Now let's keep our Bibles open
there to Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25. This parable
that Brother Joe read, beginning at verse 14, commonly known as
the parable of the talents, I've entitled the message, a parable
of faithfulness. A parable of faithfulness, because
that is what this parable is teaching, talking about believers
being faithful to God in whatever God has blessed us with in the
gifts of ministry and service. Now, you may have studied this
parable before. You may have heard messages on it. And it's
amazing what kinds of things the natural man, when he reads
the Bible, comes up with. Some of the most outrageous,
even gospel, God-denying notions that you could ever imagine.
And so I want to begin, I'm going to use this parable as a basis,
as a starting point for some messages concerning this issue
of faithfulness. But one of the things that I
want us to understand, I've been thinking about this all week
as I've studied for this, and in light of all the parables
that we have studied, that I have preached on, the ones that I'm
going to preach on. You know, one of the things that
the Lord is doing with His disciples as He taught them these parables,
is He's teaching them how to think. I don't know if you all
remember back in the 60s, there was a movie called Cool Hand
Luke with Paul Newman. And that was one of my favorite
movies. I loved Cool Hand Luke. He was a rebel. He was a prisoner
down on a chain gang somewhere probably in the south, probably
in Georgia. And one of the things that is always in conflict with
the system and with the powers that be, and especially with
the warden of the prison, and some of these guards, they get
Luke down, they beat him to death, and one of the guards come in
to him, he said, Luke, you realize what we're trying to do, don't
you? And he said, no, sir, boss. He said, what are we trying to
do? He said, we're trying to get your mind right. And that's
exactly, in a different way, in a gracious and merciful way,
that Christ is doing here to his disciples. He's trying to
get their mind right. And that's why we come. That's
why we're supposed to be coming to church and worshiping God.
It's not just coming and sitting and getting through a message
or listening to a message. It's trying to learn how to think
according to Christ. And that's what he's doing here
in these parables. He's teaching his disciples how to think in
terms of the kingdom of heaven. How to think in terms of the
kingdom of grace. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom
of grace. And we need to learn how to think
in terms of grace. Because if you're not thinking
in terms of grace, you're going to mess it up. And that's why
you have so many different denominations today. That's why you have so
many different ideas what he means here or what he means there.
Because our minds aren't right until God makes them right. The
Bible says when we're saved by the power of the Spirit in the
new birth, we're given the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians chapter
2. And that doesn't mean we have
a perfect mind yet, because we don't. But it means that we have
the power of God's Spirit and God's Word and the grace to learn
to think like Christ. So we're learning to think here,
and all the implications of grace. One of the ways we can put it
is this way. We're learning to think biblically. What does the
Bible say? What does it teach? And so let
me begin with telling you And I don't normally do this. This
is one of the tools that Dr. John Gill, the old Baptist preacher
in England back in the 1700s always used. And sometimes it
gets a little tedious. But I want to do this this morning.
I want to tell you what it doesn't say. What this parable doesn't
say. First of all, now you notice
that word talents in this parable. And a talent was, it could have
been silver, it could have been some other form of metal that
was precious, but in essence it was money. You notice that
in verse 18 it said the servant that did wrong, that was unfaithful,
he digged in the earth and hid his Lord's money. He uses the
term money and that's a good translation. Over in the last
of this parable it speaks of money again. And it says in verse
27, Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers,
and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
That means interest. And so it uses money. Well, let me tell you what this
parable is not teaching. It is not teaching you how to
invest your money. This is not about your investment
portfolio. And if it is, we're all pretty
bad off these days, aren't we? But that's not what this is teaching.
This is not about money. Money here is symbolic, all right? And you'd be amazed at how many
preachers use this parable on this sow-in-your-seed deal that
they have going on TV. You know, you give me $100, God
will give you back $1,000 and all that, or He'll double your
money. Well, that's not what this parable is teaching. This
parable is not teaching greater rewards in heaven for those who
work the hardest. That's not what it's teaching.
That's unbiblical. If that's what you think, you're
not thinking biblically. You're thinking naturally. You
see, that's why we think naturally, because in the earthly realm
that we all live in every day, we just think, you know, those
that work the hardest should get the mostest. And that's an
economic principle. And that's not a wrong principle
now when we're dealing with things in earth and our jobs, you know.
The Bible says those who don't work don't eat. That's what the
Scripture says. They don't earn their living.
It's only right that we earn our living. The Bible never promotes
a welfare state or rewarding laziness in this earth. But now
when it comes to salvation and our relationship with God in
Christ, This is not an economic principle here. This is not a
return on our investment. This is not working hard to gain
or earn anything from God. That's not what this parable
is teaching. So, get that in our minds now. Let's learn to think biblically. The kingdom of heaven. Look at
verse 14. He says, "...for the kingdom
of heaven." That's in italics. That means it wasn't in the original
translation. But it's a follow-up to the rest
of the parables about what? About the kingdom of heaven.
And the kingdom of heaven there is the kingdom of Christ, and
it is a kingdom of grace, not works. Well, somebody says, well,
does that mean that the people in the kingdom of grace don't
work? Oh, no, we should and do work, but not in order to earn
our way into God's favor, not in order to earn our salvation
or even our rewards. Our reward is Christ. And the
Bible says that we're blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now, how much more can
you get than all? He that spared not his own son,
how shall he not with him freely give us all things? How much
more do you need than all? So you don't earn your way into
God's favor. God never puts Himself in a position
where He owes us anything. That's thinking biblically. Anything
we get by way of blessing is mercy and grace. It is undeserved
and unearned. And it comes by way of Christ
and what He earned. He earned it. Christ did by His
death on the cross. He earned our forgiveness. He
earned our blessings, our salvation, everything. We are saved based
on His righteousness, not ours. We are rewarded in Him. That
is thinking biblically. Don't get that in your mind that
this is about, you know, rewards in heaven. That's not what it's
talking about. Another thing that it's not teaching is that
a person can be saved and then lost again. Now, you notice here
it talked about two servants who were given talents. One was
given five, the other given two, and they were faithful. And then
it says over here in verse 21, when the Lord came to give the
reckoning, to give the accounting, it says in verse 21, look at
it, chapter 25, his Lord said to him, well done, thou good
and faithful servant. And the one that had two in verse
23, he says the same thing. He says, well done, thou good
and faithful servant. Well done. Now, they were faithful. Now you want to learn to think
biblically here. What does it mean when he says, well done?
Does that mean he's looking at that servant and saying, now,
you did a great job. You've earned your keep. You've
earned what I'm going to give you. You deserve everything you
get. Well, now, if it's what you think, you're not thinking
graciously. You're not thinking biblically.
What is well-doing in the Scripture? Well-doing involves two things.
Number one, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's number one. Now, if you have faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, what does that mean? That means that you
know you haven't earned anything and you don't deserve anything.
Your hope is in Him. He's your all in all. You're
a sinner, and everything you've got is by God's grace in Him.
Secondly, serving the Lord not to earn. This is well doing now.
Serving the Lord not to earn, but because of what He's freely
given. In other words, serving Him not as a legal mercenary,
trying to get what you can get out of God, but serving Him out
of love and grace and gratitude. That's well-doing in the Scripture.
Now, if you're trying to serve the Lord in order to get more
than what the other fellow gets, you're not thinking biblically.
You're not thinking graciously. You're a legalist. That's what
a legalist is. That's exactly what it is. So when he says, well done, It's
the service unto God. And then he says, Thou good and
faithful servant. Now, what is a good servant in
the Scripture? Now, let's think biblically.
The Bible says that among men born of Adam there are none what? Good. No, not one. Now, you can
think in your mind, if you want to, well, that excludes me. Because
I'm a good one. But you're not thinking biblically.
You're just telling yourself a lie. None by nature and none
by practice, and if you're going to think biblically, you have
to say it this way, none by practice based on their best efforts to
be good, are good inside of God. When the rich young man, here's
a man who had been blessed monetarily, who had high position in the
social echelon of Judaism, and who had been trying to keep the
law from his youth up. He told the Lord, he said, I've
kept the law from my youth up. Now he hadn't, but he thought
he had and he was trying. And he come and he said, good
master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said
to him, you remember what he said? Christ said to him, he
said, why do you call me good? There's none good but God. You
remember that? What is that? Matthew 19, I think.
Now, what was he teaching that man? You see, that man did not
believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God. And if you don't believe
that Jesus of Nazareth is God, then don't call Him good, because
there's none good but God. If you believe that He's just
a man who has reached great heights of morality and dedication and
self-sacrifice, don't call Him good, unless you believe Him
to be God. There's none good but God. So
whenever you look in the Scriptures, if we're going to learn to think
like Christ, learn to think biblically, it says, Thou good and faithful
servant. What is a good person? What is a good man or a good
woman in Scripture? I'll tell you exactly what it
is. He's a sinner saved by the grace of God. Made good not by
his works, not by his heritage, not by his efforts, but made
good by the mercy of God in Christ. His goodness is not his own.
It's Christ and Him crucified. You understand that? I don't
care who it is. There's none good to be found
among men. If I have any goodness about
me, it's not of me, it's Christ, by the grace and mercy of God.
And then faithful. Well done thou good and faithful
servant. Well, that's one who's been made
faithful in Christ. And we'll talk about that in
just a moment. But now those two fellows were faithful. But
now the one who was given one talent, he was unfaithful. He
went and he hid it. Incidentally, you notice there,
he hid under the guise of the sovereignty of God. You remember?
Look what he says in verse 24. He said, Then he which had received
the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art
a hard man. That means harsh. Have you ever
been talking about the sovereignty of God and God's electing grace,
the God of election, and had somebody look at you and say,
well, your God's mean. Your God's unfair. Your God's
a monster. You ever heard that? That's exactly
what this fellow believed, the unfaithful servant. God is absolutely
sovereign in all things, my friend. He saves whom He will, when He
will, and how He will. But he's not a monster. I heard
of a preacher whose man told him that one time. The preacher
looked at him and said, well, get ready to deal with a monster.
God is not a monster. God is a merciful God. He's a
gracious God. He delights to show mercy, the
Scripture says. But all His mercy and grace is
in Christ. And He's sovereign in all things. But that fellow here, he says,
well, I knew that you were a harsh man. reaping where thou hast
not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed." Well,
that's not true. That's a lie. He shows disrespect
to God, disregard for the character of God, and he tells a lie on
God. God doesn't. He doesn't reap where He doesn't
sow and gather where He doesn't straw. He doesn't. He uses means
in His sovereign purpose to accomplish His will. But this fellow hid
under that, so he said, I went and I hid that talent in the
earth. And when he gives it back to him, listen to verse 25, he
says, I was afraid and went and hid thy talent. Notice he does
recognize that this is thy talent, not his, but God's. And he says,
in that earth, and he says, lo, there thou hast that is thine.
It's almost like he's saying, take it, you've got what's yours.
What disrespect, you say. There's the unfaithful servant.
And according to this now, What this fellow got was not just
a loss of rewards in heaven. It says in verse 30, cast ye
the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, that's eternal
damnation. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. That's been repeated throughout the parables. The
man that didn't have the right wedding garment on. He wasn't
clothed in the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
didn't stand before God. washed in the blood of Christ
and clothed in His righteousness. He stood before God in His own
works. What did it say? Bind Him hand
and foot and cast Him into the outer darkness. Eternal damnation. You remember the five foolish
virgins in the parable before this. They had no oil in their
lamps, no grace in the heart. All they had was an outward profession.
The door was shut. The door was shut and they couldn't
come in. And then here it says, bind him, hand him. It's eternal
damnation. But you see, here's the point. If you're going to
learn to think biblically, what was the problem with man? He
was never saved to begin with, friend. He didn't lose his salvation. You say, well, the talent was
salvation. Oh, no. Oh, no. You know what the talent
is? The talent represents the gifts and graces of God that
He gives to glorify Him in ministry, in service, in whatever way.
And you want to know something? Every one of us in this building
today, we have those talents. Some may have just one. Some
may have two. Some may have three. Some may
have five. But we all have them. And you're
either going to use them for the glory of God, You're either
going to use them for the glory of God and the salvation of sinners
and the edification of the church, or you're going to deny them,
use them to deny God, some do, or you're going to put it in
the ground and hide it and neglect it, just like this fellow did. Either way, here it is. There's
faithful servants made faithful by the grace of God, and there
are unfaithful servants. Now, you know the context of
this parable. is a message that the Lord was bringing. They call
it the Olivet Discourse. All that means is it was a message
he preached on the Mount of Olives. He's still on the Mount of Olives
preaching this message. And in that message, he spoke
of impending disaster and doom, first on the city of Jerusalem.
That's coming, he said. And that did come in A.D. 70. But then he carries it on
through to the second coming of Christ, when this world is
going to be destroyed, when Christ is going to come back again,
and he's going to destroy this world. First, he's going to gather
his people unto himself, and he's going to glorify them with
him. And then he's going to destroy this earth, and he's going to
make a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
That sermon that he preached from the Mount of Olives is a
strong statement of the certainty of his second coming. We don't
know when he's coming, but we know he is coming. I believe
it's soon. You do too. But he's coming.
And so he teaches that we ought to prepare for that coming. We
ought to watch for that coming. We ought to live our lives in
the knowledge and the certainty of the truth of Christ's coming
again. He could come today. He could come a hundred years
from now. But he's coming. And he taught that God's chosen,
redeemed, regenerated people are going to be gathered in him.
Now remember, now there's going to be a judgment, see, following
that time. And that judgment is for the
unbeliever. But remember what that standard
of judgment is. Now again, you're probably going
to get sick of hearing me say this. I hope you don't. But let's
learn to think biblically. Now, what is the standard of
judgment? Well, if you don't know it, mark it down. Mark it
down. There are several passages of
Scripture I could give you, but one of the easiest to remember
and one of the easiest to refer to is Acts 17.31. There's the standard of judgment. You know what the standard is
going to be when you stand before God at the judgment? Acts 17.31. Now, that's not the only one
in Scripture, but that's one of the best. And there Paul is
standing on Mars Hill in Greece and he is preaching unto these
Greek philosophers and these fellows who like to discuss philosophy
and theology and all that stuff. And he says now, he tells them
about the unknown God, the God they don't know. He tells them
about the God of creation, the God of providence. And then he
starts telling them the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, how
God saves sinners by Christ. And he says, in light of that
gospel, the good news of salvation for sinners who don't deserve
salvation, who cannot earn salvation. In light of that, God has commanded
all men everywhere to repent. And then verse 31 says, because
he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, in that
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath what?
Raised him from the dead. You know, the standard of judgment
at the judgment is Christ and His righteousness. So therefore,
it doesn't really matter how I compare to you or you compare
to me, whether I've got two talents, five talents, ten talents, or
you have two, five, or ten. It doesn't matter in that issue.
You see, this is not a parable about rewards or loss of salvation.
This is a parable about faithfulness now. But the standard of judgment
is how do I stand in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ? If
I'm not in Him, I'm telling you now, if I'm not in Christ, if
He's not my all in all, if I'm not washed clean from all my
sins in His precious blood and Calvary, if I'm not clothed in
the righteousness that He worked out in His obedience unto death,
then it's going to be said to me, cast him into outer darkness.
That's eternal damnation. Do you understand that? People can talk about judgment
until they're blue in the face, but that's the bottom line now.
You can say, well, God's going to weigh this. No, no, no, no,
no. Think biblically. And as I said,
that's not the only verse, but now that's the standard. We must
be found in Christ. The Apostle Paul, how many talents
do you reckon the Apostle Paul had? Think about that. Paul had a bunch of talents,
didn't he? I mean, the Lord used Paul to write over half of the
New Testament. Preach the gospel. Somebody says, well, if it weren't
for Paul, the Gentiles wouldn't have the gospel. Well, I'm sure
God would have gotten it to us through another man. But Paul
was that instrument. And you know what Paul said?
He said, I want to stand before God, not found in mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness of God through faith, His faith. I want to stand before God in
Christ. That's our only hope. Now, later on, Christ is going
to talk about in the next passage in Matthew 25, in the last part
of this, He's going to talk about how He's going to separate the
sheep from the goats. I'm not getting ahead of myself,
but that's a common theme throughout these parables. There are sheep. Who are the sheep? Well, they're
the followers of Christ. They're the faithful in Christ.
They're sinners saved by grace, but then they're goats. Goats
there represent unbelievers. He had already spoken of that
in these terms. He talked about he's going to
separate the wheat from the tares. The wheat being the believer,
sinners saved by the grace of God. Tare, that word tare in
that parable, it's darn old. It's an old suit that looked like wheat and
the seeds were poisonous. And so they just looked like
wheat, but they weren't. So he's talking about false professors.
I've already mentioned how he talked about those who who wear
the right garment, those who are found in Christ, and those
who don't wear the right garment. He's spoken of the wise virgins
and the foolish virgins, those who had oil in their lamps, the
gift of the Holy Spirit and the new birth, and those who didn't.
They just had an outward profession. Well, here in this parable, he's
talking about the faithful, the faithful and the unfaithful. Think about it. So all these
parables relate to the Kingdom of Heaven, and especially thinking
about His return. He's coming again. Now, in the
parable of the ten virgins, He emphasized being prepared. Be
prepared. Don't be satisfied with just
an outward profession. Listen to me. Just because you're
sitting in the pew this morning, that doesn't impress God at all.
You say, well, I've done my duty at least once. Big deal. Just because you're sitting and,
you see, that's an outward profession. That's no oil. You say, well,
I'm here, but I don't want to be here. Well, what does that
tell you? You're one of those foolish with
no oil in your life. Think about it. Be prepared. Watch, therefore, he said. Well,
here, he's talking about being productive. Now, somebody says,
oh my goodness, productive. We don't produce anything. He
didn't say we produce anything. I said we're productive. It's like the fruit. The Bible
says that once God saved us, we bring forth fruit unto God.
It doesn't mean we produce fruit. We don't produce anything. Salvation
is of the Lord. The Bible says, for by grace
are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians
2.10, it says, for we are His workmanship, we didn't create
it in Christ Jesus, we didn't work our way into it, we didn't
create ourselves as saved sinners. We're His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, not because of good works, but
unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them. We walk in good works. We're
not fruit producers. We're fruit bearers. Christ taught
that in John 15 when He said, I'm the vine, you're the branches,
the life comes from the vine. Those who have a profession of
faith but no grace in the heart, those who claim to believe in
Christ but who do not really believe in Christ, they're like
real flowers in a vase with water. They're going to die. They have
no root. They've been clipped, you see.
They have no root. So you think about these things.
Now, in both of those parables, though, we learn what should
characterize those who eagerly wait for the coming of the Lord,
and the accountability of those who profess Christ in the day
of His return. And He's going to show us the
difference between what it is to be faithful and unfaithful. Faithfulness is stressed here.
Faithfulness is stressed. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4
and verse 1, he said, let a man so account of us as of the ministers
of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. We're stewards
of the mysteries of God, stewards of the gospel, the truth. And
he says, moreover, it's required in stewards that a man be found
faithful. It's required. But now again,
let's learn to think biblically. Here's something that's really
important. If you don't get anything else
this morning, get this. Salvation is in no way conditioned on or
dependent upon our faithfulness to Christ. That's right. Salvation is only conditioned
on and dependent upon His faithfulness to His Father. Now let me show
you that. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Now, don't be sitting there thinking
about when he's going to get to the end of this parable, because
I'm just going to tell you right there, I said I'm not. See, I was a school teacher for
years, and I don't have people funny that way. I know kids sitting
up there looking at the clock, you know. I'm not. As I told you, I'm using this
parable as a basis to teach us how to think biblically. Well,
look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and look at verse 3. Now listen, he says, Grace be
unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's salvation there. Grace, grace, grace from God
through Christ. He says, I thank my God always
on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by
Jesus Christ. It's a gift. It's not earned.
It's not deserved. It's given. And he says that
in everything you are enriched by Him. Our enrichment is by
Christ. in all utterance and in all knowledge.
If I can say anything right, or if I know anything right,
it's grace. Through Him, you see. It's not
because I'm such a smart fellow. Some of the smartest fellows
ever been on the face of the earth used their smartness, their
talent, to do what? To deny God. Is that right? They were given a talent. And
let me tell you something. You know they were born with
it? I mean, it wasn't like God had
a little shelf up there full of babies, and he said, now which
one of you want to be smart when you're born? You know, oh, I
choose to be smart. Well, let me tell you something. If you have the capacity to understand,
and I know what it is to work hard for a good grade student.
I know that. I had an older brother. It just
came to him easy. If I made a good grade, it came hard. I mean,
I had to work hard. Let me tell you something. People
are born with that capacity. I mean, you don't make a genius,
they're born. But how many of them use their
talent to glorify God? To promote the salvation of sinners
by God's grace in Christ? I know we can't save anybody,
no matter how talented we are. But whatever talents we have,
shouldn't we use it to glorify God? It's his talent, he gave
it to us. He could have made... I think
it was Donnie Bell who said, he could have made you as dumb
as a box of rocks. That's right. Who determined
you'd be born where you were born, in the way you were born,
with the capacities and the gifts and the talents that you have?
Who did that? Who did that? Mom and Dad? No, sir. God did. And let me tell you how far down
that goes. It goes down to the very next breath that you take
up through your nostrils right now. That's a gift from God. And a person who sits there with
their head held high as if I'm somebody. I got this because I worked hard. Now listen, nothing wrong with
working hard and we ought to work hard, but let me tell you
something. Don't you think that tomorrow morning you could wake
up with a little minute microscopic germ that could just put you
down on your back tomorrow and you wouldn't be able to work
hard anymore? Has that ever happened to anybody
on this green earth? You bet it has. Strapping strong
man working and taking care of his family one day and then the
next day it's all knocked out from under him. Huh? So, you see here? Listen, that's
what he's saying. It's enrichment by God. Verse 6, even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you, he says, so that you come behind
in no gift. These Corinthians, they were
something else. I'm telling you, it was a big church. They had
a lot of gifted people in this church. But you know what they
did? They used their gifts for division.
to puff them up. And he says, you've come behind
in no gift. Look at verse 7, waiting for the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This is exactly what the parable
is talking about. You see, these talents were distributed by God
and these were waiting for the coming of Christ. And he says
in verse 8, who shall also confirm you unto the end that you may
be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. How are we
going to be blameless in Christ? So he says in verse 9, Look at
verse 9. Underscore those first three
words. God is faithful. By whom you were called unto
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ. You see what he's telling
them? He says, don't stand there and
be proud of your faithfulness. It's God who's faithful. Salvation
is not conditioned on my faithfulness to Him. It's His faithfulness
to save me through His Son. You see that? No matter what
gifts we've had, or we have. Let me just read you these scriptures.
1 Thessalonians 5.24. It says, Faithful is he that
calleth you, who also will do it. That's God. He's the one
who called me. He's the one who did it. 2 Thessalonians
3.3. But the Lord is faithful, who
shall establish you and keep you from evil. You know you don't
keep yourself from evil? God keeps you. Hebrews 10.23. He says, let us hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering. How am I going to do
that? It goes on to say, for He is faithful. That promise. We persevere in the faith, continue
in the faith because God preserves. He's faithful. I tell you, if
God ever stopped being faithful, and He can't do that because
He's God, we would all be goners. Did you know that? I'm talking
about even the best of us. 1 Peter 4.19, listen to this
one. 1 Peter 4.19, it says, Wherefore
let them that suffer according to the will of God. That's a
thought, isn't it? That's learning to think biblically.
You mean my suffering is according to the will of God? That's what
the book says. But you know what? That ought
to be a comfort to God's people. Because He's not going to give
us anything or put us through anything that He will not bring
us through or make a way of escape, He said. So he says, Wherefore,
let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the
keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful
Creator. Commit the keeping of your souls
into the hands of the Savior. He said, No one shall pluck them
out of my Father's hand. You know why? Because he's faithful. God is faithful. 1 John 1.9. Listen to this one. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful. God is faithful. And just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Not only is He faithful in forgiving me of my sins, cleansing me from
my sins, He's just in doing so. How can that be? Well, He said
it up in 1 John 1. He says, the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sins. You see, my tears of repentance
and remorse and sorrow will not cleanse me from my sins. My faithfulness
won't do it. My promises to do better, my
attempts to do better won't cleanse me from my sins. My prayers won't
cleanse me from my sins. It takes the blood of the Lamb
of God to do that. And then one that's one of my
favorites, Lamentations, chapter 3, verse 22. Listen to this, Lamentations
3, 22. He says, this is Jeremiah, Jeremiah's
secretary recorded this, a fellow named Baruch, but Jeremiah is
the prophet. And he says, it's of the Lord's
mercy that we are not consumed. Isn't that right? Talk about
thinking biblically. Now that's at my best or at my
worst. I may be having a good day. I may be on cloud nine. But it's still at that time of
the Lord's mercies that I'm not consumed. And His mercy is Christ. And he says, because His compassions
fail not, they are new every morning. Listen to what he says
here. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is God's faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore will I hope
in Him. The Bible speaks of the faithfulness of Christ in our
salvation. Look at Romans chapter 3 in verse
22. He's speaking of redemption that
comes only through Christ. He says in verse 21, he says,
the righteousness of God without the law, that is, without our
works of the law, is manifested, made known, revealed, brought
to light, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, verse
22, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus
Christ. Not by my faith, but by His.
What does that mean? That means Christ was faithful
to come to this world and do what the Father sent Him to do.
And it's because of His faithfulness, and that He didn't quit, and
He didn't give up, even when He was under the burden and sorrow
of impending suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane when He
sweat great drops of blood, He said, even so, Father, Thy will
be done. It was His delight to do the
will of His Father. He kept the law perfectly. He
went to the cross of Calvary and shed His precious blood in
full payment of my sins. The Bible says in John 13, verse
1, He loved His own until the end. That means until the finishing
of the work. And when He was up on that cross
and we, human nature, humanity, fallen humanity, crucified Him. He said, Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. What faithfulness? Have you done
that? No. So will I try? Well, the very
fact you have to try says it's not perfect. See, don't just
come natural to us. We have to learn to think like
Christ. And I'll tell you what, we have
to learn it the hard way, don't we? We don't like our children
to learn things the hard way. We wish that we could just speak
it and they say, okay, mom and dad, and that's it. Doesn't happen
that way, does it? They have to learn it the hard
way. Well, we do too. We do too. The He cried, it's
finished. And so that's the faith of Jesus
Christ that says, unto all and upon all them that believe, there's
no difference. Paul spoke of that. Listen to
Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 1. He says, "...Wherefore, holy
brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle
and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful
to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all
his hands." Christ was faithful. And you know what? That's our
hope. That He was faithful. He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. In the book of Revelation, several
times, He's called the faithful and the true witness. But now,
does that deny that it's required of stewards that a man be found
faithful? Are we required to be faithful?
Yes, we are. Why? You see, this parable, and
I'll pick up on this next week, but I want you to listen to this.
This parable is not about what we earn from God by our faithfulness. This parable is about what our
faithfulness says about us. Do you understand that? It's
like the book of James. Remember the book of James? He
talked about works in chapter 2. We're not saved by our works,
but those who are saved by God's grace, motivated by love and
grace and gratitude, do work. And the same thing with faithfulness
here in this parable. No, our faithfulness is no part...
Listen, our faithfulness does not save us. Our faithfulness
is no part of our righteousness before God. Christ is my righteousness. Christ alone before God. My faithfulness doesn't make
me holier. Christ is my holiness. You see? But my faithfulness is the fruit
and evidence of that grace. So it's not what we earn by our
faithfulness, it's what our faithfulness says about us. Now, here we've
been given talents. You say, well, I haven't discovered
mine yet. You may not have. But I'm going to tell you something,
it's there. It may not be standing up before
a group of people and preaching the gospel. But it's something. And I'm going to show you that
next week. How are you going to use it? Are you going to use
it at all? Some don't. I'm not talking about getting
up here and singing and entertaining everybody either. I've heard
people say that, well, you know, he's got talent, he can sing,
and therefore if he don't use it, God's going to take it away
from him and all that stuff. Listen, we'll get into that more
next week, but do we use it for the glory of God? To worship
God? To serve Him? Do we use it to
promote the salvation of sinners? And do we use it to promote the
growth and the unity and the love edification of God's people
in the church. That's the issue.