Jonah Albrecht…Trinity 9…August 17^th, 2025…Luke 16:1-9…What World are You Investing In?

Grace and Peace be yours from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. ² And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ ³ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴ I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ ⁵ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ 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?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ ⁸ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. ⁹ And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

INJ who invested His life unto death so that you would have life in the world to come, DFR:

Her nickname was the Witch of Wall Street and she was one of the richest women at the turn of the 20^th century. Hetty Green was a mastermind when it came to investments and accumulated an estimated net worth of 100 million dollars by the end of her life. That is the equivalent of nearly 3 billion dollars in today’s money. But if you looked at Hetty Green, you would not guess she was that rich.

News reports at that time said that she refused to turn on the heat in her apartment as to not raise her bills too high. She suffered from a hernia for more than two decades, but wouldn’t spend the $150 to have it repaired. She disapproved of most of her daughter’s suitors assuming that they were there just for her money. But perhaps the worst accusation of all was that, when her son broke his leg, she took him to a charity hospital so she wouldn’t have to pay for the full procedure.

There was one thing that Hetty Green did get right, whether she realized it or not. When asked where he should make his investments, Green allegedly said sarcastically, “in the next world.”

In our text today, Jesus says much the same thing – only He is not being sarcastic at all. His parable shows that, for a believer, it is not only possible to invest in eternal things, it’s extremely wise to do so. Let’s see if we have the shrewdness to Invest “in the Next World.”

In those days, wealthy people often used financial managers to oversee their vast holdings for them. The manager’s job was to show a profit for his master. If he was smart enough, he could also line his own pockets through clever loans or by making shrewd financial decisions.

The manager in Jesus’ parable was accused of squandering the master’s wealth. The verb rendered “charges brought” literally means to “throw across with hostility.” It is related to the noun diablo, or devil. In other words, it is likely that the accusations brought against this manager were false – it was the result of a disgruntled debtor or employee.

That didn’t matter for the master, however. He didn’t waste any time investigating to see if the charges were true. When the master says, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager,’ he’s not really asking for the manager to defend himself. And the manager finds himself in an impossible situation where speaking up could only make matters worse for himself.

It wasn’t just. There was no due process. Yet, the manager must ask himself what he is to do next. That’s quite the conundrum, for, he says, I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. He was accused of embezzling his master’s funds. In the financial world, that is a cardinal sin and any accountant found guilty of embezzlement would typically be blacklisted from getting another accounting job. But this manager is smart, he’s shrewd and resourceful. If the master would be unjust in firing him, he too will act in an unsavory manner to take care of himself.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he knows what he is going to do. His plan is brilliant. It is so clever that even his master will commend him for it. To see that, there’s something more that we need to know.

Jewish Law prohibited charging interest on loans made to fellow Jews (Deut. 23:19-20). But like many other features of the law, the Jews found a way around it. Suppose your crop failed and you needed a loan to get you through the year. You’d visit the neighborhood money manager. If you needed to borrow 100 bushels of wheat, you’d haggle over terms and when you finally agreed the loan would be written for the amount that was borrowed plus the interest. So, if you borrowed 100 bushels at 30% interest, the contract would be written as if you had borrowed 130 bushels. The manager couldn’t be accused of taking usury and the rich man made an easy profit.

So one by one, the manager calls in his master’s debtors. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ 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?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

While he yet had the authority, he took every single one of his master’s debtors and declared their bill to be exactly what they borrowed, cutting off the excess “illegal” interest, thus indebting the debtors to himself and striking a massive financial blow to his master. He out foxed his master and his master was powerless to do anything about it; else his illegal activity would be found out and he get in trouble.

No wonder the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. The manager showed exactly how cutthroat people are to take care of themselves. And he’s not alone. This whole parable reeks of unjust people. The master for firing his manager without due process; the manager for his backdoor dealings that cost his master money; and even the debtors for willingly accepting these shady dealings. Each one of these people were doing what served their best interest, they were investing in this world.

Jesus does not approve of the actions of the people in this parable. What Jesus does do, is use the example of the manager’s shrewdness to show how Christians are to act. If that is how shrewd and deliberate the world is in getting what it wants, then Christians ought to be more so in obtaining the glories of heaven. Or as Jesus puts it, ⁹ And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

You might remember that Jesus spent a significant portion of His ministry warning His disciples about the evils that money can bring about. In the sermon on the mount He warned, “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.” He wasn’t saying you can’t use money or that it is a bad thing. Whether we like it or not, we need money to do business in this world, without it we would be as destitute as the manager. Jesus warns against letting money becoming the most important thing in our lives.

Has it? Evaluate your own heart and see: Have I blurred the lines between taking care of myself or my family and letting my desire for gain overcome everything else? Am I being a good steward of the blessings God has given me, or am I that person who gambles away all that I have and leave nothing to provide for the lives that depend on me? This isn’t about giving you financial advice, or telling you to give more money to the church. This is about the attitude of the heart. What we say and what we do with the things we have been given shows one of two things. Either we are good stewards and act with it how God wants us to, or we are like the manager, sons of this world, who deal however they have to in order to get ahead. Which one is easier? The latter, isn’t it?

It is easy to lose focus of what it means to be a Christian living in this world. We can get so caught up in what I need that we forget, this life is temporary. You have a very precious gift from God that the world does not have. All the world sees is getting ahead, making my life the best it can be because there is nothing else. But you? You have wisdom from God that tells a different story.

This wisdom reminds you every day that this world will come to an end and the next world – eternal life in heaven is already yours through the redeeming blood of Christ. The suffering that Jesus endured on the cross outside of Jerusalem is a fact of history. That it happened for you and me, and that it brings full forgiveness and the sure hope of eternal life, is something we have only by faith.

By faith we are sure that God has taken our shortcomings and sins, our selfishness and greed, our wastefulness and discontentment, and has nailed them to the cross. When Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning, He announced that the payment has been accepted. We are free and clear. We walk away from our debt of sin, fully pardoned, not owing a single penny. And it doesn’t stop there. We are now covered with the perfect righteousness of Christ. We’ve still got our sinful flesh and we still sin abundantly each day. But when God looks at us, He sees the perfect life of His Son. God has given us the one commodity to make us truly wealthy and that is faith in His Son.

There’s another nugget of wisdom our faith has: it’s that we are far better off being in heaven than 70+ years on this earth. And yet, God keeps us here for a reason. He gives us the opportunity to use the unrighteous wealth of this world to invest in the world to come. As the manager in the parable used whatever time he had left in office to make friends for himself in the future, so are we to use the time we have left in this world to make friends for ourselves in heaven.

How is that done? Only those who have faith in Jesus as their Savior will be in heaven. So, if you want to make friends in heaven, then use the opportunities you have to share the Gospel; use your earthly money to support missions and evangelism so that the Gospel is broadcast and souls are saved. And then, when you fail, when your time of stewardship on earth is over with, those people will be there. They will welcome you when you get to heaven, and praise God eternally, because He gave you the foresight to invest in eternal things. Just as the money manager in Jesus’ story was shrewd enough to get what he wanted, God invites us to put our resources into a sure winner — an investment in the Gospel that will never depreciate or fade away.

What world are you investing in? It is much easier than you think, and you have already been the benefactor of those who invested in the world to come. Some of you have been around from the time the very first stone was laid upon the foundation of this church. You and every other founding member had the foresight to invest your money and effort in the next world. Every member from this congregation who has died and gone to heaven, provided another return on their original investment.

If you didn’t have the chance before, there’ll come a day when you’re going to want to thank them in person, because they played an indirect role in your salvation. Our salvation doesn’t depend on how we use our money — it depends entirely on our Savior. But we are in the same position as the manager in our text. We have a limited window of opportunity. Now is our chance to invest in the next world. Amen.