On this episode of the Evangelist Podcast, we're going to be transported to Brighton, where Glenn spoke at The Church of Christ the King, or more commonly known as CTK.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. It's just me, Andy Brinkley, here at the moment. Glenn is uh currently in Belfast, but uh we thought that it would be appropriate to uh let you listen to a talk that he gave recently at uh CTK, the Church of Christ the King in Brighton. We've had a very busy few days and weeks. We've just had the popular uh Bible by the beach conference down in Eastbourne, which uh Glenn was doing a lot at. And this week also there's a lot going on. So we thought we would bless you by uh just being able to play this recording. And also it gives us uh a little bit of breathing space to to gather ourselves for next time. I will, however, take this opportunity to um thank those that have given us a rating and review um particularly on iTunes. Uh it seems to be our most popular uh channel. If you haven't given us a rating or review, would you mind doing so? It's very easy to do. You can just go to our new website which is speaklife.org.uk slash iTunes and that will take you directly to the podcast page on iTunes where you can leave us a rating and review. It helps us to get seen by more people, it pushes us up the rankings. So if you could do that, we would be most grateful. Also, you can take a look at our new website or new redesign of revival uh website speaklife.org.uk. We've been making improvements along the way. We started with the revival media site. Um we've now transferred it over to the new domain. If you'd like to comment at all on this episode, you can simply go to speaklife.org.uk slash tep94. You can uh very easily leave um a comment on there if you wish to do so. So that's pretty much it for now. Um I hope you enjoy this talk that uh Glenn has given. Um next time we shall be back to our usual uh not I was gonna say rambling, but no. Um our usual energetic discussion. So see you next time.
SPEAKER_02Let me begin with an unhappy hypothetical situation. Okay, let's imagine we're all on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, and you think that's not unhappy, that's wonderful. Well, the cruise ship springs a leak, the ship is sinking. And then we all make our way towards lifeboats. On your way towards the lifeboat, you go past your cabin and you pick up a bag, and in the bag you've got some supplies: bottled water, biscuits, tinned meat, spam, tuna, that kind of thing. You put it into your bag and you smuggle it on board with you onto this life raft. And so there we are together in the life raft, bobbing up and down, a day and a night in the open sea, and then we see some land on the horizon, and we think, fantastic, salvation. So we paddle towards this land, but the further we get towards the land, we realize it's more like a sort of a boulder in the middle of the ocean. Uh, there doesn't seem to be any kind of shrubbery, there's no life on this thing at all. It's just this rock in the middle of the sea, but it's our only hope. So we paddle towards the rock. At that moment, your friend turns to you and says, I'm so thirsty. What do you do? What do you do? That's scenario number one. Let's compare it to scenario number two. Scenario number two, we're still on a cruise ship, we're in the Caribbean, fantastic. We hit something, we start to go down. Oh dear. You manage to go past your cabin and you pick up a bag, and in your bag you've got some supplies. There's some water, there's some biscuits, there's some tinned meats, tuna, spam, that kind of thing. You smuggle it on board to the life raft, and you're a day and a night in the open sea. You see some land on the horizon, you think fantastic. So you paddle your lifeboat towards the land, and as it gets closer and closer, you realize this is a tropical island paradise. You can see the trees hanging heavy with fruit, you can see a gushing waterfall in the distance, you can see the lagoons, you can see the white sand, you think fantastic, it's salvation, it's salvation, and you paddle towards it. At that moment, your friend turns to you and says, I'm really thirsty. What do you do in this scenario? Now, are you more likely in scenario two to share the wealth? Are you more likely in this scenario to open up your bag and say, spam for everyone? Are you a little bit more likely to celebrate in that way? Are you a little bit more likely to share the wealth? I think you could be a total sociopath. And still, in scenario two, you'd be more likely to be giving, to be sharing, to be outgoing. It's just the nature of the case, isn't it? What's the difference between those two scenarios? Is there any difference in your moral fiber? Is there any difference in the character that you have? Is your is your conscience any stronger in scenario number two? No, there's nothing different about you inside in scenario number two. What's different is your vision of what's out there. And actually, uh, Christians are not people who have greater moral fiber. Okay? I can tell you, because I am one, and I look within and I just see the same bunch of, you know, selfishness and sins and and and just this bundle of contradictions within here. But Christians don't, we don't look within for kind of moral fiber in order to be giving, outgoing, generous people. Uh what we do is we look to this vision of abundance and life. And when we see that vision of abundance and life, it makes us a little bit more likely to share, makes us a little bit more likely to break open the bag and share the spam. Okay? That's the Christian vision. You've been in a series uh looking at Christ's parables, his parables of the kingdom. And what that what those parables are meant to be doing, they're meant to be showing you the tropical island. They're meant to be showing you this vision of abundance and life and overflowing generosity and love. They're meant to be giving you this massive vision for who is Jesus and what his kingdom is like. And what they're meant to do to us is to perhaps free us from our natural inborn selfishness and to make us share the wealth. So, what we're thinking about is having a look at some of Christ's parables. And in Christ's parables, we're gonna see this outgoing king who shows us this outgoing kingdom, and because we're in this outgoing kingdom, we start to become outgoing people. That's the idea, anyway. What is this vision for this tropical island paradise? What is this vision of abundance and life that Jesus gives to us? You could go to lots of places in the Gospels, but let's have a look at one verse that Jesus uh speaks of. In Matthew chapter 22, um, Jesus is beginning a parable about what his kingdom is like. And you'll you'll know if you know the gospels at all that Jesus is always comparing the kingdom to lots of things. So, what's the kingdom like? Well, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. Have you got that picture in mind? There's a king who loves his son, and he wants the world to come in on celebrating his son. That's the picture that Jesus gives: a king holding a wedding feast for this son, and the world is invited in to celebrate the son the way that the father celebrates the son. According to the Bible, this is the gushing, overflowing vision of life that we're meant to have. That before the world began, did you know this? Before the world began, there was a father loving his son, Jesus, in the joy of the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, that's what was there before the universe began. Okay, according to the Bible, love is one thing that God never had to produce, he never had to create love. God is love. He has always been a father loving his son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. That's who our God is. This is our vision of abundance and life. And what is the story of the Bible? The story of the Bible is that the Son of God comes into planet earth in order to marry us, in order to be one with us. And if anyone says, I will to Jesus, you know what happens? You become one with Christ, you get invited to this feast, you get his father as your father, you get his spirit as your spirit, you get his future as your future, you get his kind of outgoing life as your kind of outgoing life. This is the picture of abundance that should make us overflow in abundance to others. That's how it's meant to work. As you look to see who God is, you see a father loving his son in the joy of the Spirit, you say, I want Jesus. And anyone who says they want Jesus, they get him. You know, he came to planet Earth to spread his arms wide on the cross in order to, like a rich husband, pay off all our debts. Okay, that's what he's doing on the cross. What's he doing with his arms outstretched to the world? He says, Come be one with me, give me all your debts, I'll pay them off on the cross, I'll rise up again and with arms outstretched, I'll say, Be one with me, come in, share in my happiness, share in my joy, share in my eternal life. And anyone who said, I will to Jesus, anyone who said that has come into this kingdom. But if you've come into this kingdom, you are coming in on an outgoing reality, aren't you? You're coming in on an outgoing kingdom. And so Jesus gives us these pictures of what it looks like to belong to this kingdom. And the pictures that he gives us in his stories are all pictures of outgoingness. So we're gonna think about three pictures of outgoingness. We're gonna think about shining, we're gonna think about sowing seed, and we're gonna think about uh investing. We're gonna think about shining, sowing seed, and investing. All these different pictures that Jesus gives us of an outgoing life. And each of these pictures, uh, you can't imagine shining and keeping it to yourself. You can't imagine having seed and keeping it to yourself. You can't imagine having seed money, investment money and keeping it to yourself. Everything that we've received from Jesus, we're meant to pass on to others. So let's look at this first picture of outgoingness that Jesus gives to us. It's a picture of shining. In Matthew chapter 5, verse 14. Perhaps you know these words, they're very famous. Matthew 5, verse 14, Jesus says, You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. So Jesus is giving this picture of shining. And it's interesting because in John chapter 10, Jesus is called the light of the world. He calls himself, I am the light of the world. He's like the sun that rises on our dark world to bring life and light and warmth. He says, He is that light of the world. But now, if we've become one with him, we are the light of the world. Is that an amazing thing to say? We are the light of the world. And I wonder how you respond to that idea. I wonder how you feel about shining. Is that an attractive proposition to you? That as you've come in on the outgoing kingdom and as Christ sends you out to your workplace, as he sends you out to university, as he sends you out to your family and friends and your neighborhood, as he sends you out, is it an attractive proposition that you are meant to shine? Actually, Jesus says in these verses, we're very tempted not to. We're very tempted to hide ourselves away because we don't want to draw attention to ourselves. We don't want to stick out, we don't want to be different. But Jesus says, if you want to hide yourself away, you're like a city on a hill that gets all shy about itself. He's like, that's ridiculous. You're a city, that's who you are. If you want to hide yourself away, you're like you're like someone who lights a lantern and then puts an upturned bucket on the top of it. That's ridiculous. You're meant to shine. You are someone who shines. That's just constitutionally who you are. If Christ has risen on you and you've seen the sunshine, you've seen the light of the world, you've come to him, now he sends you out, and you do shine. So interesting. Jesus doesn't say, try to burn brighter for me. He doesn't say that. It's very interesting. As I work as an evangelist around the place, and so part of my job is training people in how to shine, training people in how to be witnesses for Christ's kingdom. And everybody wants to know what the technique is. Everybody wants to know what is the skill that I need to learn in order that I might shine a little bit brighter. But Jesus doesn't say turn up the brightness on your shining. He doesn't say get on fire for me. He says you are light. You are already light. Your big problem is that you hide it away. That's the big problem. Your big problem is the stuff that gets in the way of you shining. Your big problem is your fear of being different. And so Jesus tells us not to have that fear. Be distinct, be different. Because one big problem with being the light is we want to hide ourselves away. Another big problem with being the light is that we want the spotlight to be on us. That's a big problem with being the light of the world. So often we want the light to terminate on us. We don't want it to be about our good deeds for others, as Jesus has just said. And we don't want the glory to go to our Father in heaven. We want to be known for different things. If we're going to shine, if we're going to stand out in the world, we want it to be for different things. This was really brought home to me by Catelyn Moran, a brilliant columnist for the Times. I love reading Catelyn Moran's stuff. Last year she wrote this very heartwarming letter to her daughter. And it was sort of the letter that she would write to her if she died. Don't worry, Catelyn Moran is healthy and well. But she just wrote this letter to her 13-year-old daughter to pass on the wisdom that she had learnt. And I think it's so heartwarming, and it shows us our danger with shining. She says this the main thing is resolve to shine constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in a corner. And people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux. What a beautiful vision, isn't it? A beautiful vision of shining out, being this warm lamp in the corner. But she says that there's an alternative. You might not want to be that warm lamp shining out, doing good deeds like that. Instead, she says, if you want to be this light, it will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like being cool, being more successful than everyone else, and being very thin. Okay? Great advice to a little 13-year-old daughter, right? Because you might want to walk into a room and you might want to shine, you might want to be distinct, you might want to attract the eye, but you might want to attract the eye for all the wrong reasons. You might want to simply be cool, you might want to simply be successful, you might simply want to be thin. What is it that we want to be known for? If you're about to meet new people, what do you hope is the impression that you make on them? I get this wrong all the time. So often I go into a new situation and I want to be known for being knowledgeable or cool or cynical or funny or all sorts of things. All sorts of things that are not me shining on you, me doing good to you, me sharing Christ with you to the glory of the Father. We want to spotlight ourselves, and this is what gets in the way of so much mission. It's what gets in the way of us shining and being the light of the world when we want to spotlight ourselves. I remember growing up uh in Australia, and um I was involved when I was in Sydney uh uh with a group called Christians in Cricket. Um love playing cricket, um, it's God's own game, it's amazing. Um I understand if you don't have the same view about cricket, it's a it's a it's a which I'm sensing here. Uh I remember Groucho Marx was once uh invited to a cricket match at Lord's Cricket Ground, and uh and he was there watching the game, England versus Australia at Lourdes for an hour before he turned to his host and said, and when is the actual game beginning? Um that's that's kind of cricket. But um I love cricket, and uh and I used to be part of this thing called Christians in Cricket, where we we thought about how are we going to be light in our cricket clubs? How are we gonna share Jesus in our cricket clubs? And I don't think it was ever said in these groups, but I kind of got the impression that the way you you are meant to shine for Jesus is to score a hundred runs, to take five wickets, to be the life and soul of the dressing room, to be in the bar until late at night telling cracking mother-in-law gags, and you're a Christian, right? To be the really cool guy, and you're a Christian. And it's this this this nuts kind of idea that everyone's gonna come to you and say, Hey Glenn, you're really cool. What's the secret of your coolness? And you know, and I go, ah no. Really me? You know, come to church and you'll find out how to be cool like me. Like, really? Is that gonna wash in the world? But we get this idea, we we we think of witnesses as basically shining and spotlighting ourselves, and you're a Christian. Jesus and Catelyn Moran tell us a different way to be. Be one who is a warm lamp in the corner, who does good to others. It really was brought home to me a few years ago. I got to meet uh Henry Alonga, who is a uh a great Christian and a cricketer. He uh he played for Zimbabwe, and uh he was one of the fastest cricketers ever ever, fastest bowlers ever to play the game. And uh and I got to talk to him one time about what it's like to be a light shining in his cricket club, which happened to be international cricket. I was like, what's it like to be a light shining? How did you do it? Uh and and I had this view in my mind. I thought probably Henry Alonga would be, you know, the guy who's just really, really popular, really cool. Did you know Henry Alonga actually had a number one single in Zimbabwe? Okay, he's a tremendous singer, operatically trained, incredibly talented, musically gifted, funny, attractive, a great sportsman. I thought he was like the the model for what a Christians in cricket sort of person should be. He said, I was hated. I was hated in the cricket, uh in my team, because actually, as a light for the gospel, he stood up against Robert Mugabe. He is one who wore a black armband at the 2003 World Cup in order to uh mourn the death of democracy in Zimbabwe. He was under death threats, he was rocking the boat massively, everybody hated his light shining so strongly. Everybody hated it. And he was very tempted to keep his light under a bushel, keep his light under a bucket like that. But he did shine and he did make stands for Jesus, and he did speak of Christ, and he said, what really made the difference was everybody hated me when their life was going well. But when their life went badly, when their girlfriend was dumping them, when their marriage was hitting the rocks, when they were getting injured and they were about to get dumped from the team, Henry was the person they spoke to. He was the warm lamp shining in the corner. And you know, when when life goes bad, who do you want to talk to? Do you want to talk to the guy who tells all the gags? Do you want to talk to the guy who's cynical and clever and you know? Do you want to talk to that person, or do you want to talk to the person who's been quietly shining, serving, loving? That's what being the light of the world is. So I wonder with you you are a light. If you belong to Jesus, you are light. You can't stop shining. You can try and hide it away, but Jesus says shine before others and don't shine for yourself. Be that warm lamp shining in the corner. I don't know what that looks like. Maybe you can talk this through in small groups. What does it look like to be light in the places where God has called you to be? But it's this outgoing reality from this outgoing kingdom. So we shine like light into a dark world. The next picture that Jesus gives to us is that we sow seed to bring life. We sow seed. Many of the parables that Jesus tells are about sowing seed, and the seed is the word of God that brings life. Let's uh read one such parable in Mark chapter 4 from verse 26. Jesus says, This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces corn. First the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. As soon as the corn is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come. In Mark chapter 4, this parable has come just after Jesus did the whole four soils thing. And he said there's different kinds of people who receive the word of God in different kinds of ways. But now Jesus, he sort of says, to begin with, you are you are like soil receiving the word into you, receiving the seed into you, but you don't stay there. Now you become an outgoing sower of seed. Now you are someone who scatters the word of God among different people. I wonder how you feel about that. How do you feel in the various contexts in which you are sharing the word of Christ with people? If your friends are anything like my friends, when you name the name of Jesus among friends, doesn't it feel like a sack of rocks has just hit the dinner table or wherever it is? You could almost you could mention any other name under heaven, but the name of Jesus seems to have this nuclear power to it, doesn't it? And suddenly you just mentioned Jesus and you feel like it's a sack of rocks that's just crash-landed into the conversation. And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, that's not a sack of rocks. That is seed. That is seed. And this seed has near magical power to produce life. In fact, it has more than magical power, it has the Spirit's almighty power to bring life and hope and growth and an incredible harvest. Jesus wants us to think of our words like seeds scattered. And you look at a seed and you think, how weak, how pathetic, how useless, how ephemeral. What good could this tiny little seed do? Jesus says, scatter it. Just scatter it. See where it goes. And in the fullness of time, it will bring an outrageous harvest of life. I remember living in uh Canberra in Australia for uh for a year, and um uh during that time a friend of mine actually came to Christ and trusted in Jesus, was wonderful. Um as I was leaving Canberra, he uh gave me a card, and uh on this card he wrote down the top ten things that I'd said to him during the year that had helped him come to Christ. And I looked at this list and I thought, well, ten things? I didn't remember a single one of them. Not a single one of them. And none of them were said in church on a Sunday from a pulpit. None of them were part of my preaching ministry. They were all said in the car, in the pub, in the cafe, seeds scattered, and it brought life. And you know what? Today he's a preacher, scattering seed himself, and this is this is the way the kingdom grows in this exponential way. I wonder how you consider your words. Yes, we are meant to shine like a lamp in the corner, doing our good deeds, revealing the love of Christ in our very being and presence. Yes, we're also meant to share our words. The word of Christ has this phenomenal life-giving power to it. Uh, Martin Luther knew all about the life-giving power of the word. I mean, here's a man who stood against the might of the whole of the medieval church. Here is a man who brought such change in his day, it's it's hard to think of many more people who've shaped the world more than Martin Luther has. Well, you ask him, well, Martin, what did you do? What's the secret of your success? I love this quote. He said, um, at the end of his life, he said, I opposed indulgences and all the papists. Those were the sort of the errors that the medieval church were uh propagating. I uh I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the word so weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing. The word did everything. Wow. How do you change the world? Scatter the seed. You scatter the seed. And you think your little words aren't gonna do much. You always think that. But that's like a farmer looking at the seed and thinking, oh, what's what's gonna come of this? It's only a tiny seed. I tell you what's gonna come from this. New life, harvest. That's what's gonna come from this. In evangelism training, I often tell people to consider a few sentences up their sleeve as they are talking with friends and family members. I get them to complete these sentences. Sentences like, that's what I love about Jesus, dot dot dot. How do you finish that sentence? Or that's what I hate about life, dot dot dot. Let's get serious, let's get real. Or that's what's most important in life, dot dot dot. How do you finish that? Or that's what I love about being a Christian, dot dot dot. How do you finish that sentence? That's what I love about my church. Dot dot dot. How do you finish that sentence? If you are finishing that sentence with people, you are sowing the seed, and you don't know what's going to happen. Just as the farmer returning the next day saying, Where's the harvest? You know, ridiculous. You don't return the next day, but in the fullness of time, you will see your words having a phenomenal effect. I was once doing some evangelism training with some students in Edinburgh, and they were getting very excited about wanting to be witnesses for Jesus, showing the kingdom in university life. And at the start of a week of training, I said, What do you want me to teach you in evangelism training? And uh two questions came to me. Uh, one person put their hand up, they said, I want to know how do I mention the name of Jesus without it sounding weird in conversation? And then question number two came to me. How do I tell my friends that I'm praying for them without it sounding odd? Okay? That's what they wanted to do. And in a sense, they're wanting to shine, but not too brightly, right? And I said to them, look, if that's what you want in your evangelism training, it's gonna be really short, okay? How do you stop? How do you mention the name of Jesus without it being this odd moment? I don't know. I don't know. There is a radioactive power to the name of Jesus, you know, the name of Jesus has fangs, right? And I don't want to de-fang the Lion of Judah, okay? But if you are mentioning the name of Jesus in conversation, and if you are praying for your friends and telling them you are praying for them, you are the Billy Graham of personal evangelism. You are doing it. You are totally doing it. I don't know how to make that not weird. I don't know. To me, to make that not weird is like to put the light under the under the bucket. You're gonna be different, you're gonna shine, and you're gonna drop the name of Jesus into those conversations, but don't think of it like dropping a big boulder. You're dropping seed, and that seed has life. So think. Think about the power of your words, and maybe be bold. Be bold next time. Finish that sentence in conversation. You know, that's what I love about Jesus. You know, that's what I love about my church. Do you want to come along? Our words have tremendous power. So we've been thinking about shining, we've been thinking about sowing. Finally, let's think about investing. Investing. Here's another picture of the outgoing kingdom that Jesus gives to us. And he uses this illustration. Matthew 25, verse 14. Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another, two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability, then he went on a journey. So we get the idea, don't we? Jesus is like this master, and he's going on a big journey. He's gonna go back to heaven, then he's gonna come back to settle accounts at the end of time. And he entrusts to us wealth. But actually, what he entrusts to us is fabulous wealth. Really. A talent, this bag of money is a unit of currency in the ancient world. It's equivalent to 6,000 denarii. Just one denarius is a day's work. So six thousand denarii is twenty years' salary. Okay? Just one bag is twenty years' salary, five bags, hundred years' salary. We're talking millions of pounds here. We're talking a very effusive sharing giving kind of master, aren't we? Entrusting this, this kind of millions of pounds, to the household help, to the servants, to slaves. Incredible king. What happens next? Well, the man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. These first two servants, they are not daunted by the amount of money that's been given to them. We'd be very tempted to be very daunted. You know, someone entrusts millions of pounds to you. We we might not want to risk it. But these guys do. They they seem to think that with this master, it would be better to try and fail than not to try at all. And so they put the money to work. I don't know what they do. Maybe they buy up some vineyards and expand the business, maybe they uh invest in some trading ventures. I don't know what they do. But what they do with their money is they risk it. They risk it in the service of their master, and it brings an incredible return. We're seeing this outgoing kingdom. Of course, in the hands of this outgoing king, yeah, we shine and the light conquers the darkness. We sow seed and life conquers death. We invest our talents and it multiplies and out it goes. So those are the first, the the two faithful servants, but then there's one servant who it says, went out and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master's money. Went out. That's a very loaded word in Matthew chapter 25. It's a word that Jesus will use to talk about judgment at the end, that there will be those who go out from him. But it's interesting, before this master is told, before this servant is told to leave, this servant has already gone out. He doesn't really want in on this kingdom. So that's the scenario. Two of them put the money to work, one of them digs a hole and buries it. Verse 19, after a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, You entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I've gained five more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things, I'll put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, he said, You entrusted me with two bags of gold. See, I have gained two more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. You know my favorite word in all of that? Favorite word in all of that is see, see. You get this idea of these servants with childlike joy and enthusiasm. It's like a little kid with their parents saying, Look, daddy, look, mommy, look what I can do. They're just, they are so at home in the presence of their master, and they are just thrilled to share with him what they have done. And what is the master's response? Incredibly, the master responds by calling what he had given them a few things. What I've given you, the millions of pounds, that's just a few things. That's just chump change. That's just that's just spare pocket money. Compared with the inheritance I want to bring you into. In Luke chapter 19, which in many ways is a parallel passage to this, Jesus says that those who are faithful will be in charge of kingdoms. They will rule, they will be kings and queens. He treats his slaves like kings and queens. And the best thing that he gives us is not many things, it's not many cities. The best thing he gives us is himself, right? Come and share your master's happiness. That's amazing, isn't it? Like what slave ever gets to share their master's happiness? Slaves usually just work for their master's happiness, and then they go off back to the servant's quarters and they have their own happiness, and the master has his happiness. He says, Come to my feast, come sit at my table, come share in my happiness. Because he is the son of the king. He is the great bridegroom, the husband who invites us all to his table to be one with him forever and to share in his eternal joy for free and forever. What kind of king is this? What kind of master is this? Effusive, outgoing, overflowing with abundance and life. But that's why it's such a shock when we read on. It's such a shock when we get to verse 24. Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. Master, he said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here's what belongs to you. And you think, where has this master got, this servant got this view of a master who is a hard man? Is he a hard man? He's entrusted millions of pounds to the hired help. He he raises them from slaves to being kings and queens. He seats them at his table to share in his happiness forever. Hard man? Hard man. And yet, doesn't the world, if the world ever conceives of who God is, doesn't the world kind of think of God as a harsh taskmaster? Why is that? I think it suits us. It suits us to picture God as this heavenly miser who might just dish out a few blessings with a teaspoon if you're good. It suits us to think of God as this heavenly legalist, because then we are justified in quietly despising him and dismissing him. And Jesus sees through this guy. He sees through this guy. He says, You don't really think that of me. If you really thought that of me, you would have acted very, very differently. So the master, verse 26, his master replied, You wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I've not sown and gather where I've not scattered seed. Well then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. He's like, if you really thought like that, you would have done something completely different. You know I'm not this hard man that you try to make me out to be. But if you're gonna make me out to be this hard man, I will be to you as you've imagined me to be. This is a very interesting truth about judgment. You know what? There's lots of things you can say about judgment, but here's one thing: judgment is the handing over of people to what they have foolishly chosen. It's handing people over to their ridiculous choices, to their ridiculous conceptions. And the master basically says, if you see me as a hard man, I will be a hard man to you. And if you want to go out from me, out from my kingdom, out from my presence, out from my light, then there's nowhere else for you to go but the darkness. And so this master confirms this unfaithful servant in his own foolish choices. Verse 28, so take the bag of gold, says the master, from him and give it to the one who has ten bags, for whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have, will be taken from them, and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This servant is getting the master he had imagined. And he's getting the future that he'd already chosen for himself. He wanted to go out, and the master confirms him in that. But when you go from the source of light, life, and love, there's nowhere else to go apart from the outer darkness, where there is this weeping of self-pity and this gnashing of teeth, angry self-righteousness. Where did this guy go wrong? Where did this unfaithful servant go wrong? Should be obvious where he went wrong, right? His vision of the master. His vision of the master is so out of whack. And this is the key for us. If we want to be part of this outgoing kingdom, we need to see who this king is. You know who your king is. He is the king who became a slave, more than a slave. He became a human sacrifice on that cross, spreading his arms outstretched to the world to pay off all your debts, and to rise up again and to say, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. He brings us to himself where there is feasting joy for free and forever. This is who your king is. Do you know this king? If you don't know this king, come to him, call out to him. In a second, we're about to have broken bread. Remembering his body broken for you. Is he a hard man? Is he a harsh taskmaster? He is as available to you as bread in your hand. Come to him, call out to him, receive him, and then be part of his outgoing kingdom. And for all of us, what will we do with our presence in the world? You are a light, so shine. You have the word of Christ, so scatter it. You also have talents, you also have gifts, abilities, opportunities where you are. And Jesus says, picture that like a big bag of money that he's pressed into your hand, and with a great big smile, he says, risk it, use it, spread it in the cause of my outgoing kingdom.