Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are We Living a Good Life? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 19.11-27

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

What does it mean to live a good life? Some people think it's accomplishing a lot or experiencing a lot. But that's not what Jesus says. Learn how to live a good life from Jesus's parable in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+19%3A11-27&version=NIV (Luke 19.11-27) as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith )continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/how-to-follow-jesus/ (Learning to Follow Jesus). Interested in more content like this? Check out https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-the-gospel-preached-treason-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-4-43/ (How the Gospel Preached Treason) for similar episodes. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. One of the things we love about Jesus' teaching is that he uses parables, these clever short stories to communicate profound and really important spiritual truth. Some parables are longer and some are shorter, some easier to understand, and some quite a bit more difficult. On occasion, Jesus will give a thorough explanation of what he meant in a parable, but most of the time we are left to reflect and meditate on them to try to discern their meaning.

One time Jesus told his disciples that the reason he spoke in parables was so that those with ears to hear could understand, but those who didn't have years to hear, well, they wouldn't quite get the spiritual truth he was trying to communicate. We're going to look at a parable today in Luke chapter 19. It's called the parable of the 10 minus. Luke gives us some context of why Jesus was telling this parable, and it really helps us understand it. Here's how Luke puts it in verse 11. While they were listening to this, he went on to tell. them a parable because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going

to appear at once. The Jewish people had been living under Roman oppression for quite a few years now. And before Rome was their oppressor, there were other empires that dominated them. The Jewish people had been crying out for centuries, asking God to send them a deliverer. Now they expected a deliverer that would come and lead a military revolution to deliver them from a political oppression. And they hoped that Jesus was just that person. And you can see why they might have those hopes. Jesus was heading toward Jerusalem.

He had been doing miracles, casting out demons. The teaching that he had been giving to the crowds, well, they thought it was amazing. So they hoped that Jesus was going to lead this military revolution and set up a throne in Jerusalem, where he would rule them. Jesus knew that's exactly the kind of kingdom they were looking for, and they thought he was coming to set up that kingdom when he entered into Jerusalem.

Therefore, he told them this parable, like Luke said, because they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. So verse 12, that's when the parable actually start. Jesus says, A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king, and then to return. Now, this story would have sounded very familiar to the people in first century. You see, there was a man named Herod Archelaus.

He was the son of Herod the Great, and he had gone to Rome to receive the appointment as king over a particular area that we now think of as Israel. Verse 13, so he, meaning this nobleman, he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. Now, Amina was worth about a hundred days wages, so this is a lot of money. He said to them, put this money to work until I come back. But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, we don't want this man to be our king. That too would have sounded familiar to the people in the first century,

because when Archelaus went to Rome to receive his appointment as king, not everyone was a big fan. And so some went to Rome with him to say, he shouldn't be their king. But both in real life and in this parable, they lost out. Verse 15 says he was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for his servants to whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it.

Now, this parable is not about Archelaus in his kingdom. It's about Jesus and God's kingdom. It is true that Jesus is a king. It's true that he comes to set up his kingdom. But what he wanted the people to understand was that his kingdom did not come all at once. When Jesus came the first time in his incarnation as a baby and then as he lived his life that eventually ended in his crucifixion and resurrection, that was the beginning of him establishing God's kingdom.

But God's kingdom won't be fully established on earth until Jesus returns. So between his first and second coming, we are like the people who received the minus. We are responsible to put our resources to work until Jesus comes back. Let's unpack for a second what that means. So these minas that the nobleman gave his servants, I think they represent the time, talent, treasure, all the resources that God has entrusted to us. Things like our education or our experiences. or spiritual gifts. God has given us all certain resources that we are supposed to be faithful to use

to build his kingdom until he comes to reestablish his kingdom on earth. One thing that we notice is that when we look around, we realize that not everyone has the same spiritual gifts. Not everyone has the same resources, the same education. The emphasis in this parable is not on who has what. The emphasis is on how faithful we are with whatever gifts, whatever talents, whatever education, whatever financial resources God has entrusted to us. Faithfulness is what's important here. And it's important to remember that these resources are gifts from God. We are not the owners of them.

We are the stewards or the managers. All of what we have is a gift. God has given it to us. not as if we earned it or deserved it. It is an act of his grace. And because it's his, we must be faithful to manage his resources the way he would want them to be handled. And the Bible is pretty clear that God has gifted us in certain ways so that we can be a blessing to other people, not so that we can use God's gifts to make our lives more comfortable. Finally, this parable teaches us that we will be held accountable for how we use the resources God has given to us.

In other words, there's going to be a day in which Christ returns. There's going to be a day where we stand before Jesus, and we have to give an account of what we've done with the life that he has given to us. In that moment, the question is going to be, were we faithful? Were we faithful to use God's resources to build God's kingdom? Or did we think they are our resources? Did we use them to make our life easier? Did we use them to build our kingdom or his kingdom? I need accountability in my life. I need to know that I am one day going to give an account to God. Think about in school, when there was a test coming up, you prepared for it. If there was no test, then you could say that, you could say that, that you wanted to study and you wanted to learn all the information for altruistic reasons.

But the reality is that the accountability of the test is probably what motivated you to study. I know that I had a pass-fail class in college. In other words, I was not assigned a letter grade for that class. And I took advantage of that, or rather it took advantage of me, because I did not study. I did not put near the effort into that class that I did the others. because those other classes, they had tests. I had a day of accountability. I had to be ready to know certain information at a certain day and time. Without that, unfortunately, I'm not as disciplined as I would like to be. Well, I think the same is true in lots of areas of our life. Maybe that has application

for our job, and we are a little bit more focused when we know we'll be held accountable for how a project ends up. Or maybe we'll be held accountable for our sales numbers and therefore we make phone calls. Or we know that we will be accountable for our eating habits when we go see the doctor. And so we're a little bit more careful about what goes into our body. Well, in the same way, Jesus says he is going to hold us accountable. And remember the question that he's going to ask is were we faithful? Were we faithful to use the resources that he entrusted to us to build his kingdom, to be a blessing for others?

I think what all of us want to hear upon our death, or at least what we should want to hear when we meet Jesus, is him to say to us, well done, my good and faithful servant. We may not be the most famous Christians, probably won't be. We probably won't be the most successful Christians. Probably not. But all we want is to be faithful Christians

because there's a lot to be said for faithfulness. So live today in light of that day that you'll stand before Jesus and he will hold you accountable for what you've done with what he's entrusted to you. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.