INTRODUCTION
A. What is a steward?
1. Literally, it means a keeper of a hall.
a. in Medieval times a shop steward was the one who stayed at the hall and prepared the meals for the other craftsmen.
b. since he was there cleaning the place, prospective employers left
messages with him about work needed.
c. the steward would then ask who would be available to do the work.
d. a good steward made sure that all the men of the guild had an equal
amount of work to do.
2. Basically, he is someone who looks after the affairs of another person.
3. A stewardess is one who looks after the comfort and safety of the
passengers entrusted to her.
4. The Bible tells us that we are all given stewardship roles.
B. What you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God (Ephesians 5:15-16) See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, {16} redeeming the time, because the days are evil..
1. If God has given us work to do we must be up to the task or else be
subject to His wrath & judgment.
2. (1 Timothy 4:14-15) Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you.{15} Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.
C. Your stewardship is evident in everything you do.
a. (Proverbs 3:9) Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the
firstfruits of all your increase;
b. (2 Corinthians 9:10-11) Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, {11} while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
D. Money in itself is neither good nor bad; it is simply dangerous in that the love of it may become bad.
1. With money a man can do much good; and with money he can do much evil.
2. With money a man can selfishly serve his own desires; and with money he can generously answer to the cry of his neighbor’s need.
3. With money a man can buy his way to the forbidden things and facilitate the path of wrongdoing; and with money he can make it easier for someone else to live as God meant him to live.
4. Money brings power, and power is always a double-edged thing, for it is powerful to good and powerful to evil.
a. (1 Timothy 6:10) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
b. (Hebrews 13:5) Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
I. CONDUCT WITHOUT COVETOUSNESS
A. Sometimes it is difficult to work for someone without seeing what he has as yours.
1. There are a lot of workers who truly feel that it isn’t stealing when they take home different tools that the company provided.
2. What do you call it when you take something that you didn’t buy or didn’t have permission to take?
3. I have heard men jokingly say that the tools they are using are on a permanent loan.
a. Oh, I’m not stealing anything, I’m just not giving it back”
B. Such is the case with the steward in this parable.
1. It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s goods.
2. That may be the reason why he was losing his job in the first place.
C. Whose benefit was this parable?
1. One may think that it was meant to teach the disciples about good working habits, but if we examine the text especially vs.14, I think you can see a little more clearly the meaning of this parable.
2. (Luke 16:14) Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.
D. The Pharisees were the unjust stewards who was taking God’s word and demanding less righteous living in order to make friends.
1. The case in point was on the issue of divorce.
2. The Jewish society was no different than the society of Henry VIII, or our present society when it comes to the matters of divorce and remarriage.
3. When someone says our society is based on monogamy that is a misconception.
a. In practice we have a polygamous society.
b. We just happen to practice it one spouse at a time.
II. JESUS LET’S THEM HAVE IT
A. Look at vs. 15 (Luke 16:15) And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
B. God had given the people the full law to observe and here the Pharisees were cutting that observance in half through covetousness.
C. Jesus told us in vs. 17 “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.
D. God’s word was just as abiding in Jesus’ day as it was in the beginning.
1. Jesus had to deal with the Pharisees more than one time concerning this issue.
2. In (Matthew 19:3-9) The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” {4} And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ {5} “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? {6} “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” {7} They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” {8} He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. {9} “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
3. The key words are found in verses 4 & 8 where He says from the beginning God made these requirements.
4. The Jews and the Pharisees consented to no fault divorces and re-marriages in order to keep the “faithful” tithing as they ought.
5. I’m afraid that the same practice has crept into the church today.
III. THE EXPLANATION MAKES THE PARABLE CLEAR
A. Now, let’s read the parable again, and let’s concentrate especially on verse 9 and I hope you can catch the sarcastic tone to which it is intended.
(Luke 16:1-9) He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. {2} “So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ {3} “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. {4} ‘I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’ {5} “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ {6} “And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ {7} “Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ {8} “So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. {9} “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.
B. vs. 1-2: We are all going to be called to give an account just as the Pharisees were going to be called to accountability.
C. vs. 3-7: Just because your religious leader says that you can do less in order to be saved, does that mean that God demands any less.
D. vs. 8: There is no argument that the sons of this world are more shrewd that those who are standing for the full adherence to the Gospel.
1. How do you suppose movements like Promise Keepers can generate and keep large crowds of men.
2. All they have to teach is salvation by grace.
3. They teach that God will accept you no matter how much or how little you obey His commandments.
a. Remember He IS a king and thus has the power to command.
b. He’s not very interested in our votes.
E. vs.9: “And I say to you,[Go ahead and] make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon [and just see how far that gets you], that when [not If, but when]you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.
1. Where do you suppose that everlasting home is going to be?
F. Now let’s read the rest of what Jesus had to say (Luke 16:10-13) “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. {11} “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? {12} “And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? {13} “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Closing
A. I once read a thought-provoking article entitled, “If You Are 35, You Have 500 Days to Live.”
1. Its thesis was that when you subtract the time spent sleeping, working, tending to personal matters, hygiene, odd chores, medical matters, eating, traveling, and miscellaneous time-stealers, in the next thirty-six years you will have roughly the equivalent of only five hundred days left to spend as you wish.
2. No wonder the Psalmist advised, “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”
B. Well, stewards, how much time do you have left.
1. Have you been profitable to the Lord or unprofitable in His kingdom?
2. Quite possibly you may have to start working overtime to make up for lost time which was misspent in your younger days.
3. There’s not a better time than now to start catching up.
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