FOUNDATIONS FOR FREEDOM
MAKING FRIENDS IN HEAVEN

Luke 16: 1-15

INTRODUCTION

How many of you have ever moved from one house to another? Most of us have moved at least once in our life. I just heard the other day that the average American moves six times in their lifetime. I want you to think with me for a moment about what is involved in moving. We moved from Champaign, IL to Janesville in 1997. I was looking for a position with a church after 20 years of working with Campus Crusade for Christ when I was invited to consider coming here to start this church. After a couple of months of talking and praying, we decided to move here. We decided to move in March but we did not actually move here until August. In some ways our lives remained the same, even though we had decided to move. We still went to church there, we still lived in our home there, we paid our bills, and we enjoyed our relationships. However, on another level, everything changed. We were still living in Champaign but our minds were fixed on coming to Janesville. We knew that our time in Champaign was rapidly coming to an end. We worked to get our home in shape to sell it. We went through our possessions and had a large garage sale. What we didn’t sell we took to the Salvation Army or threw out. We contacted a realtor in Janesville and then made a trip here to look at houses. You know what it’s like. While still living in Champaign, our entire lives revolved around moving to Janesville. “The move” preoccupied our attention and determined how we used our time, what we thought about and how we dealt with problems.

Just imagine with me for a moment that we made the decision to move to Janesville and told all of our friends in Champaign we were going to move. We also told the EFCA churches that called us to come here that we were going to move. We told everyone we planned to move to Janesville to start this church. However, we didn’t do anything different. We didn’t try to sell our house and we didn’t look for a house here. We didn’t do any packing. We didn’t do any research about Janesville or make any contacts here. We just kept living as if Champaign was our home. What would our lack of planning or preparing to go to Janesville tell you? We really aren’t going to Janesville, even though we said we were. We don’t believe we’re going there. Janesville will never be our home, rather, we will remain in Champaign.

If you are here this morning as a Christian that means you are planning on moving to heaven. That’s what it means to be a Christian. This world is no longer your home. You still live here, but you are preparing to move to heaven. The move is what occupies your attention and determines how you will live. If you are doing nothing to prepare for heaven, then you really are not planning on going there. If you believe that Christ by his death has paid the penalty for your sins and he has given you eternal life with God forever, then you are living here as if you were moving there.

The Bible is full of descriptions of how people who are planning on moving to heaven prepare for the move. The Bible describes how people live who are convinced they are going to heaven. The commands of the Bible are not a statement of what people do in order to earn heaven. Rather, they are a description of how people who are going to heaven live, how they prepare to move. This is especially true of the passage we are going to consider today. In Luke 16: 1-15 Jesus describes how those who are going to heaven think about and handle money and possessions. He uses a story, a metaphor and then real people to help us understand how people who are going to heaven think about, feel about and manage the money and possessions God has given.

MAIN POINT

If you are convinced that your final destination is heaven you will…

I. Use what you have here to prepare for a warm welcome there (vv. 1-9)

The parable Jesus tells in vv. 1-9 may be the strangest story he ever told. Jesus tells the story of a steward or manager whom he calls a dishonest or literally, an unrighteous steward. What makes this a difficult story to understand is v. 8. In v. 8 the actions of this steward are commended by Jesus and put forward for disciples to emulate. Yet, this steward is clearly a dishonest, conniving person. We have to figure out what is it about the actions and motives of this dishonest steward that we are to copy. Let’s begin by at least understanding the details of the story.

A wealthy man hired an individual to manage his business. However, the manager proves to be untrustworthy. He actually loses money for the man. He squandered the man’s wealth. The owner hears from someone that the manager is doing a poor job and tells the manager that he is going to be let go. He orders him to gather together all the records and to give a final accounting of all the transactions that he has initiated before he quits. The manager is very distressed, just like anyone who is told they are going to be out of a job would be. He is unwilling to do manual labor to provide for himself and he is too ashamed to beg. He likes being a manager, the authority and “perks”, and knows that the likelihood of getting hired in another position like this after being fired is slight. Who will hire a manager who fails at managing?

He fusses and frets about what he is going to do and then suddenly it dawns on him what he can do. He figures out a plan so that when he is unemployed another wealthy man will hire him as his manager. He calls all those who owe money to his master. He uses his authority as the steward to reduce the amount that each of the debtors is required to pay. One man owes 100 cors of wheat, so he cuts the amount in half and collects what he owes. Another individual owed 100 baths of olive oil and he reduced that to 80 and collects that as well. You see what he is doing? He is using his authority as the manager of the wealthy man’s business to reduce the debt of other people so that when he is unemployed they will look favorably upon him and give him a job. The owner praises the dishonest steward for how wisely he has behaved.

Why would the owner praise this dishonest man when he has just cost him so much money? I can think of at least three reasons. First, most likely these were outstanding debts that the owner did not think he was going to collect on anyway and so even though he received less than he was owed, at least he got something. Fifty cors of wheat is better than none and eighty baths of olive oil is better than none. Second, how do you think the debtors thought about the wealthy man after their debt was lowered? The reputation of the owner was greatly enhanced in the community because of the manager’s action. Finally, the owner is a businessman and he knows good business practice when he sees it. He is impressed by his manager’s business acumen and commends him for it. The owner is commending the dishonest manager for what he did to prepare for his future, not for his character.

What is it in this dishonest steward that Jesus wants us to mimic? There are two things that Jesus wants us to emulate. First, the steward knows with absolute certainty that soon he will be unemployed and bankrupt. His present condition is about to be radically altered. Second, he uses his position as manager to prepare for the future. He uses the resources at his disposal now to make sure that he will receive a warm welcome in the future. He acts in the present in order to secure his future. In the second half of v. 8 Jesus criticizes Christians for not understanding what non-Christians know and for not doing what they do. Non-Christians use money and possessions to prepare for their security in the future. We ought to be doing the same. That’s the point of v. 9. If we are convinced that we are one day going to die, that is, lose our job in this world and all we possess in this world, then why do we use the resources of this world as though it’s never going to end? We ought to be using our position as managers of God’s resources to do good so that God will warmly welcome us into heaven.

He’s not saying you can bribe God with money or anything else. He is simply saying that if you know you “can’t take it with you”, then you ought to be sending it on ahead. If you invest the resources God has given you as though you are never going to be out of a job and as if you will always be able to enjoy them here, then you will not be warmly welcomed into heaven. The reason will be that you were never really planning to go there. If you say you are moving to heaven but do nothing to prepare for the move, you are not going to heaven. The friends in heaven may refer to those you have helped who bear witness to your loving generosity in heaven. However, I think it is more likely that Jesus is simply using the metaphor from the parable to describe a warm welcome from God in heaven because you have lived by faith on earth. You acted here as though you were going there by how you used the possessions at your disposal to help others. All of us know how bad it feels to show up some place and get the cold shoulder. I do not want any of us to show up at heaven’s door and not be warmly greeted and ushered into God’s eternal presence. For your own sake, for the sake of a warm welcome in heaven, use the money and possessions God has given you to do good for the sake of Christ. Stop using them as if you were going to get to remain here forever.

If you are convinced that your final destination is heaven you will…

II. Faithfully work and invest now so you get the promotion then (vv. 10-12)

In verses 10-12 Jesus uses a little different metaphor to communicate a similar point. He begins by stating a very obvious principle of work and of human business transactions. It is a principle that every parent, every business owner, every foreman, every boss uses when assigning work. When you are teaching a child to wash the dishes, you don’t start by having them wash the fine china. If your child has never learned to take care of his bike, you aren’t going to buy him a brand new car. If you are a general contractor and you hire a new person with no experience, you don’t put him in charge of the framing crew. You assign him to carry wood and other materials and to only pound in nails when he is told to do so. He will be promoted to the framing crew and then to supervise the crew only when he has demonstrated that he is trustworthy in the lesser tasks. When someone does not regularly show up to work on time, regularly makes mistakes and does not demonstrate growing skill, then you do not give him more authority. Verses 11 and 12 simply restate the point in different ways. If you can’t take care of “worldly wealth” who will give you true riches? If you are not faithful in managing the money and possessions that belong to another, who will give you your own possessions?

A friend of mine recently was promoted. He works for a corporation that owns many buildings. For over ten years, he was in charge of the maintenance of one of those buildings. Just recently his employer came to him and essentially told him that because of how faithful he had been in overseeing this one building, they were going to put him in charge of managing all fifty of the buildings they own. He managed the one building well and so he was promoted and put in charge of many buildings. We know that this is how life works. The way you get promoted is to be faithful in your present position. The way to get your parents to buy you a new bike is to take care of the one you have.

The main issue in these verses is faithfulness, trustworthiness. Everyone who is going to heaven is faithful with the resources they have been given while living on earth. The condition of receiving the greater wealth of heaven is that we have been faithful with the lesser wealth of earth. Jesus makes three comparisons between the money and possessions we have here and the “wealth” we will be given in heaven. He makes these comparisons in order to motivate us to be trustworthy with what we have here. The money and possessions we have on planet earth are described in three ways. In v. 10 they are called “insignificant” or “very little”. In v. 11 they are called “worldly wealth”. In v. 12 they are called “someone else’s possessions”. Then, the glory of heaven is expressed by the words, “much” in v. 10, “true riches” in v. 11 and “your own possessions” in v. 12. Think with me for a moment about these three comparisons and how each one motivates us to be faithful with what we have here.

Why do we enjoy money and possessions? Money and possessions provide us with pleasure, comfort and security. The more money you have, the more you can go out to eat instead of cooking at home. The more vacations you can take, the more you can hire others to do your work for you. The more wealth you have, the less you have to worry about the future. Increasing wealth means increasing comfort and security. The pleasures, comforts and security that we can have on earth with increasing wealth cannot be compared with the infinite pleasures, comforts and security of heaven. We ought to consciously compare the pleasures and security we hope to obtain here with wealth with the infinite wealth of heaven. We ought to make this comparison to cause us to be more faithful in our use of this world’s wealth. Gaining the infinitely greater wealth of heaven is conditioned upon how you have managed the small amount of wealth God has entrusted to you on earth. You will only obtain the infinite wealth of heaven if you have been faithful with the small amount of wealth you have been given on earth.

The second contrast is between “worldly wealth” and “true riches”. This world’s wealth is not durable, nor is it true wealth. It is like comparing real diamonds with “zirconium”. It is like comparing real emeralds with green colored glass or real rubies with red colored glass. This world’s wealth, when compared with the wealth of heaven does not last and is not true wealth. It is fake jewelry compared to the precious gems of heaven. Finally, the wealth you have here does not belong to you. Everything you have has been given to you by God for you to manage. Gaining heaven will be like going from the position of a child who owns nothing to an adult who has his own possessions. Gaining heaven will be like going from being a slave to being free and owning your own property. How can you expect God to give you your own property in heaven when you have not been trustworthy with what he has given you on earth to manage?

Are we being trustworthy with what we have here? Do we view the wealth of heaven as infinitely greater than what we have here? Do we view our possessions and money as belonging to God and only being given to us for us to manage on his behalf? Do we live as though how we manage these resources is going to determine whether or not I gain the true wealth of heaven? Again, Jesus is not teaching that you can buy God off. He is telling us how those who are planning on going to heaven view and use the wealth that has been entrusted to them. I would like to propose an experiment for each of us this week. Each time you spend money this week, whether it’s paying a bill or filling up the car with gas or going to a movie, take a moment and ask yourself this question: “This is God’s money. Would he approve of this use of his money? Is there something else he would have me do with this money?” None of us can do that for every expenditure we make for life but we can do it for a week.

If you are convinced that your final destination is heaven you will…

III. Pursue God, not money (vv. 13-15)

In these final three verses, Jesus gives us another absolute principle and then we are shown how the principle is expressed in the lives of some real people, a group of religious people. Here is the absolute principle: “No slave 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 God and money.” The fact is that a slave cannot be the slave of two masters at the same time. Jesus is not saying you cannot work two jobs at once. He is saying you cannot be the slave of two masters at the same time. The essence of being someone’s servant is that your entire life is at the disposal of your master. You only have one life and so you can only give that one life to one master at a time. You can only love and be devoted to serving one master at a time because you only have one life. If you say that you have two masters, the only thing that can happen is that you will love and be loyal to one of them and hate and despise the other one. Then Jesus says that money and God are two masters. You can only belong to one of them, you cannot belong to both at the same time. You cannot love God and love money at the same time. You cannot be loyal to God and loyal to money at the same time.

I want you to think with me about this idea of serving money or God as a master. When we think of being someone’s servant, we tend to think of it in these terms: I give to my master something that he would not possess if it were not for me. I cook dinner and serve it to him. If I did not do this, he would have to do it for himself. I plow his field and plant corn in it. If I did not do this, he would not have any corn or he would have to do it himself. In other words, we think of serving as our supplying what our master lacks or helping our master do or gain something that he could not do or gain without our help. However, that is not how Jesus is using the metaphor of servant/slave in v. 13. Serving money does not mean that you do something in order to provide money with something it did not have apart from what you have done. Money does not need you. You cannot increase the value of money. Rather, serving money means that I do all I can in order to get more of it and in order to enjoy what it gives. Serving money means that I organize my life to get money and to enjoy what money provides. It means you believe the promise of wealth, that it will make you happy. This is exactly what it means to serve God. Serving God does not mean that I work in order to make up some deficiency in God. I am not doing something for God that would not be done if I did not do it. Rather, to serve God means to organize my life in such a way that I get more of God and enjoy what he provides. To serve God means to believe that possessing God and the pleasures that he gives is the best thing in the world.

That is why Jesus uses the language of affection to describe the servanthood we offer to God or money. If you love money and what money provides, you orient your life in such a way that you get money and the pleasures that money provide. If you love God, then you organize your life in such a way that you get more of God and the pleasures he provides. When you love money, then you hate God and when you love God, you hate money. The fact is that you cannot love, be loyal to or serve God and money.

Look at vv. 14 and 15 to see how this works out in the lives of some religious leaders. The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism known for their piety, for their devotion to God. If you were to survey a Jewish community during Jesus’ day and ask which people in the community were the most in love with God, the most devoted to God, the local Pharisees would have been mentioned most often. In other words, if you were looking for which people appeared to be most oriented towards getting more of God it would have been the Pharisees. Now notice what is really going on in the lives of these religious people. They love money and so they despise Jesus when they hear him say you cannot love God and money. Do you see what is happening? Jesus just said that if you love money you will despise God. The Pharisees, we are told, love money and they despise Jesus. Here is another one of those subtle evidences of the divinity of Jesus. They sneer at Jesus, they mock him because they do not want to get more of God, they want to get more money. If you want to get more of God, you will love Jesus, not sneer at him, not treat him like a nobody. What Jesus promises will be the source of all your hope and happiness, if you love God.

Look at what Jesus says to them. “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men but God knows your hearts.” The Pharisees do what they do in order that men will notice and admire them, not so that God will admire them. Why do they want the admiration of men? So they can get more money. They are using God to get money by getting the approval of men through their religious behavior. The people who admire them and therefore create wealth for them do not know that these men do not really love God. However, God knows they do not really love God. You and I cannot look at another person and know whether or not the other person is loving God or loving money. We think we know, but we do not. The approval of other humans or the disapproval of other humans really does not matter. What matters is what God knows and God knows your heart. Two people can be giving the same amount of money, reading their bible the same amount of time and one of them is pleasing God and the other is seeking to please men. One is motivated by love for God and the other is motivated by love for money. You and I cannot really know which is which. However, God knows.

“What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” The things that impress men do not impress God. In fact, Jesus says that the things that are most impressive to men are detestable to God. That word is about as strong a word for disgust as you can imagine. It is used over 100 times in the OT and is used to describe God’s feelings about all kinds of sexual perversions and immorality and for unfair business practices. However, it is used most often to describe his feelings about those who worship false gods. The love of money is the worship of a false god. When you serve money, when you orient your life around getting more money and what money provides you are treating money like God. You are acting as though what money provides is more pleasurable and more able to satisfy and stronger than God and what God provides. Nothing offends God more than when human beings believe that something is more sufficient and more desirable than he is.

My dear friends, this whole matter of stewardship really is a matter of the heart. What do you love? What do you prefer, money or God? What do you think about more, money and the pleasures that money provides or God and the pleasures that God provides? What occupies your time and energy most, God or money? God or possessions? I’m not just talking about religious activity here. This is a matter of how we think about and use the money and possessions that God has given us. The answer is not to take a vow of poverty and live in a monastery because religious acts do not necessarily mean you love God. It is a matter of your heart and then of the behaviors that flow from your heart. Our heart is revealed in how we use the resources we have been given. It is revealed by what we fear and what excites us. Regardless of what American culture and American religious culture might say to you, you cannot love/serve God and money. If you love money, no matter what you say, you are despising God. You might be able to fool men, but you cannot fool God.

If you are convinced that your final destination is heaven you will…