Well Done Shrewd and Mismanaging Servant

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 16th chapter.

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Jesus 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.

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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.

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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 and I've decided what to do so that when

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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?

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He said a hundred measures of oil. And he said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly, write fifty. Then he said to another, and how much do you owe?

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And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, you take your bill and you write eighty.

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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.

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And so I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

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One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. One who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

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If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you with the true riches?

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And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

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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.

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You cannot serve God and money. Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.

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And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts, for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. I've got to warn you, the next two weeks the gospel texts are about money.

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Money. The least favorite topic for pastors to preach and for, well,

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God's sheep to hear about. But here's the best part. This is a scandalous, subversive gospel text today, because this is not a text that is telling you that you need to sign up for Dave Ramsey's course on how to properly manage your money if you want to please

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God and demonstrate to him that you're serious about leaning in and properly managing your finances.

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No, this is nuts when we consider the financial implications of what is going on here.

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So let's begin at the end, shall we? The end of our gospel text says this, the Pharisees who were lovers of money, they heard all these things that Jesus said and they ridiculed him.

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Who does that, by the way? Who ridicules the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? This is what we call an eternity -limiting move here in the corporate world.

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So he said to them, and listen to his words, you are those who justify yourselves before men. And how is it that people use money to justify themselves before men?

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Well, in the theology of the Pharisees, money was the tangible proof of God's favor and blessing.

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So look how wealthy I am, and if you're not as wealthy as I am, well, because God doesn't love you as much as he loves me.

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This was their thinking. Sounds a lot like today's modern prosperity preachers. But we're going to note, you don't have to add a religious note to this to engage in this type of behavior.

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I always remember when I was a kid, September was coming up, August was the month that we were in, and every single year my mom would take my brother and I and we would go shopping for school clothes.

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And I hated it. The reason I hated it is because my mom would take me to JCPenney and to Kmart, all right?

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And we all know what this means. All the kids whose parents took them to Nordstrom's, to Macy's, and stuff like that, those kids had really cool clothes.

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Not me. When I was younger, I had granimals, but we won't talk about that. So I'm still in therapy.

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But the idea is that when you get to school, how does it all work?

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Kids look at their clothes and they go, look what I'm wearing, and they go, no, look what they're wearing. And the kids who are wearing the really cool clothes look down on the kids who are wearing the granimals, and it all works out.

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That's how the pecking order works. Of course, I remember living in Southern California, the quintessential place where the stereotypical 16 -year -old blonde girl who requests from her daddy to receive a beamer for her 16th birthday does.

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And she goes, my daddy gave me a beamer for my 16th birthday, right? And you're sitting there going, what a curse, right?

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You have no idea. But this is how we work. We justify ourselves before others based upon money.

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It becomes the scorecard of your worth and your value. Are you really somebody who is contributing to society?

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Well, we know that you are if you're a CEO. But if you happen to work the streets of New York City emptying out the garbage cans, well, we know that you're not.

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This is how we work. But note what Jesus says. God knows your heart, and what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

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Abomination is a word that we should pay attention to. Some very serious sins are considered to be abominations before God.

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And have you considered that the entire wealth scorekeeping pecking order thing is an abomination in the sight of God?

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It is. And this is what's going to flavor our text here. And I love this parable because it is just so ethically a mess.

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It really is, okay? Because here we've got this dishonest manager who receives a commendation from this rich fellow whose wealth and finances he's supposed to be stewarding.

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And here's the best part. You're that guy. Jesus is the rich guy.

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And we'll kind of work this out, and we're going to note that there are a couple of parallels here. You know, this parable actually interprets itself if you pay attention to the parallels in the language.

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So remember when he talks about, if I do these things, I will be received into their homes.

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Jesus' parallel then is that those who do these things will be received into eternal dwelling places.

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Now we're not saved by our works, so that little thing kind of keys you into what's really going on here, and it's brilliant.

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So Jesus said to his disciples, there was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.

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Okay? Now, I've already told you that this manager is you, this manager is me.

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Consider what Jesus talks about later in the parable, that who will be trusted with true wealth, and who will actually be given real property.

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Remember that we were born naked. What do you get to take out of this world? Nothing. Do you truly own anything then?

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Nope. You are just the temporary steward of all of the gifts that God has given you.

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Now let me ask you, how well have you done in managing God's stuff? See, you know, when you put it that way, sit there and go, okay,

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I get it. Because the reality is, is that none of us have done a very good job of managing

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God's stuff. We've all, we're all guilty of mismanaging, of, well, wasting the things that God has given us.

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We're all guilty of this. And so it says that he called him and said to him, what is this that I hear about you?

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Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be my manager. But note then, he doesn't take away any of this guy's ability to use the rich man's stuff.

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You see, we all know that there's a day coming when we're gonna have to give an account to Christ of, well, everything we've ever done.

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There's, there's gonna be an audit. And I don't like accountants. It's just awful. There's gonna be an audit at the end, and we all know that we're gonna have to, and we already know the verdict.

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We've been found guilty of mismanaging Jesus's stuff. And you're gonna note here that Jesus does the unthinkable, because he's the rich man here.

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He does the unthinkable. He just lets the guy continue on, and doesn't let everybody know that he's been fired.

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Same with you. Same with me. You'll note that the come -to -Jesus meeting doesn't happen until later.

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And note, I'm using corporate terminology here. Because in the corporate world, that's how this works. When you fire somebody, somebody is fired on a

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Friday afternoon. Okay? Because all the HR people will tell you from their training that you don't fire a guy on Wednesday or on Monday, because he's likely to go postal, go grab a gun, and gun everybody down in vengeance for losing his job.

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So when do firings take place? Friday afternoon. After lunch, preferably, too.

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So he comes to work, does his work, goes to lunch, is thinking everything's fine and dandy, thinking about his weekend, because he's gonna have a couple of days to cool off, right?

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And what happens is, is that somebody knocks on his door. Hey, HR wants to see you.

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Oh, okay. And they walk in, and the HR person hands them their final paycheck, gives them their walking papers, and lets them know that they have been invited to play on a different corporate team, but they appreciate their contribution here, but their services are no longer needed or welcomed.

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Oh, and by the way, security is gonna escort you back to your office and watch you clean out your desk, and they will escort you out to the parking lot.

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It's just standard procedure, standard policy, no big deal, you know. And so off they go, and out he goes.

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This is how it works. The come -to -Jesus meeting is always so fun, right? But you'll note here, that's not what happens.

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This guy still has full access to the rich man's books, everything.

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And so knowing that he's in trouble, knowing that, oh, I'm guilty of mismanaging my master's things, he comes up with this scheme.

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And boy, is it a good one. Because you're gonna note here, what he assumes about his master is the key to getting this text.

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What does he assume about this rich man? Well, here's what I know about this fellow. He's kind.

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He's merciful. He's gracious. He's forgiving. He's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

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He even pardons iniquity. This rich man is the best guy ever.

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He's the exact polar opposite of like Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, right?

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That's what Jesus is like. And so he's banking on his grace and his mercy.

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And so he gets on the horn and he says, listen, listen, listen, those of you who are indebted to this rich man and who of us isn't, right?

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He sets about to go and work his scheme. And here's his motivation.

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He says that, well, he's gonna take the management away from me. I'm not strong enough to dig.

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I'm ashamed to beg. So he summons all the people that are his master's debtors and one by one he says to the first, how much do you owe my master?

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And he said to him, a hundred measures of oil. You go and you take your bill and you sit down quickly and you write fifty.

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Now note here, the rich man's bottom line is taking a serious hit.

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Cash flow is going in the wrong direction. And anybody who truly has a love of money would lose their minds and have this guy brought up on, you know, he's embezzling.

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What he's doing is wrong. But again, this is an honor culture. This is an honor culture.

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Do you think for a second that this rich man is gonna go, no, no, no, no. I'm not really kind. I'm not really merciful.

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I'm not like that at all. You owe me a hundred. You still owe me a hundred. I don't know what that guy was thinking.

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That's what you would expect according to the world's standards. But that's not what happens. So to another he says, how much do you owe?

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He said, well, a hundred measures of wheat. He says, you take your bill and you write eighty. And then listen to the words.

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The master, the rich man, commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.

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It is quite shrewd to bank on the mercy, the grace, and the kindness of Christ.

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To be as generous as he is. And then he says this, for the sons of this world, they're more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

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And so now Jesus gets to the nubbins as far as what to do with money. He says, and I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth.

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In other words, what Christ has given you, because he's so merciful and kind, you in that same mercy and kindness and generosity, you go and you use your money to help people.

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People who are in need, who are in debt, who cannot pay their bills, who've lost their job, who are not making it in life.

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You just generously take all of the wealth and riches that you are entrusted with, which isn't your own, and you go and you share.

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And you go ahead in mercy and in grace, lighten everybody's load with the wealth that you have been given.

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In other words, this isn't about saving up and working on your 401k and making sure that your credit card debt is at a reasonable level.

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This is about working hard and making sure that you have enough left over to use the wealth that God has given you, even if it's a little bit, in order to be generous so that people may believe that Jesus is that way.

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You'll note that the prosperity heresy works in the opposite direction. If you want to be prosperous, if you want to be healthy, if you want to be affluent and influential and powerful in the world, send in your thousand -dollar seed offering and then

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God will bless you. Bah humbug. Jesus says you take what

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God has given you and you go ahead and you give it away. Jesus works in reverse.

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And that shows that the gospel itself impacts then even how we view money.

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It is not something to be hoarded. It is not something to be greedily held on to, like your smog the dragon from The Hobbit, collecting your gold and making sure that anybody who would dare take even one farthing of it would experience the flames of your nostrils.

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It's quite the opposite. True gospel financial management means to recognize you don't get to keep any of it.

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Use it then to show how amazing Jesus is, how forgiving, kind, and generous he is.

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And you'll note that the dishonest manager, that would be you and I, is commended by Christ.

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The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation. So I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.

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And then listen to what Jesus says, so that when it fails they may receive you into what?

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Eternal dwellings. You see, there is a day coming when your wealth, however much money you have, will fail.

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On the day of judgment, your money cannot save you in the same way that the wealthy drowned and died on the

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Titanic as well as the poor. Their money couldn't save them. Your money cannot save you on the day of God's wrath.

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You don't get to take any of it with you anyway, so the idea here is give it away. Use it strategically to exemplify the kindness of Christ.

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And then he says, one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. One who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much.

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If then you have not been faithful in unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you true riches?

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Note that by making that distinction, Jesus makes it clear. There's no such thing as true riches here at all.

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And then he says, and if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

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In other words, nothing here belongs to you. Doesn't belong to me either. So the idea then is that true riches and true possessions are not here.

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Note, you are born naked and you die without the ability to take anything out of this world.

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But is that true of the new earth? No. You enter the new earth clothed in the righteousness of Christ, possessing an inheritance that you receive on the day of judgment.

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And how long will you enjoy your inheritance? In a world without end, days without end, there is no true wealth or riches here.

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True wealth and riches are coming, and they are given to those who recognize that they are dishonest, that they have squandered the possessions of Christ and mismanaged them.

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But knowing that he is merciful and kind, then use their wealth as the fruit of their repentance to show the kindness and mercy of the

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Master. No one then can serve two masters, Christ says.

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Either he will hate the one and he will love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and he will despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and money. When you are hoarding it, when you are not using it for the kingdom, when you are using it to be the thing that supplies your needs rather than God, you are serving money.

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You are not serving God. And you cannot do this. That is idolatry. That is to have a false

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God. Sadly, you know, you think of the ancient world. In the ancient world they had little statues and images set up to the false gods, shirapols, and the bronze statue of Molech, and all these abominable things.

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But our idols have Benjamin Franklin on them, and that's the truth.

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So what does this call us to do? Repent. Repent for not trusting

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God. Repent for serving money rather than God. Repent for mismanaging those things that we are only stewards of, and recognize that we once again are guilty of idolatry.

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But I would note this, though, that Jesus, it says in Scripture, though he was rich, he became poor for our sake so that we can become rich.

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And so Jesus perfectly managed the resources of God and the

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Father on this earth, and he let it all go, gave it all away, including his own life, so that you can be forgiven for serving money, for hoarding, for despising your neighbor and not meeting them in their needs.

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He has breached the gap. He has made it so that you can receive pardon rather than disgrace, so that you, along with this other dishonest manager, may hear at the end of the world, well done, shrewd and faithful servant.

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Well done. You see, it's all by grace through faith. And now circling back all the way around, we can see what's going on.

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The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, they heard these things and they ridiculed Christ. How could they not?

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Because they were servants of money rather than servants of God. So note then, what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

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May God grant us repentance then for mismanaging his finances, mismanaging his resources, thinking that we truly have possessions here when we don't.

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And may he then, through his gospel, because of the great love and kindness that he has shown for us, you see,

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God so loved the world that he gave, gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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And so then, because we are forgiven by Christ so richly, so freely, so generously, now we can richly forgive and love others and even use unrighteous wealth earned here and now for the sake of letting everybody know just how kind Jesus is.

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May he grant us that to his glory. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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