God Doesn’t Want Your Jam

Have you ever heard of “graduation goggles”? It’s a phenomenon describing looking back at something right before you leave it, where suddenly everything looks better than it actually was. It’s very common when graduating high school or college, where as you exit, you think that the cafeteria food wasn't that bad, those people weren't that annoying, and that you loved living with your objectively messy roommate. You leave thinking “I’m going to miss this.”

We do something similar when looking to the future. We tend to view the future as a time where all of our problems go away. In this idealization of the future, we believe that the next season will be significantly better simply because it's different. We think, as soon as I get past this (graduating college, rough patch at work, etc.), life will be great.

Do you notice what these two mindsets have in common? They both undervalue the present.

Turns out we don't just do this with roommates and careers. We do it with God too.

We look to the past with God and remind Him of all the good times we had. We don’t offer him fruitfulness in the current season. We offer Him jam. Jam is last season’s fruit. We offer past faithfulness as if it were current. We say “Right now isn’t great, but don’t you remember how good it was back then? Before the kids. Before the career. Before other things took my time and attention.”

Maybe it isn’t the past, but the future we want to focus our eyes on. In that case, we become like a weatherman, telling God that current conditions aren’t conducive to fruitfulness, but next season, we will have clear skies and clear calendars. When the kids move out, when I retire, or when we get that promotion to a level where we are in control.

And in both cases, we miss what God truly desires from us: present faithfulness.

Jesus told a story about this. In Matthew 25, a master leaves on a long journey and entrusts his servants with significant resources. Two of them go to work immediately. The third buries his portion in the ground and waits for the master to return.

When the master comes back, the third servant returns exactly what he was given. Nothing more. Nothing less. He thought he was being responsible. He thought he was being wise. But the master calls it wicked and lazy.

Here's what's easy to miss: the third servant wasn't lazy in the way we typically think of laziness. He had a skewed view of the master. He tells him, "I knew you to be a hard man.” His burying wasn't random, but the direct result of what he believed about who the master was.

He offered the master the safest possible version of faithfulness. Which turned out to be no faithfulness at all.

Jam. Weather reports. A talent in the ground. Different packaging, same avoidance.

Here’s the truth: A wrong view of God produced a buried life.

When we view God as a tyrant to be feared, we hide. We offer excuses. We do not want to be close to Him. We bury what has been entrusted to us. That’s exactly what the third servant did.

But the master in Jesus’s story isn’t who the third servant thought he was. In fact, Jesus didn’t leave us alone to figure out who the master is. He came himself. Not to demand more from us, but to restore us to the relationship the third servant never believed was possible. He took our sin and shame on the cross, and rose so that the invitation of the parable could stand: enter into my joy.

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2, ESV)

That’s not the picture painted by the third servant. That’s a master who gives to us, not takes from us.

When we see God as He is—loving, forgiving, generous, and relational—something changes. We don’t bury what He has invested in us out of fear. Ultimately, what God wants is our faithfulness to be the outcome of our relationship with him. Not the other way around.

So where does that leave us?

We have to answer a very important question: How do you see God? Do you see Him as the third servant did, or do you see Him as the God who says “enter into my joy”?

This is important because what you believe about God determines what you do with what’s entrusted to you. And what He’s entrusted to us is the whole of our lives. Our time. Our money. Our relationships. Our passions. He isn’t demanding a certain return on that investment, but He does want us to be faithful with those things. And when we hold onto those investments out of fear, we are not living the life God wants for us.

God desires present faithfulness. He doesn’t want our jam. He doesn’t want our weather report. He wants us to do the next right thing. To follow Him the best we can. He wants us to be faithful.

So have that conversation you’ve been putting off. Forgive that person who hurt you. Begin to be generous even though you can’t see how. Start that small group. Take the step you’ve been forecasting.

God isn’t a master looking to take from you. He is the one who endured the cross for a chance at relationship with you. And He is inviting you into relationship with Him. Into the joy of the master.

This post was drawn from a recent sermon on the Parable of the Talents. If you want to go deeper, you can watch the full sermon here.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you.

Philip