38. Who is Jesus?
May 29th, 2011
Crafty Currency
We are jumping back into our series through the Gospel of Luke, after the storms and craziness I felt it would be nice to get something back to normal. When we left off Jesus was hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. The religious people who think they are God’s greatest gift since butt warmers on car seats don’t like that Jesus hangs out with lowly sinners.
So Jesus tells some parables, these parables are stories designed to teach valuable life lessons. Jesus tells three parables about the joy of finding something that was lost. Showing the religious people not only the heart of God and His desire to seek the lost but also the initiative God takes to do so.
We are in Luke 16:1. Jesus moves on in His teaching to tell two more parables: one to the disciples, and one to the religious people. The first parable tells of how we can use our money to go to heaven. The second tells of how we can use our money to go to hell.
This is a very confusing parable as it seems like Jesus is encouraging us to be dishonest and to rip each other off. Big business executives start embezzling a bunch of money, robbing from the poor so they buy diamond dentures and platinum shoe laces and Jesus runs up and gives them a high five. It almost reads like these guys who use their position to take advantage of others get praised by God.
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 shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and 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 houses.’ (Lk 16:1-4)
So we have this manager. The manager works for a very wealthy man. He is like a private CPA his job is to manage the household affairs of his master. He was a bookkeeper, like an accountant; who would distribute goods, delivered the paychecks, and keep track of who owed his boss money. This is a high level position and the one that gave him a lot of access to his boss’s accounts. Apparently he was abusing his position. That doesn’t mean he was a thief, more likely the dude was lazy. Showed up to work late, left early, logged plenty of hours of solitaire, built up some rockin’ stuff on Farmville. He is not a great employee. Eventually someone gets tired of watching the manager do nothing and they rat him out. The master of the house calls in a private firm to do an audit and the findings are not good.
If you were trying to sell your house and you found out your realtor wasn’t doing anything to try and show it, they were just waiting around for a sale so they could take a percentage you might respond like the master does. He pulls a Donald Trump: you’re fired! The manager knows he deserves it but now he needs help. He is getting fired for being a lousy employee that will make finding another job difficult as he knows he will not get a recommendation from his boss. Finding another job will be trying to get Lady Ga-Ga to dress appropriately for a music video: unlikely.
Due to the nature of his position his termination wouldn’t be immediate. The master would need time to find a new employee and transfer the books over to him. So our useless manager friend has a few weeks to pack up his desk, finalize his projects, and get out.
“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ “ ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’ “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “ ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. (Lk 16:5-9)
The manager is a math geek, captain of the chess club. Dude never stepped foot in a weight room or worked in the hot afternoon sun. So he can’t just fall back on a manual labor job because he’s kind of a pansy. So he comes up with a plan, and his plan is pretty clever. He still legally represents and could still act on his boss’s behalf so he brings in a bunch of people who owe his boss money. He brings them in and reduces their bills significantly. The bill was a written document signed by both parties as contract for payment. Once the document was turned back over to the debtor the person was free from their obligation to pay.
What he is doing is not really illegal. Typically when you take out a loan you end up spending more in interest than you even took out for the loan. So what the manager is probably doing is cancelling the interest on all the accounts so the debt was significantly reduced. This will make you friends. If your realtor called you and said hey, I’m going to knock 50% of the debt off your house if you can bring in a check today; you are going to start thinking you won the lottery. So if your realtor gave you his business card afterwards and said, hey I’m looking for a job you might feel inclined to help him out.
The master is probably not thrilled that his useless accountant just defrauded him as his income will now be reduced but even so he can’t help but be impressed with the cleverness of the manager’s scheme. Nobody likes being the butt of the joke but sometimes the joke is so good you can’t help but laugh. I was talking last week with some people who brought in relief supplies and they were asking about my wife and it came out that she was a little older than me, like six months so huge age difference. I was teasing her and Erica was trying explain and out of nowhere Amanda comes up and says: “all I heard was: blah, blah, blah I’m a cougar.” The only you can do is appreciate how clever it was. That is what the master does here. What the manager did would cost the master some money, it would improve his reputation as well as the reputation of his manager. It’s not exactly ethical but it was totally legal.
The manager is not the owner. Everything he has access to actually belongs’ to his boss, he is a steward. A steward is someone who manages the property or possessions of someone else. If you go into a restaurant most have a general manager. That is a steward. They don’t own the restaurant but they manage it and are held responsible for it. This is what Jesus calls all of us to do. We are commanded to be good stewards. The stuff we have doesn’t belong to us. It is entrusted to us so that we can manage it wisely. When we waste all our money on stuff we don’t need, when we spend all our time doing things that don’t matter we are like the manager: wasteful. You don’t own anything you have. All you have God has entrusted you with.
The main theme here is the wise use of material wealth. Jesus is using a bad guy as a good example. Everyone has something to teach us. My parents have an awesome marriage; they have been married now for almost thirty years. Erica’s parents had a bad marriage; they are divorced. I had seen what makes a relationship go right, she had seen relationships go wrong. Both are valuable teachers. We can learn good lessons from bad examples. Jesus is not approving of this guys laziness or dishonesty. What He is complimenting is the man’s use of temporary resources to prepare for the future. This is an example we should follow. We can use our gifts by making connections and finding practical ways of meeting people’s needs. We can use the resources we have to show the love of Jesus to people.
Sometimes as Christians we think that being wise and shrewd in our dealings somehow is unchristian. We think Christians should be generous, and naïve, gullible, and trusting; which is not true at all. We are supposed to be innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents. Often times we end up as innocent as serpents and as shrewd as doves.
We don’t always know how to save money, make money, and use money in a Godly way. We often get scammed and taken advantage of because we don’t take the time to learn how to make wise decisions. It’s bad stewardship. The general manager who loses money for his boss because he keeps getting conned isn’t going to have a job very long. Jesus tells us to manage what He has entrusted well. If we don’t, why would He entrust us with anything more?
Some of you feel like you get taken advantage of because you are trusting and want to give people the benefit of the doubt. So you don’t sign contracts, ask for a job description, lay down boundaries, or communicate your expectations. If you get taken advantage of more than once you are probably being unwise in your dealings. That is not being a good steward. To be a good steward you need to be wise and to think like a business person.
The point is not so we can have more money and buy more stuff that we don’t need. It’s so that we can be generous in our giving with other people. We invest wisely, we save, we learn how to make money so that we can give more stuff away. Wealth is a wonderful tool for making friendships through generosity. Jesus talks a lot about money because money is one of the most useful tools for showing people His love and it is one of the clearest indicators for the condition of your heart. You want to know what you really love; what you really care about; look at where your money goes. Your checkbook is a database of what you value.
Jesus tells us to use our money, to be generous with it so that we can make friends. Generous people tend to be very popular. Stingy people not so much. How many times do you hear people say: My best friend is super rich. When I was going through hard times and he has all this money, he could have helped me out and solved all my problems with what he carries in his pocket but he didn’t. I just love that about him, who doesn’t love a tightwad. When my wife and I have kids if we have a little girl, I hope she grows up to marry one.
There is no better way to explain the love of Jesus to someone than to show it to them by being generous. Generosity is the most vivid display of the love of Jesus a non-Christian will ever see. Don’t be a cheap-skate. If Jesus was as stingy with his love as we can be with our stuff, life would suck. Jesus is a giver. He gives hope, joy, protection, life and provision. Jesus gives and keeps on giving. Jesus doesn’t give so we can live like kings while the world around us struggles. He gives to us so we can turn around and bless others. Jesus equips us with the tools to be His hands and feet to people in need. Too often we take His blessings and try to horde them for ourselves when we should be generous.
Generosity is not something most people understand. The world tells us to be selfish: get as much as you can and horde it. It’s all about getting. Jesus is all about giving. This doesn’t mean you have to live like an improvised monk owning nothing. It means that with whatever you have and whatever you can you should be generous. That’s what grace is all about. Jesus gives us salvation, life, and joy that we do not deserve. Jesus gives us things that we could never get for ourselves: like forgiveness and eternal life. What better way to show someone who doesn’t know Jesus what the grace of God looks like than by giving them something without asking for anything in return. Go mow your neighbor’s lawn, wash their car, if their car breaks down help them get fixed it fixed, loan them yours. When we give generously people get confused. When people confused they start asking question. Those questions lead to Jesus. If you can them confused you can get them to Jesus.
The best way to show the love of Jesus is to give generously with people. Generosity is the tangible expression of love. Look around. We have received truck loads of supplies from all over the country. What is everybody saying? It has been amazing to see the outpouring of love. Generosity can only be understood as an act of love. When you are generous with someone you are telling them that you love them and showing them their value in your life. You don’t have to be rich. Some of the most generous people I know are people who have just enough to get by.
Jesus gives us so much so that we can take care of the poor, provide for those in need, and help the community around us. We are blessed, so we can bless others. Our money should not all be spent on temporary pleasures or personal comforts, Don’t be short sighted: the stuff we have in this life is an opportunity for us to serve God and to show people the love of Jesus. This stuff we have now cannot be taken with us, but we can use it to build an eternal kingdom.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? “No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight. (Lk 16:10-15)
Jesus doesn’t call us to be rich or to be poor but to be good stewards with whatever we have. It’s not about your financial position it is about your faithfulness with what God has entrusted you. If you can’t be faithful with the temporary tangible things He has given you then why would He trust you with eternal spiritual things? You want to be able to do something great for the kingdom of God, start by being faithful with what He has already given you. God can tell a lot about how we will handle spiritual responsibility by how we handle our physical responsibilities. Those who honor God with their finances, or their time, can be entrusted with larger responsibilities and riches. But if we don’t let God control our planner it is unlikely we will let Him control anything else, so why would God give us anything else?
Possessions don’t get us closer to God. In fact they often get in the way of our relationship with God. Some people love money more than God. To them God is a means to an end and the end is wealth. Who do you worship, God or money? Either you will worship God with your money or you will worship money as your God. Sometimes we put money before God and live as if money is God. It’s not a sin to make money, earn money, save money, or have money, but it is a sin to worship money. What do I want to buy is very different than asking; Jesus how do you want me to spend your money?
What we have is a gift from God. We should be wise, invest, and make good decisions so that we can be generous with others. Our mission in life is to show the world the love of Jesus. We are here to glorify Him and to love Him by bringing His lost children home. One of the best ways to do that is to be generous with people. Give, help, support, treat them better than yourself. When we are generous, when we use the resources we have to help others we are investing in eternity and helping connect people to Jesus.
Think about it, giving up something you don’t really need, helping someone else when they are struggling may open their eyes to Jesus and change their eternal residence as a result. The temporary things of this life we have an opportunity to use to affect the eternal life to come. When we use what we have to make a difference for eternity we are being shrewd managers and Jesus will commend us for our efforts. You may a lot, you may have very little, but use what you have to show people the love of Jesus and you are investing yourself in His kingdom. It is all about Jesus, showing people His love is the reason we live.
