Prudent Stewardship

Jackson Daigre opens Luke 16 and tackles Jesus’ puzzling parable of the dishonest manager, showing why the man is praised—not for dishonesty—but for shrewd foresight. We’re called to use temporary, worldly resources to gain eternal treasure, serving God (not wealth) with faithful, cheerful generosity.

Transcript

For those of you who are here for the first or maybe second time, I'm not the normal pastor here. Not everybody here comes to listen to me every week. My name is Jackson Dagg, and I'm actually the son of the senior pastor, Marshall Dagg. I'm a student at Mississippi State University, and I went to a football game last night and then drove over here. It was about a three hour drive and I had some.

Some car trouble, so I got in pretty late, maybe a little tired, but that's all right. And it was. It was worth it because we won. We're not here to talk about football this morning. Maybe some of y' all want to get out in time for football today, so turn with me this morning to Luke chapter 16, and whenever you find it, please stand for the.

The Gospel reading.

And we'll begin in verse 1. Luke, chapter 16, verse 1.

Jesus said to the disciples, there was a rich man who had a manager. And charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, what is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer. Then the manager said to himself, what will I do now that my master is taking the position away from me?

I'm not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes. So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, how much do you owe my master? He answered, a hundred jugs of olive oil. He said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it 50.

Then he asked another, and how much do you owe? He replied, a hundred containers of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and make it 80. And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much. And whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest, or also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

No slave can Serve two masters for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Lord, thank you for your words to us this morning. Help us to have eyes to see and ears to hear what you want us to today. And help us to open our hearts to receive your love and then to go out in the world and share that with the world.

In Jesus name, Amen. You may be seated.

So this passage is not an easy one. At first glance, it's hard to understand what Jesus is trying to tell us. At first, it almost seems wrong. And that is how some of Jesus parables can be. So much so that even the disciples did not always understand a verse whenever he spoke.

And this parable is certainly one of those where we have to look a little bit deeper to really see what he means. Because at first it almost seems like Jesus is praising the dishonest man. I mean, in the parable, the dishonest man is praised. But whenever we look closer, what we find is an important distinction, which is that the man is not being praised for his dishonesty or his failure to manage the Master's resources. Instead, he's being praised for his shrewdness.

Jesus clearly says that the Master commended the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly. Now, this presents another problem to us. Why is this man being praised for acting shrewdly? Isn't being shrewd a bad thing? Well, if you look at the word today, then what you will find is that it has both a negative connotation and a positive connotation.

Now, maybe most of you, like me, associate shrewd with the negative connotation. If someone were to tell me about a shrewd businessman, someone who gets power through dishonest or manipulative ways, is what I would think of. In a way, this is how the dishonest manager acted. But this is obviously. This is obviously not what Jesus is telling us to be like.

Instead, he's using it for us in a positive connotation. And the positive connotation for shrewd is to be astute, which is to say to have foresight, wisdom in action, and intentionality. The dishonest manager was not praised for his dishonest shrewdness, but rather for his foresight into the future. He thinks ahead and then he acts on it. Because notice he realizes that once he's out of the job, he's not going to have anything to do.

He says he's too weak to Dig ditches, and he's too ashamed to beg. Once he realizes this, he knows that he has to do something. So he acts shrewdly and he makes friends who will help him once he's fired. So the Master commends him for this, his prudence, really his care for the future. What Jesus is saying here is that Christians need to be shrewd.

And the Christian shrewdness is to turn worldly righteousness things, worldly things into instruments of virtue, to use the worldly things that we are given for good, to use the temporal to prepare for the eternal. So Jesus is teaching us to use what is temporal shrewdly. So let's look at what this really means. What does Jesus mean by these temporal things? Well, he is talking about the things of the world, our worldly possessions.

This is what Jesus talking about whenever he says to make friends for yourself by use of dishonest wealth. He's not talking about doing anything dishonestly, but instead he is just talking about worldly wealth. And his reasoning for using the word dishonest is because all earthly wealth is tainted. It all belongs to a fallen and corrupt world. And obviously a lot of wealth is gained dishonestly.

During Jesus time, there were tax collectors who would overcharge people for their taxes and they would just pocket the extra. And in today's world, sometimes money is still gained dishonestly as well, or money can even be used dishonestly. And in First Timothy, Chapter 6, Verse 10, Paul tells Timothy, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Now this is not to say that money in itself is evil. And a little bit later we'll dig into positive ways that money can be used.

But it is important to note that money often corrupts people. Continuing in that same verse, Paul says this. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

So money can be a dangerous thing for us humans. That is why Jesus calls it dishonest wealth. Jesus is telling us that we should not be storing up treasures for ourselves here on earth. In Matthew chapter six, Jesus tells us this. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

The thing about earthly dishonest wealth is that it's not going to last. Yeah, that brand new 2025 Subaru, it looks real nice whenever you drive it off the lot. What about in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? Are you still going to have that car? Is it still going to be in fully working condition?

What we find with all earthly wealth is that it's not going to last. Maybe you've made the same mistake as me before. You get some really good food that you really like, and you just want to save it for that perfect time to eat it. Well, a lot of time passes and that perfect time still hasn't come yet. And then eventually it comes and you think, man, this sure is a good time to eat my favorite food.

And you go to the fridge and you open it up and it's gone bad. That's how it is with worldly wealth. It won't last. Paul tells us this in First Timothy, chapter 6, verse 7. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it, plain and simple.

We cannot take our earthly possessions with us whenever we die. Money and possessions are temporary. They will not carry over into eternal life. And this verse brings up another important point about our earthly wealth, and that is this. We do not own anything.

We are just stewards of it. Psalm 24, verse 1 says, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. This states pretty clearly that that the Lord owns everything. We only have what God has entrusted to us. We are stewards of what he has given us.

In Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verses 17 and 18 says this. You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. God has given us everything we have and will have. It is through him even that we have the ability to produce wealth, which means that we must steward his things.

Well, when we look at Scripture, that is exactly what we are told to do. Romans, chapter 14, verse 12 says this. So then each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. We're all going to give an account to God one day, and he's definitely going to mention how we manage his things that he gave us. First Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 2 says, Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

We have to be faithful in our stewardship of the temporal earthly wealth that we are given. And this is what Jesus is telling us in our parable this morning. We should steward our dishonest wealth well by using it for God's purposes. Whenever I get a paycheck, it seems to go away pretty quickly. Now there are multiple things that I spend my money on.

I have food, ties, girlfriends, student loans, college football tickets. There are some needs There are some debts, but then there's also some wants. And I have to be a good steward of my money and ensure that it does not all go to my wants. I cannot spend all of my money on college football tickets and all the souvenir cups at the games, because then I wouldn't have any money to tithe or for food or for. Or for my student loans, or for birthdays or Christmas.

In that same way that I cannot spend all my money on myself and my own entertainment. We have to be good stewards of our earthly possessions, which includes money. We have to be sure that we are not just using them for our own personal gain, but to advance the kingdom of God using our visible possessions for the invisible, eternal. Imagine if my dad bought me a car, which he did, and then he asked me, and then he asked me to let him drive it, but I said no. Well, it's his car.

It isn't my money that bought that car. It's like what I just talked about with the kids. If your children get you a Christmas present or a birthday gift with your money, it's not their money, it's your money. In the same way, we don't give anything to God that He has not already given us.

Now, this language of temporary things being seen and the eternal things being unseen is found in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 18, where Paul says, so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but. But on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

So the seen things are material and they're passing away. But the unseen things, they're immaterial and eternal because we cannot see something, or we can see something like money, but we cannot see God. What are these unseen things, you may be wondering? Obviously, God is not seen, but what else is not seen? Well, what we mean by unseen things is not just God, but also faith, hope, love, virtue, and eternal life.

We cannot see any of these things because they are eternal. They reflect God's nature, which is to be eternal. Our sinful world is not eternal because sin does not reflect God's nature. And maybe most importantly, the soul is immortal. We can see our bodies, and we all know that one day our bodies will die.

But when that happens, our souls will continue living because they are immortal. That is why Jesus tells us in this parable to use our material possessions for the eternal. Our souls will last for eternity, so we need to prepare wisely. We must use our temporal possessions, while we still have them, to invest in what truly matters. The unseen, eternal realities of God's kingdom.

Now, maybe y' all thought that y' all would escape philosophy this morning since my dad was out. Well, unfortunately, I'm taking a philosophy class, and I've been studying Socrates. And what I learned in this class is that even human reason will lead us to the idea of eternal and the temporary. Socrates and Plato would say that the material things are temporary and fleeting, while the eternal things like truth, virtue, and the soul, are eternal and real in the fullest sense. And Socrates points out that.

That philosophers focus on the soul more than on material possessions, because even he knew that the soul is immortal. He knew that the soul was going to continue after death, so he knew that we should be preparing for that reality. So even just through human reason, people come to the conclusion that the unseen world is much more important than the temporary pleasures or earthly possessions. We as Christians also must focus not on our own pleasures or desires, but on the kingdom of God, the unseen things. Now, we've already talked a little bit about it, but these unseen things may still seem sort of abstract.

So what really are these unseen things that we're supposed to be striving for? Faith, hope, and love and eternal treasures. These things are eternal and they're unseen. You cannot physically see faith or hope or love. And eternal treasures are obviously things that are in eternity.

These are all things that are not made of material matter, but they are more real in the sense that they last longer than anything that we can see with our eyes, because one day this world is going to pass away. But faith, hope, and love will remain. Virtue will remain. The kingdom of God will never go away. So now that we understand what these things are that Jesus is telling us to use our worldly possessions for, how do we actually do that?

How can we use what is material to produce what is eternal? In 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verses 18 and 19, Paul says this. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Now, obviously, this coming age that he's talking about is not the future here on earth. Paul is not saying that we need to prepare for the 22nd century. Instead, he's saying that we need to lay treasures for ourselves in heaven, the life that is truly life. And how we do that is by being rich in good deeds, being generous and willing to share, using our money to help others, almsgiving or charity is when you give money or goods or your time to help those in need. This is a great example of using what is temporary for the eternal.

Because in almsgiving you're giving away your possessions or your time in benefiting someone in need. And that person in need has an eternal soul just like us. So it is important to show them compassion and love. Because really that money and time, it's not yours anyway, but God's. We are just stewards of these things that he gives us.

So being shrewd with our worldly possessions can look like giving them away, which in today's society is not typically seen as taking good care of your money. Usually using your money wisely would mean turning it into more money. But for Christians, we know that this world is not the ultimate reality. We look forward to being with God in eternity, so we should have no problem giving our resources to those in need. In our parable, Jesus says that the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of of life.

Now what he's saying here is that the people who focus on gaining material things and pleasure act more strategically and cleverly for their own personal gain than Christians do to advance the kingdom of God. In the parable he gave, he was showing us this very thing. The dishonest manager was a child of the age and he uses temporal things to prepare for the future. And he was just losing his job. So how much more should we be preparing for something like eternity so that we do not lose our soul?

Jesus is calling us to act shrewdly, be strategic and clever in how we use our possessions and time. He is telling us to use our resources and in the best ways that we can to advance the kingdom of God. Just like how the dishonest manager acted. Truly, to secure his future, we too must act shrewdly for the eternal.

Imagine you got a dozen donuts, maybe you can eat all 12 of them on your own. Maybe kind of difficult, but I think I could do it. That's one option. The other option is that you could take it to your work and you could give it to all your co workers and your boss. Everybody would like you more.

If you do it by yourself, then you're just having it for self pleasure, for personal gain. But if you share it with other people, then that may be the wiser thing to do. Maybe you get a promotion.

So obviously that would be the wise thing to do, would be to take it to your work. And this is the same choice that we have with all of our possessions. We can either use them up for ourselves, for our own personal gain and pleasure. We can pull them in, or we can use them for others. We can give them to others.

Jesus is asking us to give them to others. And this goes into how Jesus ends the parable. He says this. No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth.

We have to make sure we know who we serve. Because there are only two options. There's no third option. There's no middle. No.

Jesus clearly states that we cannot serve both God and wealth. Serving wealth is to serve our desires, to chase after worldly pleasures. This is sin. To use money for personal gain and never to benefit others. Hebrews chapter 3, verse 5 says this.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Remember how the root or how the love of money is the root of all evil. We as Christians are called to keep our lives free from this love of money. We have to be careful to not just want more, more, more and more. When it's said to be content with what we are given, instead of setting our minds on chasing after money all of our lives, we have to be sure to set our minds on things that are above.

Which is what Paul tells us in Colossians chapter 3, verse 2, where he says, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. We should be kingdom oriented and it is impossible to have that mindset. If we serve money instead, we should serve the Eternal One, who is God. We should use what he has given us to advance his kingdom through almsgiving, tithing and showing mercy. We serve God by using the worldly possessions he has given us for eternal purposes, by having prudence and being shrewd with what we have.

Our time, money, food and resources are all things that we can either use to serve ourselves or to serve God. And we serve him by being good stewards of these things. But we cannot serve both. We cannot be both wise stewards and self pleasing. Think about a sport like like football.

You can't have two head coaches in sports because then you would have two different people calling the plays. If you had two different coaches who called different plays, then they would not be in agreement. You would have to pick one to follow. You wouldn't be able to run the ball and pass the ball at the same time. It's the same with God and wealth.

We cannot serve both God and wealth, because they're fundamentally in disagreement. Wealth would tell you to serve yourself, but God would tell you to serve others. We cannot do both at the same time. We must pick one or the other. Jesus tells us that if we were to try to serve both, then we would hate one and we would love the other.

Now, going back to the football coaches, if one always called run plays and the other always called passing plays, then you would probably hate one and love the other. Maybe you like passing better, then you would love that one and hate the running coach. Or if you loved running better, then you would hate the passing coach and love the running coach. There's no middle ground between these two where you can love them both because they are always asking the opposite of you. Now, I like to play video games, especially college football.

Now, if you look at me, then you can probably tell that I don't play real football. So I have to play video games. I wouldn't fare very well out there. So in this game I played as a quarterback, and whenever I was the quarterback, I always wanted my coach to call the passing plays if he ever called a run play. I wouldn't like it very much.

If I had two coaches like this, then I would love the passing coach and I would hate the running coach, but I couldn't do both. You have to choose who you listen to. It is the same with God and money. If we try to follow them both, then we will come to hate one and love the other because they are doing fundamentally different things. We have to choose our Master.

So how do we show who we serve? If we want to serve God, then we must take what little we are given and steward it wisely. To serve God faithfully, we must advance his kingdom. And this is done through what we've been talking about all morning. Using our worldly resources for God's purposes.

Obeying God in the small decisions and consistently following him shows faithfulness to God. It shows that we do not serve ourselves, but we serve God. Following God in every aspect of our lives instead of just looking to him for the big decisions. How many of us really turn to God for the little things? I admit I'm not the best at this either.

But we need to serve God in word, thought and deed. Not just. Not just by not sinning, but by following His Word. Life is temporary. It only lasts for a time.

James tells us that life is like a vapor here today and gone tomorrow. We have only a limited amount of time here on earth, but faithfulness will endure forever. If you serve God faithfully and follow his will for your life, then that will last for all of eternity. And there is a certain sense of urgency that comes with knowing. Our lives are so short.

We never know when we will die, so we must act quickly to decide who we serve. Joshua 24, verse 15 says, but if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

We must choose this day whom we will serve. Will it be money chasing after our own desires and pleasures, all for it to go away? Or will it be God following His will and living virtuous lives, preparing for eternity? If you choose to serve God, then your wealth will be at his disposal. If you were to be a faithful and just serve steward of what God has given you, then you will employ that wealth to build up the kingdom of God.

Revelation chapter 22, verse 12 says this. Look, I'm coming soon. My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. Jesus is coming back. We do not know the hour or the day, but when he comes back, he will give us each according to what we have done.

We will all have to give an account of how we have stewarded his things. And when we think about giving to God, we often think about tithing, giving 10% of what we make to God, and we get to keep the other 90%. And that is what we find in the New Testament. The Old Testament. Sorry, but in the New Testament, Paul goes even further than that.

He says this in Second Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 7 through 9 each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever.

10% is just a baseline, the ground floor. And yet some of us are not even doing that. And I'm guilty of this too. Whenever I get paid in cash, I hardly ever think about it again. I just put it in my wallet and go about my day.

I sometimes will Forget to give 10% of that. But let's not just think of wealth that God has given us as money. Because this wealth that we've been discussing. It's more than just money. Sure it includes money and possessions, but it also includes your time, abilities, even your relationships.

All of your resources are given to you by God. Imagine giving 10% of all that. 10% of your time dedicated to God, 10% of your abilities dedicated to God. It's all his anyway. Since it's all his, why should we even just stick to 10%?

Because giving is really less about how much you give. It's more about how much you keep. Think about whenever Jesus was watching people give, there was that woman who comes and she gives just two coins. Jesus had just watched other people give tons of money. So much money.

And then this woman, she comes and gives two coins and Jesus says look, she gave the most dollar wise. Sure she gave less. But because she kept nothing back and she gave it all to God, she actually gave more than anyone else.

So today, be shrewd with the temporary wealth that God has given you all you have been given to you by God. Use it wisely for his kingdom. Be a good steward of his things. And maybe this morning you still haven't chosen who you will serve. You are split between God and wealth.

Or maybe you're holding back from giving it all to God. If that is you today, then give it in to God today. Don't wait for tomorrow to give it all to God. Today is the day of salvation. Choose this day who you will serve.

Life is temporary, but eternity is forever.

Lord, you know our hearts. You know what we are holding back from you. Help us to hold nothing back today. Help us to give all of the earthly possessions you have given us to advance your kingdom so that we will be welcomed to eternal homes in Jesus name. Amen.