Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Mendel Julien: Let us stand for the prayer of illumination.
Mendel Julien: Gracious God, full of life and truth, by your word and spirit, give light to ours lies.
Mendel Julien: Through Jesus Christ we pray.
Mendel Julien: Amen.
Mendel Julien: Remain standing if you're able.
Mendel Julien: Today we are going to be reading in Luke chapter 16, verse 1 through 13.
Mendel Julien: 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.
Mendel Julien: And he called him and said to him, What is this that I hear about you?
Mendel Julien: Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.
Mendel Julien: And the manager said to himself, What shall I do?
Mendel Julien: Since my master is taking the management away from me.
Mendel Julien: I am not strong enough to dig.
Mendel Julien: I am not ashamed.
Mendel Julien: I am, excuse me, I am ashamed to beg.
Mendel Julien: I have decided what to do.
Mendel Julien: So that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.
Mendel Julien: So summoning his master's debtors, one by one, he said to the first, How much do you owe, my master?
Mendel Julien: He said, A hundred measures of oil.
Mendel Julien: And he said to him, Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.
Mendel Julien: And then he said to the other, How much do you owe?
Mendel Julien: He said, A hundred measures of wheat?
Mendel Julien: He said to him, Take your bill and write eighty.
Mendel Julien: The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.
Mendel Julien: For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.
Mendel Julien: I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, for sat for that when it falls, when it fails, they may receive you in the eternal dwellings.
Mendel Julien: One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.
Mendel Julien: One who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much.
Mendel Julien: If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you to true riches?
Mendel Julien: If you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?
Mendel Julien: No servant can serve two matchers, two masters, for either will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
Mendel Julien: You cannot serve God and money.
Mendel Julien: This is God's word.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Thanks be to God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You may be seated.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Thank you, Mandel.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, good morning.
Pastor Jason Dunn: My name is Jason, and I serve as one of the pastors here at New City.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There is this well-known observation from landscape architecture that if you take a group of preschool children and you put them in a playground that's not fenced, they have a tendency to kind of huddle together and stick close actually to the teacher that's there.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But if you take that same group of children and put them in a playground that has a fence around it, they go off and explore to the extent of that fence.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So what is happening?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Did the fence make them feel uh more secure?
Pastor Jason Dunn: That's my contention.
Pastor Jason Dunn: They spread out because they know that they can enjoy the playground, knowing that they are secure.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what is it with all these fences?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Fences are everywhere.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now I Google these facts, so they may not be completely true, but you guys get will get the idea.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Strung together, the world's fences would likely reach from here into the sun.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Just taking the American West by itself, the lattice work of fences, and I've built a few myself, would be over 600,000 miles of fences.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That's enough to encircle the earth more than 75 times.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What is it about all these fences?
Pastor Jason Dunn: One word security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We live in an insecure and a chaotic age, and we are unsure and scared about the future.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We all crave security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In our parable today, Jesus ties that human desire for security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That desire, he ties that desire for security for the in the temptation of unrighteous wealth or insecure wealth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This need for security, especially financial security, it either leads to despair, where the future collapses in onto the past.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And when we despair, we tend to have our heads down when our 401k is down, or our 403B, if you work in the nonprofit world, is down.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Our hopes are crushed when that chunk of money that we have in our savings account is gone, and our agency is lost when we lose our job.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This leads us to despair.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or the other way this need for security plays itself out is our frantic activity.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We hustle, we drive to secure the future by any means, righteous or not, particularly through wealth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We build bigger fences, bigger walls, we save larger retirement funds or big builder, big, builder, uh big, we build bigger barns.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There it is.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Thank you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Which is uh the rich fool I talked about uh a month or two ago.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We amass a net worth that is self-sustaining in itself.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We wealth has a temptation to believe everything is going to be okay with enough.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I read all the stats last time about how wealth does not tell you it's it you can keep gaining more and more wealth, but you'll never have enough.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Wealth is an illusion of solving our need for security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this is the dynamic that Jesus is very concerned with.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If we read the gospels regarding wealth and material things, Jesus says more about money than he does about prayer.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus speaks often about money, not because money is an ultimate, but money exposes what we think is ultimate.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In fact, we believe money will secure our future, it will secure the ultimate.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus teaches us here this morning that our security is in the God who is merciful.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And in this text, Jesus will show us that our wealth and earthly means should be used for eternal purposes because we have gained security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus wants us to understand the importance of how we secure our own future, but also the future of those around us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's all based on the character of God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We'll explore those ideas through our text through these points: the shrewd steward and the merciful master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If you have a Bible or device or a bulletin, and I'm sorry the bulletin doesn't have all the scripture, turn with me to Luke 16, starting in verse 1.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He also said to the disciples, so he also said, This is that that word also there is a continuation of the story of Luke 15, of the lost things, and that sermon that Ben preached about the prodigal son.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There are so many different parallels between Luke 15 and Luke 16.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I just want to name a few.
Pastor Jason Dunn: First, the son, the prodigal son, betrays the father's trust.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Here, the steward, I'm calling the steward or the manager, betrays the master's trust.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the prodigal son squanders the father's wealth, and the steward or the manager wastes the master's possessions.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Same Greek word there.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Both stories, both parables end with a final scene missing.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How will the older son respond to the father's invitation?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And here in our parable, how will the steward or the manager respond to the praise of the master?
Pastor Jason Dunn: I point this out for two reasons.
Pastor Jason Dunn: One, you need to realize that this story that we're in today, it's a continuation of the story from last week of the Father's heart for you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And two, I really want you guys to be good Bible readers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And noticing to be good Bible readers, you have to notice small things in the text.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And that actually helps you understand the text better.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Admittedly, I was talking to Stan before the service, and this parable is a difficult text to understand.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But I think the context of the fact that it parallels Luke 15 is going to help us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so now back in verse 1, what's the next context in verse 1?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Who is this story aimed at?
Pastor Jason Dunn: He also said to the disciples.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he wants them, particularly around, to be shrewd around the or clever, that's another way to understand that word, shrewd, around their use of money in the kingdom of God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Let's keep reading in verse one.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, what's happening here?
Pastor Jason Dunn: In biblical times, the rich, probably landowners, they employed others to manage their assets, to manage their estate.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what was he required to do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: To manage, to steward.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In most translations, uh they use the word manager, but I'm trying to use the word steward here this morning because I think they both both basically had the same meaning.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But I love how the KJV translates this in steward because there's this uh impression that when you're saying you're a steward versus a manager, you're actually stewarding somebody else's wealth that doesn't belong to you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so what was this manager or steward supposed to do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: This person was to steward the master's wealth and track with the tenants who leased the land for farming.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the steward he needed to keep an accurate account of all the details.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But this steward, he is in a bind because charges were brought against him by a third party to the master or to the rich man.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And these charges were about wasting the possessions, the wealth of the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Let's keep reading in verse 2.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he that is the rich man called him the steward, the manager, and said to him, What is this that I hear about you?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Turn in the account of your management, for you no longer can be manager.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the manager said to himself, What shall I do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: A little sounds like a little bit like despair, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What's the first thing that happens?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What's the first thing that happens to you when someone accuses you?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, for me and my brothers, when we were younger, the first thing that happened when someone, one of my brothers accused me were there were lots of words that went back and forth, back and forth, lots of words.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And my kids do it too.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It turns out to be a genetic thing, I think.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But maybe that's not true in your house.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But in reading the parable, we notice something that the steward has actually no words towards his master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The only words he has are to himself.
Pastor Jason Dunn: His silence, I think, tells us something.
Pastor Jason Dunn: His silence is consent that what the charges are are being brought to him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He is guilty, he has no defense.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He knows that the master knows the truth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The master expected obedience, and the steward's disobedience makes him unworthy to be the steward, to be the manager.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So, what does the steward do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Let's keep reading.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look down with me in verse 3 and following.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the manager, the steward said to himself, What shall I do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Since my master is taking my management away from me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I have decided, I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their homes.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So first, the first thing I noticed is that he thinks of the future.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He says, My management, my employment is being taken away.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How will he be received in the future?
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is him actually not looking outward, but turning inward, either to despair, what shall I do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What as I already pointed out in verse 3.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But in this case, we'll see in verse 4, it turns out to be a game of hustle for him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Second, I think he realizes his limitations.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And to me, as I studied the text, these limitations are actually more like sin issues than rather than limitations.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He says, I am not strong enough to dig.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, this steward is a dishonest man, and manual labor, let me tell you, is an honest man's work.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the second excuse says, I am ashamed to beg.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, this steward is prideful and unwilling to humble himself to his master and to his community.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then the third thing he does, so first he realizes and thinks of the future.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Second, he realizes his limitations that I think are influenced by his sin.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And third, he comes up with a plan.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Keep reading in verse five.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, How much do you owe my master?
Pastor Jason Dunn: He said, A hundred measures of oil.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He said to him, Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then he does it again for another one of the master's tenants.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I don't know what you think of this plan, but my opinion is that he goes from being a bad steward, wasting the master's possessions, to even a worse steward because he's canceling the debt that is owed to the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But the real the realization here is that he had a plan.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He had a very clever plan.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this son of the world, the steward, thought of the future.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He sought a clever way to secure it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus comments as much in verse 8.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look at me with verse 8.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He says, For the sons of this world, which is the steward, are more shrewd or more clever in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now, if you look at the text, there is a chiasm here.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There is this structure in the way the text is written.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In verse 4 is the principle that Jesus is trying to form in his disciples, that he's training them in.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So likewise, Jesus is telling his disciples that they should be concerned about the future and they should decide what to do.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Verse 4.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In fact, Jesus tells us to secure our future through unrighteous wealth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We'll see in verse 9, which we'll discuss further in point two.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The point is this Jesus desires that our wealth and earthly means be used in a clever way for the future, but not just for a future here in the earthly, in the earth, in the temporal sense, in the worldly sense, but for a future into glory, into an eternal sense.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus actually assumes that we'll use what has what we have been given because it belongs to God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Psalmist says in Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is a constant refrain from Scripture that all things that we've been given don't actually belong to us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We are just called to be stewards of what God has given us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so the sons of this world use material wealth to prepare for their earthly future.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why cannot the children of light use it to prepare for their eternal future?
Pastor Jason Dunn: This means we cleverly take what has been given to us by God and we generously give it away.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's not our money, it's not our toys, these are not our lives.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Remember the warning that we read in the last verse there.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Turn with me to verse 13 of chapter 16.
Pastor Jason Dunn: No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You cannot serve God and money.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus says, faithfulness in the little reveals what master you really serve.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Either you serve God and steward what has been given to you generously and with mercy, or you serve money.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So here's a little diagnostic question for you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There are a few questions, honestly.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Does the future lead you to despair?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or does the future lead you to be driven to hustle?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Are you avoiding what lies ahead, or are you trying to control what lies ahead?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Are you stewarding what God has given you for others or only for yourself?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Your bank statement is a discipleship document.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Your calendar is a guide to what matters most to you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Are you faithful in the little?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now back to the parable.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How do you think the master responded to this plan?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And some of you guys here, you guys work in the business world, some of you guys are owners of businesses.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How would you respond to this plan?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or how would you respond if you're a coworker and you find out that somebody is stealing money from the company?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And on their way out, they they take all the cash that's in the back, and then they go to the accounts payable and they cancel all the debts.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How would you respond?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, this leads me to my second point: the merciful master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look down with me at verse 8.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What the master did what?
Pastor Jason Dunn: This response from the master in verse 8, and then Jesus' response or kind of in interpretation of this in verse 9, it makes it one of the most difficult passages to interpret.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And trust me, almost every commentator said this disclaimer.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Everyone I read was like, yep, this is a very difficult passage to understand.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So I'm just admitting right now, I am going away this morning, but I believe it's a very good way.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Interestingly, in the parables of Jesus have a surprising list of unsavory characters.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In addition to the steward or the dishonest manager here in Luke 16, there is the unjust judge in Luke 18.
Pastor Jason Dunn: There's a neighbor who does not want to be bothered in the middle of the night in Luke 11, which you heard a good great sermon on that.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then there's a man who pockets someone else's treasure by buying his field in Matthew 13.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus is using this rabbinic principle from the light to the heavy, which means how much more?
Pastor Jason Dunn: So, for example, if my kids get a cookie for eating three bites of broccoli, how much more should I get a bowl of ice cream for surviving a manic Monday?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or we cheer, we do in our house, when a toddler throws away a piece of trash.
Pastor Jason Dunn: How much more should heaven rejoice when an adult finally cleans out the garage?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or, how about this one?
Pastor Jason Dunn: If we check our bank account just to feel secure for the weekend so we can go out and do the things we want to do, how much more should we entrust the future to the Father who holds holds all eternity?
Pastor Jason Dunn: So, in this steward, in this story, if the dishonest steward solved his problem by relying on the mercy of the master, how much more will God help us in our crisis when we trust in his mercy?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The entire scheme of the steward is built on the evaluation and the character of the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We see that first in verses one and two, go back with me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What happened there?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The master hears the charges and he brings them to the steward, but he doesn't imprison the steward, which I think would be in his right.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so the steward knows this is not just the first time that the steward and the master are working together, but he knows the character of the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The steward has an unshakable awareness of the master's generosity, of the master's mercy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he acted his plan, his clever plan, because of the merciful master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He is condemned for his actions, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: He loses his job in verse 2, but he's commended for his confidence in the master's gracious and merciful nature.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In fact, it is the master who pays the price of the steward's salvation and commends him for his shrewdness, for his cleverness, for him depending upon his own character, the master's character.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Do you know the character of the master?
Pastor Jason Dunn: This reminds me of a story of Le Miz.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Uh it's a story written by Victor Hugo and a story of Le Miz.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I know this is one that you guys may all recognize and know.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I have never read the book because I've tried, but it's very long.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But uh there are movie interpretations of this great work, and there is two characters at the very beginning of the story Jean Valjean and the Merciful Bishop, I'll call him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Don't know the story, Valjean is he's newly released convict from prison.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He's hungry, he's homeless, and he's rejected everywhere he goes.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But he comes to a town and someone points him to the door of the bishop.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what does the bishop do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The bishop welcomes him in, feeds him, gives him a bed.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then how does Valjean repay him?
Pastor Jason Dunn: In the middle of night, he gets up and takes the silver from which they had dinner with, and he steals that and he runs out into the middle of the night.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, the police catch Valjean the next day and they bring him back to the bishop's house.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Valjean is exposed.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He's guilty, he's condemned.
Pastor Jason Dunn: His security is gone.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But the bishop says to the police, he says, I not only gave him the can the silver that we had, the dishes, but I also gave him the candlesticks too.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why did you not take the candlesticks?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Valjean asked the bishops, why are you doing this?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Because he quite didn't understand the master's character.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the bishop says, My brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I have purchased your soul and I have given it back to God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Valjean was saved not because he was innocent, but because someone, someone's merciful character, someone's someone in their own, uh, the bishop himself rather absorbed the cost of the payment.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Valjean didn't understand the bishop's character, but he experienced it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He experienced the character through that act of mercy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Isn't this how we all come to God?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Experiencing the character of God, but not always understanding his character.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And that's the unshakable confidence that the steward has in the mercy of the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is the unchanging character of our God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And we read it through the scripture promises when we did the baptisms.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In Exodus 34, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Merciful.
Pastor Jason Dunn: God is merciful and gracious, slowed anger and abound in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is God's own self-description of Himself.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I call it His calling card throughout Scripture.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's the most quoted scripture in all of the Bible.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Because it reveals the true character of who our God is.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I think the only way for us to experience that character and to know that character of our God is to be united to him by Jesus by faith.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And it's in daily communion with him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: One of the primary ways that we do that here is through daily scripture reading.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Here's something I just read last week in 2 Corinthians from our plan.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You'll see that in your bulletin.
Pastor Jason Dunn: From 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It says, Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Our God is the Father of mercies.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Just like in Luke 15, there was an invitation to come to Him, come home to Him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this is who you get when you pick up your Bible and daily reading and you say, By faith, I want more of you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And you get to experience the mercy of our God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So the question that I have then is do you entrust your security, your future to the to that which does not fail?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Turn with me to verse 9.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus, he's interpreting the parable here.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he says, And I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If the parable was difficult to understand, which I thought it was, this verse is kind of like icing on that cake.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I'm going to define a couple terms and see if I can get somewhere with it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Because this is how Jesus interprets the parable.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So first, make friends.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This kind of seems obvious, but we should seek those who are outside of the master's house, outside of the father's house, Luke 15.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Those lost things, they need to be found and they need to be invited in.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So evangelism, church planting, garden city, you know, we're doing a church plant.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Talk to Kenny about it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He's not here this morning, but is a relational activity.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Evangelism and church planning is making friends and finding those lost people and inviting them in.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Unrighteous wealth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I quoted Timothy last time: wealth is not evil, but it should be used in a way to do right, to do right by others.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Wealth has this temptation to trust in it rather than in the merciful master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus contrasts unrighteous wealth with true riches in verse 11.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Unrighteous wealth could be another way you could describe it, is just worldly wealth, which is wealth that is temporary, wealth that fails.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Eternal dwellings.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The last word I'll I'll try to narrow in on.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Literally just means eternal tabernacles or tents.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This phrase only appears here in the New Testament, and it points to our eternal home that never fails.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So what is Jesus saying?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Can you buy your way into heaven?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Can you become, can people become your saviors?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Is salvation this transactional reality?
Pastor Jason Dunn: No.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus is contrasting here in verse 9.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Temporary wealth will fail.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Eternal dwellings will not.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Verse 11.
Pastor Jason Dunn: True riches is another way to say that.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This truth is echoed by the psalmist in Psalm 49, verses 7 and 9.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Truly, no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: For the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Will we trust wealth and abundance of riches for our lives?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The biggest savings account in the world cannot stop cancer, cannot stop you losing your job, cannot stop a car accident.
Pastor Jason Dunn: All of this will fail.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Money fails.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Our health fails.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jim Elliott, a missionary to the unreached people in Ecuador, understood what it means to make friends with temporary things, with unrighteous wealth, to be received into eternal glory.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Six years before he was martyred for his faith, he wrote, He is no fool who keeps what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jim Elliott trusted in the mercy of the master.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He knew that that mercy would not fail.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what did fail?
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's his life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And in response to that mercy, he gave his life away.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus is also the one who trusts in the God, the Father of all mercies.
Pastor Jason Dunn: God, the Father of all mercies, sends Jesus to claim, to purchase our debts, not just cancel them, but to purchase our debts.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus and Jesus, when he was here with his disciples elsewhere in John's Gospel, John chapter 14, he talks about preparing a way for us to eternal dwellings.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He will go on ahead and prepare a place for us with his own wealth, with his own obedience.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus was the better steward.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus was the faithful steward.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He trusted in the Master's mercy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He trusted in his father's mercy that he would be resurrected and raised.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That mercy of God would not fail Christ.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he canceled our debts with his own body and blood on the cross.
Pastor Jason Dunn: His blood, it says in 1 Peter 1, his blood ransomed us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It paid for our debt.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he prepares for our coming home to him now.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And now he sends the Spirit to help us to give our worldly wealth, this temporal wealth, away, as good stewards, making friends to join us in eternal dwellings.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Beloved, trust in the merciful God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: His mercy will not fail.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It is only his mercy that truly secures a future for yourself.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Let us pray.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Father, you are the Father and the good giver of all mercies.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We are grateful for your love and your mercy for us in this, that you have given your son, the true servant, the true steward, to ransom a people by paying our debt, by paying our debt with your blood, Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus, you are the one who not only uh pays our debt, but you welcome us into your arms, to a life, an eternal life with you, in communion with you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We are grateful for that.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Spirit, we ask now that you would fill us with peace, that you would fill us with joy, that you would fill us with security.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Help us to trust in the merciful character of our great God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We give you the glory.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Amen.