Matthew 25:14-30 gives us a fascinating look at how God operates in His Kingdom. Many of us are familiar with this story of the Parable of the Talents, and we often focus on the first servant, the one who was given five talents, and then gained five more. Or, we focus on the third servant, the lazy one who wouldn’t do anything with even the one talent he was given. But there’s a very important insight we can learn from the second servant . . .
The second servant was given two talents, which was “according to his own ability” (verse 15). He didn’t have the same ability as the first servant, but Scripture says that the second servant was just as diligent as the first servant, effectively doubling what was given him, just like the first servant.
Even more significantly, take a moment to compare verse 21 with verse 23. What do you see? The two verses are exactly the same. This is very important . . . the second servant received exactly the same commendation as the first servant . . . even though he had less ability and was given fewer talents to start with.
What we can we gain from this observation? So many of us feel like the “second servant” . . . others around us have more resources and abilities . . . what difference can we make? Why should we even try? Yet here we see that the same reward in the Kingdom is available to us if we will be diligent in our faithfulness with exactly what God has given to us.
Let’s stop comparing ourselves with the “first servants” that seem to get all the attention and press . . . let’s be “good and faithful” now, and look forward to God’s commendation “in that day”!
This insight was part of yesterday’s sermon. If you’d like to hear the rest, just go to http://www.harvestva.org/online-sermons.asp and by tomorrow you should see “Stewards, Talents, and Faithfulness” ready for download.
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