Use It or Lose It

Well, we are in a new series. We started last week called The Conversationalist, and we're looking at the parables of Jesus, and we're kind of leading up to Easter on those parables. So super, super excited about the message this week. But before I start, I just want to mention we are preparing hard for Easter. How many of you are excited about our Easter service coming up?

Resurrection Sunday where we celebrate Jesus. And we want to, again, we have all kinds of materials and resources for you to invite people to church. The 80% chance that somebody is going to say yes to coming to church with you for Easter. You believe that? Statistically it is.

So you need to be inviting people for Easter. Why? Because we want people to know Jesus Christ. Amen? And it's a great springboard, a great opportunity.

So again, like I shared last week, we aren't to make room because I'm believing in faith that we're going to invite a lot of people. A lot of people are going to come. We are going to put a tent outside that holds a few hundred people so that we can fit everybody in. And thank you, Christina. She's with me.

Amen. So that we can invite as many people as possible. And here's some ways you can do it. First of all, you need to pull out your phone. And if you haven't liked Salt Church's page, you need to do that, okay?

On Facebook. If you're a Facebook or Instagram, go right on and like Salt Church. And on the Facebook page, you will find our event. Our event was posted last week for Easter. There's some information about Easter and what's going to happen.

And so you need to hit I'm going or I'm interested or whatever you want to do. But hopefully you're going. You're going to be there. You're going to be there to celebrate with us that week. That's the one week in the year.

I require you guys to be in church. I got an excuse to do that, you know, because it is Jesus's day. We celebrate the greatest feat ever. And so you need to go to that event, hit going, and then what you're going to do is go to the invite link and you're going to invite everybody you possibly can. The people you know that aren't in church, the people that have fallen out of church, and you need to invite them that day, okay?

There also will be an event video going out this week as well. And you're going to see some of our staff inviting people. You need to share that and share it with others and let people know about Easter. Also, we've got a sign. We've got some yard signs.

We've got plenty of these yard signs. So you've got to grab a yard sign on the way out. And I want you to put two, three, five, ten, whatever you want to do. It's a great way to advertise Easter. People will see this sign, see our logo, see Easter Sunday has our landing page on it.

Everything you can know about Easter. So just stick that in your yard, stick it in your neighborhood, stick it on your corner, wherever, and let people know about Easter at Salt. And also, you probably received some cards on the way in. Those are great ways to invite people to Easter as well. Start handing out those cards.

Just having a talk with somebody. Come to church with me. Heck, you can even invite them to church before Easter, right? Here's a card. Just come to church.

Come with me. Take them out to dinner afterwards or something, you know. But I'm excited and I believe that you guys are going to bring them in and it's going to be awesome. It's going to be incredible, incredible Easter Sunday. So next week, I'm actually inviting Michael Simone to speak once again.

He's going to share with us next week. So you don't want to miss next week. He's going to share a parable with us and a little bit about Togo, who he's involved in, a ministry he's involved in. But be here this week. I know some of you, if you aren't familiar with Michael, he's a very sweet man, been a very, very wonderful person in my life.

He was the founder of Spring Branch Community Church and he's coming in next week to share a bit with us. So I'm super excited about that. Also, if you're new with us and you haven't had an opportunity, we didn't have our guest lunch last month because we had we had some other things happening in our. During that time, but this month, if you want to attend our guest month, we call it Lunch with Leon. Pizza's on us, a time just to get to know me and some of the staff.

We're having that next week. We're having that right after church next Sunday. So go ahead and register for that. You can go to the Next Steps area. You can register there.

Baptism's coming up. If you're thinking about being baptized, start getting that in your head. Child dedication's coming up. Mother's Day, start thinking about that, get that. So we've got a lot of things coming fairly soon.

So get ready for that. All right, so we are in week two of the conversationalists. And last week we talked about the farmer and the seeds, the parable of the seeds. This week we're talking about the parable of the talents. And let me introduce it by saying this.

You can waste your life, you can spend your life, or you can invest your life. You can waste your life, you can spend your life away, or you can invest your life. And your greatest use of your life is investing your life into something that goes past you. Invest in eternity. It says this in Romans 6.

13 to set us up for this message. Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness. To be used for sinning. Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body, not just part of your body, your whole body, body, soul, spirit.

Use all of it as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God. So you were and I were put on this earth to do good. We were put on this earth to do good and to be used for good, to grow others, to grow the kingdom of God. We have been put on this earth for a purpose, for a reason. This time what we have on this earth is for a reason.

So we don't want to abuse our bodies, we want to use our bodies, right? We want to use what we have, what God has given us in order to extend His kingdom. And the truth is one day we are going to stand before God and He's going to ask us two questions. He's going to ask us two questions. The first question is, what did you do with my son Jesus?

What did you do with my son Jesus Christ, the one I gave for you? Did you develop a relationship? Because it's not religion. It's not Buddha. It's not Hindu.

It's not some kind of mystical thing out there. It's Jesus Christ. What did you do with my son? Do you have a relationship with my son? Did you grow in your relationship with my son?

Did you love him? Did you serve him? Did you live for him? Did, what did you do with Jesus Christ? What did you do with my son?

That's going to be his first question. And the second question he's going to ask is, what did you do with what you were given? What did you do with what you were given? So if you'll turn with me, Matthew 25, starting with verse 14, and we're going to look at this short story that Jesus shares. It says this, for it is like a man about to go on a journey.

He called his own servants and handed over his possessions to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two and another one, each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded them and gained five more. In the same way, the one with the two gained two more.

But the one who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came up and brought another five talents saying, Master, you handed me five talents. Look, I've gained five more. The master said to him, well done, my good and faithful servant.

You were faithful with a little, so I'll put you in charge much. Enter into the master's joy. The one who received the two talents also said, He also came and said, Master, you handed me two talents. Look, I've gained two more. His master said to him, Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You are faithful with a little, so I'll put you in charge of much. Enter into the master's joy. Then the one who received the one talent also came up and said, Master, I knew that you were a hard man, reaping what you didn't sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid and I went off and I hid your talent in the ground. See, have what is yours.

But the master's response, you wicked, lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I didn't sow and I gather where I scattered no seed. Then you should have brought me money to the broker, my money to the broker, and when I came I would have received it back with interest. Therefore, take the talent away from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For to the one who has more shall be given and he shall have an abundance. But to the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.

Father, Spirit, speak to us today in the name of Jesus. Amen. When I look at this parable, I'm going to break the rules once again. I see seven principles here, okay? Seven principles.

I had ten last week. I had seven this week. I'm not being a good preacher by only giving you three and moving on. But there's just so much in this message. It's so good.

I just want to share with you. So the first thing I want to mention is everything I have really belongs to God. We call this the principle of possession. Everything I have belongs to God. It does.

It all belongs to God. I don't really own anything. What I have is on loan. It's on loan. God's given me a loan.

He's given me the things. And if it was your grandfather's, it was on loan to him. And then he passed it down to your father and mother. And then your father and mother passed it down to you. And then you're going to pass it down either to your children or somebody else is going to have it at some point.

It is on loan. You can't take it with you. You didn't have it in the first place when you came into this world. You had nothing. And it's on loan.

And you can take it with you, but you can't bring anything out of this. You can't take it with you. You can't bring it out of this world. And the Bible says that we are made to be stewards of what God has given us. We are to be stewards.

And steward is just, the English word for steward is simply management. We are managers of what God has given us, but we don't own any of it. We don't own a single thing, but we steward it with an open hand. We steward everything that we have with an open hand. Everything that we have, we must first know that it is not ours.

Let me just give you an example of what it means to steward something well. Imagine a wealthy man comes up to me and says, Hey, Leon, I have got a house in Hawaii right on the North Shore. And you know what? You can live in it as long as you want to. You don't have to pay any bills.

You don't have to do anything with it. You just stay there. You enjoy it. But I ask you to do just a few things. I want you to water my plants, feed my dog, get my mail, and I don't ask anything else of it.

Just take care of what I have there. Steward it well. So I start doing that. I move in and I start doing that for a minute. But then I start getting a little more liberty.

You know, I start letting the mail build up a little bit. The plants, I start leaving them off here and there. I'm doing kind of what I want to. I start rewiring the house. I decide, you know what?

This dog that he wants me to keep, I'm not really doing great with this dog. I think I'm just going to put him over somewhere else or maybe sell him or something like that. I don't know. I just got to get him out of the way and I'll just explain something different to him. And I just start, now I start like rearranging.

The house, I start doing things, I start doing add-ons, I do additions, and I'm starting to make it mine, and then he comes back after so much time, so many days or years, and he says, okay, I'm ready to move back in, and then I'm like, oh no, this is mine. This is mine now. I mean, this is everything. I've already fixed up the house. I've already added my room.

I've already put this here. I've already rewired. This is mine. Now, that sounds silly, doesn't it? It sounds silly for somebody to loan me a house for so many years, and I make it my own, and I tell him he can't come back into it, but we do that all the time.

We do that all the time. God loans us something. He gives us property. Some versions of his scripture, he says he left property to someone, the servant, but we do that all the time. That's why it says in verse 14, again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servant and entrusted his property to them.

Now, if you get this first one right, let me just say this. If you get this first one right, you will dramatically reduce your worry and your stress. You know why? Because when you realize you don't own it in the first place, that stress and worry goes away. I mean, think about it for a minute.

You get a ding on, your neighbor gets a ding on their car, you're not worried about it, are you? I mean, you're concerned and you feel bad for them, but you're not stressing about it because it's not your car. But if it's your car, what do you do? You worry about it. You're frustrated.

You're angry. If there's damage done to your property, your house, it frustrates you. You get stressed about it, right? But if it's not your house, if your neighbor down the street, yeah, you're concerned about it, and you feel for them, but you're not going to be stressed about it. Life does not consist of the abundance of things, okay?

Of possessions. We're not built for it to be abundance of possessions. We're not built to live that way. The most important things in life are not things. And when you live your life with an open hand, you don't worry.

You don't have to worry. How many of you are worrying here today? Maybe that's a good point that you need. You know, I don't want to worry. I don't want to worry.

You know what? I'm going to know that God has everything in His hands. I don't need to worry. Life does not consist of the abundance of things. So the more materialistic you are, the more stressed out you'll be.

Just a principle. You need to write that down. The more materialistic you are, the more stressed out you will be. The more you think it's yours, the more you will begin to worry about it, right? But if I live life with an open hand, it's different.

Life isn't what is in your hand. It's what's in your heart. That's what life is really about. It's what's in your heart. Number two, God has loaned me a set of talents.

He's loaned you a set of talents. We can call this the principle of allocation. We think of talent as skills and abilities and aptitudes, and that's right. But you know where we got that word from? The Bible.

We use the word talent. We got it from the Bible. In the Bible days, a talent was money. There were bags of money. You read other versions.

There's bags of silver, bags of gold. But what we learn here in this story, as Jesus is sharing, He's not just talking about your finances. He's talking about every area of your life. He's talking about so much more. He's talking about your skills.

He's talking about your abilities, your aptitudes. And that's why we adopt the idea of talents. We use the word talent when we talk about our giftings and things like that. And we all have different talents, right? Some of you are just really good at speaking.

Some of you are really good at writing. Some of you are really good at mechanics. Some of you are really good with your hands. And we didn't obtain these things, okay? These are things that were given to us.

You didn't get your talents and your gifts. They were given to, just by grabbing them in the air, they were given to you by God. God gave you those things. We have to understand that it is on loan to us. We have a talent that God has given us, and it's on loan.

And it's our ability, it's our resources, and our opportunities. The abilities that you have, the resources that you have, Some of you have more resources than other people, and some of you have opportunities. That's why it says, to one, he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent. According to what? His ability.

To his ability. So the amount defers. The amount of talents each person has defers. Some have more, some have less, right? In fact, that's why Romans 12 says it like this, we have different gifts according to the grace.

God has placed a grace of giftings on us, and some people have less than others. Some of you may have one talent, some of you may have five talents, some of you may have two talents. But we all are equal in God's eyes, yes. We all are individually equal, but some of you have a lot more giftings and a lot more talents. God has blessed you.

We aren't equal in that way. We aren't equal in talents. Some people have more talents than others, and we have to understand that. The fact that you were born in America is a gift in itself, right? You have more resources available to you, amen?

We aren't equally given talents, but we are equally given, we equally matter to God, but we didn't choose to live here, right? We didn't choose to be God. God, you were born in a family that lived in America, and you have things. It's a gift. It's a gift from God that you were even born here.

And most of the world would love to have your problems, okay? The problems that we suffer with, they would laugh at us, right? But some of you are like, well, it isn't fair, you know? Well, guess what? Life isn't fair, okay?

In fact, Scripture says that life isn't fair. Life just isn't fair. Life is tough, but you know what? The Bible says life is unfair, but God's coming back to reconcile all of that, amen? He will be back to reconcile all those things.

But we have to realize that heaven will settle the score, but earth isn't fair. And there's people with a lot of talents, and there's people with less talents. And some of you have opportunities that other people don't have. Some of you have influence that other people may not have. That's a talent.

That's something that God has given to you. Some of you have the ability to make more money than others. You have more earning capability. Guess what? You didn't do that.

God gave you the gifts to be able to do that. Well, I made my money on my own. I've done it on my own. I worked hard. Well, no.

God gave you the resources to be able to develop yourself and educate yourself and do the things that you're capable of doing. He gave you that earning potential, okay? That's a gift from God. Everything is from God. But everyone has talent, has a talent somewhere.

And you know what? Studies say this, that human beings have anywhere from 400 to 800 talents. Isn't that cool? And many of them we never, ever, ever discover. We don't discover them.

Some people discover talents that they didn't have until they were in their 80s. I heard the story of an elderly lady who found out she could paint at 80 years old, and she was pretty good at it. She says, if only I had known all my life that I could do this, I would have probably done it more and used it. We all have talents, and part of my role, I feel like one of my giftings as a pastor, one of my giftings as a pastor is to help people find their purpose, find their talents, and connect them and put them in the right place so that they can flourish and they can be fruitful. But if you sit on your talents, they rot on the shelf, guys.

We've got to use our talents, which leads me to my third point. God expects me to make the most of what he loans me. This is the principle of accountability. He expects you to make the most of what he loans you. God has made an investment in you.

God gave you life. God gave you talents. God gave you skills. God gave you opportunities. He expects a return on his investment.

Can I say that again? That's pretty hard. He expects a return on his investment. Now this is going to get really positive, really encouraging here in a minute, but right now I'm just kind of preaching to you a little bit. I'm being a little hard on you.

He expects a return on his investment. Romans 14.12 says each of us will be given, will give an account of ourselves to God. God's not, let me just say this, God's not going to force you to live for him. God gives you the freedom to live self-centered and egotistical.

If you want to live egotistical, if you want to live self-centered, if you want to live horrible, he gives you the, he lets you do that, but guess what, one day you're going to have to answer to God for that. He will allow you to, to live. He will allow you to waste your life. He'll allow you to bury your talents. He'll allow you to do all that.

He gives you that freedom. But one day you will have to explain all of that. That's why it says in verse 19, after a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts. So, if you want to look at it this way, one day you are going to have an audit of your life. You are going to stand before God.

Now, it's not the type of audit you're thinking about where your finger's being pointed at you, but I see it this way. I see it when I see the heart of the Father. He's going to be standing in front of you, and he's going to ask the question, what did you do? He's going to look at your life, and with a heavy heart, if you did not use your talents and use what he gave you on loan and invest in them, he's going to be heartbroken. He's going to be heartbroken that he gave you this and you did not use it.

He's going to be heartbroken that he put this number of talents in you, whether it's one, whether it's 5,000, and he's going to be heartbroken. So, he's going to look at your life. Number four, it's wrong to bury what God loans me. It's wrong to bury it. So many people bury their talents.

They don't, they don't, I remember a story someone shared about their grandfather or great-great-grandfather who was in the Depression, and he was so scared of losing his money, because the banks, if you live through the Depression or have a family member that lived through the Depression, they'll tell you everything went south quick and they lost money, and all the banks shut down, and people were scared, and they would put money in jars, and then they would bury them in the ground. And this particular individual, and this happens a lot, they bury it in the ground, and they forget where they bury it when they get older, and then they pass away, and there could be hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in the ground, and nobody knows where it is. It's just there to rot. It's just there to do nothing. And I'm like, wow, what that money could be used for outside of worm food, you know?

I mean, the principle of utilization. The first man, he gave one. The second man, he gave two. The third man, he gave five. And you know what the master's reaction was when the one came back and says, you know what, I hid it away, I buried it so that you can have it back.

What did he call him? You wicked and lazy servant. You can't please God by playing it safe, guys. You can't please God. God wants you to learn to trust him, because if you don't trust him, what is it?

It's faith, right? Faith is trusting him. If you have faith in God, you trust him. You are either faithful or you are unfaithful. You can be faithful or you can be unfaithful.

If you don't trust God, if you don't take a step out, don't be afraid to go out on a limb, because that's where the fruit is. When you take that step out, that's where the fruit is. And I would rather have you attempt to do something great and fail at it, than attempt to do nothing in life and be successful. To do nothing for eternity and be successful and succeed. I like where Rick Warren says it on his, he said in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, he says, on my tombstone, I'm going to have, at least he trusts me.

Tried. At least he tried. At least he gave it an effort. See, God doesn't expect you to be successful at everything. There's goals that we're not going to hit as a church.

There's goals I'm not going to hit as a ministry. But you know what? God just expects us to try. He's proud of us when we step out and we do things regardless. And if we're going to try, we're going to try.

You know, we're not just going to sit back and be scared that we're going to fail. And I would rather have attempted to do something and fail than do nothing at all and have some success in life because it doesn't mean anything if I have success and if it's not for the kingdom of God. I want to carry things into eternity. I don't want things to sit here and leave them behind. I want to go forward.

And we're going to try and we're going to die trying. We're going to die trying if we have to because God will say at least they tried and they were willing. And then you have the other guy. And I think a lot of us kind of sit in this. Well, I only have one talent and I'm not really as good as that person.

And that, you know, I'm not a superstar. I'm not a superhero. So I just won't try. I won't try because I'm not the better singer. I'm not the better artist.

I'm not the better salesperson. I'm not the better builder. I'm not the better businessman. I'm just not going to do anything. See, God will not compare you to anyone else.

He will only compare you to what he's given you. He only compares you to you. OK, he's given you something. He doesn't care if you only have one talent. He he cares what you're doing with that one talent.

And I'm I'm just a one talent person. Are you using it as the question? If you're a one talent person, are you using that talent? You don't have to be the best person in the world. And, you know, the reason why so many Christians are not full of joy, have no joy in their life.

Let me just tell you this. If you're there's so many Christians walking around now in this generation that are just not happy. Why? Because we're playing it safe because they're not willing to step out. They're not willing to to to to walk out on a limb.

Why is it that you're so excited when you first get saved and you just radically you want to change the world? And then things just kind of kind of kind of fizzle out because we get comfortable and we don't really care about stepping out and trying something new and doing something different. Taking some chances because taking chances we want to we'd rather sit on the sideline. Joyless Christians sit on the sideline because we were never meant to be spectators. We were meant to be participators.

Amen. We are participators. We are not consumers. We are contributors. This consumer culture.

Oh, I got to you know, I'm going to pick the church. I like the worship, but I don't like the I don't like the pastor that much. I like the pastor, but I don't like the worship that much. I don't like so and so how they shook my hand when I walked in the door. I mean, we live not not there's anything wrong with us trying to create an atmosphere for those who are far from God.

That's what we do is assault church. But as believers, we are not that way. We don't act that way. We don't we're not that way. OK, we we are not spectators.

We are participators. We are not consumers. We are contributors. We contribute. I love when somebody comes to up to me and says, you know what we really need in this church.

We need this and this and this because this isn't happening. That's like great. Why don't you get going with it? That's a great idea. I think you're called to that ministry.

You know what they do? Well, OK, I know what you're doing here, pastor. OK, are you going to be a contributor? Are you just going to sit on the sidelines? Because if you aren't serving, you are being selfish.

If you aren't serving God, if you aren't serving others, you are being selfish. Number five, what keeps me from using my talents is fear. Fear. Some of you are just afraid. Some people are just afraid.

Some of you out there watching today, you're afraid. You're afraid to take the next step. In fact, that's what the servant said. He says, I was afraid and I went out and I hid my talent in the ground. Some are so afraid and for me, maybe for many reasons.

Some of you have got church. Church hurt, right? Oh, the church has hurt me so bad. I'm just not willing. I've been hurt by people.

I've been hurt by someone. I'm shutting off. I'm staying away. Or it could be some other reason. I just, you know, I tried and I failed.

And your fear, you're full of fear. You're afraid to step out. There's three quick reasons. First of all, self-doubt. I can never do that.

That's a fear, right? I can't do what they're doing. I can't. We compare ourselves to others. I mean, do you remember that time like the teacher in class asked a question, you were afraid to raise your hand?

How many of you were afraid to raise your hand in class? See, there's a lot of people that are afraid to raise their hand here because you don't want to be wrong, right? So you're afraid that people will see you and think about you. Or, you know, you're afraid. You're afraid.

You look at God, not at your doubt, okay? You need to look at God. You need to keep your focus on God because you doubt your doubt and believe your beliefs, okay? You've got to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs. Believe what you believe about yourself.

Believe that you can do it, that God has given you a talent. He may not have given you this talent, but he's given you this talent. And just because you think you can't be a superstar doesn't mean you're not one in some area of your life. Everybody has been given something self-conscious. Some of you are just self-conscious.

And you're worried about the proven opinion of other people. That's why you don't step out. You're afraid to be one of those Jesus fanatics, you know? If you're from the 90s, it's Jesus freaks, right? If you're a DC Talk fan.

I don't want to be one of those Jesus freaks. People might talk about me. And when you live your life that way, you live for the approval of others and you surrender your life to someone else, right? You surrender your life to someone else. You're not surrendering it to Jesus, you're surrendering it to someone else.

That's why the Bible says approval of people is a snare. It's a trap. If you live for the approval of people, you need to step out. Some of you need to claim that you're a child of God to somebody in this world, okay? And stop living under a rock.

If you do anything, you are going to be criticized if you walk with Jesus too, okay? So you need to recognize that you're going to be criticized. I'm criticized, you're going to be criticized. If you don't want to be criticized, do nothing. Just live safe, live under a rock.

Don't make a difference in this world if you don't want to be criticized. But criticism comes, and we just got to know that. And the third thing is self-pity. People, oh, everyone hates me. I just can't do anything.

I failed at everything. I failed so many times. I'm burnt out. I'm just so burnt. Oh, I'm exhausted.

Oh, there's just no time. I'm just, you know, I'm just so hurt. And it's like this church that did this, and this church did that. You know, when somebody comes to church for the first time, and the first thing they say to me is like, well, I used to go to this church, but the pastor did this, or sister did this, or brother did this. And I'm like, okay, maybe this isn't the church for you then, because we ain't perfect people, okay?

Hey, things happen, you know? And we need to practice forgiveness a little bit, right? The rationale behind that is like going to a restaurant and not liking the restaurant and saying, I'm never going to any restaurant ever again because they're all the same. Every church is the same. Every ministry is the same, right?

That's the rationale we use. It sounds silly, but it's how we think and how we act when it comes to this. Stop calling failure, failure, okay? That's what I want you to understand. Stop calling failure, failure.

Call it an education. When you fail, it's an education. You learn from your failures. It's good to fail. It's good to fall down a bit so that you can learn and you can pick up.

I want to introduce two people to you, and you know who these two people are that failed. Judas and Peter. You know where I'm going with this. They both... Both responded a certain way.

What did Judas do? He responded in his self-pity. And where did it take him? He took his own life. He messed up on an opportunity for God to use him for his glory and instead took his life.

But Peter, Peter messed up a lot. He had every reason to think he was not good enough. But what did he do? He fell at the feet of Jesus. He repented.

And he was used as one of the greatest apostles in the Bible. It was their response. Because no one is perfect. There's no perfect church. We all have to practice grace, right?

And God is giving us what we need. You know, he's given us what we need. And even if we don't deserve it, he's given it to us, right? We don't deserve anything that God's given us. We don't deserve our abilities.

We don't deserve our opportunities. We don't deserve the things that we have. But he gives it to us. Why? Because he wants us to use them.

He wants imperfect people to use his talents. The perfection that he's laid on us through his Holy Spirit. Through his Son, Jesus Christ. See, the man and the talents, he made excuses. And I've heard this too.

Well, if God had only given me a different husband, I would have, you know. I would be able to do so much. Or a different wife. If I, you know, if I, you know, my wife, she just doesn't, you know. Or a boss.

If I just had a different boss. Or if I had a different, I had different parents. If I just had different parents. If they raised me a certain way. Because they put all this.

I mean, we yank those excuses. And anytime God gives you talents, here's what's going to happen. The devil is going to fight in every way to bring fear to your life. He's going to make you afraid. And you're going to step down.

And you're going to back out. And if you give in the fear, you won't receive a blessing from God. God's saying, step out. Sixth thing is, if I don't use it, I lose it. If you don't use it for the Lord, you're going to lose it.

Okay? The principle of application. The principle of application. Verse 28, it says, take the talents from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. So he got aggravated with the man who didn't do anything with it.

He took it away from, my mom used to use that all the time with me when I was a kid. If you don't sing, if you don't play this, you're going to lose your talent. God's going to take it away from you, right? But there's some truth to that, you know. If we don't use it, we lose it.

Why is it that some people have less and less in life? Because they aren't using what God gave them. God takes away from them because they're not using it. He takes it and gives it to someone else. And that doesn't seem fair.

It's so fair that God would take it from you. He gave you the talents. Those are his. He put them on loan to you, by the way. Remember that?

This is all a loan. This is not something that you earned. This is something that he gave you. And he has a right to take them away. He had a right to give them to you.

And his sovereignty is a right to take them away and give them to somebody else. And there's a universal law to this if we use our talents. If we, there's blessing. If you don't use something, you lose it. There's a universal, for instance, building muscles.

If you don't keep working out, if you keep building your muscles, what's going to happen? You're going to lose your muscles. Right? Opportunities. If you don't take advantage of opportunities, then the opportunities are going to stop coming.

Right? There's a principle to that. Whether you're Christian or not, you know that. There's a principle to that. That we, when we fail to do certain things, things don't come back to us.

But when God, God gives us this principle of application that when we invest, if we don't use it, we lose it. So the way to invest my talent is through serving others. Serving others. And I think it's interesting. You say, oh, I don't have the time.

I don't have the energy. I don't have the talent. When you invest, you have the time. You have the talent. You have the energy, and you have the talent.

Okay? If you don't invest, if you don't use it, you will not have the time, you will not have the energy for anything, and you will not have the talent. I'm just telling you, this is a universal law, okay? If you're feeling like, oh, I don't have the time to serve, I don't have the time for the church, I don't have the time to minister here or minister there, you'll never have the time. It's just never gonna happen, and you're just gonna live and die and go through this life.

You're gonna stand before the Lord one day and say, well, I was just tired, God. I was just tired, Lord. I was just so tired. I was working the job that didn't really matter, and I was doing these things that didn't really matter, and I was playing golf and surfing, you know, three or four hours a day, but I couldn't serve for 30 minutes at church. I'm sorry, God, you know, it's, I'm sorry.

I mean, what's he gonna say to that? I don't want to be standing before, well, golf, yeah, you know, it was golf, God. It was golf, I mean, come on. It was surfing, I mean, come on, there were waves, you know, God. Well, I've got, because you didn't honor me, I have people that are going into eternity not knowing me, the people that I love, the lost, and you decided that that was more important, and you didn't give your time to that, and here's what's cool about it.

This is what I love about God. You give the time to that, and golf will be there for you, okay, and surfing will be there for you, and traveling, and all those other things will be there for you, whatever your passion is. It will be there for you, because there's a principle to that. You give more time, you get, you get more time, more energy, you get more energy, money, you get more money, talent, you get more talent. That's just a universal principle.

And seven, and lastly, if I use what God loans me, He will reward me. This is the encouraging part, guys. A lot of this sounded kind of like browbeating, but this right here is like the cool part, because He wants to reward me. He does want to reward me for what I do in this life, and He's excited about rewarding me. And He gave it to me, and He says, use this, and double it, and triple it, and I'm going to do something for you.

Here's what it says in verse 23. His master replied, well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things, and I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness. I love that.

Your master's happiness, your master's joy. There's three things real quick I see here. Number one, there's a reward of affirmation. There's a reward of affirmation, well done, my good and faithful servant. I'll tell you, one of the hardest things for me as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ is not making my Father in heaven proud of me.

And I've been reminded over and over again, and this scripture reminds me, that no matter if I don't hit my goals, if I don't hit those places that I feel led to hit, or whatever I put down, I'm trying to please my Father in heaven. That's all I'm trying to do. And there's times where I feel like, He's not proud of me, because I haven't gotten here yet, or I haven't done this yet. But this right here tells me, He's proud of me. My God is proud of me.

My Father in heaven is proud of what I'm doing. My Father in heaven, if I can't make it, if I don't do it, if I'm trying, He's proud of me because I'm giving what I have. It's all I have. It's what I have in front of me. It's what, He's given me this ministry.

He's given me this family. He's given me this, and I've used it for Him. And as long as we use what we have, He is so proud of us, and He is going to encourage us. And when we're standing before Him one day, He's going to say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. You may not have had much, but man, I'm going to bless you with so much more, which is number two, the reward of proportion.

He's going to give you more. And it's not just in this life. Maybe you don't get a whole lot in this life. But there's something beautiful when we look into eternity. He's going to put us in charge of many things.

I gave you a few things in this life. What did you do? Do with these few things in life, I want to give you many things. I've got so much more for you. And then there's the reward of celebration.

This is the part that's beautiful. Let's party. Let's have a good time. Let's enjoy. See, Christianity isn't meant to be this killjoy.

It's meant to be full of joy. You're supposed to be full of joy. And the happiest people on earth are those who serve God. Those are the happiest people. Don't let anything in this world fool you to think that's not the case.

Happiest people are those who serve God, serve people, serve His church, serve His kingdom. Those are happy people. That's where it really comes down to. The joy. And he says, let's celebrate.

Come and share in my joy. Come and share in my happiness. Come and share and be a part of what I have for you. He wants to reward us. And when you use what God gives you, He always gives you more.

He always gives you more. Your talents, your opportunities, they become greater. It expands. It becomes greater. Multiplication.

And if you are faithful with a few things, He will entrust you with much more. So whatever it takes, right? Whatever it takes, Lord. I'm willing to do it. Whatever I could do with what you've given me.

Whatever I have to do. Whatever it is, I know that you are faithful. You're going to return more. Whatever that might look like. Whatever that might be.

I know. I believe that promise. And Jesus gave us this story. And He meant it when He said it. When He was teaching the people around the table and out in the city.

When He was sharing these stories. And on the hillsides, when He was sharing these stories, He meant what He said. Because He understood what the Father had for us. And He believed it. And it's truth.

So what do you need to do? You need to discover, number one, your gifts. And develop your talents. And if you aren't doing something selfless on a regular basis, you're out of balance. Did you know that?

If you're not doing something selfless, you're getting out of balance. You're going to be all whacked. Because you weren't created to be that way. You were created to serve. You were created to serve the Lord.

You were created to serve other people. You were created to make a difference in this world. Did you know that? That's what you were created for. And if you are living selfish, you are out of balance.

You are all out of whack. And you need to get back in balance. So do I have time? Do I have the money? Do I have whatever?

Don't put all that to the side, okay? Because if you're living selfish, if you're more concerned about your time, you're more concerned about your money, number one, it's not God's anyway, right? Because you haven't really given it to God. But if you live that way, you'll be out of balance. You need to invest in what lasts and invest in the things that don't fade.

And only what we do in Christ will last, okay? Only what we do in Christ will last. To end, I just want to say this. Do we really want to stand before God one day, stand face to face with Him as He's before us and He asks us that question? Do we really want, what have you been faithful with?

Do we really want to just stand there and say, I don't know? I want to hear the Father say, well done, my faithful servant. You've done so much for me. I want to be able to stand before my Father in heaven and just, I'm so proud of you. I haven't given you as much as someone else, but you've taken that and you've used it.

I think about the book written by John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life. I read it years ago and man, that just wrecked my world. And he uses the story of a man who worked his entire life for himself, built up a retirement, became wealthy, did everything he could to take care of himself and even his family and things like that. He just really, he worked his whole, whole, whole life and his number one priority was to buy a beach house and live in the beach, live on the beach. And he was able to do that.

He retired and he lived on the beach and he collected seashells and he was just enjoying collecting seashells and doing things just comfortable and living the last few years of his life. And then he passes away and he enters into God's presence and God asks him, what did you do? What did you do with what I gave you? What did you do with your resources to expand my kingdom? What did you do to glorify me in this life?

And the man, all he had in his hands was seashells. Well, I got these seashells. That's what I lived my whole life for so I could buy a beach house and collect seashells? That doesn't matter at all when you're face to face with God in eternity, does it? I want my father to say, Leon, I'm so proud of you.

You've done everything. I've given you little, but you've used it for everything it's worth and you've done it and you've invested it in the kingdom of God. And I'm so proud of you. Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your father's house.

I love you so much. And I've got joy in store for you for all eternity. I don't want to be that person on the other side that says, I don't know, God, I haven't really done anything. And it's not about being perfect. It's about making the effort.

It's not about getting it right every time. It's about making the effort. I just want to hear those wonderful words. My good and faithful servant. I want to be faithful.

I don't want to be faithless. I don't want to be unfaithful with what he's given me. So maybe the question for you is, is in this season, as we're heading to Easter, maybe it's time to take the next step, right? How do I do that? Well, you need to take one baby step.

You need to at least make an effort. Don't just talk about it. Do it. There's plenty of opportunities to serve on Easter. There's plenty of opportunities to serve here in the church.

It's a great stepping stone, a great launching path. There's great ways to discover your gifts and your purposes here. It really does start with the local church. It starts by getting involved in local church. And we have resources to help you do that.

Some maybe starts with you getting in a small group and just starting connecting, starting to connect with people and growing there. I mean, it's not perfect, but that's a good place to start. If this isn't a church for you, you need to get in a church. You need to find a family. You need to get committed.

You need to learn to walk with other believers and let them help you grow in who you are and your gifts and your abilities. This is a time. Don't waste your life. Don't waste your life now. Don't waste this little fragment of time you have in all of eternity to make a difference for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Imagine a church where everybody got this. Imagine a church where everybody recognized their abilities, their skills, and walked in their purpose and worked together. Imagine what we could do in this world. Imagine what we could do in this city. Imagine what we could do in Virginia Beach and beyond.

Imagine what we could do if we all said, I'm in, God. God, I might not be perfect. I might have one talent. I might have ten talents. But I'm in, Lord.

And I'm willing to take that next step. Is that you today? Are you ready to take the next step? Let's pray. Father, challenging message, but so full of life.

So God, Thank you. As you, Spirit, are working in people's hearts today and turning people towards you and giving them and opening up inspiration for them, even at this moment, Lord, to find whether it's truth in you or the next step they need to take, Lord, we are honored that you show us, you give us a glimpse through these short stories. You give us a glimpse into eternity and we're able to see that the life and the fruit that comes out of these universal laws is very true, and that if we begin to take next steps in those areas, God, that you're going to do that for us, you're going to do some amazing things through our lives, you're going to give us purpose, so God, we're believing today that you're going to, that we're ready to take the next step, I don't want to hold back, Lord, I want to, I want to move forward, I don't want to be comfortable, I want to, become comfortably uncomfortable, I want to step forward, because I know out on the limb, there's fruit. I know if I step out on the limb, there's, there's beautiful, luscious fruit on the other side, and I'm ready to go for it, Lord, and I believe there's people here today that want that more than anything. So today, Lord, I pray that you would convict hearts and lives and push us towards more of what you have for us.

And then there's some here today that they haven't taken the first step in knowing you. That first question that I introduced, what did you do with us? I believe my son, Jesus Christ. If that's you today, won't you just receive him as your Savior, make him your Lord. Have a relationship with him.

Just, just, just confess your sins to him. Just do that today. Lord, I confess my sin to you. I confess that I've been far from you, but today I take steps. Lord, I take the first step of knowing you, God, that, that come into my life, come into my heart.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sin. You saved me through the blood of Jesus Christ. So come into my life, Lord. I don't want to do it my way. I don't want to live selfless.

I don't want to live a meaningless life anymore. I want to live a life full of life. I want to live a life full of true life. So God, make me yours today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. If you gave.