The Shrewd Manager

-The Greek words for dishonest money are “mamonAH tes adikIas”

Literally “unrighteous mammon” or “wealth from injustice” or “possessions from wrongdoing”

-Jesus says, “Use that evil stuff you have to make friends now, because you’ll need those friends later.”

-This troubled me greatly, but we have to notice carefully what Jesus does NOT say.

1. He does not CONDONE the actions of the dishonest manager. He merely says “this guy was good at looking out for himself”

2. He says that these guys would be welcomed into eternal dwellings, but he never said where those eternal dwellings would be.

I want to discuss a few points that I believe Jesus IS trying to make:

1. We have got to be thoughtful about what our actions communicate.

-Jesus mentions that often, the corrupt people of this world think more about their steps than God’s own children do.

-The world is often more careful about how it deals with itself than Christians are in how they deal with the world.

-Isn’t advertising and the media sufficient proof of that? The best commercials are the beer commercials. We Christians struggle to come up with the funding to get on TV, and so many Christian programs are of noticeably lower quality than what you find on many of the other channels. Not in CONTENT, but in PRESENTATION.

-The world is better at dealing with itself than we are at dealing with the world.

-It is because of this that we must be so careful about the message that our actions communicate.

-ILLUS: There was a young boy whose aunt was trying to take him with her to church. He said he didn’t want to go. “Why?” Because daddy doesn’t go.

-So his aunt said, “Now Timmy, you still need to go to church…you know, when your daddy was a boy your age, he ALWAYS went to church every week.”

-Timmy asked his dad, “Is that true?” Dad said, “Yep, I sure did.”

-Timmy thought for a moment, then he said, “All right…if dad went, then I’ll go…but it probably won’t do ME any good either.”

-What are your actions communicating to the people around you?

-Sometimes when we want to talk about God, we feel like people’s ears are closed. They don’t want to hear what you have to say…but just remember, no matter how hard a person has his hands over his ears, his eyes are still open.

-People may not listen to you, but they are watching you.

2. What really matters is What you Do with What You Have

16:10-12

ILLUS: One time I heard about a young guy who was quickly climbing the corporate ladder.

-He had been moving up the ranks, and all the important guys at the top had heard about him. His performance reports were always excellent.

-The decision was made to give him an extremely high position, but before finalizing it, the CEO decided to fly him to the corporate headquarters to meet him personally.

-The meeting was to begin by having lunch together.

-This was a large company that had a fully-staffed cafeteria where people could eat for lunch.

-The CEO met the young man, gave him a good handshake, and invited him to get in line at the cafeteria.

-They went through the line together, and the CEO watched the young guy. They each got a meat, then they each got a couple of vegetables and a roll.