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Please stand for the reading of God’s Word. Our text for the sermon this morning is from the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16, verses 1 through 13, and that is on page 1040 of your Pew Bibles, if you need the page number. This is God’s Word, Luke chapter 16. He said also 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. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be a manager.’
“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking away the management from me? I am not strong enough to dig. And I am ashamed to beg.’ I have decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’
“So he summoned his master’s debtors one by one. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘One hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and write eighty.’
“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. One who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 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. You cannot serve God and money.”
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we ask now that you would be near by your Spirit. You have inspired this word and preserved it for our instruction. And now, Lord, we ask that you would quicken our hearts, that we would not be dead to this, your living word, but by your Spirit, it would be life to us. We ask that in the preaching and the hearing, your Spirit would be present, giving life to your people, and that which is true from you might sink deep into our hearts and transform us into the likeness of Christ.
We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. Before I left for the summer, we were studying a series on parables. So we are continuing some of those parables this morning and again later tonight. Next week, we will do one more before beginning our series on Samuel in the fall. This morning, the message is titled “A Good Principle from a Bad Example.” You may have seen the film called Catch Me If You Can. It is an older film, based on a true story.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays the character Frank, a teenage con artist who forges checks and impersonates various people, always staying one step ahead of the FBI. He impersonates a pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, always staying one step ahead. He learns to forge checks and other forms of money. He is charming, quick-witted, and remarkably inventive. Scene after scene, we watch him manipulate systems, act boldly, create false identities, and turn desperate situations into opportunities. Yet throughout the film, we find ourselves torn, because everything he does is wrong. He commits crimes repeatedly, and eventually the law catches up with him, and he is imprisoned.
But we find ourselves admiring his shrewdness, and in fact, the officer who imprisons him eventually grants him a lenient sentence and employs him to work for the FBI, catching fraudsters, inventing new methods for detecting counterfeit checks, and identifying counterfeit money.
I believe this situation, and the feeling we experience while watching that film, is similar to the feeling we have when we read this parable this morning—the parable of the dishonest manager. We read it with a sense of puzzlement and discomfort. There seems to be no clear hero. The main character is a dishonest manager who has been wasting his master’s possessions.
As he is about to be dismissed, he devises a plan to secure his future by increasing his deception, committing actions that appear to be further wrongdoing. Yet instead of being fully condemned, he is commended—not for his character, not for his honesty, but for his shrewdness. It is the way he recognized the coming crisis and acted decisively to secure his future.
This is especially troubling because Jesus says we can learn from this dishonest character, who acts in a criminal manner. He says, “The people of this world are often more shrewd in dealing with their own affairs than the people of God are in preparing for eternity.”
So this morning, we will examine what is happening in this story and how we can draw a good principle from a bad example in this unusual narrative, which may initially cause us to feel uneasy. But when we look more closely, we may begin to understand what is truly taking place. We will consider first, a bad example. Second, an eternal principle. And third, the importance of inconspicuous faithfulness. So, first, a bad example. As I mentioned earlier, this story tends to make us feel uneasy. We have the story laid out.
There is a rich man who has a manager. We do not know much about this rich man, but the main point is that charges were brought to him, stating that the manager is wasting his possessions. The rich man hears this report. There is evidence of serious negligence. This man is mismanaging his resources. Either he is simply ineffective in his role, or more likely, he is diverting some of the funds for himself. This is especially likely, given the way he acts shortly after this.
The rich man calls the manager to himself in verse two and says, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” The report the rich man hears is credible. The manager has no defense. He does not respond by saying, “You have misunderstood me. You are wrong.” Instead, he immediately recognizes that he has been discovered. He has been found guilty of fraud.
His response is not to make excuses, but to think quickly: What can I do? I have already been dishonest with my employer. What else can I do to secure my future and prepare for what is coming? He reflects, and we are placed inside his thoughts. I am not strong enough to work with my hands, and I am ashamed to beg.
What are my options? Then, in verse four, in the Greek, it is a clear declaration: I have decided what to do. I know. I will act in such a way that when I am removed from my position, people may welcome me into their homes. He determines that he must make friends for the future. He must have people who will support him. He is losing his position. He is losing his livelihood. He needs at least people who will accept him, whom he can gain favor with or befriend in some way. So he summons the master’s debtors and asks, “How much do you owe my master?”
A hundred measures of oil. This reduction in the bill likely represented at least a year’s wages worth of oil, given the amount of 875 gallons. Therefore, it was not a small amount of oil. The 100 measures of oil correspond to the 875 gallons, and reducing that by 50% would amount to at least a year’s wages. As people come to this passage and seek to understand its meaning, there are several interpretive options that scholars and commentators have proposed.
One suggestion is that the manager’s reduction of the bill may have made the owner appear generous. Although the action was wrong, it at least made the owner seem generous. Then, when the master learns of it, he may have been unwilling to appear stingy or harsh by reversing the reduction and restoring the original amount.
Some have suggested that this was the reason the master commended the manager—because, even though the action was wrong, it made the master look good. However, in verse 8, the master commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. The term “dishonest manager” is repeated, indicating that the master does not describe him as good. The master does not commend him for making him look good, but only for his shrewdness. Furthermore, when we examine the details of how the reduction occurred, the manager instructs each debtor individually: “Sit down quickly and write fifty,” or “Take your bill and write eighty.”
The haste and the secrecy of the manager make it seem much more like a case of fraud than an attempt to make the master appear generous. If he were truly trying to uphold the master’s reputation, we would expect some explanation that the master has forgiven part of your debt, rather than secretly writing it down. Some have suggested that perhaps the point is the good rich man, the good owner, who dismisses a dishonest manager, and that the hero is the wealthy man who removed a bad employee. But this interpretation does not fit the full meaning of the passage, because it is the dishonest manager who is commended for shrewdness, not the owner for his righteous dismissal of an unfaithful servant.
Furthermore, as we continue to consider the possibilities, some have suggested that the reduction may have been a commission, that the manager was reducing his own commission. That he was lowering the bill, but only reducing the amount he would receive for himself. The fact that he reduces the first bill by 50% stretches credibility to the breaking point, especially if he were to receive a full 50% commission. The idea that the manager may have been charging interest and reducing the bill by the amount of interest being charged also seems highly unlikely, as it would imply an extremely high rate of interest.
And so we come to the essence of the story, which is that I think we must see this middle manager as a truly dishonest and fraudulent character who is not doing anything right in these cases. He has been committing fraud the whole time, defrauding his master, and his actions here are not those of someone trying to portray the master as good, but merely someone trying to preserve his own position by gaining favor with these debtors. It appears that by involving the debtors, he is making them partners in his fraud. He seems to be placing them partially in his debt by asking them to join him in fraudulently deceiving his former master. He is called the steward of unrighteousness or the dishonest steward. The word in Greek is the word that appears frequently throughout the text to describe unrighteousness. And so the fact that the manager does not argue, knowing he has been a cheat, means his only option is to figure out how to get away with what he has done.
The fact that he is involving others, bringing them into partnership in his wrongdoing, I believe points clearly to the fact that this is a man who is not a good example. He is a bad example of the actions he is taking. Yet this still leaves us with a sense of discomfort, because Jesus portrays this man as someone from whom we should take a lesson.
And perhaps part of our struggle comes from the fact that when we take this analogy, when we take these parables, we like to find meaning in all of the details that are present. And sometimes we can take too much meaning from a parable. Therefore, I think this is a parable that is very much in the realm of reminding us to be careful about how much meaning we draw from these stories. Since this parable does not contain everything that we might admire, we must carefully limit ourselves to what is commended and what is not.
Secondly, as we look at this parable, we find a surprising point. A surprising point that is this eternal principle. This eternal principle that Jesus draws from our parable. He commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.
Now you and I may not be as accustomed to evaluating, commending, or valuing shrewdness in the same way that the ancient world was. I do not know how many of you have read Homer’s Odyssey. Perhaps the recent film has sparked some interest in the original work. But in that work, you find Homer displaying the ideals of his day in the Greek world, the Greek culture, of admiration for a character who was shrewd.
Odysseus is commended by various characters, including the gods. He is seen as especially admirable for his shrewdness. Now certainly, as we look from a Christian standpoint, we see much about his character and morality to be questionable, to be suspect. But for the Greeks, shrewdness was a very important character trait, something to be truly admired. We also see similar ideas in the Jewish mindset. We can find various Old Testament characters who, despite not always being full of integrity, were full of shrewdness. Even the fact that, for instance, Abraham, as he goes down to Egypt, through his deception, becomes wealthy.
And he is rebuked a little for his character, but there is an element in which his shrewdness was commendable. I believe this is what is happening here: the commendation of this dishonest manager. Despite his character flaws, he was someone who was shrewd.
Perhaps it might help to consider how one commentator has described this scene in more modern terms. One commentator says the scene could be understood as a recently terminated middle manager who negotiates with company debtors on the main floor of the corporate headquarters while his CEO sits in the boardroom upstairs. When the CEO learns what has happened, he says in admiring disbelief, I have to admit, you turned a dismissal into a promotion. Thus, this scene portrays a man losing his position yet gaining more friends, even though his actions were dishonest. Therefore, what we are to take from this parable is not the actions of this dishonest manager, but his attitude. He understood, I must act now. I cannot wait. He prepared for the future through prudent planning.
Jesus is saying that, despite this man’s lack of character, what he demonstrated was foresight, which Jesus finds lacking in many others. This man prepared for his future with greater foresight and diligence than the typical religious person plans for his eternal future with God. This is what we see in verse 8: For the sons of this world, Jesus says, are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. This contrast is between the sons of this age—the Greek word is aion—and the sons of light.
And Jesus is saying that there is shrewdness among people who may not have the best character, but who are thinking carefully and making plans. He says this is the lesson to be learned. You might recall Jesus sending out his disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew, he tells them, “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves, and I am urging you, I am commanding you, be as wise as serpents, and yet innocent as doves.” This is the same principle that Jesus is teaching us in our text. He is calling us to be wise, calling his disciples to be wise as serpents.
Serpents were not considered commendable animals. We think of the serpent in the garden. It was said to be the wisest among all the creatures, possessed by Satan and used to deceive Adam and Eve. Yet Jesus says, “Be wise as serpents,” not to imitate their deceit, not to commit unrighteous actions, but to use that same wisdom in the service of integrity, in the service of innocence.
Jesus’ commendation is to be wise and shrewd, but not dishonest or immoral, not to compromise our integrity. The manager displayed shrewdness and ingenuity, but in the service of dishonesty. We, his disciples, are to take concern and have a mindset oriented toward eternity. So often we go about our lives thinking only about the present age. And Jesus says that is foolishness. This man knew judgment was coming, and he made preparations. Jesus asks how many people walk through life thinking only about this life, with no thought for the life to come. Here, this dishonest manager serves as an example for all of us. A few chapters earlier, Jesus told a short parable about a rich man who amassed wealth without any thought for the future. In chapter 12, Jesus tells the story of a rich man who said to himself, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” And he had no thought for the future. And Jesus said, “Fool, this night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” That is in contrast to this parable, in which the master praises the scoundrel for his ingenuity in finding a way to provide for his future using his soon-to-be-lost financial power. And Jesus is telling us: do not be like the rich man who prepared only for his future in this life. But be like this steward who took thought for the future beyond his current circumstances. He knew he was losing his position, and he made preparations for what was coming next.
Jesus is directing this parable against those who believe they have nothing. They do not need to worry about the future. They should have no concern for what comes next. But eternity is certain. God’s judgment is coming. For those of us who are in Christ, we have glory to think of, glory to prepare for, and it is meant to be prepared for now. We are to use our wealth and our resources in the service of what comes next, in the service of the eternal kingdom.
Just as the manager, though dishonest, did not wait for judgment to come before acting, he immediately acted as though his future depended on it, because it did. So we too are called to live in light of that future reality, as though it is certain. In our parable, Jesus turns to the subject of wealth and riches. The lesson is clear: honesty and dishonesty in the use of our wealth, even in small matters, are shaped by what we have placed our minds on, what we have placed our hearts on, and what we are expecting.
Therefore, number three, we see in our passage the importance of faithfulness that is unseen. By this I mean small, unobserved actions. In the lesson given in verse 10, Jesus says one of the lessons to take away is this: one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. One who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. He is saying that our integrity, our faithfulness, and our actions in light of eternity begin with small decisions. Faithfulness is cultivated in the small, the ordinary, and the mundane.
Integrity is not acting the right way when everyone can see you, but integrity is acting the right way even when no one else can see. This is the very opposite of the world’s values, but Jesus is saying, use wisdom, consider eternity, and then act in the present, even in the small things. As he says in verse 9, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
At first, we might misunderstand and think that Jesus is saying you can buy your way into heaven. But of course, we know that is not the case, because if that were true, if eternity with God could be purchased with money, Jesus would never have come. He would never have gone to the cross.
But because Jesus did come, he came as a man for the very purpose of living a life as a human, and for the very purpose of then dying on the cross. This is because eternity cannot be purchased with money, but must be obtained through the blood of God. That is why Jesus came. That is why Jesus came to teach.
But primarily to die on the cross and, of course, to be raised again. So that our sins could be paid for, so that our salvation could be purchased, and so that we could have new life. He offers this to everyone who believes in him. This is, of course, the primary thing we find him teaching about: having a mind for eternity. If you are living your life only for this life, with no thought for the future, or if you believe that wealth and riches can buy your way into favor with God, you are sadly mistaken. The only way to find favor with God is to place your faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who has come. That means giving up all control over your own life, and means turning even the things such as your wealth over to the Lord.
So Jesus is not saying that you can buy your way into heaven, but he is saying that what you do with your wealth does matter. What we do in these small matters, in light of eternity, in light of streets of gold, in light of the riches of heaven, even millionaires here on this earth are dealing with insignificant things, like pennies, when compared to eternity. And we see Jesus speaking of when wealth fails.
So when it fails, in verse 9, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. The “they” there does not refer to a specific person in the passage, but seems to be a general reference to those in the heavenly places. They will receive you into eternal dwellings. And it is interesting that there is actually a wordplay here. If you were looking at this in the Greek, you might see that the word for eternal dwellings here is the word for tent or tabernacle. So one could understand that if you place your trust in unrighteous wealth, you are placing your trust in a temporary tent. Yet Jesus is turning this around to say that when unrighteous wealth fails, if you have been faithful in what is passing away, then you will receive an eternal reward in heaven.
A faithfulness that is rooted in setting your mind on heaven. For wealth is meant to be used in the service of greater ends. We see Paul reflecting on and elaborating on Jesus’ teaching here, as he does elsewhere, but primarily in his passage to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6, verses 17–19, the Apostle Paul gives an exhortation to the rich in this present age, to those who have what would be considered wealth, to those who possess this unrighteous wealth, who have these means. And he says, “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” I think the Apostle Paul was thinking precisely of this parable that we are examining this morning. Jesus is teaching here and summarizing it in this passage.
He charges us not to put our trust in riches, but to set our sights and set our hope on eternal life. Honoring God with our money and our possessions means putting His kingdom first. It does not mean giving it away irresponsibly, but it also does not mean gripping it greedily. Generosity is repeatedly described in the Bible as an eternal investment. In fact, in Proverbs, we find a proverb stating that he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord.
We are meant to see our earthly possessions in light of eternity, in light of how they can direct our hearts toward heaven. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” We are meant to direct our hearts by intentionally placing our wealth there. The way to live well on earth is to have our hearts fixed on heaven. And Jesus speaks of giving to those who cannot give back in order to have treasure in heaven.
And we find this understanding reinforced by the etymology of the word mammon. If you were reading this in the King James Version, you would encounter the word mammon. This is a transliteration from the Greek. We no longer use this term in common speech. It occurs only four times in the New Testament, in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke.
In verse 11, the phrase “unrighteous wealth” is the term mammon, which likely derives from the Hebrew word aman, meaning “to place your trust in something.” This is probably why Jesus uses this term here. He uses the words money or riches, and other Greek terms, but in contexts where he speaks of not placing your trust in them, he uses the term mammon to refer to riches with the sense that they tend to draw our hearts and lead us to trust in them. This mammon of unrighteousness relates to the steward of unrighteousness. Jesus says that although we should use this wealth, we should not put our trust in it. We see Jesus reinforcing this in verse 13. He turns in verse 13 to speak about two masters. At first, this may seem to come out of nowhere. Why is he suddenly speaking about two masters? He is addressing the tendency of mammon, of earthly wealth, which we are meant to use responsibly for God’s kingdom, to seek to become our master. It tends to draw our hearts away from the Lord. He says, these two loves demand exclusive devotion within our hearts. Neither God nor mammon will accept partial allegiance. God demands your whole heart, and wealth will not be satisfied with only partial trust. It seeks complete devotion.
And so Jesus is saying that even in the smallest matters—those small decisions—we must be careful to place God and His kingdom first in how we live our lives and make our decisions. For when wealth and possessions control a person, that person has lost even the shrewdness of the people of this world and cannot be counted among the people of the light. The only way the mammon of unrighteousness can be placed in its proper position in our hearts is to ensure that God alone is Lord and Master, and to show that Lordship by using His money and wealth in God’s service. So here is the good principle from this bad example: the dishonest manager was wrong in almost every way, but he was right about one crucial matter. He understood that his time was short, that eternity and judgment were coming, and that he needed to act immediately with everything he had left.
As we have seen, Jesus is not calling us to dishonesty, but He is calling us to the same urgent, clear-eyed shrewdness and wisdom—directed toward eternal realities. The sons of this world pour creativity, energy, and determination into securing a future that will not last. How much more should we be concerned to pour those same gifts, all of our wisdom, and all of our energy into the future that will never end, which we have secured in Christ. This shrewdness involves living faithfully in ordinary ways and making ordinary decisions. It looks like faithfulness with unrighteous wealth—the money and possessions that belong to this passing age. Not because money can buy heaven, of course, only the blood of Jesus purchases our salvation, but because the way we use it reveals and shapes our hearts. And when we treat it as a tool for the kingdom, rather than as security or status, or as something to trust in, we are training our hearts to trust the only Master who can truly keep us forever.
So as we close, examine your life honestly today. Where are you being shrewd for temporary things or careless about eternal things? Where has money begun to function as a rival master, promising security, identity, or happiness that only God can give? And where might quiet faithful stewardship, generosity, and integrity in the small things become an act of worship that points your heart toward the eternal dwellings?
We act because we know a far greater judgment has already been borne for our sake by another, and a far greater security has already been secured in Christ. So let that free us, not to be careless, but to be shrewd, to be wise. Just as the virgins in the parable Jesus spoke of prepared for the future, so too should we practice this same wisdom—not to grasp, but to give, not to serve money, but to give and use everything we have in the service of the only master worth serving forever. So may the Lord make us people who are wise as serpents and yet innocent as doves, faithful in the small things and single-hearted toward him, rich toward God in Jesus Christ.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our God and our Father in heaven, we thank you for the eternity that we have secured in Christ. We ask that you would set our hearts upon it. Give us confidence and hope in the future that we have in Christ, that we might live now in the present with wisdom, with godly wisdom—wisdom that has an eye for the future and integrity in faithfulness in the small things, even when no one sees but you alone. We pray that you would give this by your grace. In Jesus’ name, amen. In response, let’s turn and sing hymn 500. Hymn 500. Let’s stand and sing hymn 500. Father, I know that all my life.