11/11/07 - Last Judgment - Luke 19:11-27

GET TO WORK!
- Faithfully
- Humbly

You are here. And if you are here that means up to this point Christ has yet to come back the second time. And the fact that you are here today also means he has extended your time of grace in this life for at least another morning. You are still living on this earth and Judgment Day is somewhere in the future… so get to work. Why do you think the Lord still has you on this earth? He doesn’t want you to lay back, he doesn’t want you to coast through life as if you are just along for the ride. He wants you to get to work! Faithfully and humbly. Because you don’t know when your time will be up. The Lord may take you out of this world sooner than you think or he might come back in all his glory at any moment! There is no time to lose. There is no time to waste. We have more work to do than we could ever accomplish in two life times. And we will have to answer to the Master for our work when he returns.
The morning of Palm Sunday, before Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, he preached the parable that we read in our gospel lesson for today. A master went away to be made king. But before he left he gave a mina to each of his servants and told them to put it to work until he came back. When he did return he called his servants in to see what they had done. The first servant presented himself and said, “Lord, your mina has earned ten more.” The second servant said, “Lord, your mina has earned five more.” But another servant came and admitted that he had kept his mina hidden under a piece of cloth. The first two servants were commended and given authority over cities, but the third servant was rebuked and stripped of the mina he had been given. This was the parable Jesus told those around him on that Sunday morning. But why did Jesus tell this parable in the first place? “Because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” And so Jesus made it absolutely clear to them that the kingdom of God would not come until he returned. In the mean time, the Lord says, get to work! Faithfully use the mina that you have been given.
How have you been using your mina? Using the mina the Lord has entrusted you with would include offerings in the offering plate. It would include financially supporting the work of the church in different ways around the world. But it’s not the amount that matters. God doesn’t care what you give. The master in the parable had charge of a number of entire cities! He had just been made king! He didn’t need his servants to make money for him. And anything they did produce would be insignificant compared to what he already had and what he could do himself. The Lord doesn’t need our money to do what he wants to do. He is the King of the Universe. And so the Lord doesn’t care what you give. He cares why. He cares if you use your mina faithfully.
And although it is true in this story that a mina is a sum of money, the mina you have been given goes beyond your monetary blessings. The mina that God has given you includes any talent, skill, ability, or resource that you are able to use for glory of God. Each of you has a cornucopia of skills, talents, and resources that differ from the set God has given the person sitting next to you, and yet your blessings are just as important. It is essential to know what those things are. And it is even more important to realize that you don’t have to be good at something to consider it a talent from the Lord. You don’t have to be good at helping people for you to have that talent from the Lord. You don’t have to be good at volunteering your time to have that talent from the Lord. You don’t have to be good at spreading the Word to others to have that talent from the Lord. To have a talent or a skill from the Lord simply means that he has given you the ability to do it. Most of you have feet and hands that work - and so the Lord has given you the ability to help many people in many different ways. All of you are able to communicate with others - and so the Lord has given you the ability to spread the Word of God. That doesn’t mean you’re good at it, it just means are able to do so. Now some people will be better equipped at some things than you are, but that should not discourage you. The Lord has given you the ability to do many things for his glory. The Master has given you many minas in order that you may use them faithfully until he returns.
And so you not only have to ask yourself what those blessings are, you also have to ask yourself what are those things that you have left hidden under a piece of cloth? All of us have quite a few that have never been used. All of us have the ability and the resources to do certain things that we just haven’t gotten around to doing. All of us have time that we would selfishly kept to ourselves when the Lord gave us an opportunity to spend it on him. All of us have left work unfinished, conversations unsatisfied, and souls that are still searching for the truth. Let me ask you this question: If the Master came back today, what report could you give him? Could you stand in front of the Lord himself and honestly say, “Your mina has produced ten more?” How about five more? How about one more? Or would you be embarrassed about how much you have left undone, how many words left unsaid, and how many souls left untouched? Would the Lord have to bring up all those abilities and resources that have remained hidden under a cloth? I almost avoid thinking about that. I don’t even want to think about a situation in which the Lord comes back today, calls me forward, and then reveals everything I have neglected and all the chances I’ve blown off. I am much more similar to the wicked servant in the parable who hid his mina than the faithful servants who put their skills, talents, and resources to work. If there is anyone in this room that has to faithfully get to work, it’s me! I have been a long way from being faithful with my mina. And I have no excuse.
If any of you are in the same boat I am - and I’m guessing that many of you are - take comfort in this fact: our salvation doesn’t depend on our production. The results of our work on earth do not gain for us heaven, they do not complete the application process in some way so that we will be accepted. We are already accepted. We are already in heaven’s eternal register because we are already his servants! Did you notice in the parable that those servants did not do anything to become servants? The master gave them each a mina to put to work after the fact. They had already been chosen to be his servants. He gave them each a mina not so that they could prove their worth, but so that they could show their thanks. The Lord has already chosen you. He has picked you from eternity. And what is more, he has bought you back from the dead by Christ’s death on the cross. He has secured your spot in Paradise by Jesus’ resurrection. He has adopted you as sons and daughters through baptism in his name. He has forgiven you through is Word. He has called you to be his servant. All this he did out of his love and grace. And now he has given you privileges and responsibilities and duties as his servant. He does not expect you to earn his favor. He simply wants to give you the opportunity to thank your God.
So if you are feeling bad about how you have or how you have not put your mina to work so far in this life - understand that it will not affect your salvation. There is not a certain amount you have to accomplish before the Lord allows you into heaven. In fact, you may not see any human accomplishments from the mina you put to work. Think of the prophet Jeremiah. Throughout his entire ministry, which was at least 44 years long - the people of Israel never listened to him, and they were eventually sent into exile because of it. Think of the prophet Micaiah. He prophesied to King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat about the outcome of their next battle. But neither king listened to him, and Micaiah was even slapped in the face for what he said and then thrown into prison with only bread to eat and water to drink - all for repeating the words of the Lord. There will not always be visible results. You will not always get recognition or even a simply thank you for putting your mina to use. And so it’s a good thing that the Lord doesn’t base your salvation on the results of your work. Your salvation is based on the results of Christ’s work. The results of Christ’s work on the cross as secured your salvation. That is already taken care of. For now, the Lord is concerned about your faithfulness in this life. And your humility.
When the master in the parable returned after being made king, listen closely to what the good servants say when asked to give a report about their work while he was gone. “Lord, your mina has earned ten more.” “Lord, your mina has earned five more.” Isn’t that a strikingly simple way to display the humility of a Christian? They did not say, “I earned ten more with my mina!” “I earned five more with my mina.” “No, your mina, Lord. You are the one who deserves the credit. You are the one who gets the glory.” This Christian attitude of humility reminds me of what Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “It is God who works in you to will and act according to his good purpose (Phil. 2:13). If we do anything with our mina, if we happen to do anything right, if we produce any thought, word, or action that is actually God-pleasing, all glory goes to God alone! All praise and thanks go to him! You know as well as I do that none of us are capable of producing a single good thing void of all sin. And so when things are accomplished with the mina we’ve been given we have no other option than to be humble. Because it was God working in us in the first place. We are jars of clay that the Lord uses. That’s the attitude of a servant. A servant doesn’t take credit. A servant simply does what he’s told to do.
Three weeks ago our gospel lesson was from Luke 17. And in that section of Scripture Jesus says, “When you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’” (Luke 17:10). We are unworthy servants. And we do not even deserve to have that title. We do not deserve to be called servants of the living God because we have acted like his enemies. And so when we do put our mina to work, when we do use the talents and skills and resources that he has given us faithfully, we also do so humbly. So that when he does come back, all the focus and honor will not be on what we have done, but on what Christ has done and what he did through us.
This parable of the ten minas, of course, brings up an interesting question: will there be different and varying rewards in heaven for what people did on this earth? Maybe. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility to say that according to Scripture. Jesus promised the 12 disciples that they would sit on 12 thrones, and here the good servants are rewarded in proportion to their faithfulness. But it doesn’t matter in the long run. Because when you get to heaven and if you see the disciples or the apostle Paul or Moses with special honor, are you going to be jealous? Of course not! First of all, you will admit that the Lord did great things through those men and you wouldn’t consider yourself on their level. And on top of that, there will be no jealously in heaven anyway. And that’s really the point: you are going to be in heaven. Perfection. The Paradise God has made for you for eternity. You are going to be completely happy and in a constant state of ecstatic excitement. If there are special honors, it won’t matter. Nothing could make perfection better anyway.
But that is not the main thrust of this parable. Jesus’ point is: in the mean time, get to work. As you are awaiting that day on which you will join all the saints and angels in heaven, put your mina that the Lord has given you to work faithfully and humbly. Use everything you have to further the Lord’s kingdom and gain souls for his glory while you still have time. So that when the Master does return and sees what you have done with what he has given you, he can look at you and say, “Well done, my good servant.” What a joy it will be to hear those words from our Master. And what a joy it will be to able to say, “Lord, we are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty.”
Amen.

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us - yes, establish the work of our hands.” - Psalm 90:17