Summary
Pastor Jeremy preaches out of Luke 16:1-15, urging us to be wise stewards of our resources by using them for eternal purposes rather than selfish gain. He reminds us that our handling of money reveals the true loyalty of our hearts—whether we serve God or wealth.
Transcript
If you would turn to Luke chapter 16, I'm gonna start in verse 10. "One who is faithful and very little is also faithful and much. And the one who is dishonest and very little is also dishonest and much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters." Take your seats and let's pray. Father, today we come to you with hearts desiring to hear from you. Every day many of us are on our knees asking you to speak in our lives, or asking you to lead our lives, to teach us, to guide us, to protect us. And Lord, you are so faithful in that work. We get to enjoy this new space again. Lord, speak to us today as we set apart this place as a sanctuary. Once was a gym, but now for this two hours it's a sanctuary unto you. Set apart for holy things, for righteous things, for good things that only you could do by your hands and by your work. And so Lord, now bring a swift word through your word today. We're praying in the name of Jesus, amen. In the wisdom of the book of Proverbs, it tells us to guard our hearts. In fact, it says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for from it that heart flows the wellspring of your life." Otherwise, the very life you have, all the good things, all the wisdom, all the power, all the truth, everything that's worth value flows from that heart that God wants you to guard. He wants you to guard it, to protect it, to put a hedge around it. And unfortunately, Jesus has now started his ministry, and we've seen throughout the book of Luke that he's found a people. He's found a nation. He's found leaders who have not guarded their hearts. And the main sickness that he's going to deal with today is the sickness called the love of money. It's deep in their bones. It's deep in their blood. It's showing up in their lifestyle. It's taking over their lives. They have not guarded their hearts. So today, what Jesus is going to do is he's going to teach his disciples how to guard their hearts from the love of money and where to focus their life and their investment and their faith for the kingdom of God. And my prayer for us today, the Holy Church, is that you would be challenged to consider where you maybe have let the love of money seep into your life. And how by the end of this time, you'll know how to best invest your life for the kingdom. Because that's what Jesus is trying to teach us today through this passage. Let's start at the top of verse 16, verse 1. It says this, "He also said to the disciples, 'There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.' And he called him, that manager, and he said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be my manager.'" And so we have this rich man who is a very rich man, rich enough to even have a manager overseeing his possessions, taking care of his accounts. He now turns to this manager and the manager says this. In fact, the manager says this to himself. The manager says, "Well, now that he knows he's been fired, what shall I do? What now? I've been found out. What shall I do?" And since my master is taking the management away from me, this rhetorical question, I love what he says next. Because now he has to figure out how to take care of himself. So he goes, "I'm not strong enough to dig." So now this man of low character who's been dishonest now identifies another character flaw that he has. He's not strong enough to dig. Now for those of us who've ever dug ditches, we know that rarely is a man strong enough to dig. I've been around guys who dig for a living and you don't just start that strong. You have to dig and dig and dig day after day, week after week, and then you get strong enough to be someone who can dig. But what's his problem? His problem is he doesn't want to learn how to dig. No. He's got another problem. Here it comes. And I'm ashamed to beg. Now on the surface, the begging could be just begging for money. But I wonder, could he beg for a job? Could he beg for help to find something new to do? He's a proud man. He's a lazy man. He's a dishonest man. This is a man of low character. But he has this epiphany, verse four. I've decided what I'll do so that when I am removed from the management, people may receive me into their houses. Now we're getting to his motives. He's looking for someone just to lay his head. Somewhere that I can just have a meal and just rest my head for a night, or maybe a few nights, or maybe more than a few nights. So I have an idea. Something that'll get this for me. What's he going to do? So he summons his master's debtors one by one. He said to the first one, "How much money do you owe my master?" The man replied, "Well, 100 measures of oil." And he said to him, "Well, take your bill and sit down quickly and write down 50. Let's cut it in half." Now these measures of oil, depending on how you do the calculations, this could have been anywhere from two to three years of wages. It's a big savings. He earned a friend, for sure. Now the next guy, he goes to, "How much do you owe my master?" And he said, "100 measures of wheat." He said, "Okay, well take your bill and write down 80." He saved another man probably a year of wages. He earned another friend that hopefully will take him in. Especially in a culture like this, in this first century Jewish culture, it's a reciprocity culture where if I give you this, you'll give me this. It's a give and take kind of culture. So he knows by making these deals, he's working out something for himself one day. That's his motive. I don't want to work too hard. I don't want to beg for it. I want to set myself up so I can get it. Now, an odd thing comes next, verse 8. The master commends him. Now as faithful Bible readers, we might want to read more into this than what's here. But for some reason, this master, after firing this man and having this man go off and clear these accounts, he commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Interesting. I don't know about you, but for my common English vernacular, when I hear the word shrewd, I think of a sly, sneaky, evil person. Shrewd. Who wants to be shrewd? I don't know about you, but I don't. At least when I think about the way I've always understood the word shrewd. But when I look deeper into the meaning of this word in the context of this passage, the word means wise. The word means cunning. It means practical in getting things done. Prudent, even. That's what the word means in the etymology for the Greek and even Latin. The word shrewd means those four things I just said, prude, wise, cunning, practical in getting things done. So he was commended for being deliberate about getting the job done for this master to serve himself, though. Very interesting. Shrewdness. And so now in the next two verses, what Jesus is going to do, now he's told this story. Now what he's going to do is he's going to give an interpretation in this one verse, and then he's going to give a command in the second verse. The first verse, the first verse, the interpretation is at the end of verse eight. It says, "For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light." Really? Jesus, are you saying that the worldly people are more shrewd in getting what they want, what they are driven by, than what the sons of light are, or how the sons of light are? That's what he's saying. He's saying somehow these people in this generation are more shrewd at getting things done, namely connected to money than the sons of light are. How is that? Why is that? Fascinating. This weekend, actually this entire week, my family and I, we went on a little road trip, about seven hours up to Windsor, California. It's kind of like Sonoma County. We had a great time. We had this little time share my parents bought years ago, and we were watching TV one night, and they had the Shark Tank on. You guys don't know the Shark Tank? Shark Tank, if you know the premise of the Shark Tank, essentially there are these hot shot entrepreneurs and business people who, they allow common everyday people to come in and pitch their product ideas. And this one guy was pitching a product idea, and he came in and he's like, you know, he has this app, and the app is going to help you navigate airports, and how do you get around, and how do you kind of figure out these airports. And it was this very interesting app, but the bottom line is they weren't buying it. All of them said no. Each Shark. And at the end of it, it was really sad. This guy, he just, he was moved to tears. He's like, I just worked so hard. I mean, the blood, sweat, and tears to create this idea, and to create this product, and then he was stopped by Mark Cuban. And Mark Cuban says, we all work 70 hours a week. You're not special. We all work hard. And when I heard that, it struck me that people like him, they don't let their eyes sleep driving after what they want in life. There's a certain drive that the world has to get rich or die trying that some of us can't relate with. They know what they want, and it's the seen things. These seen things are driving everyone. The world is driven by the things we see. Christians are driven by the unseen things. That's the difference. It takes great faith to be driven more than the sons of men. They're working harder than we are. That's what Jesus is saying. They're driven more than we are. May it never be. Money can buy medicine, but not health. Money can buy a house, but not a home. Money can buy companionship, but not friends. Money can buy entertainment, but not happiness. Money can buy food, but not an appetite. Money can buy a bed, but no sleep. Money can even buy a crucifix, but no savior. Money can buy a good life, but not an eternal one. The world sees the things, and they fight hard to get them. Jesus' interpretation of the world is through this parable and the drive of the dishonest that maybe drives them more than it drives us to reach their goal. More than we want to reach our goal. So what is our goal? Here's the command he gives after his interpretation. Verse 9. Here it is. You always know when he says, "I tell you," now he's talking to you, right? "The disciples, I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails," because it's going to fail, "they may receive you into the eternal dwellings." So what he's saying is that all the money you have today, all of it is unrighteous, because it will not be there in eternity. Every dollar you can ever imagine that you could amass in your life will have no meaning or purpose in the eternal kingdom. We must use all the money we have to reach people that do not know Christ. And we must invest in kingdom things so that when that day comes and we get to that kingdom place where we look at our solely friends. Remember last week, you know, Pastor David said that we want to be kind of like cheers, the place where everyone knows our name. Maybe our slogan could be, "The church where everyone knows your name now and in heaven." I think a part of this is what he's talking about, that you're investing in the people that you expect to see and you pray to see in eternity. And your investment is your dollars, and frankly, your unrighteous dollars. He's driving at helping these disciples learn how to use their money mainly, fundamentally, for the kingdom. Dollars exist for the kingdom. And that's why when they fail, it won't matter to you because your goal is to have those friends receive you into the internal dwelling. Here's an illustration for you. Imagine you are someone living near the Civil War time. You're a northerner who's moved to the south and you've amassed a major wealth, a lot of money. But you're in the south now and you got a lot. But then you find out for a fact that the war is going to happen and the south is going to lose and all that money is going to be worthless. So what do you do with it? You have southerner cash and currency, but you're a northerner. If you're smart, you'll sell your southern cash and get northerner cash because you have to go back home and you'll keep just enough to meet the short-term needs. You see, for us as Christians, we have been given through Christ an interpretation on our cash today. Our currency right now is going to be obsolete. And Jesus is asking us to transfer our funds from the earth to heaven. And they are insured by God for His people. This is what He's saying here. And so this is the message to the disciples. And now He's still in this scene where He's been teaching to these crowds. And so He's sharing these ideas to the disciples that people are listening. But now He's getting a little more practical into some of those warning signs for if you have fallen into the love of money. Here are the warning signs now. He's given the interpretation of the parable. He's given the command about investing in the kingdom. But now He's in a shift to these are the warning signs. If you've let the love of money get into your heart. Here's the first one. It's kind of like the me part. It's you individually. Here it is, verse 9. Where are we at? Verse 9. Here we go. Actually, I'm sorry. Verse 10. "One who is faithful and very little is also faithful and much. And one who is dishonest and very little is also dishonest and much." If you've been faithful and little, you will be faithful and much. You will. But if you've been dishonest with the little, you'll be dishonest with much. Some of us sometimes say things like, "If I had more, I would give more." But the truth is Jesus is showing the heart and getting right to the heart. And the fact is the widow's might was the example of the person who didn't have much. But they were honest with the little. Guess how many, you know, the people who win the lottery, just guess how many of them go bankrupt. What percentage would you imagine? That these people win tens of millions of dollars. Surely they would give. 70% of them filed bankruptcy. They've been given, they've been dishonest with the little, and they were dishonest with a lot. This is not a matter of how much dollars, how many dollars you have. This is a matter of your character and your heart before the Lord. Little children, start learning how to give for the Lord now. Even your little dollar or your little quarter, mothers, fathers, grandmas, and grandpas, Jesus is calling us to have a pattern of giving now in our life and being faithful with the little we have now. Next verse. This is about management. So first it's like, "How am I seeing, where's my heart with my giving? Am I someone who's honest with the little?" But then he goes in like, "How are you managing what you have?" Verse 11. "If you then have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth," this is not time and talents, this is cash, "who will entrust to you true riches?" Now I want you to catch this because this is chilling in my mind. He's connecting the fact that if you have not been faithful now in this earthly, unrighteous time with your wealth, then how is he going to give you true riches in heaven? He's testing us now with how we use our cash today, somehow connected to how he's going to bless us in the future when it belongs to us. One of the biggest lies we have is that the things we have are ours. The Bible tells us that it all belongs to him, everything. It's all his. Everything belongs to him. He's the owner. He's the master and we are the manager, the steward. Deuteronomy 10, 14 says, "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens and earth and all that is in it." Psalm 24-1, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it." Then Paul says it really good in 1 Timothy 6-7, "We have brought nothing into the world so we cannot take anything out of it." It's all his. And Jesus is teaching these disciples as they're starting this journey of building the church alongside Christ. Don't let it happen to you. You have a little, be faithful with it. Remember, I'm the manager. It's all in my hands. It all belongs to me. And so manage it wisely. Use it well for the kingdom so that people will greet you in the eternal place. That's verse 11. Now verse 13. This is where it gets into a deeper place. And I would say the deeper place is the question that all of us long to have, I guess, answered in so many ways. You know, we think about the day where Jesus will tell us, "Well done, good and faithful servant," right? We all long for that day. We all pray that every day, that we are those people. But could it be that he's not your master? That's what he's saying here. Here's what he says. "No servant can serve two masters." Actually, let me, yeah, no servant can serve two masters. "For either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other." You cannot serve God in money. You cannot serve God in money. So Jesus now is challenging his disciples to not let this sickness get into their lives, but to remember that their true focus and devotion is to him as the one they serve. Now they can't serve God in money. A.W. Pink wrote this. He said, "These two, God and money, are diametrically opposed, God and money. One commands you to walk by faith, the other to walk by sight. One to be humble, the other to be proud. One to set your affections on things above, and the other to set them on the things that are below on earth. One to look at the things that are unseen and eternal, and the other to look at things that are seen and temporal. One to have your conversation in heaven, and the other to cleave to the dust. One to be careful for nothing, and the other to be all anxious. One to be content with such things as you have, and the other to enlarge your desires. One to be ready to distribute, and the other to be committed to withholding. One to look at things of others, and the other to look at only one's own things. One to seek happiness in the Creator, and the other to seek happiness in the creature. Is it not plain? Is it not plain? So Jesus is helping them consider their hearts about money, and where they can be strong, where they can have faith. This is his talk to his disciples, and like I said, people are listening. And the people who are listening are the Pharisees, and what do they love? Money. Verse 14, "The Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus." They ridiculed Jesus. They were lovers of money. They ridiculed him. I must admit, I've been preparing this message for the last week, and I felt unqualified to teach it. Really unqualified to teach it, because you know, you seek to be faithful. The Lord blesses you, and sometimes you don't use it right. We're faithful for Him. I think that's something that I felt as I started reading through this and teaching this, and even considering teaching this. And so what I wanted to just pause right here and just consider, I know Jesus already gave some application. But I just wanted to, before we go to this last part of this verse, just consider these Pharisees. And I don't see the pulpit as a confessional. But I was imagining talking to myself. And talking to myself, what would I say to myself as far as what I would need to hear? Just considering the backdrop of the Pharisees being lovers of money, contrasted from the disciples who are being trained up to do what's right. And I would say to myself, Jeremy, you need more investing in the kingdom, and less in your stuff. Jeremy, you need to lower your debts so you can be freer to give. Jeremy, you need to ask me to increase your faith. Lord, ask me to increase my faith so that I can be committed to the unseen things more than the seen things. And then last was what this verse says next. I think it's important. As I look in the mirror, I don't want Jesus to talk to me like he's about to talk to the Pharisees. That's why I need to say this to myself first. Because I need to know what medicine I need for my soul. And so Jesus says to the Pharisees, you are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your heart. Otherwise, all of you Pharisees who are lovers of money, hang around men who are lovers of money, and you all pat yourselves in the back about how well you're doing with your money. Justifying yourself before God when you are really lovers of money and not committed to the kingdom of God. People who are serving God, not money. God knows their hearts, he says, for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. He says it clearly. That somehow in some way our people here in Israel, these Pharisees, have exalted their status, their honor, their power, their finances. But all of it is an abomination to God. And brothers and sisters, we live in a world right now in the church where we could be the same. Exalting all the things the world praises, but it's an abomination in the sight of God. And so I look at this, and as he finishes this last message to these disciples and last message to these Pharisees, I recognize the context. And I recognize the context is that these people have been walking with Jesus, these disciples. This message isn't fundamentally to beat them up, to beat them down. He's trying to train them up and to be people of faith. The context is that he's been walking with them where just a chapter ago he showed them the heart of God, how God is like the woman who lost the coin. And she searched her house and when she found the coin, she rejoiced with her friends. And then Jesus says that all of heaven rejoices with her. And then how the heart of God, God is like the shepherd who left the 99 who thought they didn't need repentance for the one who wanted to repent and trust in God. And heaven rejoiced for that one who wanted to repent. And then God is like the father who has two sons where one son went away, spent all he had and wasted his possessions, but he came back with a broken heart and he was received by the father as the father ran down and comforted him. In the context of the story, it's the father and the son shepherding the people to become who he's calling them to become. To lift them up and to free them to be the people of faith he's calling them to be. This is not merely about giving. It's about living for the kingdom of God and being free from the stuff that's killing us and killing them and killing the Pharisees. This is a message of faith, hope, and life for these disciples. Jesus came to the house of Israel and their hearts were not guarded. But now he has a new people, the least of these, the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes who have broken hearts and open hands to receive the good things of God to be used for him. It's by faith that we become the kind of people who are so committed to the eternal things of God. We get to use all that we have for him, for his purposes, for his kingdom. I want to end with this poem that I found and I thought it was fitting. As we think about Jesus and his role in lifting us up and helping us to be the kingdom people that he's calling us to be on mission with him. This woman's name was Martha Nicholson. One by one he took them from me, all the things I valued most, until I was empty handed. Every glittering toy was lost and I walked earth's highway grieving in my rags and poverty till I heard his voice inviting me. Lift up those empty hands. So I held my hands toward heaven and he filled them with a store of his own transcendent riches, so they could contain no more. And at last I comprehended with my stupid, dull mind that God could not pour his riches into my hands that were already full. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Lord, we are so grateful that you have filled our hearts with faith, that we get to be your managers. We get to be the kind of people that are guarding our hearts from this sickness that can take us out, Lord. Help us to be true in a sense with the money you've given us now so that we could be the kind of people that invest deeply in the things of God. Lord, help us to be there on that day where we get to smile as we see people greet us for the investment we made in their lives in the internal place, Lord. Help us to work unto the Lord with the Lord by the Spirit, by faith to use our lives and our riches for the kingdom of God. We pray in the name of Jesus, amen.