didn’t uses that in disciplining of his children to develop the actual expression of Kingdom living, of correction, of redemption back to you know what I would say I call alignment with God’s plan.

11. 4:38

    And today we’re going to talk about a couple of those things. But I I like to start with that visual. What is the visual? Well here’s one visual which I haven’t shared yet. Imagine a great day. It’s a Sunday. It’s the the the, you know, the the meeting was great. The the, you know the Sunday school was mediocre maybe, but the egg store was fantastic.

12. 5:00

    And you you know that everybody goes home and you got the kids around the table and there’s happy chatter and the kids aren’t fighting over who gets the extra chicken wing. You know, they’re they’re all, you know, everybody is happy with what they’re getting. I just may be a fantasy world. You’ve got lots of kids, but that’s the point, right?

13. 5:20

    Mom and Dad are around the table. The kids are around the table. Everybody’s laughing, everybody’s happy. Everybody’s working with each other, and they’re behaving. And it’s just a moment where you’re like, I want to take a picture in time because this is beautiful. It’s beautiful when a family works well together. And that’s no accident.

14. 5:38

    We didn’t evolve to this state to appreciate the beauty of that kind of outcome. We were given that we were engineered to know that that’s beautiful because our father values that. And I’m not talking about the Chicken Lee, right? I’m talking about the love of a family for each other around the table, working together, enjoying each other’s company. And God adds a couple of things to that, right? And we can think when we’re younger that, oh, these are the commands we got to follow.

15. 6:15

    We got to obey these things in this. But what God is doing for us is providing the pieces that, when applied in our lives, help our lives work, help our relationships work right without those things, without without the insight into what God is giving us. And in providing to us as guidance for survival in life and in the right way, we just become animals, fighting for our own interests. And that has a completely different reality, right? So I love the picture of a family around the table. I mean it’s it’s also why we Jesus. This is not in my notes, but Jesus is talking at one time. He’s at dinner with a a Pharisee who’s invited him in, right? And they’re all there.

16. 7:10

    And Jesus tells him you would receive extra blessing if you would invite other people, people who couldn’t pay you back around the table, right? But here’s an interesting thing. Who’s around the table? Our family, Our friends, right? And Jesus is like, widen the Nets, invite more than just people who will return the favor to you, right?

17. 7:38

    Extend your blessing and you will be blessed for it. And and this is kind of what we’re being told is the Kingdom of God is not my family. My family’s bigger than my children, right? My ecclesia by definition is my family. There are people I don’t even know yet that will be part of our ecclesia tomorrow and some of them will be because we broaden the net.

18. 8:04

    We don’t know who our family is yet. It isn’t finished. And often times what was happening with the Pharisees and Jesus was commenting to this is you’ve self constrained. Your blessings will abound if you’ll broaden the net, extend it to people who can’t return the blessing to you. And I find it actually beautiful because the next conversation is now there’s a crowd of people in the room with them as they’re having the conversation and he’s still at dinner. So apparently the Pharisee was like, that’s a good idea, but I love that visual.

19. 8:41

    The one of the things I find for me and I find that things that are true for me are often true for other people, is that I tend to over complicate things. I tend to see, I mean I I I see the spider web of scripture, things that all connect and then I’m like, well how do I clarify that?

20. 8:59

    And then I live in that kind of complexity sometimes. And then every now and again there’s a vision of simplicity. What God is inviting us to do and ask us to do is not complicated. There can be difficulties, there can be complications. But but the core of what He’s inviting us to do is not complicated.

21. 9:19

    Developing A broader family from the people that he is calling right to operate in a way that is beautiful. Now on an individual basis, we can be called a specific things that are difficult. Jesus isn’t the only person who’s had a difficult ministry, but he’s he’s probably the one with the most difficult ministry.

22. 9:46

    Would you agree? Right. OK, good. I like to see this. And if you don’t agree, that’s fine. Come talk to me later, ’cause you probably know something I don’t know. You know, and and everybody knows something. I don’t know many things. So I get to learn all the time. And that’s awesome.

23. 10:04

    So now I’m going to bring this around and I want to bring this around a little bit different, but it but it’s going to feed in today. We’re going to talk about given enough time, Matthew 25, there’s a parable and I find the parable is very instructive and it’s the parable of the talent.

24. 10:19

    So we’re going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about our roles, and specifically I’m going to talk about the roles that we’re called into now this. Now we could talk about the different kind of role that each person had. I think we touched on that a little last week, and I may touch on that again.

25. 10:38

    But I want to talk about the hats that God has labeled for us, the roles that God has called us into as believers. And we’re going to think about elevating our notion of our privilege in the Lord. Now that’s a loaded word these days. I don’t mean it necessarily in loaded fashion, although there’s some truth to that.

26. 11:06

    And then we’re going to go from there and talk about Sabbath. So I know it sounds like a lot our privileged Sabbath and Matthew 25 parable of the talents. Hopefully we’ll get past the first part. Sometimes I struggle to get through lots of content. OK, so here we are. Now I want to do this.

27. 11:26

    I’m going to do this all day because these things drive me nuts and I can’t see with anyway. Think about whether these things are something that resonate with you and do actually come out of the scripture for each of you. You are all servants of the Master. Think to yourself, is that true or not?

28. 11:53

    We desire to all be friends of the Son, the friends of Jesus. And if we’re friends of Jesus, that makes us friends of God. We’re called to be ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation, Ambassadors of Jesus. 2nd Corinthians 5 And that says that if you’re ambassadors of Jesus, that you’re that the God has called us to be the very righteousness of God. That’s what he says.

29. 12:26

    The scriptures say we’re sons and daughters, and it calls us also the children. It says that we are the very people of God because he called us, we are holy and we’re told that as he is holy, so we should be holy. In another verse it says as he is perfect, so we should be perfect. I mean, think about that kind of instruction when you get up in the morning, are you thinking, OK, today’s my day for perfection and I don’t.

30. 13:05

    And yet here it is. I said, children of God, do you think of yourself as royalty? I mean, the full implication of being children of God. OK, so is God a king?

31. 13:27

    I mean, I didn’t even say it, right. What did I miss? Yeah, the word a God isn’t a king, right? God is the king, the king, and the scriptures say it in time and Time and Time. The Lord of Lords Adonai, the King of Kings, Malek, right? He’s above all others, and yet we’re called his children.

32. 14:02

    And what is a child of the king? Common or royal? OK, that I’ve got. I’ve got really loud voices right here. I love the loud voices, but I expect more Common or royal? Royal. Do you wake up in the morning thinking I’m royalty? I don’t mean from the entitlement standpoint. Jesus made the comment to the apostles, right?

33. 14:26

    The Gentiles Lord it over each other. I’m going to demonstrate an example for you as your master. I will be your. I will demonstrate service and if I’m going to serve you and I’m your master, common or royal. Now Jesus was a man, was a person, just like you and I are dealt with the same struggles, the same hardships, all of these things, the same temptations.

34. 14:59

    And yet was without sin. OK, feel free to volunteer, especially if I leave that semi pregnant pause. He was without sin, OK? And God raised Jesus gave him the name above all other names. What name is above all other names? Nope, Nope. Thank you for doing that though. That’s a great lead in That’s exactly how we think, right? We read that we know.

35. 15:29

    We call him Jesus. We see that Jesus was given the name above all other names. Jesus’s name was Yeshua, right? That doesn’t change anything. That was what he was called in his day. He was raised and given a new name. So I presume that the new name he was given was not Yeshua. He was given a new name.

36. 15:50

    He was given the name that is above all other names. The clue for this would be in Jeremiah 23 says there will be one who will be taken out of the branch of David, right? He will redeem his people and he shall be called and in English it says the Lord my righteousness.

37. 16:12

    Now interestingly enough, if you back into the Hebrew it doesn’t say Lord, it isn’t that an I. It’s Yahweh, it says, and his name shall be called Yahweh. Zadiq. The name above all are the names given to the one that is in the line of David. Now whose name is Yahweh?

38. 16:35

    God. It’s interesting not part of the class, but interesting that in Jeremiah 33 the same thing is said. It’s talking about Jerusalem and it says it shall also be called Yahweh, my Zadiq. Now Zaddiq is the word that’s in a priesthood and we know it as Melchizedek. I just find it interesting that the name of God and Zaddiq and that’s what he shall be called, calling to Jesus and calling to Jerusalem.

39. 17:07

    And the reason I say that about Jerusalem is because when you get to Revelation 3, verse 11, I believe it is. It says to he who overcomes I shall make to be a pillar in the temple of my Lord shall never be removed, and he shall be given a new name. He will be given the name, the new name of Jesus. He’ll be given the new name of Jerusalem, and he’ll be given the new name, the name of our Father of God. Those three things, you can check it. It’s in Revelation 3.

40. 17:41

    So those things, those things tie together to something. And whether it’s literal, metaphoric, or both, it’s interesting because Jesus now is sitting on what? What is Jesus sitting on? There’s like 7 references of this and New Testament God’s right hand on the throne. If you’re sitting on the throne, you are a king, right?

41. 18:07

    Because if you’re not a king, you do not sit on the throne. Does it make sense? King doesn’t like well, who’s going to somebody? You. You come sit on my throne? No, not if you want to survive, right? Jesus Sitting on the throne of the King makes Jesus the King again. Whether it’s a literal throne or a metaphoric throne or both, it infers an understanding of what Jesus is doing in his role today. Now what’s interesting is in Revelation 321, Jesus says to the one who overcomes I will give the right to sit on my throne with me as I sat on my father’s throne, right with him. Now here’s an interesting thing.

42. 18:58

    If we sit on Jesus’s throne, if we’re being invited up, we’re already called the children of God, which makes us royalty. If we’re if we’re invited by Jesus to sit on his throne with him, that makes us kings, is that is that too far a reach right. So now if you’ve got a conversation that we’ve been called to be ambassadors, we’ve been called to be ministers, we’ve been called to be kings and we’ll be kings with Jesus out of Jerusalem.

43. 19:28

    And Jesus, right, is the high priest in the order of Melchizedek, who is king priest in Jerusalem Salem, right? And Jesus is the high priest in the order. But an order contains people that makes us what Melchizedek and priests connect the dots, right? It’s like we’ve given all of the information. It’s just leading us to an understanding that what we’ve been called right is profound. Do you wake up and think of yourself as being an expression of a of righteousness and an expression of peace to be seen by others?

44. 20:15

    Because that’s what priests do. They express something right from God to others. Mediators as it were. And these are the things that we have as roles that are cast upon us. We don’t meet them perfectly. I certainly don’t. But it’s hard to meet the purpose of your creation if you don’t start by acknowledging and understanding and and under and appreciating what we’re invited into. And then what I think is the Amazing Grace that we’re being shown.

45. 20:52

    Because while we’re called into the role, we often don’t even think about it. And we certainly can easily misrepresent the world we’re in because we’re called because God doesn’t predicate. He doesn’t say, look, this is the role I want you to be in, and once you get it right, then we’ll then we’ll label you right.

46. 21:12

    He starts by inviting us into it and as soon as we embrace him, which I believe happens in baptism, that those labels apply, we just haven’t figured it out and grown into them, right. We don’t fully appreciate what we’re called to, and God’s dealing with us in mercy and grace as we discover. But he does want us to discover it. Now.

47. 21:43

    One of the things I talked about last week, and I’m going to say it again, is the friendship aspect. We can live. I mean, Jesus is talking about his apostles at one point in time, starting at John 14. And he’s like, you know, you did what I told you to do and and and your servants in the house. But I’ve shared with you everything, right? Everything that’s important.

48. 22:06

    And now you understand what God’s will in the house is. And now you are no longer servants because now you understand what God’s purpose and plan is. You’ve become what friends, right? This is the one friend conversation right now that you understand what’s what’s being done in the house. You’ve become friends. And he goes, and he elaborates even one more. He says, if you do what I command, then you are my friends.

49. 22:32

    And he says and I command you to love one another. So let’s do that. So anyway, that’s that’s one of the things I think is interesting is what God is doing is he’s, you know, we’ve got these stages of spiritual development in our lives, and it starts out with little children where we’re being cared for by whoever the manager of the house is kind of concept. And that’s a Galatians 4 discussion. But we’re also kind of servants.

50. 23:01

    We’re trying to figure out how to be obedient to the instruction God has given us. But at some point, we, you know, we’re being invited to grow to the point where we don’t need to just follow the commands. We actually need to figure out what God is seeking to do so that we can apply ourselves towards His purpose. In other words, we understand God’s plan and we understand how we fit in it, and we know how to participate actively and voluntarily in the plan of God.

51. 23:30

    That’s what friends do. We love what He’s doing, and we want to be a part of it, and we figure out how to fit in. We can be servants doing what we’re told, or we can be friends figuring out how to further it, right? And that’s what Jesus is telling him. You know what you need to know now?

52. 23:48

    You will no longer be called my servants. You will be called my friends, and I find that to be an invitation for each and every one of us, right? God will continue to work with us in mercy and compassion and graciousness and kindness as servants. But He’s inviting us to grow up in his family and become friends and active participation, active participation of the plan.

53. 24:12

    Now to me that gets even more scary because I’m like, So what am I supposed to do? Am I like, you know, David built a temple. Why did he build a temple? You know, that’s a pretty big undertaking. You know, is this talking like I’ve got to start, you know, saving money and and talking about a seven-year plan so that I can do one thing and I and I think not.

54. 24:32

    I think the scripture actually indicates to us it’s we tend to complicate it, but God actually isn’t. Act asking, asking for complicated. Now I’ll say this, being a participant in the plan of God

55. 24:48

    is in and of itself fairly straightforward, and I’m going to give some practical comment commentary in a second. God may ask you to do something profoundly difficult, right? And I think that exercise is one of spiritual development and generally for people that have specific roles that actually have profounding, you know, profound implications and ripple effect. And that can be any any one of us and every one of us at different places and times in our lives. But the day-to-day, being a servant of God has one thing that I think is different and it’s an exercise of vision, both understanding what he’s looking for and and and and I actually do the literal vision thing.

56. 25:36

    I think I did this last week as well. I actually look up and think, OK, a family that loves each other is what you’re driving to develop on the earth. I’m not saying trying or seeking because God doesn’t try. He does. And I can participate now. And what is something simple I can do, OK?

57. 25:55

    And it could be the way I interact. It could be a conversation I have. It could be inviting people to lunch. It could be, you know, seeing someone that needs a little bit of food and helping them and and saying, and I just want you to know that the kingdom’s coming and when it comes you won’t be captive to the difficulties you have.

58. 26:14

    It’s keeping an eye on what God is doing and what you’re doing. Because when you do it, it’s like, you know, everybody with children raises a family, and everybody that raises a family loves their children mostly, right? But not everybody raises their family with an eye to the Kingdom of God coming and the children being in the Kingdom and then operating with their children in a way that manifests the love and compassion and gracious and mercy, mercy and kindness. You may see the same behaviors from different families, but one’s motivated by a view of what the Kingdom is and the other one’s motivated because that’s just how they interact. It makes all the difference in the world. When you look to God’s plan and to God to determine how you’re going to act, the motive matters. The motive matters.

59. 27:06

    All right. So I said I was going to talk about Sabbath, and believe it or not, Sabbath fits in. And I’m going to start with the conversation on what what exactly is Sabbath? I mean, there’s going to be a lot of possible answers. What is Sabbath? Rest. OK. Rest from what? Rest from work.

60. 27:29

    Rest from providing for yourself. OK, That’s good. Where do we see where do we? OK. I didn’t say it. We see it first in creation. All right. And what happens that that calls it Sabbath? What is what is it that that makes it a Sabbath in creation, in Genesis two really anybody. It actually says what about God that he he rested right rested from all his creation.

61. 28:06

    Now here’s an interesting thing. Jesus does some stuff on the on the Sabbath, right? And the Pharisees come, come after him. You know, there’s six days a week You could be healing. People don’t do it on the Sabbath, which I find funny. And Jesus makes a comment, right? He supports his work on the Sabbath by saying, well, he does.

62. 28:32

    I’m getting to that one, getting all ahead of me. Owen says. The Sabbath was not made for man. No, no, that’s not it. Did I say it wrong? I did say it wrong, didn’t I? Man? Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man and the Lord and the and the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.

63. 28:56

    The other thing he says, which I find quite interesting, is my father is still at work, so I must work. There’s an interesting one under the Sabbath.

64. 29:13

    And yet you get all the way up to Hebrews 4. And when he talks about the Sabbath, the author of Hebrews right, He talks about the Sabbath rest. And he said God rested from all his work. And he said, and we also wait in eager anticipation of the Sabbath that’s coming, right? So that we also will rest for more work, which puts the Sabbath in the future.

65. 29:42

    So interesting, isn’t it? So what is the observation of the Sabbath? What is the Sabbath of the future? What do we call that? That is exactly right. We call it the Kingdom. So the Kingdom age we’re looking for is the Sabbath rest? Well, we’ll be resting from our work, but will we be sitting on a cloud somewhere with a harp not doing anything?

66. 30:12

    Is that the visual? What? What are we going to be doing? How long do we say the Sabbath rest on the earth is classically, Yeah, there’s no risk in this when you guys know what this is. How long do we say it’s going to be? 1000 years? Thousand years? Sabbath rest. I’m OK if it’s 1001.

67. 30:33

    If it’s 10,000, it’s 20,000. But the evidence of the scripture, there’s one or two verses that say 1000 years. So I’m going to go with 1000 years. What are we going to do on the earth? What happens at the end of the thousand years?

68. 30:46

    God is All in all, which means there’s no longer any what on the earth. There’s no more sin. And when there’s no more sin, there’s no more. There’s no more struggle, there’s no more death. We’re told in Revelation 21 the old, old order of things has passed away, that you know, the mourning and crying, those things are gone. The God will dwell with man.

69. 31:12

    We start in the creation with God dwelling with man. We end at the completion of the creation, with God dwelling with man. So it seems to me that for 1000 years we start with an earth that’s full of corruption and we end with an earth that has none. So I think there’s a lot of work going on for 1000 years because we’re purifying mankind in the earth for 1000 years, and that purification is the elimination of sin and death, right? One person at a time.

70. 31:47

    So it’s interesting because what does Jesus do on the Sabbath? He did miracles. But what did his miracles do, right? What about the man who was lame? He’s healed, right? What did he say? I could say and he did that on the Sabbath, right? But, he said, I could say your sins have forgiven you.

71. 32:16

    Stand up and walk or be healed. Take up your map. Go home. And so you know and. For your benefit, be healed, pick up your, you know, pick up your map, go home. What did he do? What is that? It’s like he it’s like he stops the, you know, stops the video for a second, looks at us and says are you paying attention? Because this is a.

72. 32:44

    Sabbath Act now What days did Jesus heal on? All of them. Matter of fact. That’s the whole thing with. The Pharisees, You have six days a week. You heal on. Leave the Sabbath alone and Jesus is like you, missing the point. The Sabbath is. An observation of the Kingdom that’s coming when you will cease to be filling your bank account for your own purposes, and you’ll be committed to furthering God’s Kingdom on the earth. And purifying.

73. 33:23

    And bringing healing and demonstrating love and gentleness. Jesus looked at the lepers and you could see the compassion come out. What is the one thing you do not do with lepers? Hutcham What did he do? Jesus saw beyond. The skin lesions to the heart of the people who were suffering the consequence of mortality which he shared.

74. 33:54

    It’s like he saw. Himself in them. The reason it’s difficult for us to help people, oftentimes I speak from my own experience who are in dire circumstances is because it’s it’s fearful to actually connect with somebody who could be a reflection of my own reality.

75. 34:16

    It’s hard to do. Because as long as they’re an object, I don’t have to connect with the fact that me too Jesus saw mortality, the struggle of carnality, the expression of that in skin lesions on these people who were suffering and recognized His shared state with them. And I think that compels him even further into obedience to God and sacrifice for for the redemptive benefit to all of mankind. OK, not a lot of time.

76. 34:54

    But the key thing I want to leave with you on the Sabbath conversation, because I do want to get to the the parable of the talents quickly and it’s going to leave you more questions than answers. Maybe, but is the idea of Sabbath everything Jesus did was an expression of the Kingdom on earth, the Sabbath. The reason he did the same thing on the Sabbath he did every other day was because every day he was showing people what the Kingdom is going to look like.

77. 35:25

    He was inviting. People to see the Kingdom. And that’s why the Scripture actually tells us when Jesus comments on the Kingdom is nigh unto you because he wasn’t waiting for the Kingdom to come in 2000 years. He was living an expression of what the Kingdom is. By demonstrating God’s compassion and God’s mercy, His abounding love, His forgiveness, even over wickedness, rebellion, and sin as expressed in Exodus 34, he was demonstrating what that looks like in real life. Right?

78. 36:02

    And the beauty of that demonstration. Because Jesus didn’t come and do it for us. He came as an example to us. Leading the way. For people who believe and our people of faith is it were intended to step into the role of expressing the Kingdom in our lives as well. It’s one thing to know it.

79. 36:26

    It’s another thing to apply it. Right and he. Wanted us to get beyond the disciple conversation, to get into the son expression, to get into the friend expression, to get into the ambassador expression. These are doers of the word, right? And we can’t do that if we don’t understand it correctly. So it’s incredibly, incredibly important to understand it so that we can figure out how to apply it in our own lives.

80. 36:55

    And that’s what Jesus did. He applied, He applied his service with his disciples as apostles and people all around, and as such was an expression of the Kingdom age. Now I love the fact that He made the comment that he was an expression that the Kingdom is nigh unto you, not after he was resurrected, but before he was resurrected.

81. 37:23

    And these little details matter because before he was resurrected, he was mortal, and he struggled with carnal thinking and temptation, the hardship and trials that we struggle with. And it was in that state before his perfection. At the redemption, at the hand. Of God that he was able to say, You have seen the Kingdom, it is nigh upon you. Because you don’t have to be.

82. 37:49

    Perfect and complete. To be an expression. Of what God is doing to be a participant of what God is doing. Matthew 25. I think it starts at verse 14. Is a conversation. And I’m going to summarize this because I can’t read it in 5 minutes. There’s a summarization summarization of this master who’s going away.

83. 38:13

    I believe this is Jesus referring to himself in the parable and he’s got 3 servants and they have or they all are going to be given a number of talents. Now there’s an unfortunate coincidence in English language that talent means skill. Now he does say that one of the one of the servants is going to be given 5 talents, one’s going to be given 2 talents, one’s going to be given one talent according to their abilities. And at first, it seems like a worldly type of conversation that you’ve got different people in different roles that have different skills, right?

84. 38:49

    And the guy that’s really talented, you like my pun there gets more and the guy that has least talent has less. But here’s the interesting thing about the parable is it’s a parable. It’s intended to be spiritualized and connected to spiritual concepts, not worldly concepts. Because often times Jesus’s parables don’t actually work in the material world.

85. 39:12

    They’re inverse right? They’re delivering a spiritual message. They’re not intended to be leveraged to explain how business works. So as I was looking at this and looking at the words, it occurred to me because it showed it in the Greek text that the talent is actually a unit of measure and the talent would be the equivalent of like somewhere between 58 and 62 lbs.

86. 39:41

    Of either. Silver or gold in that day the. 50 if if. You took the smaller number and made it silver. It would be equivalent to the common workers wages for 20 years approximately. So that’s a basically the effective working lifespan of a person. And it’s like God saying. I’m going to. Pay or I’m going to.

87. 40:07

    Purchase your ServiceNow What’s also interesting is the parable makes the point. Later on I and I, and it clued me into what what is being said in the parable. When when God is well, when the Master returns and measures. I said God when Jesus returns and measures when when the Master returns and measures. The guy with five had five more.

88. 40:30

    The guy with two had two more, and the guy with one had buried it. So you’re familiar with the parable. And then this statement is that even what you don’t have will be taken away from you. And I took a closer look and I was like, wait a minute, He didn’t give them talents, right? He didn’t give them talents.

89. 40:50

    He put them. He put his talents in trust with them. They never had their own talents. They only ever had his. That’s interesting. How? How do we spiritualize that? And then? Initially, still stuck on the talent conversation. There’s some who’ve got more, there’s some who’ve got less. And then I began to realize the spiritual message isn’t that isn’t there. There is a conversation to to to the one who much is given much is, you know, as much as expected. But I don’t think that’s the meat of of the conversation here.

90. 41:27

    It’s actually different because what does the one with five come back with? Five. What does the one with two? Come back with. So the one with five. Doubled and the one with two doubled And I thought, huh, that’s interesting. What is doubling? What is a scriptural? Conversation when you see doubling. And. If you give me one and I double it, or two and I double it, or three and I double it, or four and I double it, what happens? If you give me 7, what will happen? Right, the skill of a.

91. 42:04

    Person that invests what they have, right? So the emphasis here is not on the skill and ability of the individual, it’s on the outcome. And then I looked at one other little feature, and it was what the master asked. What? He didn’t ask, really, he commanded. He commanded that I’m going to. Put something in your trust and I want you to use it.

92. 42:31

    He didn’t say I want. You to double it? He didn’t say I expect to return. He didn’t say anything. There was no qualification, no expectation. Except I’m putting something in your hands and I want you to use it. Do something with it. And the one who had five did something with it and got five more, and the one who had two did something with it and got two more.

93. 42:57

    They were both doubled. And I find there to be an. Interesting message because Jesus is Jesus has another. Terrible conversation. That’s. Very similar to the talent one a few days later. So this is really heavy on his mind and he’s trying to tell his apostles this message that gets recorded for you and for me.

94. 43:25

    It’s like Jesus, I think is still active. I believe Jesus is. On the throne of God, the scriptures seem to indicate as much and I believe Jesus is active now as a gift to Jesus. This is my premise, my suspicion. God as a gift to Jesus because he stood in obedience and perfection, elevated him, gave him the name above all of the names which implies power and authority. And Jesus is now ruling right now on this, you know, over our earth and involved with us as well. And Jesus’s message is, I’m going to send you and I’m going to put in your care.

95. 44:05

    I’m going to put in your. Care something that’s specific to you, and I want you to use it. And here’s the interesting thing, everyone that uses it gets doubled. Now. It’s interesting when you understand spiritual talk that doubling has to do with first born inheritance. If you don’t use what I’ve. Given you even what isn’t yours will be taken from you, but if you use what I’ve given you, you will be doubled. That’s that’s spiritual.

96. 44:37

    Code speak for you will be a first born. I will give you the inheritance of the first born. All I’m asking is that you apply what you’ve been given. It’s interesting. This message fits in so many ways. Like the Paul Apollos conversation, you know, we’re not building a foundation. Foundation’s already there. Some build with gold, some build with silver, some build with stone, some build with hay and stubble. But everyone who builds will be saved without regard to the outcome because we say something else. It’s also true.

97. 45:13

    Ours is to plant the seed, not to make it. Grow Who makes it? Grow God. It’s not in our control. Actually, When we believe, when we become convinced that the product is the result of our work, whose seat are we sitting in? God told us he’s. The one that makes it grow. And even in the conversation that Paul has about the foundation, what he’s really saying is don’t worry about the product. What Jesus says to the.

98. 45:47

    To the apostles about the talents is. I’m not telling you what the outcome is from your. Work. What I’m inviting you to do is use what I’ve given you. And if you use what I’ve. Given you, I’m going to double you. And I love this message because it doesn’t need to be sophisticated. It doesn’t need to be complicated. We do need to look at what God is seeking to do on this earth, and we need to find our place in it. And then we need as friends, as family to say, how can I contribute to making what God is doing in his creation with people?

99. 46:27

    How can I participate in that? Because participating in the plan of God is using what we’ve been given that has. The promise of first. Born attached to it. And God is faithful and Jesus is faithful, right? They’re not measuring the outcome, They’re measuring our heartfelt desire and application. That’s it. Now, doesn’t that take all the pressure off ’cause, even if you don’t know?

100. 46:59

     Exactly what you’re. Supposed to be doing. It’s like I had a football coach I hate to end on a football metaphor. Who said? If you find yourself on the line. And you realize that that you know that the it’s the ball is about to be snapped and you realize that you don’t know what the play is, he said. When the ball is snapped, jump up, scream, shout, you know, hit somebody, do something.

101. 47:20

     But don’t just stand there, right? If you don’t know exactly what your role is, that’s fine. Jump up, scream and shout. Do something. Participate, remembering what God is doing in in our community and being participant in that. You’ll be led to your right role. You’ll be blessed. For your voluntary active participation, applying what God has given you to participate in His plan, and that’s my encouragement to you, we have a wonderful God.

102. 47:53

     He’s incredibly faithful. He’s not asking us to produce the outcome. He’s asking us to apply what we’ve been given, to participate in his plan of building a family that works and operates together in a beautiful way, demonstrating compassion, kindness, graciousness, forgiving each other, bearing with each other’s grievances. You know, working with each other gently and kindly.

103. 48:21

     Doing that is expressing and being participant and God’s plan and being an expression of the Kingdom of God on earth right now. Thank you for your attention.

104. 48:50

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