Luke 16:1-13

Only about two out of every thousand possible candidates for police dogs are actually selected. Go from the start of saying this could be a prospect to actually becoming a sworn in K9 officer. I think it's neat that they have, like full officer rights. I mean, they can't speak, they're not humans, but that's pretty cool.

They also are selected on the basis of temperament and agility, speed, skill, genetics, things like that. And it's not a small investment for a police department. On average, they spend at least $10,000, oftentimes significantly more than that in the whole training process. And you can't just get these dogs at Joe's petsmart. No, these are serious dogs and they help solve crimes.

And in some cases, even before they start, they help solve these crimes. After their initial training, though, they are only handled. They're led by one officer and they often live with that officer. They become part of the family, and any more than that is too much. Others are allowed to work with these highly trained critters, but they only take orders from one master.

Why? I mean, makes sense, doesn't it? It'd be confusing for the dog and you'd have competing interests if they listened to more than one person. It's best for everyone involved if they only have one.

Such a simple, small picture of devotion. In a way, it's also a picture of what the Christian life should be like, shouldn't it? Well, everybody should know who we belong to, who we take commands from, who gives marching orders, who calls the shots in our life. In other words, when we say that we're Christians, the New Testament paints this picture so clearly, so beautifully of how Christians are supposed to live and look and act and right to be. Christians, just in blunt terms, are supposed to look pretty weird.

We don't need them to look unnecessarily weird. But holiness is to be set apart. How we handle fill in the blank is going to often look different than the world. And so we should be looking and acting so holy, so quote, unquote weird, that we relieve the tension almost when we say that I'm a Christian, they say, ah, okay, that's why you're so strange, because you're a Christian. Nobody should wonder, nobody should ask, nobody should doubt who calls the shots, who our Lord is, who our Master is.

The text this morning is trying to prove to our hearts and minds that we cannot serve God and another. That's our big idea. You cannot serve God and another master. You cannot serve God and another master. The text is trying to prove this to the original hearers then and to us today, that you cannot serve God and another master.

There's two ways the text tries to do that. First is that one, you cannot serve God in your own interests. And two, you cannot serve God and money. One, you cannot serve God in your own interests. Two, you cannot serve God and money.

We also want to, before we get to our text this morning, say Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mother figures, to the mothers in the room. But also we recognize there is a significance, there's a weight maybe to that, and there's some significant maybe mixed emotions that come for everyone when it comes, when they hear the word mother. And so we acknowledge that to you, and we want to acknowledge that this is a space for you to bring those concerns, that hardship to your church family here. But from us to you, we want to say happy Mother's Day from your church family to you.

Hopefully you're able to celebrate in a way that's meaningful today or hopefully sometime soon.

Our passage is Luke 16, 1:13. That's on page 928 of the Pew Bibles. Luke 16 1:13, page 928 of your Pew Bible.

Now he said to the disciples, there was a rich man who received an accusation that his manager was squandering his possessions. So he called the manager in and asked, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you can no longer be my manager. Then the manager said to himself, what will I do since my master has taken the management away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig, I'm ashamed to beg.

I know what I'll do, that when I'm removed from management, people will cut and welcome me into their homes. So he summoned each one of his master's debtors. How much do you owe my master? He asked the first one. A hundred measures of olive oil, he said.

Take your invoice, he told him. Sit down quickly and write 50. Next he asked another, how much do you owe? A hundred measures of wheat, he said. Take your invoice, he told him, and write 80.

The master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of his age are more shrewd than the children of light in dealing with their own people. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth, so when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. And whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much. If you've not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with what is genuine?

If you've not been faithful, what belongs to someone else who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. This is the word of the Lord. Big idea this morning is you cannot serve God another master.

The first way the text looks to prove that to us is by showing that you cannot serve God and your own interests. And starting in verse one, Jesus is introducing us to a few different characters in this parable, right? So the parable is just the way Jesus gives an illustration in order to make a point. And so we're introduced to the rich man who is the landlord in this situation. He maybe owned a couple hundred acres, thousand acres, maybe hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and he couldn't be bothered to take care of each individual portion.

So he hires a manager. And this functioned fairly similarly to how property management works today, except for a lot more corruption. So if you rent was 1000 Minas, well, the manager was going to charge 1200 minus because he was going to get a little more on the top for himself. But regardless, it would have functions fairly similarly to how it does today. The manager would have done things like collect rent, pay taxes, handle day to day affairs of the properties.

And it seems to be what's going on. For one reason or another, the manager is getting fired. Maybe it's for embezzlement, maybe it's for poor performance, we don't really know. But it's very clear though what we do know is that he's called in to speak with his boss. And at the end of that conversation, he knows he no longer works for Jerusalem Star Properties.

And so he goes back to settling his affairs and he starts them all over. And you kind of get a peek behind the curtain of how he's handling this news. He kind of is mulling over, well, I can't beg, I'm way too proud to do that. My back's been bad since the 70s, so I can't dig or do hard labor for a living. And then there's a light bulb sort of moment.

He knows what he's going to do. He's going to cheat his boss. And so we see that happen. So he calls them in, he says, okay, you owe 100 measures of olive oil 50. And I don't know what the Guy who did in wheat is doing wrong because he only gets it cut from 100 to 80.

But instead of then reprimanding him, the Master commends him.

Instead of telling him, why did you cheat me? The Master says, you've acted shrewdly. That's just a way of saying you're aware of the situation, you understand the context.

And see Jesus here is a masterful storyteller because he knew that he had drawn his listeners in. This is not how they would have expected the manager to react. It's not how we would expect the manager to react when you find out that he's cheating him out of all this money. But he's drawn his listeners in with verses one through eight, one through eight. And he's not saying that wickedness is good.

But he sets up here verses 9 and 10. He's already got their attention so that they'll listen to verse 9 through 10. The high alert signals have gone off. And so in verse 9 and 10 they listen to where he says, and I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth, so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.

And whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much.

So they would have been shocked to hear the manager praising this unrighteous behavior. In a similar way to how we're shocked that Jesus just flipped the script on us, our good evangelical ears are thinking, sounds an awful lot like works. Righteousness. You can't. That surely doesn't mean that we're paying our way in or that we can buy this salvation.

But what Jesus is trying to point out to his hearers and in us today is just the opposite. He's saying no amount of anything can buy faithfulness. But he is saying only a heart that's transformed by the grace of God can give, actually sacrificially give more than just the actions, give more than just the outward appearance. Only a heart that's transformed by the grace of God can be faithful, because no amount of anything can buy faithfulness. Only a heart that's transformed by the grace of God can give money away to help people and look out for their needs in a real, genuine, self sacrificing way.

New Testament scholar Dr. I. Howard Marshall puts it this way.

This may sound suspiciously like salvation by works, but the point is surely that the giving of alms is just another say of giving to the poor. Giving of alms is a testimony to the reality of Discipleship and self denial. In any case, Jesus makes it quite clear that is the attitude of the heart to God that ultimately matters and not any outward show of giving charity. Only a heart that's actually changed can give and deny itself. Only a heart that finds its satisfaction in Christ can say, I lack nothing.

Only a heart that understands that it was saved by good works, not saved by good works, but to do good works. A heart that understands it was not saved by good works, but to do good works can actually live out this passage, right? A lot of times we read Ephesians 2, 8, 9 and we love that because it's true. By grace you have been saved, not by your works, so that no one may boast, but it's by grace through faith that we are saved. We stop reading in verse 9, we need to keep reading to verse 10.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, right? It says we're saved by grace through faith to do good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. We're not saved by good works, but we're saved to do good works. And so a heart that's changed, that's transformed, can actually do this passage, can actually do passages like Colossians 3, 23 and 24. Whatever you do, do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord.

You serve the Lord Christ. Only a heart that knows real rest is found in Christ can look out for the interests of others more than their own. Only then can we give and let go of things. Our possessions, times, talents, whatever, regardless of the cost to us. Only if a heart is changed or transformed by the grace of God, because Jesus did not look out for his own interests, we are freed from having to look out from our own for our own.

Because Christ, who was rich for his sake or for our sake, made himself poor, we can freely give what he's given to us. If we want to be men and women after God's own heart, we cannot serve our own interests. Because Jesus set aside what was comfortable for him. We can be comforted and we get to do the same. Brothers and sisters, you cannot serve God in your own interests, and you also cannot serve God.

And money cannot serve God and money. We turn our attention to verses 11 through 13.

This is the second way the text looks to prove its big idea that one cannot serve God and money. Jesus starts asking these questions in verses 11 and 12. And just a quick side note, if You've lived long enough. You probably understand that arguing with people never, ever works. Nobody's been argued into your viewpoint on just about anything is my guess.

And so how do you actually get somebody to come to your viewpoint? Well, you help them argue with themselves and see what's actually true. And Jesus does that all throughout the Gospels. You help them come to the realization of what is true. And so he's asking these questions that are leading questions, but they're getting to the point.

And so verse 11, we read, so if you've not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with what is genuine and right? That would stop and make us reflect? Well, I don't know. And this ties into and leads right from verses 9 and 10. And he picks up the theme of money.

This question could be rephrased from verse 11 to say, if you do not do what you're supposed to with physical gifts, what makes you think you can be faithful with what ultimately matters? And right. The answer is we can't. Then verse 12, and if you've not been faithful to what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own? And that's just asking the same question, but just in a different sort of way.

He's saying, if you can't handle what I've given you physically makes you think you can handle what ultimately matters. And we know when he talks about something that belongs to someone else, he's alluding to Psalm 38, where God says, salvation belongs to the Lord. It's his. If he can't handle what I've physically given you, what makes you think you can handle what belongs to me? And then he asserts what is true in verse 13.

No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. So Jesus using these questions to help us see, to help us understand that we can't, we can't do it. We can't do one and then the other. And he just bluntly says it, you can't serve both.

You can't serve two masters. You can't serve God and money.

You either worship God or you worship money. You're either devoted to God or you're devoted to money. And how many words a culture has for something often gives the significance to that thing. You understand how much the culture cares about it. So in Wisconsin, we have a lot of words for cheese.

We have different types of cheese. But also in America, we have Lots of different words, different slangs, terms for money. And I could start listing them and then I'd forget and it'd be embarrassing. Happened in first service. So I'm not doing it here.

But you can think of the different ways we describe money, the different ways we describe what money can do for us. What Jesus is pleading with them then and us now to see is that he must be of the utmost importance to us.

He must be of the utmost importance to us. Back in Luke 14 he says, you must hate your father and mother if you want to follow me. And he doesn't mean literally hate them, but it should look like we hate even our closest earthly relationships compared to how much we love him. In John 15 he says that apart from you can do absolutely nothing. What Jesus is trying to plead with us then, or sorry to plead with them then and us now.

Whoever would hear these words. He's saying, I am who you need, stop missing me. And yes we should. The Pharisees get it wrong a lot, but our hearts should be burned with them. The Son of God is standing right in front of them.

They're missing him. He's saying, I am who you need.

Because Jesus goes for the jugular here. Because he knows his audience, the Pharisees that he's speaking to. If we would cheat and read into verse 14 says that they're lovers of money. The Bible is using the word lover casually. No, it's a wedded to, completely tied to infatuated.

There's. They're inseparable. Pharisees loved money. It says that they scoffed at him when he said these things. They basically thought he was a fool.

He's going for the jugular here. Because the hard hearted Pharisees were concerned with being in positions of positions of influence because they use money maybe sure to care for the poor. But what they ultimately wanted was positions of power and prestige and fame. Money functioned just like it does now.

If you had money, you got a seat at the table. The Pharisees might have used their money to care for their poor. And outwardly their deeds were good, but their hearts were displeased to do it. It was a giving to please others, to know they were supposed to do this. But ultimately it was just a show.

It pained them to do that because they felt that it was actually theirs. They loved money, They wanted to keep what they felt was theirs, what they actually thought they needed. They might have even been able to say, God, I've given enough. But their hearts were not in it and they did not Trust God to be their everything. Their hearts would have pleaded, God, I've done this.

But they knew that it pained them to do that. And here they had the Son of God standing right in front of them, who is what they actually need, right? They should have known that he is the Messiah. He's fulfilling all these prophecies and he's standing right in front of them. Who's that?

What they actually need. And they just missed him.

Jesus is not content to just be a little portion or be a side note or a footnote of our lives. He must be everything. Charles Spurgeon, famous British preacher, puts it this way, if Christ is anything, he must be everything. Do not rest until love and faith in Jesus are the master passions of your soul. Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, did not come to have second place.

We either have Jesus or we don't. He did not come to be tucked into the neat little corner of our lives where he's convenient for us and we make time for him just occasionally. Every other Thursday morning, when the kids haven't been acting too bad, he said, he must be everything. He drives us home in John 6:35. He says, I am the bread of life.

Jesus told them, no one who comes to me will ever be hungry. And no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. Again. If you've been around church, you're maybe familiar that bread was not what it is today, where it's kind of like the side entree. No, the bread was everything.

It was the main course, it was the protein. It was what you came for. Jesus saying, I'm not the salad, I'm not the garnish. I'm not even an ice cold Pepsi. No, I am.

I am everything. He did not come to be subservient to money. He did not come to get our scraps. He is the whole thing. He's the whole point.

You cannot serve God another master. We shift our attention to the application. That doesn't mean we're that close to the end, but we're getting there. You cannot serve God another master. So that's what the text has been trying to prove to our hearts and to our minds.

This morning Jesus is saying, don't miss me. I'm what you need. I'm who you need. Two ways the text work to prove this to us is you cannot serve God in your own interests and you cannot serve God in money. You cannot serve God in your own interest and you cannot serve God in money.

So why can't you serve God in your own Interest, well, that's not the heart of God. God came Jesus in his flesh, right in his humanity set aside. Philippians 2 says that he did not take advantage of being God for our sake. He didn't look out for his own interests, his own humanly interests first. We trade our interests for his and for the good of others we don't consider our own, we consider his instead.

He also cannot serve God on money. He's not the side point. He's not a casual thing. He is everything. He's the main deal.

And he's worth setting aside prestige, power and fame for.

Yet, too often though, we put him in the back seat, don't we? We say, God, I know I should be giving to the work of ministry, but that means I might not get that second vacation this year or any vacation this year. Or we say, yeah, God, I know you want me to serve with my time, but that's really. I want to be getting something out of that.

We're reluctant to give over gifts or time or whatever. And we're quick to put God just into wherever it fits, wherever he fits. Why do these things happen then? Like Jesus has just given this clear command. Jesus has just given this clear command that we cannot serve God, another master.

Well, the answer why do we do these things? It has to do a lot with if you know Jesus or not. That's not to say that Christians can't still make these same mistakes. But if you don't know Jesus, then your application is simple. Turn to and trust him.

And let me explain to you at least give a brief case why? Because before you know Jesus, your master is yourself. You cannot serve God and another master. Before someone knows Christ. Let me just say this really frankly, their God is themselves.

That's not to say the people who don't know Jesus can't be perfectly pleasant. They can't do things like be phenomenal spouses or help elderly ladies cross the street, or donate kidneys to strangers or take in orphans. But ultimately, if you don't know Christ, you are living for yourself. Romans 6:16 puts it just bluntly. Don't you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one.

You obey either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. In other words, if you don't know Jesus, you do these things because you don't know any better. You quite literally can't help it. You're serving yourself, you're serving sin. And that's a master that was never meant to Be able to never meant to carry that weight.

It's a burden. If you're worshiping anything but Jesus, it could never hold up to that.

A life of self worship might lead to a happy earthly life, but it will absolutely never produce joy. It'll never actually lead to serving God. It will never lead to a deep, satisfied, rested, peace filled soul that surpass all understanding.

If the only master you've ever known is yourself in sin, then your application this morning is simple. Trust in Jesus. Confess to him that you're a sinner, that you need him, that you want to follow his ways instead of your own.

You can tell a prayer team member about that during the last song. You can find me after the service. We'd love to have that conversation with you. But if you're already a follower of Jesus, our application is going to be different. Yes, we can still sin, and we often do.

But if we keep reading that passage of Romans 6, we continue to verse 17 and 18. We find, but thank God that although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over. And having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. The Church. Father Augustine would say, we are now able not to sin.

That is good news. Before we knew Christ, that's all we knew. But now that we can know Jesus, we are able to not sin. We are able to be slaves of righteousness. We no longer have to serve the master of money or of self or of fame or of power.

But they. But then why do we slip into these things? Because we're justified sinners. We stand with God.

Am I doing something wrong? Ty?

Okay, but why do we still slip into sin? Like, why are we still guilty of being sinners? Like, why do we still answer the God of the lowercase G, God of self worship of another master. Maybe it's helpful to think of it this way. Every January, I go back to Marchesan to work in the Marcusan wrestling tournament.

And every time I go there, there's Mr. Laper. And he was my ninth grade geography teacher. And so when I hear his voice, I think about what assignment's gonna be due next. And I know that I better know that Uganda is next to Rwanda, it's next to Burundi in Africa. And I automatically, as soon as I hear his voice, I think of those things because for a time I was under his authority.

And so naturally, when I hear his voice, I want to respond in that sort of way.

I want to do what he wants me to do. And that is similar to what happens for the believer. We used to be under the authority of sin. And so when we hear its call, we think we have to respond.

Yet now that we belong to Christ, we do not have to sin. Sin is no longer our master. In fact, sin was never a good master. It took, it lied, it cheated, it stole from us. It promised things that it could never fulfill.

It was never helpful, it was never satisfied. It never had our best interests in mind. So let us then look to the one true Master who looked down for our own interests, who did not take advantage of being God for our sake. How do we serve God instead of another master? We have to look to Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face. Consider his love for you. Consider what he did for you. Consider what he does now for you as he prays for you at the right hand of the Father. If you can stop to consider that, friends, that Jesus right now prays for you if you are in Christ.

And then Also first John 2 says that he stands up when we sin. He stands as our advocate, God the Father.

When we, when we say he stands up and says, don't consider, don't consider theirs, consider.

How do we serve God instead of another master? It has to be rooted in knowing Christ and meditating on who he is and more and more until we see it. A lot of times we, our English Bibles use the word look and it doesn't really capture it. Its better word here is behold, we sang in first service, Behold our God. Be captured with, be amazed by, be so consumed with our God.

And when we say to meditate on Christ, a lot of times we think of meditating as sitting with legs crossed on a yoga mat of sorts and emptying our minds. No Christian meditation is considering this is true about God. This is a truth from the Scriptures. Let me then consider and meditate and dwell on these things. And how does this affect my life?

How should I then live?

Because until we just look at we behold, until we just look at him, until we see it, we won't understand that he is worth more than money or spending time how we want. We need to look at and understand that he is the better master. And if we ever want to change, we must grasp this.

Let me give you just two practical application questions if you're a follower of Jesus. Two practical application questions that can stand as a way of understanding if another master's crept in. 1. At any point in my day, do I stop to consider the goodness of Jesus?

At any point in my day do I stop to consider the goodness of Jesus.

2. What are the motivations behind why I do the things I do? It's okay to do things to please others, but if it's ultimately not rooted in pleasing God, then we're serving another master.

Let's consider then. Let us look at Let us behold Jesus the better. Master, I'm going to pray here in just a second, but take this time here during the final song. Consider how you might need to respond to what God's word, God's spirit is leading you to respond this morning. It's a gift that he offers to us.

I'm going to pray and I'll give you the chance to do just that. God, you are gracious, you are kind, you are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And we thank you that you are a master who cares for us, who knows us, understands. Thank you for this time to gather this morning to proclaim your word and to have your spirit lead and stern us and encourage us. We're going to be encouraged and convict us or we need to be convicted.

God, we love you and we praise you this morning. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.