Our children can go out to children's church at this time. As we continue to worship our God today, please turn with me and your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, Luke's Gospel, and chapter 16. We come now to chapter 16 of Luke's gospel, which begins some of the more difficult passages in the gospel of Luke. Today, this morning, we're going to be looking at chapter 16, verses 1 through 13. 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 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 am 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." Well, I know what many of you are thinking as we consider this passage this morning. You're thinking, how is Greg going to save Jesus from this parable? You probably wouldn't say it like that, but you might be thinking something like that. One of the ways that Jesus demonstrated his mastery as a teacher was to say things that were sometimes unexpected and even a little bit disorienting, things that would take you off guard and force you to think carefully about what exactly it was that he was saying and how exactly he then wanted you to apply that to your own life. And I believe this parable is one of those occasions. Jesus' teaching here, it has often troubled people, and it's given rise to a variety of interpretations. Especially troubling is the way that Jesus seems to commend this unrighteous, deceitful, and selfish steward for his actions. And furthermore, when he does make application to his listeners, it almost sounds as though we might be able to secure a place in heaven by some crafty use of money in this life. One commentator has called this the prince among the difficult parables. And this is evidenced by the jungle of explanations that are given of this parable throughout its interpretation history, throughout church history. I think one of the key things in getting Jesus' teaching right in this parable involves understanding how to approach parables more generally. Because one of the common mistakes that people make in their approach to the parables of Jesus is trying to allegorize every little detail of the story. So in other words, you take every character and every characteristic of every character, you take every incidental detail and part of the story, and you try to apply that in a one-to-one correspondence to something in reality that it represents. So many commentators, just for example, many commentators, they wrestle and they agonize in this parable over who the master in the parable represents. It's a common mistake because with parables there is a correspondence between things in the story and things in reality. It's right to look for those things when we're trying to read the parables. But I believe the tendency can be to over-read or to over-apply. Again, to assume that every element of the story must correspond in some one-to-one fashion with something in reality, when actually that's not the case. And so I believe when you pull back a little bit and you don't expect the parable to say too much, that actually helps you to get a clearer picture on what's actually being taught. And this principle, it's very helpful, especially in considering this parable in our passage this morning. So with those general thoughts in mind about how to read parables well, let's look more closely and see what we find in this parable. in verse one, there's a shift and that we're told that Jesus here, he's now addressing his disciples. So in the lost and found parables of chapter 15, which we've just come through in the last few weeks, you'll remember that the focus was on tax collectors and sinners and on Pharisees and religious leaders, and particularly on the lost being found. Well, now we move to a parable of discipleship. Jesus turns now and he is instructing those who have decided to follow him, those who have in some measure, they've identified with him as his followers. And Jesus, he's instructing his disciples on what should characterize their lives. Now, the Pharisees, they're still on the scene here as a kind of foil to true discipleship. You see that in verse 14, where we'll pick up next week, Lord willing, where it tells us that the Pharisees did hear all of these things that Jesus was teaching his disciples. But because they were lovers of money, they were ridiculing Jesus for what he had to say. So the Pharisees are still on the scene here, but the focus is targeted toward Jesus' disciples, those who were followers of him. So Jesus tells the story of a rich man who had a manager. Some of your translations might say a steward. A steward is just someone who is responsible for managing the wealth and possessions and business dealings of another. They don't actually own the property, but they have the authority to act in place of the owner, to conduct business, to make purchases, to receive payments and so forth. They would make many decisions on behalf of the owner, and they are responsible in all of these dealings to always be seeking the owner's best interest. That's what a good steward does. He represents the best interests of the owner. But that was not what was happening with this particular manager. The charges were brought to the rich owner against this man. He was wasting the owner's possessions. And it's interesting, that word wasting there in verse 1, it's the Greek word diaskapidzo, which is actually the same word that we saw last week in verse 13 of chapter 15 to describe the way that the younger son had handled his inheritance when he left his father's estate. He was squandering his property. Same word, the root idea is to scatter or disperse, to kind of just throw it to the wind. So this is not the guy that you want in charge of your investment portfolio. And the owner, he finds this out and he calls him in. And he tells him, your stewardship of my property is over. He's no longer gonna be in charge of this man's business. And the only thing that he wants him to do then, verse two, is to turn in a final report, to turn in a final accounting of the management of the current status of the owner's estate and business. And then he will no longer be manager. Okay, so what situation does this steward then find himself in? Well, he finds himself in a situation where his source of livelihood is being taken away from him. Serving as this rich man's manager was the means by which he received provision. And now that means a provision is being taken away from it. It's no longer gonna be available to him. And this is really a predicament because the manager, he doesn't see any good option for him going forward in terms of his livelihood. Look at verse three. 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. He's been a white collar worker too long. He's grown soft, he can't dig. And I'm ashamed to beg. So with not enough physical strength to become a laborer, but with too much self-respect to beg, he doesn't really see what options he has before him to gain a living. Now at this point, it dawns on the manager. A light bulb goes on and he has kind of an aha moment that there is this short window of opportunity before him. It's gonna close quickly, but he has a window of opportunity. And so he comes up with a plan. He devises this strategy. He says, I have a little bit of time before I have my stewardship revoked and I have to give my final account. And during that time, I can still leverage my master's resources and secure my livelihood for the future. And if you're like me, you're thinking, well, when that rich man fired him, he should have just removed him immediately. I mean, if you fire someone for mismanagement of your property or your assets, your finances, you want their hands off of your stuff immediately. You don't give them any more time to mismanage your business. If he didn't manage things well when there was accountability, surely it's not going to go well. now that he knows that he's already fired and that the master has no recourse. So why would this rich man give the bad manager even another moment to have authority? And I think that Jesus' response to me would simply be, this is my story, not yours, and I get to make up the story the way that I want to make my point, and that's not the point, so don't worry about that. So the point so far is simply that this is the situation and the steward, he finds himself in this place where he does have a short window of opportunity, has a brief window with the owner's resources still at his disposal. and he's going to seize upon it. So he develops a plan. He starts talking to all of the people who owe his master some sort of debt. The examples given are debts to be paid in some form of agricultural produce, and they're substantial. Most likely, these debtors should be understood as contracting to farm the master's land, and then upon the harvest, they would need to give a portion of their harvest to the owner of the land. And so he starts by bringing these guys in one by one. The first one he owes, we read, 100 measures of oil. More literally, it's 100 baths of oil. And a bath was between 8 and 9 gallons. So the guy owes somewhere between 800 and 900 gallons of oil. That's approximately the yield of 150 olive trees. And the monetary value would be about what you'd pay a laborer for three years of laboring. So this is a substantial debt that this person owes. And the steward tells him to take your bill and to cut it in half. Instead of 100 measures, you only owe 50. And do it quickly, because my time is short. You don't want to miss this opportunity. I don't want to miss this opportunity. So let's get this done, and you're going to be glad about it. Well, the next guy comes in and he owes 100 measures of wheat, 100 cores of wheat, literally. So this would have been 1,000 bushels. And again, just in terms of value, more, much more than the first guy. This would amount to what you would pay a laborer for eight years of labor. The steward tells him to knock off 20%, which in terms of monetary value is actually a similar amount to what he reduced for the first guy. So in both cases, these are major savings for these debtors. If you were going to think in modern day currency, it would be something like your mortgage loan officer calling you up on the phone and saying, you know that $150,000 that you still have on your mortgage, let's just call it 75 and we're good. And you would be very glad about that. That's the significance of the reductions that the manager here is making. And the idea is that he didn't just do this for a couple of guys. He did it one by one, as it says in verse 5. He brought in these debtors. There's lots of people. The first two are just examples of many others. And all of these people, they're going to be very happy with this manager and with the deals that he gives them. And that's the point. The manager says, I'm going to use the resources that I have right now at my disposal so that after I have my stewardship removed, after I lose my job, I'm going to have lots of friends. And I'm going to have my pick of places to stay because these folks are going to be really grateful for the way that I served them with my use of my stewardship. Now here comes the twist in the story. We get to verse eight and we expect Jesus here to break out with one of his lines like, and when the rich master came and saw what the dishonest manager had done, he became very angry and seized the dishonest manager and cut him in pieces and assigned him a place with the wicked. Right? And that's what we'd expect at the end of this parable. But Jesus, again, the master teacher, he surprises us. He turns it. And instead, he says the master commended his manager. Okay, think about how much money this manager just lost. And he compliments the steward. He finds something here that's worthy of praise and emulation. Because this guy, he wasn't very productive or resourceful before, but now he's being resourceful and he's doing these deals. He's being shrewd. And this is where the interpretations of the parable start to go in a million different directions. Because people are uncomfortable And you could even say embarrassed at the commendation of the manager. So they begin to go back to what the steward did to see if they can somehow justify it or put a positive spin on it. So some people say, maybe the master was actually charging illegal interest. And the steward, he was just removing the interest and helping the owner to be upright in his dealings. and other people say that the steward that what he was doing actually was just removing his own commission. So, he wasn't actually touching any of the earnings of his master. He was just giving up his own pay. Well, I don't find those avenues very passable for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the percentage of the reduction here, it wouldn't fit any understandable level of interest or of commission. But more than that, there's nothing in the parable that pushes you in that direction. In fact, despite the master's commendation of him, Jesus nevertheless calls him in verse 8, look at that, the dishonest manager. Or more literally, the unrighteous manager. He says, this guy, he is unrighteous. He is deceitful in his dealings. And yet there's something to be learned here. There's something to be appreciated here. And the master commends him, not for being a thief, not for being a wasteful squanderer, not for being a deceiver, not for being self-absorbed. The message here is not to go follow this steward in these ways. He commends him for what? For acting shrewdly. He commends him on a very specific point for his shrewdness. So how is he shrewd? Well, he was shrewd in the sense that he considered his situation. He rightly perceived that the resources that had been at his disposal for the provision of his livelihood, that those were going away. They weren't going to be there for him anymore. They were going to fail him. And so he had the foresight and the resourcefulness to act on it and use these resources that were at his disposal for the moment in order to make provision for his future. That's how he dealt shrewdly. Now, Jesus makes his main point here in the second half of verse eight. He says, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Okay, so the sons and the daughters of this world, literally of this age, those who are not a part of God's kingdom, those who have not experienced the breaking in of the new age, of the future age and its transforming power that is brought in Jesus, those who are not living in and living for the hope of eternity, Those people, they're operating simply in the realm of worldly existence. And often, Jesus says, such people are more wise and more resourceful for preparing for their future than Christians are in preparing for eternity. That's Jesus's point. Okay, this is actually a very stinging charge to Jesus's disciples. I believe we actually see this, illustratively so, here in America. where many people will labor and plan and invest and express all types of ingenuity and resourcefulness, sometimes mixed with deceit and manipulation at varying levels, and they will pour themselves out for 40 plus years in the pursuit of a carefree and comfortable retirement. which will last them a few years and then they die. Jesus says often the children of this age are more wise and more resourceful in preparing for just a few comfortable years upon the earth than the children of light are in preparing for their everlasting eternal home. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you are simply a steward. Like this man, you are not an owner, you are a steward. Everything that you have belongs to Jesus. Not just 10%, everything that you have belongs to Jesus. And he calls you to be wise in your stewardship with a view toward eternity. Not just a few years after you pass the age of 65, but to eternity. So how do you do that? What does this look like as a disciple of Jesus Christ in a way that prepares you well for your eternal home? How can you be shrewd? Not as a dishonest, unrighteous manager, but as an honest, righteous manager of all that God has given you. And Jesus here, following up on the parable, he points you to three lessons as you seek to be shrewd stewards, to take hold of this short window of opportunity, this brief stint that you have in this vapor of life to be a good steward. And I believe these three lessons, they cover really each of the spheres of relationships that you find yourself in. Jesus here says something about money and others. He says something about money and ourselves. And lastly, he says something about money and God. And when I say money, I'm thinking of biblical mammon, a word that represents earthly wealth, money and material things, things that money can get for you. That's really what I'm thinking about when I say money. So first, Jesus talks about money and others. This is, I believe, Jesus's most direct application of his parable, which we find in verse nine, regarding the way that we use our money and possessions in relationship to those around us. And here's what he says. He says, 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. Now, the point here is not that we should be manipulative or conniving in the way that we use our money like the unrighteous steward was in order to somehow receive eternal comfort. Here's what I believe the correspondence is. The unrighteous steward, he knew that the resources at his disposal were not going to be available to him for his future use. So he took again that window of opportunity while the resources were still available and he used them in relationship to others that would then secure a warm welcome from them in the future. And Jesus says that if this is true of an unrighteous steward in securing an earthly welcome, how much should this be true of children of light in securing a heavenly welcome? So you should follow this manager's example in the way that you steward your money and possessions, but you should do so in righteousness and with a view toward eternity. the wealth of this world, like the man's stewardship, that the little wealth that you now have, it's not going to be available to you in eternity. And it's not gonna be there for you. It's going to fail you, no matter how much money or how many possessions you may accumulate in this life, it will fail you in that hour that you cross into eternity, because you can't take it with you when you die. However, when you use the resources that are available to you, your time, your energy, your money, your possessions, think broadly here. All of the resources that God has given to you, when you use those resources out of a desire to see the gospel, spread to those who haven't heard the good news, out of a desire to see believers built up, to see the church of Jesus Christ strengthened, to see the needs of families provided for, to extend mercy and care to those who are in need. When you use the passing wealth of this life for those things, You gain something by that faithful stewardship that can never be lost, will never be taken away. And you are, Jesus says, wise stewards when you do that. You will find joy, your joy in heaven increased as you are surrounded by those who were blessed by your stewardship. And no, you're not earning your way into heaven or buying your way into heaven. Jesus is not teaching indulgences here. That's not Jesus's point. Saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. And when Jesus saves you, your salvation bears fruit in the way that you use your money. It frees you, not to hope in money, but to use it to bless others and to glorify God. And you've only got, Jesus teaches, just a brief time, just a brief window to maximize your joy in eternity by the way that you use your resources now. the missionary Jim Elliott said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. That's wisdom, that's spiritual shrewdness. It's important to note that Jesus doesn't say that you are to reject unrighteous wealth, but he says to use it rightly. Why does he call this unrighteous wealth? Well, I don't think that he means by that that money and possessions and your time and your life are inherently evil and that you should sell everything that you have and go live in a cave. Jesus isn't saying that there's something inherently evil about money and possessions. Again, I believe what he's talking about here is he's saying these things, these material possessions, they belong to this present evil age which is passing away. You cannot take any of it into the new age. This is where they're going to stay in this present age. So you're called to be resourceful and generous and unashamedly pursue the increase of your joy in the next life by using that unrighteous wealth rightly in this life for the sake of others and for the sake of Jesus and His glory. And honestly, I just want to encourage you in these things. especially here at Dayspring. I don't know what a single person in this church gives. And I purposefully set things up that way. But I'm so encouraged by the way that you as a congregation give faithfully to support the ministries of this church. I think of the meals that are contributed for all different types of ministries. I think of the benevolence fund and the ways that you have cared for fellow Dayspringers, members of this body. I think of the time sacrificed in serving fellow Dayspringers in times of big needs and little needs. I think of all of the gospel missionaries that you have faithfully supported and funded over the years, and I encourage you in that. That the Lord, He knows every detail of your stewardship. No selfless act of generosity done in the name of Jesus will go unappreciated or unrecognized in eternity. Not even a cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus. He knows. He sees. And you will be glad in eternity for every generous act you do in the name of Jesus. You will be welcomed. You will be received in eternity by Dayspringers and Papua New Guineans. and South Africans, and tribal peoples from Oaxaca, Mexico, and Ugandans, and Sudanese, and converts from Belize, and Afghanistan, and India, and the University of Texas. So let's keep at it. Let's keep spending ourselves as long as this window of opportunity remains, and you'll be glad in eternity, Jesus tells you. Secondly, Jesus instructs you in the area of wise stewardship, in the area of money and yourself. Money and you. He says in verse 10, 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've not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? Okay, here's the nature of your stewardship. It comes through so clearly here. This unrighteous wealth that belongs to this present age, none of it ultimately belongs to you. That's why you give up 100% of it at death, because you don't really own it. You're just stewards. You're stewarding the possessions of God that he has entrusted to you for your brief stay on this earth. So two points that need to be drawn out here in relation to your stewardship. First of all, Jesus' words show here that faithful stewardship, it's not an issue of resources. Your stewardship, it's not an issue of resources. It's an issue of godly character and faithfulness. You see that here. It's not an issue of resources, but of character and faithfulness. The issue is not whether you are rich or whether you are poor. as though this passage has nothing to say to poor Christians. The issue is whether are you faithful with the resources that God has given you. God is not gonna judge you based on resources that you don't have. God's going to judge you based on how you use what you do have. So don't fall into this trap. Don't say, you know, if only I made just a little more money, then I would become generous. If you're not generous with a little, you won't be generous with a lot. That's Jesus's point. Don't say, if only I had more spiritual gifts, then I would really be able to become a blessing to others in the church. Jesus says, be faithful with what you have and be a blessing to others. Faithfulness is an issue of character before God and the use of what you have. It's not ultimately an issue of resources. Secondly, Jesus warns you that your brief stint as his steward on the earth in this present evil age does indeed indicate whether you are fit to be owners in heaven. You see that? If you're a good steward here, you show that you are fit to be an owner in heaven. All that you have in this life will be taken away. You'll give it all back. You are stewards. But that which you receive in eternity will be yours forever. It will never be taken away. In this age, you don't own anything. In the age to come, there is an inheritance, an ownership. which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you. But if you have been completely unfaithful in your stewardship on earth, you should not be confident that you will be an owner in eternity. Because, and this becomes explicit in Jesus's last point in verse 13, the way that you use your money is ultimately an issue of what you worship. So listen carefully here again. I am not saying that by your stewardship, you earn your way into heaven. I'm saying that your stewardship in this life reflects what or who you ultimately worship. Look at verse 13. Here Jesus speaks about money and your relationship to God. And he makes this very clear. 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. So ultimately, the use of your money comes down to a matter of who or what you serve, who or what you worship. How does this work? How can a person serve money? Well, you serve money when you make it your security, when you look to money as that which provides for your needs and for your longings. by believing that money is ultimately what will not fail you in this life. But Jesus says you can only ultimately be in service to one master. If your allegiance and your trust is in your possessions, and that's where your security lies, you're showing that God himself is not your trust, that God himself is not your treasure. One of the ways Jesus graciously instructs you here is by helping you to see so clearly that money can never be your trust. Is that where your hope is today? Is that where your confidence lies? Do you look for security there? Maybe because you're feeling good about how things are going financially, or maybe because you're laid low by your financial situation in life today. Does that reflect the fact that money is where your trust ultimately is? Well, Jesus makes it clear. He helps you, he reminds you, you can never make money your trust and your security. It may leave you while you're still alive, or if it doesn't, like the fool who built up bigger barns for himself, it will leave you when you die. In one way or another, your money, your possessions will fail you. But when God is your trust, under the security of His wing, He never fails you. Again, this is not about earning your way to heaven by the use of your money. This is about where you are placing your trust. It's exactly the opposite of that. It's saying, I can't trust in myself or in the use of my resources. I have to look to another. I have to put my hope and my trust in God alone. And when you do that, when God is your master and not money, that reality, it's gonna show itself in the freedom that you have to use money for the glory of his name and the good of his people. You put it to use, again, for the spread of the gospel, for the building up of believers through generosity toward those who are in need, through godliness with contentment, through honesty and integrity in all of your financial dealings, through stewardship of all that God has entrusted to you, however small or great that is. You have a window of opportunity to steward all of your resources with a view to maximizing God's glory and your eternal joy. So brothers and sisters, let's be wise stewards. Let's spend and be spent for the glory of God, for the good of others. And when we trust in God so that we live that way, then when we arrive that day in eternity, we will be received by the saints who will be thankful for the ways that we stewarded God's resources for their eternal good and God's eternal glory. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father and God of all provision, we thank you for reminding us again of the fleeting vanity of this passing age. and of the joy and the glory of the age to come. And we pray, Lord God, whether we have a little or a lot, we pray that you would make us faithful in putting to use all that we have received to worship you and to see you worshiped among the nations. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.