Audio recording of Lessons and Sermon:
Sermon Text: Luke 16:1-15
Date: October 4 & 5, 2014
Christ’s Love. Our Calling. Called to True Riches. Week 1
Luke 16:1–15 (NIV84)
Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’
“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
“ ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’
“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“ ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’
“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.”
We Are Called to be Free and to Give God Our Best
When you read a book do you ever flip to the end and read the last few pages? If we want to understand the parable in our sermon text, it helps to skip to the end. Luke wrote, “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.’” It’s no wonder the Pharisees opposed Jesus at every turn. Paul once wrote, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Did the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus spring from a fear that if they lost their power they would lose their source of income? The Pharisees weren’t the only people who struggled with a love of money. Judas, one of Jesus’ disciples, also struggled with a love of money. The other eleven disciples were no doubt tempted by the allure of money too.
Because of our sinful nature our hearts are also predisposed to love money. Despite recent fears and concerns of economic recessions, we are wealthier today in this nation than just about anyone else in any part of the world at any time in history. How many of the things we consider necessities did our grandparents even have? One of the fastest growing industries in our country is the storage industry. Most of us have so much stuff that we need more space to store it! We need to hear this parable just as much as the Pharisees and disciples needed to hear it.
Jesus said, “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’ Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’” “Cooking the books” is not a new practice in businesses. When confronted by his boss, did the manager confess and ask for mercy? No. He took action. He paved the way for his future by making friends in high places. The manager called in three people who owed his master significant amounts of money and slashed the amount they needed to pay back. What would you have done if you were the rich man who had just lost a fortune? He could have voided what the unjust manager had done but then he would have looked like a cheapskate.
What happened? Jesus continued, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” This must have shocked the disciples. Jesus had commended the crooked manager! How could that be? If you look carefully, the rich man commended the man’s shrewdness in taking care of his situation. The manager now had friends who were indebted to him. The manager had used money to accomplish his goals. Jesus followed up by telling the disciples to use worldly wealth to make friends as well.
Jesus continued his commentary on this parable: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?” In the final analysis the unjust manager could not be trusted with little things or big things! How about us? Can we be trusted with a little or a lot? And what is “a lot”? Jesus mentions “true riches.” Jesus goes on to explain what he means.
Jesus said, “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Someone might say, “I don’t want to be anyone’s servant. I want to be my own master.” That’s impossible. Every human being has one of two masters: God or the devil. In this context having money as a master is the same as having the devil as a master. Each one of us has struggled with the mastery of money in our lives. Especially in our materialistic culture money and possessions can control us like few other things. Whether we are considered poor or wealthy by the world’s standards, money and material things can become a focus and obsession. Our culture tells us that we are what we have, that the measure of a person is found in the clothes they wear, the car they drive, the house they live in, and even the cell phone they own! Money is a terrible master because we can never have enough, there’s always something else to buy or something else to enjoy. Money is a terrible master for another reason. Following and loving money will lead to only one place: hell. Putting money and possessions into first place in our hearts is rebellion against God. Rebellion is punishable by death, eternal death in hell.
By God’s grace we have a different Master though. By God’s grace he became our Master through the suffering and death of the very one who told today’s parable. Jesus, the man who owned virtually nothing, paid the price we owed because of our sins. And what was that price? A million dollars? A billion dollars? It was even more. Peter wrote in his first letter: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” God redeemed us with the life of his only Son. We are free from the mastery of the devil and money. We don’t serve them because we have another, wonderful Master: our Savior. We have the honor of following his direction.
And that leads us back to the unjust servant. The unjust servant used the resources he had. We can use the money God has given us instead of being used by it. What a change! We are free from the control of money because we are controlled by not by our sinful nature, but by God. And that’s what Christian stewardship is. Instead of being controlled by money and possessions we are under the control of the Lord; by his grace we can use the money, possessions, time, and talents he has given to us in service to him.
When King David was gathering materials that his son Solomon would eventually use to build the temple, he made an unfathomably generous contribution. We’re told in 1 Chronicles that David offered “3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 talents of refined silver.” While it’s really impossible for us to accurately compare the value of that then to now, in today’s standards, that sum of precious metals would amount to about $5 billion!
Why did he give such an amount? He knew the love of his Savior. He knew that God had washed him of the filth of his sins and made him his own child. David’s wasn’t buying God’s love or purchasing a place in heaven. He was using his material wealth to thank God for all that God had given to him. He also gave it for a purpose. The temple would stand for centuries as a special place for people to hear God’s Word and the message that God would forgive their sins. It would be a space to enable the people to bring their sacrifices and thanks to God. Through the work done at the temple, God would create and build up the faith in his people.
That’s the same opportunity we have in our congregation. Our offerings to church are one way that we can show our thanks to God for the physical blessings he’s given to us and the immeasurable spiritual blessings he’s given and will give. We support the work of Gloria Dei with our gifts and prayers because we know the work we have to do is so very important. We give our gifts out of pure joy that our sins have been forgiven. Like the manager used earthly wealth to gain friends for himself, we can in a much more positive way use our wealth to enable people to hear about their Savior. We can trade something temporary for something that will last eternally!
We don’t need to give $5 billion to be show our thanks and to enable others to hear about their Savior. David gave that much because he could. God never asks us to give what he hasn’t already given to us. That’s what makes percentage giving so very appropriate. The apostle Paul urged the Corinthians toward percentage-based giving when he said, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Giving a percentage, and budgeting that at the top of our budget, enables us to give of the best, not the left-overs.
Percentage giving grows or shrinks as our income grows or shrinks. If someone had made a plan to give $500 a month to church, and then lost his job, he could be loaded down with guilt because he could no longer afford to give that much money. But, if he had chosen a percentage of his income, that would go down as God saw fit to have his income go down. Likewise, if the child decides that she is going to give $5 to church every week, that might be a significant percentage of her babysitting and lawn-mowing money. But if that $5 stands as a constant even into her professional life as an adult, it might not really be “in keeping with [her] income” anymore.
In your bulletins there is a slip of paper with a worksheet for you and your families to work through together. There’s also a version of it online on our website. It gives you the opportunity to do some simple math and determine what percentage of your income you’re currently giving. This exercise will give you the opportunity to prayerfully consider whether or not you’re satisfied with that amount and then to perhaps make changes as you deem appropriate.
Sometimes churches, pastors, and members get uncomfortable talking about giving material blessings to support the work of a congregation, but if God isn’t uncomfortable talking about it, we shouldn’t be either. Money is one of the many tools God has given us to express our thanks and share our joy in Jesus. You have freely been given true riches by being set free from sins through Jesus. You will live eternally because of that gift that he’s given to you. As you have been given, may the Lord enable you to freely give. Amen.
