The Church is full of third person servants. When you read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, you typically realize that everything we have been given is a gift. We should use those things to further the kingdom. We commonly think about our gifts, talents, abilities, and our money. We wonder what we could do to better use those gifts to further the kingdom of Christ. We commonly remember that we are called to be effective ministers of the gospel with the things we have been given, but there are other things we have been given than resources alone. Our God has given us hope, grace, mercy, and an outstanding love.

We have been given these phenomenal gifts, and our common response to the parable is to think of our abilities, our talents, our money that, yes, IS God's. We tend to overlook other gifts like hope, mercy, grace, salvation, love. We have been entrusted with those as well, and the question is the same. What do we do with those gifts?

When I look at those gifts, I see an American church nearly full of third servants. We have hoarded those things in ourselves. Every Sunday we come and bury those things in the field of our common services. We talk about those things with people who already believe what we believe. We have not taken many risks to invest those gifts for a larger return.

It IS a risk to invest, but the first 2 servants take those risks and find blessing and return on those investments. They also come to see that there are so many opportunities to expand the kingdom with the gifts we have of hope, mercy, grace, love, salvation.

The only way to reveal the kingdom and become one of the first two servants is to take those things OUT of the burial ground of our walls and invest them in areas outside of our comfort. There are risks of fear, awkwardness, etc. But the return on those risks are incredible.