PENTECOST 17 September 21-23, 2013 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Luke 16:1-9 “LEARN MONEY MANAGEMENT FROM A DISHONEST UNBELIEVER?”

PENTECOST 17

September 21-23, 2013

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Luke 16:1-9

“LEARN MONEY MANAGEMENT FROM A DISHONEST UNBELIEVER?”

1.     Yes! Learn urgency.

2.     Yes! Learn to invest long term.

Luke 16:1-9 (NIV 1984) “Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' 3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg-- 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' 5 "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 " 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' 8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

          So who do you turn to for money advice? Some of you will remember a memorable series of commercials from a financial company that ended with the phrase, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” Well, he’s not talking anymore. Today if you ask about money matters many people will point you to Dave Ramsey, Clark Howard, maybe Suzie Orman. How about a dishonest swindling unbeliever? Would you turn to him for money advice? “Yes, you should,” says the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the one who used the dishonest swindling unbeliever as an example in what’s known as the Parable of the Shrewd Manager.

          A little background can help us. Our text comes from a section of Luke’s Gospel that has an interesting flow to it. If you want to look at the preceding chapters you can but I would summarize it this way. Privilege, cost, lost. First privilege. Jesus pointed out how the right to be a child of God, a believer, a member of His kingdom, someone who gets to enjoy the glory of heaven, is a privilege. It cannot be earned. It is not deserved. It comes as an invitation of grace from God Himself. Cost. Jesus next went on to explain that following Him, believing in Him means changes. Believers simply cannot live the same way and think the same way and value the same things as unbelievers. That’s the cost of following Christ. Lost. Then Jesus went on to tell a series of parables, two of which you heard about last week, that highlight the great joy the Lord and the angels have when sinners repent, when unbelievers become believers. Now Jesus didn’t tell these parable to teach Himself of the angels, but us, so we would value what He values. Right after that comes the parable that teaches us to do something about what Jesus values.

It’s known as the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. “Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' 3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg-- 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'  This manager doesn’t sound shrewd at all. He’s a schnook. He sounds incompetent. He’s a waster. He’s a wimp. He’s proud with nothing to back it up. What can we learn from him?

          Urgency! Did you notice how when it became clear he was going to have to be accountable to his master he immediately set about doing something about it? That’s what Jesus wants us to have, urgency. He wants us to realize that time is running out for each one of us, time on earth that is. Sometimes we call that our time of grace. In one sense our life is our time to experience God’s grace and be brought to faith in Jesus as Savior. In another sense having been brought to faith our time on earth is the time to live as recipients of grace. We do that when we strive to obey God’s commands because we want to. We do that when we do what’s in God’s power to extend grace to other people. Our timed allotted to do that is limited. Are we urgent about it? Recently I saw part of an episode of a show many of you have watched for a while. It’s called “Minute to Win it.” That’s urgency. Clock ticking down. The contestants have a single minded focus on the task before them. Do you believe that people who die without faith in Jesus Christ die eternally? Actually it doesn’t matter if you believe that or not. It’s true. God says, “Whoever does not believe shall be condemned.” At last check 1.8 people die every second, that’s 108 a minute, 156,000 a day. No wonder Jesus wants us to be urgent!

          What does that have to do with money managing? The parable goes on. "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 " 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' 8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” OK, so the guy cooks the books, loses money for his master and gets commended. What gives here? What was good? It wasn’t being dishonest with the debts. It was being shrewd, wise about his future. The manager didn’t have  money of his own. He was using his masters. Then with the master’s money that was in his control the manager made friends for himself. He created good will so that when his time with his master ended he would have friends who would take care of him. He was thinking long term.

          Now Jesus brings the point home for us. “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. Ooh, that hurts a little bit. Jesus is saying that the worldly unbelievers are better at being worldly unbelievers than believers are at living as believers. I don’t like to hear that. I know you don’t either. What should we do differently? “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” What we can learn from the dishonest swindling unbeliever is to invest long term. He took someone else’s money and used it to gain friends for the future. We can do the same. There is part of our sinful nature that does not like to hear God or anyone else talk about how we should use our money. Whether it’s a stock broker, financial planner, insurance agent, store salesman, (pastor?) we have this sneaking suspicion that they don’t really have our best interest in mind at all. They just want to separate us from our hard earned money. That’s not always true. It’s certainly not true of Jesus. He’s trying to help us use His money wisely. Yes, it’s His money. Just like the shrewd manager in Jesus’ parable we don’t really own anything. It’s all the Lord’s. He gives us each a certain amount and in His wisdom He lets us it how we want. We are to spend it on things we need for earthly life like food, shelter, clothing, medical needs and paying taxes. Here Jesus urges us to be shrewd and invest long term. Houses get destroyed by flood and fire. Cars, clothes, shoes wear out. None of them will last when the Lord returns and destroys this present world. But people will. They do last! Use money on earth to gain heavenly friends. How? You can’t buy anyone’s way into heaven. You can’t believe for them. You can tell them the Gospel message. You can financially support those who go in your place, like the early Christians did with Peter and Paul and Barnabas. The result is friends in heaven. Think of what it will be like when people come up to you and me and say “Thank you for telling me about Jesus!” Members of St. Jacobi you do that as you tell children about Jesus in our school, in our high schools, through our Synod mission work. Nathaniel congregation did that as they disbanded giving us a gift to make friends for heaven. MLC is building the Early Childhood Center so that more and more we have opportunities to gain heavenly friends.

          You know it as well as I. There are more things you can do with money than there is money to do things. You have to make choices. You have to prioritize. This isn’t really a dishonest swindling unbeliever that we are learning from. It’s Jesus. And when Jesus speaks, His people listen. “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Amen.