MK040 Sermons
Shrewd (Audio)
That only traditions for a number of years that I remember was we went to a place called Dundalk, Maryland, and there was a 4th of July parade in Dundalk, Maryland. That's when my grandparents lived. And so I remember from that experience that we would go there, I would meet relatives that I hardly ever knew. I would go and visit people in houses that smelled a little funny. I always remember the houses smelled funny. And then we would go take our lawn chairs and we sit on the lawn and we watched the 4th of July parade. And I remember one year my grandfather said to me, he said, man, there's a lot of people sitting out here. And it's really hot. And this is before everybody hauled water bottles and everything. He said, I bet you you could make some money if you sold sodas along the parade route. Well, I didn't forget that. I was at that point about 10, 11 years old, you know, and starting to think about making money and looking for jobs and money that I could use on my own. And so the next year, I talked to my mom and alone in me the money, my brother and I loaned us the money to buy about 40 or 50 sodas, we chilled them in the fridge, we got our little cooler and wagon and took it there and in a half an hour, we sold out all the sodas. We had people, hey, do you have any more sodas? It was a really hot day. Do you have any more sodas? Nope. Sorry, we're all out. We're all paid my mom back, made a nice profit. We're like, wow, this is kind of cool. So I said next year, we're going to make this a bigger venture. So the next year, we bought sodas on Memorial Day weekend when they're cheap and we had the fridge, stock full of sodas, we're all ready to go on 4th of July and then it rained. And we drank our profits the rest of the summer. And didn't make a penny, lost some, lost money, you know, hand over fist, you know. And that was kind of the end of my business ventures, you know, there's not a lot, I've been a lot of those in my life of trying to find ways to make money and being very successful at that. But I learned a few basics about managing my money from my mom and dad, and I learned a lot of things about managing money from my wife who's very good with finances. I learned from friends of mine here and things that I've read and things that I've studied. But my question for you is where did you learn about handling money? Who taught you to manage your money? Who taught you to save? Who taught you to help others with your money? Who taught you about how to make your money work for you? Who taught you how to not let money control your life or for it to become an idol in your life? This morning, we're going to look at the subject of money. And as we do, we're going to look at a story in which Jesus talked about money. And some of you, as you listen to this story, it's going to rub you a little bit the wrong way, because it's going to feel like that's not what I should be doing as it relates to my money. For others of you, as you hear this story, you're going to be like, "Yes, I knew that was there was something good about what I was doing, even though my spouse told me I shouldn't do it that way." Yes, Jesus said it, that's okay, you know. And for others of you, you're going to find yourself scratching your head a little bit, saying, "I'm really not sure this makes a lot of sense." This morning, if you are a person who is maybe someone inviting you to come, maybe you haven't been to church in a while, and you're maybe even coming the last few weeks, kind of checking out church and kind of re-engaging in faith, I think this morning, what you're going to hear from Jesus is going to surprise you. And my hope is that as you are surprised by what Jesus has to say, that it gives you the confidence to continue to explore more what a relationship with Him is all about. If you have your Bibles, if you would turn with me to Luke 16, we've been in a series of studies entitled "The Parables of Jesus," and "The Parables of Jesus" are not the kind of stories that you read at night at bedtime, they're not the kind of stories with a happy ending, they're the kind of stories that you're going along, listening along, and then there's a surprise twist in the story, not what you expected. And this twist in the story is exacerbated because when that story takes a twist, you suddenly find yourself in the middle of the story, and that was not what you expected. And so that's what the parables are all about, and Jesus' purpose in telling these stories is to give us a real-life flesh and bones, look at what does it look like to follow Jesus and to live life. Last year we spent time in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' most famous teaching, and sometimes we'll read the stories of Jesus, we'll read the teachings of Jesus, we're like, "Okay, I know what it says, but I don't have any idea how that would work in my life." And that's what the parables are all about. It's an opportunity for you to look at what living life would be like doing what Jesus said to do. And so if you're there in your Bibles in Luke 16, follow along as I read the first few verses to set up the story. Jesus told his disciples there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer." The manager said to himself, "What should I do now? My master's taking away my job, but I'm not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their homes." Now this is a very interesting story that Jesus tells. It comes right on the heels of Luke 15, and in Luke 15 there's a very famous story called The Prodigal Son. And there's a lot of parallels between The Prodigal Son's story and this story. In both stories there's a kind, gracious, well-to-do, fatherly-type figure or master in the story who extends grace to an undeserving character. In both stories there's someone close to the fatherly figure who wastes resources. In both stories there's someone who comes to their senses when they're at the point of great loss. In both stories they throw themselves at the mercy of the master or the father. In both stories they deal with broken trust and the problems that result from it. And as you look at a parable, one of the things we've talked about each week is it's very important to look at who is listening, who's the audience hearing Jesus parable? One verse one of Luke 16 that says the disciples were there. I think there was more than the disciples. You see if you go back to the beginning of Luke 15 there were no chapter divisions until the 4th century. So these are stories one right after another. If you go back to Luke 15 verse one and two you discover that the people listening to those stories were tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors were all about money. There were Pharisees and religious leaders who were there listening and we'll talk about what they believed in their view of money, it's a little later. So I almost wonder if there's almost three tiers of people that were listening to what Jesus had to say on that day. So he begins the story by telling about a rich man and he caught his manager wasting his possessions. Charges were brought against him just like Joseph in the Old Testament but this time they were legitimate. We don't know where the charges came from, a jealous co-worker, an angry spouse, someone in the community to discover this. We have a sense that the master is well respected in the community, you'll see that as the story unfolds. There's really no criticism for hiring this guy so we have to assume that the guy wasn't bad to start with but somewhere along the way things went south for him. That's what happened and likely he was in the farming community and people in those days that were wealthy they had large amounts of land and they would rent this land out to others and then they would take a profit for their own good and they would pay the landlord and we actually do that. We've done that for a number of years. We have land back here and we have farmers that we let the grass grow and they cut it down for the silage for their animals and then they pay us a small fee. So the manager comes in for work and he's confronted by his owner there in verse 2 and look what the owner goes on to say he said, "What is this I hear about you?" We don't know what the accusation is but there's something that the owner has heard about the manager at this point. He's been confronted. He doesn't say a word and the next accusation comes right on the heels. He says, "Give an account of your management because you no longer work here. You're no longer a manager." He doesn't try to defend himself. It's as if he was busted and he knew it. He knew it. You know it's interesting because the owner didn't say, "You know I think there's some discrepancies. Why don't you research those and figure them out? Get back to me in a few days and let's talk about how this happened, what we can do differently next time and change our systems." Not what he says. He says, "You're done. You're done." This is as if on this spot he was let go turn in your key and you're finished and formally he's an ex-manager but nobody really knows that yet. You almost wonder if maybe he had a day to turn in everything and then he was finished. It's very unusual for this culture, very unusual to say, "What do you mean?" This is a culture in which you negotiate everything, everything, all the time. It's the way people in the ancient Near East, even the current Middle East. That's the way they live. You're always negotiating and likely in a normal transaction this accusation would have come and this man would have said, "Well you can't do this because my family has worked in this role for generations and do you realize what a shame and humiliation you would bring upon my family and is there anything I can do to try to correct the wrong?" No, there's nothing you can do. You need to leave. Are you sure it was my fault, maybe it was someone else's fault and they made this mistake and it just got passed up to me and I'll do whatever I need to do to go back and correct the wrong and make things right. None of that, none of that. Very, very unusual. It's as if he knows he's guilty and his silence is an admission of guilt but it's very surprising. The manager then begins this conversation in his head because he knows he's in a tricky situation. Look what he says in verse 3. He says, "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?" He says, "I can't go and work in the fields." The people that worked in the fields, they would prepare the fields and they would plant the crops and then they would take care of the fields and then they would harvest the crops. They didn't have tractors with air conditioning and GPS in those days like they do now to plant harvest crops. This was bag breaking, exhausting work and this guy said, "I'm not strong enough to do it. I can't do it." And then he says, "I can't even beg." The only people in that culture who begged were usually people with a physical limitation and/or women who had been divorced or widowed and someone with a physical limitation would be maybe someone who was blind or someone who couldn't hear someone who was lame and Jesus met those people all along his life, experienced and healed them and so you see someone who's not deaf, blind or lame and they're out there begging, panhandling, people are going to say, "What are you doing? You're a fraud. Go get a job. You can work." So he knew that was not an option for him to consider. So what was he going to do? Well, he hatches a new plan in verse 4, he said, "I've got to do something so that when I lose my job because I know that's coming, it's basically already here." Look at that phrase, people will welcome me into their homes. You see, nobody else knows he's been fired and he's got one last shot, one last ace in the hole because if he's fired for corruption, no one will hire him. He's done. He's done. So what is he going to do to put himself in a place that when the dust settles and everyone finds out someone's still willing to give him a chance? Now let me ask you this question. If someone came to you and they were in a situation like this, they had done something wrong, they got caught and their job was about to end, what advice would you give them? What advice would you give them? All on your sword, admit you're wrong. So I'll do what I can to pay you back. Maybe somehow try to preserve your reputation just a little bit so that when you had another opportunity and they checked with a previous employer and simply asked the question, "Would you or would you not hire that person again?" The obvious answer wouldn't be no. Person was a Christ-far would you say, "Hey, ask for forgiveness?" What would you suggest to someone in that situation? I'm pretty confident that if I pulled this room, the large majority of you would not suggest what he went ahead and did. I'm pretty confident. Let's see what he did. Verse 7 or verse 5, "Excuse me." He doesn't tell anybody that he's been fired. He just calls his debtors into the office. Now, this is kind of an unusual thing because that only normally happens when the harvest time is done. You know, when you harvest your crops and you see what you get and then you pay for the land that you use, that's what our people that rent the land from us do. So it's not harvest time, so why is he calling them in? It's a little unusual. But he asked the first, he said, "How much do you owe the master?" And he goes on to tell them in verse 6, he said, "900 gallons." Manager says, "Here's the bill. I want you to... Your handwriting. Not mine. Your handwriting. Write it down. And change it to 450." He slashed it right in half. That's about a two years' worth of work. He calls the next guy in, and he says, "How much do you owe?" He says, "A thousand bushes of wheat," he replied. He told him, he says, "Make it 800." He took 200 off, again, about two years' worth of work, two years' worth of work. The manager's really setting up the people in debt, because the debtor's not going to go back to the owner and tell him what happened, because what's the owner going to do? No, no, no, no. He was not authorized to do that. That's not what he was allowed to do. It's back up to what it was. So the debtor's not going to say anything. So each debtor returns to his village, and what does he say about the owner? Let me make this a little practical for you. Let's imagine that your mortgage company calls you tomorrow. It says, "We'd like to meet with you. Can you schedule time to come in the office?" You're like, "Did we pay the bills on time?" I thought we were paying them. Did something happen? You're like in a panic, and you go check, "Yeah, we paid the bills. Everything's caught up." They said, "I can't really explain this, but we've had a turn of events that have allowed us to cut your mortgage right in half." You're like, "I can't believe this. I can't believe it." Now, let me ask you, would you contact the CEO of the mortgage company, ask them why they did that for you? I don't think so. You'd run home and be celebrating, right? Let's throw a party, you know? And we'd probably be telling all your friends, right? You won't believe what my mortgage company just did for you. They're like, "What mortgage company? I don't have that one. How do I refinance to get that deal, you know, get with this company?" You'd be telling everybody. Likely, we don't know for sure, but likely that's what could have happened in this story. So the rich man is celebrated as this amazingly generous benefactor, the most generous man they ever known. The steward has praised for negotiating this amazing deal, and when all the interviews are finished, he turns the records back over to his boss. The next day, the boss opens up the books, looks at what happened, chuckled to himself, and said, "You got me, you got me." Because he knew he had him over a barrel, right? What's going to happen if this owner then goes back to the people who just had their bills slash, "No, there's been a big mistake, I'm sorry, that's not what happened. Put your bills back up, you all owe me this money. What are the people in that community going to think of that rich man?" He's the worst guy on the face of this earth, worst guy. Possibly the manager knew that the owner was a generous man, was a man who kept his word, was a man of integrity, was a man of honor, and he knew that he would not back down on what had just happened. And so, what does the manager do in verse 8? He commends the dishonest manager, again, not minimizing, not saying what he did was right, why? Because he acted truely, because he acted truely, what does the word true mean? It's someone who's smart and cunning and uses every available resource at their disposal to make something happen. That's what true. It's not a negative word, it's not a negus, it's not someone who's dishonest or deceitful. That happened with this guy, but that's not the word true, what the word true means. It's kind of like the mouse and Tom and Jerry outsmarting the cat, you know? His morals were deplorable, but he put himself at the mercy of his generous master, his entire trust in him, much like the prodigal son did, when he came back and offered his services as a slave. But the response of Jesus is quite surprising, because you would almost expect Jesus at this point, based on what you know from earlier passages, what you know from the Sermon on the Mount, to say something about a wasted opportunity. You've got this great job working for this rich guy who's good to everybody and you wasted it by stealing and not taking good care of what he entrusted you. Jesus has said that before, hasn't he? Yeah. You might expect Jesus say that he should not have been deceptive to his debtors, he should not have lied to those individuals and acted as if he was in charge when he shouldn't. He should have admitted is wrong, offered to pay it back, been repented, wrote, taken the consequences and been willing to trust God that he would work things out. Jesus doesn't say any of that. What he says in the second half of verse eight, he says, "For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light." What's he talking about there? People of this world are people who basically don't have God in their lives. They're not that concerned about Jesus and his kingdom, they're only concerned about making a buck, gaining a profit, and to their bottom line and increasing their net value. That's all they care about, and he said, "It's a doggy dog world and they take advantage, they'll do whatever they can to get an advantage, to get a leg up. They're always trying to outsmart you or find a better way." He said, "That's the way they treat one another." That's not the way people of faith or people of the light treat one another. They're kind and gracious and generous and never wanting to take advantage of someone. What is Jesus saying here? He's basically saying, "People of faith are not good at using the wisdom of this world to manage the money that's entrusted to them." It kind of makes you take a step back, doesn't it? It seems a little odd for Jesus to be making a statement like that, and as I thought about the audience and I thought about the people that he was speaking to, he's speaking to his disciples, he's speaking to the tax collectors. You know what the tax collectors did? They collected taxes for Rome, and they took a cut above that from the people. They took advantage of people. He's also speaking to the Pharisees and the religious leaders, and what little we know about the Pharisees and about money, there's a verse a little bit later in this chapter that talks about how much they love money, they authorize the selling of animals in the temple for Jews who had traveled from far distances that had come to the temple to worship God, even an animal to sacrifice, they charge exorbitant prices, again taking advantage of people. These are the models that the people of that day had when it came to using their money. When you had wealth, when you had resources, you used it to take advantage of others so you could add to what you have. That's the only example they had, and Jesus suggests a different approach. He said, "Are you taking advantage of every opportunity you can that's available to you to manage the resources that I've entrusted to you?" I said, "What does that mean, John? What does that mean?" Well, I thought of a few that came to my mind, and there might be others that come to your mind, but here's a few that came to my mind. One example is take advantage of as many tax breaks as you can. Have a family member who is provided for some of my family in generous ways, and they're always asking, "Can we get a tax break doing this?" They're like, "Why do they always ask that?" Because they know there's ways to be wise and discerning with their money that I don't always think about. Here's another one. Pay as little interest as possible. Pay off debts, pay off loans, other than a mortgage that's an appreciable asset, you're losing money. You're losing money. Here's another one. Negotiate lower prices when purchasing anything you can. Anything you can. I learned this from my friend Ted who said, "Why not ask? What do you have to lose if you ask?" Something like, "Oh, no, I couldn't ask. I'm not really good at asking. Just say, "Would you be open to this instead of this?" There's another one always save for emergencies. You know, when people call us and they're in difficult time financially, they don't have an emergency bucket and they get stuck. That's wisdom. That's wisdom. Here's the last one. When making big decisions on finances, get advice from smart financial people and then take it, I get so tired of people who tell me, "Yeah, so-and-so told me I should do this," but it just didn't feel right so I did this. I'm like, "That's ridiculous. You know, you don't go on feelings when it comes to dollars and cents. It's black and white. You see somebody that's good at the black and white and listen to what they have to say." You see, this is what Jesus is saying. It's just causing some of us to kind of take a step back and think, "Well, I pay my bills and I do this, but I don't do all those things. I don't know if I should." And Jesus says, "You need to use the wisdom of this world to manage your resources and you don't. You don't." And some of you thinking, "John, that sounds like a-that sounds a little edgy and a little crass and a little hard-nose and a-you know, a little doggy dog and-and I don't know. I'm just not comfortable with all of that-with what Jesus-the way Jesus calls us to live." But the cool thing about this story is Jesus doesn't just end the story there because he continues to talk and as he continues to talk, he balances the other side of this equation, which is the question of, "To what end am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why am I being shrewd with my money? Why am I trying to take advantage of everything I can? Why am I trying to do that? Why, why, why, why, why, why?" Just so I have more, so I can spend more, so my value increases? No. No. Look what Jesus goes on to say in verse 9. He says, "I tell you, you use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves." That's what the-that's what the manager did, right? So that when it is gone, you'll be welcomed in the eternal dwellings. He said, "There's going to be something beneficial to you when you make good choices with your resources now in the future." He then goes on to explain a little bit more in verse 10 through 12, "Whoever can be trusted with little, can be trusted with much, is ever dishonest with little, be dishonest with much." Verse 11, "So if you've not been trustworthy and handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?" And then in verse 12, "And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property on your own?" Again, words that we've heard from Jesus over and over and over again. So he tells a story that surprises the people with the point of the story, and then he comes back and reinforces it with truth that he's been saying over and over again. He says, "God will give you a little bit. If you are faithful with the little that he gives you, he will give you more." And he'll do that. He'll do that. That's God's ways. God doesn't say, "Invest and guarantee you'll get a return." God says, "You are faithful with the little, and you will be entrusted with more." This morning when I drove in, I just walked out front and was just standing there looking out in the fields back here that we own now, and just amazed that God has blessed us with all of this. Amazed. I mean, most of you know that for many years our church meant in rendered facilities that we were there for a few hours. All of our possessions were stored in a shed, and we met in a little tiny chapel building for many, many, many years, and that's what God entrusted us with. And for some reason that I'm not quite sure I fully grasped yet, he's entrusted us with a whole lot more. And many of you heard me say and challenge and invite you to say to pray how God wants us to use this space to love and serve the people of this community. And God says, "When you're faithful with the dollars and cents, go back to verse 11. What is He going to give you and trust you with?" True riches. True riches. That's people. That's what He's going to trust you with. It's people. It's all of you and the family and friends that you know, that you love, that you care about, that might not know Jesus, that you invite to hear, that might know the love of God and invite Him, Jesus, to be a part of their lives. You see, He doesn't say, "I want you to be shrewd just so you can increase what you have." He said, "You should live that way, being faithful with a little, because if you are faithful with a little, I will entrust you with far more than dollars and cents." And that's the stuff that really matters. And then He closes in verse 13 with these words. Again, from the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "You can't serve two masters. You'll hate one and love the other, devoted to one, to spy the other. You cannot serve both God and money." And so He says, "You need to live shrewdly, you need to act shrewdly with your resources, but you also need to trust God with your resources. You need to trust God with your resources." He said, "What does it look like to trust God with my resources? What does it look like for me to serve God instead of my money?" Here's a couple practical things. It looks like this. It looks like giving God back the first 10% of what He's given to you. We'll talk about this later over the winter, about giving back to God first. It's all about being generous with people who are in need. I was talking to someone recently and they said, "You know, John, one of the things I've learned is I've started to help people financially who have needs is that sometimes if you don't hold everything loosely, it's going to feel like you got burned." And that's at times hard. Hold things like this in your life, everything. Your home, your job, your possessions, your money, hold everything loosely like this. And here's another one, don't let paying back loans or avoiding debt keep you from investing in people. You know, one of the things I value about the community we live in is their devotion to hard work. It's a hard working community we live in. It's also a community that doesn't like debt. And one of the things I've discovered is that sometimes in the commitment to avoid debt, we can be so devoted to that that we don't have any time for people. Again, who do you serve? God or money, God or money. So where are you at this morning? Where are you at? Maybe you're not very shrewd or smart or creative with your finances and you really don't trust God. You just do what you want to do. You work, you pay your bills, you spend your money, you work, you pay your bills, that's all that you do. And God's saying, "I want you to take a step forward in one of these," or maybe even both of these directions this morning. Maybe you're someone that's really, really good with your money and you know how to find a deal and you know how to take advantage of all the opportunities that are out there and no one slips one past you, but you're pretty proud of that, but money's got a hold on your heart. Turn bondage to it and you live for that, not for God. Maybe you're very devoted to God and you don't hold things tightly and you trust God with everything, but you don't try to negotiate things and you don't try to find deals and you just don't bother with all that. I don't have time. I don't bother with all of that stuff. And God's saying, "You need to take a step towards that." And you do some homework and you tap a couple people who are really good on the shoulder and say, "Can you help me with this? I'm not very good at this. I've had to learn from other people and I know a little bit now that I used to." So what's God inviting you to do with your money? What's inviting you to do? I want to challenge you as you go home and as you're in your small groups this week and next week to talk about which of those sides of the continuum you tend to tip towards one or the other or neither. And where's God calling you to this morning? I want you to talk about if you're not crafty, talk about ways to be crafty and if you're not devoted to God with your money, talk about ways to preach your devotion to God. Maybe if this is a struggle for you this morning, you just need to say, "God, I just need to give some of my money away this week." So, God, give me a number. Tell me how much you want me to give away. It doesn't matter where, who because I don't want to be in bondage to my money. I want to be in bondage and a slave only one person and that's to Jesus. So what's he calling you to do this morning? You're shrewdly, trust God and do him both. I want to invite you to bow your heads and just give you a chance to meet with God for a moment. Be honest about where you are, he knows where you are. Be honest. Ask him what he wants to do, what's he to do and then just sit and listen. Be honest about what you want to do and what you want to do and what you want to do. God, this is one of those stories and parts of the Bible where I think we all see ourselves and some of us have been trusted with the creativity and the financial minds to be pretty shrewd and really do it well, Lord. That's hard to trust you, it's hard not to be a slave to my money. Some God, we've made that commitment and we live by it. We just said I'm not going to try to navigate all that other stuff, but you invite us to and commend those who do. Lord, I pray especially for those that thinking about God and their money is really, really new. It's kind of their money, they work hard for it, they earn it. Try to manage it, you're not really in the mix. I pray this morning that we would have hearts that come before you, acknowledging all that you have given, all that we have comes as a gift from you and we want to use it in ways that bring you great to life. Help us God, we can't do this on our own, we need you. [BLANK_AUDIO]