Introduction: This is the time of year, as we creep up on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the end of the year, that we spend a few weeks thinking about issues of financial stewardship. It’s an appropriate time to do so not only because it helps us to prepare for our giving in the new year, but also because our giving flows out of our thanksgiving. Our gifts flow out of the gift that God, in his Son Jesus, has given to us. So next week, I have asked four of you to share words of thanksgiving related to how the ministry of this church has touched your life. This morning, I want to look with you at one of the parables Jesus gives us regarding the use of our money.

 

As we prepare to enter this parable, it is worth remembering that money is one of Jesus’ favorite sermon topics. Sixteen of his thirty eight parables are about money or possessions. In fact, Jesus teaches on money more than on heaven and hell combined. Why is that? Jesus seems to be saying that our faith and our finances are inseparable. In this vein, it’s instructive to note that when John the Baptist encouraged his listeners to repent in preparation for the coming of Jesus, they asked him what that would look like. He gave them three illustrations: everyone should share clothes and food with the poor, tax collectors shouldn’t pocket extra money, and soldiers should be content with their wages and not extort money from others (Lk. 3:11-14). Each answer relates to the use of money and possessions, though no one specifically asked about that! This should not surprise us. There is a fundamental connection between our spiritual lives and how we think about and handle money. If we spend most of our waking hours trying to make money and thinking about how to spend it, how we do all of that can be a pretty good barometer of what’s going on deep in our hearts. As Jesus put it on more than one occasion: Where your treasure is, there your heart is also (Lk. 12:34).

 

In the parable before us, Jesus reminds us that we are stewards – managers of what belongs to God. As such, we are to act shrewdly with what he has entrusted to us.

 

 I. The Shrewdness of the Manager

            A. The parable begins by introducing us to a fellow who is about to lose his job. Corporate downsizing is not the issue, nor is there a recession. Rather, this guy has been flat out dishonest. As Jesus puts it, “the manager was accused of wasting [his master’s] possessions.” It’s the same word (wasting/squandered) Jesus used to describe the action of the younger son in the previous parable when he took his inheritance early and left home. He squandered it (15:13); he wasted it. What we see is that both younger son and now this manager betray a trust. They mismanaged holdings that were given to them to use responsibly. Jesus doesn’t include this detail, but it’s likely that the manager siphoned off funds for his own use from transactions made in the name of his master.

 

            B. Whatever he had been doing, his master discovered it and demanded an explanation from his manager before firing him. Having sat behind a desk for many years enjoying the good life, the manager went into a panic. Not only would he miss the company car, the extravagant two-hour lunches, and the frequent flyer miles, his reputation would be ruined. He would fall so low on the social scale that the only options open to him would be to dig holes for a living or beg for bread. So, he devised a plan. He took each of his master’s customers out for one last lunch. Whatever they owed his boss, he renegotiated, amending loan agreements right and left, offering up to a 50% discount. In the manager’s mind, it was a method that would pay dividends after he lost his job. He reasoned that these customers would now be in his debt, and that he would be able to find hospitality in their homes.

 

            C. Now, what the manager did might not surprise you. He took advantage of the fact that he had not been fired on the spot and escorted out of the building, and he used that lag time to arrange for his future. But what might surprise you is that he is commended for these actions. Not that he is commended for his dishonesty; the narrator (Jesus) still attached the label “dishonest” to the manager (v. 8). But what the master commends the manager for is his shrewdness, or, as other translations have it, for his “prudence,” or for acting “astutely.” In other words, he knew how the world worked, and he acted accordingly, even wisely, based upon what he knew. Even his master, when he heard what his manager had done, had to smile at the street smarts this fellow showed.

 

II. Being Shrewd

            A. So, how are we to apply this story on shrewdness?  We need to know that to be shrewd is not necessarily a bad thing. I am reminded of Paul’s exhortation to the Christians in Corinth. Drawing from the realm of athletics and the intense preparation of Olympic caliber athletes, Paul says: “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:25). Here, Paul is not telling Christians that they all need to join a local health club and focus on becoming an Olympic champion. He is taking an example from the world, highlighting a particular aspect of that example – in this case, the effort that goes into athletic training – and encouraging his readers to put that same kind of effort into their spiritual training.

 

            B. That’s what Jesus is doing with this business example. The people of this world, he says, understand how the world works and use it to their benefit (v. 8). Would that the “people of the light,” meaning Christians, not imitate the manager’s dishonesty, but understand with the same wisdom and foresight – the same shrewdness – how the kingdom of God works, and act accordingly. He is saying, “Look, you Christians, at the great care the people of the world take in looking out for themselves. Look how they run their businesses. Look at the effort they put into making a buck. Look at how intently they study investment advice to plan for retirement.”

 

Illustration: I am reminded of a book I came across a few years ago entitled “How to Become a Millionaire.” Its author, Mark L. Alch, provides research which shows that millionaire status is within reach for any family with an average household income of $40,000. Such status does not come from getting lucky when you buy scratch tickets at Richdale, but with a little shrewdness. Such shrewdness involves everything from making coffee at home instead of buying it at Starbucks, to keeping your car for a few more years before turning it in, to taking advantage of your employer’s matching fund programs, to understanding the power of time and compounding, etc. In other words, act with shrewdness, with wisdom and foresight, when it comes to managing your money, and you will reap great reward.

 

In the same way, Christians must be equally shrewd. What does that look like?

 

III. Shrewd Kingdom Investing

            A.  To invest shrewdly in the kingdom of God, there are three aspects to highlight. Notice, first of all, its foundation. No matter what we have for assets, what we have is someone else’s property. As our opening Psalm revealed, and as the master/manager relationship of the parable pictured, we have a master who owns everything. “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it.” And lest we begin to believe that it is our talent that has made us successful, God reminds his people before they entered the Promised Land that even the ability to produce wealth comes from him (Dt. 8:18). We are simply being called to respond to his gifts, to be his property managers, to be trustworthy in our management of our time, our talents, and our treasure. That’s where stewardship begins.  

 

B. Second, notice the time horizon of our investing. While a good financial planner will encourage you to look beyond three months, and even three years, as you make investment decisions, and even have you try to think thirty years into the future, Jesus goes well beyond that. He goes to eternity: “I tell you, use your worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Jesus has us consider that the result of how we manage our heavenly Father’s assets will have eternal consequences. So, we need to remember where our home truly is, and put our investments there.

 

Illustration: Suppose your home is in America, but you’ve been sent to Nigeria for three months. While you’re doing your business there, you’re living in an apartment and you’re told that, due to recent customs regulations, you can’t bring any goods back with you, but you can earn money and wire deposits to your bank in the states. Knowing this, would you fill your rooms with expensive furniture and wall hangings that you can’t take with you? Of course not; you would spend only what you needed on the temporary residence. Your money you would send on ahead to where your permanent home is so that it would be waiting for you there.

 

If we are a follower of Jesus, we are a citizen of heaven. Heaven is our home. Eternity is our address. We won’t be able to take anything with us when it’s time to move there, but what we send on ahead we will be able to enjoy forever.

 

            C. Which brings us to the third piece of Jesus’ shrewd investment strategy. It is, perhaps, the most radical. It’s found in the first part of v. 9: “I tell you, use your worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves. . .” Somehow, the way we send our money on to eternity, the way we invest for the future, is to use our worldly resources to benefit others, to meet the needs of others. It’s always been that way. In our reading from Deuteronomy, when the Israelites were instructed to bring as an offering a percentage of the firstfruits of what the land God had given them had produced, it was to be used for the purpose of supporting the priests, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, all folks who had no means of supporting themselves. As one writer put it, “The stewardship of money in not an end but a means, where others can see acts of caring from those who say God cares.” How we manage what belongs to God says everything about who we are, and about who we believe God to be. As someone else once put it, if our biography was to be written from information contained in our checkbook registers, what would be said?

 

Conclusion: Sometime after Thanksgiving, your trustees will be sending each of you your annual pledge card. I would encourage you to use this card to help you invest shrewdly. Allow it to help you ask the questions: “How have I been managing what God has entrusted to me?” “How does God want me to manage what he has entrusted to me?” Then, take some time to pray and to plan. As you do so, know that God directs us to plan our giving based on a percentage of our income. Do you know what that has been for you? Would you calculate it, and then ask God if you might increase it a percentage point or two? This kind of investing will never make you a millionaire, but your bank account is not a measure of your true wealth. True riches, Jesus tells us, true wealth is experienced as we give generously to meet the spiritual and physical needs of others. Let us be shrewd, let us be wise, let us be faithful and trustworthy with what God has entrusted to us.