How do we work with the Holy Spirit?

We turn to Matthew 25:14-30;

14 ‘“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.
15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.
16 Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.
17 And likewise he who had received two gained two more also.
18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.
19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
20 “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’
21 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
22 He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’
23 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
24 “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
25 And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’
26 “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed.
27 So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.
28 Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
29 ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’’

This is the parable of the 3 servants. When the master of the house went on a journey, he gave his servants talents to manage. Amongst these 3 servants are split into 2 categories; the first was acknowledged and praised by the master and the other was rebuked by the master. We must strive to be like these servants who were praised and utilised and not like those who were cast out and rebuked.

Why did the master praise these servants? V23;

His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

When we work with the Holy Spirit, a very important attitude is to be faithful. We have to finish the work that has been entrusted to us by the master. For the servant who was rebuked, we have to look at it as a warning. How did the master rebuke the servant? V26 says;

“But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed.

The master scolded him to be a wicked servant. His wickedness is not in that he did illegal things; he was wicked because he didn’t do the things his master willed him to do. The master gave talents to his servants to handle; his purpose was for them to earn interest with these talents to give back to the master.

For us working today, it’s the same. If your boss gives you $5000 for your monthly salary, he’d wish that by employing you with this wage he can produce a revenue for, perhaps, $10,000. If he spends this money to employ you but is unable to earn money, he’d not want to continue this business. This is how the economy works; you put in your premium sum and you wish to obtain more money from it.

This servant who was given one talent didn’t do anything with it and it upset the master. He was even rebuked by the master to be lazy. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do. In v18-19;

18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.
19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

Why would he do such a thing? V25 says;

And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’

He was afraid that if he didn’t manage this one talent properly and lost it, he wouldn’t know how to answer to the master. Hence, to be safe, he took this talent and buried it so no one would be able to touch it. However, if he were to just do this, the master would have no reason to give the talent to the servant anyway. It would have been better to put it in the bank instead. The servant found this a safe option but ended up being scolded as a lazy servant by the master.

Since we’ve been chosen by the Lord, we are His servants. The Lord has given us these talents so that we will work. Whether we work and do well or we don’t do well, most importantly is if we do work then not do anything at all.

In this advanced technological age, a lot of manual work can be replaced by automation. For example, robots can sweep and take over a lot of laborious tasks. The computers can also take over many repetitive tasks. We can dispense with the need of human efforts with such tasks. The future generation will increasingly be like this where automation replaces human effort. Even now, we have robots to replace sweeping in church. Perhaps in the future robots can even speak sermons.

If God were to speak a word, everything can be accomplished; but He wants us to participate in His work. For us to be able to take part in His work is an opportunity and grace given to us by God. We must have this zeal and passion in serving God. We turn to Romans 12:11;

‘not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ‘

Paul in v1 says we must present ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God for it is our reasonable service. Paul here is encouraging us to do this to serve the Lord, to give our time to be used by the Lord. He can only encourage us to do so; because it has to come from within and we have to want to do it. If we’re forced to serve God and we do so with an unwilling heart, there’s no meaning.

Why should the work of God not be forced? Then it’d be like the job of dealing with rubbish; no one wants to do it. Paul beseeches us to do this work so that we do it will fully. This is a good opportunity for us. Paul in his work of preaching the gospel was very diligent in doing so. He says that this is a grace given to him by God. We turn to 1 Corinthians 15:9-10;

9 ‘For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. ‘

Paul felt that he was not worthy to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God until he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. Jesus from heaven called out to him, “Saul, Saul, why are You persecuting Me?”

It made him wonder, “If I am serving the god I worship, why am I persecuting my Lord?” Turns out, he didn’t realise the Lord he was persecuting was Jesus. Later he changed this position in his faith . It was only with the grace of God was he called an apostle. Because he is now an apostle, he laboured more abundantly than they all, yet it was not his own strength but it was the grace of God which helped him and was with him.

The speaker had a believer share with him his testimony of serving God. There was a visiting activity that was meant to be very smooth. However, in the end, only half of the people participated in it. He was sad because he worked so hard to prepare but only half of the intended people attended.

Then someone told him, “When we do the work of God it’s not for us to showcase our abilities. It’s God who is leading and guiding and it’s Him who accomplishes the work. You do not need to think that you’re doing well and you’ve demonstrated your abilities. If not, you’d have taken what God has accomplished and make it your own.”

What we’ve been able to accomplish is by God abiding with us; being able to serve Him is through His abidance. If we have results in the end, that’s His grace. When we serve God, we can greatly experience His grace.

There was a couple who manages the church and is in charge of cleaning the church hall and also the speaker’s 3 meals. They used to be a shop owner but now they’re the caretakers of the church. Whenever the speaker has his meals with them, he often hears stories on how the grace of God was with them.

Once the brother was walking down the stairs, but his diabetes affects his vision and one of his eyes can’t really move. It was akin to having just one eye to look around. With only one eye, he wasn’t able to perceive the depth of the stairs. When he was walking down the stairs, he didn’t realise that he would be stepping on air. He stumbled and rolled down the stairs to the bottom. His wife was at home and suddenly heard a loud bump and his head hit the floor directly; he was unconscious. When one falls down, we’re most scared of hitting our heads.

His wife quickly came over and hugged him and called out his name. He made himself wake up and he felt fine; his wife wanted to send him to the hospital but he didn’t want to go. He said that he felt okay and could still move around. His family half-forced him to go to the hospital and found out that he was bleeding internally and he had a large swelling in his head. He was hospitalised for a week. By the grace of God, he was really fine and was discharged.

After a few months, his wife asked him, “Do you feel like your eyesight has improved?” He replied, “Yes, it’s true! In the past I’m not very steady when I walk but now it’s fine!” He went for an eye checkup. Initially, the nerves in his eyes were affected by diabetes and was incurable. But this time, he fell down and his eyes were healed! The doctors were unable to explain such a phenomena. Through this accident, the Lord Jesus healed his eye.

There was another testimony from his wife. She had a full body examination and did a chest x-ray. There was a shadow in his lungs and the doctors wanted to take a closer look at it. They decided to go to another doctor for a second opinion. The results from both doctors were the same; there was a shadow in her chest that needed further examination. Hence she went back to the first doctor. On the day they were ready to be hospitalised for a minor operation, they did a 2nd x-ray. When they went for the 2nd x-ray, the doctor stared at the X-ray thinking why the shadow disappeared.

The doctor asked, “Have you went for any treatment recently?”
“No, we just prayed”
“Oh, your God is good! You are healed.”

She was worried that if she had this health problem, she wouldn’t be able to serve the Lord. These are the experiences God has given them in the course of serving Him.

3 years ago, the church was looking for caretakers. The church approached them because they were retired. The older brother said, “Not possible! I can’t be a caretaker because this job is not done by man, it’s not a good job! If the church has 500 people, you’ll have 500 bosses. As a caretaker, the caretakers will ask you for help!”

That night, he was reading the Bible. He opened the bible and flipped to Haggai. There are only 2 chapters and so he read them both. As he read the Bible, God moved him. The people were living in panel houses laying in ruins and he thought that he had to take on the job, “The Lord has given us so much grace, how could I let the church be unmanaged?” That morning he found the job impossible but the next morning he accepted the job. His children weren’t very approving but the love of God moved him.

Although the process of serving of God can be tough, they experienced a lot of God’s grace. They feel very strongly that an opportunity to serve is a grace. To be alive is an opportunity and to serve is a grace of God.

We read 2 Timothy 1:6-7;

6 ‘Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.’

Paul encouraged Timothy to use the gift that is given to him to serve, to constantly stir up this fire of serving. You must rely on the help of God and not just on your own strength. Since God has given you this ability, He will surely help. We have to use this spirit of power and love and of a sound mind to rely on God to give the work given to us. We rely on God to guide and lead us to do the work. We must let the Holy Spirit help us accomplish the work we’ve been entrusted.

In the parable of Jesus of the ten virgins, we learnt that we must prepare oil in the lamp.

In the parable of the servants, we learnt that we have a good and faithful servant.

Our lamps must constantly be lit and our spirit of serving must constantly be burning. These 2 fires cannot be extinguished. Our lamp of spiritual nurture must constantly be lit and filled with oil. This fire of service must also be constantly burning so this fire will constantly stir us up so that when an opportunity presents itself, we’ll take the step to serve God. The process may be tough, but we’ll enjoy the grace of God’s. It depends on how you view it; whether you view the work of God as a grace or as a chore.