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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

The Unjust Steward

Father in heaven, we thank you for this Sabbath afternoon that we can come together.

We thank you for this weekend that we've had together, and I pray that you would speak through me now in a way that would give us perhaps a fresh perspective on how you want us to be sharing what we have in our lives.

So, thank you and I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well the title for the message this afternoon is The Unjust Steward.

And this is based on a parable that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 16.

And it's probably not a parable that you hear about so often, but there's some very interesting lessons that can be drawn from this parable, and we're gonna look at this.

Now I'm gonna start off by recounting a story of an individual that probably many of you remember.

On December 11, 2008, Bernie Madoff, a noted financial investor, was arrested in New York.

And he was charged with fraudulent financial transactions.

And there was about an estimated $65 billion involved with losses of around $18 billion to its investors.

Madoff was convicted of these crimes and was sentenced to 150 years in prison where he is still currently serving a term for his fraudulent activity.

I mean, can you imagine squandering 18 billion dollars of other people's money?

In fact, if you read the story, there were some security and fraud investors who were noticing that there was no way that what Madoff was saying could be true because the returns that some of the investors were getting were like 3 or 4 times what the stock market in theory could actually produce, and yet nobody was paying attention to the reality that the whole scheme was a complete fraud.

And that's a modern story that fits pretty well with this parable that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 16.

Now in order to understand this parable in Luke 16, I'm going to mention briefly that the Pharisees were in the presence of Jesus as He's telling this parable, And the Pharisees scorned and despised Jesus because he would spend time with publicans and sinners and they felt that proved that he wasn't legitimate in the type of ministry that he was doing.

He tells a parable of the lost coin, a parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the prodigal son, or the lost son.

So, Jesus is telling these parables to show the Pharisees, my ministry is to seek and to save those who are lost.

So in the case of the lost sheep, Jesus would go out and find that 1 lost person, even if everybody else in the fold is safe.

And in the case of the lost coin, 9 are safe, 1 is lost.

And in the case of the prodigal son, this is a demonstration of how God relates to a repentant sinner.

No matter how bad you may have been, when you come back to Jesus, he will accept you as if you never left." And so Jesus is trying to get through the thick skulls of these Pharisees that he came to save lost people.

And now he tells a parable to the Pharisees to show them just how lost they are, and if they would pay attention that he's trying to save them also.

Luke chapter 16 starting in verse 1, and He said also unto His disciples, now the Pharisees are present as well, there was a certain rich man which had a steward, And the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.

So this man was so wealthy that he could afford to have a financial manager, someone who would manage the affairs of his estate.

I don't think most of us are wealthy enough or have anywhere near enough money to be hiring someone to be managing our money, but this rich man apparently was wealthy enough that he could have a steward or a financial manager to manage the affairs of his estate.

But he received an accusation that his money was being squandered.

So in verse 2 it says, And he called him and said unto him, how is it that I hear this of thee?

Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward." So this steward or financial manager is in big trouble.

Basically he's being fired, but before he loses his job, he has to churn in an account of everything that he has done with his master's money.

If you've squandered the goods, And you're going to lose your job after it's all over.

I mean, you're going to be like this Bernie Madoff figure, that this is the guy that wasted his master's money.

And so his last act on the job is going to be to give an account and it's not going to be a good account.

So the steward has to figure out what he's going to do.

Verse 3, Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do?

For my Lord taketh away from me the stewardship.

I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses." So the steward knows that he's in big trouble.

He knows that he's about to lose his job, and he realizes that he's going to go from being an esteemed financial manager who makes a good income, to not having a job, and where nobody else is going to want to hire him and the only thing he's going to be able to do is maybe to do manual labor, which by the way there's nothing wrong or there's no shame in doing manual labor, but That's not something he wanted to do.

He didn't want to go out and dig ditches.

And he certainly didn't want to beg for food.

And if he didn't do manual labor or beg, he would be forced to starve.

And so he's thinking on his feet, I've got to come up with a plan to protect me.

Which is what he's been doing all along anyway.

He's been enriching himself at the expense of his master.

So this steward hatches a crafty little plan.

And he's saying, look, when I finish doing what I do, if my plan goes according to the way I want it to, these people out there will be obligated to take me in so that I will still be able to be taken care of.

So he called every 1 of his Lord's debtors unto him and said unto the first how much owest thou unto my Lord?

So he's like my master who's very rich has people that owe money to him.

And so the first 1 says a hundred measures of oil.

And the steward said unto him, Take your bill, and sit down quickly, and write 50.

You don't have to pay a hundred, I'm the steward, pay 50, and your debt's cleared.

How would you like 50 percent off your debt?" That's a nice deal.

Verse 7, Then said he to another, And how much owest thou?

And he said, And a hundred measures of wheat.

And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write 4 score, or 80.

And he was probably sizing up each person.

And so he's thinking on his feet quickly.

He's getting money that he can bring back to his master so that as he gives an account, he'll at least have some money that he can give back to the master that he has defrauded.

But what he's actually doing is he's defrauding his master even further.

So he's already wasted his master's money.

If he had put the money into some kind of an account that was his own, and he was being called to give an account, he would have been ready to just return the money back.

So he's got to figure out how he's going to protect his own interests going forward.

And so the way he protects his interests going forward is to give discounts to his lord's debtors, so that when he comes back to his Lord he can say, here's some money for you.

But at the same time he's defrauded his Master, his rich Master, even further.

Now how did his master respond to this action?

It says, And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely.

Now notice what Jesus says here, For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." What does Jesus mean by this?

So here, this is a parable, which by the way Ellen White tells us in Christ Object Lessons, a very similar story happened among the class of publicans and it was well known and so Jesus is now using that story as an illustration to make a point that we're going to dig deeper into here and Jesus starts the point that he is making not to say, hey isn't it interesting that this guy had already defrauded his master and then he defrauded him even further.

What he is saying is, look at how smart the children of this world are compared to the people of God.

Now just a couple of little points that I'm gonna make and then we're gonna get to the deeper meaning.

But sometimes I am embarrassed by the misuse of the Bible and the spirit of prophecy among Seventh-day Adventists.

I mean, you have people in the world who will follow common sense and who are much better at managing their money than God's people are.

Some of the things that God's people get caught up in, people are saying, oh well, and they end up getting all caught up in these get-rich-quick schemes, Ponzi schemes, Bitcoin schemes, you name it, and then you have people in this world who actually have their heads on straight and their total focus is on taking care of themselves and of getting wealthy and taking care of their families and they are wiser in taking care of their own interests than God's people are who get caught up in the latest fanciful ideas of fanaticism or speculation or whatever else you can think of, because some people will just go for the latest passing crazy idea.

The children of this world are in this age wiser than the children of life.

He was, and another illustration, I've seen people living off of credit cards saying that the Lord's going to provide for their needs because they're doing ministry.

They quit their jobs and live off of credit cards and somehow God's going to provide.

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The Unjust Steward

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