Luke 19:11-27 - The Parable of the Minas

Luke 19 verses 11 through 27 I'm gonna read those verses if you will please follow along as they heard these things he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately he said therefore a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return calling 10 of his servants he gave them ten - and said to them engage in business until I come but his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying we do not want this man to reign over us when he returned having received the kingdom he ordered these servants to whom he had given money to be called to him that he might know what they had gained by doing business the first came before him saying Lord your miner has made 10 - more and he said to him well done good servant because you've been faithful in a very little you shall have authority over 10 cities and the second came saying Lord your miner has made five - and he said to him and you are to be over five cities then the other came saying Lord here is your minor which I kept laid away in a handkerchief for I was afraid of you because you are a severe man you take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not so he said to him I will condemn you with your own words you wicked servant you know that I was a severe man taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow why then did you not put my money in the bank and at my coming I might have collected it with interest and he said to those who stood by take the miner from him and give it to the one who has 10 - and they said to him Lord he has 10 - I tell you that to everyone who has more will be given but from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away but as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them bring them here and slaughter them before me this is the word of the Lord Heavenly Father this morning we do thank you for your word and we realize that there are portions of your word that are comforting and then there are portions of your word that are sometimes severe and demanding and so we pray that your Holy Spirit would guide our minds today help us to understand this passage of your word help us to apply it to our lives and then please use our lives for your honor in the world that we live in it's in Jesus name we pray amen while back I had a meeting scheduled for the park meadows mall and the person that I was supposed to meet thought that we were going to meet at noon and I thought that we were going to meet at 10:00 a.m. and so at about 10 after 10 I said I'm gonna call this person and I called and turns out that they couldn't get there until noon and so I was at the park meadows mall at 10 o'clock waiting for a noon meeting and for me to drive back up to my office and to do a little bit of work would have taken 45 minutes and then 45 minutes back down and so I had an hour and fifty minutes at Park Meadows mall and as I talked to people about this part of my life and this episode of my life I mentioned the fact that I had two hours to waste I had time to waste do you ever think about how you classify time in your life sometimes we use a word interim this word really means an intervening time and the word interim has this idea that there's a big big event here and then there's a big big event here and this time in the middle is interim time in between time Jesus came to earth two thousand years ago and it was a big event although he was born in humble circumstances there were angels and stars and wise men and and Shepherds seeing weird things and glorifying God and so there was this big event of Jesus coming to earth and for those of us that read the Bible we know that there is yet a big event to come and that event is going to be big as well it's going to be impossible to miss and so between this big event and this big event we have this interim period of time this time between two big events how do we live in this interim time we could live in fear that second coming of Jesus could be a fearful thing for us or we could look and say well you know it's been hundreds thousands of years maybe it's going to happen maybe it's not we could live in lethargy as well how will we live in this interim period between these big events Jesus uses parables as he teaches he uses them to communicate truth in a way that is stunning surprising and memorable parables illustrate truth they point to truth essential for us to live as followers of Jesus this parable coming at this time is clear from verse 11 of Luke 19 they heard these as they heard these things he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately there's something about the New Testament and there's something about Matthew Mark Luke and John the four Gospels that is really helpful to know as we read any of the Gospels and the truth is that well over 90% of the people who followed Jesus at the time he was alive believed something about him they believed that he was a massive huge political military leader they believed that Jesus was going to usher in a period of time similar to the time of King David hundreds and hundreds of years earlier they hated the Roman Empire and the rule that that Empire had on them and they desperately wanted Jesus to be this political military leader and so well over 90% of the people that followed Jesus thought that Jesus was going to bring in this huge military political victory and some of the language of the New Testament and even Luke kind of leans in that direction even Mary's song at the beginning of Luke Mary sang he has brought down the mighty from their thrones Zechariah says he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us but we just moved through the beginning of Luke chapter 19 and ten we saw the mission of Jesus to seek and save the Lost that was his mission there is going to be a big event when he returns and politically militarily he is going to rule the universe but in the interim time Jesus came to seek and save lost people Jesus was the best teacher the world has ever known and to draw people's attention he told a parable based on something that everyone listening could relate to we don't have the luxury of living in the first century as we read Luke 19 verses 11 to 27 this morning but most people who listened to this parable of Jesus would have been reminded of something that had happened in their world how many of you have ever heard the name Herod okay Herod a king not a good king right Herod the Great ruled for a long time and his son Herod are callous temporarily came to power upon his death Herod the Great one day had something happen in Jerusalem a number of revolutionaries came to the temple and they tore down a symbol that shouldn't have been there Herod had them all killed that didn't go well with the Jewish people they didn't like Herod anyway and this made them get to the point of really hating Herod and so when Herod our Calais Herod's son was in power around 6 AD the Jews a bunch of them came to the temple one day and they were remembering those that Herod the rate had killed so what does Hera darkus do he sends the military to make sure that this doesn't blow up and he blows it up anyway and he kills 3,000 Jews 3,000 were killed well hair dark lists was not the best guy wasn't the best ruler and there was a point in history where the Roman Emperor needed to approve him to rule over a certain portion of territory and so the Jews finding out when this was sent a delegation to Rome to meet with the Roman Emperor and say please please please don't put hair at our colas over us well the Roman Emperor did it anyway and so guess how hair dark Alice treated the Jewish people after that they weren't really his favorite group of folks and so this story kind of sounds familiar to the people of Israel this sounds like something that's already happened to us yeah we know what that's about when there's a bad ruler sending a delegation of people to make sure that he doesn't rule over us anymore that makes sense we this sounds a lot like what's already happened in our lives this parable is also interesting because it sounds like another parable called the parable of the talents right sounds it's kind of like that but a few differences there are 10 servants that are given 10 - am i know is a unit of money equal to 3 months wages and so the difference between the parable of the talents and the parable of the - is that everybody gets the same one servant one miner one servant one miner everybody gets the same and as the ruler gives this to them he says engage in business until I come back now there's a really telling verse its verse 14 the citizens under the ruler here said we do not want this man to reign over us so real similar situation to real history the people of this nobleman's territory didn't want this person ruling over them when the nobleman returned he called the servants in and wanted a report some servants had taken the mine and had vested wisely and had more than doubled had a thousand percent increase some had a 500% increase and some had just held on to it and a handkerchief so that they wouldn't lose it some servants wisely invested and they were greatly rewarded can you imagine three months wages invested wisely ends up with somebody ruling ten cities huge reward for wise investment some servants did nothing and their miner was given to others there are there are some weird surprises here and when Jesus told a parable the the reason that he told parables was he wanted to draw people's attention and so the weird thing of this parable is Jesus is sort of comparable to Herod Arkel us which was not a good ruler it's also surprising to look at verses 19 to 25 and see the hardness of this a nobleman and it's also surprising to see these great rewards it just doesn't seem that three months wages invested wisely would lead to such great rewards and so there are some things to draw our attention to as we look at this parable it really boils down to looking at verse 14 and verse 27 in verse 14 the citizens of this nobleman's territory hated him and sent a delegation after him saying we do not want this man to reign over us as the Jews in the first century looked at Herod are callous and said we don't want this guy ruling over us so the Jews in the days of Jesus as they followed him came to that same point even though Jesus wasn't close to Herod our coolest even though Jesus was the exact opposite of Herod our coolest the people still said we don't want him ruling over us we don't want his reign in our lives and in verse 27 Jesus says but as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them bring them here and slaughter them before me it points to what will happen at the end of time this great event of Jesus coming this second great event of Jesus coming at this second event when Jesus returns those who don't want Jesus to reign over them will end up eternally away from God in health a very real place this parable actually goes beyond the parable of the talents that many of us know about it literally goes to the heart of the matter who do you want reigning over you who do you want reigning over you there our very strong feelings in our nation about one person the President of the United States really brings things to the surface no matter who it is right we really care about who reigns over us and it doesn't seem like people just shrug their shoulders about any president well I don't care that doesn't seem to be the case people are very strong in their feelings about who they want reigning over them and as we look at this passage the question is who do you want reigning over you who do you want reigning over you there's this interesting verse Luke 19 13 as you look at the ESV the version that we use here at Calvary you find the noblemen saying engage in business until I come the NIV puts it this way put this money to work until I come back and those of you that might remember the King James Version that version actually says occupy till I come the idea that Jesus clearly communicates in this parable is that we need to grab every resource available to us and put it to work in the best possible way everything needs to be grabbed and invested for the one who rules over us now as we think about life in this interim time period we have to remember something clearly this morning we are 2,000 years closer to a big event this big event of Christ's coming to earth where he was born in Bethlehem was huge but this other big event where Christ returns to rule over the universe is closer than it's ever been before in history how will we live in this interim period how will we live this out where is Jesus reigning today we like the Jews of the first century would probably feel more comfortable if Jesus was president that we could kind of wrap our minds around that if Jesus was present and putting righteous laws and ruling righteously that would make us more comfortable but Jesus reigns in the hearts of human beings hundreds and thousands and millions of human Jesus rules in US and sends us out to live like he lived Jesus is reigning in us is he reigning in you the good news of Jesus that comes through over and over in Luke and all the other Gospels is that God created this world we as human beings are prone to sin were separated from God by our sin and we can't get to God we can't have a relationship with him without Jesus Christ paying our sacrifice believing in him allowing him to reign in our lives is the way that we get right with God and is the way that we get this huge reward that's way out of proportion in the same way that the reward in Luke 19 was way out of proportion are you engaging in his business are you seizing the opportunities at your job in your neighborhood at Kings Supra are you see the opportunities to engage in the business of Jesus Christ are you carrying out his mission do you know lost people that are around you do you care are you praying are you looking for opportunities to seek and save the Lost a teacher that I've admired over the years puts it this way right now counts forever give Jesus this interim time because right now counts forever what you do today counts forever it matters I had a great discovery this week and I wanted to show you a tragic picture this picture was taken 100 years ago this month you might not be able to see it as clearly as I would like you to but it's a picture of destruction and devastation that happened on the north end of Boston 100 years ago this month and you might wonder what is it that could cause this kind of devastation and destruction in such a major city as Boston I wanted to show you what it actually was molasses I'm gonna put this back here Hannah cuz it doesn't smell very good but how many of you ever heard of the Great molasses disaster Boston an amazing event that I had never heard about until I read it this week how did you know that Boston is famous for baked beans and molasses is actually a major ingredient in rum and prior to World War one Boston was in need of a lot of molasses but with the coming of World War one molasses was actually distilled and used in the manufacture of all kinds of ammunition and weapons and so there was a need for molasses and so there was a two million dollar or two million gallon tank that was going to be used to store molasses and on January 1st of 1919 a tanker came in with 700,000 gallons of molasses that went into this tank and so you've got this huge molasses tank on the north end of Boston prior to the 15th of January or so residents of the North Area loved having this tank there because they would often look over and see that the tank was leaking and so they would have their kids run over and put a little cup there and get some molasses for their beans or for something that they were baking and the company that was in charge of the big tank when they saw that there were a number of little leaks they did something that any good company would do they painted over it what do you think I painted over tank with leaks is going to do over time there was this day a hundred years ago in Boston where people ignored the danger of a leaking molasses tank the tank wasn't properly tested and people didn't do their job and so on this day the tank burst and there was a 15-foot wall of molasses that came rushing down the North End of Boston at 30 miles an hour and you can imagine my hands are sticky just from touching this you can imagine the devastation 21 people died and a hundred and eleven people were injured because somebody wasn't doing their job somebody glossed over the details somebody didn't engage in business and didn't occupy the job that they were hired to do disaster came brothers and sisters in Christ where is Jesus raining he's raining in you are you giving Jesus this interim time and engaging in his business disaster comes when we don't huge reward and blessing comes when we engage in his business to the best of our ability would you pray with me

Channel: Calvary Church

Views: 216

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary, Church, Bible, Jesus, God, Sermon, Preach, Preacher, Gospel, Christ, Broomfield, Colorado, Christian

Id: CnmG-fLo68Y

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019