Do Business Till I Come and the Parable of the Ten Minas

Every single day I get up, I can say, "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." It didn't say how I feel. It said I will. Based on my will, I rejoice and I'm glad.

Today we're going deeper into a parable that should make every believer uncomfortable in the best possible way. Because what Jesus said in Luke 19:13 wasn't a suggestion. It was a command: "Do business till I come."

Quick Foundation

Here's the framework. In Luke 2:41-49, Jesus was 12 years old when He told His parents, "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" He already knew His purpose at 12 but didn't start His ministry until 30. Just because the gift shows up doesn't mean it's the right season to use it. Sometimes God reveals who you are and then makes you wait.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 tells us to mind our own business and work with our hands, so that we don't have to depend on others. And Genesis 1:26-28 lays out the original operating manual: God made you in His image, gave you authority, and said be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and dominate. That's the business plan.

The key from Part 1 was this: create, duplicate, dominate. God is a creator. You're made in His image. So you're built to create. The question is always, what can you create that you can duplicate and take to market?

And the foundation underneath all of it: alignment before assignment. When you get in alignment with God, He gives you your assignment. When you tap into His vision, you find your provision. You can't receive assignment if you're not in alignment.

The Parable of the Ten Minas

Luke 19:11-27. Jesus is near Jerusalem, and people around Him assumed the kingdom of God was about to appear immediately. So He tells this story.

A nobleman goes to a distant country to receive a kingdom. Before he leaves, he calls ten of his servants and gives each of them one mina, about 100 days' wages. Same amount. Same opportunity. Same starting point. And he tells them, "Do business with this until I return."

Now here's what I want you to see first. Nobody got more money than anybody else. The money wasn't earned. It was given. Every person had the same starting point and the same opportunity. 1 Peter 4:10 confirms this: "Just as each one of you has received a special gift, a spiritual talent, an ability graciously given by God, employ it in serving one another."

You can't tell God you weren't gifted. I don't care if the school system skipped over you and you never got into the gifted and talented program. In God's kingdom, everybody has a gift. Romans 12:3 says He has apportioned to each a degree of faith. You've got faith. You sat down in that chair this morning without checking if it would hold you. That's faith. Now use it for something bigger.

The Accounting

The nobleman comes back and calls his servants. Let's talk about what you've been doing.

Verse 16: The first servant says, "Lord, your mina has made ten minas more." The master responds: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities."

Not ten houses. Ten cities. Forever. The reward for faithful stewardship in this life isn't more money. It's authority in the kingdom.

The second servant comes forward. "Lord, your mina has made five minas." He gets five cities. Still a massive reward. Half the return of the first servant, but still commended.

Then the third servant shows up. And this is where it gets painful.

Verse 20-21: "Here is your mina, which I have kept laid away in a piece of cloth. For I was afraid of you, because you are a stern man."

He didn't lose it. He didn't waste it. He just didn't do anything with it. And the master's response is devastating. He calls the servant worthless and says, "If you knew I was stern, why didn't you at least put my money in the bank so I could have collected interest?"

Then verse 24: "Take the mina from him and give it to the one who has ten."

The bystanders protest: "Lord, he already has ten!" And Jesus explains the principle in verse 26: "To everyone who has, because he has valued his gifts and used them wisely, more will be given. But from the one who does not have, because he disregarded his gifts, even what he has will be taken away."

This isn't God being cruel. This is stewardship logic. If you gave two employees a project and one of them turned it into something ten times bigger while the other one just sat on it for a year, who would you trust with the next project? Why would God be any different?

The 80/20 Principle Is in the Bible

There's an economic principle called Pareto's Rule, the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the output typically comes from twenty percent of the people. That ratio shows up everywhere: in business, in organizations, in churches.

And it showed up on that stage in Luke 19. Ten servants received the money. Only two did something with it. That's 20 percent. The same ratio Jesus describes in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.

In that parable, the seed is the same message about the kingdom, but it lands on four types of soil. The footpath soil, where the message never takes root. The rocky soil, where people receive the word with excitement but have no depth, so they fall away when trouble comes. The thorny soil, where the word gets choked out by worries and the desire for wealth. And the good soil, where the word produces a harvest of 30, 60, or even 100 times what was planted.

One out of four. Twenty-five percent. And that's with the best teacher who ever lived.

So the question isn't whether God has given you something. He has. The question is what kind of soil are you? Are you the hard heart that can't receive? Are you the shallow root that bails when things get hard? Are you the choked-out soil that's too distracted by life's worries to produce anything? Or are you the good soil that hears, understands, and produces?

You Can't Psychoanalyze the Word

Here's where I need to be direct. If God says do something and your first response is to ask why, you've already started losing. Every time you go against God's will, you're telling Him you're smarter than He is. And if we're honest, every one of us has done that. We wanted to do what we wanted to do.

A double-minded person is unstable, and the Bible says they should expect nothing from God. You have to make up your mind. If you're going to come to church but not listen, if you're going to hear the word but not apply it, why waste the trip? You can't expect different results while doing the same things.

I fail all the time. But I fail because I try all the time. I don't want to stand before God one day and hear Him say, "Jomo, you could have been this. You could have done that. Why didn't you even try?" We're all going to die anyway. That's an appointment every one of us will keep. So you might as well go all out. You have nothing to lose.

Work the Gift

Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us."

God made you fully equipped. All the options are already installed. You just have to work with what you've got.

Here's the thing about the servant who buried his mina: it wasn't a money problem. When the master told him to go buy oil or put it in the bank, he had the money to do it. His problem was never resources. It was fear. And fear dressed up as caution will have you sitting on a gift for 40 years with nothing to show for it.

Let me do the math for you. If you put one dollar in the bank at 4% interest and don't touch it for 40 years, you'd have roughly seven dollars. You would have seven times more by literally doing nothing except not burying it in the ground. The master said, "At minimum, you could have put it in the bank." God doesn't require perfection. He requires movement. He requires that you at least try.

You have to be a fruit inspector, not just of other people's lives, but of your own. Look at what's growing. Look at what you're producing. The Bible says you'll know people by their fruit, not their personality, not their image, not their talk. Their fruit.

If you haven't seen growth in the last few years, something needs to change. And the change isn't out there. It's in here. It's daily choices. Good days lead to good weeks. Good weeks lead to good months. Good months lead to a good life.

What Are You Going to Do With It?

God has given you a gift. He's given you the measure of faith. He's made you in His image. The question that every single one of us will answer one day is: what did you do with it?

You can't tell Him you didn't have enough. You can't tell Him you weren't gifted. You can't tell Him you were scared. None of those answers worked for the servant in Luke 19, and they won't work for us.

I'm not a perfect pastor. I'm not a perfect man. I've told you that every week, and I mean it every time. But I refuse to stand before God with a buried mina and an excuse. I'd rather try and fail a hundred times than sit still and wonder what could have been.

Create. Duplicate. Dominate. That's the assignment. And the time to start is right now.