The Parable of the Unjust Steward

Let's begin our time with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you, Lord, for today, all that you do, and thank you, Father, for your great wisdom that you impart to us through your precious Word. This morning, Lord, we pray that you'd open our eyes, that we might be able to behold wonderful things out of your law, that we might follow you in obedience, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. If you've got your Bible, I have mine, Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16, we have just spent eight weeks in Luke 15, looking at one parable that gave us three different stories.

Well, we embark on Luke chapter 16, and we're going to have another parable. It begins in verse 1, down through verse number 13, as Christ embarks on telling another story that gives us a heavenly perspective. Parables are earthly stories that help us understand heaven and what God wants us to understand about him. He takes normal, everyday events that take place and draws them and the people around who are listening to understand the truth of heaven. And that's what Luke 16 is about. Let me read to you the parable.

It's commonly called the parable of the unjust steward. It's quite amazing when you read it. Sometimes at the cursory view, you don't really understand what Jesus is saying, but that's why we're here today, that we might begin to understand what Christ is saying to his disciples as he speaks to them. Luke 16, verse number 1. Now he was also saying to the disciples, there was a certain rich man who had a steward, and this steward was reported to him as squandering his possessions. And he called them and said to him, what is this I hear about you?

Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward. And the steward said to himself, what shall I do? Since my master is taking the stewardship away from me, I am not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that when I am removed from the stewardship, they will receive 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. He said to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. Then he said to another, and how much do you owe? And he said a hundred measures of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and write 80. And his master praised the unrighteous steward 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 mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails, they may 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. If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, 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 servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Three things I want you to see. Number one is the setting. Number two is the story.

And number three is the summation of the story. What is Jesus actually saying to his disciples? Jesus told somewhere around 40 different parables. One out of every three of those parables deals with money, believe it or not. In fact, Jesus had more to say about money than he did heaven or hell put together. Why is that? Well, I heard a statistic this week, now that I'm a grandfather, that if you live to be 80, I'm hoping the Lord comes before that time, but if you live to be 80, you will spend 50 years of those 80 years consumed with thinking about finances.

That's quite a startling statistic. Think about it. How much time do you spend thinking about money? How are you going to spend it? Where are you going to spend it? Are you going to invest it? Are you going to put it in the bank? What are you going to do with your money? How is it I can get the most out of my money? How is it I can make more money? How can I be better at balancing my budget so I have more money at the end of the month? We spend so much time thinking strictly about money. It consumes our thinking so much so that it dominates our minds almost every single day.

Now, we think about it so much, it's second nature to us, but I want you to remember what Paul said in Philippians 4.

He said, finally, brethren, whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.

Let your mind dwell on these virtues, those things that are praiseworthy, those things that are true, those things that are honorable. It doesn't say think about your money, but we do. And then he says, the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace shall be with you. So many times we find ourselves not at peace because we don't think about the things that the Bible says we're to think about.

We think about the other things, i.e., money. What am I going to do with my money? How am I going to spend it? Should I borrow it? When will I pay it back? How will I pay it back? And all of a sudden it begins to consume and dominate our thinking. The Lord knows that. That's why he spends so much time talking about money. Now, if you're visiting with us, you're here and you're saying, yep, I knew that if I visited this church, they'd talk about money. But see, that's the beauty of preaching verse by verse through the scripture.

So when the topic comes up, you don't think I'm picking on you because it's just the very mixed set of verses in the scripture. And so if you're visiting and you're here today for the very first time and you're saying to yourself, well, there he goes talking about money again.

Believe me, it is the sovereignty of God that puts you here today. It's God wanting you to be here. And we're not trying to pick on you or anything else. We're just trying to tell you what God says about having a heavenly perspective on the money that he gives to you and what you do with it.

Because so many times we misappropriate the money that God's given to us and we find ourselves more in the setting of unfaithful stewards than faithful stewards of that which God has given to us. And the setting being this, that the Lord, as he embarks on Jerusalem, has attacked many of the erroneous views of the Pharisees. He begins in chapter 12 of Luke by attacking the fact of their hypocrisy and then their covetousness. And then in chapter 14, verses we've already covered, he attacks their love for the preeminence.

And then in chapter 15, he attacks the fact that they have a misconstrued idea of God and who he is and what he does. And they refuse to repent. And now he's going to talk to them about the love of their money. And this becomes the major topic. In chapter 6, he's already spoken once about money. In chapter 12, verses 13 and 21, he spoke again about money. Here in chapter 16, verses 1 to 13, he's going to talk about money. And then we're going to move to verse 19 and following with the rich man in Hades.

And he's once again going to address the idea of money. And then we're going to move in chapter 18 to the rich young ruler. He's going to address again the topic of money. And then we're going to get to chapter 19 and he's going to talk about Zacchaeus. And money's going to become another topic. And so as the Lord begins to move toward the end of his ministry, he begins to hit home some of the major elements of our mind, those things that we dwell on all the time. And he wants us to have a right perspective.

Now he's addressing the Pharisees, I mean the disciples it says. But the Pharisees are listening. And because they're listening as he addresses his disciples, they then are going to scoff, says in verse 14, at what he says about money. And that's going to cause him to drive these principles home to the religious establishment. Because they had a misconception of what it meant to have money and to be rich. Because they equated riches with righteousness. If you were rich, God showed favor on you and you were righteous.

So he begins this section by talking to his disciples specifically about how they use their money. And he gives a story. A story that's quite remarkable. Because in the story there are two rogues, two individuals, a master and a steward. And both of them are evil. Both of them are conniving. And in this story the master praises the steward, not for his thievery, but for his shrewdness, for his slickness, for his slyness. And you ask yourself this question, how is it that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will use a negative illustration to drive home a positive truth?

Because that's exactly what he does. He'll do it again in Luke chapter 18, when he uses a parable about an unjust judge. And uses it from the standpoint that if an unjust judge will answer this persistent widow's plea, how much more will your heavenly father do for you because you're loved by him? And so he uses this correlation between that which is unjust and the holy and just God. That's the exact same thing he's doing here. If an unjust steward is praised by his master for doing something that's unethical, what is it you as Christians do with the money God has given you that he in turn might praise you for the righteous way you handle your money?

That's the gist of the story. So let's go through the story together and then we'll draw some conclusions together. It's really quite interesting. There was a certain rich man. Now remember in those days if you were a rich man you had a steward. And if I was the master of the steward, then I would be the kind of individual that allowed my steward to run the show. I didn't run the show. I didn't run the everyday affairs of what's happening. I didn't know every little bill that was written, every little thing that was owed me.

I didn't know that. I'm the master. I'm the rich man. I am the overseer of all that's happening. I hire a steward to run the day by day operations of all that's happening. And that's how it was in the days of Jesus. And so this rich man had a steward. And he found out that his steward was irresponsible. That somehow, the text says, he was squandering the possessions of his master. That same word squandering was used in the previous parable, right? Dealing with the young son who went out and took his father's estate and squandered all that money.

He just threw it all away. Just spend it riotously. That's what this steward was doing with his master's possessions. And somehow the master got word of it. The master got word of it, called him in and said in modern day vernacular, you are fired. As Donald Trump would say, you're fired. You're terminated. You're done. You have squandered my possessions. You are in charge of managing those possessions. You have been irresponsible in your management. Therefore, I can no longer use you. You are done.

You're fired. So I want you, big mistake. I want you to gather together an accounting of your stewardship. So in other words, he says, you're fired, but not yet. I want you to do all this for me first, and then you're terminated.

So it's like giving the guy two weeks notice. In financial operations, you never give anybody notice.

You'd fire them immediately. Why? Because they do what this guy does. Okay? And so this guy comes back and says, well, what am I going to do? I have no place to live. I have no money. How am I going to live? How am I going to make it? What am I going to do? That's what he says. What should I do? Says my master is taking their stewardship away from me. I'm not strong enough to dig. I mean, manual labor. Are you kidding me? I've been counting money. I've been writing checks. I've been managing my master's possessions.

I can't go out and dig ditches. I mean, that's manual labor. I can't do that. I got soft hands. I'm sensitive to the sun. I can't do that. I can't go beg. I'm ashamed to beg. He goes, I just can't go out there and just start begging people for money. And then the proverbial light in the brain goes on. I have an idea. And this was a marvelous idea. This is a great idea. He says, I know what I shall do so that when I am removed from the stewardship, they will receive me into their homes. I got an idea.

And so he begins to summon in all the people who owed his master money or payback. So he calls them in. And the first guy he calls in is the guy that, as the text says, how much do you owe my master?

He said, a hundred measures of oil. Okay. A hundred measures of oil is about 875 gallons of oil. That's not crude oil. That's not oil you put in your car. That's olive oil. Okay. And that would amount to just about three years wages. And so what he did, he says, I tell you what, I'm going to cut that in half. And now you only owe 50%. Then he calls the next guy. This is just a sample of the guys he called in. How much do you owe? He says, well, a hundred measures a week. I tell you what, knock off 20% and now you only owe 80 measures a week.

Quickly sign. You're good to go. So let's understand that. Let's say you're at home and it's a Saturday morning and the bank manager calls you and says, Hey, Mr. Stewart, I want you to come down to the bank and I want to talk to you about your home loan. Say, okay. And so you go down and you sit down with the bank manager. He says, Mr. Stewart, you owe, let's say $200,000 in your mortgage. He says, yes, I do. Okay. I tell him that because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to cut that in half. And now if you sign right here, you're only going to owe me a hundred thousand dollars from this day forward.

What would you do? I'd sign, right? And he says, you have a car, don't you, Mr. Stewart? Yes, I do. And you have, we, we own that car and you owe how much? Well, I owe $10,000 on that car. I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to cut off $2,000. Now you only owe $8,000 on your car. What would you do? We'd sign quickly, right? Why? Because it's advantageous for you to owe less. But the people in the story don't know the steward's been fired. Now notice what he's doing is not illegal.

It's unethical, but it's not illegal because he is still the master's steward until he accumulates all the accounting and reports back to the master. So all he's doing is looking for a way to benefit his future. I got an idea. I'll call all these people in who are indebted to my master. What I'll do is I'll shave off what they owe and now they're going to owe me. Remember we talked to you about this, that in a Jewish society, it was about reciprocity. I do for you, you do for me. The more I do for you, the more you do for me.

This guy is sitting really, really well. Why? Because the more he does for his master's debtors, the more now they become indebted to him as a steward. And if you find out he's fired, he'll come back and say, you know, you know why I was fired? It's because when I was a steward, I was looking for ways to help you financially and as I was helping you financially, my boss didn't like that and so he fired me. The next guy is not going to help you financially like I did. And you go home and you say, wow, honey, this bank manager, he is so nice.

Boy, when he wants a meal, he can come to our house and eat. If he wants a place to sleep, he can sleep at our house. If he wants to drive our car, he can drive our car because he has been so good to us. He has been so kind to us. This is the best bank manager ever. In fact, I'm going to tell everybody to do business with this guy. This guy's sitting pretty. That's what he does. Go to verse eight. It says, and his master praised the unrighteous steward. Now the master is not Jesus. The master is not God.

The master is the master of the rich man in the story. And he praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly. He praised the unrighteous steward because of what he was able to do in order to secure his future. In other words, this master who was evil already praised him because he had taken the opportunity before him with the money that was available and he secured his future blessing. See that? Oh, the master says, well played my friend. Well played. You did it right. You got it. You secured your future.

Smart man, slick man, sly man, shrewd man. You did what was best for you. That's a story that Jesus tells. And remember, Stewart didn't do anything illegal. Unethical? Yes. Illegal? No. Because what he did was secure his future blessing and reward. So Jesus now says these words, verse eight, latter half, for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of like unto them. So Jesus says, sons of light.

In other words, the unbeliever is more clever in this age than the sons of light are clever. In other words, the unbelievers of this age are smarter at securing their future blessing than the children of the light are at securing their eternal blessing. Why is that? Because for the unbeliever, this is all they have. They have no future in heaven. This is all they see. This is all they want. It doesn't mean that if you're a believer, you can't make wise financial investments. He's not talking about that.

He's talking about the fact that the believers, the unbelievers of this age are very clever in securing their future and making that nest egg so that when they retire, they're going to have a place to rest. They're going to have money to spend. They're going to have cars to drive. They're going to have money to live with because this is all they have. They have nothing else. They live for this age and they are more clever than the children of the light, the believer. In terms of securing their eternal reward, do you see the correlation there?

The Lord is the master storyteller and what he's trying to get his disciples to understand is that you got to make sure that you are more consumed with your eternal reward than you are your earthly reward because he knows that the sons of light can get caught up in the things of this world. Granted, we know that there are many wise investors in this world and they spend and they consume their time with thinking like, okay, when I retire at 65 or 66 or 70, whenever my plan is, I want to make sure that I have this house.

I have this much money. I'm able to do these things with that money. I'm able to have this car, the car I've always dreamed of, so everything is geared toward that end because that's all I have. I got nothing else. All I have is this life and so I get to be 65 or 70 and all of a sudden I retire and I get the car of my dreams. I live in my house in Malibu. I've got all my money in the bank and I take my brand new car out, my brand new Mercedes Benz, whatever I want, my Porsche that I've always longed for, that I've saved up for for 70 years and I take it for a ride down the Palisades Parkway and I get in a car accident and I'm paralyzed from the neck down.

I can't drive it anymore. All that money I saved and now I'm going to go take care of me in the hospital instead of driving my brand new car, living in my brand new house, sitting on the beach in Malibu. That's all I got. I had nothing else. And they spend their whole life consumed with planning for their financial stability and their comfort in years down the road, not knowing, not knowing they might not even have those years. And the Lord says, the sons of this age, they're pretty good at doing that because that's all they have.

But the sons of light, oh, you got so much more than that. And you have to be more clever. You have to be more shrewd in looking toward your eternal reward and building up rewards in eternity because that lasts forever. And so here's a summation. Three areas. One deals with your money. One deals with your management of that money. The third one deals with a master who is a manager of your money.

Here's a summation. One deals with your money. The other deals with your management of your money. And the third one deals with a master who is a manager of all your money.

You got it so far? Here's your summation. Christ says these words, I say to you, make friends for yourself by means of the mammon of unrighteousness.

What? That's right. Use your money. Use your financial stability to make friends forever. He says that when it fails, that is your money, they, who's that, the friends you make, may receive you into the eternal dwellings. Christ says, look, I want you to use your money on more than saving up for a brand new car, the house you want to live in, your retirement plan, giving it to the next generation.

I want you to use your money to make friends for eternity. I want you to use your money to build the kingdom of God. I want you to use your money to spread the good news of the kingdom of God. I want you to use your money on things that will outlast you, that will go before you into heaven so that when you get there, you have this greeting of people that have been impacted by your giving patterns that are say, there to say, thank you so much for how you invested into eternity. That's what Christ is saying.

Christ is saying, look, you've got all this unrighteous mammon, just money. It's all right there. What are you using it for? This is what I want you to do. I want you to use your money to make friends forever. I want you to invest in the gospel. I want you to invest in the good news. I want you to invest in the spread of that gospel. I want you to do all you can with your money to make sure more people get the truth. So when you get to heaven, they're already there. People that will be there because you don't even know.

For instance, we have a radio program. You give to our radio program. How do you know who that program reaches? We don't know. But because if you're giving patterns to that radio program and someone comes to saving faith, when they get to heaven and you show up, they'll be one of the first ones there to greet you and say, thank you for giving so that I could hear the truth of the gospel.

When you give your money and you give the opportunity to send someone on the mission field and to help them understand that this is for them to spread the good news of the gospel and people come to saving faith, they do because you've invested into eternity. You've made an eternal investment. And God says, use your money to make friends for eternity.

Use your money to invest into the kingdom of God with the gospel of God. That has eternal dividends. You're spending your money on ahead. You're laying your nest egg in heaven. You're looking for your reward in heaven. Listen, remember what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse number 18, for we wanted to come to you, I Paul, more than once and yet Satan thwarted us for who is our hope or joy or crown of exaltation. Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming for you are our glory and our joy.

Paul says, I want to tell you what our joy is, what our crown of exaltation is. We know about the crowns that believers receive when they get to heaven. One of those crowns is the crown of joy. The crown of exaltation is given to those who use their money and use their resources to tell people about Christ, that they might hear the gospel, get saved and go to heaven. And they will be the ones there that greet you and say, thank you. And they now become the crown of joy on your head. We just got off of a parable about the joy in heaven, right?

There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous who need no repentance. It's all about heaven's joy. Well, listen, as you give to the work of the gospel, as you give to the spread of the kingdom of God, what you are doing is storing up crowns in heaven that contribute not only to heaven's joy, but to your joy. So Jesus says, use your money, your unrighteous men, to make friends for eternity.

What do you use your money on? Where do you spend the bulk of your money? Are you using it to spread the good news of the gospel? We have a radio program. Wouldn't it be great if we were on four times a day instead of once a day? Wouldn't it be great if we were on more stations around the United States than just in San Gabriel Valley? The more you give that opportunity, the more opportunity we have to reach the people. The more you are storing up crowns in heaven of people that you will reach and you don't even know you're reaching.

You're just giving away the resources so that the spread of the gospel and the goodness of the kingdom will be heard by more people in more homes and more cars. This is one example, one example. And there are many more examples. But that's the essence of what Christ is teaching. We want you to understand the importance of the gospel and how it's spread and the money used to make sure it happens. That's why God said, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break in still.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where those treasures can't be stolen, where they can't be corrupted, where nothing will happen to them because they have eternal value. That's where you store your treasures. That's where you give your unrighteous amendment. That's where you give your time. You give it to the spread of the gospel. So Jesus is saying. So it says when it comes to your money, make friends for eternity. When it comes to the management of that money, be faithful. He says these words.

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. Because the very first thing that happens when you talk to people about money and they feel this tinge of conviction about giving more, they will always say, well, you know, if I had more, I'd give more.

No, you won't. Because the issue in giving has nothing to do with how much you have. It has everything to do with the heart condition. The widow who had the little mite, she gave all that she had. She didn't have very much, but she gave all that she had. You see, so it's not about how much you have. Listen, if you're faithful in a little, you, you'll be faithful in much. If you're unfaithful in a little, you will be unfaithful in much. And the reason a lot of us have no more money than we do is because we are unfaithful with the little bit we have.

We spend it on ourselves. We spend it on things that we want to have. And then we say, well, you know, I got a little bit to give to Jesus and, and hopefully that that'll pacify him for a week. And then next week I'll give him a little bit more. Hopefully that will pacify him a little bit more, but I don't have too much to give him because I'm too busy buying this new gadget or that new gadget, this new car, this new house, this new thing, whatever. And what happens is that we find ourselves unfaithful with the little bit we have.

And therefore God says, I'm not going to trust you with more. Cause that means you just buy more gadgets. You'll buy more cars. You'll buy more houses. You'll do more with your money for yourself instead of for the kingdom of God. So you're staying right where you're at until you learn to be faithful with a little, and then you'll learn to be faithful with much. But folks, that's a principle that most people never understand. But I said, well, I wish I had a better job. I wish I made more money. I wish I, boy, I'm always looking for ways to get more money.

Just be faithful in the little you have and watch God open doors for you. Just be faithful in the little bit that you have and be true to the Lord. And the Lord says very simply these words, if therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you? I mean, very simply, look, if you've been unfaithful in the little bit that you have, do you think you're going to get the true riches? Not in your life. It's not going to happen. Why? It's about a heart's condition.

It's always about the heart's condition. We, we, I've been the pastor of this church for almost 18 years and I can count on both my hands how many times in those years we've talked, we've talked about the topic of money. People say, you know, you ought to talk more about money. If you talk more about money, people will be convicted. No, they won't. Because it's not an issue of money. It's an issue of people's hearts, where their heart is. And so you preach the gospel to the heart of people's lives.

And when the heart is changed, the giving patterns change. When the heart's not changed, the giving patterns are stingy. We hold on to them because we don't want to stand the blessing of giving toward eternal rewards. And that's the absolute gospel truth. So Christ says, make friends.

Make friends with your money. On top of that, make sure you manage your man, you manage your money faithfully. That when you have a little, you're faithful with the little. I can remember when I was in college and I was working for a trucking company and I was trying to make my way through college and trying to make ends meet and I was doing whatever I could. I'd go to school during the day. I'd go right to practice right after school. I'd go right to work. I worked about 10, 30, 11, 30 at night.

Come home, do my work till about 2 o'clock in the morning, get up at 5 and do the whole thing over again. That was my college routine. Three to three and a half hours of sleep a night, going to school, playing sports, going to work. That's what we did. That's how we did it back in those days. I don't know what they do today. That's how we did it back when I went to college. Okay. And I was working at this trucking company and it was a nasty place. And there was a, there was a owner of that company.

It's called McLean Trucking Company. And this guy was a drill sergeant and he didn't like me because I went to a Bible college and I loved the Lord Jesus. And he made it very clear that he wasn't a Christian and nobody was ever going to convert him from anything, but get sure you empty the trash cans. Make sure you clean up the vomit from all those truck drivers that come in here and drink too much and throw up all over the bedsheets, change their beds, clean those rooms because there were sleeping facilities in this trucking company.

So I would go in there and I'd walk into these rooms and they would smell the high heaven. There would be beer bottles everywhere. There'd be vomit on the throw on the floor. There'd be trash cans overflowing with all kinds of paraphernalia, all kinds of junk. And I can remember going in there, emptying those trash cans, putting stuff away, thinking, what am I doing emptying trash cans? What, what is this all about anyway? I'm in Bible college. I'm supposed to be a preacher of the gospel and I'm emptying trash cans in a trucking company.

It's almost as if the Lord God hit me over the head with one of those trash cans. He said, listen, if you can't empty trash cans for me, how can you ever deal with people's lives that are filled with trash? If you can't clean toilets for me, how can you help people whose lives in their mind are going down the toilet? You got to be faithful in a little. And if you're faithful with a little, I'll make you faithful a much. And I was convicted and I was just a freshman in college, but I can remember as if it was yesterday, how I was, I was cleaning out those rooms thinking, wow, I got so much more to learn.

And I would go to work, man, I couldn't wait to go to work after, after baseball practice. I would, I would get there and boy, I would just be, start working. I started singing to myself thinking, boy, if I can be faithful just in these little things, what can God do for me in the future? And boy, I just went to work singing and my boss looked at me and say, shut up. I don't want to hear any more songs out of your mouth. And I said, I'm sorry, sir. I just love to sing for the Lord Jesus. But you know what?

It's true. You might be in a place in your life saying, you know what? I can't believe that God's got me doing this. Folks, you've got to be faithful with the little, maybe it's doing your chores at home. That's for the next service, all the young people in here. Okay. Doing their chores at home. Be faithful in doing the little things at home, doing the chores at home, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the toilet, emptying the trash, making your bed, picking up your clothes, be faithful in the little things and God will open the door to give you more to be faithful in.

But if you're unfaithful with the little things, guess what? Not getting anything else. Yeah. And God wants you to understand that. He was faithful in little, be faithful in much. But if you're unfaithful with this a little bit, who's going to entrust you with the true riches? And he says this, he says, and, 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? In other words, what you have and what you're being faithful in really isn't even yours anyway.

You're just a steward. 1 Corinthians 4, 1 and 2. It's required of a, of a steward that he be found faithful. You're just a steward. And if you're not steward in that, which is not yours and your money is not yours, your house is not yours. Your car is not yours. Nothing you have is yours. It's all God's. It's all a gift to you. And if you're not faithful with that, which God has given to you, what would you ever do with that, which was your own? That's the point. And God gave you your money. He gave you your house.

He gave you your wife. He gave you your kids. You better be faithful with that, which is given to you because they're not yours anyway. You're just a steward, a household manager of God's possessions. When it comes to your money, make friends for all eternity by making sure you invest in the gospel that others will hear the truth. When it comes to being faithful and faithfulness falls in four categories, always four categories, faithful with your treasures, faithful with your time, faithful with your talents and faithful with the truth of God's holy word.

You ask yourself, am I a faithful steward of my time? The Bible says we are to redeem the time, buy back every moment, every opportunity for the sake of God's kingdom.

The Bible says in first Thessalonians 2.4, we've been entrusted with the gospel. We are stewards of the gospel of truth. The Bible says in first Peter 4.10, you've been entrusted with a gift, a talent for the sake of God's glorious kingdom.

Are you faithful with the use of that talent? And God has given you your money, your treasures. Are you faithful as a steward to manage this properly? Point number three, simply is this, it deals with your master, the master over all things.

And are you faithful in your service to him? Will you fully give everything to him? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Christ rises at home again. He did it on the Sermon on the Mount. He drove it home. You can only serve one master. You can't serve two. God wants no divided loyalties. God doesn't want your affection to be divided. He doesn't want your admiration to be divided.

He wants sole object of all affection of yours. You can't serve two masters. He goes, I want you serving me and me only. Serve your master fully. Serve him with all you have. If you serve him fully, you'll manage properly. If you manage properly, your money will be used for the sake of eternal rewards. But it all comes down to who you really want to serve. Is it your master or is it somebody else or something else? Paul would say these words, First Timothy chapter six, those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare in many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pain. I wonder what Ananias and Sapphira would have said about that verse, if what they lied about how much they sold their property for in Acts chapter five. I wonder what Judas Iscariot would have said about that verse before he sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver. I wonder what Achan would have said about that verse before he stole from the spoils of, of Jericho and he and his family were killed because they had cost Israel a battle against AI.

I wonder about Lot the nephew of Abraham, if he'd read that verse or knew about that verse before he looked to Sodom and want to keep moving closer and closer to Sodom before finally he moved into Sodom and it corrupted his family.

It's important by way of application. Listen carefully. You need to make sure that you understand the blessing of giving. Acts 20, 35 says, remember the words of our Lord Jesus. It is more blessed to give than it is to receive. It is more if you believe truly, it's more of a blessing to give than it is to receive, stand up. I put you on the spot, didn't I? Now, if you hesitated, there's a problem in your soul. You can sit back down again. If you wanted to hesitate, but didn't, but felt peer pressure to stand, there's a problem with your soul.

Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is more blessed to give than it is to receive. Do you really truly believe that? Do you really want to give for the sake of the kingdom? Do you really want to give for the sake of the spread of the gospel? Do you really want to give to meet the needs of others? Do you really want to give to do whatever you possibly can to help somebody else in need? Do you really want to do that? Because the blessing comes in the giving, not only here, but especially in eternity, where you store up treasures in heaven.

Remember the blessing of giving. Number two, remember the beauty, the beauty of going. How beautiful are those, are the feet of those who spread the glad tidings of good news. Romans chapter 10, verse number 16, quote from the Old Testament. Remember the blessing of giving and remember the beauty of going. Why? Because whenever you go to spread the gospel, the beauty of the gospel shines through you and treasures in heaven are stored. See, we need to have a heavenly perspective. The sons of light have too much of an earthly perspective.

And Christ is saying that the sons of this age, they have the earthly perspective. Let them keep that because that's all they have. You are the sons of light, have a better perspective. You have an eternal perspective. So remember the blessing of giving. Remember the beauty of going. And lastly, remember the benefits of serving God only, because that's where it all lies. You can't serve two masters. You can only serve one. Are you fully serving God with all your heart? Does he have all of you? Does he have everything in your possession?

Is it subject to his lordship, to his kingship, to his leadership? His lord, whatever you're going to do with my money, you do it. Whatever you're going to do with my possessions, you do it. It's all yours anyway. And I am totally committed to serving only Jesus. Remember that song, Be Thou My Vision? Verse number three, of course you don't, so let me read it to you.

Be Thou My Vision, rich as I heed not, nor man's empty praise. Thou my inheritance, now and always. Thou and Thou only, first in my heart.

High King of Heaven, my treasure, Thou art. That's a song. You need to believe and sing. Let me pray with you.

Father, we thank you Lord for the opportunity you've given to us to spend time in your word. And I pray that Lord all of us would see things from a heavenly perspective and realize Lord that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 righteous who need no repentance. The opportunity we have to store up treasures in heaven by giving to the furtherance of the gospel so others will hear the truth and believe and be there waiting for us when we arrive to say thank you for giving of your substance that I might hear the truth.

Go before us this day that we might honor you completely in Jesus' name. Amen.