#11 - Joby Martin // Faithfulness and Gratitude

You gave me the five talents and I , and risked it all and I made five talents more . And then what he is going to receive from the master is he is going to receive this blessing . And the blessing is this well done , good and faithful servant .

But what I really want to pay attention to here I guess I will read some After he says 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 .

Then the next verse , verse 22 , says and he also , who had received the two talents , came forward saying master , you delivered to me two talents here . I have made two talents more . Now here's what I want you to see . First of all , the five-talent guy and the two-talent guy . They both first start with an attitude of gratitude .

They don't start with look what I have done for you . What they start with , the first thing out of their mouth is look what you did for me , God Master . I took what you gave me . You gave me five talents . I don't think I deserved it . I don't know what I did to earn it . You gave me two talents .

I'm not sure why you chose me , but you chose me and I took what you gave to me . And look here and it doesn't mean like , look here . It means more , like here you go , I have doubled this money for you .

Now , I actually think one of the key heroes in this parable , in this story , is the two-talent guy , and the reason I say that is this is that the two-talent man spent zero time being paralyzed by the trap of comparison . Because comparison is that Comparison is a trap .

Comparison is a lose-lose proposition , Because when we compare the reason I call it lose-lose is when we compare then there is no positive outcome . When we compare ourselves to others , essentially it's an affront against the Almighty God .

Essentially , when we compare ourselves to our brother-in-law , who's an idiot , but he just got that huge pay raise , what we're doing is we're putting our finger in the chest of God and saying , God , you didn't do this right . You gave him too much and you gave me not enough .

You see , comparison is a lose-lose proposition , because only one of two things can result when we compare ourselves to others , whether it's other men we work with other families to people that we see online , with other families to people that we see online .

Here's the problem is that we can either be built up with pride because we compare ourselves to others and we feel too good about ourselves .

We say I'm smarter than them , I'm better looking than them , I have more money than them , I'm more successful than them , I'm a better athlete than them , and we begin to think too highly of ourselves because we compare ourselves to other people . That's called pride , and it's the greatest of all sins .

It's actually the sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven pride . The other side of the coin , though , is sometimes we compare ourselves to other people and we get beaten down with condemnation and we think we're not enough and we don't have what it takes , and the language of condemnation is one of the primary tools of the enemy to paralyze the man of God .

You see , condemnation is a building term , and it means unfit for use , and you begin to look at that guy in your Sunday school class , that guy in your disciple group , that guy from church , that guy with all the money , that guy with a beautiful family , and you think that you will never live up to what that person has , and you may not .

But , brother , God has not necessarily called you to live up to what that other man is doing . That God has called and created you to be the you that he came up with . That other man is doing . That God has called and created you to be the you that he came up with .

That's you , and so that can lead to condemnation , and my Bible says that , therefore , now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . You see , the problem with comparison is that we always compare what we know about ourselves to what we don't know to other people .

We compare our B-roll with somebody else's highlight reel , and the fact that we are carrying around little comparison guides in our pocket every day of our life is damning us to hell . You see , you begin to scroll through Instagram and you compare your unfiltered life to everybody else's filtered life .

Trust me , that person that you see on Instagram , it's not their actual life . I live at the beach , I live in Jacksonville Beach , Florida , and I can't tell you the number of families that I see post pictures on Instagram and they are at the beach and the picture looks perfect .

I don't know if you go to the beach much , but have you ever seen a happy family at the beach ? No , nobody's happy . The if you go to the beach much , but have you ever seen a happy family at the beach ? No , nobody's happy . The dad's just sitting his butt on the beach trying to drink a cold beer and relax . Mama's freaked out by the kids .

The Yankees are feeding the seagulls and making everybody miserable . The kids have sand all over them , they're crying , but what do they do ? Right before they leave ?

To go , get back into their car , to go home , they get the family together and for one second they can get everybody to smile and for that micro second , their day was great , and that's the picture that they post online . Here's what I want to encourage you with . You may be a five-talent guy , you may be a two-talent guy , but don't miss this .

Do not compare yourself to one another . Why ? Because God does not compare you to one another . God gives the exact same blessing or reward to the five-talent guy and to the two-talent guy , because it was not the amount of money that those men made , it was . Were they faithful with what God had given them ?