Sermon Transcript
While I was at the beach last week, somebody asked me how my summer’s going, what am I doing with my summer, and I— it made me kind of just stop and think, well, you know, I sure hope what I’m doing is worthwhile, that I’m not wasting my summer, that I’m gonna, as my parents used to say, I’m gonna have something to show for what it is I’ve been doing this summer at the end of the summer, because you don’t want to waste your summer. For that matter, we just don’t want to waste our lives, do we? We want to make the most of our lives. We want to make the most of what we’ve been told would be 3 key areas: our time, we want to make the most of our talents, and we want to make the most of our treasures. Well, today we’re going to look at a passage that can help us make the most of our treasures, our treasures.
We’ve been doing this study in the stories that Jesus told, and the pictures are up here of the ones that we’ve already looked at, and today actually there’s one right over here. It’s in the dark right now, but that picture pictures the story that we’re gonna be talking about, and it’s found in Luke chapter 16. So if you have your Bible, you might wanna turn there with us because it’s a story that focuses— Jesus focused on money. He focused on treasures. We haven’t done in any of these parables so far a parable on money or treasures, so If this is the first time you’ve come to the church, don’t leave saying, oh, I get it, it’s one of those churches that talks about money like every week or something.
No, actually this is a 12-part series and this is just one of the stories that Jesus told about money, but we wanted to focus on this. And I think it’s gonna be interesting for us because basically what Jesus is gonna teach us out of this parable is how to be how to use money in a wise way. This valuable resource that God has given to us, how not to be wasteful with your money. Now I’m sure that all of us have wasted money. In fact, as I was praying over this message and thinking about, you know, wasting money and if I’ve wasted money on anything in the past, this came to mind.
This is a plane finder, a plane, P-L-A-N-E finder, okay? And, and what this is, is that this is something that I saw on TV that I just had to have because I’m a golfer, or I’m a wannabe golfer actually. And, and Hank Haney, who was selling this, said that if you buy this, this will teach you how to have a proper swing plane. So I saw this and I said, this is what I need. This is the answer to all of my golfing problems.
So I got on board and I paid them $100 for this thing. $100. I bought this, I bought this about 10 years ago and it’s been sitting out in the backyard in the shed for the 7 and a half years that we’ve lived here. It’s never moved. And the reason why it never moved is because I had tried it once or twice when we lived in Phoenix, you know, the golf capital of the world, and I couldn’t make the thing work.
I couldn’t— I mean, it didn’t work for me. I mean, it just showed all my flaws. What can I say?
And so I put it away and I’ve never tried it again since, but it’s valuable and that’s why I keep it.
In fact, I went online yesterday just to check and see, you know, if you could still buy this because the regular price is $149.95.
I got it for $100. And you can’t buy this anymore. It’s out of stock. It’s out of stock. Can you believe that?
So I maybe am one of the few in the United States that still have one of these.
And the reason I’m keeping it is just in case it ever, you know, might help me. I want to— but I would be willing to sell it to anybody here this morning.
Especially since it’s out of stock. This is a valuable— this is a valuable golf gadget right here.
Now, I’m sure that any one of us could probably take a little bit of time and figure out something that we wasted some money on. I’m not talking about ice cream, okay? No, that’s not a waste. I’m talking about, you know, something that you still got in the garage or wherever it is, and you thought, I just gotta have this. This is gonna make my life better.
And so you bought it, and, you know, it didn’t really make your life better. All of us face the possibility of wasting money. So this parable that Jesus gets at here is really important, and it’s not just important because we might end up with something that’s supposedly valuable that proves not to be valuable. But even more so because all that we own is God’s. Are you familiar with that teaching in the scriptures such as Psalm 24:1, the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.
God owns the money that we call our money. It’s his money. He owns our treasures. We are but managers of what God owns, and therefore, if for no other reason, valuable or not, therefore we want to take the money that God has given us and not waste it. We want to use it wisely.
And so Jesus in Luke chapter 16 addresses that very issue so that we could be better investors, so that we could be better spenders of God’s money. So Jesus begins the story this way in Luke chapter 16, verse 1. Jesus told his disciples that there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. The manager’s job, if you know, was to care for the rich owner’s estate. He was to care for all of this estate, and that’s what a good steward would do.
A steward would take care of things in an appropriate way, would be wise in the decisions that he was making. But this particular manager— Jesus paints this picture for his disciples and others who are listening in— this particular manager wasted the owner’s estate. He bought plane finders and other junk with the master’s hard-earned bucks. So what does the owner do? Well, probably what you would do if you were the owner and you had a manager that was wasting the money, that was, you know, spending money on things that should not be spent on, or, you know, using the expense account in inappropriate ways, whatever it might be.
So what does he do? He calls in this manager. The owner calls in this manager, and basically what you have is a come-to-Jesus conversation. Luke 16:2, so he called him in and he asked him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer.
In other words, what’s going on is a serious mismanagement accusation that’s brought to this individual. What you’ve done is you’ve messed up. You’ve messed up to such a degree that you’re fired. You don’t have a job any longer. But the boss evidently gave the guy a little bit of grace, and so he gives him a little bit of time.
We’re not told how much time, a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, I don’t know, to clear out his office. But basically what you have then is an unstated period of time where then this happens, verse 3. The manager said to himself, What shall I do now? My master has taken away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg.
I know what I’ll do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses. So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, how much do you owe my master? 800 gallons of oil, he replied. The manager told him, Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it 400.
And then he asked the second, and how much do you owe? 1,000 bushels of wheat, he replied. He told him, take your bill and make it 800. Now what happens? Well, this manager now who’s basically got just a few days left on the job, who’s been accused of being wasteful, This wasteful, now fired manager, before he turns in his keys, he has a final meeting, which turns into a couple more meetings, but the first meeting is with himself.
Basically, he asks himself, so what am I gonna do now that I’ve lost my job? And he comes up with 2 possibilities, and you see them in verse 3. He comes up first with, well, I could do manual labor. Or secondly, I could beg. And he decides that manual labor’s out for him because he’s too weak for that.
And he decides that begging is out for him because he’s too proud for that. So he’s too weak for one and he’s too proud for the other. But he thought of a third option, verse 4, and this option, quite frankly, is a dishonest option. Call it whatever you wanna call it. Maybe he called it an unemployment insurance benefit, a if I help you then you’re gonna help me kind of job unemployment benefit.
But he decides that he would call in some people who evidently are indebted to his master. And so 2 people come in who owe his boss a lot of money. And after asking them, verse 5, how much they owed the rich owner, He offered them essentially a deal that they could not refuse. What was the deal? Well, verse 6, to the first debtor who owned 800 gallons of olive oil.
Now that’s a lot of olive oil. In fact, it’s the yield of 150 olive trees. The fired manager told this guy that he would cut his bill in half, and the assumption here is that he did that. Who wouldn’t want, you know, a 50% reduction on one’s debt? So he basically comes to an agreement with this person.
And the second debtor, verse 7, owed the owner 1,000 bushels of wheat, which would be a yield of 100 acres of land. But this fired manager told this guy that he would reduce his debt from $1,000 to $800, which is basically a 20% reduction. Now, do you think that guy took that deal? Well, I would. Both of them, no doubt, took the deal.
Now, what was the motive? I mean, what’s the manager’s motive in taking this dishonest course of action? Well, you’re actually told in verse 4. You see it in verse 4? So that when I lose my job, here, people will welcome me into their houses.
What was his motive? Future kickback. He’s thinking about the future, and he’s thinking about security from some financially endowed people who could potentially meet his needs, which, you know, that’s actually pretty smart to be thinking about that. But at the same time, what he did was what we would call ethically wrong. Now you would think at this point that when the owner hears about this, he’s gonna be fried, he’s gonna be ticked off.
I mean, he’s gonna say, turn in the keys right now. I gave you a little bit of time, but you know, time’s up. He would fire the refired, or the already fired manager, you know, who knows what he would do. But his response is fascinating. In Luke chapter 16, verse 8.
The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly.
Now this is the part of the story where you say, huh?
What, are you kidding me? He commended the dishonest manager?
Manager. This is the part of the story where you’re reading this parable and you’re saying, okay, I’m not sure that this one should be in the Bible.
I mean, come on, this guy has gone from accused in verse 1 to now commended in verse 8. This guy that’s been fired, from accused to commended. And actually, this is the first of 3 shifts I want to call to your attention in this story this from accused to commended shift. But before we conclude that Jesus, you know, in telling this story was crazy for telling this story, take a second look at what this is really saying. Verse 8, the master commended the dishonest manager, and now we’re told what he commended him for.
Because he had acted shrewdly. Now don’t miss this. He’s not commended for being wasteful. He’s not commended for being dishonest. He’s not commended for being self-centered.
He’s not commended for ripping the boss off. None of that. He’s commended for acting shrewdly. He was commended for having come up with a plan, having— let’s use the word schemed— having schemed up a plan that would provide for his future welfare. So the owner gives the guy some credit for his ingenuity and foresight.
That’s what’s going on here. He’s giving the guy some credit for his clever and his shrewd plan. He’s not commending this guy for his wasteful, dishonest, or cunning behavior. He’s commending— notice the word because— he’s commending him for, listen, using money that wasn’t even his money, for using money to make friends with people that would provide for his future needs. Don’t miss that.
He’s commending this shrewd manager for using money that’s not his money to make friends with people who would ultimately provide for his future needs. Now, think with me about that just for a minute. First of all, think with me about whether or not you have ever commended somebody for something without commending them for everything. Have you ever commended somebody for something but not the whole thing? Have you ever said, well, you got to give them credit.
I mean, what he or she did, you know, that was pretty clever. Even though it was wrong, it was pretty clever. It’s kind of like one of those movies where, you know, you got a bunch of con artists or really likable but kind of shady characters, and they team up to do this job to rob somebody or to escape from prison or whatever it is. Kind of a familiar plot that you see in movies that are out there like Ocean’s Eleven or other movies like that. If you went to Ocean’s Eleven, did you commend what they did?
Did you commend what they saw? Probably not. What you saw? No, are you kidding? That was wrong.
But did you commend their plan? Did you walk away saying, you got to give it to them, that was pretty shrewd, that was clever, that was amazing. In fact, that’s why I sat here for 2 hours. It was entertaining too.
But would you endorse their behavior?
No. And what Jesus— don’t miss this, otherwise you’re going to tell Jesus to get rid of the story from his stories. Jesus is not endorsing dishonesty. He’s not endorsing dishonesty, nor is Jesus— listen— nor is he endorsing a good end. Unemployment benefits, that would be a good end.
Unemployment benefits. He’s not endorsing a good end getting there justified by bad means. What would be the bad means here? Dishonesty. So Jesus isn’t doing that either.
But what point is Jesus making? Well, he tells us. He tells us his point in the last part of verse 8, verse 9. He says, for the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth, let’s put a parenthesis there, the temporal, use worldly wealth, put a parenthesis after, the temporal, to gain friends for yourselves so that when it’s gone, you will be welcomed into eternal, the eternal, into eternal dwellings.
Now what Jesus has here is a lesson for Christ followers. And this is a lesson from shrewd financial dudes, title of this message. It’s a lesson from unbelievers who think about money all the time. It’s a lesson from people who are bent on setting up a better financial future, who are even shrewd about making and investing money. Ways that are going to benefit them in the end.
Is that something that someone without the light thinks about? Making money on their money? Earning money doing shrewd things to bring a profit? Is that something they think about? Well, like, all the time.
You know, how can I have a better life? They call it monetization. How can I monetize my assets? Or for that matter, how can I monetize my debts? How can I monetize them into money, into greater financial gain or greater financial investment?
How can I make more money that ultimately will give me a better life now and in the earthly future? And if you don’t think that people outside the light are thinking about that kind of thing, you’re in the darkness on this. Just, you know, go on the web sometime and see the number of businesses that are popping up every day that are for one thing: money. It’s all about money. Now, what Jesus is commenting on, his teaching here, isn’t about making more money.
That’s not his point. He’s not focused here on making more money, whether making more money is a good thing or a bad thing. But his focus instead is on how we use money, how we spend money, how we invest money. And he is saying that the people of light, the people of light, who’s that? That’s those who are walking with Christ, who are in a relationship with Christ through Jesus Christ himself, that those who are the people of light, you see it there, should be intentionally investing the temporal and the eternal.
That’s what he’s saying. And things that will reap eternal benefits. So there’s a second shift that you see in this passage. It’s a shift from a temporal focus to an eternal focus. And what Jesus is trying to teach us, and actually we should be as shrewd about this as those who are outside the body of Christ, is he’s trying to teach us that we should be using worldly wealth to impact people for eternity.
Using worldly wealth to impact people for eternity. We should be shrewd about that. What’s the word shrewd mean? It means to be astute. It means to be smart.
It means to be intelligent. It means to be clever. It means to be intentional. We should be intentional about making eternal investments, intentionally investing God’s money in ways that will make eternal impact in the lives of people, that will win people to Christ and ultimately save them and bring them to heaven so that— and don’t miss this, this is wonderful— so that one day when we get to heaven, we’re gonna meet people there who will become our friends, but the reason that they are there is because Somebody invested money in something that had an eternal impact on them where they found Jesus Christ. And as a result of that impact on them and them finding Jesus Christ, they are spending an eternity in heaven.
And there will be a day where those who have made those kinds of investments will meet people in heaven and find out that they are there because of those investments we made on earth.
So Jesus’ point is simply this: believers need to give more attention, in fact, just as much attention, if not more, than unbelievers, but in this case, give more attention to making eternal investments as unbelievers do in making temporal investments.
And I ask myself, am I doing that? Am I thinking about the money that God has given me seriously?
Am I considering seriously how I’m using that money to make investments that are going to reap eternal dividends? I think actually we all need to think about that. If you’ve got your arms crossed, uncross them.
Let God speak to you here. This is a very, very important principle. So important that Jesus kind of pushes it, doesn’t he, here? Pushes it to the very edge in the story that he tells. Last week I heard Dr. Joel Stoll who was the former president of Moody Bible Institute.
Now he’s the president at Cornerstone University, but I heard Dr. Joe Stowell speak at Louise Solheim’s Celebration of Life service. Louise Solheim is the wife of the founder of PING Golf Clubs. They’re the ones that made that golf club possible for me that I can’t figure out how to use, but anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother story. And so I was at this funeral. I was asked to come and to be a part of this service.
She died at the age of 99, lived a wonderful life, wonderful life. But as Joe was speaking about her life, he included in his memorial talk, he included in there a section about the gracious investments that the Solheims have made to numerous ministries over the years. And he mentioned the 2 institutions, Moody Bible Institute and the place that he’s at now, the university he’s at now, and he’s saying that they made investments into these places and they’re so thankful. Why, why is he thankful? Why would anybody be thankful?
Because of the fruit, the outcome of that, the outcome of those investments that can make a difference in the lives of people now for all eternity. I know that one of those investments is the Solheim Athletic Center at Moody Bible Institute. This center was made possible because of the Solheims. If you go to Dallas Theological Seminary, there’s a Mitchell Building there. The Mitchell Building was made possible by the Solheims.
The church that we were at last weekend, which is the church that I was at before I came here, The Solheims were very significantly a part of that church and the buildings and the expansion and starting new churches and so many different things over the years. In fact, at one point I went to Louise and I said, you know, we’re trying to get this building remodeled as quickly as we possibly can. We believe that the Lord’s gonna give us the resources. We were already gathering resources for this remodel. It was a few million dollars.
And I said to her, would you be willing to just put up a half a million dollar loan, just interest, an interest-free half million dollar loan to just help us? She said, I’d be happy to do that. So she put it up, and then there came a point, we told her at what point we were gonna begin to pay the loan back, ’cause we felt the monies would be coming in, and we were in that position. I went back to her and said, we’re ready to begin to pay the money back. She said, forget it, just keep it.
That’s the Solheims. And why would they, you know, respond that way? Well, you say, well, because they have a lot of money, that’s why. I mean, they make golf clubs and all these people are weird and wanna play golf and, you know, so.
No, it’s because God got ahold of their hearts and turned them into shrewd investors, intentional investors. And no doubt, both of them now in heaven will, or already will someday, or someday will meet new friends. They will gain new friends. You see that in the text? They will gain new friends.
And why will they gain new friends in heaven? Because they invest the temporal in the eternal. Now, you might be thinking, as I would think, well, I don’t have a lot to give. I’m not a Solheim. And I can’t make big investments like that.
Well, look at what Jesus then says. He’s got you covered. Whoever can be trusted, verse 10, with very little, with very little, can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. By the way, as soon as he shoves in here trust and dishonesty, he’s connecting it to the story, connecting it to finances.
Whoever is a manager of somebody else’s resources can be trusted with very little. Those are the people that can be trusted with much. And those who’ve been entrusted with much can be entrusted with little. I mean, you see the idea. So he says, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth Meaning you’ve wasted it.
Who will trust you with true riches? What are true riches? True riches are kingdom riches. It’s the result of the work of the kingdom. It’s the result of the work of God.
It’s the result of the work of Christ. Kingdom riches are riches like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control in increasing measure. But those kinds of riches aren’t going to come to you if your god is money, if your god is mammon. In fact, he talks about that in the verses that follow that we’re not going to get into this morning. God is wanting to entrust to us His spiritual riches, kingdom impact, but that’s going to come to people that aren’t worshiping money, they’re worshiping God, and they want to take God’s resources and they want to invest them in that which he wants them invested in.
And if you’ve not been trustworthy, verse 12, with someone else’s property— God the owner— who will give you property of your own? More responsibility. Do you think he’s going to give you more responsibility if you haven’t proved yourself responsible with what he’s already given you. What’s the third shift here? It’s a shift from a little to a lot.
From very little, actually, he says, to much. And this shift is connected to trust. It’s connected to proven trust. That no matter who you are, which includes all of us, no matter how much you have, what we have is a trust. It’s a trust.
It’s a gift from the owner. It’s a gift from God. And it’s an opportunity, whatever it is that we have, it’s an opportunity for us as managers or for us as stewards to prove ourselves trustworthy by handling worldly wealth. Notice that phrase that he uses there. In handling worldly wealth in wise and not wasteful ways.
And using it in ways that are right and using it in ways that are honest and using it in ways that are investment smart. So whatever the amount of money that we have, it’s an opportunity, he’s saying, to prove ourselves trustworthy. And one of the best ways that we can prove ourselves trustworthy is by shrewdly investing in the eternal. That can result in others’ salvation for eternity. For eternity.
Now, if you let this get a hold of your heart as it’s getting a hold of my heart, it’s gonna change what you do with your money. Better said, what you do with God’s money.
I was at a conference a couple of days ago at Dan Stockum’s. It was just over here in Mountain View. And on the first day of the conference, they said they’re gonna take an offering the second day. And I remember hearing that, and I remember thinking to myself, well, that’s fine. I’m sure other people will cover me.
I’m sure that’ll be fine, you know. But throughout the conference, and they didn’t overdo this, they just started talking about the grander vision. That’s what they called it. The grander vision. And they showed these videos of people who are living out the grander vision.
People who’ve caught the value of taking what God has given them and translating it into something that’s going to ultimately make an eternal impact.
An eternal impact.
And so somewhere in that second day— actually, I think it was in the morning before I even went, I knew the offering was coming— God started working on my heart. He said, hey, Dave, this is an opportunity for you to take the temporal and invest in the eternal. Are you going to do that? You just gonna talk about it on Sunday, or are you gonna do that? You gonna be a part of this offering or not?
You gonna put as much as you put into the plane finder in the offering plate or not? That was like a low blow.
And what was the offering for? Well, it was going to be given to some people that potentially could be impacted for eternity and could potentially impact others for eternity. It was going to be given to some leaders in other countries that could not afford to come to a Willow Leadership Summit. And so they’re gonna pay their way and they’re gonna make it possible for them to come. Now, would it be investment smart on my part or anybody else’s part to give to, to that kind of an offering?
I mean, we know it would be. When we moved to this area, we faced a real estate investment decision. When we came here in 2009 to, you know, go through the candidating thing and then get started right there at the beginning of 2010, if you remember, the market was just crazy. The dot-com thing had just happened a few years before, and things weren’t going well financially in the area. There were all of these buildings that were empty, all of these offices that were empty.
There was downtown Sunnyvale that was unfinished. Do you remember that? They were building it out and they just stopped right in the middle of all of that. And there were all these homes on the market, and I remember the The real estate people saying to me, you know, when I asked them the question, you always ask this question, right? Is this a good time to get in the market?
You know what their answer was? We don’t know. Well, we don’t know wasn’t a good enough answer for us because we were coming to an area we had never lived in before. Yes, we had owned some housing in Phoenix, but come on, Phoenix is a lot different housing market than here, right? You can shake your head on that.
Yes, it is. You can afford to live in Phoenix, okay?
So all of this is going on and we’re facing that, and then we’re facing the uncertainty of a church situation that was asking me to come, and there were a number of problems. Let me just leave it there.
You had just said goodbye to a pastor. That didn’t go so well. There were a number of problems. And I remember in my heart thinking, well, let’s see, there is an uncertain situation financially with the housing. There is an uncertain situation pastorally with me coming to this church.
Is this going to work out? I don’t know. What should we do? So we decided to take the church up on the offer to get us into one of the church homes. We said, that will be good.
We’re gonna be fine with that, thank you. It’s very gracious of you to put us into one of the 3 church homes, and we’re grateful to be able to do that. Thank God for the foundation and the people that gave in the past to make it possible for this church to have some homes for a few of its pastors. So that’s what we did. Well, that was 7 and a half years ago, and I would say that things have changed in the market, wouldn’t you?
As we look back now, do we have any regrets that we did not get in the market? Truthfully? Yeah, we regret it. We wish we would have got into the market.
We would be in a different place financially right now. We would be.
Now let that sit there and don’t miss this point, because the decision that Jesus is bringing us to right now is a decision that concerns a more important investment than a real estate investment. This is an investment in taking the temporal and investing it in that which is ultimately going to result in eternal dividends, in eternal benefits. And every one of— don’t miss this— and every one of us, every one of us right now and for the remainder of our lives have an opportunity to make that kind of investment. It’s not too late. It’s not too late.
Now, I don’t know where you have been on this, but I got a feeling for some of us, we’re not very shrewd about making those kinds of investments. We’re more shrewd about making temporal investments that are going to result in worldly gain than making temporal investments that’s going to result in eternal gain.
And it would probably do all of us, me included, Bernice included, it would do all of us well to sit down and to do a financial investment analysis and say to ourselves, Lord, am I doing what it is that you want me to do? Now, don’t let this be a burden to you, please. If you, like, leave here and feel like, oh man, that was a spanking from Pastor Dave today, you miss the point. The point here is that we have an opportunity through the resources God has given us to help people come to faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the point, so that they will welcome us into eternal dwellings, into eternal dwellings.
Where’s Jesus? He went to prepare a place for us, an eternal dwelling. And those who are in Jesus Christ are ultimately going to go to this place, and they are going to live with Jesus Christ and other believers.
And Jesus is saying, you have an opportunity through what it is that I give you, through the resources that I entrust to your care, you have an opportunity to invest that in that which is ultimately going to last for an eternity.
Is that a good thing? I think so, don’t you? Are you kidding? We have an opportunity. And many of you, this is part of the reason that you give.
This is very much a part of your giving. It’s part of the reason that we’re in this building. It was very much a part of your giving because you wanted to see a building be remodeled that would continue to impact the lives of people. And thank God for those in recent days and in years past that made it possible for us to have a meeting space like this. Where we can talk about spiritual things and we can get ourselves charged up and get back out there in the world to win people to faith in Jesus Christ, to make an eternal difference.
And one of the ways that we can do that is through what it is that we give to organizations that are making an eternal difference. And by the way, put at the top of the list, because I think the scriptures do, put at the top of the list the church. The church.
It’s putting right there front and center a tithe, giving to the church. I believe in this church. I believe what God is doing in this church. I want to take that which he has given to me, I want to give it to the church first. And that doesn’t mean not giving it to other organizations and people.
We give to other organizations and people too. But we give to the church first. It is our first investment in eternity through the church. Fascinating, before they took this offering, and they were hoping to get millions of dollars from this offering, but before they took the offering, they said to everybody that was sitting there, listen, if you’re not giving to your church, that’s where you start. You don’t start the offering deal here, you start it with your church.
You start it with your church. Get your offering right with your church first, and then give an offering like this.
Some years ago, I heard a song by, I don’t know if Ray Bolz wrote it, but he certainly sang it. And it basically is just a testimony to the power possibility of what money can do in the lives of people. It’s a testimony to what Jesus is saying here: make shrewd investments that will gain eternal friends. This song in part had this in it: I dreamed I went to heaven and you were there with me. We walked upon the streets of gold beside the crystal sea.
We heard the angels singing. Then someone called your name. We turned and saw a young man running, and he was smiling as he came. And he said, you used to teach my Sunday school when I was only 8, and every week you would say a prayer before the class would start. And one day when you said that prayer, I asked Jesus in my heart.
Thank you for giving to the Lord. I’m a life that was changed. Thank you for giving to the Lord. I’m so glad you gave. And then another man stood before you and said, remember the time a missionary came to your church and his pictures made you cry?
You didn’t have much money, but you gave it anyway. Jesus took the gift you gave, and that’s why I’m here today. And one by one, they came far as the eye could see, each life somehow touched by your generosity. Thank you. Thank you for giving to the Lord.
I am a life that was changed. Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am so glad you gave.
Let’s pray.
Father, as we sit here today in this building, we recognize again that you are the God that provides, you are the God that gives, you are the God that is generous. And you have not yet stopped providing for our needs, even beyond our needs.
And as our God, you ask us to walk in your ways, to personally know you and to become like you. And so today we talk about this matter that for many of us is hard to hear anybody talk about.
Giving, giving intentionally, intentionally investing, shrewdly intentionally investing in the eternal through the use of the temporal. And so we pray that what we’ve talked about, you would help us take it to heart, that we would live for the grander vision for what monies can do in the lives of people, that we might gain friends for eternity. And so teach us what it is you want us to do. Show us what it is that you want us to do as your disciples. Help us respond in ways that are appropriate to that next step in our spiritual walk with you.
And we pray, Lord, for anybody who’s here today that has yet to come into relationship with you and therefore would not be spending an eternity with you because their sin separates them from you. But you have made it possible for their sins to be forgiven because your Son died on the cross for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us into relationship with you now and forever. And as many as received him, to them you give the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in Jesus’ name. And so we pray that even today, Lord, there would be one, two, many, or many that would say yes, they want a relationship with you now and forever. They want to be a part of your eternal plan that begins now.
Thank you that they were here today. Thank you that they’ve been coming Sunday after Sunday, or perhaps year after year. But Lord, may this be the day of salvation for them. And if you’ve not yet received the Lord, then may today be that day of salvation for you. If you know in your heart you’re ready to become a Christ follower, to receive the gift of life found in Christ, just tell our Heavenly Father that.
Lord, save me, forgive me.
I want to be one of your children.
I want to quit living as if I’m God. I’m not. You are. And so may I receive the gift of life found in Jesus Christ. Change me, Lord, from this day on.
God hears prayers like that. And if you need to talk to somebody about that, we would love to talk to you before you leave this morning. We want to do all that we can to help you in this spiritual journey. Thank you, God, for speaking to us through this time of worship. May what we’ve heard make an eternal difference.
For we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
