February 16, 2003 Luke 16:1-3
“Under new management”
INTRODUCTION
It was Valentine’s Day, and everyone knows that there is no better day to propose than that one. So a young man decided that he was going to take the plunge and ask his sweetheart to marry him. He took the ring out of his pocket, knelt down on one knee and proposed to her using these words: “Sweetheart, I love you so much, I want you to marry me. I don’t have a car like Johnny green, and I don’t have a yacht like him. I don’t have a house his size. I don’t have the money of Johnny green, but I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?” She looked into his eyes and said, “I love you too, sweetheart, but could you tell me a little more about Johnny Green?”
A wealthy older gentleman had better luck than that young man. He just recently married a lovely young lady, but he was beginning to wonder whether she might have married him for his money. So he asked her, "Tell me the truth: if I lost all my money, would you still love me?" She said reassuringly, "Oh honey, don’t be silly. Of course I would still love you. And I’d miss you terribly."
As evidenced by these two situations, people have gotten very confused and have allowed money to take the place in their lives that other people are supposed to have. They have begun to love money and use people rather than loving people and using money. The Bible records that “…the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” (1 Tim. 6:10) When not kept in proper perspective, it can cause otherwise honest men to behave in unthinkable ways.
An elderly man was desperately ill. Knowing the time for his departure was near, he called for his closest friends to come see him one last time. Attending him were his doctor, his pastor and his business manager.
The old man said, “I know you can’t take it with you, but who knows for sure? What if the experts are mistaken? I want to account for all possibilities. So I’m giving you each an envelope containing $100,000. When I die, I want you each to slip the envelope in my jacket pocket at the funeral service. Then, if I do need money in the life to come, I’ll be ready. I’m giving the envelopes to you because you are my most trusted friends.”
Shortly thereafter, the man did die. Each of his three friends was seen slipping something into the deceased’s coat pocket as he walked up to the casket to pay his final respects.
Following the service, while these friends were visiting with each other, the doctor, with a sheepish look on his face, said, “Guys, I have a confession to make. You know with the cost of medicine today, I don’t make that much money. The hospital is desperate for funds. We can’t even replace the CAT scan machine that’s broken down. So, I took $20,000 for the new CAT scan and put the rest in the coffin.”
The minister cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. He said, “I, too, have a confession to make. As you know, our church is seriously overburdened by the needs of the homeless. I couldn’t just see burying that money. So, in hopes of helping the homeless, I took $50,000 out of the envelope and put the rest in his pocket.”
Looking sternly at the doctor and the minister, the businessman exclaimed, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I am astonished and deeply disappointed that you would treat a solemn trust so casually. He was our friend. I want you to know that I placed in his casket my personal check for the full $100,000.” (From Sins We Love, by Randy Rowland, p. 125-126)
Jesus spoke a great deal about money when He was on earth. He knew the potential that money has both for good and for evil in our lives. He used parables many of those times in order to teach spiritual truths about finances in terms that the people would understand. We come to one of those parables today. It is an unusual parable because Jesus used an ungodly person to teach a lesson to His disciples and all those who were listening. We will be examining this parable over the next two weeks. I have said for a long time that I can learn something from anyone whether that person is good or bad. I can learn to avoid the mistakes they made, and I can learn to follow the good example that they set. Today, we’re going to look at verses 1-2 of Luke 16 today to see what foolish mistakes a financial manager made in order that we might avoid making those same mistakes. Next week, we will look at the remainder of the parable to discover some wise financial principles that this manager exercised.
In order that we might understand the context of what is going on, let’s read the whole parable beginning with vs. 1 and going through vs. 9. [read it] In this parable, we have two main characters – the rich man and his financial manager or “steward” as the King James says. For the purposes of our study today, we’re going to identify the rich man with God while we play the part of the financial manager. And to help us learn from the manager’s mistakes, we are going to learn 4 simple financial principles that will change the way you think about and spend money if you simply let them get into your heart.
1. God has resources. {have the people in the congregation repeat each principle after you say it}
They are plentiful. “rich”
(Phil 4:19 NIV) And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. It should be a great encouragement to you that God’s resources are plentiful. He has promised to meet your needs to the extent that His riches reach. It’s a good thing that promise was made by God and not by me, because anyone trusting in my resources to meet their needs would be sorely disappointed. If there was ever a time that your need exceeded God’s resources, you would be in a real mess, and God would not be able to keep His promise. But that day will never come. God’s riches far outlast any drain that we could possibly put on His resources. Do you remember the old song, “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the rocks in every mine…”
God isn’t just rich when it comes to material things. He is also rich in what we really need – things like mercy (Eph. 2:4), kindness, tolerance and patience (Rom. 2:4), wisdom and knowledge (Rm. 11:33) and grace (Eph. 1:7). Imagine if you will the heavenly bank, and each of these treasures is deposited in a separate account. Every day, God draws on that account in order to meet the needs that we have for that day. With all the mistakes that we make every day and the requests that we pour out to God for forgiveness, wisdom and patience, it might seem that we could exhaust the massive deposits that are found in those accounts. But we cannot. The blood of Jesus Christ was deposited in each of those accounts, and there is nothing so rich and inexhaustible as that. And even if, just for the sake of argument, His mercy account could reach the point of almost being exhausted by the end of one especially horrible day, it would be renewed the very next morning. (Lam 3:22-23 NIV) “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning…” How would you like to have a bank account like that that was renewed every morning?
God is rich, His riches are what He uses to meet our needs, and His riches will never run out. God’s resources are plentiful.
They are his. “possessions”
All of the resources to be found on earth and in heaven are God’s possessions. The people of the early church freely gave up their belongings because they realized that they did not own them. They belong to Him. They are His possessions for two reasons. First, He created them. (Psa 24:1-2 NIV) The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Everything that you see and even all that exists that you cannot see was created by God. The second reason that they belong to Him is because He bought them. When Jesus gave His blood on the cross, that was the payment necessary to buy back all that had been sold into sin and slavery. He redeemed His creation and He redeemed you and me. “…You are not your own. You were bought at a price…” (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
Take a minute and think about all that includes when we say that God owns everything. It means that He owns the stars and the planets. It means that he owns the oceans and the land. It means that He owns the air and the water. Those things are relatively easy for us to accept. We have never even attempted to claim ownership of those things. But let’s get a little more personal. He owns your house. When’s the last time that you consulted God about what color He wanted you to paint the walls? He owns your car. Do you think He cares about how fast you drive it and about how much trash you leave in it? Let’s get a little closer still. He owns your bank account and all that is in it. He owns your time and is very concerned about how you spend it. He owns your future and has great plans for it.
I had a scary thought while preparing this message. My kids belong to God. They are God’s kids. How do you respond when someone else yells at your kids? You get angry and defensive. I yelled at God’s kids this week. Did you?
God even owns you. That’s what gives Him the right to tell you what to do and expect that you are going to do it. We get ourselves into a real mess when we start to think that we or the people and things that God has put into our care are ours for us to do with as we please. They belong to God. And if you can keep that thought in your mind, it will make it much easier for you to spend those resources wisely because you will constantly be asking God about how He wants you to spend them.
The first mistake of the financial manager here in Luke 16 was that he forgot who owned the resources that he was using.
2. God has chosen you to manage His resources. {say it}
Use them wisely. “manage”
Whether you realize it or not, all of you are familiar with the idea of one person managing someone else’s money because all of you have entrusted your money to someone else. Whenever you put money into a 401(k) at work, you are entrusting your money to a manager. When you put money in an I.R.A., the stock market – even when you deposit your paycheck into the bank, you are trusting someone to use that money well. It doesn’t just sit there. It gets invested. If the bank does a poor job of handling your resources, the bank could fail, and you could lose it all.
We are coming up on tax time. The money that the gov’t uses – whose money is that? Yours and mine. They are managing our money and hopefully doing their best to use it wisely. When Pres. Bush began to push for tax reform and tax cuts, there was a big argument about who was the owner of the money in the gov’t coffers. The Pres. contended that it belonged to the people. I tend to agree.
When you put money in the offering plate, you place it in the hands of the leadership of this church to manage it well. At the end of every month, we produce a financial statement. It is an accounting of where the money you gave was used. That sheet tells whether or not the money was wasted or used for purposes that glorify God and further His kingdom.
How do you know when you are being a good manager of God’s resources. Let me give you just a few practical suggestions.
Good managers…
Shop around for the best deal (credit cards with low int.; banks with no fees)
Don’t buy on impulse or solely based on emotion
Plan and make arrangements for future needs (i.e. Joseph)
Buy things that have real, sustainable value
Pay bills on time so that there are no late fees (i.e. I had to pay a $35 late fee on my credit card last month simply because I didn’t mail it in on time. The delay was not because I didn’t have the money but simply because I let the bill sit on the desk too long.)
Make investments in long-term growth (family [I take my family to the movies to invest in a relationship with them], eternity, etc.)
Perform regular maintenance on the things entrusted to your care (i.e. car -– get the oil changed every 3000 miles; marriage – take your wife out on a date at least once a year)
Invest in people not in material things – people last forever
Don’t use them wastefully. “wasted”
We do not know whether or not the master had given the manager specific instructions on how he was to use the money. If he had, and the manager disobeyed those instructions, then that would be stealing. If he had not, the manager used his own poor judgment which resulted in loss. That would be wasting. God has given us very specific instructions of what we are to do with the 1st 10% of His blessings toward us – it is to be given back to Him. If we refuse, we are stealing from God according to Malachi 3. If you’re not tithing, then you are stealing. You need to repent and change your actions. Part of the reason why you don’t tithe is because you don’t manage that other 90% well, and so you have to dip into what should have been the tithe and use that to pay your regular bills. Some of you even have to go beyond that and go into debt to pay your bills.
You’re like the guy that Dave Letterman met outside a Las Vegas casino. He said that he was standing in front of one of the casinos, and a man came up to him looking desperate. "Please!" the man begged frantically. "Could you possibly spare $500. My wife is very sick, and I really need the money to take her to the doctor and to buy her the medicine she needs." Dave looked at the guy suspiciously, and he asked the man, "Wait a minute! If I give you $500, how do I know you won’t just go into one of the casinos here and gamble it all away?’ The man quickly responded, "Oh no, I wouldn’t do that! I’ve got gambling money!"
God requires of us that we set aside the first 10% of our income to give back to Him for His work as soon as we receive it. But that doesn’t mean that the other 90% belongs to us for us to do with as we please. The other 90% is for us to manage. One reason that we had that Christian Financial Management Seminar last week is to get some help for each of us so that we can manage God’s resources more effectively. God has not given us specific instructions for that other 90%, but He has given us general guidelines. Things like giving to others when they are in need, planning for tomorrow, and providing for our families.
The second mistake that this financial manager made was that he managed his master’s riches wastefully rather than wisely resulting in loss to the master.
I would not be so bold or so stupid as to try and label for you which of your expenditures of money, time and other resources were wise and which ones were wasteful. Some of the things that I do with the resources in my care might seem wasteful to you. I am not your judge, and you are not mine. But there is a Judge, and He is the one that we will answer to for how we used His resources.
That brings us to the third financial principle.
3. God will require an accounting of how you have managed His resources. {say it}
There is the temptation to have or gain a laxadazical attitude toward material possessions and other resources when we get a handle on who they actually belong to. It is possible that we start to care less about the health of those resources because they do not belong to us. It would be like a sibling who really doesn’t care if his sister’s toy is broken or ruined while he is playing with it. The loss of the toy really doesn’t affect him. It doesn’t affect him, that is, until sister comes home and discovers what happened.
It is even possible that we can even start to waste God’s resources both material and spiritual because we know how rich He is. In the book of Romans, Paul talks about people who treated God’s spiritual riches with contempt because they thought that He had more than enough to spare. (Rom 2:4 NIV) Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? Then, in Romans 6:1, Paul talks about people who felt no need to put restraint on their sin because they knew how rich in grace and forgiveness God is. They were wasting God’s spiritual resources.
We can do this with material resources too. The reasoning goes something like this: “God is rich materially and has promised to provide for my needs, so I can use what He has given me however I want, and he will always bail me out.” I have encountered people with desperate financial need, and it appears that God has reneged on His promise of provision. One of two things is going on here. Either someone else is not listening to God when He tells them to use His resources to meet that need, or that person has already spent the money that God gave them a while back to prepare them for the need that they have today. Do you remember that Christmas bonus that you got or the money that you earned with that unexpected job? What did you do with that money? Did you spend on something that you normally would not have? Or did you put it away in savings for a rainy day just like the one that you are having right now? See, God anticipates our needs and often provides for their fulfillment before we see them coming. But since we don’t see them coming, we treat His resources as if they were our own and waste them on something that God never intended for us. So the money that God provided in December to meet a need in March is not there in March because we wasted it on something in December.
God wants us to handle His resources carefully just like we want people to handle our resources carefully. We want them to say, “I’ll handle/treat it as if it was my own” while fully recognizing that it is not their own. Part of what keeps us from having an “I don’t care” attitude toward God’s possessions or someone else’s is the awareness that we will have to give an accounting of how we used what was entrusted to our care. This accounting…
It will be unannounced.
You will receive no warning or notice other than the notice that you are receiving this morning.
It will be based on evidence. “Give an account”
It is easy to say that you have used God’s resources wisely. It is quite another thing to open up your checkbook and offer it as evidence. If the I.R.S. was to audit you – require an accounting of what you said on your tax forms – do you think that you could go to that audit without receipts and W-2’s and other supporting evidence?
It will be in His presence. “called him in”
4. God will bring a consequence based on His accounting of how you managed His resources. {say it}
He lost his job. “cannot be manager any longer”
The threatened result to this situation was not imprisonment but the loss of his job. In Mt. 18, the servant owed a great financial debt and was facing prison. The issue here is not an issue of debt that had to be repaid but poor performance in handling the responsibilities that had been assigned.
He lost an opportunity.
The temptation is to think that wasting God’s resources is not as bad as stealing from God. In the case of this financial manager, even though he was wasting not stealing, the net result was the same. The master’s resources were not being used wisely/properly. The resources had diminished. The master had less to work with. The master’s goals were not being achieved with his wealth.
In the past, we have had, and today, we still have people in this church who could use financial help from this church. It breaks my heart that there is not enough money in the church bank account to give serious help to people who have serious needs. Do you know why we do not have enough in the church bank account to help? Because that money is either still sitting in your bank account or because it is sitting in someone else’s bank account because you wasted it on something that God did not intend for you to have or do. You may have given God your tithe, but you wasted a portion of that other 90%, so God did not have the resources available to draw upon when someone had a legitimate need that you could have helped with. You missed out on an opportunity to show the love of God to someone else. You missed out on an opportunity to potentially change someone’s life.
This manager lost the opportunity to handle his master’s resources. Whenever you use God’s resources in a way that does not please Him, He may very well remove those resources from you and place them in someone else’s hands.
Men, you are managers of your family. You do not own your kids. You don’t own your wife. If she hasn’t told you that lately, I’m telling you right now. You will have to give an account one day for how well or how poorly you do at investing in their lives. It may not be at the end of your life. God may call you to account at an unexpected time. This steward wasn’t expecting the audit by his boss. If you fail the audit, you might very well lose those things that you have not managed well – your job, your wife, your kids. But you have a responsibility to manage the investment that God has placed in your hands. Manage doesn’t mean telling them what to do. It means creating the right environment for them to grow. It means meeting their needs so exactly and so completely that they naturally grow and reach the potential that God sees for them. A manager doesn’t tell a mutual fund to grow; he does his best to create an environment that causes it to grow. Think of the opportunity that you have to impact the world of the future through the investment that you make in the life of your children! Don’t allow that opportunity to pass you by.
He lost his master’s trust.
Have you ever wondered why God chooses to bless certain people with huge amounts of money and others with only a comparatively small amount? There are many reasons for this, but one of them has to do with trust. God knows our ability to handle money well, and He knows how much He can trust us with. I think all of us would like God to trust us with a little bit more. We are like the man who approached God & asked Him, "Lord, up in heaven how much time is a million years?" "Well," God said, "a million years is but a second in heaven." "Oh!" said the man, "and up in heaven how much money is a million dollars?" "Well," said God, "a million dollars is only a penny in heaven." "Great!" said the man. "God, give me one of your pennies." "All right," said the heavenly Father. "Just wait a second."
If you want more of God’s resources, the best way to get it is by working on your character rather than working on your bank account.
This past week, I was studying history with Ben and we learned about Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Both men grew very wealthy through the industries of steel and oil. Rockefeller was the first billionaire. What I found most interesting about these men is not their wealth but what they did with their wealth. As they grew older, they began to give it away. In his lifetime, Rockefeller gave away $530,000,000! Wouldn’t you like to have that kind of money to give away? In regard to his wealth, Carnegie said, “…for a man to die rich is a great disgrace.” God gave these men wealth because He knew that He could trust them with it.
The financial manager in Jesus’ parable lost the job that the master had given him to do, lost the opportunity to use his master’s resources to impact the world, and perhaps worst of all, he lost his master’s trust. Who of us would like those words to be said of us in relation to how we handled our Master’s resources?
CONCLUSION
We’ve covered a lot of ground this morning, so let me see if I can pull it all together with one final illustration.
The last time that we went to GA, Greg offered for us to take one of his family’s vehicles. We didn’t, but let’s assume that we did. I promise to treat it as if it was my own, and I do. That may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how I treat my own things. I take Greg’s vehicle, and I ran it at 120mph the whole way…I screech to a halt when I have to stop…I bring it back with gooey, messy stuff all over the seats…the “low oil” indicator light comes on half-way back from GA, and I refuse to get it checked out. After all, it’s Greg’s car; it’s his responsibility. He’s in a much better financial shape then I am to take care of the problem. Let him check it out. NO! I have a responsibility to take care of what has been entrusted to my care. I grew up with the ethic that whatever I borrowed, I brought back in as good or better shape than it was when it came under my authority.
Let me suggest another possible outcome to the scenario of Greg loaning me his vehicle – let’s say the van. Tammy has wanted a van for a while. We drive it to Ga. It handles wonderfully. The kids have plenty of room to spread out, so they don’t fight on the trip. It’s high up, so we can get a better perspective on traffic and our surroundings. We say, “I could get used to this.” And somewhere along that long journey, we get so accustomed to driving that vehicle that we begin to forget who owns it. When we get home, instead of taking it to Greg‘s house, I park it in front of mine. When he comes knocking at my door to get his keys back, I tell him that we really liked his van. We liked it so much that we decided to keep it. Possession is 9/10 of the law after all.
What keeps me from treating Greg’s property with contempt or as my own – accountability and relationship. I know I’m going to see Greg when I get home. I’m going to have to explain to him why the seat belts won’t fasten any more or why there’s a giant tear in the back seat. I’m going to have to pay to get those things repaired. I will have to deal with the consequences of my actions. But even more important than consequences and accountability as motivation for proper handling of Greg’s resources is the fact that I have a relationship with Greg. I wouldn’t do anything that has the potential of damaging that relationship or betraying that trust. My relationship with Greg is more important than any possession that he might entrust to my care.
Relationship is the real issue between God and us too. When I realize that what I have is not my own and that the attitude that I show toward what God has placed in my care will affect my relationship with Him, then I will treat those things with great care and respect. After all, my relationship with God is more important than any possession that he might entrust to my care. So the problem all boils down to my relationship with God. Either it is not what it should be (namely, the most significant reality in my life), or I have no relationship at all with God. I see him only as the rich man upstairs rather than as my loving Father who graciously provides for my needs.
INVITATION
The final mistake of this financial manager was that he was unprepared for the consequence that came as a result of his poor use of his master’s resources. That’s where the story turns around, and that’s where he started to do some things right. Next week, we’ll look at how he turned some things around.
But you don’t need to wait until next week to turn some things around in your life. You can do it this morning. You can choose to renew a right relationship with God giving Him full control of your life and your resources. Some of you may need to begin a relationship with God. God is rich in grace and can forgive any sin that you may have committed. God is rich in kindness and has graciously provided for you to show you how much He loves you. God is rich in patience, but the day of your death is coming. Are you prepared to face the consequences of wasting all the opportunities that God has graciously given you to receive forgiveness? Are you prepared to give an account to God for why you chose to walk away today?
