Occupy Till I Come Sermon

Occupy Until He Comes: Faithful Stewardship In The Waiting

Are you doing anything with what God has given you, or are you simply waiting for life to change? Are you holding back your gifts, your time, your energy, because the circumstances do not feel right yet? Are you telling yourself that you will step up when things settle down, when the timing is better, when you feel more ready? And underneath all of that, do you wonder whether what you do in the ordinary days even matters to God?

Here is the governing conviction of this message: what you do between now and the return of Jesus Christ is not filler time. It is kingdom time, and God expects faithful, active stewardship of everything He has entrusted to you until the King comes back.

That conviction comes straight from the lips of Jesus in Luke 19, and it is one of the most searching parables He ever told.

Setting The Scene

Turn in your Bible to Luke 19, beginning at verse 11. The CSB reads: "As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away."

That one sentence of context is essential. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. The crowd is electric with expectation. They believe the kingdom is about to break open immediately. They are thinking in terms of a political revolution, a sudden overthrow, a dramatic arrival. And Jesus, knowing exactly what they are thinking, tells them a story that reorients everything.

He says in verses 12 through 13: "A nobleman traveled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then return. He called ten of his servants, gave them each ten minas, and told them, 'Engage in business until I come back.'"

That phrase, engage in business until I come back, is the heartbeat of this passage. Some older translations render it as "occupy till I come." The idea is the same. The nobleman is leaving. The servants are not to go dormant. They are to be active, productive, and faithfully at work in his absence. The king is coming back, but there is real work to do before he arrives.

What The King Expects

When the nobleman returns in the parable, he calls his servants to account. The first servant has multiplied his ten minas into ten more. The king says in verse 17: "Well done, good servant. Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns."

The second servant has produced five minas. He receives authority over five towns. The king rewards in proportion to faithfulness.

Then comes the third servant, and his report is chilling. Verse 20: "Master, here is your mina. I have kept it safe in a cloth because I was afraid of you, since you're a harsh man." He did nothing with what he was given. He preserved it, protected it, and handed it back untouched. And the king rebukes him sharply.

Notice what the third servant's problem was. It was not that he had less than the others. He started with the same amount. His problem was fear and inactivity. He buried the gift rather than deploying it. He waited rather than worked. And the king calls that wickedness, not caution.

This parable is not primarily about financial investment. It is about the whole of what God entrusts to His people: spiritual gifts, time, relationships, the gospel itself, opportunities to serve, to love, to witness, to build up the body of Christ. The question Jesus is pressing upon every listener is this: what are you doing with what I have given you while you wait for me to return?

Three Truths For Faithful Stewardship

First, the King has given every servant something to work with.

Every one of the ten servants received a mina. Not one was left empty-handed. That is not an accident in the story. Jesus is making a deliberate point. No follower of Christ is without resource, without capacity, without something to offer the kingdom. The apostle Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 12 when he writes that the Spirit distributes gifts to each believer as He wills, and that every member of the body has a function. You are not exempt from this. You are not the exception. You have been given something, and the King expects you to put it to work.

The danger is that we compare our gift to someone else's and conclude that ours is not worth using. But the parable does not reward the servant who produced the most. It rewards the servants who were faithful with what they had. Faithfulness is the standard, not size. God is not asking you to do what someone else does. He is asking you to do what He has equipped you to do, and to do it with diligence.

Second, the waiting period is not a vacation. It is a commission.

The nobleman did not say to his servants, rest until I return. He said, engage in business until I come back. The interval between his departure and his return was to be filled with purposeful activity on his behalf.

We live in that same interval. Jesus has ascended. He has not yet returned. And in the meantime, He has not left His people without direction. He has given us the Great Commission in Matthew 28. He has given us His Spirit. He has given us one another in the local church. He has given us the Word of God. The waiting is not passive. It is an active, Spirit-empowered engagement with the mission of the King.

This is where many believers quietly drift. The years go by. The return of Christ feels distant. The urgency fades. We settle into comfort and routine, and without meaning to, we begin to live as though the King is never coming back. But He is coming back. And when He does, He will ask what we did with what He gave us.

The writer of Hebrews urges believers not to throw away their confidence, for it carries a great reward. "For you need endurance, so that after you have done God's will, you may receive what was promised" (Hebrews 10:35-36). Endurance in faithful service is exactly what the nobleman expected from his servants. It is what Jesus expects from us.

Third, the King rewards faithfulness, and He takes unfaithfulness seriously.

This is the part of the parable that makes us uncomfortable, and we should let it. The servant who buried his mina did not lose it. He gave it back intact. But the king was not satisfied with its return. He was grieved by the waste of it.

God is not honored by a Christianity that simply preserves itself. He is honored by a Christianity that multiplies. He is honored when the gospel goes out, when the lost are reached, when the weak are strengthened, when the church is built up, when believers grow in grace and truth. The servant who said I kept it safe missed the point entirely. Safety was not the assignment. Faithfulness was.

Now, this is not a call to frantic activity or to measure your worth by visible results. The parable makes clear that the servants worked in different conditions and produced different amounts, and the king honored them both. What the king could not honor was the servant who did nothing at all. The call is not to produce a certain number. The call is to be genuinely, consistently, humbly at work for the King with what He has given you.

The Cross Behind The Commission

We cannot leave this parable without seeing what stands behind it. The nobleman in the story travels to a far country to receive a kingdom and then return. That is a picture of Jesus Himself, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and who will return as King of kings and Lord of lords.

But before He ascended, He went to a cross. Before He received the crown, He bore the nails. Before He called His servants to account, He paid the debt that none of them could pay. The reason faithful stewardship is even possible for us is because of what Jesus did at Calvary. He did not bury His life to keep it safe. He poured it out so that we could be forgiven, redeemed, and filled with His Spirit.

That changes everything about how we serve. We do not serve to earn the King's favor. We serve because we have already received it. We do not work out of fear that He will reject us. We work out of gratitude that He has already accepted us in Christ. The third servant was paralyzed by a distorted view of the master. He saw him as harsh and demanding. But those who know the grace of Jesus Christ know a different King, one who gave everything for His servants and now calls them to give faithfully in return.

If you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, the most important thing you can do today is not to start serving but to start believing. Repent of your sin and place your faith in Him. He died for you. He rose from the dead. He is coming again. And everyone who trusts in Him is welcomed into His kingdom, not on the basis of what they have produced, but on the basis of what He has done.

A Direct Word Before You Leave

What is in your cloth? What has God given you that you have wrapped up and set aside because you were afraid, or busy, or waiting for a better moment? A gift for teaching, a heart for prayer, a capacity to serve, a relationship with someone who does not yet know Christ, a willingness to give, to go, to speak, to show up?

The King is coming back. Not today, perhaps, but certainly. And when He does, He will not ask how comfortable you were in the waiting. He will ask what you did with what He gave you.

Do not bury it. Invest it. Do not hide it. Offer it. Do not wait until you feel ready. Step forward in faith, trusting that the same God who gave you the gift will sustain you in using it.

Let us pray together. Lord Jesus, You are the King who has gone to prepare a place and who is coming again. Forgive us for the times we have buried what You gave us out of fear or indifference. Stir us to faithful, Spirit-led stewardship of every gift, every opportunity, every relationship, every day You give us. May we be found at work when You return, not because we are trying to earn Your love, but because we have received it. In Your name we pray. Amen.

Sources Consulted

Bock, Darrell L. Luke, Volume 2: 9:51-24:53. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 1996.

Garland, David E. Luke. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Zondervan, 2011.

Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1997.

Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. 2nd ed. InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Schreiner, Thomas R. New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ. Baker Academic, 2008.