Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful (trustworthy) over a few things; I will make You ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. Matthew 25:21
We ended last time asking the question: What do being trustworthy and wisdom have to do with each other? Just this: Wisdom recognizes trust for the incredible value it bestows upon us. Fools can blow off trust, and then wonder why no one believes them—even when they are sincere.
But when we treat the trust of others as a fragile gift… When we recognize that in trusting us people in our lives make themselves vulnerable and that in trusting us they have given us the power to harm them… We begin to recognize just how important maintaining a reputation of trustworthiness is.
When we are trustworthy, people can rely on us. We can be counted on to do what we say we will do. If we make commitments, we follow through on them. Being trustworthy doesn’t mean we will never let others down… we would have to be perfect to pull that off. But it does mean that we take the trust placed in us seriously and have a reputation of living up to it. So trustworthiness is both an attitude and a pattern of behavior that honors the trust placed in us.
When God says He trust us there are two things that happen: The first is that He entrusts us with more. That is the point of today’s verse. This often is thought to mean more work, or ministry, or money—and that may be part of it. But it probably has more to do with more of Himself (joy in the Lord). He doesn’t fill a vessel beyond what it can contain (2 Cor 4:7), or He might destroy it.
That’s the point to the final words in Jesus’ parable of the talents: “enter into the joy of your Lord”. And when Jesus invites you to enter into His joy, you’re in for the trip of a lifetime! Because that means being filled with His presence.
Whether God can trust us is actually the question that is the basis for whether God can bless us. Consider Mary and Joseph in the Christmas account. Imagine how much God trusted the two of them. At the end of the day, God’s blessing upon them (and us) was not determined by whether they kept the right law, or did the right thing – although these things were involved—they were outcomes. But at the root, God’s blessing upon them (and us) was determined by whether God could trust them with the blessing. Were they trustworthy people? Are we trustworthy people?
We get a picture of this when we see Mary’s reaction to the news about her unexpected pregnancy (worship) and Joseph’s immediate obedience (getting up and moving to a foreign country in the middle of the night).
Often, when we ask God to bless us in some manner, God does not do it right away. Why? He must first make us faithful enough to handle the blessing. How does He do that? By watching what we do with what we have. God is not going to help us destroy ourselves. But if we are faithful to God – by trusting Him – we are then trustworthy! So God can then be freer to bless us further. Why? Because our trust is in Him, He can trust us.
“To everyone that has shall more be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that does not have, even what he has will be taken away” (Matt. 25:29). It seems unfair, but in reality, it’s God being good.