Who Then Is A Faithful Servant?
Matthew 24:45
Matthew 24:45-51
Jesus is talking about being ready for His coming again for the church. And in that discussion, He asks that very question, "Who then is a faithful servant?"
I want to concentrate on verses 45 and 46 tonight and then next week, we’ll look at the remaining verses.
Let me share with you three things that He identifies to answer that question:
Who is that wise and faithful servant?
First of all,
I. A Faithful Servant Labors Toward the Glorious Appearing
Underline verse 46:
The picture is that of a rich master who has given to his servant and trusted to his servant all his goods. He has placed his servant as a steward over all of his property and all of his wealth and he has gone on vacation. And he is going to come back in a surprise visit. And the wise servant is going to be one who in the interval time is going to be busy working, investing, and caring for his master's property and his master's goods.
And right off the bat, notice the requirements of faithfulness for the wise and faithful servant.
We are to be faithful in our work for Christ.
As we look for the coming of Christ in this age, we are looking for that time when Jesus comes in the air for the church. And as we look for that coming of the Lord, we must be faithful in our work for Christ.
In Luke 12:35-36 Jesus said this regarding His coming: "Be dressed, ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him."
Here the picture is the custom of the wedding party waiting for the return of the bridegroom at a Jewish wedding feast. It is a little bit different than the wedding customs we have today.
In the Jewish wedding feast, the bridegroom goes away to prepare the home of the bride. Then he comes back when he has prepared the home of the bride to her home, to her father's house where she has been waiting along with the wedding party. He comes back and he fetches the bride and he takes her back to the home he has prepared for her.
And the picture is that of Jesus who has gone away to heaven. And what is He doing?
He said in John 14, "I have gone to prepare a place for you". The church is the bride of Christ. He was the bridegroom so He has gone away to prepare a place for us according to John 14.
But one day He is coming again to receive the bride unto Himself. So in that interval of time, we need to be faithful and be ready because we do not know the exact time of the bridegroom's arrival. In the Jewish wedding feast this was always kept a secret so that the wedding party would be in suspense, faithful, diligent in their work. Then,
We need to be faithful in our worship of Christ.
In Hebrews 13:15-16 notice these verses, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise; the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."
Our work is coupled with our worship. In fact, work without worship is tiresome and grievous. It explains why so many are faithfully going about their responsibilities without a smile and without joy. They have forgotten how to worship or chosen not to worship or don’t know how to worship. But the servant that is wise and faithful will be intent on worshipping the Master.
So as we anticipate the rapture of the church what can we do? Number one we are to work. Number two we are to worship and number three
We Need to be Faithful in Our Witness for Christ.
From our worship flows our witness. In Luke 19:13 Jesus said, "So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.' Now ten minas was a sum of money. He gave them money.
The King James says that he gave them ten pounds and he said to them occupy til I come. So we need to be faithful in our witness for Christ. There is a ground to be occupied. There is a witness to be given for Christ until He comes.
He says who is the wise servant? He is the one who is faithful. That is the requirement.
What about the responsibility of faithfulness?
Well, Jesus goes on in Matthew 25 to discuss further His coming. He talks about the parables of the ten virgins. He talks about the parables of the five talents. And he says there that these servants were responsible for the gifts that were given.
In Matthew 25:15 it says, "To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey."
So many times we talk about the coming of Christ and we read the verse that says "watch for you don't know the day or the hour" but we don't tell you how to watch.
So let me remind us of how to watch so we can understand the responsibility of faithfulness.
When He comes back, we are going to be accountable for the gifts and the abilities that He has given to us.
Now let me make a distinction here. I hear a lot of people excuse their lack of involvement in the church because of what they can’t do.
I can’t sing; I can’t teach; I can’t do this or that. Well have I got good news for you! If you can’t do something, then you are not responsible to do it. In fact, it’s a whole lot better if you don’t.
You say, “What do you mean?” Haven’t you ever heard someone try to sing who can’t? That’s why I say it’s a whole lot better if you don’t. Listen: We are not going to be accountable for that which He has not given to us.
But here’s the deal: You are responsible for that which He has given to us.
And He has given to each person different gifts. He gave one five, He gave one two, and He gave one one. They weren’t given in equal amounts. All men aren’t created equal in that regard. That illustrates how God has gifted each person differently in the body of Christ. We don't all sing, we don't all preach, we don't all teach, we don't all have the ability to build, we don't all have the ability to design. We are not all artists. We all have different gifts and different abilities in service.
But it doesn't matter what your gifts are. God doesn't hold us accountable for how many gifts we have, just what we do with the gifts that we have. And we find that when Jesus comes back, there is just as good an opportunity for a one-talent person to be as pleasing to the Lord as a five talent person. It is determined by our faithfulness.
Then keep this in mind: we are responsible, not just for what we were given, but also how well we invested it.
Matthew 25:16-18, "The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money."
Then we learn that we are responsible for the return on investment.
God made everything that He made in this world to multiply. Did you know that? God said to Adam and Eve, "now go out and multiply and replenish the earth". God put the animals on the earth to multiply. He put the plants on the earth to multiply. If we put a seed in the ground, we know we are multiplying that seed from one seed comes many seeds whether it is wheat or corn or cotton or whatever it is.
And God made you and me to multiply. And from one Christian there can come many Christians. And that is why Jesus made us and why He gifted us.
Notice Matthew 25:19-25
We know that when Christ comes in the rapture that the very next thing that happens is the judgment seat of Christ. This is not a judgment for unbelievers; this is a judgment seat for believers. It is not a judgment of condemnation, to evaluate whether you will be in heaven or hell, but it is a judgment of reward. It is a judgment to evaluate our works. How well we invested and multiplied our God given gifts and abilities.
Notice the one with two talents received the same reward as the one with five talents because he was just as faithful with two as the one with five was with his. So the person who is the nursery worker or van driver or sound technician or pianist or Sunday school teacher or hospital visitor or caretaker of the elderly, who is as faithful to his work as the preacher is with his work, will get the same reward because God does not evaluate people on their status in life. But He evaluates people on how well they use the opportunities and gifts that they have.
Jesus said "to whom much is given, much will be required." People who are extremely gifted also are extremely responsible to God. So in God's economy there is a way that God can equalize everything. God can balance out everything so that no matter who you are you can get the same reward as the Apostle Paul or Billy Graham just by being faithful with the opportunities, abilities, and gifts that God has given you.
Now it says then the man with one talent comes before Him and we know what happens here. What is he saying? He is saying to the person who hides his talent, he doesn't invest his talent is a tremendous judgment upon him.
Now get that picture in your mind: Here is this heavenly review of all our earthly service, and one by one your friends and fellow laborers in the work pass before the Lord, and hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Man, have we got some joy in store for you!”
And then it’s your turn.
You never had time to go to visitation. Other things were more important. You never bothered to sing in the worship service. You weren’t too interested. Sunday School was boring, and the preacher went too long, and your life was a very selfish, self-centered life. Other people could just figure out the solutions to their own problems, you were not going to get involved. And as far as you work and your worship and your witness, just to be honest, there’s not much there. Oh, you were saved and that’s about all.
But your life never showed any regard for the coming of the Lord. In fact, you live as though He’s not coming again.
Notice Matthew 24:48, "But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,'.
This is what the one with one talent does. He says I only have one talent. I’m afraid to put it to use. I might mess up. God will be angry with me. I might make a mess of things. I am not very gifted, I can't do very much. I can't really contribute. There is no use in me trying.
Or you might say, I don't know when my master is coming back. He has been gone a long time. And everybody has been expecting him to come before now. I have important things to take care of. There is plenty of time.
Many Christians live as though Christ is not coming back. It is not what we say, but how we live that counts. So this unprofitable servant says my master has been gone a long time.
Look at the lack of reality in Matthew 24:49-50
He slipped into complacency. His life becomes a life that is careless and complacent. And he begins to live a lifestyle that is not a Christian lifestyle. He begins to live a lifestyle of rebellion. He begins to live a lifestyle that is not consistent with a faithful servant. He beats his fellow servants. He sides with the world. So he really loses a sense of reality of spiritual things.
Do you know of any people like that who claim to be believers and yet they don't seem to have a sense of spiritual reality?
Here’s the reality: it doesn't make any difference how long it has been since Jesus promised to come, He is still coming. That is reality.
Then see the lack of reward. If he is saved, if this one talent person is saved, he is going to lose his reward.
Matthew 25:28-29
Now that makes sense, if you invest what you have you are going to get more. If you bury what you have it is not going to earn anything.
If you have a voice to sing but you don't use it, what happens? One day you get where you are so rusty and so unpracticed that you don't sing very well. If you have a mind that can teach and you don't teach your mind gets so undisciplined that you can't remember things and you can't put things together. Because the more you teach and preach the better you get at it.
Or if you are a person who loves to serve people and minister to people and you don't do that pretty soon you loose your love for people. You lose your joy.
Well, whatever your gift is it doesn't make any difference what the gift is, if you have a gift of compassion for people and you don't exercise that gift of compassion pretty soon you loose that compassion. Whatever your abilities and gifts are if you don't use them you will loose them. Use it or loose it. That is a spiritual principle. Therefore when Jesus comes you will lose whatever reward you could have had.
And now there you stand before the Lord. What are you going to say? More importantly what is the Lord going to say about you?
But there may be a lack of redemption.
What does this verse mean in Matthew 24:51?
Now we know that Jesus has described hell as a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth. So he is not talking about purgatory, he is talking about hell itself, a place with the hypocrites.
The Greek word for hypocrites literally means play actor or actor. In the New Testament time the word hypocrite was not necessarily a bad word. It is a bad word when you use it spiritually. But if you talked about a hypocrite you were talking about someone who was an actor in a play. That literally means play actor on the stage in Greek drama.
People would come out on the stage and they would hold up a face for the character and put it over their face. Or they would wear a mask over their face of the character they were playing. And they would call that person a hypocrite. They were playing a role. That is all it meant, a role player.
Now when you apply it spiritually it means someone pretending to be a Christian but they are not a Christian. Pretending to be a child of God but they are not really a child of God. They only have the mask of a child of God. So here is this person who doesn't invest. It is not the act of not investing that puts them in hell. The act of not investing just reveals that they were never saved in the first place.
They didn't have that motivation to invest because the spirit of God never lived in them. I promise you unless you have the spirit of God living in you to motivate you; you are not going to serve others. You are not going to be concerned about others. You are not going to want to invest your life in others. You are not going to want to invest your life in the cause of Christ.
And by the way, we have a reminder here that even the lost will give an accounting of their time and service to the Lord. Listen: Just because you’re lost doesn’t excuse you from your accountability.
So coming back to our question then, "who is then a faithful servant?" A faithful servant labors toward the glorious appearing. He knows the requirement of faithfulness. He knows the responsibility of faithfulness.
The unfaithful become complacent and they lack a sense of reality. They forfeit their reward and they may even be lost without Christ.
And the difference in the two end results is almost unfathomable.
For the faithful servant, the joy of the Lord.
For the other, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And the choice is ours to make.
