Shrewd Stewardship

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Please turn in your Bible to Luke 16. Continue our sermon series in Luke, looking at all the things

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Jesus says here about the kingdom of God. This particular passage is widely regarded as the most difficult parable of Jesus, and I would agree with that assessment.

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This is a very difficult parable. But hopefully today, as we read it, we can understand it and have clarity about what

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Christ would have for us to know, what he would have for us to trust and for us to do through this parable.

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Please stand for the reading of God's Word. He also said to the disciples,

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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?

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I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have 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,

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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 fifty.

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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 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 I tell you, Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the internal dwellings.

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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.

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If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you 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? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate 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. Amen. You may be seated.

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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your kindness to us in giving us the words of Christ.

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We thank you for this parable here. We acknowledge that we are those who need your guidance and how to live in this world, and we ask that you would open our eyes to understand it clearly.

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And also that you would open our eyes to see your kindness to us, that we might praise you for it. For you are great and glorious.

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In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, the question arises as one studies the life of Jesus, as someone becomes his follower, it's how should they live?

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How should we live? This is a parable that addresses that and addresses it by way of telling this story, by telling the story of the rich man and his manager.

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Manager being one who is trying to sort out what he should do in the limited time that he has been given.

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We have been given limited time in this world, and so it's very appropriate for us to read this passage and understand it, to read this passage and implement it in our own lives.

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And yet, it is a very difficult passage as I have already mentioned. So what we'll do today, we'll read this.

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I'll go over the details of the passage. Look at what these things represent, what they mean, and then from that derive what applications we should have from this.

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Simply, what is this passage calling us to? What kind of behavior is it calling us to? So to begin with, let's look at simply what this passage is saying.

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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.

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So you have a man who is rich, he has many things, so many things that he has someone who stewards those things for him.

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And this manager, this steward, has been wasteful with these resources. Wasteful such that he has not done a good job, and now he needs to be removed from that position.

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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 will no longer be manager.

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Okay, so the manager will no longer have this position. The manager said to himself, what shall

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I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

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Now here he says he doesn't have these options available to him. He's not strong enough to dig, he's too ashamed to beg.

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The idea here is not that he is, that we should criticize him for his weakness, or that we should criticize him for his for his pride that he's not willing to ask for things.

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Rather, these are simply constraints that make this store, that are, provide a setup so that we understand his actions.

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All right, these are not options for him, and so what is the option he has? The option he has is to try to find friends who will bring him into their houses.

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I've decided what I will do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.

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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. This is a very large quantity of oil.

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This is like modern estimates are 875 gallons.

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You know, this is what a large field would bring in, in a you know, a hundred acres would bring in, in a harvest.

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He said to him, take your bill, sit down and quickly write 50. The reason why he's writing it with his own hand is because this is a new contractual agreement.

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This is not just, oh, well, they could have rewritten their own bills if they wanted to, like they were receipts. No, this is, this is more than that.

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He's, he's making a new agreement with them, taking the authority that he has as a steward, right? He's the one who has the authority to make these agreements with others, and he is making a new agreement with them.

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And he said to another, how much do you owe? And he said a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80.

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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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So you have here at the end the master's commendation. The master has, has said that he has done well.

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And additionally, Jesus' own statement that the sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light.

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That is, they are more efficient and, and have taken advantage of the situation they have in some ways better than the sons of light have, those who are

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Jesus' disciples. 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.

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And so this is, this is the takeaway for us that interprets this, this parable. That we should make friends for ourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so when it fails, they may receive us into eternal dwellings.

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Now, what makes this parable, what makes this so difficult?

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I think there are several things that make this difficult. One is, one is the fact that this is not a parable the way the others are.

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This is not an allegory in the same sense where there are direct parallels between everything.

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Ah, yes, the master represents this, the man represents this, the wealth represents this, the dwellings represent this.

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Some of these have direct parables. Some of them, there are multiple things that they could point to.

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Okay, and in addition, not only is this not making direct analogies in such ways every single time, but a lot of it is by way of contrast rather than by way of comparison.

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It's very similar to the, to the parable of the unjust judge, right? The unjust judge is a comparison.

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Now, who is the unjust judge? It's, it's God in that parable, right? He told the woman, he was not willing to hear out the woman, but when the woman came to him persistently, he was willing to hear out the woman.

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Now, you look at that and you say, well, God is not an unjust judge. Yes, but in the parable, the point of this is that if an unjust judge would even be willing to listen to someone persistently, how much more is

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God? And so you have there a comparison by way of contrast, and you see some of this here as well.

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And so this is more of a moral story that we're supposed to take away details from than it is an allegory.

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Moreover, there is substantial context that makes us harder to understand.

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This doesn't sit by itself as a parable, but rather sits in a large context of discourse that is important to be able to understand what this is talking about.

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If you go back and you try to figure out, well, where did all this begin? Where did Jesus' discourse begin?

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It began at the beginning of chapter 14, one Sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the

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Pharisees, etc. And so, these concerns, Jesus has been giving parables and his discourse has been going on for two chapters.

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So there's a large amount of context that you have to be aware of if you want to be able to understand this passage well.

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In addition, there is language here that English virgins tend to mask in order to make this more readable.

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Now, it does make it more readable, but it also makes, it also gets rid of some details that might be of help to you to interpret.

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For example, you may be familiar that in older translations, it uses the word mammon to refer to money.

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Now, I think there's significance to that. There's significance to the fact that Jesus is using the word mammon to speak of money. Additionally, the word for wastefulness here, when it speaks of him being wasteful, is the same word that was used as squander in the previous parable.

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You have this one man who has squandered his father's wealth, and now what will he do?

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Now you have another man who has squandered same word, even though in this English translation it's using two different words, his manager's wealth.

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Now, what will he do? And so these parables are not independent. They actually play off of each other, showing different sides to the same truth.

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And even the word unrighteous, you see this word unrighteous used throughout here, even into the part of the passage that we won't cover today that speaks of unrighteous wealth, being faithful in unrighteous wealth.

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This is the same word that's used both in, both the adjective and the noun are used throughout this passage, that's used to describe the man when it describes him as dishonest.

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The, the un, he is unrighteous, he's an unrighteous servant, and there's unrighteous wealth.

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And so the fact that the same word is being used seems important as well. There's a lot of details that make this passage very difficult to understand, but I'm, I'm hoping that as we, as we look at this, and we look at some of these, some of these details, they'll become more clear.

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And even if the parable itself, you know, resists those one -to -one comparisons, that the point that Christ is making will be clear regardless.

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We should make friends for ourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, we may be received into eternal dwellings.

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So who is this rich man? There's a rich man who had a manager.

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The rich man might be considered the world, because the world will reject, reject, uh, the disciples.

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Now another way of considering this, though, is that the rich man would be most compared to God himself.

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We have wasted God's provisions. We are like the one in the previous passage, remember, same word, squander.

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We are the ones who have squandered away wealth, and so, uh, no longer are fit for that household as ones who are squanderers.

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And so, uh, this rich man, uh, representing God, one who will no longer have us in this world because of our sin, one who has determined that death is the penalty for sin, we see two sides of this.

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You see this loving God who is spoken of in this previous parable, because God is loving,

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God is forgiving, and as as, uh, Jesus speaks to the Pharisees, explaining to them how loving

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God is, he speaks of God as, as this, uh, as this father who loves his son.

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But then as he turns in the same discourse and speaks to the disciples, he makes a comparison by way of contrast.

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And so the comparison by way of contrast is, imagine you have a very just, uh, and severe manager.

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Now, just, you know, he, he removes this man because this man deserves to be removed, and it's not emphasizing the nature of his forgiveness.

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So before you have, uh, this man who is the recipient of his master's mercy, or his father's mercy, and now we have a parable about this man who squanders wealth, and he's a recipient of justice.

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Now, this is the situation we find ourselves in. We find ourselves as one who have, who have, uh, not stewarded creation as we ought.

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Adam was put in the garden. He had one rule that he was supposed to follow, uh, one extra rule other than the commandments written on his heart, which was that he was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

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He did not steward creation. Rather, he squandered it. And so he is removed from it.

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And since that time, it is the case that all of us have a very, a brief span of time as stewards over this life that God has given us.

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And Genesis 9 says, Whoever sheds blood by man, his blood shall be shed. Because in the image of God, he made man, and that God will require the life of every man.

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Why is it wrong to kill man? It's wrong to kill man, because that life does not belong to you.

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Why is it wrong to even kill yourself? Because even your own life does not belong to you.

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It belongs to God. And so we are stewarding this life that we have in this world.

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And our stewardship is a temporary one, as it is for this man. Why? Because of sin, because of our wastefulness.

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And this is the reality that we are pressed up against. And so what are, what is this unrighteous wealth?

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Well, as I said, this is a, this is a moral story. And so it is not, is not made to be an allegory in such a direct sense.

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But Jesus, in interpreting this, in speaking of being faithful in unrighteous wealth, in speaking of making friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, it truly is simply that, unrighteous wealth.

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Not unrighteous in the sense of being ill -gotten, but rather that which has no righteousness.

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It is the money of this world. And what are the eternal dwellings?

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Well, here, as he is, as he is interpreting, the houses that these people would bring the man into while being real houses, what they represent is the dwelling that we should desire.

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A dwelling with God. A dwelling where it is one that takes us out of this, out of this place where we have a limited stay.

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As a, as the people of Israel were taken out of the land of Egypt, they dwelt in booths. And so God had them celebrate this yearly by dwelling in booths, by dwelling in tents and tabernacles.

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This word that's used here for dwellings is the same word for tabernacle. It's describing just as the people of Israel were taken out of bondage by dwelling in booths.

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So you should desire to be allowed to dwell in booths as you're taken out of that booth and tabernacle being synonyms.

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Taken out of, of this world. So these are, these are the various comparisons that are being made here.

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Now, considering those analogies, the way we might consider this, what is what are these debtors then?

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What are these debtors that we give to? Once again, you know, I think this resists a direct analogy because who is it that that allows us into the eternal dwellings?

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Well, it'd be God that allows us into the eternal dwellings. But who is it that we are supposed to show our kindness to?

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Well, in some sense it is God we are supposed to show our kindness to. In some sense it is our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Even as much as you've done it for the least of these, you've done it for me. Right? And so there are aspects of this where the comparison is twofold.

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In some way these debtors represent God himself who brings people into his kingdom.

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In some way it represents fellow servants of Christ. And so the idea is not that we should be giving in order to get the generosity of that specific individual.

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Right? Because even giving to the ungrateful as God himself does is something that is rewarded by him.

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But rather that as we give the way that God would have us give, he recognizes this as service to him and receives us.

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Now one question, one of the most important questions to answer here is what is unrighteousness?

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What does it mean when it says that this man is unrighteous? What does it mean when it calls this money unrighteous?

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Well, this money, like I said, lacking in righteousness is called unrighteous wealth.

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Not because it is wealth not to be touched. Not because it is wealth not to be used. In fact,

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Jesus later on says, if then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth. So unrighteous wealth is actually something that you are supposed to be faithful in.

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It is something that you are supposed to make use of. Unrighteous wealth. It's not talking about the wealth itself being evil.

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However, it draws men towards evil. It is something that they desire to place their trust in.

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In fact, the word used here for wealth is mammon. The word mammon describing something that people put their trust in.

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Mammon has etymology. It comes from the word amen. What does amen mean?

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Yes, I trust in that. Yes, I affirm that. We were talking about the word amen in Sunday school today. And so mammon, coming from that word, only being used here in this passage and in the parallel passage in Matthew and nowhere else in scripture,

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Jesus is particularly using that word and not a more generic word for money or silver because he is describing something that tempts people away to put their trust in this.

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He is calling them to not put their trust in money, but to rather put their trust in himself, rather put their trust in God and his kingdom.

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And then why is this man called unrighteous? When you see that the same word is being used, it opens you up to realize that this is not primarily talking about his, this is not speaking of him so much as dishonest.

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In fact, I don't believe that dishonest is a good way of describing this man. He is unrighteous.

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He lacks righteousness. He has been wasteful with the money. But this manager trusts him. He trusts him to give an account.

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In fact, he even commends the man for how he has dealt with the accounts he has.

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Now some people have interpreted this differently, right? They say, okay, well, he's uh, they say, well, he's getting rid of the interest that is, um, that was wrongly being taken from them.

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Or he's giving back his commission. Or, uh, there's something else going on here.

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Or maybe the man is sarcastically speaking to him and not commending him at all. And what he's doing is dishonest by changing people's bills.

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And I think that's what a lot of people think when they read this, is when they see him changing the amounts, they see, ah, this is where the dishonesty lies.

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It's in changing the amounts. No, the, the word unrighteous here, simply speaking of unrighteousness, simply speaking of his, uh, his wastefulness, is not speaking of him doing that which his master commends.

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Rather, it's speaking of how he has gotten himself into this state. He has been wasteful.

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His master does not distrust him, uh, to be honest. Rather, he sees what he does.

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The man operates quickly because his time is limited, not to hide it. The master sees it, and the master commends him for what he has done, acknowledging that this is within his authority to do.

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This is what you do if you have authority over something for a season of time, is you do the best that you can with that, uh, to your advantage.

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And so this is, this was right for the man to do this this way. And he is called more shrewd for having done so.

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He's, uh, shrewd. He is, uh, the Greek word is phronimos. Another word might be wise, but it's not speaking of wisdom in the typical sense that we're thinking of it.

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Speaking more of, um, shrewdness, of street smart.

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Like Jesus says, to be wise as serpents, to be phronimos as serpents.

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That this is the kind of shrewdness that we should have. We should not be unaware of the opportunity that we have to use the wealth that we have, but we should take full advantage of it.

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Now, if this man had been foolish, if he had not been shrewd, he would have just sat there and waited to lose his position.

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Well, if he's going to lose his position, no point in, uh, maybe he'd just waste more money. Maybe he wouldn't do anything.

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But no, he takes advantage of the opportunity he has. And he uses it in order to make friends.

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Now another question that should be, it rattles around my brain when I read these parables, and I would like to think it maybe rattles around yours as well, is, is this saying that it is through our, uh, it is through our good stewardship, or through our obedience of God's law, or through our generosity that we earn for ourselves a, a position in his kingdom?

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No, I, obviously, uh, this is a, this is a church that believes very much in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

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That is not the idea. In fact, to understand this, uh, it becomes very clear when you read this in context once again, how this relates to the gospel.

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In fact, this is not only not contrary to that gospel of grace, but it is speaking of that gospel of grace, that rather than trusting in something other than Christ, rather than trusting in our own money, we should be willing to part with it all, knowing that it is all temporary, and trust only in God and his kingdom.

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So consider how this discourse has gone. It began in chapter 14.

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One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of the ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.

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So he speaks to the Pharisees. He tells them the parable of the wedding feast. There's the question of who is it that is invited to the wedding feast?

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Who is it that is permitted to come? Now on one hand, there are those who are not permitted to come.

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On the other hand, he goes out to the streets and calls for the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

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These are those who are appropriate to come, who are willing to come, as they ought, and not in their own pride, in their own sense of right and wrong, in their own sense of goodness.

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And so as he continues speaking to them in 1425, now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,

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If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

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Now, why are all these things the case? Why are all these things the case? Because true faith is one that recognizes the excellence of Jesus Christ and realizes that nothing else has any worth.

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The challenge of, I wouldn't say necessarily interpreting, but appreciating the various gospels are in recognizing how they are ordered.

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A lot of these passages, if you look at them on their own, you'd wonder, well, why did God write this twice over?

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Why did he give this twice over? These are almost identical. There's hardly any change. But a lot of times, the importance is given to us in the ordering of these things.

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You notice that here, Jesus is at a man's party, right, at a man's house.

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He's dining at his house. And then it talks about, now great crowds accompanied him. So somehow we've transitioned from this private thing where only a few people were invited, and Jesus is actually addressing the matter of who do you invite to an event like this, to there being great masses who have gathered to him.

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This is not a, this is not, this is something where you would expect an interruption, a little more narrative to explain where he gets to this point.

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When did he get outside the house to a point where there would be a great crowd of people? But Luke has put these together to show that these logically follow one another.

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As he speaks of who is invited, and the answer is not necessarily those who think they are invited, but rather the crippled, the blind, and the lame, those who are willing to to give up everything because they acknowledge that nothing they have is worth anything.

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These are the ones who are called. And then as as he is criticized for this, as he is criticized for welcoming the blind, the crippled, the lame, for for eating and dining with sinners, he then tells the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, the parable of the prodigal son.

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And all these are designed to show God's heart for those who are who are crippled, poor, blind, lame, who who have nothing, who are coming with the empty hand of faith.

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Now as he's explaining that to the Pharisees, he then turns and he speaks to his disciples.

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Now the Pharisees need to hear about God's love. The disciples who who are the ones who have come, who are the ones who have who have come empty -handed and recognize that they have nothing, he then speaks to them of the matter of shrewdness.

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So now he compares God not to this loving father, but he makes a comparison to this this just rich man who is removing him.

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He says this is what a a man of this world would do. He would know how to take advantage of his position.

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You in your position where you have a limited time being steward over it, how should you act in this world?

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He's going back to the same point he was making at the end of 14. He's going back to say that you need to be ready to count the cost, that you need to hate your own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters.

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Yes, even your own life. What is the gospel?

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The gospel is that God's gracious goodness is available to us through Jesus Christ because he has died for our sins.

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We must come to him and trust and trust him alone for our salvation.

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Nothing else. Not our own works and not our own wealth. Why do people hang on to their wealth?

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It's because they love their wealth. It's because they trust their wealth to give them comfort.

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Why do people, why are people generous with their wealth? Why are they ready to give it away? Those who do so with true intentions do so because they don't believe that their wealth gives them any comfort.

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They don't believe that ultimately their wealth will give them comfort. They are trusting in something else to give them comfort.

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The Christian who gives, the Christian who gives out of a heart of generosity that desires to please

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God, recognizes that his wealth will not bring him comfort. That it is instead only

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God who will bring him comfort. That it is God who is preparing a place. That it is Jesus Christ who is preparing a place before us.

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And rather that we should give in a way that makes a heavenly investment, that takes advantage of the situation, that comes empty -handed.

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This is not talking about earning a place in heaven. This is talking about the one who recognizes that that is far more valuable than anything in this world.

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And there are eternal implications to how we act in this life. Galatians 5 .4

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talks about the importance of leaving behind all our works. It says that it says that you are severed from Christ.

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You who would be justified by law. You have fallen from grace. You know, a lot of people realize that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone.

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But they don't realize how critical it is. If you do not believe this, if you believe it is through you, if you think that you are justified in part by your own works, you have a different gospel and you are severed from Christ, according to that passage.

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Now the same is true with anything else you might put your trust in. It's not just true with your works. It is also true with your wealth.

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Leave it behind. Come to Jesus Christ with the open hand of faith, being willing to cast everything aside.

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He is kind and he is merciful. We are unrighteous people who have been wasteful with what we have stewarded.

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He is forgiving of that. It explains that this man has been wasteful and and yet has a future.

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The previous man, the prodigal son, he was wasteful. He squandered and yet he is forgiven.

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And so what this is talking about is not the conditions of forgiveness, but the mindset of forgiveness, that the one who has been forgiven comes with the empty hand of faith knowing that he has nothing to bring.

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And if your wealth will not give you comfort, what then should you do with it?

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You should give it to the Lord because he is the one who gives you comfort. And so consider, consider the various ways that this ought to be embraced in our life.

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First of all, if you are generous, if you are generous with your time, with your money, this applies to many things.

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It does not apply just to money. It applies especially to money. There's a poignant factor here in the way that people are trusting their wealth and even later on the

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Pharisees who loved wealth try to justify themselves by their wealth and their love of wealth.

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But if one is generous, it prevents wastefulness. These two things are at odds, right?

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If you are, if you are wasteful, you are not stewarding these resources that God has given you, this position that God has given you for his glory.

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If, on the other hand, you are generous, you are one who is using

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God's resources the way he would have you, using it in accordance with his kingdom.

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Secondly, you should be giving according to his kingdom. This is not talking about any kind of generosity.

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You know, there are all kinds of generous people out there for different causes because you know, they have, they've not found comfort in money and they find comfort for it in something else.

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Idols are various, you know, people have various idols. And so maybe they don't, they don't see their money as their comfort, but they have some ideology that they find very comforting.

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And so they give their money to this thing. Maybe it's to, you know, some organization that helps pets or some, you know, there's just all kinds of things that people give their money to.

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When you give, have, not that there aren't other causes you could give to, but have in mind as chief of priorities, as ultimate of priorities, the kingdom of God.

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Give generously for that kingdom. You know, the amount of wealth described here, that he is discounting, a hundred measures of wheat and and then it said a hundred measures of oil.

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You know, these are substantial amounts. The wheat is what you would get from a hundred acres. The oil is what you would get from very large harvests.

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These are very large amounts. We should be giving generously, but there seems to be, in my opinion, a hint to building up the kingdom of God here because these are the precise quantities that are mentioned in Ezra 7 22.

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In Ezra 7 22, you have a situation where a one who is not a son of light, but rather a son of this world, gives to the kingdom.

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He says, and I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasures in the province beyond the river. Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the province, excuse me, whatever

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Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of God of heaven requires of you, let it be done with all diligence. Up to 100 towns of silver, 100 cores of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing.

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How much? So in speaking of 100 measures of oil, 100 measures of wheat,

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I believe there may be an allusion to this, that they knew that this was in a quantity that was used for for building up the temple.

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And so I think that there is a subtle hint of that purpose here when Jesus uses the same quantities of oil and wheat that were spoken of in that passage.

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But regardless, the intention is clear that these things should be used for preparing an eternal dwelling, used for building up the kingdom of God.

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Additionally, this calls us toward forgiveness. If you consider, how is it that you are a steward over your own life and what ways are you a steward over your own life?

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It's not just over your possessions, but even over forgiveness, right? When someone wrongs you, you have the option of holding that over your head, over their head, but Jesus has called you to forgive them.

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Okay, we are ones who have been forgiven. We are the ones who should be forgiving. Because we recognize that holding that against them, we can take it to the grave, but not beyond the grave.

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Just like wealth will not give us any advantage beyond the grave, so grudges do not give us any advantage beyond the grave.

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They might give you an advantage here and now, you might be able to hold it over someone, but it is not, it is not to your advantage, eternally so.

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And just to illustrate this, I've preached on this particular passage in the past, but um you may not have been here for this.

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I think this is very important in Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, this is the famous psalm where David has sinned by sleeping with Bathsheba, and he says, and he's been called out by Nathan the prophet.

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For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have

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I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. That's a wild thing that David would say, against you only

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I have sinned. Has he not sinned against Bathsheba? Has he not sinned against Uriah the Hittite?

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Has he not sinned against Nathan even? Has he not sinned against the whole people of Israel? How is it that he can say that he has not sinned against them and he has sinned against God alone?

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There is a real sense in which one can say that if they have the ultimate picture in mind.

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Now, it's not just that his sin against God is greater. He's saying something more than that. There is a sense in which his offenses against others are only temporal.

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Ultimately, he only has to give an account to God. If God grants him forgiveness and no one else does, that is ultimate forgiveness.

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He does not need beyond this life forgiveness from any other. And this is the case with us.

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When you hold a grudge against someone, and you take that to your grave on the day of judgment, will they have to answer to you for the things that you have done to them or that they have done to you?

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They will not. They will not have to answer to you. And similar, likewise, if you are struggling with guilt because someone isn't forgiving you, will you have to answer to them on the day of judgment?

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You will not. And so that gives you the freedom to know that if you have forgiveness from God, you have sufficient forgiveness. But know also that that means that we should be open -handed with these things.

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Just like our wealth, we cannot take it beyond the grave. Grudges, we cannot take beyond the grave either.

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They will do us no good in the life to come. So be willing to forgive.

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In addition, consider once again this context that you have these

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Pharisees here who are refusing to celebrate those lost who are coming to the kingdom, and Jesus is telling them that not only are they welcome, but they should be celebrated.

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Use your wealth in a way that celebrates salvation. The people of Israel were commanded on a yearly basis to hold feasts, and they were even commanded to save up money in order that they would be able to hold these feasts.

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It was not a good excuse to, well, I can't hold the feast this year because I didn't save up. This is what they were called to do is to to save up wealth in order to, in order to celebrate.

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You should be using your wealth in a way that celebrates salvation. It's, you think about the difference between Mary and Martha.

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You know, one of them was really celebrating salvation, and that's what we're called to. We're called to not a laborious, begrudging giving of our wealth, but one that supports our own joy.

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We're not only commanded to give joyfully, but that giving is itself something that is supposed to reinforce our joy, even such that we should be, we should be using our wealth in a way that celebrates salvation.

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Now, how might you do that? One way simply would be to be hospitable to other believers, to invite them into your homes, to share meals with them, to have this as a category in mind for when you're budgeting your money, when you're budgeting your time, to think about that kind of hospitality.

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You should be engaged in that. When there are other opportunities to celebrate, when there are other church events where you can contribute in the various ways that you have capacity to, you should be ready to celebrate salvation.

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That's what this is. This is a weekly gathering that celebrates salvation. That's a wonderful privilege to be able to do that.

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And you can celebrate salvation particular by investing in those who have been more recently saved than yourselves.

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That's what's going on in this situation where we're talking about the Pharisees and these others who are coming to Jesus.

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They've been there for a while, and they are not happy about those who have newly showed up. Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, not primarily about the prodigal son, but primarily about the older son.

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Right? What is the, what is the problem? What is the point of the parable? The point is that the older son will not celebrate the prodigal.

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He says, I've been here all this time. How come I don't get a feast? You know, he wants, he wants the attention on himself.

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But he already has everything he needs, and he could have anything more if he needs, if he wants it.

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What he is being called to do is to celebrate those who are more recently brought into the fold, to celebrate this prodigal son who is more recently brought into the house.

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Now you should be thinking in your head, who are your younger brothers and sisters? They may not be necessarily by age younger, but maybe they are newer to the faith.

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Maybe they are more immature in the faith. Maybe they haven't been around as long. Now we can be the kind of place that is more designed for those who have been around a while.

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It's very easy to do in a church that has you know, an understanding of doctrine that's fairly deep like we do.

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There's a, there's a way that can be exclusionary. Or we can be very welcoming, very eager to celebrate those who are even, who are less far along in their faith.

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Titus 2 commands us. It commands us particularly of women. It talks about women mentoring other women so that they would know how to love their husbands and take care of their households.

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But even earlier in that same chapter, it speaks of men having a similar relationship. You should have relationships where you are being invested into ideally, but also investing in others.

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You should ask yourself right now, you know, do you have in mind one, two, three, several, maybe more people that really have been a focus of your celebration, focus of your investment of time, of money, of whatever it takes to prepare for yourself heavenly dwellings, knowing that in as much as you give to the least of these, you're giving also to Jesus Christ, the one who with true gratitude will welcome you into his kingdom.

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If you don't have someone in mind, if that's a hard question for you to answer, develop an answer for yourself, you know.

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Sit down, strategize, think about who it is that you should be investing in and begin investing. Don't sit on the sidelines, but really participate in the life of the church, investing in those who are, who have not been around as long, who are more immature in the faith, who could benefit from what you have to offer as one who has been in the faith for longer.

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And finally, do this with urgency. This man realizes he does not have much time.

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He summons his debtors, the debtors one by one. He says, write this quickly, write this quickly.

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Let's do all this speedily. He realizes he does not have time. He can't dig, he can't he can't beg.

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He must take this other course of action. The sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light.

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Now, this is not Jesus saying, something that is a personal pet peeve of mine is when people talk about the world being more moral than than the church, as though the

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Holy Spirit has had no effect or even a negative effect on people. I feel like that is a it's wrong to speak of Christ's bride in that way.

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Sometimes I understand the point that people are making, but that's not what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is not saying that they are better with their money than the sons of light are with their money.

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What they are saying is, when it comes to earthly matters, when it comes to temporal matters, people can figure out, okay,

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I need a place to stay. I'm going to do these things. I'm going to get it done now. I know I've got this much time. I'm going to be expedient about it.

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I'm going to be efficient. But when it comes to spiritual things, because we don't see them, this is a different category.

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When it comes to spiritual things, even those who have been saved, even those who have been given spiritual eyes to see the nature of the urgency, don't see them as clearly as the sons of the world see the world.

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Right? The sons of the world see the world very clearly. They act with expediency. They do what needs to get done. The sons of the light, because we have had our eyes opened but still do not see, we still see in a mirror dimly.

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We still do not see clearly face -to -face as we one day will. We do not operate with that urgency.

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We do not operate that shrewdly because we feel that we have time. God has put eternity into the heart of man, and sometimes we distort that eternity so that we think it involves this life, right?

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This life is just going to go on forever. I don't have to act with urgency. I have unlimited days to get this sorted out.

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I have unlimited days to think about my future, and I have— I know where I'm going.

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I trust in Jesus Christ, but I'm going to take it a little easy right now. No, operate with urgency.

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Know that you have little time in this world. Be one who is ready to leave it all behind. Don't be the one who says, let me bury my father first.

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Let me do this first. Let me do that first. Be the one who is urgent, who's willing to give it all up, knowing that nothing else will bring you comfort.

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Nothing but Jesus Christ will bring you comfort. Not in the next life, and then even in this life, not completely, not fully.

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Come to him with the empty hand of faith, the empty hand of faith that says my works will give me, do not justify me, my wealth does not justify me.

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None of this means anything in the end. Only you do, and therefore

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I give it all. Come to one who has—come to him as one who has gratitude, who recognizes and appreciates and celebrates joyfully that salvation, that salvation that he has given you, that salvation that he has given others, and the the future that you have in store is so much more bright than one that would be built up by using your unrighteous wealth, your wealth that has no particular righteousness here in this life.

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Rather, invest in those true riches. Invest in those eternal dwellings, knowing that what we do here now, how we invest, has eternal implications for the joy we will experience in heavens.

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We are gathered with one another and gathered together with Jesus Christ, recounting what he has done through us in this world and how he moved our hearts to follow him and to enjoy the wonders of his kingdom.

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Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful salvation that you have given us, that even though we have been wicked stewards with your world, even though Adam has sinned and all us in him and will be removed from this position shortly, that you have given us a period of time in this life that we can make use of the position we have, of the authority that we have over our own lives, over our own possessions, over our own situations.

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And we ask that you would grant us generous hearts, hearts of gratitude towards you, that would overflow with generosity towards others, of our time, of our money, of our forgiveness, that we would not hold back, knowing that none of these things are worth anything in the next life, knowing that only you are worth anything.

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We pray that you would give us those hearts. We pray that you would build up your kingdom for your son is wonderful and glorious and you are wonderful and glorious.