Your Money and Possessions Are Not Yours

Everything Belongs to God

This is a clip of a teaching about the parable of the talents and its implications for stewardship. I emphasize that in the kingdom of God, everything belongs to the King, and we are stewards of His resources. The video explores the concept of responsibility and the need to be good stewards of our time, talent, and treasure. It highlights the importance of investing in kingdom things and using our resources for eternal purposes. Ultimately, Jesus is presented as the King who rules and reigns over our lives.

Video Timestamps

00:00The Parable of the Talents

01:55Understanding the Kingdom of God

03:20Responsibility and Stewardship

04:14Investing in Kingdom Things

05:11Jesus as the King

Video Transcript

So let's look at the next parable in Matthew chapter 25. Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to him. One, he gave five talents, another two, and to another one, each according to his own journey. So this is a parable about stewardship. It says that this man gives five to one, two to one, and one to the others. And so the one with five and the one with two, if you know the story, they took that talent, they invested it.

and they gained more. But the one that only had one did not. He was nervous. But Jesus comes in here, I'm trying to find the spot here, to the one who received one talent, Jesus said, or excuse me, the man said to Jesus, Lord, I know you to be a hard man reaping where you have not sown, gathering where you have not scattered seed. I was afraid, went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there have what is yours. So he went and hid his talent.

or his treasure, the talent isn't actually like a skill, it's actually money, it's an investment. He says, I hid that talent into the ground and I was afraid. But Jesus said, you wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I've not sown and gather where I've not scattered seed, so you should have deposited my money with the bankers and at my coming I would have received back to my own with interest. Therefore take the talent and give it to him who has 10 talents. For everyone has,

More will be given and he will have with abundance. But from him who does not have even what he has will be taken away and cast them and he cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's pretty intense there. So Jesus is being revealed as the King. Okay. So you have to understand in a kingdom, it's not like what we have. Uh, it's like in America here where we have private property and it's a democracy of some sort.

Uh, and, and the government is of the people by the people. That's not what it's like in a kingdom. And for God is not, uh, the president of the kingdom of God. He's the King of the kingdom of God, which means everything actually belongs to him. Jesus as the King, he owns everything in a kingdom. Everyone other than the King and his, the King's family are stewards of the King's resources. If you live in a kingdom,

Your land is not yours. It's actually the King's and he's allowing you to live on his land as part of his kingdom. And so it's a whole different mindset. And so Jesus is trying to get us to understand everything is actually the Lord's. Everything is God's and that we are just stewards. Everything that we have has been given to us by a sovereign God who loves us and is invited us to be a part of his kingdom. And so what we have is is in our culture right now.

is we have rebellion and we have lawlessness. We have just a lack of responsibility. People want hand on one hand, they want handouts. You know, they want somebody, they have entitlement in their hearts. You know, they want handout. They might be lazy. And then you've got people that are just rebellious and lawless and they're out in the streets. They're destroying things and they're burning things up that aren't theirs. And they're ruining other people's lives. Just a, just a lack of understanding the.

responsibility and stewardship that all of us have being a part of God's family and being his sons and daughters being made by God that he is the king and that we actually are to be responsible. So what's our response to God as king? So he's not just our savior, but he's the king. He rules and he reigns. He has all authority and all power.

We need to be good stewards. If we have anything, we know that it's because King Jesus has given us a measure of what is His and He set it in our hands for right now. And so our time, our talent and our treasure, these are the things God's given us that we can steward well. He's given us gifts. He's given us time. He's given us spiritual gifts. He's given us some measure of resources and finances. And Jesus is coming right now and He's saying,

that we need to be responsible. We don't need to be lazy. We need to take what we have, even if it's a risk, but we need to invest it. We need to invest our time. We need to invest our talent. We need to invest our treasure into kingdom things, into eternal things. And it brings a sense of gravity to everyday life. You know, we think about what we do with our money, what we do with our free time and our spare time and our hobbies.

Those things have gravity to them. God is looking at what we're doing. It's not just like, okay, we've got the bridegroom thing. We're going to spend some time in prayer, read our Bibles and do some ministry. But then the rest of our lives are ours. We can kind of do what we want. He's saying, no, I want all of your life is mine. I am the King of your life. I'm your Lord, not just your Savior. I'm actually your ruler. And that's why Jesus is called the King of Kings and the Lord of

lords because he's giving us a responsibility in his kingdom to steward his resources and he's inviting us to be good stewards to take what we have and use them for his purposes and for eternal purposes. So Jesus is the king.