Pastor Bruce
Preaching and Teachings by Pastor Bruce Grimmet with Fairview Methodist Church.
Pastor Bruce
Prodigal 2: The Steward
Proper 20 Year C, Luke 16:1-13
I was like, how in the Sam Hill do you preach this parable that talks about praising an unrighteous manager? But the more I studied, the more I actually became very fond of this parable and what Jesus is actually teaching to his disciples. This is this parable that we have just read and of which I am going to preach to you this morning and we're going to move through is a sequel of sorts. This is a sequel of sorts. I don't know if you know about sequels, but sometimes sequels can be flops because they're just trying to mimic the original movie, right? I think of Karate Kid. When Karate Kid came out, oh, I love Daniel LaRusso and that last crane kick that he gives at the end. Well, then they come out with Karate Kid 2 and 3 and 4, and they just make the same plot over and over. And the other ones didn't hit as much as the first one. But then you have sequels that continue the story. I'm thinking of Lord of the Rings. It builds upon the original story, and the sequels seem to be deeper and fuller to present a more complete story. And that is what is taking place with this parable. See, Jesus just got done with that trilogy of lostness that I talked about last week. You have the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, or the prodigal son. And that crowd that he was teaching those parables to were the Pharisees, the scribes, the sinners, and the tax collectors. Well, immediately following the prodigal son, we are given this parable. And there's similar language that Jesus is using, but his audience is different. Jesus turns to his disciples now and tells them of prodigal two, the steward. First, he just got done telling the other crowd, prodigal, the son. Now, he moves into a sequel for his disciples to learn a lesson, and it's prodigal two, the steward. And this is very helpful. But before we can break in to this parable, I'm going to unpack it and summarize it for you. I need to define some terms for you because I had to do a lot of digging in the original language to understand what it meant by referring to the wealth as unrighteous and how the steward was being unrighteous. And if him being unrighteous was because of his shrewdness, which is being praised, which is confusing. So all that to say is there's a few terms that I want to talk about real briefly to help frame in your understanding about this parable. One is you need to understand what squandered means. We don't use that terminology, but if you go and look at Bo's bedroom right now, he has squandered all his toys on the floor. It is like taking dust, lifting it up and let the wind blow it all over the place, right? Squandering according to the prodigal son, he prematurely asked for his inheritance and then he goes and squanders it. with loose living. Here, the unrighteous steward is unrighteous because he takes his master's possessions and he squanders it. The word we get and why we call it the prodigal son is because of his excessiveness towards squandering, right? And I've also made the case, if you've ever heard me preach on the prodigal son, it's actually more about the father, the father's prodigal in this sense, that his loving kindness and his mercy is very prodigal. It's very excessive. It's very free offering. And that's what squandered means. So that we can understand the reputation of this unrighteous servant is because he squandered the possessions of his master the way the prodigal son squandered his premature inheritance away. The next thing you need to know is the word management or steward. Think of this for this parable, an accountant, a white-collared worker, right, who stewards something that they themselves do not possess. I want to reference Lord of the Rings. If you haven't watched it, I say you should watch it. But there is this steward of Gondor, the kingdom of Gondor. There's a steward because there doesn't sit a king on the throne. So the steward is in the position of having to manage and steward the kingdom while there is no king. But he's not Not a king, right? So we need to understand what Stuart means. And then we need to understand what unrighteousness means in this parable. It's referenced twice in verse eight and in verse nine. It refers to the Stuart as acting unrighteously, which means unjustly, which means he has done something that isn't right. And what has he done that isn't right? He has squandered that which is not his. But then in verse 9, it uses unrighteousness in a different way. In verse 9, it talks about money being unrighteous, and it contrasts it to true riches. And so when we come to that part of this parable, we need to understand what Jesus is teaching his disciples is that there is unrighteous money. Now, that does not mean that you should He's just comparing money of this world, the riches of this world. He's comparing that to the riches of the kingdom. And in comparison, it is unrighteous compared to the righteous or the true riches, the parable will call it, that is of the kingdom.
UNKNOWN:Right?
SPEAKER_00:And then what about this word shrewd? Well, let me try to use a better word. Prudence. This comes from the idea that your actions are trying to seek an advantage. That's what we would refer to as shrewd or being prudent. You see something that's up ahead, and so your actions are to try to seek an advantage for what is coming. That's being shrewd or being prudent. That's what you you to understand. The best way I can describe this to you is let's say there is a kid who wants a Red Ryder BB gun at Christmas time. Okay, hypothetically here. A guy, a little boy wants a Red Ryder BB gun. So he knows Christmas is coming up. He has asked his parents for the Red Ryder BB gun and they say, well, you're going to shoot your eye out. So no. But because Christmas is still coming up, he is going to act shrewdly and prudently by riding the most amazing amazing essay his teacher has ever read in her whole entire life. And it's going to award him an A plus, plus, plus, plus in the whole thing. And then that teacher is going to report to the parents how amazing of a student he is, and it's going to get him his Red Ryder BB gun. He's being very shrewd. He's being very prudent. He is seeking an advantage with his actions in order to afford him something that lies up ahead. So now that we have framed in some of the terms that this parable speaks to, let's seek out what Jesus wants to teach his disciples and by way of his disciples to teach you all this morning. So let me just paraphrase what is taking place in this parable. You have a rich man, we'll call him the master, who has all the possessions and he has left all his possessions in charge of a manager or Stuart. And this Stuart, this accountant, he's a white-collar worker. We are told that when his job is in jeopardy, he is about to lose his job, and he has to give an account to the master of everything that he's been doing. Before he's unemployed, he goes around and he seeks out the debtors of his master. One is indebted to him for a hundred measures of oil. Oil's pretty expensive, right? And so he says, take your bill and reduce it by 50%. Then he goes to another debtor of his master and he says, take, how much do you owe my master? A hundred measures of wheat, not as expensive as the oil. He says, write 20% off on your bill. And he does this because he's motivated for the life that a waits for him of being unemployed because he says, man, I'm a white collar worker. I can't, I don't have the strength enough to dig and I'm too prideful to beg. So he uses his situation in order to seek an advantage for when he's unemployed, to find favor in the people that have homes. And he does this shrewdly and prudently. And what's interesting in this parable is as we're looking at the steward, we're like, man, this guy is shady as all get out. But his act of forgiving debt and seeking to bless the debtors of the master and to seek an advantage for his future is praised by the master. And this tells us a couple of things about the master. The master actually desires mercy more than sacrifice. We also learn that it is through forgiveness and blessing others that this unrighteous servant who was unrighteous in squandering his master's possessions is now leveraging that in order to make his master look better in the eyes of those who are indebted to him and also find favor in their eyes as well. That is what is taking place. That is the actions that we are seeing him and so his true is not what has made him unrighteous. That was his previous actions of squandering his master's possessions. So that's what's taking place. And if you were to frame that into modern day times is that before you meet Jesus, before salvation comes into your life through Jesus Christ, by faith in him, all life is squandering their life away. They are squandering a life that was given to them by the master and creator of life, God himself. And they have been misusing it unjustly as if to serve themselves and not the one who created them. But when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, before we meet the end, before time runs out, the lesson becomes that you once squandered, but now you're to live life shrewdly, prudently, seeking an advantage of the life that you have now waiting for you in Christ Jesus. And so that's the summary of the passage. And Jesus will then break beginning in verse 8b, following the rest of the passage. Jesus teaches this point. He's demonstrating to his disciples, first and foremost, that the sons of this age do this. And he's commending them for doing it. Jesus is commending that the sons of the age are very shrewd in their dealings. They are always seeking an advantage for what lies ahead of them in the future. But the sons of light don't do this. And Jesus points to his disciples and says, you need to be living your life shrewdly and prudently, seeking to have an advantage for what lies ahead of you, which is eternal life in the kingdom of God. There's a less that we can observe from the world, but then move it towards a different goal and to orient it in a right direction. That we need to be and exercise this unrighteous wealth, worldly riches, which Jesus does not say you should not have. He says quite the opposite. When you are possessing unworldly or unrighteous, unrighteous worldly wealth, money, you are to leverage that to seek your advantage for the Well, how do you do that? Well, Jesus says as much. He talks about in verse 9 how you use and leverage unrighteous wealth to gain friends who will allow you to enter their eternal dwellings. What does that mean? How can we leverage the money that we currently have in this life and our resources in this life to seek an advantage in the kingdom? And what are these so-called friends? Well, I wanna draw your attention to another statement that Jesus makes about who his friends are and your actions towards them. That if you were to be merciful, and if you were to forgive, and if you were to embrace his friends, then he would embrace you. Comes from Matthew 25, four. He says in this parable, the king will answer and say to them, truly I say to you, to the extent that you have done to the one of the least of these, you've done it also to me. And in that context, he's talking about the poor, the needy, the naked, and the prisoners. Jesus says, if you do not clothe the naked, if you do not tend to the poor, if you do not provide for the needy, and if you don't visit the prisoners, then I never knew you. And I'm going to tell you when your time runs out, depart from me. But if you did, then as much as you have done to them, I'll do to you And I'll say to the most of you, and you might ask like, well, when did I do this? When did I accept or reject you? And he says, Jesus says very plainly, whatever you've done to the least of these, you've done also to me. So these friends who will welcome you into eternal dwellings, think about the mansions that Christ is building for his friends right now in the kingdom. If you want to be invited into the kingdom, If you want to have fellowship with Jesus' friends and thereby fellowship with Jesus, then how you live now matters. And that's Jesus' point to his disciples. You need to be prudent. You need to be shrewd with the unrighteous wealth currently in your position. And you need to lever it for the advantage that you shall seek for the kingdom. You need to invest it in the least of these. Because if you invest it in the least of these, then you've invested in me, in Abel's say, come and enter into the kingdom of God. That's what Jesus is teaching. Jesus is teaching us what stewardship in this present life looks like. And what he says here is why I label this the sequel. Because if you think about the fact that you have a prodigal son who prematurely asks for his inheritance, his father's still alive, he prematurely asks for his inheritance, so that's unjust, and then he squanders it all. But then he returns home. He repents, he returns home, and he's wondering if the father will receive him. The father does. The father's very prodigal in his love and his mercy, and he clothes the son back as a true son and heir again, even though there's no inheritance because he squandered it all. He puts a family ring signet on his finger. The son is now given a second chance, an opportunity to once again be his son. And so, prodigal two, the steward, is demonstrating to the disciples, after that happens, when you are clothed as a son, Now, by faith in Christ, how do you begin living for the inheritance that you are to possess the kingdom of God in the future? That's Jesus' thing. He says, So let me just bring this home by application. There's a lot more I have to say. I'm gonna skip through some things, but I'm just gonna assume you guys are gonna be here on Wednesday to help me walk through it. But by way of application, this is where the rubber meets the road. What Jesus is really saying is like your life and your actions right now, what you do today, what you did last week, what you do this week coming up, your actions matter. Your actions can actually afford you an advantage of the kingdom. And let's just briefly talk about what does life in the kingdom look like? Is this something mystical? Is it like a dreamy thing that we don't really know? Absolutely. Absolutely not. In the kingdom, you're going to be given something you tangibly own. You're going to be given a house for you to live in. A mansion that Jesus is building you isn't a metaphor. You will have a life. You will have a job in the kingdom and you'll love it. You will have fellowship and invite people to your house and others. It's real life. Very similar to the life we look like, only way better and glorified. You will have an inheritance. You will have treasures. Or do we think that the Bible is just joking when it says, store up treasures in heaven as if there's no real treasure. Jesus even references the treasure of the kingdom as true, real treasure.
UNKNOWN:Right?
SPEAKER_00:That means that we should be able to have an economy. And I don't know what that economy looks like in the kingdom, but obviously there's possessions that we get to own. So if you think about the life that awaits you that is more glorious than this one, the question comes, how do you begin to live your life now for what lies ahead? And Jesus is saying, be shrewd and prudent about it. Make that your goal, make that your prize and live your life here like it doesn't matter. Like the possessions are going to fail you in the end, so you might as well use it to invest in your future in the kingdom. That's being shrewd, of which we learned that Jesus is praising and commending. So you may not be able to buy love with money. Maybe you can, I don't know. Well, not true love, right? You can't buy love. But Jesus leads us to believe that we can leverage unrighteous possessions now in this present life to seek an advantage in the kingdom. to store up real treasure, a real inheritance, real possessions that we own where moth and rust cannot destroy, and our life in the kingdom, and our status in the kingdom even. Our stewardship will be greater. Jesus points that out. At the very end of the parable, he says this, if you will be faithful in the little things, the worldly things of this life, then the Father is going to allow you to manage and steward Some aspect of his kingdom that's way greater. If you'll be faithful in the little things here, then the Father is going to give you truer things to manage there. If you can be a good steward of the life that you didn't create but were given, then when you get to the kingdom, God is going to give you ownership. That's a big deal. It's literally what he says. And so, practically speaking, what we do does matter. How you spend unrighteous money does matter. It communicates what you believe about the hope of the future and what advantage you would like to seek. And Jesus will eventually say, you can't have it both ways. You can't be one. who is seeking an advantage in this world and also in the one to come. Because you can't serve two masters. You either serve money and you use it shrewdly for your own selfish gain in the world, or you will use unrighteous wealth, which is going to fail you and you know is going to be burnt up, and you're going to take advantage of what lies ahead. This also means that you got to be making friends in high places. And when I talk about high places, I'm actually meaning the reverse, the lowest place, the least of these. We ought to be seeking to spend that unrighteous wealth to bless those that Jesus calls his friends and to offer forgiveness and mercy and grace to those that Jesus calls his friends. Because if we do that, then we will have friends in high places and we can go when our time runs out and we come face to face with Jesus and we are being judged. We can say hi to all our friends who are poor and needy and prisoners on the earth, but now are sitting on their rocking chairs on the front porch of their mansions and be like, Jesus, Jesus, those are my friends. They're inviting me to come into their house. And Jesus is going to say, if you've been a friend to the least of these, then you're my friend. Come and enter my rest. That's the point. And so lastly, we're called to be prodigal with our lives. That's what Jesus is teaching his disciples. It's like, so this is the now what? Now that you've been clothed and you have the ring of the family signet on, you're clothed in Christ himself, how are you to navigate this present life this time that is remaining until you are unemployed in this world and will be employed in the future to come, in the kingdom to come. How are you to navigate that, Jesus? Tell us what you want us to do in the meantime. And he says, be prodigal with forgiveness. Be prodigal with grace and mercy. Be prodigal with unrighteous wealth. Towards, my friends, the least of these. And if you do that, the promises that Christ is offering you is the position you'll have in the kingdom. An inheritance that is tangible, real, and that you own, that God shares with you. That's very, very motivating for me to rethink what we ought to be doing with our assets, what we ought to be doing with our life, and to how we can be shrewd and prudent, and how it might work to our advantage to store up our treasure in heaven, because that's more glorious than what we have now. Can I give up my pickup? in order to have a better pickup in the kingdom. I don't know, that's probably a really bad analogy. I don't know, but the idea, I'm just trying to help. Form. Can I help somebody here? Can I do what Jesus is asking me? How can I be shrewd and prudent in my life with unrighteous wealth? that shows and demonstrates to God the Father who grants me access into his kingdom an advantage of how much I value that life in this one. That's for you to consider. Let's pray.