In this sermon, I discussed the concept of faithfulness and the power it holds within the church. I emphasized the importance of recognizing and utilizing our God-given talents and abilities to glorify Him, rather than comparing ourselves to others or trying to imitate someone else's talents. I also highlighted the dangers of either elevating or diminishing ourselves or others within the church, which can lead to pride or fear. I used the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 as a reference, explaining how each servant was given talents according to their abilities and how they used or misused these talents. I stressed that faithfulness to God is what He demands above all things and that success should not be equated with faithfulness.

Key Takeaways:
- Recognize and utilize your God-given talents and abilities to glorify Him, rather than comparing yourself to others or trying to imitate someone else's talents. [ 11:34]
- Avoid the dangers of either elevating or diminishing ourselves or others within the church, which can lead to pride or fear.
- Understand the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, where each servant was given talents according to their abilities and how they used or misused these talents.
- Remember that faithfulness to God is what He demands above all things and that success should not be equated with faithfulness.
- Dream big and use your talents to serve God and others in your community.

Small group study guide for "The Power of Faithfulness"

Scripture Passages:
- Matthew 25:14-30
- James 2:14-26

Discussion Questions:

Observation Questions:
1. What are the main points of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30? [07:58]
2. How does the speaker describe the concept of faithfulness in the sermon? [09:49]
3. What examples does the speaker give of people using their talents to glorify God? [26:05]

Interpretation Questions:
1. How does the parable of the talents relate to the concept of faithfulness? [18:07]
2. What does the speaker mean when he says, "God has a plan for you"? [21:30]
3. How does the speaker's interpretation of the parable of the talents challenge or affirm your understanding of faithfulness? [27:21]

Application Questions:
1. How can you apply the concept of faithfulness in your daily life? [29:02]
2. What talents has God given you, and how can you use them to glorify Him? [28:29]
3. How can you encourage others in your church community to use their talents for God's glory? [29:33]

Group Leader Notes:

- Encourage group members to share their thoughts and experiences openly and honestly.
- Remind the group that everyone has talents given by God, and these talents can be used in different ways to glorify Him.
- Encourage group members to think about practical ways they can use their talents in their daily lives and in the church community.
- Be prepared to share your own experiences of using your talents for God's glory to stimulate discussion.
- Remind the group that faithfulness is not about comparing ourselves to others, but about using what God has given us to the best of our ability.

I grew up playing soccer, and soccer is a sport that many of you don't know a lot about, and that's okay. You'll learn about it in heaven; it's God's game. It's what we would call the real football, mainly because you actually use your feet for it. Think about it for a second.

In fact, it's one of the world's games; it's the number one sport in the world, consistently around the globe. Growing up in Italy, it's not necessarily a sport nearly as much as it was a religion. That's just kind of the way it is. In fact, the running joke is you'll see all of the women at church, at Mass, usually on a Saturday. All the men would be there on Saturday, but they would be there praying for their teams the next day. The next day, they are at the real Church where they go to worship.

Now, that sounds kind of a blasphemous thing, and it is, but that is a reality that also transcends most cultures and most sports, does it not? In fact, we have one of the meccas of worship not too far from here, do we not? It sits right over this lovely little river.

Growing up, one of the things that you learned very quickly in sports is as you get older in the sport, people are supposed to get better at the sport. Have you ever seen youth football or youth soccer? Is it not one of the mightiest? It's like pinball; there's no order to it. It's complete chaos.

You see it with soccer because there are 11 positions in soccer, but in a youth soccer game, there is what I call the amoeba. It's just this mass of children all trying to kick one ball, but inherently all kicking each other's shins the entire time. It's kind of fun, and it's kind of cute, and you look at it like, "Oh, this is really sweet." And then the kid starts crying, and another starts crying, and then, you know, 15 kids are crying.

There's that one kid who has been practicing more than the others, and so he's scoring every single goal the whole time. That was my brother, always scoring every single goal. It happens, and you just kind of laugh and go, "That's sweet; it's fun. Hopefully, they'll get better in the future."

In fact, over time, as I grew older playing the game, you start to realize how important the different positions are to playing the game. We had one guy that was playing with us years ago; he was what you would call a runner. He just could run all day; he had no skill whatsoever, but he could run all day. So the coach believed, "Well, he can run all day, so that's a good player to have."

Now, if you know anything about soccer, that's not always a good player to have because the runners tend to chase the ball and constantly end up out of position. Now, let me put it in U.S. terms: you're not going to see a lineman playing quarterback. Why? It's not going to go well for your team. Linemen don't tend to be very mobile; they don't tend to be very quick; they don't tend to have the coordination. Why? Because they're six foot nine, 400 pounds. That's just not how it's done.

The positions ultimately matter where they play; that's how you win the games: as people in the right positions playing to the best of their abilities in those moments.

Now imagine a world where everyone got to choose whatever position they wanted, no matter their abilities, no matter their size, no matter what they looked like, no matter what it may be. In fact, that is our world currently. You choose what you're going to do, what you're going to be.

And can we be honest? We do this even in the church at times. We elevate certain positions. In football, the quarterback has always been elevated. Then there were the years of the running back, and now we've decided the running back is no longer necessary, just the quarterback. We pay certain players more than we do others because we elevate positions, and we play different positions.

At times, you see this is the world we live in. We do this on a consistent basis, and tragically, it has at times affected even the church and how we view and how we see God viewing us.

You see, we think we're playing a game far too often. We live out our lives as if we're playing a game. And so, can we be honest? We elevate some people. Let's just look at the real world. We elevate actors and actresses; we elevate sports heroes and figures far beyond, at times, even their reach.

In fact, there are even arguments over this one’s the greatest, that one’s the greatest, no this one’s the best, and we will have random insignificant arguments about things like sports for hours and hours on end.

Now, I need to tell you this: I do believe that God has given us, at times, sports for us to enjoy. I believe that there is joy in finding these. I'm a huge fan of certain soccer teams and enjoy watching them with my friends and community and family. So I'm not referencing that; I'm talking about what happens at times from within that where we elevate people far beyond the status of reality, far beyond the norm of what is both acceptable and helpful.

Because here's how it changes how we view even ourselves. There are people in this room today who see no value in themselves whatsoever in the church except for to attend on Sunday mornings. I don't even mean Sunday nights; I just mean just Sunday mornings. Every once in a while, you'll find them on a Wednesday evening because they bought into this idea that there is such a thing as the average Christian. It's just what they are.

“Well, I'm not a preacher; I'm not a youth minister; I'm not an elder; I'm not a deacon; I'm not any of those things; I'm just here. I don't play in VBS; I don't do that; that's not my thing.” And so they lower and denigrate who they are in the image of God within the church.

There are others who uplift people in the church based off of their talents and abilities, and I'm standing in front of you here today as one of the ministers that people at times will uplift and have expectations for that far supersede what my role actually is in the eyes of God.

You see it in the denominational world all the time. They will elevate people beyond what God has meant for them in this life. They will take on roles within the church that do not exist in Scripture. They will take on airs and pride because they are lifted up and held above all others.

And there's this danger that we play where we constantly don't see clearly what God has in store for His people within the church. We either lower ourselves or we raise ourselves or we raise others or lower others.

There are some in here who spend a lot of their time constantly trying to tear down others to diminish others and make them feel better about themselves. This happens far too often in the church.

This morning, the topic that was assigned to me as we're going through this premise of bearing fruit is this concept of the power of faithfulness.

Now, I need to set forth before you, we're going to be in Matthew 25 if you want to turn there. Matthew 25, starting in verse 14, is where we're going to read here in a minute. It's a beautiful parable of the talents that Jesus sets forth, and I want you to catch some things within it that are going to help us re-evaluate how we either lower or tear down the concept of what God has set forth.

I love this parable; I love what it stands for. You see, as I gave you this example of the soccer players and football players and the rest at the beginning, we often think that there is somehow in our world this concept of equality, that all people are created equal.

Now, I want you to hear me very, very, very clearly here: in the eyes of God, every man and woman is created in the image of God equal. Do you understand that? In the eyes of God, no matter what history or what people may tell you, we have—because we're prone to do this at times—we love to denigrate and tear people down all day long.

But in the eyes of God, all are created equal. In the eyes of God, man and woman, there is no high, there is no low. There is us in the image of God.

Now, let me also throw aside this nonsense: we're not animals; we're different than animals. There's a difference between the two. We are created in the image of God. There's a difference.

Don't miss that. Within this parable, we're going to see something fascinating that happens. We're going to see two different things that overall happen in here.

And before I dive into that, I want you to note something real quick because this is a fascinating thing to me when it comes to being faithful. Most of us do not associate faithfulness with a sense of urgency because most of us, like most Americans at times, have bought into these two things.

This is some of my favorite little numbers for you: 72 percent of Americans who claim Christianity say they believe in heaven. I want you to hear that again: 72 percent of people who claim Christianity say they believe in heaven.

58 percent of the same people who claim Christianity say they believe in hell. Seven out of ten believe in heaven; half believe in hell. Do you know what that does to us at times when that becomes the permeating concept? It sits us in this lull of lukewarmness where we don't actually think that there's anything really about to happen.

So it lulls us into this false sense of security: "Everything's fine; I go to church; I'm good; I'm here; I'm fine." And we've equated faithfulness with this idea that there is somehow a lack of urgency in what God is doing, as if God is not going to return.

We've got time; it's been 2,000 years; it'll probably be at least another thousand or two thousand before He comes back. And we live out our lives this way. But that's not the way that God, specifically through this parable, is about to set forth to us this concept of urgency.

I want you to look with me in Matthew 25, starting in verse 14. It says this: "For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away."

Now, I want to stop there for a second. Have you ever spent a moment in thought about the fact that God gave ten to one man, five to another, and one to one, and it says according to their ability?

One of the greatest lies that Satan tells in our world today is that everyone has misconstrued the concept of equality, where it's become to where everyone should have the same outcome on all things, always, as if we are not completely different individuals, as if we are not completely made differently in the image of God, but different in our passions and our desires and what we're good at and what we're talented at.

Let me just throw this out there: you don't want me designing a building. Do you know why? I'm not that great at math. You don't want me in the engineering fields; you don't want me in a medical surgical room. Do you know why? I don't know what most of it's doing. I haven't spent the time studying it; I haven't spent the time in those things, in those arenas and the rest.

You know why? It's not necessarily what I felt called to do; it's not been my passions and my desires. Every one of us understands the things that we like and the things that we don't like.

And our world has told us and elevated our feelings above all things, but it's also, in a way, taken away the God-given desires that He has made us different, that each one of us fulfills different roles.

In fact, Paul utilizes Scripture to specifically give this idea of the body of Christ, and he says some are a head, some are a toe, some are a foot, some are a hand, and he gives out these different things in that way.

And we often go, "Yeah, but look, the hand gets all of the credit, so I'd like to be a hand for a while." The toe gets all the credit, which, by the way, if you don't know, do you guys know what happens when you don't have a pinky toe? Balance gets thrown off.

Do you know what happens when a physical body has no arms and no legs? It becomes what we often refer to as quadriplegic. And we act like that doesn't happen in the church when everybody is pretending to be something else according to their ability.

You see, when we live in a world where everybody is supposed to do something great and fantastic all the time, it actually denigrates what God has set forth in you, which is to live out your life to the best of your abilities to His glory.

There will be people in this world, and I can guarantee you this, that will be more talented than you. Is that going to happen? Yes. No, this is yes; this is no. Are there people more talented than you? Yes. Rest in that; it's going to be okay.

Do you think hard work is going to overcome all those things? No. Why? Because there are people who will work harder than you, and working harder does not automatically equate to some type of success.

Because here's where we fail so often: we've equated success to the concept of faithfulness, and that is not reality. Faithfulness to God is what He demands above all things. He provides the success, not us.

In fact, when He gives these talents over to these men, He sets forth to them that each one according to his own ability. You see, God knows us; He created us; He fashioned us in our mother's wombs. He knows this; He knows who we are.

And with that in mind, He has given us a place and a time in which we live where we are called to glorify Him through our talents and our abilities. One of my favorite speakers often says this: it would be best for you to be good at the one thing that God has given you than to be a cheap imitation of something else.

A cheap imitation of something else. I'll be honest with you; it's one of the things that has taken me probably 15 years of life to get through. I'm not a preacher like most other preachers.

And you know the moment when it came about where I was able to kind of just sit and rest in that and go, "Okay, I can't be Greg; I can't memorize word for word two sermons and do them back to back. It's impossible for me."

I am fascinated by how Greg can do that; it's astounding to me. But it's not something I have to tear down; it's something I get to glorify and raise up because it's his God-given talent to do such things.

I would be a cheap knockoff if I tried to do such things. Now, it doesn't mean that I don't better myself consistently, but to try to be someone who is not—Jesus, for that matter—and Greg would be the first one to say that—to try to be something that I am not would be a cheap knockoff of what God has in store or desires for me with my talents and my abilities.

Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also, he who had two talents made two talents more.

But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more."

His master said to him—and notice this—"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little."

Now, you see what we do in our world? We look at the man because one had five, and one had two, and one had one, and we assumed the one who had five had a lot. Well, in comparison to the others, stop comparing yourself to others.

You were given that by God; that's the standard. God made you in His image with these talents and these abilities, not the others. And what had been given to him was a little.

His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I've made two talents more."

His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

And notice the transition here. He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours."

Now, I need you to notice something real quick. He said something about God, and he associated to God something that is not who God is. Out of fear, he said, "I know you are a harsh man," and so I went and hid the things that you gave to me.

But I'm just giving you back what you gave to me. Now, one of my favorite quotes—and the college students and I would be going through Mere Christianity this fall—and one of my favorite quotes that I was reading through Mere Christianity is this: "Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not, in a sense, His already."

It is like a small child going to his father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present." This is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. He is, in fact, sixpence none the richer.

Giving back to God that which is already His. He knows what He gave you; He knows what the expectation is. And in fact, the faithfulness of these individuals wasn't purely in the fact that they brought something back; it's that they worked out each and every day that which God had given them to use in this world.

They utilized that which God had given to them instead of hiding it away and saying, "My master is a harsh man," and so I will just hide and keep what I have to myself so that nobody ever sees anything.

And can we be honest? I mean, we can do these moments as a church family. There are a lot of us here who have hidden our talents and have hidden who we are in our service to God because we bought into this idea that we're either not good enough—that's a lie from Satan—or we don't know how to utilize our talents.

Also a lie from Satan. Instead of realizing that God has a plan for you and a purpose for you in this time, in this day, that He wants you to utilize what you have to His glory and His honor, not to your own.

You see, there's a lot of people who have five talents or two talents and the rest who utilize their talents for their glory, for their honor, and God will also call that to Himself.

And it will not be "Well done, good and faithful servant." It will be what you're about to see here at the end, where He casts them out into the darkness because they did not utilize what God had given for His glory and honor.

Instead, they did it to the glorification of themselves, either in fear or in pride, one or the other. They elevate the self or lower the self beyond what God had in store and desired for His people.

What would it look like for a church family to realize that we have five-talent people here, we have two-talent people here, we have one-talent people here, all of us? And I can't tell you this: there is no such thing as a zero-talent person. You know why? You're made in the image of God, and God has a plan for you.

I know that from Scripture consistently. But let's stop elevating certain things, especially in the church, above what God's expectation for them to be.

Now, does God elevate certain roles within the church, specifically when it comes to leadership? Absolutely. Does He have expectations, weighty expectations, on our elders? Absolutely.

Does He have expectations on those who would be teachers that what we teach be rightful and true? Absolutely. But those are the weight of God's expectation based off of His word, not solely based on our talents and abilities.

That is a faithfulness to God. Again, faithfulness to God—there is no success to be hallowed outside of God. We could grow this congregation to five thousand people, ten thousand people in this world, and you know what? It's not very hard if you just throw out God.

It's not very hard to fill stadiums all the time by making things fun, entertainment, and all of the things of this life. It would be very easy because we could fill it up, and money would come in. We see it every day in the sports arenas; we see it every day in places across the U.S.

But it would not be success, nor would it be faithfulness. Faithfulness to God is when you use your talents and your abilities to glorify Him in all things, no matter if you feel like a five-talent person or a one-talent person.

You see, there's going to be a time when we get to heaven because there's a heaven, by the way. I don't know if you knew that. If you're the 28, there's a heaven. If you're in the 42 percent, also on the other side, there's a hell. Just going to lay that out.

And when we get to heaven, there will be people there that God will have elevated that you're going to look at and go, "That guy? What did he do?" And that whole entire mentality is the problem.

You see, God doesn't judge the way that we judge. He doesn't just look at all the things in this life and say, "Well, man, he baptized more people, led more people to Christ." From that standpoint, it's more than that.

You know, some of the kindest and most beautiful people I've ever spent time with are people who have constantly opened their home so that others feel a place of peace in their lives.

Some of the best preachers in this world preach at churches that you will never see on the internet, who are in small towns working in small congregations. You know why? Because it doesn't matter how big the congregations are if all that matters is numbers.

But instead, what ultimately matters is faithfulness to God. That's what matters. And so they live out their talents and their abilities in their context, in their places, to the best of their abilities that God may be glorified.

Now, I don't want you to take away from this because I want to go to the other side of this real quick and say this: I believe it's time for us as a congregation, you as an individual, to start dreaming so big that the only way that you can be successful—when I mean that is faithful to God—is if God is part of the things that we set forth.

We're doing the back-to-school blasts here in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited about it. We have 200-plus kids that hopefully will come and be able to find backpacks and all sorts of things, and it'll be fantastic; it'll be a wonderful day.

I would love nothing more than for every person to be there just to connect with someone else, to say, "Look, I'm just good at talking with people." Then find opportunities to come and talk with people who need to know Jesus.

"I'm good at face painting." We saw this recently, and it's fantastic. Why? Because you can connect and talk with a child and connect with them in ways you've never connected before.

One of my favorite ministries I saw years ago at a small church in the middle of nowhere Arkansas: they had a car ministry. Now, this sounds weird to say that—a car ministry. What it was, was there were four guys who loved to tinker on cars, and they spent their entire days where people would come up, and they would fix whatever they had for free.

And there were a lot of low-income people in those areas whose cars were breaking down all the time, and those four men fixed cars all the time. Why? They were doing it in their garages anyways, but instead, they decided to do that.

And when they were doing that, they started having conversations with these individuals, and over the 10-year period, they'd baptized over 50 people from the community simply by working on the cars together, sharing in life and community.

You see, it's not just preachers and elders and the rest; it's everyday people utilizing their talents and their abilities to glorify God that changes the world. That terrifies Satan—the idea that you would realize that God working through you, even though you lower your gifts all the time, that God working through you can change the world through who you are because He made you in His image.

Don't throw that away; don't lower that. Utilize your gift; bring it up from the ground. Because I do know what will happen if you continue to bury it: it's not going to be "Well done, good and faithful servant." It's going to be the opposite of that: "You wicked and slothful servant."

Notice this slothful concept—in essence, it's this idea of lazy. "You lazy servant! You knew that I reap where I had not sown and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest."

So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Don't miss that. The power of faithful people in a faithless world changes the world. I'm just going to put it this way too: not everyone is a song leader. You all know that, right?

There are some of you all in here who singing is like your worst nightmare. Public speaking? Worst nightmare. In the U.S., by the way, public speaking has a higher percentage of people afraid of it than death. Do you all get that? Wow, that's a whole other level of fear.

"I'd rather die than get up in public and speak in front of anyone." Not everyone has called you to be that; not everyone is a teacher; not everyone is an organizational guru for VBS and all those things that we do.

But it does not mean that God does not have a plan or desire for you to utilize your talents and abilities to glorify Him. Now, God may be sixpence none the richer, but I do know this: if you utilize the things that God has given you, He will turn and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

That is a promise of God that He will turn and say, "Well done; keep going."

Now, I don't know where you may have been. You may not be a Christian this morning; you may not have died yourself in the waters of baptism and risen anew, a new creation to walk with Him in newness of life.

And if you haven't, there is no better time than today. Or you may be a believer who has hidden their talents, who has not walked in faithfulness but has instead walked in slothfulness, or you've bought into the mentality that we have in our American culture where either you're not important at all or you're too important.

So you're constantly playing the games of what it means to try to overtake everyone else. But instead of sitting in peace and who God has made you and utilizing that to His glory and honor, if you've fallen into that rat race, it's time to let that go.

It's time to rest in the knowledge that God has made you for such a time as this and that He is a good father. While He may be sixpence none the richer, He'll look at you and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," if and when you walk in faithfulness to Him that He may be glorified through your life.

Whatever your need may be, will you come? As together we stand and as we sing.