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Coastline Church NSB Podcast
Coastline July 21st
Welcome to the coastline podcast. We exist as a church to help connect you to God and the people around you, to help you grow in your faith, and to challenge you to go into your community sharing the love of Christ. Three things - connect, grow, go. If you'd like information on what is going on at Coastline, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, or email us at hello@coastlinensb.com Today, as we get started into what is going to be a little bit different of a Sunday, I want to take a quick second one to thank anybody that, if this is your first time at Coastline or first time in a long time, I want to thank you for coming and hanging out with us here this morning. I'm not going to ask you to stand up or for people to point. I've been where you're sitting at right now in churches and had pastors do that, and it gets real awkward real quick. I want to thank you for just coming and hiding out in a attended church and doing life with us today. I do want to warn you to let you know that today is a little bit different. Normally, in the midst of summer, I go through a series. We just came out of a series on the Book of Ephesians. We're starting a new series next week that I'm excited about. Today is our six-month update. One of the things that we're trying to do as a church is every six months, we're doing what we call Coastline Update Sunday. That's what you fell on today. The beginning of this message, it's a message for everybody. Later on, when I switched gears, we're going to shift and talk a little bit about some things that are happening in our church and what's coming down the line. This is your first time here. We're happy for you to come and visit and be with us and hear about it, but I am understanding and I do know that sometimes church business and stuff can be hurtful. It can be something that can create tensions. I'm thankful that that's never been the case at Coastline. God's blessed us with a fantastic crew, a fantastic team and staff and a fantastic board of elders and God's provided along the way. If the mention of stuff creates tension in your heart, please understand that's not our hope for you today at all. Our hope is that we want to share and show which way we're headed as a church, and we want to share and show some of the things that have been tough along the way. We want to celebrate along the way as well. I think this is a good Sunday for you to come and hang out with us, but if for some reason you get turned off by all that stuff, it may come back next week because we'll be back to normal man. I'm super thankful for Jordan and Linus in worship. I'm excited when Caleb will be coming back here next week as we start a new series. With that, I'm going to pray for us as we jump into this word. We're going to be in the Book of Matthew where we're starting in chapter 25, but let me pray for us first and before we get into the word, Heavenly Father, Jesus, this morning as we read from these pages as we see these words written in red, which indicates the words that you've spoken. I pray that they would resonate in our hearts. Got to pray for each and every one of us that maybe if for what we hear, it might be different than the person sitting next to us. Got in this moment, we open ourselves and say, allow your Holy Spirit to come in and show us and teach us and interpret for us. Well, you would have for us going into this next week, this next month, this next season of our lives, and we thank you for it. In Jesus' name we pray, everybody said amen and amen. Today we're not doing a series. I'm preaching a message, just a one-part message that I have titled, work it or waste it, work it or waste it. Look at your neighbor and say work it or waste it, work it or waste it. Now look at your other neighbor that you didn't choose first, say I love you too, work it or waste it. We're going to be in the Book of Matthew chapter 25, and we're going to start in verse 14. Before we get into it, I want to give you a little bit of context. We're going to be in the New Testament in the Gospels, which is the first few books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These books specifically communicate about the life of Jesus in his time here on this earth and the beginning of the church there shortly after. And so from these four Gospels, we find four different interpretations of very, very similar things, of very similar stories. The perspectives they're written from though is from four different perspectives. So today we're going to be preaching from the Book of Matthew. Matthew was, before he met Jesus, before Jesus changed his life, he was a tax collector, and for better terminology, he was a traitor to his own people. I think the world that they lived in was under Roman control, and the traitor Matthew would take money from his own people, would pay the taxes to the Roman Empire, and for whatever was left, if he could get more out of his own people, he would put it in his own pockets and he would become successful based off of that. People in his day did not like at all tax collectors. Well, luckily enough, Jesus comes along and tells him, "Hey, I want you to come with me," and as he teaches him, as he adjusts him, he changes him 180 degrees to a point where now Matthew goes on later to write the Book of Matthew that would be directed specifically to the people of the Jewish faith, the people that would call themselves Hebrews, and that would have been faithful to the Old Testament laws and way of doing things. And so it's another funny story how God will use someone who you wouldn't think would be the right person and send them out to a place and use them in a mighty way. He changed Matthew's life forever. Matthew would go on to write this beginning book in the New Testament. But it's different than the Book of Mark in which many theologians believe is actually written from the perspective of Peter, Peter who would have been kind of a blue-collar worker, someone that didn't actually go all through school, maybe didn't know how to read or write, that maybe Mark came along and wrote for him his gospel, which is specifically written to kind of the perspective of people that would be Gentiles, that would have not grown up in the Hebrew faith. And so today when we read from the Book of Matthew, I want just to understand, we're going to hear from Matthew words that he said Jesus said. But he's interpreting them and specifically directing them to people of the Old Testament, the Hebrew faith. And in that faith, in that culture, when it comes to rules, when it comes to discipline, it was held in high regard. And so if you ever read some things in Matthew, you're like, man, this is pretty legalistic. There's some things that are like, there's some white and some black here. Part of that is because of who it is directed to and those in the Old Testament, the Hebrew faith. And so in chapter 25, verse 14, it starts off as, again, the kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. So there's a couple things to pick up here is I love the fact that Jesus, when he tries to communicate a point many times, he would use these parables, these stories. And these are events that may or may not have happened, we don't know. But he uses them to clearly communicate a kingdom principle, to clearly communicate some God characteristics. And so he tells this story to these people, he's also telling it to us to show us something specific through this illustration. So in verse 15, it says, he gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last, dividing it in portions to their abilities. He then left on his trip. And so here the master goes and he takes his three servants and he gives them, gives one of them five bags of silver, one of them two bags of silver, and one of them one bag of silver. And specifically, if you were to read into the old, or not the Old Testament, the King James version, the term that is used is talents. Gave them five talents of silver, two talents of silver and one talent of silver. These talents, if you were to equate them to what value is today, would be somewhere just north of about $4,000. And so as the master's leaving, he's like, "Hey, I'm going away on a journey. I'm going to send you with some of my money to keep safe, to protect, and to use." And it says that he gave them according to their abilities. Now I'm reminded in this too that, man, we live in a world and a culture where we hope that life is just fair. Like everyone should get the same opportunity, everyone should get the same, we all of us have the same rights. But here specifically, Jesus is communicating that when it comes to the master given to his servants, that sometimes it's not the same, that he gives according to their abilities. And I think what he's also trying to communicate to us is that maybe we're not supposed to pay attention to what the other person has gotten. Maybe we just need to worry about what we have. We live in a culture today where it's very easy to compare, it's easy to compete with people that are around us, right? You see a neighbor roll up in a brand new pickup truck, and you're looking at your old beaded down pickup truck. You're like, "Man, that'd be nice to have a new pickup truck," right? Or here you look on Facebook and you see your friends going on vacations, right? They're going down the upstream or doing whatever, and you're like, "I'm stuck at home cleaning house with my kids." That's not a vacation, right? What we forget about though is that we're not supposed to compare ourselves to one another. That we don't know, and especially when it comes to social media stuff, that it's just the highlight reel of the best things that happen. No one ever posts the things that are bad that are happening. So here Jesus communicates that these three guys got three different amounts. It maybe didn't seem fair to the culture that they lived in at the time, but the Master had given it to them according to their capacity and ability. So as we read on it says, in verse 16, it says, "The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid it in the Master's money." That verse 18 is kind of the transition point in that paragraph. Because Matthew's saying Jesus said that the guy with five took five and he invested it and he got five more. The guy that got two invested it or worked and he got two more. That's a pretty great return on investment, right? Like you put your money in like a bank account or somebody you get like three to five percent maybe if you're lucky. It would be nice to get a hundred percent return on whatever, right? A lot of us would be investing a lot more. Here specifically before we go any farther, I want to communicate something. This message and what Jesus is talking about here is not about money. This is not about finance. This is about purpose. This is about the opportunities and the abilities that you have. And he's equating that he's saying that God has given you these opportunities. God has given you these skills. God has given you these talents, if you will. And he wants us to go out and use them to live out the purpose that he's called us to live out. Which is to tell people about his son Jesus. To share the love that he has given us. So he's using this parallel to communicate to them when it comes to the kingdom, when it comes to the purpose that we all have, the great commission to go out and make more disciples. But here specifically the talents that God's given us, we need to continue to grow. We need to spiritually continue to grow. And so he goes on and says in that verse 18, I love, he says the word but. Because but the other servant did not make anything back, he just buried it. That word but is always a transition for something bad to happen, right? You guys, husbands, you've heard this before, right? You've tried to do your honey do lists, you do your chores, and at some point your wife comes home, she says honey, you did a good job, you clean this, you clean that, but, right? What does that but mean? But means you messed up, you did something wrong, right? I've had that a lot in my life, I know that interpretation very well. The same thing here, he's saying but that's not, this is not the right way to go. So says after a long time the master returned from the trip he called them to give an account of how they had used his money, the servant to whom he entrusted with five bags of silver came forward and with five more and the master said, you gave me five, he said to the master, you gave me five bags of silver and invested and I earned five more. The master was full of praise, well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together. Here Jesus is communicating, he says if you'll handle the small things that are before you now, if you will manage them well, if you'll deal with what you have now, then I will give you more later. Sometimes we pray like God why don't you just allow this to happen, why won't you allow me to get this job, why won't you allow me to get this, this or that or let this happen? And he's saying along the way he's like I need, I need you to learn the things that you need to learn now managing this before I can get you into this next season of life. So this guy with five talents, he gives them five more and he says, man, I'm going to bless you and we're going to continue to do this and at the end of it, the big thing it says is that they celebrate, which I think is huge because it didn't get talked about a whole lot. I think celebration, especially in the kingdom, is something that we should do. Our culture says right now, especially Christian culture, that we're constantly looking critically at ourselves, are we doing our right, are we living sinless, are we following all the rules, are we following all the laws, but here specifically Jesus says, man, you put it in the time, you manage it well, there comes time now to celebrate. He goes on next and says the sermon who had received two bags of silver came forward and said, Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest. I've earned two more. The Master said, well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount. So now it will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together. This is the second time we've heard this, right? You need to understand if you read things in the Bible and they come up twice like that, what it is, it's communicating emphasis. Jesus is saying that like, no, no, you need to understand this is something worth celebrating. That if you will manage what I've given you, or if you will live out the purpose I've given you, where you're at right now, even though it's not what you want, or what you see other people live in, and if you'll do this correctly now, we're going to celebrate and things are going to be better later on. Verse 24 says, then the servant with one bag of silver came and said, Master, I knew you were a harsh man harvesting crops and you didn't plant, you didn't plant and gather, you didn't crop, you didn't cultivate, I was afraid I would lose your money and so I hit it in the earth, look here, your money is back. But the master replied, you wicked and lazy servant, if you knew I harvested the crops I didn't plant and gathered crops I didn't cultivate, why didn't you just deposit my money in the bank, at least you have gotten some interest on it. Then he ordered, take the money from the servant and give it to one with the 10 bags of silver. Jesus very clearly here says this, he says, when it comes to your purpose, when it comes to the talents that you have, when it comes to the things that he's blessed you with, work it, don't waste it, don't waste your opportunity, don't waste the time that you have. Again, it's easy to see when Matthew communicates money, money, money that you think that's what he's talking about, but it's not about money, it's about living out your purpose, it's about the opportunities and the talents that you have, the time that you've been given, the world that we live in, the Bible says this time is but a vapor, it's short, he says, work it, don't waste it and he leaves them with this. To those who use well what they're given, even more will be given and they will have abundance but for those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Even what little they have will be taken away. Today I want to challenge you with this, this is the end of my message before we get into this next part, I feel like that the Holy Spirit is challenging us as a church, that you as a parent or as a husband, as a wife, as a son or a daughter, I think he's challenged us with a question, what are you doing with what you have? Are you using what God has blessed us, blessed you with already? Are you working it, are you wasting it? He says if you'll work it, if you'll work with it, he'll bless you beyond what you have right now, but you've got to commit to it, don't waste it. The Bible doesn't ever talk about the other servant ever again, that's the end of his story. I believe that today God is continuing to write my stories, continuing to write our story and if we stand up here every Sunday and at the end of the message I say the best is yet to come. I know it only happens if we will manage and work and live out the purpose that God has called us to. That purpose is to go make more disciples, that purpose is to love people the way that we would want to be loved, to share the love of Jesus with those around us. So today I want to challenge you with when it comes to your time, when it comes to your unique talents, when it comes to living out the purpose of following Christ, to work it. Don't waste it and if you'll work it, he will continue to bless you beyond what you can understand and that's what I want to live in. Man, we live in a world right now where gas prices keep going up, food prices keep going up. There ain't no reason I should roll through McDonald's with my family of four and pay $45. I'm putting them all in like two dollar allowances for you to get a fry or a hamburger, that's it. But in the midst of when things are tough, man, we serve God in heaven as able to provide beyond what we can even imagine, amen. Let me pray for us before we transition to this next part of our message. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would charge us right now, to take a step, to continue to trust and put our faith in you. God I understand there's hurt and pain along the way, there's mistrust, but Heavenly Father, I pray that when it comes to the opportunities you've given us, when it comes to the blessings that you bestow upon us, when it comes to the purpose that we have, that we would wake up tomorrow and not just think that there were a construction worker that identifies as a Christian or that we're a mom that identifies as a Christian, but that we would wake up tomorrow and understand that you've given us talent, you've given us this time, you've given us these treasures that we have and charge us and challenge us to work it, not waste the opportunities. And I thank you so much for what's to come because of it, and Jesus name me, pray, amen. As always, coastline, know that you are loved and that the best is yet to come. You