Good and Faithful, Not Good and Afraid: What You Do With What God Entrusted to You

Imagine someone handed you a million dollars and said, "Take care of this." Pastor Josh Gray put it in real terms on Sunday. A talent, the unit Jesus uses in this parable, was worth up to twenty years of a working person's wages. Make $58,000 a year here in Moscow, multiply that by twenty, and you are holding more than a million dollars of the master's money. And in the story, that is the smallest amount handed out. One servant gets that. Another gets two. Another gets five.

We tend to read the Parable of the Talents like an investing seminar. Seven percent here, nine percent there, who doubled their money. But Jesus is not teaching a strategy for the stock market. He is asking one question, and it is the question underneath the whole chapter as he walks toward the cross: How will you respond to what God has entrusted to you?

Not someday. Not when you finally feel ready. Today.

A Master Who Gives First

Notice where the story starts. It does not open with judgment or failure. It opens with the master's trust. He calls his servants and hands them something of enormous value before they have done anything to earn it. That is exactly how God relates to us.

There is something worth sitting with there. God invests in his people. He trusts us. Through Jesus, we are his plan to bring the kingdom of heaven crashing into the earth. You might think, "I know me, and I am not sure I am a good plan." But you are the plan. You are how God chooses to spread joy, laughter, forgiveness, mercy, and grace across the kingdom. Your job is not to hide what he has given you and bury it in the ground. Your job is to broadcast it.

Comparison Is the Theft of Joy

Here is where a lot of us get stuck. The master gives five to one, two to another, one to another, "each according to their ability." And we immediately turn into the fairness police. How come that person got five and I got one?

But read it again. The master who created each servant knew exactly what each one could handle. He knew them intimately. He knows you. He knows your wiring, your story, your capacity, and he entrusted his kingdom to you on purpose.

God does not compare you to anyone else. You do that. As the old line goes, comparison is the theft of joy. God is not asking Pastor Josh why he is not Billy Graham, or why he does not preach like Steven Furtick or Craig Groeschel. He is not asking you to be Mother Teresa. He is saying, "I know how I made you. I made you on purpose. I have entrusted something of my kingdom to you."

What You Believe About God Changes Everything

There is an A.W. Tozer line Real Life comes back to often: what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. How you see God shapes everything you do with what he has given you.

If you believe God is generous, you live generously. That last dollar is not really the last one, because it was his dollar in the first place and there is more where it came from. If you believe God is trustworthy, you live a trustworthy life. If you believe God is loving, you love better. And if you believe God is a jerk, you tend to live a little jerky too.

That is the real hinge of this parable. Watch the third servant. He buries his bag of gold, and when the master returns, he explains himself: "I knew that you are a hard man." That was the problem. Not the master. The servant's view of the master. He believed God was harsh, demanding, and impossible to please, so he acted accordingly. And the tragedy is that nothing in the story suggests the master was actually like that. The master shared his wealth, welcomed the others into his happiness, and told them, "Well done."

So how do you view God? The text answers the question for us. "The LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." Over and over he reveals himself as gracious and compassionate. The question is whether we believe it, or whether we have quietly swapped in the harsh voices already living in our heads.

The Three Words That Turn the Story

The whole parable turns on three words from the third servant: "I was afraid."

It was not rebellion. It was not theft. It was not immorality. It was fear, and fear had dressed itself up as responsibility. He did not lose the money. He did not waste it. He protected it, buried it, and convinced himself that doing nothing was the safe and obedient choice. Religious people can become experts at exactly that, guarding everything in place and calling it faithfulness.

But the kingdom of God does not advance through preservation. It advances through trust, and trust always involves risk. Anyone who has ever fallen in love knows that. It could go wrong. It sometimes does. That is how it works. So here is the honest question: does your faith require any risk? If your faith never asks for courage, never stretches you, never calls you past comfortable, is it really faith?

Pastor Josh has lived this one. Back in 2019, Real Life was going through a massive transition. The founding pastor had taken a position in Colorado, the worship pastor and the counselor were gone, the children's pastor had just exited, and one of the strongest teachers had moved to Cincinnati. What was left was, in his words, "Josh Gray, an unschooled and ordinary man." He told us he came up to this room early in the mornings and the nights before he preached, got down low, and wept. He was not sure God had picked the right guy. One of his elders even told him, "I really don't want it to be you, but the Lord told me it is supposed to be you."

And then he moved anyway. Afraid, making mistakes, but moving. He tried to hire a worship leader who said no, and then God brought Greg and Christina Carter, who almost did not come and ended up changing the church. Step by step, God proved faithful in the fear. The lesson was simple. Will I trust my fear, or will I trust my Father?

Don't Bury What You Were Meant to Share

So what exactly has God entrusted to you? Step back and ask the bigger question: what is the greatest gift God has ever given us? Not money. Not opportunities. Not even spiritual gifts. The greatest gift God has given is himself. And inside that gift is forgiveness, mercy, a new beginning, a restored relationship, and an invitation into his kingdom.

Then he handed the riches of that kingdom to you. It makes sense that we would actually do something with it. Israel is the cautionary tale woven underneath this whole passage. God rescued them, made a covenant with them, and entrusted them with a mission to be a blessing to all nations. Many of them chose preservation over the mission, power over service, holding tight to what was theirs instead of giving it away. The warning is not only for them. It is for us, and for churches. We can bury God's grace. We can hoard what was meant to be handed out.

So do not. Pass out grace like you have an endless supply, because you do. Show mercy like there is always more, because there is. Extend the forgiveness you were given. The God of abundance keeps filling you back up.

Taking It Into Your Week

The goal is not to become a perfect performer. God is looking for loyal children who trust him enough to take a swing. When it is all over and you step into the arms of Jesus, the words you are hoping to hear are not "good and afraid servant." They are "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Join Us This Sunday

You do not have to figure out faith on your own. We would love to have you in the room. Real Life on the Palouse gathers Sundays at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at the Eastside Marketplace in Moscow. We take communion together every week as a family, we have a great space for your kids through Lifer Kids, and there is no act to put on at the door. Come as you are and bring your questions.

Plan Your Visit today!