Key points
- 1
1Playing life as an 'owner' is a foolish way to live, because everything you accumulate is left behind when you die.
Pastor Linn walks through the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12, where a man builds bigger barns to store his abundant harvest and plans to 'eat, drink and be merry,' only to have God call him a fool because his life is demanded that same night. He points out the man never once asked why God gave him such a harvest or what God wanted him to do with it, because he was certain it was all his. He compares this to the board game The Game of Life, where at the end all your acquired wealth goes back into the box — you're no better off for having won.
Illustration
The board game 'The Game of Life' used to illustrate accumulating wealth that ultimately returns 'to the box'
- 2
2By contrast, Jesus describes the life of a faithful manager in the parable of the bags of gold, where the master entrusts his wealth to servants before going on a journey.
Pastor Linn explains that in Matthew 25, the master represents God, the servants represent us, and the bags of gold represent everything God places in our hands — our life, time, talents, and finances. Two servants invest what they're given and double it, while a third buries his one bag out of fear, and Pastor Linn stresses that in every case ownership never actually passes from the master.
“This is exactly what Jesus is saying to you and me”
- 3
3Your life, time, talents, and money are all on loan from God, not things you own or earned on your own.
He unpacks each category one at a time: your life is on loan (citing that we are bought with a price and don't belong to ourselves), your time is a gift since none of us truly owns our hours, your talents were given before you were born and matched to God's assignment for you, and your money ultimately belongs to Him because everything in the earth is His.
“Your life isn't your life”
- 4
4The faithful servants who invested what they were given are commended and entrusted with even more, picturing our future accounting before God.
Pastor Linn describes the master's return in Matthew 25:19-23 as picturing an appointment every person has with God, where He will ask what we did with the life, time, talents, and finances He loaned us. He imagines the joy of hearing 'well done' versus the regret of realizing we lived as owners instead of managers, and notes that heaven itself will involve ongoing purposeful work, not passive rest.
- 5
5The servant who buried his one bag of gold reveals the real reasons we resist being managers: pride in our own effort, comparison with others, and distrust of God's heart.
Pastor Linn works through the third servant's excuse in Matthew 25:24-30, that he saw God as a hard man reaping where He hadn't sown, and reframes it as our own tendency to think our success is purely our own doing when in fact God was present in every step. He also names comparison ('that guy got five, I got one measly') and distrust of God's goodness as what keeps people from investing faithfully, noting that faithfulness with little leads to being trusted with more.
“God has been with you on every aspect. You did not do this by yourself. You did not earn it on your own”
- 6
6The invitation is to ask God directly what He wants done with your life, time, talents, and money, even when the answer is a little scary.
Pastor Linn closes by challenging the church to pray for seven days, asking God what He hopes they'll do with their life, time, talents, and finances, and to trust that a scary answer is often a sign it's genuinely from Him. He points to David facing Goliath, Gideon's 300 men, and Moses before Pharaoh as examples that God does His best work on the other side of fear.
“owners always lose, managers always win”
“If you play your life, if you live your life as if you're an owner, you will always lose”
“But if you will live your life like a manager, then you are absolutely guaranteed to win”
A story from life
Story about playing Canasta with friends and teaching new players the rules
Application
Pastor Linn's challenge is simple but searching: for the next seven days, ask God directly what He wants you to do with your life, your time, your talents, and your finances. Not in a vague way, but specifically — is He asking you to be a better spouse or parent, to serve in a particular place, to use an ability you've been hiding, or to invest a portion of your money in the kingdom? He warns that if the answer scares you a little, that's usually a sign it's genuinely from God, since God tends to do His best work on the other side of our fear. The real question every listener has to answer is whether they'll keep living like an owner, holding tightly to what they assume is theirs, or start living like a manager who trusts that God's heart is good and that whatever is given back to Him will be blessed far beyond the sacrifice.
