You Cannot Serve God and Wealth

You might remember in sermons that have gone by in the past, I said, you know, Scripture is pretty easy to understand. It's not difficult. It's something that a child could get the gist of. They might not understand the nuances of it or the depth of it. But the general message, it's pretty plain for most to see, those who have eyes to see. And yet not everything in Scripture is abundantly clear. And the text that we have this morning, at least for me, has always been very confusing to me. I've never known what to do with it. And if you're like me, when you run into things that you don't quite understand, you read them and you say, that's true because God said it, though I'm not sure that I understand it. And that's the way I've processed the text that we have before us this morning because it hasn't made sense to me. And so I had the work this week of figuring out what I thought about it.

what Jesus is actually saying. And it's worth noting, before we jump into the text, that Jesus doesn't say things to no effect. He doesn't just, you know, some of you like small talk and some of you really don't like it, but Jesus didn't make small talk. He didn't teach his disciples or talk to them about things of no importance, no consequence. And so whenever he says something, it's meant to affect change in us. It's meant to produce something in us. It's meant to teach us something, and in that knowledge, we're supposed to therefore do something. And our text this morning is no different. It is the word of God. It is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces us. It's meant to pierce us. It's designed to pierce us. As a tool, this is its purpose, to pierce us. As far as the division between soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, it's able to judge us and our thoughts and our intentions. And so as we come to our text this morning, we have to give ourselves to understanding what's being said.

even if it's difficult. And so after I read the text, I want to explain to you what's going on. And after we understand what's being said, then we'll ask, well, what are we supposed to learn from this? Because Jesus was teaching his disciples something, and we would do well to learn the lesson that he was teaching to his disciples. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 16, verses 1 through 13. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Now he was also saying to the disciples, there was a rich man who had a manager. And this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions. And he called him and he said to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management for you can no longer be manager. The manager said to himself, what shall I do? Since my master is taking the management away from me. I'm not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do.

so that when I'm removed from the management, people will welcome me into their homes. And he summoned each one of his master's debtors, and he began saying to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. And he said to another, and how much do you owe? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80. And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind.

than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, if you are listening, you should feel the tension. And what is the tension in this text where you're going, ah, in a nutshell, it's that

this unrighteous steward, manager, steals from his boss and then is praised for it. And not only by his master, but by Jesus. Jesus tells us we're supposed to do like he did. Now, there's a danger here to learn the wrong lesson. If you're normal here, you know that one of the things I say regularly is we have to be on guard against learning the wrong lesson. You can read something and learn the wrong lesson. And the wrong lesson here is... That stealing is commendable. That somehow Jesus is glorified if you go about stealing from other people to provide for yourself. That is the wrong lesson. That is not what Jesus is teaching his disciples. He's not called them aside and say, hey guys, here's a way that I want you to know is okay with me. That is not what's going on here. We're not being taught to be dishonest. Another way of saying that is, What the unfaithful steward manager did was wrong. What he did was not right. He should not have squandered his master's belongings, and he especially should not have doubled down on his unfaithfulness when he was about to be called to account. That was wicked. And we are not to learn that lesson. We are not to do what he did.

And yet Jesus commends him. And so what's commendable about him? If you were to stand up at this man's funeral and have to give a eulogy, and this is what you knew of him, could you say anything positive, anything that's worthy of repeating about him? You should. This is the tension of the text, is Jesus commends him, or tells us to do what he did. So what did he do? We have to ask, what did he do? And we know what he did, but really we have to know why he did it. And that's what we're going to come to this morning is, why did he do what he did? Because why he did what he did is what we're supposed to emulate. And I'm going to leave that hanging so that you pay attention, and we'll answer that question by the end. All right? Let's start toward the beginning of the text. Jesus is talking to his disciples. And it's worth noting that this is not a parable.

Sometimes Jesus speaks in parables, and what's the purpose of Jesus speaking in parables? Well, he tells us, so that having eyes they will not see and having ears they will not hear. Otherwise, they might repent and be saved. And yet this is not a parable, which means that it's not meant to be confusing to us. And yet it's very confusing to us. There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to the master, the man, as... squandering his possessions. And so here we see the manager's unfaithfulness. You would understand that when you had to go in for an employee review as the employee, if your boss came to you and said, I want to talk to you about how you've been wasting my resources, there's nothing commendable about your actions. And if you were to think not from the employee's perspective, but from the employer's perspective, there's nothing you would be pleased about by your employee's behavior.

And so we see this manager's unfaithfulness. The master receives a plausible report, a believable report, that his manager is being unfaithful. And what is this manager's job except to look after his master's wealth? How do we know that that's his job? Well, because of how he conducts himself later. What do you owe my master? 100? Okay, write 50. He was actually acting within his responsibility as manager. He was in charge of his master's wealth. So if you had a financial planner like him, what would you do? You'd do what the master's going to do. You'd fire him. Come here. You can't be my manager anymore. Not anymore.

And I want you to feel the weight of what this manager did. Let's say you called your financial planner who was managing your money, and you said, you are being unfaithful. You have been unfaithful with my money. Come here. You can't be my manager anymore. And before he came to you, he took your money and gave it away. This is the unfaithfulness of this manager. What does faithfulness look like in this sort of situation? Well, you have two examples I want to give you from Scripture. The first is the parable of the talents. In the parable of the talents, you have a rich man who goes away on a long journey, and before he goes, he gives a certain measure of talents to different slaves of his. And he says, make a profit so when I come back, I'll have an increase. And you have the one who was given five, and he produces another five, and he's faithful. And you have the one who's given two.

And he produces another two, and he's considered faithful. And you have one who's given one, and he buries it. And he buries it because he knows his master to be a hard man, reaping where he did not sow. And what does the master say to him? When the manager says to him, you have back what's yours. Here's your money you gave to me. I didn't lose any of it. Here you go. He says, you should have at least put it in the bank so that I could have earned interest. So who was faithful? Well, the one with five and the one with two, they were faithful. The one with one, he was not faithful. He squandered his master's possessions and he was put out. The second example is Joseph when he's in Egypt. Joseph sold into slavery and he ends up rising in Pharaoh's house and becomes manager over all things. And then he sees in a vision that there's going to be a famine.

There's not going to be any food for years. There's not going to be any food. But he finds out ahead of time, so he prepares, stores up all the food. And he's doing it because there's coming a time where there's not going to be food. Makes sense, right? And then when the famine comes, Egypt is provided for. But not only is Egypt provided for, the other outlying lands are provided for, and they come and they buy food from them. This is how his brothers and ultimately his father are reunited with him. But it's significant to note, that he sold the grain to them. He didn't give it away. And eventually the people ran out of money. They didn't have any more money. So then what did he do? He took their land from them. Well, sign over your land and we'll give you seed to plant. You realize the problem with famine is not just that the crop fails, but that they don't have any seed to plant. And so what he really stored back was seed to plant. And so

When they've bought all the grain they can to eat and to plant, and they still haven't got enough, then he comes and says, sell me your land and sell me yourself as a slave, and I'll give you seed to plant so that you can produce food for you, but you know what it's going to cost you? 20%. 20% of everything you grow, one-fifth, comes back to Pharaoh's house. The rest is yours. Is he being gracious and kind to them, merciful, taking all their money, taking their land? hiring them as slaves for Pharaoh, this wicked, unrighteous ruler. He is. And you know who thinks he's righteous and faithful? The people. The people praise him for what he does. They're thankful for it, for his willingness, for his provision. This is what a faithful manager does. He seeks his master's increase, and everyone is blessed as a result. The master comes out ahead.

The people that sold their land and themselves to Joseph, they come out ahead. Everyone comes out ahead. This manager, on the other hand, has only one person's interest in mind, himself. He squanders his master's possessions. His master finds out and he sends to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management for you can no longer be manager. And so it's Friday afternoon and the boss sends a message to you. I need to see you at three o'clock today. and you know what it's about. But you've got from now until 3 o'clock to come to the office, work the rest of the day with this hanging termination. Note that he doesn't call him to hear his side of the story. It says that he calls him to say you can no longer be manager. And so there's no question about whether the manager's been unfaithful. And so we know that the accusations, the reports, are true.

The manager's unfaithfulness is obvious. And so then the manager says to himself, what shall I do? I'm about to get fired. I'm about to lose my livelihood. I've been unfaithful and he knows about it. I'm not strong enough to dig and I'm ashamed to beg. I'm weak and I'm lazy. This is what he says about himself. Weak and lazy and proud. What am I going to do? What's a weak and lazy and proud man to do when he's about to get fired? I know what I will do. Now it's worth noting that before we get into what he actually does, He makes no plan to appeal to his master's decision. None. What shall I do? And he doesn't say, go beg for mercy. Because, too proud to beg. He doesn't have a case to appeal. He's not going to beg for mercy. He knows when he gives his account of his doings, what's going to happen. And so his plan reveals his guilt. There's just no question that this man is unfaithful. And so he makes a plan. And his plan is to double down on his treachery.

Can you put yourself in his shoes for a minute? I asked you earlier to think, if you had a financial planner and he handled your money this way, you'd fire him. And now envision him, right before you fire him, squandering a bunch more of your money for his own sake. Now, think for yourself that you're the financial planner and you're about to get fired and you have no other means of provision. Can you imagine what nerve and what gall it would take to do what he did? Could you see yourself doing it? I'm going to get fired. You know what I'm going to do before I get fired? I'm going to just ruin him financially. I mean, can you imagine the pride? What's the word? The ostentatiousness. It's just amazing what this guy does. Yeah, I mean, you can't even believe what he decides to do.

I mean, when is he going to give up and say, you caught me? Apparently never. His plan instead is to steal more of his master's wealth and to use that wealth to secure himself favor after he gets fired. It takes quite a bit of gall to do. So is this the sort of thing we should learn to do? Now you do realize this is what's being commended in him. This is robust unrighteousness. This is just fever pitch wickedness. And we should have nothing to do with this sort of behavior. So what does he do? Well, he summons his master's debtors. How much do you owe? You owe 100? Write 50. 50% of your debt, gone. Which means 50% of my master's profit, plus the interest that he would have earned since you weren't paying, it's gone. This is like being the creditor when the person that owes you an arm and a leg files bankruptcy. And someone looks at you and says, nope, you aren't getting what's yours.

And you're going, but they took it in good faith. They go, yeah, but you're not getting what's yours. That's what this manager is doing to his master. He is bankrupting him. How much do you owe? I owe 100. Quick, write down 50. Write down 80. And so what was his last act as a manager? Well, it was to forgive a bunch of people's debt. Is that what's commendable? Oh, I get it. We're supposed to, for all this other pomp and circumstance, we're supposed to forgive each other's debt. Well, yes, you're supposed to forgive each other's debt, but that's not really the point of the text. That's what he does. His job was to manage his master's possessions, and here he goes out with a bang. Now, I want you to think for a minute what you think he should have done. And I'll tell you where you start to think about it. You've been unfaithful. The one you've been unfaithful to finds out you've been unfaithful. And he calls you to an account and says, you're going to come, and you're going to give an account. And when you give an account, you're going to be fired.

And you think, I've got a plan. I'm going to make provision for afterwards. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go to my master's debtors. Stop there. Now what do you think he should do? If you were going to go and try to provide for yourself in this manner, what would you do? Take the money. Why not just tell them, I'll forgive some of your debt. Just slip me a little money under the table for doing it. Or a lot of money. Why not forgive more of the debt? Say, your debt's forgiven. Just give me 50 cents on the dollar and it's done. I have the authority to do it. And you ought to know that he doesn't just call two of the people. He calls the masters debtors. Because what debtor wouldn't want to come if they found out this is what was going on? Sign me up. I'm in line. I owe him something. How much will you forgive? Why not just take the money? He could have taken a lump sum for reducing the debt. But think.

You have to get into the motivations and the shrewdness of this man. What's the danger if he takes a lump sum? Potentially. But before it runs out, you know what's going to happen to it? The master's going to take it. If you walked into that accounting that you're going to give at the end of the day with all the money, and you tell them what you did, and he finds out that they gave you a bunch of money, if I was that master, I'd take the money from you. And then the manager would be left with nothing. But look at how the manager acted. He protected his interest. The master cannot steal away the goodwill of his debtors from his manager. He can't take it back. He can't go to his debtors and say, you may not have him in your house. You may not shelter him. You may not feed him. He can't do it. It's not his place. This manager is exceedingly shrewd in the way that he behaves. And so if you were the master,

You know, generally rich men, in this passage, you have the rich man and the master are interchangeable. So we know that his master is rich. And most people who are rich know how to make a good deal, right? And you know what else rich people don't like that know how to make good deals? They really don't like getting bad deals. They kind of have a principle against it, right? And yet here he's gotten the shaft. The master is just completely undone, and there isn't a thing. He can do about it. Not a thing. Because his manager had the authority from him to do what he did. The problem was he was unfaithful. He wasn't faithful. And so you can imagine the master's blood pressure. With the previous report, and now the manager has gone, essentially bankrupted his master, and then he comes to him and gives an account.

How would you expect the master to respond? How would you respond? You've been unfaithful. I called you to account, and in the time between I called you and the time that you came, you wasted, you took, you stole a lot more of my money, and you got rid of it in a way that I cannot get it back. And what you did was not illegal. It was wrong. It was unfaithful, but it was not illegal. Well, we all agree that the master would just be furious, just beside himself. I mean, physical violence type of anger. The manager's taking advantage of him, and there's nothing, nothing the master can do about it. So how does the master respond? His master prays to the unrighteous manager because he acted shrewdly. Now, you have to note something in the middle of this verse. In the middle of this verse, the story ends, and Jesus starts to interpret the story. The story ending is, The master praised him because he acted shrewdly. Now, some of you will understand this, and some of you, this will be the most foreign thing in the world to you. And it just has to do with how God's wired you. But trust me that it's true. That master's response is plausible. And there are those of us in this room who, if someone had hatched a plan against us that was this good, there would be some part of us, having been completely taken advantage of,

would have said, you beat me at my own game. I couldn't have done that better myself. And for that, what else can I say except good job? You're fired. Do you understand this? How many of you can do this? Do you get this? You get this, right? Unfortunately, right? And it's like you're so tied up in knots, so like you can't believe it. And we have to understand this master's a man. He's like us. Every one of us would be angry. But he's been outdone by his manager. And what can he say except, you'll do well in this world. You know how to play the game better than me. You tricked me. You have other examples of this in Scripture, of this sort of shrewdness going on. You remember when Jacob was sent away for...

for stealing his brother's birthright. And what does he told as he's sent away? Go get a wife from among my kinsmen, from Laban. So he goes to Laban's house. And what happens? He falls in love with Rachel. And he goes to Laban and he makes a deal with Laban, right? And what's the deal? Laban says, you work seven years for me and you can marry my daughter. So what does Jacob do? He works seven years. And after seven years, what's he do? What happens? He gets to marry one of Laban's daughters, but not the pretty one and not the younger one and not the one that he loves. He gets Leah. And I'm only speaking of her the way scripture speaks of her. She was dim of eyes. She was not attractive. She was not the one that he loved. And Laban pulled a fast one on him.

Jacob, it's done. He's been taken advantage of. What's he to do? He's married to Leah. And Laban says, well, it's a custom in our land that we can't marry the younger before the older, so I'm sorry you didn't know that, but now his oldest daughter's married off. And he's gotten seven years of labor for a daughter that no one was going to marry. That was the bride price. You worked seven years, and you would be foolish to not understand that Laban was being shrewd in the way that he dealt with Jacob. He wanted the labor. He got the labor. He cheated Jacob. Well, and then he comes back and he's got more. Well, you work another seven years, 14 years. You understand, 14 years. You can have Rachel. So what's Jacob do? He works another seven years. 14 years he's worked for Laban. Now, who ends up getting the short end of the stick between Laban and Jacob? Laban does. Why? Do you remember what Jacob did to Laban?

with the goats. It's one of the most interesting stories. He's working. He's given management of Laban's field for 14 years, and for seven of them, he's been wronged of. The second half, he has been cheated. But he's got seven years of management in the field, and you know what he does? He pays attention to those sheep, and he looks at which ones are stronger and which ones are weaker, and he makes a deal with Laban. about the sheep, and then he sets to work breeding the good ones together for himself and giving Laban the dregs of the flock. And after seven years, he goes away with the wife he wanted, with all of Laban's wealth, not all of his wealth, but a lot of his wealth, and he leaves Laban with no daughters and a sickly flock. And what can you say about Jacob except that he's a deceiver, just like he was with Esau?

Now he's doing it with Laban. He's shrewd, wrestling with the Lord, unwilling to let him go until he receives a blessing. Is Jacob commendable? Sarah, you don't want to say yes, but you can't help but say yes because scripture says yes. You're like, we're supposed to be like that? Yeah, you got to understand what is commendable about Jacob. And then yes, you are to be like that. And there is a lot of similarity between Jacob and this manager. They are shrewd. And so that's the first half of this verse. The master praises the manager for acting shrewdly. And then Jesus interprets. And what he says to them is, the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. Now there's a comparison going on here. Who's being compared? The sons of this age, that's the manager. The unfaithful manager. And he's being compared to the sons of light. Who are the sons of light? No, the disciples.

And what he's saying is those unbelievers understand something about how to behave that you guys don't understand. So what is it that they understood? How would you, if you had to describe what motivated that unrighteous manager, what is it? Why did he do what he did? What did he care about? Huh? Say again. Survival. He, that man, you have never seen someone that had such an intense self-interest in his own provision. He lied. He cheated. He stole. Why? Because he cared to see that he was provided for and that he had the things that he needed. He knew what he wanted. He knew what he needed. And by every means possible, he went and saw to it that he would have it. He would not be denied.

And that's what you're supposed to emulate. So am I telling you to be selfish? No. I'm not telling you to be selfish. I'm asking you, what is it that you need most? What ought you to give your whole life to see that you have? For that, you ought to do everything that you can to procure it. Here's a question about the manager. His job is to deal with money, right? So what's the danger in dealing with money? It's that you would love it, right? And that many, through the love of money, have brought all kinds of distress into their lives. Now here's an interesting question. Does the manager love money? He doesn't love money. If he loved money, consider what he would have done. He would have taken the lump sum.

Remember I asked you earlier, what would he have done? He would have taken the lump sum, and he never would have gone to account for it. He would have taken the money and run, but he didn't. I'm convinced that that man did not love money. I'm convinced that he had an intense self-interest in his own provision, but not that he loved money. He used money, somebody else's money, to get what he needed, but he did not love money. And that's one of the things that's commended in him. The sons of this age act more shrewdly toward one another than the sons of light. He did better at something that you guys don't understand and you need to understand. And then, in the next verse, Jesus tells you, after saying to them that you lack something that the unbelievers understand, he then explicitly tells them, I say to you, make for yourself, make friends for yourself by means of the wealth of unrighteousness. And it's hard to believe that, it's like, how do you even make sense of this coming out of Jesus' mouth? It just doesn't sound like a good thing to do. Make friends for yourselves by the means of the wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails, they will receive you into eternal blessings. Now, we have to understand what's going on here. It doesn't just fall right off the page to us.

So let's take it a bite at a time. What is the wealth of unrighteousness? Well, it's worldly wealth. It's money. You have to understand that money is not a moral agent. It's amoral. You can do good things with money. You can do bad things with money. But money is not good or bad. The love of it is bad. The blessing of others with it is good. But it itself is just currency. And that is what the wealth of unrighteousness is. It's simply saying, you live in a world, use the resources of that world to do what? To make friends. That's what he tells them to do. Make friends by the means of the wealth of unrighteousness. So you're supposed to use your money to make friends. Why are you supposed to do that? Well, because it's going to fail. Now think for a minute about money. How do people in this world use money? What do they hope to gain by using money?

Say again? Happiness, yeah? Power? Security? Is money not the insulator from God and ultimately from death? Don't we use money for happiness, for power, for security, for comfort, for independence, so that we don't have to get those things from God? And what is that but to love money, to love what it can get you, what you think you need? You can't live without. And yet, has there ever been a man in all of creation throughout time whose money has kept him from the judgment seat of God? There's been a man whose money kept him from the judgment seat of God? I'm asking. You're shaking your head. The answer is no. Yeah, let me state it again then. If we use money as a buffer between us and God, Has it ever worked for anybody? Have they ever not died and gone to meet the God of heaven and earth? No. And so what we learn about money then is that it will fail us. That's what Jesus tells us here. Make friends by the means of the wealth of unrighteous so that when it fails, when the money fails and you die, they will receive you into eternal dwellings. Who are they? The friends that you've made.

The neighbors that you've loved. The people that you've cared for. That when you've blessed them and cared for them and made friends of them with the currency of this world, that when they die and go before you, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. Another way of saying it is that you would use your resource, your money. primarily, but also your time and whatever else the Lord's given you to further his kingdom so that when you die, the people that have received blessing from your life will greet you in heaven. In 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 19, sorry, 1 Timothy 6 verses 17 through 19, Paul gives instruction to Timothy about how to deal with rich people. And here's what he says. Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope in this present world.

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, receiving you into the eternal dwellings. Good foundation for the future. so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. So in a nutshell, what are they supposed to do? Well, they're supposed to use their money to be a blessing, to build the kingdom of God, so that when they die, they will not be disappointed. Why are they supposed to do that? Well, because that is the most important thing that you can concern yourself with, is eternity and where you will be and what will happen to you. You don't need anything in this world.

Nothing you have in this world is promised to you. It doesn't make those things bad or undesirable, but they will fail you. And what you'll be left with when everything else has failed you is God when you stand before him in judgment. And your job is to make provision by every means that you can get your hands on that's righteous to prepare for that day. There's an analogy in the unrighteous manager's life. Think of his life, his job, as his time on earth, his life. He was unfaithful during his life. And his master, the Lord, comes to him and says, you're going to come see me now and give an account. You're going to face me in judgment.

And what that man does before he goes and he sees his master in judgment is he makes provision for after the judgment that he would be received into his master's house. And every analogy has its point at which if you push on it far enough, it breaks. Because this master fires him for the unrighteous means that he uses to provide for himself in the future. When we stand before God, none of the unrighteousness that we've given ourselves to is going to be a blessing to us after judgment. But everything that we do that's righteous, that's meant to secure for us a blessing after death, will be counted, added to our account, will be counted toward us. It will not qualify us, but it will add up in our account.

We will reap a blessing in the life to come from the righteousness that we do in this life. He who is faithful in a very little thing. What's the little thing? It's your money. It's every bit of what you have. Every bit of it. Every bit of it. He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. Another way of saying that is he who is faithful in this life, which is a very little part of eternity, very little part, here today and gone tomorrow, he who is faithful in a very little thing, his life, will be faithful in much eternity. He who is unrighteous in a very little thing, in his life, will be unrighteous in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?

And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is his own? So what do we have right now that's another's? What do we have that's not ours? Everything. There's not one thing you have that is yours. Not even your life. It's given to you. It's on loan to you to be faithful with, to produce a profit with for the glory of God. And if you won't be faithful now, You will not have the opportunity or the ability or the desire to be faithful later. Another way of saying it is our money is not really our money. How we use it is how we demonstrate our faith. Where your treasure is, there shall be your heart also. And money is the best placeholder for what you spend, what your life's about. It really is. I remember talking to a financial planner one time, and he says, you know, if you want me to tell you...

what's important to people, they just have to show me their bank statements. That's all I need. I don't need them to say a word. Not one word. I just need to know what they do with their money and I can tell you what's important to them. I can tell you their priorities. That's it. That's how integral how we use money is to the state of our soul. If you're not faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is their own? No one can serve two masters. For he will either hate the one and love the other. or else you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in wealth. There's not a deal to be struck between the love of money and the love of God. In the last days, difficult times will come, and men will be lovers of money, lovers of self, rather than lovers of God. It's that stark. It's that clear, the division. You cannot serve God in wealth. Money is a tool.

It's a resource that's been given to you. To some more than others. And that's God's providence that we see being lived out. That some of us have an abundance and some of us barely have enough. And some of you are in debt. Some of you are because you've made good decisions. And some of you are in debt because you've made bad decisions. And some of you aren't in debt because you've made bad decisions. You hear? Some of you are not in debt because you've made bad decisions. Because you loved money. You had to have it. You had to store it all up. You're without things. Other people are without things because of your principle. You didn't see money as a tool to be used to bless other people and to build God's kingdom, but rather to be hoarded. Like the foolish man who thought, what will I do when my barn's overflowing? I know what I'll do. I'll tear down my barn and build bigger ones. Oh, you fool. Did you not know that your soul would be required of you this very day? Did you not know that your money would fail you? Did you not know that you were going to have to stand before God? And the size of your barn wasn't...

going to help you. When money becomes a temptation to us, it threatens our soul. The lesson of the unrighteous manager, the thing we're supposed to learn from him, the reason Jesus told his disciples about him was that we ought to have an intense desire to see ourselves provided for and taken care of. Not in this life, because it's here today and gone tomorrow, but in eternity. Money will fail you. It will fail you. Rich people die, just like poor people, in just the same way, with just the same pain. And they stand before just the same God. Its purpose is not to insulate us from the God of heaven and earth, but to enable us to serve him better. And so you ought to be shrewd in your use of money in this world. Shrewd to see it produce the best profit that it can for the kingdom of heaven. If I give it up, I'm not going to have it. You're right. You're right. That thought is a true thought.

You won't. But your treasure will be in heaven if you serve God with your money by faith. Your soul will be provided for if you serve God with your wealth. And conversely, your soul will be damned if you don't. And I don't want that to be true of any one of us. Every one of us has money. Every one of us wants more. Some for righteous reasons, some for indifferent reasons, and some for wicked reasons. But every one of us wants more money. Is there anyone in here who doesn't? It's unanimous. Will you be righteous? Will you be shrewd in your use of it? Or will you store up your treasure here on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal? And then when it's all done, it's really all done, and you have no provision left. That's the question to you. And the wicked understand that they have to provide for themselves and see to their provision in a way that's commendable. When you see someone working hard for something that they want,

even when they do it in a wicked manner, there's a lesson for you to learn there. That manager knew himself. I am too weak, too lazy to dig. I am too proud to beg. I'm going to steal to get what I want. You may not get your gift. You're going to go to God and say, look at everything I stole for your kingdom. That's not going to work. Look at what I've sacrificed. Look what I've given of myself. Look at the fruit of my life and what I've done for your glory, Lord. This is what you provided me, and it's not what it should be, but this is what I've done with it by your grace. That ought to be our desire. That ought to be our intention. And we ought to be intensely shrewd about how we care for our souls and the souls of those that we love. Let's pray.