You’re a Steward, Not an Owner | The Gospels | Luke 19:11–27

[music] Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks. Where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. In April 1961, the Soviet Union launched the first manned space flight. America was caught off guard. To be honest, America was embarrassed to be behind. A month later, President Kennedy stood before Congress and promised something that seemed impossible. Before the decade was out, he said, the United States would put a man on the moon and bring him home safely. A year later, Kennedy toured NASA to check on the progress. Walking down a hallway, he passed a janitor with a broom and asked, "What do you do here?" The janitor could have said, "I clean bathrooms." Or, "I sweep floors." Or, "I take out the trash." All those answers would have been accurate. But instead, this janitor looked at the president and said, "I'm helping put a man on the moon." That janitor reframed his ordinary work inside of a bigger story. And that story gave his life purpose and meaning and significance. When somebody asks you, "What do you do?" "How do you answer?" Do you only think about your career? Maybe you say you're a mechanic or a teacher or a business owner. Do you just list the tasks you do? Like, "I go to grad school or I'm changing diapers or I volunteer at the PTA?" Or, "Do you see that you're part of something bigger? That you're an ambassador of Jesus, called to bring light and truth to your corner of the world. That you're helping to bring a little bit of heaven to your family, your workplace, your city." Well, in Luke 19, Jesus tells a parable that reframes our entire life. Here's the setup. In verse 11, it says, "While they were still listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the Kingdom of God was going to appear at once." The disciples thought the Kingdom was about to arrive immediately, and they had good reason to think that. I mean, remember, an angel had told Mary that her son would sit on David's throne forever. Jesus' main message was the Kingdom of God. He had just said, "Some standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God. And now, he was marching toward Jerusalem at Passover, the very holiday that celebrated God rescuing Israel from slavery in Egypt. The disciples connected all these dots. Jesus is the King. He's headed to Jerusalem. He's going to overthrow Rome. He's going to take David's throne. And we, the people in his inner circle, are going to rule with him." That's why the disciples kept arguing about who would sit at his right and left hand when he entered the Kingdom. So Jesus tells a parable to correct their misunderstanding. In verse 12, the story starts this way. A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed King and then to return. This would have sounded like it was ripped from the headlines. A few years earlier, when Herod the Great died, his son Archelleus had traveled to Rome to have Caesar confirm him as King. A delegation of Jewish citizens followed Archelleus to Rome to protest. But Caesar didn't listen to them. He made Archelleus King anyway, and he came back to rule. Jesus borrowers that familiar story to paint a picture. A king is going away, and he will return. Verse 13. He called 10 of his servants and gave them 10 minus. Put this money to work, he said, until I come back. One minute was about 100 days wages. So about three years of income was entrusted across these servants. And notice, it wasn't their money. They hadn't earned it or inherited it. The king gave it to them with one instruction. Put this to work until I return. When the king comes back, he calls them in. The first servant says to him, "Your mind has earned 10 more." And the king replies, "Well done, take charge of 10 cities." The second servant earned 5 minus, and he's given 5 cities. But a third servant says, "Here's your mind. I hid it in a cloth. I was afraid of you." And the king took that mind away from the third servant. So this parable is loaded with implications for our lives. Let me give you 5. First, you are a steward, not an owner. Every servant in the parable calls it "Your mind." They never say "My mind." And that mind represents everything that God has given you. God has given you your time and your talent and your treasure. He's given you your education, your career, the neighborhood you live in, all your gifts, whether they're physical or spiritual. It all belongs to him, and he has entrusted it to you to manage until he returns. Owners say, "It's mine, and I'll do what I want with it." Stewards ask a different question, "How does the owner want me to use this?" So the first implication is that we are stewards, not owners, and the second is we're meant to use God gifts to build God's kingdom. Think about a cul-de-sac. People want to live on a cul-de-sac because it doesn't have any through traffic. A cul-de-sac is where traffic stops. It doesn't flow anywhere. We don't want to be cul-de-sacs of God's blessing. We don't want to be the place where everything God gives us stops in our life. It stops with us and just is used to make our own life more comfortable. Did God give you what you have so that you could hoard it? Or did He give you your gifts, your education, all the blessings in your life so that you would use it to build His kingdom of love, mercy, and justice? The third implication for our life is that not everyone has the same gifts. The Matthew tells this parable with a twist. The master gives different amounts to each servant, each according to his ability. One gets five bags of gold, one two, and another one gets one bag. See, God distributes His gifts differently. Some of us will have ten cities to rule over, others will have five, but both get the same commendation. Jesus says to both, "Well done, good servant." God isn't grating on fruitfulness, He's grating on faithfulness, we all have different gifts and abilities. So what God is calling us to do is to be faithful with whatever He's given us. Comparison will kill you. So stop measuring yourself against someone else's life. Stop measuring yourself against their gifts, be faithful to what God has given you to use. Fourth implication for our life. Life is temporary, and one day we will all have to give an account to God. The king comes back and asks each servant, "What did you do with what I gave you?" Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body." Someday you will have to answer a hard question, "What did you do with what I gave you?" That's hard to remember on a Tuesday afternoon when you're buried in email, but how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. God is going to ask if we were faithful to wisely steward, wisely manage what He entrusted to us for the sake of His kingdom. I know that when I stand before God, I want to be able to say, "God, I lived for you, not for myself." Finally, the fifth implication is that this is a test. Here's where things get pretty interesting. You might have heard that the rock band Van Halen had a famous clause in their touring contract. The contract stated that a bowl of M&Ms were supposed to be put backstage in their dressing room, but all the brown M&Ms were supposed to be removed before the band arrived. For years people thought that Van Halen was just a bunch of divas that were growing a tantrum, demanding odd and crazy things because they were self-absorbed. But in his memoir, David Lee Roth explained the real reason behind the request. Van Halen was one of the first bands to bring massive productions into smaller venues that probably weren't really ready for it. Their contract was thick, I mean like thick as a phone book. Every electrical spec, every weight limit, every safety precaution was all written into the contract, and buried deep inside of that contract. They slipped in one small line. We need a bowl of M&Ms to be in our dressing room, but no brown M&Ms can be in the bowl. Now why would they do that? Well, if they walked backstage into the dressing room and didn't see a bowl of M&Ms, or saw a bowl of M&Ms that had brown ones in it, then they knew that the venue hadn't really taken the contract seriously. They hadn't read it carefully and followed it to the letter. And if the venue wasn't faithful in the small thing of making sure they got the M&Ms right, then they couldn't be trusted with the big things like following all the safety guidelines so that the stage wouldn't collapse. Jesus said it this way in Luke 16. He said, "If you can trust a person with a very small thing, you can also trust him with bigger things." So back to our parable in Luke 19. And notice what the master and the parable calls three years of wages. He calls them a very small matter. God is watching what you do with the small things, your time, your talent, your treasure, because he wants to entrust you with something much bigger, something that's eternal. But what about that third servant? He didn't just bury the mine that God gave him. Instead, he attacked the king's character. He refused to use the king's gift for the king's purposes. At the end of the parable, Jesus says something very jarring. He says, "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me." That servant's real problem wasn't laziness. It was rebellion. He refused to submit to the king. He pretended he was the owner when he was really just a steward. of God's resources. Here's the beautiful twist. The disciples thought Jesus was going into Jerusalem to conquer and kill. Instead, he went into Jerusalem to be killed. He died for the rebels like that third servant. He rose and one day is coming back to set up his kingdom in full. Until then, you have a minor in your hand. You have time. You have talent. You have treasure. You have spiritual gifts. You live in a certain part of the world in a certain sphere of influence. And God wants you to use what he entrusted to you to make a real difference. See, your life is about more than just going to school or going to work or raising a family. So the next time somebody asks you what you do, don't just say I sweep floors. Say I'm helping put a man on the moon. Say I'm an ambassador of King Jesus. And I am using the talents he gave me to bring his kingdom of love, justice and mercy to my little corner of the world. Let's pray. Father, we repent of thinking that our time, talent and treasure is ours. It's really just a gift from you. So we receive that gift and we pray for wisdom that we might know how to live in a way that is faithful to what you've entrusted to us. May we use our time, talent and treasure to advance your kingdom. It's in Jesus name we pray, Amen.