No Trophies for Everyone

Bulletin

Dan Peters
05/28/23 - Judgement

As far as finances goes, she thought the rich should pay their “fair share”. I asked her “how much”, “give me a percentage” please. At that time she didn’t know how much the rich were taxed. So I decided a different tactic. Since she had been a teacher, I asked her if she would take all her “A” students, and give them a “C” instead, so she can give the F students a “C” also? She adamantly refused. She knows the difficulty of getting an A, for she is a hard worker, dedicated, and smart. How unfair to take that A from someone who put so much effort into that grade and give it to those who refused to work. But people’s abilities are different. Yet consider this.
The “Matthew principle”, so called.
“For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mat. 25:29-30).
If we take this principal and look at the rich, they seem to get richer. In the parable, Jesus gives the richest person with 10 talents, even more. (25:28) - the Matthew principle.
If we apply this principle to grades, those who get good grades, seem to grow in their understanding, getting even better grades. We can apply this principle to riches, grades, music, etc.
But obviously this so called “Matthew principle” is not applied by Jesus to riches of this world or good grades. No, Jesus applies it to being faithful to the Lord, Himself. Jesus is the one who goes “on a journey”, but he certainly is coming back (25:14). While gone he entrusts riches (Spiritual) to “each according to his own ability” (25:15). Those who work faithfully for Jesus, receive back from Jesus what they did (25:20-21, 22-23). Those who fail to work for Jesus get nothing, even what they had is taken away, “Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.” (Matt. 25:28), i.e. the spiritually rich will get abundantly rich. Therefore Jesus does’t give trophies for everyone. We must stop being spiritually lazy and get our Bible out and read Matt. 25:14-46 carefully.
No spiritual shortcuts, no spiritual delegations.
“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:46). No trophies for everyone. This is the ultimate difference between the “haves” and the “haves not”. Are you investing your life in obeying Jesus? Then, “clothe”, “visit”, “give” in loving obedience to the King’s people. “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” (Matt. 25:40).
Dan Peters