Shrewd Financial Management Series

Once upon a time, there was a man who worked all his life and saved as much as he could. He loved money more than anything.

Just before he died, he said to his wife, “When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. I want to take my money to the afterlife with me.” His wife promised she would.

At his funeral, just before the undertakers closed the casket, his wife put a box in the casket. The undertakers shut the casket and rolled it away.

The wife's friend said, “I know you weren't foolish enough to put all that money in there with that man.”

She said, “I can't lie. I promised him I would put that money in the casket with him.”

“You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him?” her friend asked.

“I sure did,” said the wife. “I wrote him a check” (“Money in the Casket," The Good Clean Funnies List, 7-29-02, GCFL.net).

She was honest, but shrewd. And that’s what Jesus wants His followers to be when it comes to their use of money. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Luke 16, Luke 16, where Jesus shows us how to handle money shrewdly.

Luke 16:1 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 (ESV).

Just like the prodigal son “wasted” his father’s inheritance (Luke 15:13), so this financial manager “wasted” his employer’s wealth on himself. The word literally means “to scatter” or “disperse.” Thus, instead of focusing on investing his employer’s money on earning more money, the financial manager dispersed it recklessly, probably spending a lot of it on himself. So the employer calls his employee in to fire him.

Luke 16:2-7 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’ (ESV).

100 measures of wheat was the yield of about 100 acres in Jesus’ day (Liefeld)—a huge debt in both wheat and oil. And the actual value of each reduction was equal to about five hundred denarii, or sixteen months’ wages for a day laborer (Liefeld, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1984).

Luke 16:8 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 (ESV).

The employer praised his employee for his cleverness, not for his dishonesty. And that’s how Jesus wants His followers to handle God’s money, because everything you have belongs to Him. Jesus wants you to…

BE SHREWD

To be smart with God’s money. To handle your Master’s money wisely. To use it cleverly like “the sons of this world.”

The question is how? How can you be shrewd with God’s money? Well, look at what Jesus says in verse 9.

Luke 16:9 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 (ESV).

To be shrewd with God’s money, 1st of all…

BE FRIENDLY.

Use the resources God has entrusted to you to make friends for eternity. Invest God’s money in evangelistic efforts to populate heaven so you have people there to welcome you when you get there.

In the movie Gladiator, the Roman General, Maximus Decimus Meridius, prepares to go to battle against a barbarian Germanic tribe. Just prior to ordering the charge, he encourages his troops. Take a look (show Gladiator—what we do in life). Sitting atop his horse, he looks out over his cavalry and yells, “What we do in life echoes in eternity” (Gladiator, 00:07:09 to 00:07:12, DreamWorks, 2000, written by David Franzoni, directed by Ridley Scott).

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.” That includes what we do with money.

Robert Morris distinctly remembers the first time he and his wife went out to eat after he had trusted Christ with his life. He found himself wanting to share Jesus with the waitress who was serving them. He thought, “If I didn’t order a meal, I could take that money and leave it as an extra generous tip along with a gospel tract. Maybe, the tip would encourage her to read the tract and bring her to faith in Christ. So that’s what he and his wife did. Before they left, they said a few words to their waitress about how much God cared about her.