Taking Care of Business

July 23, 2017                NOTES NOT EDITED
Taking Care of Business

Luke 19:11-27, esp. v13

SIS—Every Christian has the responsibility for taking care of the most important business in the world—soul-winning!

He said therefore, A certain noble man went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.

And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come (Luke 12-13)

I used the King James Version for the Scripture reading because I think the old English word, “occupy” (v13) gives us the “militaristic and aggressive” tone I think is applicable to this passage.  “Occupy” reflects doing something “radical.”  If Jesus was anything, He was a radical.  So powerful was the ministry of Jesus Christ that He split eternity literally in two.  We date our calendars as Before and After—B.C. and A.D.—the ministry of Jesus.  That’s pretty radical.  That’s pretty militant.  That’s pretty aggressive.

According to Wikipedia, the Occupy Movement, “is an international socio-political movement against social and economic inequality.” It is an international movement but most Americans got their first taste of it with “Occupy Wall Street.” You can read more “sterilized” details of the movement on Wikipedia.

One banner in one “Occupy” event stated simply, “Occupy Everything!”

This modern American phenomenon is “militaristic, proud, and aggressive,” and that is describing them in the most favorable light possible.  In almost every case, the Occupy Movement is “loudness, looting, and letting the fleshly nature fly free.” These Occupy Movements are “in your face and in your shops!”

The original “Occupy Movement” predates Occupy Wall Street by a couple millennia. Jesus used that term in His instructions to His disciples just a week or so before His death on the cross. In the Parable of the Ten Minas Jesus said gave a simple and succinct command to you and I as His followers: “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13).

The word Jesus used is 14 characters long and provides the etymology for our word, “pragmatism.” Loosely one could translate it, “Be pragmatic until I come.” That would not be a sufficient translation, however. The original word had much more force than that. The range of meaning for this word includes the idea of “pursue with a vigor.”

In Classical Greek, it was used to refer to “affairs of state,” or “political service.” The word was also used for intellectual pursuits such as those of historians. It also was used in an economic sense as with business pursuits. The word carries the weight of all these ideas in Our Lord’s use.

Two common threads intertwined to give this word it’s force. One, the idea of “passion,” and the idea of “purpose.” Our Lord’s command would be: “Pursue passionately the extension of my Kingdom on earth by engaging the world in practical ways to extend my spiritual reach.”

You could translate that command as, “Engage passionately the world to take back ground that the enemy, the Devil, as usurped.” I could offer other various translations based upon this 14-letter word in the Greek, but I think you get the point.

We need to be busy with the Master’s Business. 

As we consider the responsibility every believer has to share the gospel and build the kingdom, we need to consider three important aspects of the business of the church.

1.  It is God’s Business

¹⁵ “At his return, having received the authority to be king,  he summoned those slaves he had given the money to, so he could find out how much they had made in business. ¹⁶ The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned 10 more minas.’ 

Notice the servant said, “It was YOUR mina, not mine.”

To fully appreciate the nature and scope of God’s business, we need to understand how this parable of the minas is related to what took place just before.  Look at verse 11:

¹¹ As they were listening to this,” or as the ESV says, “these things.”

What things were they listening to.  Go back to verses 8-10:

⁸ But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give  half of my possessions to the poor,  Lord! And if I have extorted  anything from anyone, I’ll pay  back four times as much!”  ⁹ “Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham.  ¹⁰ For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

The disciples had just watched and participated in the interaction between Jesus and a tax collector with a wicked, rotten heart named Zacchaeus.  The encounter with Jesus radically changed Ole’ Zach, and it let the Lord to sum up His business in one short, pregnant sentence:

“I have come to seek and to save that which is lost.”   Then Jesus told this parable of the minas to teach us—notice that the parable mentions 10 servants, not twelve (v11).  This teaches that Jesus was looking not only to the responsibility of his Twelve disciples but every one that would become a disciple down to our day and beyond.

God’s business is the “soul-seeking business.”  We’ve made it the “food pantry social needs business.”  We’ve made it the “children and youth activity center business.”  Some churches have made it the “Seminary classroom, verse by verse business.”  We’ve made worship the “entertainment business,” but the only business that has any business being called God’s business is the “soul-seeking business!”

What an awful mess we have made of the business of the church by majoring on minors and missing the main point. 

Now, we must also bear in mind that the “business of the church” is God’s business, not ours.  In fact, the responsibility to “seek and to save the loss” is too heavy a burden for any man or church to bear.  We would be crushed beneath the weight of the work.  This is why Jesus reminded us in Matthew 11:29-30

²⁹ All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me,  because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.  ³⁰ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Take my yoke upon you for my burden is light.  Why is the yoke of ministry light?  Because we are yoked together with Jesus.  In the other side of the yoke of responsibility that rests upon our neck, is the Jesus our Lord.  He bears the burden, but we share the blessing. Jesus does the heavy lifting.

Look in verse 16.  Notice a very important pronoun that we neglect to our own shame and peril. 

¹⁶ The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned 10 more minas.’ 

That same pronoun is repeated by each servant (vv. 16, 18, 20).

We so often move out in our own direction, and lose the way.  We so often in the church operate in our own strength, and collapse in disappointment.  No, it is not our work, but His.  We are but stewards, or managers, or tools in His hands. 

Here’s why so many churches are gasping in exhaustion and chasing their tales in ministry:  We set out to do the work of the Lord but forget the work IS the Lord’s!  We cannot get Godly results with fleshly efforts—though we seem bound and determined to try.

2.  It’s Risky Business

²⁰ “And another came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina. I have kept it hidden away in a cloth ²¹ because I was afraid of you, for you’re a tough man: you collect what you didn’t deposit and reap what you didn’t sow.’  ²² “He told him, ‘I will judge you by what you have said,  you evil slave! If you knew I was a tough man, collecting what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow, ²³ why didn’t you put my money in the bank? And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest!’ ²⁴ So he said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has 10 minas.’

The motives of the fearful servant were not altogether honorable perhaps (if he put the money in the bank and the king never returned, the money went with the estate.  If he kept it and the king did not return, he had a windfall).  His understanding of the risk of investing were accurate however.  If he invested the money, there was a risk he would lose it.

Most people are looking for a safe, risk-free, guaranteed return on investment Christian experience.  Most want the benefits of salvation, but none of the sacrifice of service.  There is no great reward where there is not also a great risk.  Charles Swindoll pointed out years ago:
“All who fly, risk crashing!”

There’s all kinds of risks and costs associated with Taking Care of God’s Business.  There are personal risks—you WILL lose friends.  There are financial risks—when you give all you have to God, you risk having to trust God to meet our need.  When you take a stand for what is right, you made find your employer does not share your spiritual concerns.  There are literally physical risks.  You may one day face losing your life as a martyr for the cause of Christ.  Don’t think it cannot happen here in America.  Risky days are ahead for believers, even on these once hallowed shores.

Let me tell you an old story about trusting God enough to risk everything to serve him.  A man walking along a mountain trail slipped over the edge.  As he was sliding down the mountain side to certain death, he reached out to grab a little branch jutting out from the mountain side.  There he hung dangling over the precipice of death. As he clung to that life-saving branch he yelled, “Hey!  Anybody up there?  Please help me!”  A voice echoed back, “I’m here. Do you believe I can help you?”  The man responded, “Yes, yes, I believe you can help me.  Hurry, I can’t hold on much longer.”  The voice yelled back, echoing off the mountain side, “Do you believe I love you enough to help you?”  The man, a bit frustrated, “Yes, yes, I do believe you love me enough to help me.  Please hurry.”  As the man hung there, sweat pouring down his face, his grip on the life-saving vine loosening, the voice from above yells back one more time, “Do you believe I have the POWER to save you?”  Almost frantic the man cries out, “Oh, yes, yes, I believe you have the power to help me!”  The voice called back, “Because you believe I can help you, and you believe I love you, and you believe I have the power to help you, I WILL help you.  Now . . . let go of the branch.”  There was a brief moment of silence.  Then the man in a feeble voice cried out, “Is there anybody else up there?”

Taking Care of God’s Business is risky.  There is no “easy riskfree path for those following Jesus.”  God’s business of soul-winning is a risky business.  The most important consideration as we take up the responsibility to follow Christ is realizing God’s business is

3.  A World-changing Business (Luke 3:4-6)

A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight! ⁵ Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the crooked will become straight, the rough ways smooth, ⁶ and everyone  will see the salvation of God.

Our world is a mess.  Our nation is a mess.  Most churches I know of are a mess.  Most families are dealing with one kind of mess or another.  We all want a “fix.”  We all want to change our world for the better.  The 64,000 dollar question is:  “how?”  It sounds simplistic to say:  preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and practice New Testament discipleship.  That may be simplistic, but most world changing ideas are simple.  Consider the most significant theory in the history of modern man.  The theory that yanked the world out of the Industrial Age and into the Atomic Age.  That theory, in its simplest form is E=mc2-the theory of relativity.  Einstein once said, “If you cannot explain your theory to a child, you do not understand it yourself.”

Einstein shared the belief of other scientists that the simplest solution to a problem is most likely the correct one.  That proposition has a name:  Occam’s Razor, named after the philosopher William of Ockham, who died in 1347. 

The gospel is a world-changing business.  I shared last week about how secular drug treatments are 15% effective, at best, but when you add the gospel to the program as Teen Challenge does, it is 87.5% effective—according to a study by the Health, Education, and Welfare Department.

I don’t know if most Christians really believe the gospel has world-changing power.  If we did, we see more happening in our personal lives and in the life of our church and community. 

A man armed with the truth of the gospel and steadied by the hand of God on his shoulder can literally move mountains.  No man has had a greater impact upon American society in the last 100 years or more than a preacher from Georgia, by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King literally preached and prayed these United States out of the black cloud of prejudice that hung over our nation.  In perhaps his greatest speech, on the steps of the Capital August 28, 1963. Dr. King delivered his, “I Have a Dream Speech.”  In one part of that short speech Dr. King used the words we read just a minute ago:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Dr. King would not see the fulfillment of those words he preached that day.  We still have a long way to go to see them truly fulfilled, but we can be assured that through the gospel, the world will be changed . . . one soul at a time!  Change never comes from adding rules and regulations—as we can see from the utter failure of Washington, D.C.  Real change comes not from changing laws, but changing hearts!  Only the gospel can do that.CLOSE:  This is why every Christian must accept his or her responsibility to make God’s business of seeking and searching for souls, our business.

The great musical talent, Irving Berlin, wrote some of the most enduring songs of all time. My all-time favorite Berlin song is “White Christmas,” especially as sung by Bing Crosby. Written in 1954 for the movie of the same name, this song predates me, but even 63 years later, it is a staple of Christmas time.

Another famous Berlin son was also written for a movie. Berlin composed “There’s No Business Like Show Business” for the 1946 smash hit, “Annie Get Your Gun.” This song, like White Christmas, had a long, successful career. Such greats as Ethel Merman, Judy Garland, and even Bing Crosby with the Andrew Sisters, recorded this iconic song. But, the song did not die with the old classics like Garland and Crosby. Harry Connick, Jr. recorded the song in 1999. 

It’s a catchy phrase and a catchy tune, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Show business has certainly promoted glamor and intrigue, and supported, the “lifestyle of the rich and famous” for many years. The lyrics describe show business:

There's no business like show business like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing, everything that traffic will allow
Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow.

There is a business much more significant than show business. That’s “God’s Business.” God’s business may not promote the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, nor endorse the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but God’s business is eternal business—and nothing is bigger than eternity. 

We will discuss God’s Business this Sunday, Lord willing. Specifically, our responsibilities as Christians for promoting God’s Business. We will analyze the risks associated with participating in God’s Business, as well as the miraculous, life-changing power that God’s Business offers.