How Jesus Wants You to Use Money, Part 2 | How to be a Faithful Steward

Luke 16:9

We’re in Luke 16 this morning and we’re following up on this intriguing and fascinating parable from Jesus, which is about the unjust steward. Turn to Luke 16verse 1 and we’ll read from there up to verse, right in the middle of verse 8. “Jesus 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. 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.’ 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, and I’m 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 masters 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, sit down quickly and write fifty.’ And he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” We’ll stop there.

 The third motive for our stewardship is fellowship, and that is to make true and lasting friendships, ones that are bound together eternally by the bond of gospel partnership in this life. That’s the idea. The dishonest manager back in verse 4, he wanted to secure his future, and notice he used people to get what he wanted. We saw in verses 5 to 7, how he tricked everyone, how he scammed them. He stole his boss’s wealth and used people as a means to his own ends and that is not friendship, that is not the model, that is using people.

Here’s Jesus’ big idea, verse 9, “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.” It’s not just an idea as I said, it’s not just a suggestion, it’s in the imperative mood. So this is the command. It’s from our Lord to his disciples. He’s saying, do this, do this.

If you are not making friends with your unrighteous wealth, you’re not being obedient. If you are doing that, if you are participating in that, you are obeying. And you can grow in that obedience. Interestingly, in the construction of this sentence, Jesus highlights how obeying this command accrues to our benefit. He puts something up front in the original. He says, “for yourselves.” That’s a dative of interest, a dative of advantage. So he says, “for yourselves,” or for your benefit, or with your interest in mind. That comes first, and then the command “make friends out of unrighteous mammon.” For your benefit, again the command is “make friends.” Those friends are bound together by true affection, to make friends, we’re going to spend money to do it, because we see money as just a temporal, temporary passing means to an internal end. We want those friendships, eternal ones.

Contrast that with the dishonest manager. The dishonest manager, he’s driven by self-interest, at any cost, even the cost of people. He stole money from his boss to ingratiate himself to these unsuspecting farmers. These people that he tricked into thinking he’s a generous man. It’s not trying to make friends he’s trying to make money. He’s missing it, completely missing the point. Think about that, men, women. If you’re spending way too much time in your job because you’re trying to make money, you’re missing the point. Don’t wear yourselves out for money. For the sons of light, focus for us is on actual friendship. The friendship of those who know and love the truth. The partnership, and the work of those who support the truth.

For those who work for the truth, who invest in the truth, money is a means of creating these friendships. It’s a means of building and strengthening fellowship. It’s a means of participating in gospel partnership. When money is viewed that way, from an eternal kingdom perspective, listen, that is the pathway to Christian maturity. That’s what maturity is all about. The entire world of blessing and a gratifying sense of joy that comes from faithfulness, and stewardship, and partnering with like-minded friends for the sake of the kingdom.

I have a great admiration and affection for those who serve in the military. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, for those who’ve served in combat and those who have sacrificed, in some cases have sacrificed a whole lot. Some have sacrificed good friends. others sacrificed the health of their bodies and their brains through injury. Many sacrificed peace of mind, as images and sounds and smells of war can plague their memories for a long, long time to come.

Every now and again you’ll come across an interview with one of these war heroes, and the question comes in one form or another about the sacrifice and the interviewer asks, “Was it worth it?” The veteran says, obviously in a conflicted state of mind, “Yes, sacrifice is worth it.” And then there’s this naive follow-up question, “What gives you such a deep sense of patriotism that you’d make such sacrifice, and you go through all that?” It’s not patriotism that keeps the guy in the fight. It’s not reciting the Declaration of Independence that inspires great acts of bravery in wartime. He does what he does for the man on his left and for the man on his right.

Many who have served in the military get this, but it’s about the fellowship. It’s about the camaraderie. It’s the sacrifice and the pain and the suffering and all of that is worth it, because of the friendship that is forged in the partnership of a mission and accomplishing a mission together, of doing something significant, of working hard together, of suffering together, of accomplishing a meaningful goal together. Listen, that is a powerful illustration for us as Christians. A motivation for us as well.

It’s one of the factors that keeps us faithful and diligent, disciplined, and holding up under suffering. The fellowship of Christian friendships. The fellowship of Christian partnership in the gospel for the Christian on your left and the Christian on your right. The fellowship in gospel stewardship motivated the apostle Paul to endure suffering. He told the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I’m filling up what’s lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body.”  That is the church, that is you, Colossians. He gets it.

To Timothy he said, “…I am suffering. I am bound with chains as a criminal… But I endure everything for the sake of the elect…” 2 Timothy 2:9, “…that they may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” He gets it. He’s investing now, even suffering now, for the sake of the future. Paul saw himself rightly as a steward of the gospel. He was motivated by fellowship to make true lasting friendships, ones that are bound together eternally by the bond of gospel partnership.

Thinking about application, how do we accomplish that together? What is a concrete way to practice this together? Build the church, beloved, build the church! The church is the evangelizing and discipleship means that Christ has given to the world. We are the gift of Christ to the world, to evangelize and disciple, to make disciples of all the nations. Build the church. Build the church. You may have noticed if you’ve been to our church website recently, gracegreeley.org, don’t go there now, but later. But when you do go there you’re going to see that someone built a new website for us.

And that someone, it’s not a mythical elves in some backroom somewhere, it’s real people. Small team of church members and they invested in that project. They gave their time and their money and their skill and their expertise and their experience and their competency and their leadership. They, they invested, sweat, blood, and even a few tears, to make that thing come alive. Didn’t get there on its own. The web team driven by this motive of fellowship, friendship, partnership.

They have exercised a good and godly stewardship for the sake of promoting truth to make friends for the kingdom, there is a lot of good content to be found on that website. Gospel content, gospel truth is there. That website is a tool for sharing the truth. It’s a means of spreading the truth. It’s a place that you can send the people you’re talking to, your friends, your family, strangers that you meet on the street you’re talking to about the gospel, send them to gracegreeley.org, have them click on sermons. Whatever they find there, even if they don’t find what you’re sending them to, they’re going to find truth. So much to read, so much to digest. Use as tool.

By the grace of God our church has been given the gift of broadcasting our teaching ministry on the radio. God has given us the gift of hosting conferences so we can introduce others to truth, so we can encourage Christians, so we can strengthen pastors and church leaders. And when we do that together, man, don’t we rejoice in the fellowship and the friendship and the partnership of doing something significant to broadcast the truth to others?

Another special someone invested in this church to design and improve the space we gather in. I love the decorations that have been put up in the worship center here. That doesn’t happen on its own, it happens with people, wants to beautify the place to make it a more pleasing aesthetic for your sake. To promote our own thinking and a lack of distraction and a sense of beauty and a sense of joy together, as we worship together our God. Another couple of someones, there’s some people who designed the aesthetics, some, some of the people who performed actual work, did the building, the painting, ran the electrical, hung, hung the screens.

Others someones, invested in a live stream by which others outside of this congregation can get introduced to our church and see what’s going on. We have evangelism ministries; the Red Team bringing the gospel, hope of the gospel to the people in our city, to bring the gospel to students on our college campuses. We hope to relaunch the Green Team as well, post pandemic, to bring the hope of the gospel to those who are living in retirement communities and assisted living communities. Many of whom are forgotten and lonely and longing for friendship.

Close to heaven too, close to eternity, where they need to hear the gospel. Being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ is the most profound friendship that they can find. By friendship with God, they enter into the fellowship of the company of saints. They join a partnership that is deeper than the camaraderie of soldiers in warfare; something the lasts way beyond this lifetime as they lived together in eternal dwellings.

Those projects and ministries they’re not finished, not by a long shot. All the things I’ve mentioned; website, radio, conferences, outreach teams, live stream, each one of these things needs improvement. Each one of these things requires investment time and money and energy, expertise, skill, competency, leadership. We need help, we need your help.

Projects and ministries I have not mentioned, all for the purpose though, in this church, of building the Church, of making disciples and making friends by means of unrighteous wealth, by mammon. Creating avenues for evangelism and discipleship, and to proclaim truth from this church, which is a stewardship that we have as a grace of God, to build this local church together. What’s the motive? The motive is fellowship; true friendships bound together eternally in the bond of a gospel partnership. Which brings us to a fourth and final motive, number four, the motive of worship. The motive of worship.

Fourth motive for stewardship is worship, that is to abide eternally with God in a permanent home. The unrighteous steward had his eye on his immediate future, not his eternal future. He’s thinking only of his temporal home, not his permanent home. We make friends, being thoughtful and intentional in the use of unrighteous mammon, so that when our earthly wealth fails, when this life is over, those friends may receive us into eternal dwellings.

When Jesus said that, most translations use the word dwellings, but in the original, what Jesus actually said grabbed the attention of this predominantly Jewish audience in a way that just locked in their brains. If you look back at verse 4, you can see the dishonest manager hoped that this plan would work, “…that people may receive me into their houses.” It’s a different word, houses. The word there is oikos; typical word for a house that people live in. A structure, a dwelling permanent-ish wouldn’t, won’t survive the burning of the judgment, but it will, it will, you know, provide for their family. Here the word is, is less than that. It’s the word skene which means tent, huh. Why does the word skene stand out to these people in a Jewish audience? Well, first of all, a tent is a non-permanent form of lodging. It’s decidedly not permanent. It won’t last.

Word for temporary lodging though, is modified by the adjective aionios, eternal, everlasting, that stands out, received into eternal non-permanent forms of lodging. That’s what’s sticking in their brain. A permanent non-permanent place to live, hmmm. It’s an oxymoron. It’s a figure of speech Jesus uses that’s appears contradictory on the surface of it, those two terms together and he means it to be so. He intended to speak that way to draw our attention to a second thing, for especially for this Jewish audience. It’s a blessed promise here skene, the word tent, can also refer to or be translated as, and often is translated as, tabernacle.

 Tabernacle, and that’s a concept that points us to the deeper sense of what Jesus is saying here, because tabernacle, as a concept, is embedded deeply in Jewish national identity. Tabernacle to the Jews is essentially a glorified tent. There’s a non-permanent portable structure that could be set up and taken down in order to accommodate the movement of the nation of Israel as they left Egypt prior to entering into the land of Canaan, the promised land. So the tabernacle, you know, was surrounded by a courtyard, set apart the holy spaces with this fabric fence, so that that which is not holy, that’s just profane and secular, stays outside and everything holy is inside. It’s boundaries for the Holy Tabernacle.

The whole area inside is holy, but especially holy were the two rooms called the Tent of Meeting. Outer room is called the Holy Place and the inner room is called the Most Holy Place. The outer room, or the outer chamber, had several objects in it table on the north side with the showbread on it. There’s a menorah, seven-pronged golden lampstand there, lights perpetually lit near the veil.

Separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place there’s a thick curtain that separated, that veiled the Most Holy Place. And inside the Most Holy Place is a golden altar, or coming into the Holy Most Holy Place is a golden altar of incense, representing the prayers offered up for Israel. But only the high priest of Israel could enter into the Most Holy Place, direct descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses. Only he could enter the Most Holy Place and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement and only by consecration of himself, and the people and only by blood sacrifice.

Inside the Most Holy Place is the Ark of the Covenant. Basically, a gold covered box. The lid of that gold covered box is called the mercy seat. Sitting atop the mercy seat two golden cherubim facing one another, each on either end of it, wings extended, touching one another, covering the mercy seat and inside that ark, inside that golden box, is the testimony, the law of Moses, the written word of the Living God. God told Moses in Exodus 25:22 that it was there, within the Holy of Holies, at the mercy seat, before the Ark of the Covenant, under the watchful guardianship of the cherubim, that is where God would meet with man. “There I will meet with you,” he says, “and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.”

The Israelites would assemble and disassemble that earthly tabernacle, and they would carry it from one place to another wherever God led them. He led them by that shekinah glory of God in the form of a pillar of cloud by day so they could see it and a pillar of fire by night so they could see it. The word shekinah, we associate that word with a manifestation of the visible glory of God. The bright effulgent glory, shining glory of God. But it comes from the Hebrew word, shakan. That is a cognate of the word tent, which means, literally, shekinah means to tabernacle with, to dwell with. Shakan, shekinah, this represents the gracious presence of God. This is his willingness to tabernacle with his people, to have an intimate relationship with them, to journey with them, to dwell among them in a tent. In fact, Moses said, “If you will not go with us, don’t send me.”

So the people started at Sinai, wandered all around the Arabian desert during the wilderness wanderings. After the wilderness wanderings, the tabernacle came to Gilgal, where it stayed during Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. Once the conquest is finished, twelve tribes of Israel entered Canaan, took inheritance, took possession of the promised land. The tabernacle was set up at Bethel. Bethel literally means House of God. Was there all the way through the days of judges and then moved to Shiloh during Samuel’s time, that’s where he was.

When Saul was anointed the first King of Israel, the tabernacle moved to a city called Nob near Saul’s hometown of Gibeah. After Saul’s time, the tabernacle moved to Gibeon, which was his last earthly home. After the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant, which is the same battle that resulted in the death of King Saul, the first King of Israel, the ark sojourned, it was captured and sojourned for a time in the Philistine territory. But then through a miraculous judge set, of judgments on the Philistines. It went back to Israel, and it came to rest in Kiriath Jearim. The tabernacle itself never moved from its place in Gibeon.

Even after David moved the ark to Jerusalem, and he pitched a tent there for the ark to rest in, the tabernacle still remained in Gibeon. David commissioned his son Solomon to build the temple, that which replaced the tabernacle. The temple, which was a more permanent structure to replace the non-permanent structure of the tabernacle and that earthly tabernacle faded in its importance of symbolizing the Lord’s presence, but it never left the Hebrew mind. It never left the Jewish mind.

In fact, the writer to the Hebrews tells us that the earthly tabernacle, and everything it contains, the table, the lampstand, the Ark of the Covenant, and all those things, he refers to the physical objects, as copies of the heavenly things, Hebrews 9:23. The writer tells us that it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified. Purification rituals, all described, prescribed in the law of Moses, rituals that demanded a blood sacrifice in order that God’s abiding presence, his shekinah, would be there. Would reside with them would remain with them. Didn’t wanna lose that.

He goes on to say the writer of the Hebrews, the heavenly things themselves, that which the copy is based on, the heavenly things themselves, they have been purified with better sacrifices than these earthly ones. That is, better sacrifices than the blood of bulls and goats. What is that sacrifice? It’s the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, who is our Savior. Hebrews 9, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” How was that symbolized here on earth?

The veil separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, torn in two from top to bottom. No longer is there a separation, because of Christ. That is the eternal tent Jesus speaks of here. He knows far more than what he says. That’s the everlasting tabernacle, that is the actual place where God himself dwells. That is the place where the friends that we make using mammon. Friends we make will welcome us there. They’ll receive us warmly. They will show us heavenly hospitality. They’ll show us what our investments have produced. They’ll introduce us to our dividends. They’ll give us a guided tour of paradise, our heavenly home, the eternal tabernacle of God. No more earthly wandering, no more sojourning, no more moving from place to place, but finally, eternally home.

I’m enjoying reading Bruce Gordon’s biography of John Calvin. John Calvin was a Frenchman and he had to leave his beloved France along with many other evangelicals to escape the persecution of the Catholics and so as they left and as they fled they became exiles in foreign lands. Which for Calvin became eventually Geneva and Bruce Gordon highlights Calvin’s sense of being a sojourner on the earth, as Calvin kind of puts himself in the mind of Israel, or David being chased by Saul or Israel in the wilderness wanderings.

He too feels that sense of exile and being a sojourner on the earth. Wandering through this earthly life out of his homeland into a foreign language, a place where people spoke a different language. But in his journey, along his journey and you can get that sense as you read his institutes, as you read his commentaries, you get that sense from Calvin that he considers himself a sojourner, a wanderer, a pilgrim, but he’s comforted by the fact of God’s nearness.

Bruce Gordon describes Calvin’s hope that quote “God accompanies those who journey through the world. Not from afar, but through the indwelling of the spirit.” Calvin had an intimate and comforting sense of the nearness of God. Home, for the exile, is not a location but union with God. That’s the promise that Jesus holds out here in Luke 16:9, “…make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails,” when it does, because it will, “they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” A home in God’s permanent tabernacle, union with God.

Beloved, what motivates your stewardship? Discipleship should motivate it, to be obedient to Jesus Christ. Wisdom should motivate your stewardship to walk in the truth. Applying what we’ve learned from the light we’ve received from God’s word, from the teaching of Jesus Christ himself. Fellowship should motivate your stewardship too. To make friends, to form partnership for kingdom purposes and worship, it’s the heart of it. That’s the goal, that’s the reward, to dwell eternally in the presence of God in the household of faith and worship him in his holy tabernacle forever. Does that excite you? It does me. Does that motivate you to practice Christian stewardship? Invest in the kingdom work for the sake of making friends for eternity? It does me. It should you too.