The Mina and Me

Introduction

Well, good morning. Good to look out and see so many here with us, of our own members that are here ready to study what saith the Lord. It’s also good to look out and see visitors in our midst. I see my uh wife and my mom on this side, but on this side over here are a number of my friends and family. I see Robert has brought one of his friends from school who’s with us, Kevin, is here this morning. It’s good to see him with us. And it’s also good to see one of my friends from school, Matt Richmond, that I met in uh the Tampa area years ago, and we uh we swapped stories and told tales and had all sorts of shenanigans of a positive light.

But I want to begin with a story that Robert told me just not too long ago. He said that there was a meme he wanted to show me, and he showed me this video, and I just cracked up laughing. It was hilarious. He said there was an accident in Canada where a long haul truck driver had spilled a number of Merriam Webster’s thesauruses. So it’s got thesauruses all over the highway. People were surprised, aghast, stupefied, mesmerized. They were flabbergasted. And the young people, they were spellbounded. I thought that was a great illustration. But it goes with this morning’s sermon because when we look at all those words, surprised, flabbergasted, astounded, dumbfounded, stupefied. We look at all those words, and every single one of those words has a little nuance of difference, but they all get the same symbolism that they’re surprised.

Each one of those. Every single one of those words gives about the same level. And we as Christians sometimes I think don’t realize just how important the fact is that we are just as important as every other Christian. That me as a Christian as a preacher is just as important as you as a Christian in whatever job or function you work or do. And the reality is every single one of you who is here, including me, all of us, we all have an equal ability to share the gospel. We may not share it the same way. We may not have the same style in which we do share the gospel, but every single one of us has the ability to share God’s word. The king, as we read in our scripture reading, aptly read so well by Jonah this morning, the king went into a far country to tell his servants to do business until I come, as the new King James Version says.

It says, the king of this kingdom went into a far journey and told them his servants, that’s a key word too in the text. He says, Tell my servants to do business until I come. But then it says he gave each one of them a minah. A mina was a piece of coinage. If I got a picture up here, if I can get the screen up one more back. There we go. Thanks, guys up in the booth. You’re doing great. Here’s a picture of a mina. I don’t know if you can see the top letters in Greek. You might not be able to read, but the bottom letters you can sound out. Mna, M N A, or we could lose the Greek, use the Greek letters there, where you can kind of see how that spells out the word minah.

So the Greek mina that was used in the Hebrew Mina, as this parallel was, was three months’ wages. Okay? So Jesus basically says, I’m giving everybody the ability to do something that you might receive in a quarterly pay system. In a way in which you could be able to manage an amount of money. He uses a parable, which we’re going to read in full in just a minute. I have no excuse to make or offer in reading the whole parable. I want to read the whole parable because God says the words that he gives should fall on our ears with great interest. And so it’s not just about me talking, it’s about us together hearing the word of the Lord. So I’m going to set the word here and we’re going to read it in just a minute, but I want to give a little historical background first about the mina.

Three months’ wages was given to them. Often someone will come up to me and they’ll say something along these lines.

There’s only one ability I have. And they’ll talk about the parable of the talents and say, well, God gave each according to their ability.

They had ten. He gave this one three, they made six. But this one he just gave one, and I’m kind of that one talent person. Let me tell you something. A talent is a year’s wages. A mina is three months’ wages. And if you’re going to make mixed metaphors here, a one talent person has a great ability, even then. We should not hide our abilities and shelter our abilities far away, but we should use our skills to teach others the gospel message as able. So I want to interest. I want to interest you in a scripture of Luke 19. Let’s go to Luke 19 together and learn of this passage. So Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and Jesus had been with Zacchaeus. He had told Zacchaeus to come down from a tree, and he wanted to go into his house and talk about spiritual things.

And they uh uh they uh gained him in the faith of Jesus. And the people they were there, and it says in verse 11, as you’re turning to Luke 19, 11, the context is in between Zacchaeus’s house and before the time when Jesus goes into Jerusalem, walking on palm branches and uh coats. And it says here in Luke 19, 11 through 27, as they heard these things, as they had heard the things spoken of at the house of Zacchaeus, that Jesus spoke unto them another parable. Jesus likes to tell parables, to tell stories, to tell illustrations that lean to us an understanding of the truth of the Lord. And he tells this parable because he was near Jerusalem, and because the people thought that the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

These were people that they thought Jesus was coming to start a revolution to dismantle Rome and have a physical kingdom there, and they thought Jesus would bring about a physical kingdom immediately. We know very clearly from the scriptures that Jesus was about a spiritual kingdom. And Jesus was not about bringing a kingdom to fight physically, he was about spiritual things. As we say in the Old Testament times, reading those passages of scripture in Isaiah, he says they would take their swords and turn them into plows and their spears into pruning hooks, and neither shall they learn war no more. That it would no longer be about a time unto which they would fight in a physical way, unto which the Jews had done for ages, but it would be transformed into a kingdom where the people would speak and teach and live and live by the gospel message that Jesus gives the message, not just to the Jew, but to the Gentile and to those who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

And he says in verse 12, a certain nobleman went into a far country, recognizing Jesus in heaven to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants. Notice that word ten. Ten is an illustration number that’s used throughout the Bible to talk about all the hands can handle. In the book of Revelation, when it says, Ye shall be tested for ten days, it means you will uh incur the persecution that you can handle, whatever your hands can handle, the ten amount there. And so he’s saying, All, the whole hand. He said, the whole amount. He says he called ten of his servants equally, just like on your hands. You have five and one, five on the other, that’s ten. That’s all you’ve got.

So he called ten of his servants, deliver them ten minors. That would be one minor to each servant, three months’ wages to each one, and he said, Do business till I come, just like Jonah read for us. But his citizens hated him. This passage, the citizens hated him, can be translated into two different ways. One, the local context of what it’s meaning in that day and age, and then the extended context for what it means for us today. The people of the time of Jesus did not like what he said, and they delivered him over to Pontius Pilate. They didn’t like what he said. They were envious of him. The scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees didn’t like his words. And so, because of that, they hated him.

Different times they tried to throw him off a cliff. I mean, he they really didn’t like him. But then in our generation today, sometimes people will say, Your God is too strict. Your Jesus has too much doctrine. The things that Jesus seems to say from this book of books makes me want to change things in my life that I don’t want to change. And when all things are said and done, they basically say that they despise the Lord’s doctrines. They despise the things that he wishes to tell. And so it was that we see here his citizens hated him, just as we sometimes see today, in an extended way, as they saw in a localized way. And we read in the parable in verse 14 of chapter 19.

They said, We’re not going to have this man 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, that’s three months, has earned ten minas. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you were faithful in very little.

Which I hid in a handkerchief. It’s over here. I hid it in a handkerchief. Now, um, you you have it, you take it. For I feared you because you were an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow. And he said to him, Out of your own mouth, I’ll judge you. You wicked servant, you knew that I was austere, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money with the bankers that at my coming I might have collected it with interest? And he said to those who stood by, take the minor from him and give it to the one that has tenas. But they said to him, Master, he has ten minas.

For I say to you that everyone whom has will be given him from him who does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them and slay them before me. I guess what he’s basically saying is this.

1. Equality Within the Kingdom

And there were some people that didn’t want to follow after what Jesus wanted them to follow after. But there’s a lot of little nuggets within the context that I’d like to express, and this isn’t really a three-part lesson. It might have seven or eight points, but we’ll get through it. The first part is equality within the kingdom. If you look at verse 13, let’s just look at some verses. We’ll kind of pick on a few of them back and forth and go through this. He says, He called ten of his servants, delivered them ten minors, and said, Do business till I come. The idea here is basically saying that we’re all equal. God thinks you can do just as well as anybody beside you, in front of you, behind you.

He thinks you can do well in his kingdom. And the one that went on the journey is, of course, Jesus up in heaven, and he’s expecting us to actually serve him. He’s not expecting us to do things we can’t do, but he has a great deal of value in what we can do. He’s not given some people, please hear this. He’s not given some people some portion of the Bible only to go around to some other group of people and give them some creed book and say, This is this over here, and this is this over here, and give confusing or conflicting information. Jesus gives equality. He gives everybody the same gospel. He gives everybody the same doctrine, and he says, continue in it therein. He says, For if anybody is ashamed of the gospel, that’s not good.

But be happy, be bold, be in the presence of the scriptures, and realize that what you have is a treasured gift from the Lord. He was here in the body, was vindicated in the spirit, was seen by angels, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. The passage of scripture in Timothy that relates that in the third chapter tells us the essential parts of Jesus’ life while he was here. And the scriptures from Matthew to Revelation tell us the instructions that we have for us today. Things saying wonderful messages, such as blessed such as blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The people that are humble that will basically say, I’m only going to take the scriptures and not go beyond it, but only confiding my thinking, my thoughts, my conclusions only through the scriptures.

2. Evangelism in the Kingdom

We funnel everything through the word of God. We don’t say, Well, this is my idea. I think this is what would be a great idea to say about that. No, we don’t do that. We say, What does the Lord say? What is the thus saith the Lord? What comes from the scriptures? What is doctrine based on what he said? Doctrine is healthy teaching of a scriptural nature. We don’t just take any teaching from anywhere and just amalgamate it together and say, This is our faith. We say these are the scriptures, the divine library from heaven, and this is what we follow, so there’s equality within the kingdom. Another passage of scripture that might help us with that is the third, the uh thirteenth verse and fourteenth verse and 15th verse, where it says, It’s so it was that when he had returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants whom he had given the money to be called to him that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

Yeah, it’s very clearly evident that some uh will teach the gospel to others. Uh when you look at a parable, you shouldn’t overstress certain elements of the parable to where it overextends to what he’s saying. I I don’t really know if it’s just symbolic, but I don’t necessarily think, oh, Peter preached to three thousand people, so he’ll have three cities that he rules in heaven, and Thaddeus, he preached to 200. So who’ll rule over one city in heaven? I’m not sure that’s what he’s saying. I’m trying to make the point that some of the illustrations in the parable are little details that we may not know specifically what they mean. But the greater point is understanding that evangelism in the kingdom is an equal shared thing.

And so he wanted to know well, what did you do? What is your response? What actually did you do when I told you, go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. What did he mean when he said, Go into all the world and preach to them? Uh he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. In 1 Timothy 6 20, he makes a very important point that we don’t want to dismiss either as a nice cross reference to this passage. So turn in your scriptures, if you will, to 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 20. We’re not going to belabor the point.

We’re not going to spend too long on this, but I do want to make an illustration here. 1 Timothy 6.20. Waiting for y’all to turn there. 1 Timothy 6.20. 1 Timothy. All right. Sounds like most are there. It says here in the 20th verse, O Timothy, guard. You know what a guard is? Someone who takes special care to make sure something is safe. He says, guard what was committed to your trust. Do you know what trust is? When someone has said, you’re someone we value, and we believe you can have the ability to take care of a certain thing. Do you notice the parallel between God in the parable of the minus and what Paul is telling Timothy? He’s saying, look to what you’re entrusted to.

3. Servants in the Kingdom

You have a wonderful book of books that tells people God’s instructions for getting people to heaven and guard that, Timothy. Guard the trust for which you were told. And he says here carefully, avoid the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. By professing that stuff, some have strayed concerning the truth. There are a lot of people in the world that have doctrines of men that are not within the confines of the scriptures, and he’s telling us guard what was committed to your trust. Make sure you abide in the doctrines. So we have evangelism in the kingdom. We also have servants in the kingdom. Go back to 1914 and look at this scripture in Luke 19, 14. He says, but his citizens hated him, Luke 19, 14, as saying, we’re not going to have this man reign over us.

Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t this the son of Mary and Joseph? Are not his brothers and sisters here with us? Don’t we know James, Joseph, Simon and Judas, and the other kids of Mary and Joseph? Who’s this Jesus? Who is Jesus? Should we follow him? They once said. And later at another time, his citizens had hated him and sent a delegation after him, as we had even studied, and crucified him. But look to verse 27. Bring here the enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them and slay them before me. God is a God of justice, a God of love, and a God of mercy. In Luke 19, 34 through 40, we read of something interesting. Luke 19, 34 through 40, we read of some servants in the kingdom.

If you listen to the world round about us, they’re going to place a lot of emphasis on next week. Not this week. There’s a lot of emphasis on next week. Well, what’s so important about next week? Well, if you take the calendar, you cannot in any way, shape, or form, figure out when Jesus was born. There’s no way to know what time in December he was born, or if it was in August, or if it was in April. There’s no way to know that. You can’t know when Jesus was born. People celebrate Christmas, but they don’t really know if that has anything to do with his birth because you just don’t know when he was born. But calendar wise, when you go to the Hebrew people that had a lunar calendar instead of a solar calendar, and it follows the system of days, and you know that Passover is a time of Jewish holiday.

It was on the first day of the month of Habib that they came out of the Egyptian people’s uh bondage and they began their calendar year with that very first day. It was the very first day of the first month of the first year. Very simple math to figure out. It’s pretty relevant that we can parallel the time unto which Jesus died. And if you can parallel about the time into when Jesus died, because remember, we’ve studied before, at Passover time he had the last supper with his disciples, and after supper, saying he instituted the Lord’s Supper, we know that’s the time when that was. So the week before it, calendar wise, connects with this next passage where it says that he had entered going up to Jerusalem, and came to pass when he drew near Bethphage in Bethany at the mountain called Olivet, that he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village opposite you.

And when you enter, you’ll find a cult on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, Why are you loosing it, you shall say, Because the Lord has need of it. So those who were sent went their way and found it, just as he had said to them. But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of his said to him, Why are you loosing the colt? And they said, The Lord has need of him. They brought to him the animal to Jesus, and they threw on their coats on the colt, and they sat Jesus on the animal on the colt. And as he went, many spread their coats on the road, and as he was drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they’d seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Yes, they believe he’s their king. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees called from the crowd and said, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. Tell them to stop calling you king. And the servants in the kingdom are like, Are you kidding me? This is my one and only coat. The Lord of heaven is here, he can walk on it. This is all I’ve got, but I’m gonna humble myself before the Lord, he can walk on my coat. We’ll cut down the palm branches because he needs to walk on something, and he doesn’t come in fanfare on a charger stallion. He hasn’t come in some sort of big physical way that is like a like a conquering king. Although they misunderstood the conquering king passage, they did recognize him as king.

They did recognize him often, saying things like, Son of David, have mercy on me, recognizing he’s of the kingly lineage. And then when the people say all those things, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees are calling out, tell them to be quiet. And he doesn’t say that about his servants. He doesn’t say the servants should stop talking about Jesus. When you have people in the world that say, stop talking about Jesus, realize these servants and what they went through and what they did. They didn’t stop talking about Jesus. And Jesus was right there with them, and he affirmed them just as he’s affirming us from heaven, where he says, even if they didn’t cry out, the stones would cry out. This is the Lord. And that’s the passage of scripture in this context that we’re reading.

4. The Mina: Very Precious, Valuable Souls

That brings us to the parable of the Mina. That’s the context of what’s there in that area. In the kingdom, the Mina is a symbol of very precious, valuable souls. That’s what he’s getting at here. He’s not talking about just money or something like that. He’s using that as an illustration to say, people are valuable. He’s not saying you’re worth less. He’s saying you’re worth much. And he’s saying, as the kingdom grows, we have value in the kingdom. How is the kingdom growing soul by soul? Turn to 2 Timothy 2, 1 through 4 for just a moment to have just a little moment with me here in 2 Timothy 2, 1 through 4. That’s 2 Timothy chapter 2, 1 through 4. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that you have heard from men among me from among many witnesses.

So Jesus is basically saying in the parable of the Mina that each soul is important. And then Paul tells Timothy the same kind of thing. He says, Timothy, young evangelist, young preacher, young teacher, have strength in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus, and the things that you have heard from me, so the younger hears from the older, among many witnesses that everybody agreed to, commit these things to faithful men who will be able to also teach others. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one entangled in warfare or engaged in it will connect himself with the affairs of this life. If you are physically fighting a war, you don’t entangle yourself with the affairs of life, so that you may please him who enlisted you as a soldier.

How does the kingdom grow? I know we can use our Bibles on the mobile phone. I really know we can. My wife uses it all the time. Sometimes that’s the way she’s got all of her notes. They’re in there, got cross references, is talking to this person about the Bible, talking about this person, then she’s on her phone. So what are you doing? In a Bible study, okay, that’s great. That’s good. I appreciate that. I value that. But if you’re distracted doing other things, and you know more about who’s the latest YouTuber, who’s the latest uh influencer, please recognize that the greatest influencer of all of our lives is the Lord who made us, and not we ourselves. And he says here in 2 Timothy 2 1 through 4 entrust to the faithful those who value others.

With every tool we’ve got, whether it’s with the phones, whether it’s with the tablets, whether it’s a computer, or with the old school Bible, like I like to use, that’s book that you can, as my brother Martin says, I like the Bible. You can lift it and you can smell it. You know it’s there. I was like, that’s pretty funny. It’s it’s it’s a Bible. It’s a book. I can hold the thing. So I entrust this to faithful people who will teach others. And that’s what he’s talking about on an even plane with everybody. He’s not saying, well, some people they’re lesser, some people are greater. Uh people uh will gain gain less. That’s not his point. They all enter into the kingdom of the Lord, they all enter into heaven.

5. All Give an Account for God’s Mina

They’re entrusting this to faithful people. All give an account for God’s mina. But there’s a difference here between ambivalence and ambition. And we’ll conclude with this, and then the lesson will be yours. In verse 20 and 21 of the text, it says, another came saying, Master, here’s your mina. Here it is. I kept it, put away in a handkerchief. Matt Richmond, you like the fancy handkerchiefs? Look, he’s got one too. They’re fancy, right? I honestly, I’ll be plain here. Sometimes in my pockets I have ones that are made by the Kleenex Corporation. And here’s why. Because I don’t think he’s talking about a fancy handkerchief. I think he’s talking about a handkerchief where the people would blow their nose. I think he’s basically saying, here’s what you have.

Here’s something that is yours. I am your servant, and I don’t really care much about it. I’ve placed it in a place of lesser value. I use a handkerchief when it’s in the pocket, when it’s the Kleenex brand to blow my nose. That’s what I use it for. And here in this context, it’s so important that we see some people will give an account for God’s minor. That they will say things like, I didn’t evangelize, I didn’t teach the lost, I didn’t care about others. Kind of ambivalent towards it because I was scared. You’re an austere man. We don’t use that word austere much, but he’s basically saying, You’re scary. I don’t know what you’re gonna do with me if I mess it up. So I just want to keep it safe.

I got in this handkerchief, place where I’m blowing my nose, but at least it’s safe. We got to have courage. Courage is not a sense in which we just know everything and we’re just emboldened to do something. One of my favorite quotes from John Wayne, and I know you’ve heard this, so I’ll say it again. Is courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. That’s what courage is. And a lot of people need that in the teaching and the preaching of the gospel. You’re scared to death whether the person is going to listen to the message or not, but saddle up anyway. Make the decision that you’re gonna teach and you’re gonna preach and you’re gonna give the word of the Lord to those you care about.

Don’t be ambivalent towards it. Will they be saved? Maybe. Will they be lost? Maybe. Hopefully, though they’ll be saved, and you’ll know you’ve done your part to teach. Verse 16 and 18, those are the two we like because in those contexts he approves of that which they do. They were ambitious, they did what was right, and he he commends them for that. In the case of the mina, we recognize an important lesson. All will give an account for God’s mina. We will all stand before the judgment seat of the Lord, and hopefully he will tell us, Well done, good and faithful servant. Those are my thoughts for the morning. I appreciate your kind attention. You’ve listened well to 30 minutes, and so now I want to tell you what to do in order to be saved.

Conclusion

Or maybe someone who’s here this morning who’s not a Christian, you need to have faith. You need to have a deep abiding trust in the Lord. Not a wishy-washy faith, not a faith that is uh, well, I guess I’ll believe, but something that says, I’m going to heaven, I believe in heaven, and I want to trust in the Lord that’ll lead me there. A deep abiding faith in the Lord. Faith comes by hearing, not by hearing a message of me, but by hearing the word of the Lord. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord. Romans 10. You also need to believe that Jesus is. Not just that Jesus was a guy who walked around in the first century, but that Jesus is, that he’s still living, that he died, was buried, and arose, and is up in heaven, interceding for the saved in their prayers.

Jesus is. And also that Jesus is the Son of God. And in teaching us these wonderful lessons like the one we’ve just heard from this morning, that I didn’t come up with that. That’s a Jesus teaching messages to help us and lead us and guide us. And then, of course, we need to repent to say, get out, sin and get in Jesus, to no longer think on wicked things, but focus our life on spiritual things, to do an about face from evil and an internal seeking of good, to repent, to turn away from wickedness and turn to our Lord. We need to be able to say with our mouth a verbal affirmation that states, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, as the Ethiopian treasurer did in Acts chapter 8.

And then we need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Acts 2 38. Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. And we really wanted to make it simple. In Acts chapter 22, 16, he says, Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. If we can help you do that this morning, please come forward and sit on the front row as we stand and sing.