Deo Gloria
Sermon for September 21, 2025
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Luke 16:1-13
Theme: Manage God’s Money Wisely!
- Use it to bring glory to your Master.
- Use it to win friends for yourself.
Rosemary Heinen worked for Starbucks in Seattle, Washington, in the information technology department. She and her husband Gerald lived in Bellevue, an eastern suburb of Seattle. Neighbors said they noticed some rather lavish spending on the couple’s part, that they, for instance, had purchased some pretty nice cars: a Mercedes, a Porsche, and a Jaguar. But they didn’t think too much of it. The economy was doing pretty well at the time and overnight millionaires were not uncommon. Then in September of 2002 Rosemary and her husband were arrested and charged with embezzling over $3.7 million from the Starbucks Corporation.
You hear stories like that every now and then, don’t you? An investment manager at some securities firm, an account manager at some large corporation, the head of some government agency is accused of embezzling thousands, sometimes millions of dollars from his or her employer. And it doesn’t just happen in the business world either. Sometimes it even happens in the church. A number of years ago the Missouri Synod was rocked by such a scandal. Their foundation had suffered a $40 million loss in one year. And the evidence all pointed to one of their investment managers.
What about you? What kind of manager are you? Maybe you’ve never thought of yourself that way before, but that is what you are. You are a manager for the Kingdom of God, Inc., a global corporation with millions and billions of dollars in assets, and branch offices in cities and countries all around the world. In his wisdom and love God has entrusted a certain amount of those assets to you. And as Jesus reminds us in the verses of our text, we are to be faithful managers. We are to manage God’s money wisely.
First of all, because it belongs to him. We tend to think just the opposite, don’t we? We tend to think it belongs to us. I like to think that the money in my savings account belongs to me. I like to think that the money in my retirement account belongs to me. I like to think that the car I drive belongs to me. I mean, we have our cars paid off. And my name is on the title. So it must be mine. The same is true of the clothes I wear and the TV I watch and my lazy boy recliner. Those things are mine, right? Sorry. They belong to God. In the parable that Jesus told his disciples, to whom did the possessions belong? Did they belong to the manager or did they belong to the rich man? Obviously they belonged to the rich man. Do you get the point, though? We are not the rich man. We may be rich in that we have acquired a lot of money and possessions over the years, but we are not the owner. God is. David states this clearly in the 24th Psalm: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it”(v. 1). Everything we have belongs to God. The house we live in, the car we drive, the TV we watch, the clothes we wear, yes, even the money in my retirement account—it all belongs to God. He is the owner. He is the Master.
“But, Pastor, how can you say that? I’ve worked hard for what I have.” I’m sure you did. In fact, I’m glad you did. I’m glad you’re not one of those lazy bums who tries to live off the generosity of others or off some state or federal program. And yet, I still have to ask you: Who gave you the ability to work and earn money for yourself? Truth is God did. That’s one of the ways God allows us to acquire money and possessions. Another way is through gifts or through an inheritance. But just because the check is made out to me doesn’t mean the money belongs to me. In his grace and mercy God allows me to acquire money and possessions during the course of my life. He allows me to use those things and enjoy them. But they still belong to him. “We brought nothing into the world,” Paul states in 1 Timothy, ch. 6, “and we can take nothing out of it [either].” That’s the first truth we need to understand when it comes to our money. It all belongs to God.
Secondly, if everything I have really belongs to God, then that makes me a manager. In a way you could say I’m like the manager at McDonalds. The restaurant does not belong to him. It belongs to McDonalds. His job is to manage the employees and the operations of the restaurant in such a way that it runs smoothly and continues to make a good profit for the McDonalds corporation. I’m a manager too, but not for McDonalds. I’m a manager for God. The things I have really aren’t mine. They belong to the Master. He has given them to me for a while that I might manage them for him, that I might use them in a way that brings glory and honor to him.
Am I doing that? Am I managing what God has given me wisely? Am I using it in a way that brings glory and honor to him? Or am I using it selfishly, for my own personal pleasure and enjoyment? I don’t know what the average giving here is at Trinity. And to be honest I don’t want to know. What you give to the Lord and his work is between you and God. But I will say this: If we can’t find it in our hearts to give back to God generously from all that he has given us, then we are robbing God. We are using God’s money for our own selfish interests, our own greedy gain. We are dishonest managers, and we ought to be fired.
It also does not bring honor and glory to God to allow money and possessions to become as important or more important than God. “No servant can serve two masters,” Jesus said. “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”(v. 13). If making money is more important than going to church, then money is your master. If you always take time to read the Wall Street Journal but rarely find time to read your Bible, then money is your master. If you can afford to buy a new car or a new boat or a new side-by-side but can’t afford to be generous in your giving to the Lord, then money is your master. Who is your master? Is it Jesus, or is it money?
You’re feeling a little guilty too, aren’t you? You and I haven’t always been very good managers. Maybe at times we have, but there have also been times, far too many times, when we haven’t. Times we have been so selfish, so stingy, so greedy; times we have spent the lion’s share of our money on ourselves and gave the leftovers back to God; times we actually thought that giving to the Lord was a waste of our hard-earned money. We have been unfaithful managers and we deserve to be fired. Could our Master ever forgive us? Could God ever forgive us for squandering his possessions?
He can, and he has. He has forgiven our wasteful management. He has forgiven our greed and selfishness. He has forgiven all our sins through his Son Jesus Christ. By his suffering and death on Calvary’s cross, Jesus not only reduced our debts, he cancelled them. He erased them from the books. He wrote on our bill, “Paid in full,” paid with his own precious blood.
In light of that, shall we continue to be dishonest managers? Absolutely not! Rather in thanks to him for all that he has done for us, let us strive to be the best managers we can be. Use your money—the money your Master has given you—use it in a way that does bring glory and honor to him. As Solomon says in the book of Proverbs, “Honor the LORD with your wealth”(3:9). Manage God’s money wisely.
And use it to win friends for yourself, like the manager in this parable. Because of his mismanagement he was about to lose his job. Then what? How was he going to earn a living? Managing money was all he knew. He couldn’t be a carpenter. He didn’t know how. He couldn’t be a blacksmith. He couldn’t dig ditches. He wasn’t strong enough for that. And he didn’t want to go around begging. That would be too embarrassing. But then an idea popped into his head. “Hey, I know what I’ll do so that when I lose my job, people will welcome me into their houses”(v. 4). And he proceeded to call in his master’s debtors. He told one to cut his bill in half, from 800 to 400 gallons of olive oil. Another he gave a 20% discount, reducing his bill from 1,000 to 800 bushels of wheat. I’m sure he did the same with the other debtors. Naturally these people would be grateful to him. He had just saved them an awful lot of money.
Suppose you still owed $10,000 on your car. And one day the loan officer from the bank called and told you he had a deal for you. He said he had drawn up a new loan agreement and had cut the principal on your loan in half, from $10,000 to $5,000. All you had to do was come in and sign the papers. Would you go in and sign the papers? Of course you would. Would you be grateful to that loan officer for saving you all that money? Of course you would. You might even say to him, “Hey, you know if you ever need me to do something for you, just let me know.” That was this manager’s plan. These people would be very grateful to him and would be more than happy to return the favor, to help him out later on after he lost his job. Some might invite him over for supper. Some might buy him a new set of clothes. Others might even let him stay with them for a while—all because of what he had done for them. It was a pretty clever plan. And his master commended him. Oh, I’m sure his master didn’t appreciate losing even more money, but he had to hand it to this manager. He had acted shrewdly.
And then notice the application Jesus makes: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings”(v. 9). Now there’s a concept, huh? Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
One day it will be gone, won’t it? The money in your money market account, the money you had saved for retirement, the money you invested in stocks and bonds—one day it will all be gone. The day you close your eyes for the last time (or the day that Jesus comes back, should that happen to come first)–that day all your money will be gone. You came into the world with nothing and you leave with nothing. So then what? The money you had won’t get you into heaven. Even if you had over a million dollars in your savings account, it wouldn’t help you get into heaven.
But what if you had used your money to make friends for yourself, like the manager in this parable? What if you had used your money to gain friends who now would welcome you into their heavenly homes? That would be a shrewd way to use your money, wouldn’t it? That’s what Jesus is urging you and me to do.
But how do we do that? How do we use our money to win friends for ourselves, friends who will welcome us into heavenly dwellings? One way is by using our money to help those in need. Back in ch. 12 Jesus said to his disciples:
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.(vv. 33-34)
One way we express our faith and love for God is by showing love and concern for the poor and needy. When we do, we are gaining friends for ourselves, friends who on Judgment Day would gladly welcome us into heaven, because of the help we gave them in this life.
Another way is by using our money to support mission work, to help spread the good news of Jesus Christ to people in other parts of the world. Let’s say that I gave $500 to missions this year and that money went to support one of our missionaries over in Africa. On my behalf that missionary proclaims God’s Word to the African people. And through hearing the Gospel, an African woman comes to faith in Jesus as her Savior. Now I just gained another friend, a friend who is very grateful to me for my support of mission work, a friend who would gladly welcome me into the heavenly mansions. What a wonderful way to use our money—not in a selfish way, but in a way that shows our Christian love and concern by helping those in need, or using it to spread the Gospel so that others might believe and be saved! That’s using our money shrewdly. That’s managing God’s money wisely.
Phil works for the Walmart Corporation. He doesn’t make a lot of money stocking shelves, but he has always had enough to get by. And each week when he comes to God’s house, he always brings an offering, and a generous offering at that. Half of it goes to his church and the other half goes to missions. He’s managing his money wisely. That’s the kind of manager Jesus encourages us to be as well. Remember that it isn’t your money to start with. It really belongs to your Lord and Master. And since it is his, use it in a way that brings him glory. And use it to win friends for yourself. Manage God’s money wisely! Amen.