Luke 16:1-13

Discussion Questions

• Luke 16:1-8 contains a story about a rich man and a manager. What is the difference between ownership and stewardship? Why is “…autonomy is impossible for a steward…(Calvin Beisner)” ? Why is accountability essential for a steward?
• How can we use earthly wealth for eternal purposes?
• Pastor Tom mentioned that “a lack of integrity when it comes to money should be like a fire alarm” and “the money that stays in our checking account is just as much a worship report as anything else in our lives.” Do you agree? Why?
• Jesus warns us not to let money become our master (Luke 16:13). Pastor Tom adds, “money as a master demands everything and offers no rest.” Have you ever experienced money as a cruel master? How can you manage wealth while serving Jesus as your master?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. If you’d like to follow along in a paper copy, slip up your hand. Someone will be glad to bring one to you. And in case we have not met, my name is Tom Yarbrough. I’m one of your pastors here at TVC. I would very much like to meet you and get to know you, so please know that. If we haven’t, maybe today you could introduce yourself after the study. Welcome to our online TVCers who are joining us on the broadcast. We’ve been joined recently by folks from as far away as Cape Town, South Africa; Dublin, Ireland; Plano, Texas; and as close to home as Louisville, Kentucky. Wherever you’re joining from, we are glad that you’re worshiping with us today.

As we continue on in Luke’s gospel, we begin what we call Chapter 16. If you’re in one of the pew Bibles, that’s on page 60; the New Testament has its own page sequence separate from the Old Testament in those Bibles, so it’s on page 60. And Jesus, very much now set toward Jerusalem, is teaching and speaking about His kingdom through the use of parables. Last week, Pastor Tommy had the privilege of teaching what is widely regarded as the greatest of all the parables of Jesus, The Prodigal Son. However, this week, I have the unfortunate job of following that with what is widely considered to be one of the most confusing parables of Jesus, certainly one of the hardest to make sense of. So, Emily, when you said, “Oh, it’ll be such a letdown,” I said, “Just wait.”

So, I just want to start by reminding us that this is God’s Word, not our word, and the mind behind this book is a divine and eternal mind. It’s not a human mind like ours. So, when we struggle to understand things in this book, it is not due to some fault in God’s Word. It’s due to a naturally limited understanding on our part. Let’s remember that. So, if nothing else may we leave today humbled by that fact. But I do hope that we leave with more than that. I also want to remind us that it’s okay to be unsettled by the parables of Jesus. They should cause us to squirm a little, scratch our heads, think, perhaps even change. Their original hearers would have done the same thing. So, if you are not sure what to make of what we read this morning, and I might not be either, but if we feel challenged, we might be right where God wants us to be.

Let me pray for our time in the word today: Father, be with us now as we mine the depths of Your Word to us and may the riches we find therein lead us to desire, know, and experience more of Your endless love for us. Continue to receive our worship during this time. In the name of Jesus, amen.

We find throughout Luke’s gospel a particular emphasis on money and possessions, on rich and poor, on servants and masters. I think we especially see an invitation from Jesus to radically reorient, maybe even turn upside down, our idea of what economics looks like in His kingdom. Over and over again, Luke presents these kinds of reversals in status for the people Jesus interacts with. Lowly people are elevated. Powerful people are warned of their coming downfall. The hungry are filled, but the rich often go away empty. The parable we’ll study today only appears in Luke’s gospel. It acts as a kind of bridge thematically between The Prodigal Son, where we saw a lost son wasting his inheritance, and the one we’ll cover next week, which also begins with a rich man. I’m going to give you some things ahead of time to consider while we read this together.

On the screen, you will find four truths about money that we see in this passage. Number one, money is certain to fail. Number two, money is a useful tool for eternal purposes. Number three, money is a small thing compared to true riches. Number four, money is a terrible master. Let’s read together starting in verse 1 of Chapter 16: “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 and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” And the manager said to himself, “What shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.”

“’So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He said, “A hundred measures of oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50.” Then he said to another, “And how much do you owe?” He said, “A hundred measures of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and write 80.” The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in 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, for 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 God and money.’” This is God’s Word. Thanks be to God.

So, what’s going on here? You might be asking. The first thing we should notice is the audience. We saw at the beginning of last week’s teaching in Chapter 15 that tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus. And we know the Pharisees and scribes are near enough to see and hear what is going on, because they are grumbling about this. And we’ll actually see next week in verse 14, one past what we read just now of this chapter, that the Pharisees can certainly hear Him because they ridicule Him after He says all those things about money and possessions. But here He’s talking to His disciples. He has some specific concerns for those who identify as His followers. And He begins with the story of a dishonest manager or a steward, you might see in your Bible. So, this is someone who has been entrusted to manage the financial or trade accounts and affairs of his rich master, who apparently deals in commodities. We specifically see oil and wheat referenced here. And the matter here is that his manager has been wasting or squandering his, the master’s, possessions. And this is actually the same word that we see in the previous parable when the younger son has taken his inheritance early and squanders his property on reckless living in a far country.

So, this is another look at wasteful living, or in this case, wasteful and dishonest working. The master hears that this manager has been mismanaging his possessions, his wealth. He calls him and confronts him, “What is this I’m hearing? “Turn in the books. “Give an account for what you were entrusted with. “You are fired.” And notice the manager doesn’t deny or defend this in any way. So, we have to assume that these charges are true. This manager knows his time is up, and he begins to think about his future in light of his present circumstances. Pay attention to that, that’s important. He begins to consider his future in light of his present circumstances, and he knows that he has to come up with a plan. He considers manual labor, which would be available to him, but he knows that’s out of the question. He says, “I can’t dig.” He isn’t able to do that kind of work. He will not even consider begging. And in verse four, when he says, “I have decided what to do, “we can think of this as an aha eureka. “I’ve got it.” The light bulb goes off for this manager. That’s the moment that this is for him. He has this brilliant idea. “I’ve got it,” he says. “I know what I can do to ensure that I have people “who will receive me into their homes “when I no longer have this position.”

And whether that’s because he knows he will have basic needs that need to be met or because he just wants to ensure future business is not really clear, but we know that he has a plan to make sure that he has a future in this place with these people. So, he goes through this dishonest and sneaky process of reducing what his master’s debtors owe to his master. He doesn’t have the authority to cut these deals. We see that one of their bills is cut in half and the other is reduced by 20%. That’s only two debtors and two commodities. I think it’s safe to assume that this is probably a glimpse of a pattern that he now engages in with all the accounts that he manages. I also think it’s interesting that he had to ask the debtors what their bill was. He’s the manager. Right, so we go back to the original charge that the master has heard, you’re not managing this well. He doesn’t even know how much they owe. Some speculate that he was actually cheating these people with high interest and the discounted amounts for him seemingly giving them some sort of a discount out of kindness. I just don’t think there’s anything all that shrewd about that when we consider it. And we just don’t know how these discounts would have affected the master in terms of what he expected to have coming in on his goods.

But I think what he’s doing here that’s worth paying attention to is that he’s taking a vertical arrangement, lender, debtor. And he’s flipping it into a horizontal relationship. I’m doing you a favor with the expectation that you’re going to reciprocate in kind at some point in the future. In verse eight, Jesus says that the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Let’s make sure we have a good grasp on what this is and what it’s not before we go on. We’ll put it on the screen. Shrewd in this case, the Greek, phronimos, prudent or wise. Shrewdness here refers to astuteness, practical wisdom, cleverness, navigating difficult situations, especially when dealing with people or resources. Shrewdness is really just what we might call street smarts. So, what is Jesus saying that the master was commending here? We need to be careful as we read this because it could get confusing. Jesus doesn’t say that the master commended the shrewd manager for his dishonesty. He says he commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. So, the fact that he is being commended, the fact that he has done something that the master cannot deny was forward thinking and clever does not mean that it’s not still dishonest. And the dishonesty is still not okay.

If you have children, have you ever had a moment when your child does something so sneaky that you’re actually impressed? I’ve had, we’ve seen that. I could give you a couple of examples. You still teach them that dishonesty or disobedience is not okay. They still receive discipline, but you think to yourself, “Wow, that was clever. I hope my child grows up to use that kind of clever thinking for something good.” Right? It’s not okay to be dishonest. Jesus is not saying that dishonesty is okay, and we’ll see more about dishonesty here in a bit. But that’s, I think, what is going on here. So, Jesus says the master commended the shrewdness of this dishonest manager and then he immediately provides to his disciples an application for this. He says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” So, two kinds of sons here, who are they? The sons of this world are those who concern themselves with the affairs of this world. They have limited earthly ambitions. They have a limited earthly approach toward a limited earthly destination. And Jesus says they are shrewd in their ambition toward that limited earthly destination.

What did the dishonest manager do? He ensured that he had earthly homes that would open to him in the future. Whether that was for worldly needs or worldly commerce, it was a worldly solution. And in contrast, Jesus is saying that the sons of light, those who know the truth, those who are in relationship with the way, the truth and the life are less shrewd when it comes to the eternal things that they are concerned with than these sons of the Earth. They’re less forward thinking when it comes to the present as it relates to their eternal home. You can think of this as one of those “how much more than” moments from Jesus. We sometimes read Jesus giving an example of a worldly situation, for instance, a father that wants good things for his children. Or later in Luke, the lazy judge who is giving in to the persistent widow. And Jesus essentially says, “If this is how it works in the world, then how much more will I hear you, tend to you, care for you?” This is one of those contrasts. The sons of the Earth are shrewd and forward thinking and creative when it comes to their earthly ambitions. How much more than should the sons of light be all of those things when it comes to kingdom work?

It’s a good question for us to ask ourselves, am I putting as much thought into my life with Jesus that has far-reaching eternal consequences as I am with my plans for my life here on earth? Am I putting as much thought into those things as I am for my plans for lunch today? Think about that. Because look what Jesus says next, “Make friends for yourselves.” Again, picture this. He took that vertical situation, he turned it into a horizontal relational situation. “Make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, [when it fails] they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Now you may say, “Unrighteous wealth makes us a little uncomfortable.” I think I make my money legitimately. There’s no funny business; I’m not cheating anyone. He’s not talking about ill-gotten gains here. If I read this and I instinctively rule out an application of this to whatever resources I may have because I don’t see them as unrighteous, there’s a problem there. Because can I really argue that what I have is righteous? Think about that.

Would you who are believers in Jesus, who have come to grips with your own sinfulness and have put your trust in what Jesus did on the cross on your behalf, make the case that your wealth, great or small, is somehow righteous wealth? Surely, we would not. So, any worldly wealth or resource that we have accumulated, even if the Lord has blessed us with it, is unrighteous. It’s not eternal. It’s so temporary that Jesus doesn’t say, “If it fails,” he says, “When it fails.” It’s an absolute certainty that at some point, no matter what you have accumulated, it’s going to cease to be useful to you. And that’s not just about money either. You may have a wealth of knowledge and someday it’s useless. It’s not the currency of eternity. You may have a wealth of personality or a wealth of beauty or a wealth of creativity and assuming the Lord tarries, you will die someday. I will die someday. None of those things will have any power to do anything for us. Those are not the currency of eternity.

We had a family friend growing up who inherited an old house and in the attic of that house was a trunk filled with money from the 1800s. But it was confederate money. It was worthless currency. It looked like a treasure. It was worthless. But Jesus is saying that there is a way to use these earthly resources now, here in our present dwellings, that will have some eternal effect. Some of the things we do today, with our money, with our time, with our creativity, with our love for people, can have such an effect that they will echo into eternity. And we can use those things to join the Lord in His heart and life-transforming mission here on Earth. And it could be that those people whose lives are affected by the good works that we’re willing to invest in here and now will one day welcome us into our eternal dwellings. Picture that. Can you imagine that? You didn’t know it. You were being obedient. You were acting out of your love for God, out of your gratefulness for His grace toward you. But your faithfulness impacted me and now I am here in the presence of Jesus. Welcome. It’s astounding.

So, the first of three things that I see Jesus calling His disciples to is shrewdness. We know what that means, shrewdness in eternal things. This is not just a matter of seeing earthly things as temporary in contrast to eternal things. It’s actually about saying the temporary things can matter for me and others in an eternal sense. Two things are happening simultaneously. I am working for the Lord here on Earth and a future dwelling is being secured and built for me in Heaven. Paul speaks of this heavenly dwelling in the second letter to the church in Corinth when he says, “For the things that are seen are transient,” talking about earthly things, “but the things that are unseen are eternal. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed…” and he’s speaking about the mortal fleshly body here, when that ceases to be, “…we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Some of this is mysterious.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way in Reversed Thunder: “All day long, we are doing eternally important things without knowing it.” But what if we started paying attention to it? Because I really do believe that if I only concern myself with having a comfortable life here on Earth and I put zero thought into what I’m doing for the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus and for the eternal good of my neighbors, I can live like a rich person on Earth and be destitute in eternity. And yes, I’ll be with Jesus, and the pauper in eternity with Jesus is better off than someone who dies without Him. That is true. But what if I really took seriously this idea of treasures in heaven? Jesus said in a few chapters ago, “Sell your possessions, give it to the needy. Provide yourself with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Just something to note about good works, because that’s some of what we’re talking about here, good works will not solve our sin problem. Let’s make that clear. That is not the Gospel. That’s a “Jesus plus” gospel. The reward for our works here on Earth is not eternal life with Jesus. That’s a gift that none of us deserve and none of us can earn. It was bought with the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross in our place. That being said, we are motivated in part to serve the Lord on Earth because He has promised us heavenly rewards for doing so. And in this case, I’m talking about creatively and thoughtfully using the money and time and resources we have been given to spread God’s love and the Gospel of Jesus in our neighborhoods, our communities and the world. We can do it through the church, through missions organizations and through nonprofits. I know some people who have a fund that is always available in case they hear about a need in their community and then they anonymously help. That is using unrighteous wealth for eternal purposes. We should consider that today.

The second call I see from Jesus to His disciples in this chapter is faithfulness in small things. If you look at verse 10, He says, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in the very little is also dishonest in much. If you have not been faithful in 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?” Do you notice the contrast that Jesus is drawing there? If you and I were told to create a contrast with faithfulness, what’s the word that we would probably choose first? Unfaithfulness, right? I would say unfaithfulness. That’s the opposite of faithfulness, but Jesus is contrasting being faithful with dishonesty. It’s the same word used to describe the manager earlier. It’s also actually a word that means unrighteous. So why is he talking about being faithful in little and much in contrast with being dishonest in little and much? Because we’re stewarding something that belongs to someone else. Psalm 24:1 says that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof – it all belongs to God. So, when we’re not faithful with what belongs to God, we are squandering what belongs to our master, and we’re seen as dishonest and accountable.

We do not simply get to choose what to do with the resources God has given us without considering what glorifies Him, furthers His kingdom, what fulfills His commands to love others and care for others. If you think that’s only the bit that you put in the offering boxes for someone else to steward on your behalf, think again. The part that stays in our bank accounts is just as much a worship report as anything else in our lives. Charles Ryrie in Balancing the Christian Life says, “How we use our money demonstrates the reality of our love for God. In some ways it proves our love more conclusively than depth or knowledge, length of prayers or prominence of service. These things can be feigned, but the use of our possessions shows us up for what we actually are.” What does it look like to live in the knowledge that God already owns everything I have? It might mean that instead of simply considering my tithes, offerings or gifts to be what I submit to Him, with the rest of my resources left to do with as I please, I consider whether all of what I have and every purchase I make, or every dollar I spend, is either a faithful use of His property and a declaration of my discipleship or a dishonest squandering of what He has entrusted me with. E. Calvin Beisner in a book called Prosperity and Poverty says, “…autonomy is impossible for a steward who manages the affairs of a household on behalf of its owner. Christian stewardship then means managing all the affairs of the world, small and large, on behalf of its Owner. Accountability is essential to stewardship.”

Now, financial integrity, honesty when it comes to money, faithfulness when it comes to money; it cannot justify our souls, it cannot remediate our sins. But a lack of integrity when it comes to money ought to be like a fire alarm going off in our hearts because it signifies that something is not right. And if we are found to be dishonest with what is in front of us today, which is really the small thing compared to what awaits us, do we really believe the future will hold something greater for us? It’s really a matter of obedience. Elizabeth Elliott says, “Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we’re not obeying in the thing that lies before us today?” I think I have time to tell this quick story. My upbringing, I think, would be considered to be maybe on the edge of the last of the generation of boys who could grow up in a time when it was okay to carry pocketknives. Some of you know what I’m talking about. Pocket knives were not a bad thing. We were allowed to have them. And when I was around 12 years old, my father gave me a government issue. He was in the military, so it was a GI knife, and it had my birth year on the blade, right? And it said U.S. on it. So, it was like I was in the military, is what it felt like. And around that same time, the cultural inputs that were converging in my life were things like S.E. Hinton’s novel, “The Outsiders” and the movie version of “West Side Story.” You see where this is going, right? And “Rebel Without a Cause,” we thought we discovered James Dean in the 1980s.

And I would listen to stories of my parents about growing up in 1960s Tulsa. And so, to me, it was a legitimate probability that that segment where all those things converged on the Venn diagram of my life, youth street gang activity, was somehow going to be a reality for me, okay? I was a little scared of it. I was also enamored with it, I’m just going to say that. My dad did not know that when he gave me the pocketknife. And one night I was leaving a basketball game, and I was walking out of the game, and it was dark, and I was by myself. I left early, and a large group of boys from the other school followed me out. Now I do not know to this day whether or not they were going to jump me. But at the time, I was pretty sure they were going to jump me, okay? My dad was waiting in the parking lot in his 1978 Ford Fairmont. And I got in the car, and we drove away, and he said, “How was the game?” And I said, “I just had this situation. I think this group of boys was gonna jump me in the parking lot.” And he said, “What in the world would you have done if I hadn’t been there?” And I said, “Well, I had my knife.” You ever say something, and you immediately want those words back? He pulled over and he said, “Give me the knife.”  And I said, “Dad, I would never.” And he said, “Give me the knife.” And I said, “I don’t even know why I said that. I’d get like three snaps out and then they’d pummel me.”  And he said, “Give me the knife. I cannot trust you with that.” And about five years ago, I found it in his house. And I said, “Dad, is that my knife?” And he said, “Can I trust you with that?” And he let me take it and I have it. That’s an example of something I was not ready for, okay? I could not be trusted with that small thing. This is a small thing.

Do you think I got the Rambo survival knife when all my friends did? No, that thing was this big. He couldn’t trust me with it. I wasn’t ready for it. And I was accountable for that. I was being dishonest with my intentions with that. And he took it back. So, He calls us to be shrewd with our resources. And in an eternal sense, He calls us to be faithful in small things. And third, He calls us to total submission in all things. Look at verse 13. “No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.” Have you ever had a situation in your workplace where you were not sure who you reported to exactly? I’ve had that. Who am I answering to? Who am I loyal to? Who am I accountable to? Please just give me one person so I can have clear expectations. It doesn’t work otherwise. Why? Because you’re divided. In this case, Jesus is talking about a divided heart. Jesus doesn’t say that you shouldn’t serve two masters. He doesn’t say that you mustn’t serve two masters. He says you cannot do it. It’s impossible. Try it and you will see that you will not be devoted to one if you love the other. And I think there’s a warning built in here. Our enemy, the devil, would love for money to become our master. And at first you may think, this is pretty good. I can do a lot of good stuff with this money. I have a good friend who likes to say, money isn’t everything, but it’s right up there with oxygen. And it makes me feel safe and secure and powerful. And I just need to make more of it and more of it and keep it.

And before you know it, the stuff of the world is your main concern rather than the eternal stuff of our Lord and the good of others and the souls of others and our own souls become secondary. Something I might concern myself with if I have time, but it’s not my mission. The world doesn’t need more people just trying to make a buck. It needs the love of Jesus flowing out of true disciples who are sold out to His good mission. Alistair Begg says, “We are not called to be like the world, and the world does not need us to be like the world. We have something better to say because we have someone better to follow.” To be shrewd and faithful with money is not to be enslaved to it. In fact, those who allow money to be a master are not able to be truly shrewd with it in an eternal sense. It is not a tool for doing kingdom work if it’s the thing that is in charge. But in the Gospel, Jesus offers us a better way. He gives us Himself, the greatest treasure that we could never earn. Tim Keller says, “To the degree that you grasp the gospel, money will have no dominion over you. Think on His costly grace until it changes you into a generous people.”

Money as a master demands everything and offers no rest, no relief from stress, worry, anxiety, insecurity, comparison, jealousy. But what does the good master, Jesus, offer? “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Perhaps you need that rest. Perhaps I need that rest. Perhaps you’re tired of laboring today. Jesus wants to turn that upside down and set you free so that you can have joy in your service to His kingdom. He says all you need to do is come to Him and receive. Let’s pray: Father, we confess to You today that we did not make ourselves. We cannot keep ourselves. We could never save ourselves. So, we turn to you. We know that you did not create us to be enslaved to the things of this world. So, we ask again for the spiritual grace to see Your offer to us afresh. You bid us come. May we humbly come. Thank you for Your love for each one of us. We ask it in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs

“Psalm 150” (Praise The Lord)
“Rejoice“ by Words and Music by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Ben Shive, Skye Peterson…
“Goodness Of God“ by Ed Cash and Jenn Johnson
“My Worth Is Not In What I Own“ by Graham Kendrick, Keith Getty, and Kristyn Getty
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #2003690

Call To Worship: Congregational Prayer

Lord, fill our hearts with reverence for You. Make us hunger for Your Word and passionately desire to walk in Your ways. Forgive us our sins, for they are many. Give us a greater glimpse of Your glory as we offer You this praise and worship. We thank You for the way You have rescued us over and over, through many difficult things. Come now and help us in this: to place our trust, hope, and confidence in You. May Your name be honored in our conduct. May Your kingdom be made visible in our relationships. May Your will be done in our hearts and minds. This we pray in the Name above all names, Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs all glory, forever and ever, amen!

Classic Prayer: Augustine 354-430

Look upon us, O Lord,
And let all the darkness of our souls
Vanish before the beams of Your brightness.
Fill us with holy love,
And open to us the treasures of Your wisdom.
All our desire is known to You,
Therefore perfect what You have begun,
what Your Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer.
We seek Your face,
Turn Your face unto us and show us Your glory.
Then will our longing be satisfied,
And our peace shall be perfect.

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