If you would take your Bibles and turn back to the gospel of Luke, we are in chapter 16 tonight. You can find that on page 875 in your pew Bibles. Luke chapter 16.
Several years ago we were playing Scattergories with some of our friends. Scattergories is a game where each round you try to think of as many words in the time period as you can that start with a given letter and that fit into a certain category. Well in one round, our category was “Comfort Foods” and the letter was the letter “C.” And so while most of us wrote down words on our list things like, “cookies” and “chocolate” and “casseroles,” one of my friends wrote down on his list things like “celery” and “cabbage” and “carrots.” And we all had a good laugh at his expense. Obviously, he didn’t quite understand what comfort foods are, and yes, we still give him a hard time about it almost fifteen years later or so. But when it comes to comfort, we think we understand the comfort of money because money can buy us a nice home, it can buy us nice cars and a nice vacation. Money can make life more comfortable. But how much is that kind of comfort really worth?
A few weeks ago, we heard Jesus’ challenge to comfortable Christianity when He said in Luke chapter 14 that in order to be His disciple one must “bear his own cross and count the cost.” And last week, we saw Jesus’ challenge, that that means giving up, giving up the ease of a safe and a respectable self-righteousness in order to be able to receive and even to share in the grace of God. Well tonight, we come to Luke chapter 16 and we hear what Jesus has to say about money. Jesus said a lot about money, and you’ve probably heard some of the statistics that Jesus taught on money more than any other topic and around one-fourth of His parables deal with money. Now some of those statistics are a little misleading, and yes, Jesus did use money and possessions in order to teach about life in the kingdom of God, and yes, how we handle our finances is an important part of our discipleship, but Jesus’ ministry was much broader than that.
And the purpose of Jesus’ teaching and preaching was to focus on the heart and to deal with matters of eternal significance. And so tonight as we come to Luke chapter 16, the common thread that we find throughout this chapter is money – how we use it to serve God and how we avoid letting it become a substitute for God. And so we’ll see in this passage a contrast between two ways of using money. First, we’ll see using money to serve God. And then secondly, we’ll see using money to serve self. Those are the two points that will structure our outline tonight for this passage – using money to serve God or using money to serve self. And only one way leads to blessing. So before we read God’s Word, let’s pray and ask His help. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we give You thanks that You have been gracious to us and we come before You again to wait upon Your Word. We ask that You would speak, for Your servants listen. Would You give Your Holy Spirit to us tonight to understand and to apply Your Word. Help us to see where Your Word applies in difficult ways in our lives. It calls us and challenges us to do new and unexpected things for You, for Your glory. And would You help us to wait even as we respond in obedience, to wait on Your blessing. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 16, starting in verse 1:
“He also said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 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.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.’
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 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.
The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house – for I have five brothers – so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
This passage is about what happens when money fails. And it will fail. We see it all around us all of the time. Maybe you’ve heard about this thing they call inflation. Everything is so expensive right now. A recent report that I read said that the typical US household spends $445 more a month to buy the same goods that it did at this time last year. And if you want to buy a house or a car, you are going to pay a whole lot more in interest now than you would have a year ago. Money fails. And then there is all this talk about cryptocurrency. I don’t really get it, but I do follow sports enough to know that the Miami Heat will no longer be playing in FTX Arena and that Major League Baseball umpires will no longer be wearing ad patches that say FTX on them. FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that was headquartered in the Bahamas – not that there could be anything concerning about that. But the recent reports are that clients have lost billions of dollars because of the company’s bankruptcy and the full extent isn’t even known up to this point.
Using Money to Serve God
As a side note, as I sat down to prepare a sermon on Luke chapter 16, I never would have expected to spend any time reading about the price of eggs or about the block chain, but that’s what happened this week. And I think that says something to us about the always new relevance of God’s Word that is living and active and it’s always fresh application to our world today. And what we can say from Luke chapter 16 and from the news of today is that money fails. So does that mean that we have no use for it? Well what does Jesus say? What Jesus says is perhaps one of His most unusual parables. It’s not that it’s all that terribly difficult to understand, it’s just that it seems like Jesus is endorsing an unethical approach to accounting. Because He tells this story of a rich man who had a manager who was wasting his possessions.
Now by the way, there is a link there in that heading, in that introduction to his story, there’s a link between this chapter and what we read in chapter 15. Because it was in chapter 15 that the prodigal son was one who squandered his property in wreckless living, and here it’s the manager who was wasting or squandering his possessions. It’s the same word. And it’s almost like Jesus is using different reactions to those who squander their possessions, i.e. the tax collectors and the sinners. He’s using different reactions to that group of people, to those who squander their possessions, to teach principles about the kingdom of God.
And what we find in this story is that this manger, to get out of this tight spot that he was in, he went to his master’s debtors one by one and he made a deal with them. And he said to the one who owed him 100 measures of oil, take your bill, sit down quickly, and write 50. And then he went to the one who owed 100 measures of wheat and he said, “Sit down, take your bill, and write 80.” What was he doing? He was slashing the amount of their debts in order to ingratiate himself to those borrowers. Now they owed less to the rich master, but at the same time, they now owed something to the disgraced manager. What did they owe him? They owed him a favor, and he was about to cash in on that favor.
Now Jesus says that when the master found out about what the manager had done, verse 8 says that he actually commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Now that word “shrewdness” is important for understanding this parable. The Greek word is “phronimōs” and it’s associated with wisdom, but it’s a certain kind of wisdom. Now probably the most familiar word for wisdom is “sophia,” and that tends to refer to a more bigger picture of wisdom, philosophical wisdom. But “phronimōs,” it’s about practical wisdom. It’s about being savvy. You could even say it’s about being streetwise. And this dishonest manager here is an example of how the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the sons of light.
See, Jesus is calling for His disciples to be shrewd. He wants us to be wise in how we live in this world as His disciples so that we can be fruitful in the kingdom of God. And Jesus’ disciples need to have the same mindset as this dishonest manager. Not that we need to be dishonest, but we need to be careful in how we live in this life in light of our future prospect. Discipleship, you see, for Jesus, it doesn’t mean just passing through this life just to get by. It doesn’t mean just trying to cope while we’re here. No, it means being discerning and diligent in how we use our gifts, our resources, and our opportunities that God gives to us. And that includes in the area of money. Jesus says in verse 9, “I tell you, you make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings.” In other words, that money which will fail one day, can be used to further the spread of the Gospel. And that Gospel which draws people together in Christ will unite them together forever in eternal dwellings.
There was a popular podcast that had an episode several years ago on the topic of church planting. And the reporter made this observation – that there was a lot of blending of corporate jargon with Christian jargon in the church world. So words like “branding” and “buy in” and “strategy” and “task force.” Here’s a quote from the podcast. It says, “Launch is a big word that they use in both worlds. They talk about ‘Launch Sundays’ and ‘Launch Budgets’ in church and the framing of what they are doing in business terms.” Now I won’t say anything else about that except isn’t that sort of what Jesus is doing here in this passage? Because he’s talking about leveraging what’s in our current portfolio in order to achieve a greater return on investment. He’s talking about being faithful in whatever we have right now in order to receive even greater blessings in the kingdom of God. He’s talking about not being a servant to our money but using our money to serve God.
Now how do we do that? Well first of all, we have to recognize that there is always a temptation to make money our master. And I’m sure that I’ve quoted to you before the quote from J.C. Ryle when he said that “Money, in truth, is one of the most unsatisfying of possessions.” He says, “There is trouble in getting it, there is anxiety in keeping it, there are temptations in using it, there is guilt in the abuse of it, there is sorrow in the losing of it, there is perplexity in the disposing of it.” And he says that, “Two-thirds of all the strifes, quarrels and lawsuits in this world arise from one simple cause – money.” You see, money makes a terrible master, and we have to be on guard from allowing our hearts to be gripped and enamored by money and riches. That’s the first thing.
But then, we also need to put our money to work for kingdom purposes. And that begins right here. That begins in supporting the ministry of this church. It begins with supporting the ministries with whom we partner and the missionaries whom we send out from here into various parts of this city and country and world. But it also means being creative and committed to pair our time and our assets with the needs and the opportunities that are all around us. Several years ago I was loosely connected with a ministry in Memphis that served the youth in the heart of the city of Memphis. And this ministry had “launched” – or, excuse me – it had taken off because a man left his thirty-year career in investment banking to lead Gospel ministry in a largely unreached community. And he said that he had reached a point in his career where he wanted to use his skills and his talents to impact people in a more significant manner than his financial services job had allowed. And you see, what was one of the best things that he had going for him? He knew people with money and he was able to leverage those relationships and to leverage that money in order to serve the underserved community with the Gospel in Memphis. It was a sacrifice for him, for sure, but when money is not our master then we can, as verse 9 says, we can make friends by means of unrighteous wealth.
I wonder, for us here tonight, I wonder what ways God may be calling some of you to serve Him in new and maybe unexpected ways by using your gifts, your talents, your relationships, and opportunities that you see right around you. I wonder how God may be calling you to do something new today. I know that I or any of the pastors here would love to talk with you and to pray with you about what that might look like. We would love to think more about how to apply Jesus’ teaching and encouragement here in this passage. We’d love to see how that would happen in new and fresh and exciting ways all around us.
Using Money to Serve Self
Now for the Pharisees, maybe not so much. The Pharisees, it says, when they heard Jesus saying these things, how did they respond? Verse 14 says that they ridiculed Jesus because they were lovers of money. You see, the Pharisees, instead of being shrewd with their money, They were foolish. Instead of using their money to serve God, they used their money to serve themselves. So there’s using money to serve God and then there’s also using money to serve self. And not only does money make a terrible master, money also makes a terrible savior. Money can do a lot of things. Money can get your name on a building. Money can get you a seat on a board of directors. Money will usually get you “Yes” for an answer. But it doesn’t mean anything in the sight of God.
And verse 15 says, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” Now does that sound familiar? That sounds a lot like what happened in 1 Samuel chapter 8. And when the people of Israel wanted a king, what did they ask for? They wanted a king like the nations. They wanted a king to rule them like the nations all around them. They wanted a king according to the standards of the world – riches, power, outward appearances. But what did God say to Samuel when he called David to be their king a little later on? He said, “The Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” It’s not like this is just a Pharisee problem. Yes, we read back in chapter 14 that Jesus challenged the Pharisees because when they had their dinner parties and their banquets, they only invited their friends, their family, and their rich neighbors, and they held places of honor for them at their dinner table. But they totally ignored the poor and the crippled and the lame and the blind.
But you know what? The early church needed these same warnings as well. What did Paul write to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6? He says that, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” And what did James write in his epistle? He said, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” He said, “For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears fine clothing and say, ‘You sit in a good place’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there or sit down at my feet’” – and he asked them, “Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” The early church had to watch out for these same kinds of things.
What about us? Do we measure people according to the standards of the world? Do we show partiality to the rich and to the affluent? You know, if we want to be faithful to this passage, I think it’s going to cause us to ask ourselves some hard questions. Questions like, “How much of our ministry programming and even our worship tradition is welcoming to people like us but not so much to people in the neighborhoods around us right now?” We voted today to elect new officers. How much of the people that we choose and nominate, how much of a factor is career advancement in the people whom we choose? And how much does our sense of belonging, how much does our sense of worth, our stability, our peace of mind, how much does it depend on how much is in our bank accounts? There are a lot of hard questions that we could ask ourselves from this chapter. Questions about what we value, what we prioritize. And we need to ask those questions, because what does Jesus say in verse 15? He says that “What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” That’s a strong word. “His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.”
And it’s not just in the area of money. We get to verse 18 – I’m not quite sure how verse 18 fits in with the rest of this passage, but if we need to reexamine our lives in the area of money, surely we need to do it in the area of marriage as well. Verse 18 says, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” I went back and forth on how that fits into this passage. I like what David Garland writes in his commentary. He argues that “The inclusion of Jesus’ comment on divorce is not intended to give instructions about divorce and remarriage, although it does do that.” But he says, “Instead, it is used to illustrate something about the permanent validity of the law and the prophets. And as marriage binds husband and wife in a permanent union, so the law and the prophets are permanently bound and cannot be jettisoned or disjoined.” And the point is, that we should not be dismissive to God’s Word in any way because in it, we find the way of salvation. Money is no savior. Money cannot provide true and lasting comfort. Those things are only found in the law and in the prophets and in the good news of the kingdom of God.
And Jesus tells a story. He told a story about a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day, and about a poor man named Lazarus who was laid at his gate. It’s a story that is chilling to read because it’s a story about death and about hades and about torment and anguish. It’s about this impassible divide that exists between those who enjoy God’s blessings forever and those who face His judgment when this life is over. There is an account from the life of Robert Murray M’Cheyne that he asked his friend, Andrew Boner, what he had preached about the previous Sunday. And Boner said to him that he had preached on hell. And M’Cheyne’s question to him was, “Did you preach it with tears?” And that’s the posture with which we should approach this story in Luke chapter 16. This passage should make us shutter, I think, because in Jesus’ story, the rich man and Lazarus had switched places. The rich man had received his good things in this lifetime but was now in anguish. Lazarus, who had endured bad things, was now comforted. And the rich man, he asked if Lazarus could be sent to his five brothers that they may be warned and spared from being sent to this place of torment. But what’s the problem with that request? It’s that the rich man’s brothers had Moses and the prophets. They had the Word of God. Verse 31 says, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
Now the implication here is that the rich man, along with his brothers, he used his money to serve himself. And his focus in his life was to get the best this life had to offer. And his money was his way to justify himself. His money was his way to exalt himself over others and to find in it his identity and his significance. It was his salvation. But what happened? His money failed. And because he did not repent, he was in anguish, and his money did him no good there. It brought him no comfort in the end.
There is a grave danger in being a lover of money. What Jesus calls for instead is to hear the law and the prophets, to hear the preaching of the good news of the kingdom of God. In other words, Jesus is calling for us to hear the Word of God, to hear the message of the Bible and to repent, to turn to God, to turn to God and to find salvation, to turn to God and to find that which brings everlasting comfort and know it will not fail. And oh, by the way, we also have one who confirms all of the promises in the Bible. We have one who guarantees to us every offer of true blessing and comfort forever by doing what? By rising from the dead. And it is because of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave that we can endure and sacrifice through hard things in this life knowing that comfort comes in the end and blessing is forever at the right hand of God.
And so may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, may He equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Father You are good and Your mercy endures forever. We thank You for the ways in which You have been abundantly generous to us. And we pray as we look to our lives that You would help us look to our hearts, see the things that You see, and see the needs of those around us and the opportunities to make friends for the sake of the Gospel. Would You give us wisdom. Help us to be shrewd, to be prudent, to be streetwise in the gifts and the opportunities that You put into our lives. Help us to take those opportunities, to be faithful and diligent. To be faithful in little that we might also receive Your blessing of much in due time. We thank You for Your Son Jesus and for His resurrection, for His victory over the grave and all that fails in order to bring that which lasts forever and a comfort with You forever. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.