Transcript of “Be Like the Shrewd Servant (Luke 16)” (Auto-Generated)
0:01I wanted to take a moment to talk about Luke 16.
0:05Specifically, the first parable in Luke 16 might be called the shrewd manager, or some might call it the dishonest manager.
0:19Just talk about that.
0:20I, I think that parable is really powerful.
0:23I draw from it all the time.
0:25And just, just, even today, I was talking to someone and they said, oh, II, I, I’ve struggled with that parable.
0:30Tell me why do you, you know, why do you, what do you draw from it?
0:33Because a lot of people I’ve talked to, he’s not the only one other people I’ve talked to have said this is a problematic parable and, and they, they struggle with it and how to apply it.
0:46What does it mean?
0:47It almost seems like Jesus is commending someone for being dishonest.
0:52And so so anyway, I, I, I’m hoping if I have insight here, I can share it with others.
0:58If you, if you read it for yourself, I’m not going to read the whole thing here.
1:02But, in Luke 16, you have this parable and it’s, it starts with this, man who, well, you have a rich man.
1:14Actually, he’s the one who owns everything.
1:18And then he has someone who is watching over his money for temp temporarily watching over his money.
1:24So he’s a manager of his money and all of a sudden he’s shown he’s been very wasteful with the money and, and his manager, the rich man finds out he’s been wasteful and he’s going to hold him to account.
1:45So when the man realizes that day of judgment is going to come, the day of reckoning, if you will, is going to come, he all of a sudden thinks about what do I want to happen at that day of reckoning, what is life going to be like after that day of reckoning?
2:04So the manager decides, well, let’s see who still owes, owes this rich man money or things, oil and stuff like that.
2:17And he finds, ok, this person owes this much to the rich man.
2:21I’m going to cut a deal with him actually.
2:24And, and I’ll say you only need to give me this much instead.
2:30And so the people were overjoyed, right?
2:34They got a deal.
2:36And so the manager kind of undercuts what they actually owed to, to his boss, the rich man.
2:47And he, he cuts these deals so that when the day of reckoning comes, those people will give him a home, they’ll give him a chance.
2:58He’ll, he’ll have life after the day of judgment, the day of reckoning if you will, he’s thinking about his state or his state, his state of being after the day of reckoning comes and he’s making decisions based on that.
3:15And, and it would seem they were dishonest, right?
3:20What he was doing or shrewd at least is the word that comes to my mind.
3:28And so even maybe hearing me, I may have said it in a little different way that hopefully you can start thinking about what God is teaching here.
3:36But even hearing me, you might say, well, that doesn’t seem all that great though, you know, didn’t his manager or the rich man.
3:46was he owed a lot more?
3:47And this guy is just, you know, basically bamboozling him here.
3:53And, but yet he is commended by Jesus and Jesus commends him and says, listen, he was shrewd.
4:01He thought he thought about the day of reckoning that he was going to have.
4:07He thought about his opportunity for the judgment and what would happen past that time of judgment?
4:16And he thought, well, what if I actually bless people with my, my man and my boss’s money?
4:28What if I bless people with my boss’s money instead of say you have to owe this much and therefore by blessing people with my boss’s money.
4:41The love I showed them or maybe love is not the right word, but the deal I gave them will bode well for me and they’ll bring me in after the day of judgment.
4:53OK.
4:55So I think this is all a beautiful, powerful set up.
4:57And I think it is actually best understood with when you contrast what Jesus says later in the same chapter of Luke 16.
5:07And that’s where he talks about a rich man.
5:13But we will say a temporarily rich man and Lazarus probably a familiar story and many have heard it called the Rich Man and Lazarus.
5:23But I think it’s appropriate to say he is temporarily rich.
5:28I think this story is seen as a contrast to the first story, the parable in Luke 16.
5:35And just by an aside, the rich man in Lazarus, it never, it’s never introduced as a parable.
5:41We don’t know that it is a parable.
5:42In fact, I think there’s reason to think it’s not a parable actually.
5:47But that aside, that’s just why I’m not calling it a parable because I don’t think it is.
5:52And even if it is, it’s really not introduced that way.
5:55But think about that story with the rich man in Lazarus.
6:01There you have this rich man who’s wasting his riches.
6:10He’s not thinking about the judgment, the day of reckoning to come.
6:15So that’s the contrast.
6:18And now where did he get all his riches from?
6:21I think if you know the Bible, you know where he gets his riches from, it’s not his, it actually belongs to God to God.
6:28I mean, it’s God’s riches.
6:29So now you think about that.
6:32He is in the exact position of the, the manager earlier in Luke 16.
6:39Is that parable, the rich man and with the rich man, Lazarus, the temporarily rich man, let me call him that he is holding on to money that doesn’t actually belong to him.
6:51Every bit of money we have in this life belongs to God who we will have to give an account to for what we do with what he’s given us.
7:00And I think it’s way beyond money and what he’s given with his time with talent with all sorts of things.
7:07So the temporarily rich man is, is, is, is holding on to God’s money and he has to give an account for what he’s going to do with God’s money and he’s wasting God’s money.
7:24He’s living, he’s living it up and he’s not really considering others around him.
7:31Now put a freeze there up to this point.
7:37The beginning of the story with the rich man, Lazarus is the exact same.
7:41I hope you see that.
7:42It’s the exact same as the shrewd manager.
7:47The shrewd manager is holding on to a rich man’s money just like the temporarily rich man is holding on to God’s money and the shrewd manager is living it up.
8:00He’s being wasteful with money that doesn’t belong to him just like the temporarily rich man.
8:07And the, and the rich man, Lazarus story is being wasteful with the things that don’t ultimately belong to him.
8:15And then there is a day of reckoning a day of judgment for how he’s handling his resources that’s coming up.
8:25So that is the epitome, that is the exact thing, the exact same story, right?
8:29Different different names, but it’s the exact same thing.
8:34But then here’s where the contrast is drawn out with the story of the temporarily rich man in Lazarus.
8:43He does not really think about life after the day of reckoning.
8:49He doesn’t think about life after judgment.
8:51He just keeps living it up.
8:53And the scary part of that whole story is even though he didn’t think about it, it still happened life after judgment happened and it was horrific.
9:04He had no more riches clearly.
9:07And Lazarus who if he would have treated him differently, who could have said, well, that man is a friend of mine because Lazarus is with God.
9:21Lazarus could have said he was so generous with me.
9:26Lazarus was in a position if you will in eternity to welcome the temporarily rich man to stay with them in eternity.
9:39He was in Abrams bosom.
9:40He was in a position.
9:42But he can say, you know, or God could say, you know that temporarily rich man, he had my resources all the time and he never once thought about Lazarus.
9:58So now that the time of reckoning has come, he has he has nowhere but a horrific end in judgment.
10:08Ok?
10:08So that’s where I hope you’re seeing the contrast here, right?
10:11Because in the, in the, the shrewd manager, the parable at the beginning of Luke 16, he did think about life after judgment.
10:22He did think about life after the time of reckoning and he did.
10:26And so he used what belonged to his boss.
10:34He used that to bless these people.
10:37Now, it’s true.
10:38These people owed the boss money and they were, they weren’t going to be able to pay up on that.
10:45Well, guess what?
10:45That’s all of us guys.
10:47We all owe God in ways.
10:49We can never pay up.
10:50Our debt is nothing we could ever pay.
10:54That’s why he had to pay it on the cross.
10:56So we all owe him tremendously.
11:03In fact, the scripture comes to mind.
11:04Oh, no man.
11:04Anything except to love one another, like don’t be in debt to each other, go the extra mile to love them.
11:12So we all owe God more than we can ever pay.
11:17We’re all going to be held to account.
11:19So then what can we do with what God has given us?
11:22We can look for ways to bless others because whatever they owe us is actually what they owe God if that makes sense because it’s God’s money anyway.
11:33So if we, if we take $1000 let’s say of, of what God has given us and we give it to someone else and they can’t pay us back.
11:41It’s God, who gets the loss there?
11:44Right.
11:44Because God gave us $1000 we gave it out and now all of a sudden, God doesn’t have the $1000.
11:50We’re not holding on to his $1000 anymore.
11:52Right.
11:54So what can we do?
11:55We could forgive them, we could come up with the payment plan, maybe like in the viable payment plan without interest anyway.
12:04I hope you get my point.
12:05The point is that we are in a position.
12:11I believe that with thinking about these two stories, one is a parable.
12:15One is not called a parable, but the temporarily rich man in Lazarus.
12:19And thinking about these two stories, we are now in a position.
12:24We have time and money on loan from God.
12:29We’ve already been wasteful with it.
12:31There’s no way you can make up where we owe God.
12:34There’s going to be a time of reckoning.
12:36And the question is, are we going to think about eternity?
12:40What’s going to happen with that time of reckoning?
12:44Does that prompt us to live different?
12:47Does it prompt us?
12:48In fact to love to sacrificially, love others with what has been given us on loan?
12:55If it does prompt that, then it’s a sign that we actually have been born again.
13:01It says love is the ultimate sign.
13:02It’s a sign that we’re with Jesus and we will inherit the kingdom to come.
13:09But if you, if you sit there with indifference and I’m, this is my hard earned money and you forget that it actually is all on loan from God.
13:17Or you’re not thinking about the judgment to come and you’re just living on your life and the saddest state is you’re going to have to deal with God and the judgment to come.
13:29And, and it’s gonna be serious as we can see, it’s gonna be very serious.
13:36And, maybe one thing to add here, if perhaps if this story was the only thing in the Bible, you might think, oh, I guess God does believe in works based salvation.
13:48Like how much do we give?
13:50How much do you know whatever?
13:51But a this isn’t the only story in the Bible.
13:55There’s a lot more.
13:56But b even from these stories, I think we can draw out some things that one thing is that both of them were wasteful.
14:06We all are in debt to God.
14:09So we hope He shows mercy and we can see His mercy on the cross.
14:15And when we understand that we understand what we’ve been forgiven of it says, then we are empowered to forgive others.
14:21When we understand the great love of God only then will we love others?
14:25It’s a sign that we have been saved, that we love others.
14:29It’s a sign that the spirit is in us, that we love others with such radical generosity.
14:34So you cannot bypass true salvation in Christ alone and think of these stories and say, yeah, I’m just going to do all these good works.
14:43I’m going to give to the poor who on you first Corinthians 13.
14:47It actually says you could give all your stuff to the poor and have no love and you gain nothing.
14:52So bummer, you have to go through Christ who is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate, forgive the ultimate lover.
15:00But I do think it’s trying to draw out something in these stories.
15:03I think that’s the power of them.
15:04So it’s kind of like Jesus, you know, he gives different aspects and only if you hold the whole thing together.
15:08Do you get the whole picture?
15:09But the aspect here he’s drawing out is your life is on loan from God.
15:17He’s put people in your life like a Lazarus who’s in need.
15:22You don’t have anything that belongs to you.
15:23What are you going to do with what God has given you temporarily on loan?
15:26Are you thinking about the judgment to come or are you going to be like the rich man?
15:30Totally temporarily the rich man, totally oblivious.
15:33Only to later realize you really did have nothing.
15:38He really had nothing.
15:39It was all on loan from God.
15:43And so I think bringing a full circle, I think all that to say the parable with the dishonest or the parable with the shrewd manager.
15:53He’s not, I don’t think he’s commended for being dishonest.
15:56That’s not the point.
15:57He’s commended for thinking about the judgment to come.
16:00He’s commended for doing, for thinking about others, even though it’s kind of self centered, but at least he’s thinking about others in light of the judgment to come.
16:10And Jesus, his whole rebuke is a even he gets it, someone who is totally not a good guy.
16:18He still knows there’s a judgment to come in his own life and he should act accordingly.
16:22He should change the way he lives.
16:24He knows what he has is on loan from God and from his, from his boss, he knows that.
16:32And he’s like, and this guy is an unsavory guy.
16:34He’s not a good guy, but he even he can figure that out.
16:40So if he can figure that out, whoa on you, who on all of us when we have more light about who God is and about what the right thing is to do well on us.
16:51If we don’t think about the judgment to come, if we don’t think about those that God has put in our life, if we don’t think about that, everything we have is on loan from God.
17:01So I hope that helps.
17:02I hope that brings us all to consider the ways of the Lord more.
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