Internal Auditing

Did you hear about the IRS worker who was given notice that he was being laid off and who then mailed twenty good friends large, undeserved tax refund checks? Or did you hear about the hospital administrator, about to lose his job, who reduced the bills of several prominent patients by several thousand dollars? Or how about the just-fired defense contractor who changed five-hundred-dollar screw orders to five dollars? Each made many new friends as a result and thereby received several new job offers.
I don’t know if those events ever really happened. But they are somewhat parallel to a story Jesus once told. It’s found in Luke 16:1-13.

When you read our Lord’s sermons and parables, you are struck with the fact that He had a great deal to say about material wealth. He ministered to people who, for the most part, were poor and who thought that acquiring more wealth was the solution to all their problems. Jesus was not blind to the needs of the poor, and by His example and teaching, He encouraged His followers to share what they had with others. The early church was a fellowship of people who willingly shared their possessions with the less fortunate (Acts 2:44–47; 4:33–37).

Craig Blomberg says "Of all of Jesus’ parables, this is probably the most puzzling. It is certainly the one on which more scholarly ink has been spilled than any other. It deals with one of Jesus’ favorite themes—the right uses of riches. But that, too, makes it particularly difficult to preach on in the twenty-first-century Western world, in which so many Christian leaders who talk about money simply harangue their listeners for more, abuse the Scriptures’ teaching on the topic, or (precisely because of others’ abuse) think that finances are not a topic to be discussed in public at all. Jesus avoided the twin dangers of abuse and silence. Approximately one-fifth of all his teaching was about money matters. And so, despite the difficulty of the passage, despite the possible unpopularity of the theme, it’s one we dare not run away from." I agree

Now first we need to understand the story. This man is a steward. The Stewards task was to manage what belonged to another. Trustworthiness is the essential characteristic needed. Apparently this man wasn’t very good at his job. He wasn’t dishonest just not very responsible. The word wasted in the text is the same word used of the Prodigal son in Luke 15. He did not know how to manage money well and the owner was taking a hit for letting this man have the job. So the master says I am going to fire you so make an account for your successor.

The Point of the parable is God knows whether or not you care about eternal riches or temporary riches by how you use money.

Three critical warnings Jesus gives us about money:
Money is a Tool (8-9)- 8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwelling. Jesus sees money as a God that demands our allegiance. He does not tell us to disdain money but to capture money, subdue it and to use money for kingdom purposes. We need to examine our objectives that we have for money. What are we using our money to do?

Money is a Trust- 10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?”

God owns everything. Good stewards must understand that what he manages he does not own.
Have you ever heard ________ _________ died a millionaire.The Bible says that is wrong. Nobody dies a millionaire. You die like you were born, with nothing.

Money is a Test (13) 13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” You cannot serve two masters. Serve money and do other things. But not money and God. Money is a test of your ultimate allegiance. Here is where the people of the world are wiser than us. They only serve one God. Mammon. We try to serve them both.

Are you ready for my accounting of your Stewardship? So who is your master? I hope and pray that it is God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that an objective outsider, say an accountant, could recognize that fact if he or she were to examine your family budget, your checkbook ledger, and your credit card statements, particularly in comparison with your average non-Christian neighbor. We have recovery groups for people struggling with addictions of all different kinds. We have accountability groups for people who are not addicted but need fellow believers to keep them on the right track with respect to sex or alcohol or eating. Perhaps we need to begin to add to our recovery and accountability groups people who will ask us the hard questions about our expenditures, about our shopping, about how much we don’t really need to have. That would free up enormous resources for kingdom work. That would truly make us shrewd stewards.