Temporary Wealth for Eternal Dwellings

Introduction

I saw a statistic the other day that 46% of American households have no money in savings for retirement. No money! Of those who are 50-54 years of age, only 35% have more than $100,000 saved for retirement. From my understanding, if a young man or woman at the age of 18, would invest $5,000 a year for five years, then they would be multimillionaires by the time they were ready to retire. Granted, a million dollars is not what it used to be, but it’s nothing to sneeze at.

So the question is, why don’t more people invest like this so that they can retire comfortably? You’d think it would be a no-brainer. There may be a few reasons for it. They don’t make enough to make ends meet so how can they invest? It could be that all their money is going to pay for their higher education and so they have nothing left over to save. But many times, it is simply the fact that we humans are short-sighted and would rather have lesser pleasures now than have greater pleasures later. Mentally, we all know that retirement is important. But it seems so far away! We need (need!) the latest gadgets now. We’ve gotta have the smartphone and the tablet and the televisions and the cars and all the streaming services and the lattes and who knows what else. Suddenly, there is not enough money to put aside.

We always intend to make up for it later, but there really is no making up for the compound interest that accrues from the time we were 18 years old. And as we can see, 65% of Americans who are within a decade or so of retirement, haven’t even put $100,000 away. In most areas, that’s about 2-3 years that have been put away. If that’s how we are for that which comes in 50, 40, 30, 20, or 10 years away, how much worse can it be, when we’re talking about eternity?!

This morning, we are looking at what is considered by many to be the most difficult parable Jesus told. It’s the parable of the unjust manager, the dishonest manager, or sometimes called the shrewd manager. And because it can be easily misunderstood, it also is easily misapplied.

Keeping in mind that Jesus is getting ever closer to the cross, he is not only instructing the crowds, but more importantly, his disciples. In this parable, Jesus instructs his disciples to prepare for eternity with the wealth they acquire in the here and now. And we find three principles in this parable that will help us to do just that.

The first principle is to reduce the burden of others if and when we can. The second is to reallocate the resources of the Master. Lastly, we are to rethink temporal wealth with an eternal perspective.

Reduce the burden of others

Reallocate the resources the Master

Rethink temporal wealth with an eternal perspective.

Luke 16:1–9 ESV

He 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.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am 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 master’s 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, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Principle 1: Reduce the burden of others

The first principle that we learn from this parable, if we are hoping to prepare for eternity, is to reduce the burden of others if and when we can.

This manager was hired to take care of his master’s wealth. Maybe we could call him a treasurer or an accountant or perhaps he was in collections. But whatever it was, we see that he was not on the up and up. He was a swindler, an embezzler. And he’s been caught. He doesn’t have much time to act, and so he calls for those who owe his master.

Luke 16:4–7 ESV

I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s 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, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

Now what he does is not commendable in the least. Not only was he cooking the books in his own favor, but now he’s cooking the books in the favor of those indebted to his master. And yet in verse 8, we see that the master commends the manager for his shrewdness. That’s not the same thing as commending him for his actions. The actions were not commendable, but the craftiness, the mindset, the shrewdness was.

In other words, the master had to give credit where credit was due. This manager of his, the one he was about to fire, thought outside the box and figured out how to protect himself when his life of being manager was over. Going on to verse 9 and we see that Jesus says that we, the sons of light, aren’t very good at this type of planning.

So we look here to help us learn that the principle of reducing the burden of others if/when we can helps us to prepare for eternity. There’s a major difference between this manager in the parable and us. This manager had no right to utilize his master’s money for his own advantage. We do, so long as we do it in the right way.

This was what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 9. The church in Jerusalem was experiencing hardship and was in desperate need. Many from the church of Macedonia had given to meet that need and Paul was calling for Corinth to do the same. And he made a particular point in verse. 8.

2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

God’s grace to us, financially speaking, has a two-fold purpose. The first is make sure we have what we need. The second is to reduce the burden of others. We have been given a sufficient amount, Paul wrote, for all things, and in the context, that means all necessary things. The left over is for us to abound in every good work, and specifically meaning to give away and lessen the burden of those who are in need.

Notice then the cycle. God promises to meet our needs and give us leftovers for others. Yet, if that is true, then why would anyone be in need of our leftovers? If God promised to supply believers their needs, then why should Corinth and Macedonia send money to the believers in Jerusalem? Wouldn’t God’s promise apply to them as well. Absolutely. But that supplying of all needs by means of God’s grace is at least partially through the giving of other believers. And when Jerusalem received the gifts, they would have leftovers to give away as well.

There may be a time when we are in need, and God graciously supplies that need through others, and there will be enough left over to help someone else.

So we who are seeking eternal dwellings ought to keep this principle in mind. Let us reduce the burden of others if and when we can do so.

Principle 2: Reallocate the resources of the Master

But that leads us to the second principle. We are not only to reduce the burden of others, but we are to reallocate the resources of the master. These two are similar principles, but I think they’re distinct enough to warrant two different principles.

Again, the manager reallocated the resource that were his master’s. Now, in the corporate world, this would be illegal and completely wrong, but Jesus was not focused on the corporate world, but on the eternal one. And in that case, we it’s not only okay to reallocate those resources, but is expected. This was Jesus’s point in verse 8.

Luke 16:8 ESV

The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

The sons of this world are being contrasted with the sons of light. And for once, the sons of this world (or this age) are actually being commended over and above the sons of light. The sons of light are often much more naive when it comes to monetary issues. We tend to be too trusting at times. We tend to be too hesitant and abjure risk. We are much more like that servant who buried his talent in the ground than we are like the ones who doubled what was given.

Sometimes, we think that we can’t do anything because we can’t do everything or we can’t do the same for everyone so we shouldn’t do anything for anyone. But we as individuals and as a church aren’t called to do it all and we aren’t called to treat everyone the same. Look once more at what the manager did.

Luke 16:6–7 ESV

He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

Do you catch that the manager did not actually treat the two debtors the same? The first man’s debt was cut in half while the second man’s debt was cut by only 20%. We aren’t told why there’s a discrepancy. We’re just told that there was one. Maybe he liked the one over the other. Perhaps a measure of wheat was worth more than a measure of oil, and so they ended up about equaling out. Maybe it was something else.

Not everyone is going to have the same need as everyone else. And not everyone can meet a need equally. We need to keep that in mind as we reallocate the Master’s resources. We aren’t called to be fair; we are called to be wise. We are called to be shrewd. We are called to give as people have need and as God has graced us with resources.

It may be that someone has a $500 need and all we have is $5.00 after paying our bills for the month. But that $5.00 is the leftovers we’ve been graced with so we can reallocate that from the Master’s Grace Account to us into to Our Grace Account to others. Just because we can’t meet the full need, doesn’t mean we can’t join in and meet a portion of it.

Again, as we reallocate the Master’s resources, we need to consider our luxuries. Just like we may realize that we don’t need all the streaming sources or the latest tech as we try and set aside for retirement, so we begin to think shrewdly about how we spend our money right now, so we can prepare for eternity. If we save a few bucks by cutting back to one or two services, by only buying one latte a week, by waiting three years before buying another phone or watch or tablet, imagine how we can reallocate what God has graced us with.

Principle 3: Rethink temporal wealth with an eternal perspective

Finally, if we are preparing ourselves for eternity, then we really need this third principle: rethink temporal wealth with an eternal perspective.

Let’s go back for a moment to the beginning of the parable. At the beginning, just after he was told to bring the records of his accounting.

Luke 16:3 ESV

And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

In that moment, the manager stopped thinking about the present and started thinking about the future. He was faced with the reality that judgment day was coming. He understood something many Christians do not: the master will be calling sooner than later. He would no longer be in the position that he was now. He would no longer have the resources of his master. How could he protect his future self? By living in the present in light of the future.

I find this interesting in connection with the story of the Prodigal Son. The unjust manager is accused of the same thing that the Prodigal Son was accused of: “wasting” in verse 1 is the same word as “squandering” in 15:13. The Prodigal thought nothing of the future. He squandered his money (the money that his father gave to him), and he did so on riotous living. The manager squandered the master’s money just the same, but his last act was to change his methods: no longer use the master’s money for present comfort, but for his future blessings.

The end result was that no one took the Prodigal in and he had to hire himself out to a pig-farmer. In other words, he begged the guy to let him feed his pigs. This manager was not strong enough to dig and too ashamed to beg. So he would make sure that his master’s debtors would also be friendly toward him and give to him when he had need.

Luke 16:9 ESV

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Jesus is calling upon his disciples to utilize this unrighteous and temporary wealth for eternal dwellings. Or as Randy Alcorn would say, “You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.” When we begin to rethink our temporary wealth with an eternal perspective, we begin to make friends that we will never know in this life. That’s why Jesus changes the focus from the unjust manager’s hope of temporal dwellings, to the disciples hope of eternal dwellings.

And Jesus isn’t saying that if we give enough, we can buy our way into heaven. Instead, he is saying, when we give, we make an eternal difference in the lives of people all over the world and in future generations. We cannot possibly know the difference we have made in this lifetime. But when we are ushered into heaven, we not only will meet Jesus there, but we will meet the friends we’ve made by our unrighteous wealth. They will receive us, they will greet us, and welcome us into our eternal dwellings.

Back in 1988, Ray Boltz captured this idea in his song Thank You. And while it saddens me that Ray Boltz abandoned the faith, he was not wrong when he wrote this song. In it, a person has a dream that he went to heaven with a friend. This friend was suddenly inundated with person after person thanking him for his work for the Lord. The second and third lines goes like this:

Then another man stood before you,

Said remember the time

A missionary came to your church

His pictures made you cry.

You didn’t have much money, but you gave it anyway.

Jesus took the gift you gave and that why I’m here today.

Thank you for giving to the Lord.

I am a life that was changed.

Thank you for giving to the Lord.

I am so glad you gave.

One by one they came,

As far as the eye could see

Each one somehow touched

By your generosity

Little things that you had done, sacrifices made

Unnoticed on the earth, heaven now proclaims

And I know up in heaven

That you're not supposed to cry

But I was almost sure

There were tears in your eyes

As Jesus took your hand

And you stood before the Lord

And He said my child look around you

For great is your reward.

Conclusion

As we close this section of Luke, we’ve seen three principles that will help us to prepare for eternity. The first is to reduce the burden of others, the second to reallocate the resources of our Master, and finally to rethink temporal wealth with eternal perspectives.

Jesus pointed to the fact and even encouraged the fact that doing this is a win-win. People will be won to Christ because of what you do with your wealth. But you win also, and heaven will be flooded with people you didn’t even know were your friends. How amazing it is to be used by God even in secret ways!

Perhaps today, you make a commitment to take one day of latte money and put it aside. Perhaps that one subscription that you really don’t use can be cancelled and that same amount could be saved away for the opportunity to make eternal friends with temporal wealth. You might not be able to afford much. Maybe only a dollar a week or perhaps just a quarter. Jesus took 2 fish and 5 loaves and fed 15,000 people with it. But only after the young boy was willing to give in faith that which seemed so little.

Prayer

Our heavenly Father,

Grant us a heart and mind that sees your grace account to us as a way of funding our grace account to others in need. May our grace therefore reflect your grace. Grant us a heart to reduce the burdens of others, the mind to shrewdly come up with ways that we can reallocate those funds, and mindset that sees our eternal situation rather than our present.

In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.