You're listening to Heed the Word with our pastor and teacher Ken Davis. Pastor Ken is the senior pastor at Calvary Chapel Southwest Metro in Burleson, Texas. Please join us as we study the Gospel of Luke verse by verse.

Can I tell you there is nothing I own that I own? The moment I begin to look at anything as though I owned it, it begins then to own me. Am I making sense to you? We have to have a proper perspective about the things that are surrounding us. Who do they belong to? Are they ours? To use for our own good pleasure? To spend on our own lusts and desires, or do they belong to God?

The Gospel of Luke is the third account in the Gospels of the life and teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. As believers, there are few studies that will benefit us more spiritually than studying the life and teachings of the Master. As believers, we understand that everything that we have is God's. All our possessions have been entrusted to us by our Heavenly Father. In fact, as a Christian, your life isn't even yours, but it is the Lord's. So instead of seeking our own pleasure with these possessions, let's ask God to show us how He would want us to use them for His glory. Don't forget to stay with us after today's message to hear more information about He the Word, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19, verse 11, as we join Pastor Ken.

Now, if you'll remember, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. And in our previous study, Jesus had just spoken to them about the Son of Man coming to seek and to save that which was lost. It's quite possible that some of those present at that time may have misunderstood what he was saying, because in their minds that which was lost was the kingdom. And they were looking for a Messiah to come and to save or restore that kingdom to Israel. And here they were in the time of Passover, that time in which they looked back at the great deliverance that God had wrought for Israel from the Egyptians and from the slavery that they had experienced there for centuries. And here they were on their way to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem, the capital city. And here was this one who many thought might be the one, the Messiah, the son of David, come to restore the kingdom to Israel. And so it is in this setting and in these circumstances that Jesus gives the teaching that we're going to be studying today. I love the fact that Luke gives us not only the parable, but he tells us why Jesus spoke that parable to them. He says, He spoke this parable to them for two reasons. Number one, because he was near Jerusalem. And secondly, because they thought, both his disciples and many in the crowds thought that he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel immediately. And so they were prepared for this great uprising for him to lead them, perhaps in military victory, who knows, and to liberate them from Rome. But that wasn't to happen at this time. And it is for our good that it was not to happen at this time. Because you see, Jesus could have done that. He had the power, he had the authority, he had the right to rule in Israel as a man. He was descended from David. He had the power of God working in him and with him, and he could have liberated them at that time had he chosen to do so. But had he done that, Satan would have won, and we would all be lost today. Thank God that he did not shy away from the cross. Thank God that he allowed himself to be forsaken. Thank God that he was rejected by men, that he might become a sacrifice and the propitiation, not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. What a blessing that is to us. And he wants them to think correctly about this. We're introduced here to three groups of people, three characters, if you will, within this story. The first said is the nobleman himself. And that nobleman in this parable is representative of Jesus Christ. It says a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. That tells us several things, and it was intended to tell them several things. That is, that the kingdom was not going to come at that time, but that the nobleman, who was Jesus, was going to go into a far country, and in that far country he would receive the kingdom. And then having received the kingdom, he would return. So we learn three things about him in that instance. He was not going to Jerusalem at this time to receive the kingdom for himself, but he was going to be going away. And this would become more and more clear, particularly to his disciples as the days roll on. But as he goes away, in this case, as he is crucified, buried, and resurrected on the third day, and goes to be seated at the right hand of glory, as he goes through this process, in that process, he receives the kingdom. And having received the kingdom, he promises that he will return. And so what he's saying here is what you are expecting in terms of the restoration of the kingdom is not for today, but it will come. It will come. The second group that we're introduced to are his servants. The nobleman, before he left to depart to that far country, called ten of his servants to him, and he gave each of those servants one mina. A minor was about 90 days' wages, about 90 to 100 days' wages at that time. So it wasn't a huge sum of money, but it was a sum that was somewhat substantial. And it was something that he had given to them equally. He had given each one of them one minah. And they were to do business with that until he returned. Now that word do business is pragmat yuomahi, and it literally means to be occupied in anything, to carry on a business, to carry on the business of a banker or trader. So in other words, they were to occupy or to abide or to do business until his return. What he was saying is, listen, I am going away. But those of you who are my servants, who call yourself my servants, whom I have called to myself, I am giving you something that I am entrusting to you that I want you to keep with you until my return. But having received that, I don't want you simply to hold on to it, but I want you to do something with it. You see, it is the tendency of many people who begin to realize that Christ is coming again, that we are even perhaps living in the last days, which I believe we are. There is a tendency that we have to be so focused on the return of God that we fail to recognize the fact that we have been given instructions that we are to carry out until his return. I have relatives who literally are part of groups where they have gone out and sold everything that they owned and have gone out to a compound out in the middle of nowhere and sit waiting for the return of God. Now, while I can admire their zeal, I have to say they're misguided because that is not what Scripture tells us to do. But we are to do business until he comes. We are to abide until he comes. I think of it in much the same way as I think of the children of Israel who were captive in Babylon for those 70 years of judgment before the restoration of Israel, before they were called back into the land. They were captive. They were in a place that they didn't want to be. There was a homeland that they were looking towards and that they wanted to go to desperately. How many of you can identify with that? That's what we want, isn't it? We want nothing more than to go home and be with the Lord. I mean, of all the desires of our life as a Christian, that should be the uttermost desire of our hearts to be with God. Wasn't it Paul who said that for me, to live is Christ, but to die is gain? What he's saying, hey, as long as I'm here on this earth, yes, I'm living for Jesus Christ. But man, it's gonna be so much better just to be with him. And so, just like the children of Israel there in Babylon, our tendency is to look longingly towards that which we know is one day coming. And to be careless of where we are and what we are to be doing. But that's not what we've been instructed to do, neither was it what they were instructed to do. Let's look and see. Because the character of God doesn't change. What is it that God wanted the children of Israel to do when they were in Babylon? Turn with me to the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 29, starting in verse 4. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit, take wives and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished, and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. For thus says the Lord, after seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word towards you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will give you back, and I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive. Now we have not been carried away captive, and we do not have a set time frame as they did, that it would be 70 years until our return. But we do know this, that until Christ's return, we are to do business in this place. We are to abide here. We are to continue with life. But that life that we continue with is to be a life that is lived for Jesus Christ. It is to be a life that is focused not on the accumulation of wealth and goods for ourselves, but upon building the kingdom of God. Amen. And seeing that work out in our lives. Now, going back to Luke 19, there was a third type of person in this setting, and those were the citizens who were not counted as his servants, but who were the people that he was to rule. And they didn't like him. They didn't like the idea that this man was going to rule over them. And so they sent a delegation to protest his reign and his receiving of the kingdom. Archelius, who had been the son of Herod, experienced this very thing about 30 years before Jesus was telling this story. Herod had indicated that Archelus was supposed to reign after him, but in order for his rulership over Judea to be approved, he had to go to Rome and had to receive his appointment from Caesar. Well, the people of Israel didn't like him and did not want him to reign, and so they sent a delegation of about 50 people after him to say, Hey, we're not going to receive this guy as our king. You can imagine what happened to them when he came back. Herod and his children were not kind rulers. And so there we have it. This was a story that would be somewhat familiar and certainly understandable to those that were listening. And we see here in verse 14, but his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. The children of Israel did not want Jesus to reign over them, not in the way in which he was willing to. They wanted an earthly king, but he had come as a Messiah to save their souls. They hated him. They rejected his lordship. Turn to John 19. Now Jesus has been delivered to the Romans, and he's come to the judgment seat of Pilate. In verse 1, we pick up sort of in the middle of the story here. So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. Then they said, Hail, King of the Jews, and they struck him with their hands. Pilate then went out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in him. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, Behold the man. See, Pilate didn't want to put Jesus to death. And his thinking here is that if I torture this man and I scourge him, and I punish him, and I bring him out here, and I show them how pitiful he looks, perhaps that will satisfy them. Perhaps they'll be appeased, and I'll be able to release him. Because Pilate had found no fault in him. He saw no reason that this man should die. And so he had him scourged. Therefore, verse six When the chief priests and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, You take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. You see, he's trying to wash his hands of the matter. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the praetorium and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate said to him, Are you not speaking to me? Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and power to release you? Jesus answered, You could have no power at all against me, unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin. From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the preparation day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, Behold your king. But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away. And he, bearing his cross, went out to a place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him and two others with him on either side, and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. You see, they rejected the one who was sent to be their king. Their response to Pilate's pleading was, We have no king but Caesar. And so they rejected their own Messiah. Just as Jesus had said. And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. You see, he was calling them back to himself. When Jesus comes, he's going to call those of us who were his servants, and he's going to ask us, just as he's asking these men, to give an account of our service, to say, what is it that you have done with that which I entrusted to you? I like to think of it as his entrusting to us rather than as his giving to us. Because when we think about him giving something to us, we get the false idea that it is ours to possess and dispose of as we wish. But the fact of the matter is we are not the owners of anything, but merely the stewards of that which God has entrusted to us for safekeeping and use until his return. Can I tell you there is nothing I own that I own? The moment I begin to look at anything as though I owned it, it begins then to own me. Am I making sense to you? We have to have a proper perspective about the things that are surrounding us. Who do they belong to? Are they ours to use for our own good pleasure, to spend on our own lusts and desires? Or do they belong to God? I want to expand your idea of that to go beyond mere possessions, to actually look also at the relationships in your life. Husbands, wives? Does your spouse belong to you or do they belong to the Lord? Hasn't the Lord entrusted them to you? Do you realize, husbands, that you are married to a daughter of God? Do you realize, wives, that you are married to a son of the king? We belong to the Lord. And he has entrusted us to one another, that we might love and care for one another. When you treat your spouse or your child or your brother, or your parents, or anyone that you know in any particular way, do you treat them that way, understanding the fact that they belong to God? Would you treat an angel in that way if an angel were visiting you? And yet, We're more important to him even than the angels. He didn't die for them, he died for us. So, how ought we to treat one another in the light of that understanding and knowledge? He told us that we're to love one another. And we say that we do. But our actions make us liars, don't they? So very often. I stand as guilty as you. The bar that has been set for us, friends, is very high. And but for the grace of God, we all would fall. And yet this is what he's called us to love one another. And when we recognize each other for who we are as children of the king, then perhaps loving one another may be a little bit easier. So try to think of it in that way. When he returns to take the kingdom, he's going to require an accounting for all that we've done and all that he's given us. Now there's another parable that he told that is very similar to this one, and yet different in terms of when it was delivered, and precisely the details of what is said, and we're going to look at that in just a moment at Matthew twenty-five. But before we do, I just want to take in the context of where we are again. Back to verse twelve, therefore he said, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants and delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, Do business till I come. But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Master, your minor has earned ten minas. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you were faithful in a very little thing, have authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Master, your mina has earned five minas. Likewise he said to him, You also be over five cities. Then another came, saying, Master, here is your mina, I have kept it put away in a handkerchief. And we'll go on in just a moment from that. But I want to point out a couple of things about this parable that are going to differ a little bit from the parable in Matthew that we're going to review as well. First of all, he called ten servants to him, okay? And he gave each of those servants one mina. And when he came back, he asked a report of them. Now we're only given a report on three, we don't know about the other seven, but of those three we find this one had taken that one minor and gained ten. Another had taken that one mina and earned five. A third had taken that one mina and had done nothing with it. Now, to the one that had gained ten, he was given ten cities. To the one that had gained five, he was given five cities. And to the one that was given just the one and earned nothing, he was given no reward. In fact, the what he had will be taken from him, as we'll see in a moment. And so what we see here is this each of us has been given one thing. Now, the parable in Matthew speaks of talents, and in that parable, they were given different degrees of talents. But in this parable, each was given just one thing, one minor. And we're going to look when we come back to this parable, what that one mina that each one of us has been given is, and what we're to do with it. But having those things in mind, I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 25. Matthew 25, verse 14, Jesus said, For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. You've been listening to Heed the Word, the teaching ministry of Pastor Ken Davis, Calvary Chapel in Burleson, Texas. We are currently making our way through the Gospel of Luke here on Heat the Word. The Gospel of Luke is packed full of insights about Jesus, our Savior. So we encourage you to join us again, same time, same place, for the next study through Luke with Pastor Ken. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, this teaching, as well as many others, are available from the Heed the Word Media Player. You can listen to today's teaching, download today's teaching, subscribe to the Heed the Word podcast, or even get a copy on your mobile phone. Everything's right there. There's even a Bible available for you to follow along in the scriptures as Pastor Kent teaches. So log on to HeedTheWord.org and continue studying with us today. If today's teaching has blessed you, perhaps you'd like to visit us for worship. Calvary Chapel Southwest Metro meets each Sunday morning at 10.30 a.m. and Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. We'd love to have you stop by and join us. For more information and driving directions, log on to www.heedtheword.org. This has been another edition of Heed the Word, the verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and book by book teaching ministry of Ken Davis, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Southwest Metro. Place a marker in your Bibles and join us next time for our continuing study through the Gospel of Luke right here on Heed the Word.