“Building Your Spiritual Portfolio”
(Luke 16:1-13)
Series: Certainty in Uncertain Times
Rev. Todd a. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
- Take God’s Word and open to Luke, chapter 16 (page ; Youversion Bible app)
While you’re turning there, you will be hearing more next week and in Sunday school about our outreach for Christmas at the Fine Arts Center. We’re having a special Christmas service on Christmas Day, from 10:30 to 12:00 at the Fine Arts Center. This presents not only an opportunity for us all to worship together in one big service, but also to reach out to our community, inviting Hendersonians to come worship with us.
Have you found Luke 16? We have another parable of our Lord Jesus. Parables are short stories Jesus tells where He stresses one main point. So parables are not to be allegorized where one finds supposed “hidden meanings” here and there, but rather a short story that stresses one main point. See if you can discover the one main point in this parable. Jesus speaks to His disciples and He tells about a rich man who has a steward or manager, a guy who manages his possessions.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
1 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.
2 So he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’
3 “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.
4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’
5 “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 And he said, “A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
7 Then he said to another, “And how much do you owe?’ So he said, “A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’
8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.
9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.
10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.
11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?
13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
- Pray.
Introduction:
Arguably the greatest challenge facing Christians is the challenge to live our lives with eternity in view; to live not for this present world, but for the world to come. Few of us actually wake in the morning thinking that this may well be our last day. We rise and shower and dress and go and do the things we’ve done before. We can even be religious and still be lulled into the notion that our days are many and eternity is that vague, future, far away thing that we’ll get to someday, but right now there are far more pressing matters: we’ve got to get to work, got to go to the store, got to clean the house, go shopping, prepare the meal.
It is not like we set out to be conformed to this world and its ways and its values and priorities; like our rising and showering each day our conforming to the world “just happens.” We’re lulled into it the way a small twig is carried downstream by the current. And so in many ways Christians are not altogether different from non-Christians in the way they live their lives, order their priorities, and plan their futures.
Christians are tempted like the guy we read about back in chapter 12, tempted to “build bigger barns” to store all their worldly goods or tempted to build a large investment portfolio for the purpose of enjoying a life of ease and luxury. Occasionally, a sermon, an event, or a twinge of guilt reminds us of the brevity of our lives and the importance of taking care of our posterity and many then carve out a bit from their worldly possessions to leave behind something for their children and grandchildren.
So the talk at the funeral home and elsewhere is about what he or she “left behind” for his or her posterity. “Oh, he was quite generous,” says someone. “He left behind a small fortune for his kids,” or, “She left behind enough to educate her entire family.” This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It is important to take care of our children and grandchildren.
But the Bible intersects this discussion with the striking truth that real life is determined not so much by what one has “left behind” as it is determined by what one has “sent ahead.” Do you have an investment portfolio? There is nothing wrong with this; you should be wisely investing for the future. But is your investment portfolio part of a greater spiritual portfolio, a portfolio that takes into account the greater purpose for why you are here on this earth? Does your investment portfolio reflect the truth that your days here are few in number and that you were created not to enjoy a life of ease and luxury, but that you were created for the purpose of glorifying God?
One day we will die and stand before the Supreme Judge of the Universe. We will die and stand before our Creator. There will be a final accounting. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment.”
Christians must live with an eye to the future, acting wisely, acting shrewdly as we prepare to stand before God to give an accounting of the way we lived our lives. That’s the truth and that’s the one main point of this parable. Whatever else we may learn from this parable, we must see the one main truth that Christians are to live with an eye to the future, living wisely in this world, knowing one day we will answer to God for how we lived. Let’s study that truth more closely as we go through these verses.
1 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.
2 So he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’
So there is this rich guy who has a lot of stuff and he has a guy working for him to manage his stuff. The rich guy learns that the fella he has hired to manage his stuff is wasting his stuff. So verse 2 says the rich guy calls him into his office and terminates him. Picture Donald Trump bringing a guy into his office and uttering those two infamous words, “You’re fired!” That’s the scenario. This steward or manager managed money and possessions for his rich boss and now his rich boss has fired him. So he tells him to clean out his desk and get the accounting books in order and turn them over to him.
3 “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.
So the fired steward or manager is like, “What am I gonna do now?! I’m not good for physical labor like digging ditches and I’m too proud to stand on the corner with a sign begging for money. What am I going to do?”
Sometimes when I face discouragement in the ministry I think like this guy! “If I leave the ministry what am I going to do? I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. Guess I’d better man up and stay in the ministry!”
4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’
This steward, this fired manager, has an idea. He’s going to do something that will ingratiate himself to the people who owed his rich former employe. He’s going to do something that will make him look good in the eyes of those who still owed money to his former boss–his Donald Trump. This way, he reasons, people will like him and help him out.
5 “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 And he said, “A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
7 Then he said to another, “And how much do you owe?’ So he said, “A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’
So what this fired employee is doing, what this former manager of his rich boss is doing, is he is severely cutting the debts that these folks owed the rich boss. The steward or manager was previously occupied collecting these debts for his rich boss and so, because he is being fired, he is getting the books in order to turn them over to his boss and before he turns them over he is contacting the people who owe his boss and drastically cutting the debts by as much as one half.
It’s like he says, “How much do you owe my boss?” The guy says answers, “I owe him $5,000.” So the steward takes his pen, strikes through the amount and says, “Okay, now you only owe him $2,500.”
Now we would anticipate that the master, or the rich guy, the Donald Trump person, would be really ticked off when he learns what the steward or manager has done. We would expect that because the fired manager is slashing his profits. But what do we read in verse 8?
8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly.
The master finds himself smiling and shaking his head at the shrewdness of this fired manager. It’s as though he says to himself, “Well, that little rascal! I told him to clean out his desk and bring me the books and he had the shrewdness to take care of himself before he turned everything over to me. What a creative scoundrel!”
Now note this: The master commends the unjust steward not for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. This is important if we are to interpret the parable correctly. The Bible does not condone the fired manager’s self-centered dishonesty, but his shrewdness. Next part of verse 8, Jesus says:
For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.
The “sons of this world” refers to lost people and “sons of light” refers to saved people. Jesus says in one sense you’ve got to hand it to lost people, to unbelievers. Unbelievers are unquestionably living for this world and they’re good at it. Believers, on the other hand, are not always so good at living for the world to come. Jesus is teaching Christians to act as wisely and prudently concerning spiritual things as non-Christians act concerning earthly things.
9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail (better, when “it” fails; when you, when the money, when everything is gone, when there is no longer an opportunity for money to have influence; when it fails), they may receive you into an everlasting home.
“Mammon” is an Aramaic term that means money or possessions. “Unrighteous mammon” is best translated as “worldly wealth” or “worldly possessions.” The term “friends” here is best understood as “God and all of heaven.” So Jesus tells Christians, “Make friends for yourselves by using your worldly wealth in such a way that–by your use of it–you will one day be welcomed cheerfully into an everlasting home.
Put another way, “Build your spiritual portfolio by investing in the future.” Invest in the future and you won’t regret it. You will be richly rewarded in heaven.
11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
Jesus makes the point again: Use your worldly wealth and worldly possessions in such a way that they accrue to you a heavenly reward; true riches. It’s not what you “leave behind,” it’s what you “send ahead.”
Consider, for example, the way a number of you two Sunday evenings ago committed to using “unrighteous mammon,” worldly wealth, to accrue to you true riches. 32 families here at Henderson’s First Baptist Church sponsored 32 children to attend Christian school through our missional partnership in Thailand. That’s a perfect example of being faithful with worldly wealth for the purpose of receiving true riches. And there are countless others. True riches are enjoyed when we go to heaven and hear the “thank you’s” for what we “sent ahead” with respect to money, with respect to time, witness, mission, evangelism, encouragement–all for the purpose of building Christ’s kingdom.
12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?
You see? God has loaned us everything we have. It is “another man’s.” There is nothing that is truly ours. We are to use what has been loaned to us as shrewdly for spiritual things as the fired manager used what belonged to another man for earthly things.
If we are faithful in “what is another man’s,” in the things that God entrusts to our care, then we will receive that which is “our own,” last part of verse 12. That which is “our own” refers to true riches, spiritual wealth, heavenly rewards, things that cannot be taken away.
13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and possessions. The fact that mammon is juxtaposed to God suggests the idolatrous nature mammon may take in our lives. We worship money and possessions instead of God. Jesus teaches here that we will worship one or the other. You cannot worship both. You cannot. And yet, how many of us try?
JC Ryle, “Thousands on every side are continually trying to do the thing which Christ pronounces impossible. They are endeavoring to be friends of the world and friends of God at the same time. Their consciences are so far enlightened, that they feel they must have some religion. But their affections are so chained down to earthly things, that they never come up to the mark of being true Christians. And hence they live in a state of constant discomfort. They have too much religion to be happy in the world, and they have too much of the world in their hearts to be happy in their religion. In short, they waste their time in laboring to do that which cannot be done. They are striving to ‘serve God and mammon.’”
Listen to these questions that come out of a good study Bible (Life Application). “How can you tell if you are a slave to money? Ask yourself: Do I think and worry about it frequently? Do I give up doing what I should do or would like to do in order to make more money? Do I spend a great deal of my time caring for my possessions? Is it hard for me to give money away? Am I in debt?”
There are three general questions for us to answer as regards our spiritual portfolio. Let me encourage you to write these three down and then talk them over before God and your family. Number one:
1) Do I Honestly Live Each Day with Eternity in View?
Really think about this one. Ask, “Do I honestly live each day with eternity in view?” Do I prepare for the future as shrewdly as the unjust manager prepared for his future?
As a child or teenager or young adult, am I living each day knowing that I will one day stand before God and answer for how I spent my time?
As a parent, do I prepare my children or grandchildren for eternity. Do my daily activities with my children demonstrate that we all are preparing for eternity, that this is far more important even than academics or sports, band, and extracurricular activities?
There will be a final accounting. Am I preparing for it?
2) Do I Accept as True that I Own Nothing, but am Merely a Steward of God’s Stuff?
Someone said (Kent Hughes), “One day our most precious things will fit into a hospital drawer.” Think of that. We own nothing really. I am merely a steward of that which God has loaned to me.
Am I acting shrewdly with what has been entrusted to me by my Master? The biblical principle of tithing rests on the truth that we are merely returning to God that which is His. God owns 100% of all things. He has entrusted to our care the 100% we have. The tithe–and the word “tithe” means, “tenth”–the tithe is that which we return to God in demonstration of our accepting as true that we own nothing but are merely stewards of God’s stuff. The tithe is our acknowledging Christ’s lordship over everything.
3) Is My Treasure Found in God Alone?
Am I trying to serve two masters–God and money? Jesus says in Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Is my treasure found in God alone?
Often you can determine where a person’s treasure–and by extension where a person’s heart is–by listening to what they usually talk about. What do you talk about most when you talk with your family? When you talk with your friends?
I’m currently reading The Diary & Journal of David Brainerd. Jonathan Edwards is the editor of the Brainerd’s Diary. Both of these names are familiar to those who know a bit of history of the First Spiritual Awakening in colonial America; Edwards known mostly for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Brainerd known mostly for his tireless missional work among the Native American Indians in New Jersey and elsewhere, dying prematurely at age 29. A striking similarity between Edwards and Brainerd was their shared love for spiritual conversation. In the Introduction to Brainerd’s Diary it is written: “He had no liking for conversation which did not transport him into the presence of God.” In one place in his Diary he bemoans that far too many professing Christians speak too little of spiritual things.
Think of it: How often do you and your spouse speak about spiritual things? What do you speak about mostly?–the car, the house, the vacation, the kids? What do you speak about mostly to your friends?–job, clothes, recreation, sports? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Are you living for the “here” or the “hereafter?” Are you living for the “now” or the “then?”
In Philippians 3:18-20, Paul bemoans that, “many live for (earthly things)….their god is their belly, and (their) glory is in their shame—(they) set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,”
And in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, he says that while we are dying, our “light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
I heard this week about a man whose wife died a few years ago. The man’s name is Ed Hartman, a pastor and author of a book entitled, Homeward Bound: Building an Attractive Christ-Centered Family on Eternal Principles. In the book, Ed writes about when his wife was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and how she had died leaving behind four small children. In the book, Ed writes about the last really lucid conversation that he had with his wife, Amy. Three weeks before she died he asked her:
“Sweetheart, do you know what is happening to you?” She nodded her head slowly and replied, “I’m going home.” He asked her how she felt about that. With quiet calm she replied simply, “I’m okay, I know who I’m going to see,” and then she drifted off to sleep. Several months before she died, Amy had stopped by the local florist’s shop on her way to visit a friend. She knew she was going to die but was not yet bed-ridden. While she was in the shop she noticed several large floral arrangements that had been prepared for a funeral scheduled later that day. Though the flowers were beautiful she did not like the pre-printed cards attached to the flower arrangements: “With Deepest Sympathy” or “With our Condolences.” She said to the florist, “Those cards are too depressing and I don’t want any of those on the flowers you prepare for my funeral. Let me see what you’ve got.” So she thumbed through all the florist’s pre-printed cards (cards not just for solemn occasions, but cards for joyous occasions) and found one she liked and told the florist to put it on all the cards sent with flowers to her funeral. Three months later, at her service, all the flowers at the church and the grave included the card she had selected: “Welcome to your new home.” [10-11]
Are you building your spiritual portfolio? Investing in eternity? Preparing for your heavenly home?
Luke 9:25, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”
- Stand for prayer.
We must prepare for our “final accounting.” We must repent from our sin and believe in Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives. If He is Lord we will relinquish to Him our soul, our lives, our all.
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