Luke 16:11 – “If you've not been faithful in unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? If you've not been faithful in that which is another man's, who will give you what's your own?”
Right there, He explains what He's looking for. He's looking for faithfulness, and He's looking in at least three dimensions:
1) How faithful are you in the little matters of life
2) Are you faithful with money - with the handling and management of your money? Your money represents your life, and they're an entrustment from God.
3) Are you faithful in serving someone else?
All three areas are vital requirements, to demonstrate faithfulness. Faithfulness in small things, that are not seen by anyone, but are seen by God. Faithfulness with your finances, and the way you manage and handle them and invest them. Faithfulness also in how you serve other people, which involves the church; your family; your work, and so on.
The focus is not how much you've been entrusted with, and that then puts everyone on a level playing field, because we tend to look and see others more gifted, more talented, and we tend to think: oh wow, they've got so much; but actually, that's not what God is looking for. He's not worried; the focus is not at all on how much you're entrusted. The focus entirely is what you do with it, so every believer is on a personal journey, to discover and to develop faithfulness.
That's what God is looking for - your capacity to take responsibility, and partner with Him, in establishing His kingdom in the earth. He's designed a plan; and the plan's very simple. Who is going to be faithful? Who can I trust? Who can I rely upon? Who is dependable? Rather than have some magical process, it's a very simple process - God just observes how you do your life now.
From that, He can assess - are you trustworthy, are you reliable, are you faithful, are you dependable? Really simple, and of course, looking around at people, you see that many are not faithful at all. Faithfulness is a quality that is missing in so many people. The goods entrusted are small, but the possibility for the future is great.
Faithful in small things? I will make you ruler over many things! Faithful in this, I'll make you ruler over cities. He's trying to not actually specify what He will entrust to us; it involves little now, but much then. He's trying to highlight the difference between what's at stake for us, and what's involved now. It doesn't matter what small level of responsibility, gifting, or anything you have - it's what you do with it, is the very important thing.
You see that demonstrated in the Parable of the Talents, where one had five, and gained another five - that's a hundredfold increase. One had two, gained another two - a hundredfold increase. God did not make any mention of the amounts they had, just that they were faithful with it. Both were equally productive; and both were given the same reward.
In the Parable of the Pounds, it's different. They all started with one each, but one got 10, so he receives a greater reward - greater diligence, focus, and effort. He's proven himself to be extremely productive and is rewarded accordingly.
Now, here's the thing I want you to see. The focus on both parables, is the servant who fails! If you count up the number of verses that talk about the servant who fails, you'll find there's seven on the servant who fails; but if you look at the number of verses about the other two servants, there's only three for each of them.
When someone has got a lot to say about something, it's because it's more important, and so the focus here on the seven verses, are on the person who had only the one talent. If you look back in the two parables prior to that, the Parable of the Virgins (five wise, five foolish) - same thing. There are more verses on the foolish virgins, than on the wise.
Go back one more parable, into Matthew 24, and there it is again - there are more verses on the foolish servant, than on the wise servant. Three parables in a row, and the greater focus is on the person who failed, the servant who failed, so that means that the identity of the third servant is absolutely the key for the parable. If you don't think it could be you, you will miss the point of the parable.