Consider your future

August 14, 2016

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Sunday service, Erlo Stegen, 14 Aug 2016

Luke 16

1 And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.

2 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.

3 Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.

4 I am 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 lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?

6 And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.

7 Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.

8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which 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 hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

14 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.

15 And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

I don’t know if there’s any other parable that causes as much confusion as this one does. They say what this man did was wrong yet he was commended. But he was commended for acting shrewdly. We read that the steward was accused of wasting his master’s goods, but most probably was acting with a long-term benefit of his owner in view. If the owner hadn’t acted so rashly to fire him on the spot, the steward might have had a chance to explain to the master why he acted the way he did and the owner might have even seen that he acted to his long-term benefit, and commended him. And Jesus said that the sons of this world are more wise in their generation than the sons of light.

What the unjust steward did right was that he was considering his future. He was planning for his future. The problem with many people is that they don’t care about their future, or even about eternity.

In this chapter 16 we also read about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). That rich man did not think about his future. But when he was in hell he started to think of his 5 brothers and that they were also heading for hell. He hadn’t thought about his future. His god was money and as we’ve read, you cannot serve God and money.

But the unjust steward was commended because he was taking action based on his future. Moses numbered his days and was commended for it (Ps 90:12).

If you just live for the here and now and don’t plan for the future, the Lord calls you a fool.

There are things that you might consider unjust, but when God looks at it He says that it’s justified. And then again we might say a thing is good yet God doesn’t see it as good. We need to test a thing and have discernment to think about a matter as God does.

Each one of us should pray that God gives us a heart like His, and a spirit like His; that we rather be derided here on earth but praised in heaven.