And please turn in your copies of God's Word to the Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Luke chapter 16. And here we are in verses 1 to 13. Luke chapter 16, beginning in verse 1. 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 am 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 you to 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. The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. Let's ask the Lord's blessing upon his word. O Lord, we see the reprehensible response of the Pharisees to the word of Christ, and Lord, may our hearts not respond in like manner, but help us, Lord, to be those who gladly receive your word and store it up in our hearts. Lord, would you change our hearts that they might be reflective of the desire that you have for us, that we might have hearts after Christ, hearts receptive to his word. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, imagine if you knew that your life was coming to an end. You knew that you had only a certain amount of time left on earth. How would you use what little you had left? Maybe you'd decide to spend more time with loved ones. Maybe you'd invest heavily in certain relationships. Probably most of us would recalibrate at some level. We would change something we were doing in light of the looming end of our time on earth and our limited resources. We'd want to spend what little time and resources we had left on things that truly matter. And this is the essence of what Jesus is teaching in today's parable. Essentially, he's asking each one of us, how are you using the resources that you have been entrusted with? Are you investing in things that will last for eternity, things that truly matter? Are you wasting your resources on things that will fade away? Well, the setting of this parable is the same as the previous three. Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. He's proclaiming the kingdom of God. Sinners and tax collectors are flocking to him. They want to know more about this God who forgives sinners. However, not everybody is so pleased. The religious leaders, the Pharisees and lawyers and scribes, are very upset with Jesus. They can't understand how this religious leader can eat and drink with the likes of those kinds of people, the sinners, the adulterers, the gamblers, the drunkards. Why would Jesus eat with them? And so in response, Jesus has told a series of parables, which really are more for the Pharisees than for anybody else, more so than for the sinners and tax collectors, more so than they are for even the disciples. Each parable reveals God's heart for the lost, as well as revealing the pride and the self-righteousness of the Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees thought of themselves as those who were already made right. They were holy, they were set apart. They weren't really sinners like those other people. But Jesus wants them to see that the truth is that they are just as much lost. They're just as much sinners as the sinners and tax collectors, even though their sins may be less externally obvious. This parable, however, isn't just aimed at the Pharisees, it also, of course, speaks directly to the disciples, and thus to us. And it challenges us, how we view life, and money, and possessions, and all of the gifts that God has given us, and how we use those things in light of eternity. Well, this is one of the more difficult parables to interpret. It's interesting that it comes right after maybe two of the easier to understand parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the prodigal son. But the core message is clear, and it's that how we live now matters for eternity, including how we manage the resources that God has given us. And this is a parable that we need to hear. In a world obsessed with accumulating more stuff and wealth and pursuing comfort, Jesus calls us as his disciples to be wise and faithful stewards. He challenges us to ask ourselves, what am I living for? Am I living simply for the fading temporal things of this age? Or am I living in a way that's reflective of eternity? Well, today we'll explore this parable in several parts, beginning with the parable that Jesus tells us, and then we'll unpack three principles that he gives us for how we can be faithful stewards of his gifts. Well, first we'll consider the parable that Jesus tells us. Now, the parable begins with the introduction of a wealthy landlord, a very wealthy landlord, and he is referred to as the master. It was common in Palestine and in the Roman world for wealthy landlords who owned large tracts of land and had large estates to own that land but to live somewhere else. And then they'd hire a manager to oversee their estate, and that is the case here. This man is an absentee landlord, and he's hired a manager to oversee his estate and his finances. However, trouble arises when the master hears reports that the manager is wasting his resources. He is mismanaging, whether through negligence, incompetence, or probably through fraud. He's squandering the master's wealth. Well, the master wisely takes immediate action. He confronts the manager and he gives him his notice. tells him to clear out his desk, collect his belongings, throw them into a box, and get out of there. Well, the manager is now in quite the predicament. With this firing from his position imminent, what is he to do? How is he going to prepare for unemployment? How is he going to provide for himself and his family? What's he going to do? Well, he thinks through his options. First, he considers maybe working on a farm or something, some kind of manual labor. And he looks at his hands, and they're a little soft. It's been a while since he's worked out in the sun. And so he says, well, I'm not going to do that. Well, then he thinks, well, maybe I could beg. But we're told he's too proud to beg. He's not going to sit cap in hand on a street corner collecting coins. Well, he must do something. Well, then he thinks of something to do. with the time and authority he has left. His employment may be over, but he still has some measure of control over his master's estate and holdings and accounts. And so he decides that he will use this to leverage and secure his future. Well, the manager decides to call those who owe the master money. He calls each one and to the first he says, you owe 100 measures of oil? Let's make it 50. To the second, he says, 100 measures of wheat? Let's scratch that out and write down 80. Well, it's not often that we go to Walmart or Aldi to buy 100 measures of oil or 100 measures of wheat. And so these figures are probably far removed from our minds. What kind of amounts are these? Well, these are massive sums of money, easily three years wages. So this is a huge reduction in debt for these debtors who owe this money to the master. And it's a huge loss for the master. But the manager seems to do this for every single one of the master's debtors. And imagine if this happened to you. Imagine if you got a call from the bank or your local credit union, and you were told that, yeah, your mortgage, it was this amount, but scratch out the last couple of zeros. you know, cut it in half. How would you feel? You'd be thrilled. You'd be ecstatic. And then if the person who phoned you at the end of the phone call said, oh, and by the way, I'm about to be fired. Maybe you could take care of me. Well, you'd say, certainly, you know, come on over. And that's exactly what this man is doing here. He even tells us in verse 4, I have decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people will receive me into their homes. He knows he's being thrown out of a plane, as it were. But this is his way of creating for himself a kind of a golden parachute, so that when he's fired, when he's off the land, he won't be homeless. All of these debtors of his master, they'll take care of him, just like he took care of them. Now, to be clear, he's not doing this with his own money. He's not saying, I'll pay your debt for you. No, he's essentially stealing from his master. This is theft. It's fraud. However, the twist comes in verse eight when the landlord discovers the scheme. He doesn't punish the manager. Instead, he acknowledges the manager's shrewdness. The manager's actions were dishonest, but his planning and foresight is something that the manager at least says, well, it was clever, if nothing else. Now, Jesus, of course, is not commending dishonesty or fraud. Rather, as we will see, he's highlighting the manager's ability to use his limited resources to prepare for his future. And that's where the parable begins to make sense for us. You see, the manager is not a model of morality, but rather of foresight and preparedness and resourcefulness. Well, after telling us the parable, Jesus then applies the parable, giving us three principles. And the first principle is that we are to use our money wisely in light of eternity. Now, as I've said before, parables can be quite mysterious at times. Often they contain a deeper truth hidden beneath the surface. And this one is no different. Here, Jesus is pointing to this dishonest manager and he's telling us, learn from him. Jesus is telling us that there's something we can learn from the Bernie Madoff of the ancient world here. There's something we can learn from this guy. You know, so many movies and series today have sort of the bad guys as the hero of the story. And even as they're doing bad things, there's a certain sense in which, well, you can recognize there's a shrewdness, there's a skillfulness, even if what they're doing isn't exactly great. And that's kind of what Jesus is doing here. In verse eight, we see that Jesus is not commending his dishonesty, but rather his shrewdness. Jesus highlights this when he says in verse eight, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Well, the dishonest manager is a son of this world, right? He's not a believer. He's not a Christian. And what he did was morally wrong. And yet, he did demonstrate a certain foresight. He was looking ahead and he was preparing. Jesus says that he demonstrated greater foresight in pursuing his earthly goals than believers often do in pursuing eternal goals. Jesus, therefore, is challenging us to act with similar shrewdness, not for temporary gain, but for eternal gain. As sons of light, we are called to live shrewdly in light of eternal goals and eternal riches. which is what Jesus says next in verse nine. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings. Now there's a lot going on in verse nine, but first, consider how Jesus says that money will fail. He doesn't say in case it fails. He doesn't say if it fails. No, he says when it fails. So often we think of money as the be-all and end-all of our existence. How many of our actions are driven by our care and concern and worry and even lust over money and amassing our wealth? We think of money as the key to our security, the key to our happiness, to our comfort. We think having more of it will mean having less problems. And if we don't have it, well then we're failures and we can easily fall into harm. But Jesus here reminds us that money is inherently limited. It's temporary and it will fail. Notice also how he refers to money as unrighteous wealth. And by that, he doesn't mean that it's unrighteous to own wealth or unrighteous to earn wealth. Again, his point is that money is temporary. It's fleeting. Money is something that belongs to this temporary passing age. In other words, it's not something that we can take with us beyond the grave. My children are learning at the moment about ancient Egypt and the practices of the Egyptians. And of course, one of their practices, at least for the wealthier Egyptians, the pharaohs and whatnot, was to bury themselves and entomb themselves with their, sometimes their lovers, their servants, their animals, and their wealth, with the idea that they would bring those things with them and it would serve them in the afterlife. And isn't this such a vivid example of a misplaced hope? It's a vivid example of a misplaced hope. But dear Christian, how often in our lives, in our use of money, in the way that we think about money, in the way we feel about money, are we more like pagan Egyptians, treating money as if it were eternal and lasting, as if we can take it beyond the grave with us? Well, if wealth will fail, and if we cannot take it with us, contrary to the Egyptians, how should we use it? Well, Jesus gives us the answer in verse nine. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings. Now, there's a lot going on here, and it's not easy to understand all of the particulars. Again, it is a parable after all. However, I think the overall message is very clear. Jesus is drawing an analogy, he's comparing the two, right, between the way the manager prepared for his future unemployment and the way that we prepare for eternity. The manager used his limited time, his limited resources, in a way to secure earthly friendships so that when that time came to an end, they would receive him into their homes. Well, by analogy, we are to use our resources in this life in order to gain heavenly friendships, so that when wealth fails, when this life ends, we will have heavenly homes. We will be received into eternal dwellings. Well, who are these friends who will receive us into their eternal home? Well, this could be a reference to God, who, of course, welcomes us as faithful stewards and faithful servants at the end of our lives into heaven. It may be a reference to the angels. We've heard several parables speaking of how the angels celebrate when sinners repent and are welcomed into the kingdom. Or it may be a reference to fellow saints whose lives were impacted by our use of resources and even how we supported kingdom efforts and perhaps even how they were brought to faith through those efforts. Again, the precise meaning is maybe less important than the overarching principle. And it's that those who use their wealth now for kingdom purposes will secure and experience eternal blessings, eternal rewards in heavenly places. Now, to be clear, the point is not that we buy our way into heaven. No, we enter into the kingdom by faith in Christ. Nor is Jesus telling us that in order to get into heaven, we must make vows of poverty and live lives of complete asceticism. Rather, Jesus is calling us to evaluate how we manage our resources in light of eternity. Our resources, our time, our money, our gifts, the opportunities we have, they're limited, they're fleeting, they're not eternal, and yet, Jesus says, when they're used wisely, they can become powerful tools for advancing God's kingdom. Well, dear Christian, how do you tend to think of your own resources, your possessions, your time, your finances? Do you treat them as eternal and ultimate, like the Egyptians, holding them, hoarding them, guarding them with a miserly grip? Or on the other hand, do you waste the gifts you have? Do you waste the time you have? Do you waste the money that you have? Or third, do you seek to steward them wisely, mindful of the fleeting nature of this life, and yet also mindful of the great impact they can have for God's kingdom? Are you living as a son of light, longing for the day when you will be welcomed and received by friends into eternal dwellings? Dear saint, when you stand in heaven, you won't be thinking about the car you drove or the dream house that you spend your whole life saving for and never bought. You won't be thinking about the latest model of the iPhone. No, none of those things. Instead, you'll see the saint who prayed for your salvation and didn't give up. Or you'll see the saint who was converted under the ministry that you supported faithfully and sacrificially for years and years and decades and decades. They will receive you into heaven. You'll hear the joy-filled voices of angels. And most gloriously, you'll behold the vision of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as you behold his face. Well, isn't this a future worth investing in and living for? Well next, Jesus adds another principle, that faithfulness in small things reflects true character. You know, it's very tempting to believe the myth or the lie that it's only the big things in life that truly matter, right? We think that what defines us are the momentous decisions, the dramatic sacrifices, the major changes, the public achievements. But Jesus challenges this assumption. He teaches us that even how we handle the small, seemingly insignificant details and responsibilities of life reflects our true character. In verse 10, he says, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. Well, this strikes at the common excuse we tend to make to ourselves. How many times have you said this? Maybe not out loud, but certainly in your own heart. Well, only if I only had more, then I'd give more. Or if I had more time, well, then I'd begin to serve. Or if I had more money, well, then I'd be a generous person if I had more. Jesus challenges this thinking. And he says, faithfulness isn't about having more, Rather, it's about what you do with what you do have. The way you handle the small things shows who you really are and whether you're ready for greater things. In verse 11, he sets up a contrast between the little and the much, between earthly riches and heavenly riches. He says, if then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, Who will entrust to you the true riches? Jesus, again, refers to money as unrighteous wealth. Again, not because it's inherently wicked to have wealth, but again, he's emphasizing the earthly nature, the finiteness of wealth. But isn't it amazing that in the contrast Jesus sets up here, he refers to the wealth of this age as the little thing, right? There's the little thing and there's the big thing. I mean, this runs so contrary to the world, where the world says that no money is the big thing. Wealth is everything. What else matters next to dollar signs? So often we define ourselves by our wealth. When we meet someone, if we ever even bother asking them their name, it's, well, what do you do? We define ourselves by our zip code or the car we drive. Our possessions prove that we're successful. But Jesus says, no, no, no, no. That's the small stuff. The wealth, the cars, the houses, that's the small stuff. It matters how you handle the small stuff, but it's the small stuff. Jesus wants us to see and prize what is of greatest value, something he calls the true riches of heaven. When Jesus speaks of these true riches, he's pointing to treasures that are greater than material wealth. The true riches are the blessings of heaven, the blessings of the Christian life, the blessings of the kingdom, and the responsibilities of the kingdom of Christ. So his point is that one is greater than the other. Heavenly riches are to be praised and desired more than earthly riches. but also as one who has been entrusted with the lesser earthly riches, you must be faithful with those little earthly resources. Well, next, Jesus helps us in our faithfulness by reminding us that nothing we own is truly ours. As Jesus tells us in verse 12, And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? That's interesting. Your time, your talents, your resources, even your very body, all of it belongs to another. It belongs to the Lord. All of the things that we call ours are really gifts given to us by our Creator. Like the manager in the parable, we are looking after something that belongs to someone else. Boys and girls, your toys at home. even your toys that maybe you got for Christmas, those toys that when another sibling even looks at, you guard it with jealousy and you say, no, mine. Well, are they yours? Well, maybe in a sense they're yours, but only in the sense that they're God's. And he's given you the job of stewarding that and taking care of it for ultimately all that you have. Even your toys, the smallest toy is a gift from God that you are called to steward to his glory. The only time that we can truly say mine is when we speak of our own sin. Our sin is the only thing that we can claim is truly ours, that we've worked for. But everything else is from God or resources or gifts. All that we have, we've been entrusted with for His glory. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, what do you have that you did not receive? What do you have that you did not receive? And if then you have received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? And therefore the question is not how much do I have, but what am I doing with what I do have? What am I doing with what God has entrusted to me? Or what are you doing with what God has given you? What you have is something that is entrusted to you. Are you living faithfully in those little things? Well, it's not only wealth that God entrusts to us, but there are many resources that the Lord puts into our hands to be stewards over. He gives us our work, our jobs. Now, you may not be working your dream job. You might be wishing every day that you're in that work that you had something better or something different, and yet that is what God has entrusted you with. How are you living in that work? Are you living faithfully with the little that you do have? Parents, God has entrusted you with precious little children. And we know as parents that parenting is very challenging, especially when children don't act very preciously. But be encouraged to faithfulness in your parenting, especially for you moms. whose day-to-day labor so often goes unseen, unthanked, unpraised, underappreciated, be encouraged in that daily faithfulness, knowing that even if you don't receive the praise of men, and you probably don't, you're not doing it for the praise of men. You're doing it for the good of your family, the good of your child, and ultimately to the glory of God. And he sees that, and that's what matters. Do it with an eye to eternity. God entrusts us all with time. Some of us have more time in our hands. Some of us are maybe children. Some of us are working. Some of us are retired. We all live in various situations where we have more time, less time. And again, the question isn't, well, I only have this bit of time, all these hours in the week. The question isn't, how much time do you have? The question is, what are you doing with the time that you've been given? Are you living faithfully with that time? You see, faithfulness. isn't about waiting for the right circumstances or waiting for more of something. It's about being faithful in your current circumstances. Faithfulness isn't about doing something grand or glorious and waiting for something grand or glorious to happen or the opportunity to do that. Faithfulness is about doing the next right, small thing with what God has given you. And those things are usually unseen, unthanked, are usually very ordinary and mundane. And yet, it is this ordinary, simple, Christian faithfulness that the Lord calls you to. And it is to this that he attaches his blessing and his promise. that you will be received into eternal dwellings. Well, the final principle Jesus gives us is that you cannot serve both God and money. Jesus says in verses 13 and 14, No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. Well, every person serves a master, and Jesus makes clear that you can only have one. It cannot be both wealth and God. I mean, imagine in a workplace having two different bosses. Now at times we might have different managers who are all over us, but imagine having two different bosses who are competing maybe for the position above them, and they're both giving you contrary guidelines, contrary expectations. Well, you couldn't survive in that kind of situation. You'd have to submit to one or the other. It would be impossible. And the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, as we're told, how did they respond to this teaching? Well, they responded by ridiculing Jesus, which demonstrates who their true master is. It's not Jesus, it's not the Lord, it's their money. Now, to be clear, again, money is not inherently evil. Money is a means of exchange. It's a tool, it's a resource that we can even use to meet the needs of ourselves, our families, and even to advance God's kingdom. When we pray for our daily bread, certainly we're praying that the Lord will provide our daily bread. also that he might give us the means so that we can acquire that bread ourselves. However, if we're honest, and although the church at different times has struggled with maybe the other side of money where making vows of poverty and whatnot, but if we're honest, that's not what we struggle with. We don't struggle that we're tempted to get rid of all our money and make vows of poverty. No, what we struggle with, rather, is the lust after money. And money can easily take that higher place in our hearts. It can replace that drive and that desire for God. It can take the place of God with regard to our will, where our desires are shaped after making more money and keeping what we do have. where our affections are placed on it rather than on God. We're driven either by a love for what money can get us or for fear of not having enough of it. This is why Jesus addresses the use of money in this parable. If we treat money as if it were greater than the riches of heaven, well then we're revealing that in our hearts we're truly worshiping money over God. As Jesus said earlier in Luke chapter 12, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12, 34. And therefore, our use of money, our use of all of our resources, should reflect that our hearts belong to God and that what we truly prize as the greater of the two things is the true riches of heaven. Now, it can be hard at the best of times to be generous with our money, can't it? It can be hard at the best of times to hold our possessions with that kind of loose grip. It can be hard even to give our money towards eternal things at times, even when it is directly connected with the proclamation of the gospel. It can be easy to think maybe on a Sunday morning as we write our check for the offering, to think, well, what if I didn't give this to the church? Wow, think of the nicer home we could afford, or paying off our mortgage 10 years earlier, or the nicer car, or whatever you have. But as we give, and particularly to the kingdom of Christ, We demonstrate that what we hold as highest in our hearts is the heavenly riches of his kingdom, more than the earthly wealth of this passing age. And we know that we're using our wealth so that the gospel is proclaimed and more and more friends are being welcomed into that kingdom of eternal dwellings. And how can we not give generously to the Lord, seeing all that Christ has given us? Consider how Christ has wiped away the infinite debt, the wages of your sin, which is death. You know, in human accounting, debts must be paid. There's no crossing off zeros or trying to erase debt or changing the numbers. That's not how it happens. In the Roman Catholic tradition, purgatory is seen as that kind of place where sins that haven't been paid for in this life are paid off in the next life. So if you haven't done enough good works in this life to pay off your sin, well, don't worry, you'll have the chance in your debtor's prison of purgatory. But in God's accounting, Jesus settles our debt entirely, not merely by crossing out the zeros, but by paying and satisfying that debt. On the cross, Jesus gave his life so that justice was satisfied and your debt of sin was paid for. Paul, the apostle, puts it so beautifully, doesn't he, when he says this in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9. Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. To think that Paul is speaking merely of earthly wealth or the prosperity gospel misses everything about who Christ is and what he has done for his people. Christ gave up the glory of heaven, embracing the poverty of this world, the shame of the cross, the nakedness of the cross, so that we might be clothed in his righteousness, so that we might be blessed with eternal riches and welcomed into eternal dwellings. Well, since God has been this generous towards us, how can we cling so tightly to the little that we have? Let us repent of our hold over money and of its hold over us. Let us release to God, who has given us everything we need in Christ. For the truth is that money will fail you. It cannot rescue you from the grave. It cannot buy you peace or hope. It certainly cannot buy you eternal life. But Christ is the Savior who will never fail. He is the one who has given everything, his very life, to clear the debt of your sin. And so, like the shrewd manager in the parable, consider your life. Consider the time that you have left. Consider the fact that your life is but the dash between the date that you were born and the date that you will die. That's all you have, that dash that represents those years. Well, what will that dash say about you and your life? Well, may it be a testimony of a life lived for God's glory and not for fleeting wealth. May we use what we have, our money, our time, our talents in faithfulness to God, to the God who has entrusted these things to us. And as you do, Look to the God who still loves to forgive debtors and whose riches of grace will never fail. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the riches of grace that you have lavished upon us through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we ask that you would help us to be stewards, both of the eternal riches of the gospel that you've given to us, that we might be those ready to give an answer and a reason for the hope that is within us. Help us to steward well the greater riches, the mysteries of the gospel. Lord, help us also to be a people who minister well the earthly riches you've given us, that we might use these things to secure eternal dwellings and to bring and to welcome to the kingdom more and more friends, that more might come to know you and your saving goodness in Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.