Earthly Investing With Eternal Focus Part 2

Last week we started looking at this parable and it just seemed odd that Jesus would condone certain actions the way He did.

But the point He was making was that we must be shrewd when it comes to preparing for our eternal futures.

This week we are going to finish out this parable with looking at the application of its meaning.

The Application (vv 9-13)

Here Christ drew three lessons from the parable concerning believers attitude toward money.

How Believers view their Money in relation to others.

In relation to others, Jesus exhorted His hearers to make friends for themselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so called because it belongs to this unrighteous, passing world.

Unbelievers, like the unrighteous manager, often use money to buy earthly friends.

Believers, on the other hand, are to use their money to evangelize and thus purchase heavenly friends.

We are to use our money to help bring people in to the fold of Christ.

The wealth of unrighteousness, being an element of fallen society’s experience, cannot last past this present life (cf. Luke 12:20).

When it fails, the friends believers have gained through investing in gospel preaching will welcome them into the eternal dwellings of heaven.

Those friends will be waiting to receive them when they arrive in glory because through their financial sacrifice for reaching the unconverted they heard and believed the gospel.

Where they invest their money reveals where people’s hearts are.

Endless personal accumulation is sinful, wasteful, and robs those who pursue it of eternal blessing.

How Believers view their money in relation to themselves.

Christ exhorted believers to be faithful to make eternal investments.

His statement, 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, is axiomatic.

Some claim that if they had more money, they would give more.

But the truth is that character, not circumstances, determines faithfulness.

Some, like the poor widow described in Luke 21:1–4, who have nothing give everything; others who have everything give nothing.

The issue is not finances, but integrity and spiritual character.

Those who are faithful with the very little they have would be faithful if they had more; those who are unrighteous—selfish, proud, indulgent—in the use of what little they have would be so if they had much.

The determining factor is not how much people possess, but how strong their commitment to the gospel of salvation is.

People’s perspective on money and their resulting faithfulness or unfaithfulness has implications for their eternal reward.

If you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, Jesus asked, who will entrust the true riches to you?

It is foolish to imagine that God will reward those who sinfully waste their opportunity to be faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth in this life.

Those who fail to invest their wealth in the work of redemption impoverish themselves forever.

Eternal reward comes to those who are faithful.

How Believers View their money in relation to God.

Finally, Jesus spoke of believers’ attitude toward money as it relates to God, using another obvious, common sense example.

No servant can serve two masters; He warned, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

Douleuō (serve) refers to serving as a slave.

Slaves, unlike modern workers, did not have the option of working at a second job for a second employer.

They were the property of a master who had singular and absolute control over them.

That kind of exclusive service could not be rendered to two masters at the same time.

In the same way, a person cannot be both the slave of God and of material wealth.

They cannot be co-rulers in the same heart.

Those who love money will despise and resent what God demands of them regarding it.

But those who love Him will choose to honor Him by not making earthly wealth their master.

Instead of using it to selfishly gratify their desires, they will seek to manage the money He has entrusted to them for the salvation of souls to the glory of God.