Category: Trinity 9

Everyone a Steward

8/2/2024

Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-13
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
July 28, 2024

Jesus said, “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.” (Luke 16:13) A couple chapters later, He says, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:24-25) St. James rebukes the greedy, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire.” (James 5:1-3) And St. Paul warns in 1 Timothy 6, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things.” (vss. 9-11)
Holy Scripture clearly warns that earthly riches pose considerable temptation and that the love of such wealth jeopardizes your salvation. Yet, most people still strive more earnestly after money than they do after the Kingdom of God. There are two paths you can send your children down. One will result in more wealth, comfort, and admiration from this world, but your children will most likely lose their faith and go to hell. The other path will result in suffering, hatred from the world, and likely less wealth, but your children will most likely endure in the faith and inherit eternal life. Which path will you set your children on? Most people, even most church-going Christians choose the first. They choose for themselves earthly riches and store up treasures on earth, which moth and rust will destroy and will testify against them on the Last Day, instead of choosing Christ and storing up treasures in heaven. And for this, many fall away as Jesus warned they would. How difficult is it for the rich to be saved. You cannot serve God and money. Flee from the love of money, which will cause you to wander from the only saving faith.
The chief lesson of Scripture is that God is a gracious God, who forgives our sins for Christ’s sake and that we are saved apart from our own works through faith in Jesus Christ, who made atonement for all our sins on the cross. Yet, we cannot then go and serve the things of this world which lead to death! So, Jesus also told this parable that we might learn how to behave as children of God and heirs of His kingdom.
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” (Luke 16:10-12) With these words, Jesus teaches us that we are all stewards. A steward is a manager of that which does not belong to him. Everything we own in this life is not really ours, but God’s. That includes our money, property, talents, children, even our time. In fact, Jesus doesn’t simply say that you cannot serve God and money. He says, you cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon encompasses all earthly wealth. You are not supposed to serve it. You are supposed to manage it for God’s kingdom. It belongs to God. You are merely a steward temporarily in charge of it. But that stewardship will end and you will be held accountable for your stewardship. Your eternal riches are in heaven. Your riches on earth will be taken away.
Not everyone is a minister, but everyone is a steward. Every Christian is charged with that which is not his own, for which he will be held accountable to God. There will come a day when everything you now have will be taken away from you. Yet, if you are found faithful, you will receive true riches, which will be yours for eternity, which were purchased with the precious blood of Christ. But who will give true riches to one who is unfaithful in that which was not his own?
How does Christ expect you to manage what He has temporarily put into your charge? He tells you clearly. “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9) Your unrighteous wealth or mammon is everything you are put in charge of in this life: your money, your time, your talents. Do not serve them. Do not be mammon’s slave. Rather, be diligent to put the mammon entrusted to you to work for God’s kingdom. Jesus even uses a lying, conniving, thief as our example! Not that we should be lying, conniving, thieves, but that we would work with urgency in the task before us. The unjust steward’s back was pushed against a wall. He lost his job and house and soon would be on the streets begging. So, he used the little time and resources he had left to make friends, so that they would welcome him into their homes.
But Jesus doesn’t call you to lie and cheat. He calls you to act diligently and generously with what He has entrusted to you. Do not bury your talent in the ground or worse, spend it on yourself. Rather, invest it in God’s kingdom. Mammon can be used so broadly, but I would like us to focus on three things in this life of which God has made us stewards: Money, our time, and our children.
All your money came from God. Scriptures tells you not to fall in love with it, but to use it for the Kingdom. Obviously, this means that you should use your money to support the Church and the preaching of the Gospel. St. Paul writes, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” (1 Timothy 5:17) Christians should support their local congregation as well as missions abroad. The patriarchs Abraham and Jacob set an example of giving a tenth of all they had to the Lord (Gen. 14:20; 28:22). Christians by doing this in generations passed have assured that future generations would have the Gospel preached to them, so that they would welcome them into their eternal home.
Also, Christians should be generous to the poor and needy, as St. John exhorts, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) If you recognized your money not as yours but God’s, then you might look at God’s children in need differently and not begrudge helping them with what their heavenly Father has entrusted to you.
Time is our most finite resource in this life. We only ever have less of it. And what you have is given to you by God. So, we should use our time wisely. If you were to divide up your time in a pie chart, would you be ashamed of how you spend it? Do you work hard? Or have you wasted your time? Do you devote time each day to God’s Word and prayer? How many Sunday mornings in a year do you hold sacred for God’s Word and worship and how often do you use that sacred time for yourself instead? Do you use your time and talents to help others, or do you only serve your own interests?
Your children strictly speaking, are not mammon. They are human beings with immortal souls. Yet, children today are often treated like mammon. Their cost is calculated like buying a new car or going on vacation. And children do cost a lot of mammon, both time and money. So, how do you use your time and money for your children? How do you invest in your children? Do you invest more in their sports, entertainment, and future careers (all of which are mammon) than you do in their eternal dwelling place in heaven? Do you have them skip church for sports and leisure? Do you take time to teach them how to pray and to defend their faith? Do you get them good books that teach them God’s Word and take time to read the Bible at home to them? Do you pray for them and bring them to church?
God isn’t secretive in how He wants you to us raise your children. “And these words which I command you today, shall be in your heart! You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deut. 6:6-7) “And what was God seeking? Godly offspring.” (Mal. 2:15) “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God,” Jesus says (Matt. 19:14). So, in your short time before your stewardship is taken away from you, you should build eternal friendships with your children, so that they will welcome you into your eternal dwellings.
If the accounts were drawn, and God inspected how you managed the mammon He entrusted to you during your short stewardship, how would you fair? Not one of us has been as good of a steward of the mammon God has entrusted to us as we should. We must beg for forgiveness. This is why Jesus says that the sons of this world are more shrewd in their own generation than the sons of light. Even being children of light, our works are marred by our old Adam, which wants to serve mammon instead of God.
Yet, we have a generous and merciful master. Most masters, when they discover that their steward is wasting their property, will fire him immediately and not give him a chance to sort out the books. Yet, the master in Jesus’ parable warns the steward and gives him short time to get things in order. And that is exactly what our Lord Jesus is doing for us. He has told us that our time of stewardship has run out. We may no longer be stewards. We have a short time before we must hand in the accounting and prepare for our new eternal dwelling.
And what does Jesus want us to do with that time? He wants us to be generous with what He has given us. He wants us to make friends, who will welcome us into our eternal dwellings when we will receive what is truly ours forever. We don’t make these friends by cheating and conniving. We make them by supporting the preaching of the Gospel and helping the poor, by using our time for Christ’s kingdom and investing for our children’s future in the Kingdom of God. Jesus wants us to treat the mammon we are entrusted with today as if we have true riches waiting for us, which can never be taken away. Jesus has secured these riches with His holy precious blood and his innocent sufferings and death, which made atonement for all our sins. Through faith in Christ, we are children of light, who have an eternal inheritance.
We do not earn this inheritance by our stewardship. Christ alone earned this inheritance for us. Yet, being a bad steward of what God has entrusted to you and serving mammon instead of Christ will cause you to lose this inheritance. Yet, God richly blesses good stewardship with additional treasures on earth and in heaven, given according to His own grace and mercy. And it is when we recognize that Christ has gained for us this eternal inheritance that we are emboldened to be diligent and generous stewards of God’s kingdom, so that we do not become slaves of mammon and lose our inheritance. May God bless our stewardship, so that we may welcome each other and our children into our eternal homes. Amen.

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Making Friends with Unrighteous Mammon

8/15/2022

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Marinus van Reymerswaele, "Parable of the Unjust Steward," 1540, Public Domain.

Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-13
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
August 14, 2022

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus tells us a story of a no good, double tongued, self-serving cheat. And he tells us to be more like him. How can this be? Certainly, Jesus isn’t serious! He is serious, and you should pay attention to this lesson. No, Jesus is not telling us to be no good, double tongued, self-serving or to cheat anyone. But he is calling us to be shrewd, that is, wise and understanding, and to put our shrewdness to work.

The steward in our lesson was accused of wasting his master’s possessions. And against this charge he could give no defense. So, he quickly used the short time he had left at his job to secure himself accommodations for when his master threw him out. So, he called up his master’s debtors and had them rewrite the books with less debt. The steward, who still had charge over all the records, was able to sign off on this in his master’s name. That means that if the master were to later dispute the amount owed, he’d appear stingy and double tongued. And so, this steward secured for himself friends and housing as well as the praise from his master for his wise dealings.

But, how can you, a Christian, imitate this cheat? How are you like him in any way? You are like him in more ways than you think. First, the man is a steward. A steward is one who manages his master’s possessions, meaning, he doesn’t deal with his own property, but the property of another. That describes you and me. We are all simply stewards of what we have. Everything we have we have received from our heavenly Father, our Good Master. And every earthly possession we have will pass away. We won’t own it forever. Either our stuff will break or be spent, or we’ll die and leave it to someone else. So, we’re all stewards. We’re the temporary managers of all that we have, whether that is money, possessions, or time.

Secondly, this steward has been accused of wasting his master’s possessions. Well, if everything you have in life, both tangible and intangible, your money, your possessions, your talent, your intelligence, your time, are given to you on loan from God, would you say that you have managed them all well? Or could you be accused of wasting your Master’s possessions?

One of the greatest time-wasters in our present age is the smartphone. It’s supposed to be a timesaver, but it often has the opposite effect. There’s a way to check your phone to see how much time you spend on it, and how much time you spend on each of the apps. Many are embarrassed at how much time they waste watching videos, playing stupid games, and other mindless activities. Yet, what if there were a way for you to see how much time you spend on every activity in life, and how much money, and how much stress you spend. If you could see a pie chart, which broke down how many hours you spent at every activity, what you spent your money on, what you stressed over and talked about, would you be embarrassed? How much time have you spent in God’s Word and prayer? How much time have you spent helping others? And how much time have you spent serving your own pleasures? The same can be asked about your money, talents, and thoughts. If we’re honest with ourselves, we must confess that we have joined the unrighteous steward in wasting our master’s possessions.

So, how should we imitate this unrighteous steward? Well, he made friends with what he had while he had it. Now, this certainly does not mean that we should cheat our employers or steal. But we should be diligent with what we have. Jesus says, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 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.” Unbelievers are more shrewd than us believers. Unbelievers are wiser in their dealings with each other. Unbelievers serve their false god more diligently than we serve the true God!

What Jesus is getting at is that you cannot serve two masters. You cannot worship both God and mammon. Now, our ESV translation of the Bible translates it money, but the word is actually mammon. Mammon means more than just money. It means earthly possessions. Luther explains it as anything beyond what you absolutely need. And most of us can admit that we have more than we actually need of a lot of things. Now, nowhere does Jesus say that you should not have mammon. Rather, he says you must not worship it. You can either worship mammon, or you can worship God. You can’t do both.

The unrighteous steward in our Gospel lesson worshipped mammon. And he worshipped mammon more diligently than most Christians worship Christ. That’s the lesson. It should not be so. Rather, you should worship Christ as diligently as the mammon worshiper worships mammon.

What you worship betrays who your God is. To worship means to serve. So, do you use your mammon to serve the kingdom of God, or do you serve your mammon? That’s where the pie chart would be helpful. You can find out what your false gods are by what you spend your time, talents, and money, and thoughts on. You can discover what your false gods are by what offends you. Are you offended when God’s Word is blasphemed, or when your feelings are hurt? Well, then there’s your false god. It is not wrong to have money, time, friends, family, intelligence, and talents. These are all given to you by God. It is wrong to worship them, to serve them at the expense of God’s kingdom and your own faith in Christ.

The unrighteous steward made temporary friends with his master’s wealth. Christ calls us to make eternal friends with our Master’s wealth. Here we remember the words of Jesus, “Whoever offers even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is a disciple, will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:42) And so, we see our brothers and sisters in Christ in need, so we help them. A pastor falls ill with a debilitating disease, and Christians pitch in to provide for his wife and children. We see that people on the other side of the world are in need of the Gospel, so we should fund missionaries, so that they can focus on preaching the Gospel instead of raising funds. It’s more important that there are Lutheran Churches for your children and grandchildren to attend after you’re gone than it is that they get a nice inheritance. Unbelievers work hard to control the education of our children, so that many have apostatized, in part because of their unchristian education, so it is important for us to fund Christian education for the next generation.

And we’ve all benefited from such friends. Every one of us has worshipped in a church, we did not build and were taught by pastors we did not train, because Christians before us put their mammon to work for the sake of the kingdom. God has more time, money, and talents than anyone. He is the possessor of the entire earth. Yet, he has placed his earthly possessions into the hands of stewards, who he intends to work for his kingdom. Now, you can’t control what the rich and famous do with their deposit. But you can control what you do with yours.

Why wasn’t the unrighteous steward afraid to play so fast and loose with his master’s property, decreasing the debt of his debtors? Because he knew that he had a generous master, who would not go back on his word. Well, don’t you have a generous Master? Does it not please the Lord for you to be generous with what is his? It certainly does. This is why we forgive those who sin against us. We’re not going to run out of forgiveness. This is why we should not fear to help out others. We aren’t left poorer when we care for those in need. And this is why we should not fear to support the mission of the church on earth. Christ promises that if you seek first the Kingdom of God, all these things will be added unto you.

The unrighteous steward was concerned with his temporal dwelling. Likewise, you need money to put a roof over your head. But Jesus tells us not to worry about such things. Our heavenly Father will care for us. Rather, he tells us to be concerned with the eternal dwelling. Our Lord Jesus went to prepare such an eternal dwelling for us. And he acquired it for us not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and innocent sufferings and death. Jesus shed his blood to take your sins away. He purchased your eternal home in heaven, so that you can receive it freely as a gift through faith.

This means that your eternal home is secure. You can’t earn it. You can’t purchase it. But if you believe that Christ has won it for you, then you desire it more than the riches of this world. The only thing that can lose this eternal dwelling is unbelief, idolatry. So, when Jesus tells us to make friends with unrighteous mammon, he is not telling us to earn our way into our eternal dwellings. He is telling us to live as if we believe that Christ has won for us our eternal dwellings with his precious blood. He is telling us to live as if we believe that Jesus is our God, who joined our human race to rescue us from sin, death, and hell, and that he succeeded. He is telling us to live as if Jesus and the eternal dwelling he has secured for us are worth losing house and home, wife and children, land and job for, and to believe that God will gladly give and preserve all these things for us for Christ’s sake.

St. John writes, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” (1 John 5:1) Those who will welcome us into the eternal dwellings are those who have been born of God. And so, we should love them. And we should do for them what love requires.

Mammon worshipers serve mammon diligently, because they are confident that money will keep them secure. So, mammon turns them into slaves until it ultimately fails them. Christians serve Christ diligently, because they are confident that Jesus will keep them secure. And Jesus does. He never fails us. The hymnist Paul Gerhardt writes, “What is all this life possesses? But a hand full of sand/That the heart distresses. Noble gifts that pall me never Christ, our Lord, Will accord/To his saints forever.” Such confidence we should have in Christ, who has promised us his heavenly kingdom for our eternal home. When we believe this, a cheerful, generous, and busy spirit arises in us, to work shrewdly for that kingdom. Amen.

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Who is your God?

8/2/2021

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Parable of the Unjust Steward, Marinus van Reymerswaele, circa 1540. Public Domain.

Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-9
Pastor James Preus

Trinity Lutheran Church
August 1, 2021

What is the unjust steward’s god? It’s obvious; isn’t it? Mammon. Earthly wealth. Whatever you fear, love, and trust in most is your god. And this unjust steward fears money. He revere’s its power to feed one’s belly and he is terrified of running out of it. He loves wealth. He desires to have it more than anything else. And he trusts in it. He trusts that if he can get money, he will be provided for. The next question is: Does he serve his god well? And we must answer, yes. He serves his god very well. This is why the master commends the unjust steward for his shrewdness.

Now, who is your God? If you are to call yourself a Christian, it must be the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt; the God, who sent his Son to die for our sins and who sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts through the Gospel. Now, we must ask. Do you serve your God well? Do you love him with all your heart, soul, and mind? Do you fear him and trust in him? Here we get a sharp rebuke from our God, Jesus Christ, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their generation than the sons of light.” This infidel steward, this dishonest thief is more shrewd than we are. He serves his false god with greater diligence than we serve the one true God.

So, what does Jesus exhort us to do in light of this revelation? Our true Master Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Jesus tells us to make use of unrighteous wealth, that is, unrighteous mammon. Why is it called unrighteous mammon?  Because it will fail. It gets destroyed by rust and eaten by moths and stolen by thieves. And even if you can protect it from the rust, moths, and thieves, you will lose it when you die. God said to the rich fool, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20) And even if you have a slightly more noble goal for your wealth, to leave it to your children, it will remain unrighteous mammon for them. It will most certainly fail them too.

Yet, Jesus does not say that we should then throw away all earthly wealth and live as hermits as we pilgrim here on earth. The unrighteous, destined to fail wealth is given to us by our most generous heavenly Father. And he intends for us to use it for the good of his kingdom. Now, you might ask, what is the difference between a Christian using unrighteous wealth and an unbeliever using unrighteous wealth? It is the difference between being a master and being a slave. If mammon is your god, you are its bondservant. And you will serve earthly wealth until the day you die, when it will leave you to go to hell, so that it can enslave another victim. But if God is your God, that is, if you have faith in Christ Jesus who purchased you with his own blood, then mammon is your servant. And you must never be its slave.

Mammon can be used for good or evil. Gold can adorn the ears and arms of a harlot. Or it can be formed into a chalice to carry the very blood of Christ Jesus and to feed it to his Christians for forgiveness and salvation. A website can be used to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the forms of sermons, Bible studies, and other writings. Or it can be used to share the most perverse filth intended to draw victims to the slaughter. Money can be spent on excessive luxury, drinking, partying, and vacationing, and it can be spent to take care of the poor, support the preaching of the Gospel, to build churches, fund missions, and establish Lutheran Schools, so that future generations can be encouraged in the saving faith.

The Christian is in possession of greater wisdom than that of the shrewd steward. The Christian has the knowledge of an eternal dwelling stored up in heaven for all who believe in Christ Jesus, bought and paid for by the priceless blood of Jesus and his innocent suffering and death. Yet, Jesus warns that one cannot serve two masters; one cannot serve God and mammon (Luke 16:13). This means that the Christian must make everything in his life, including all his earthly wealth serve the aim of that final goal of obtaining that eternal heavenly dwelling. This is not to suggest that anyone can purchase the kingdom of heaven with unrighteous mammon, but rather, to warn that becoming a slave to unrighteous mammon can cause you to forfeit your eternal heavenly dwelling.

This is why Jesus instructs us not to use unrighteous mammon for our own pleasure, but rather, being content with what we need, to make friends with it, who will welcome us into our eternal dwelling. Now, who are these friends? This lesson is from Luke chapter sixteen. At the end of this same chapter, Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. As you know, Lazarus was poor, died and went to heaven. Did Lazarus welcome the rich man into his eternal dwelling? No. The rich man died and went to hell. He didn’t make Lazarus his friend with his mammon. Rather, he only pleasured himself in obedient servitude to his unrighteous god. Had he had faith in Christ, he would have made his mammon serve him. He would have helped his brother in Christ, Lazarus. Lazarus would have welcomed him to Abraham’s side.

To make friends with unrighteous mammon who will welcome you into your eternal dwelling when the mammon fails means to use your unrighteous wealth to help Christians here on earth, who will be your friends forever in heaven. This means that you should be generous to the poor and use your unrighteous wealth to do God’s work to provide for every living thing. This especially applies to those of the household of God. St. John writes, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) Whatever you have, you have received from the Lord. It is not right for Christians to go hungry while their brothers and sisters in Christ get fat.

To make eternal friends with unrighteous wealth also means to support the mission of the church. Under the Law of Moses, the children of Israel were required to give ten percent of their earnings to the Lord (Numbers 18:21ff). Christ Jesus has set us free from the requirements of Moses’ Law. Yet, both Abraham and Jacob freely gave one tenth of their wealth to God before Moses ever gave such a command (Genesis 14:20b; 28:22). And we Christians, who live by the Law of the Spirit of Life and not under the Law of Death certainly should be as generous with our first-fruits.

But in fact, not a tenth of what we have belongs to the Lord, but all of it. And we owe it all to him. If we truly recognized that all our earthly wealth will fail us, and that our faithful God promises to provide our daily bread each and every day, and even more, that he promises to give us an eternal dwelling as a free inheritance, we would seek to use our unrighteous wealth for the greatest good of furthering Christ’s kingdom by supporting Lutheran churches and schools, so that friends may testify of us on that final day that when they were hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison, we helped them (Matthew 25:31ff). Christ tells us that we can actually use our worthless money and vanishing time and talents to do something that will last for eternity! We can make friends in future generations, who will thank us, just as we will give thanks for those before us who built this church and sweat and bled, so that we could have the Gospel today.

Our English Standard Version Bible translates it, “dishonest manager.” I like the translation, “unjust steward” better. A steward is one who manages that which does not belong to him. We are all stewards. Everything we have doesn’t actually belong to us. We have it for a time, on loan from God. And, just as with the steward in Jesus’ parable, our stewardship will be taken away from us. When we die, we will no longer be able to be managers of what God has entrusted to us. And also, like the steward in our parable, we will have to turn in the account of our management, as St. Paul also says in Romans 14, “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” And as Jesus’ parable about the talents also teaches us (Matthew 25:14-30), our Master will ask for an account of what we’ve done with the little that was entrusted to us; how we spent the unrighteous wealth God gave us; what we did with the talent and time God gave us.

Yet, unlike that unjust steward in Jesus’ parable, we will not need to weasel ourselves into someone else’s home. And indeed, we cannot trick, cheat, or steal our way into heaven. Rather, the debt we have incurred against our Master has been paid in full by the innocent suffering and death and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has taken all our sins away. Our Lord Jesus intercedes for us now in heaven, showing our heavenly Father the marks of the nails in his hands and feet and the scar of the spear in his side. We do not need to cheat our way into our eternal dwellings. Our way has been rightfully bought and paid for. Christ Jesus holds in his hands the receipts. And in the Book of Life, written in Jesus’ blood, are the names of all who repent of their sins and trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness and salvation.

Only an unbelieving scoundrel would then conclude that we need not care then how we spend our earthly wealth, time, and talents. Having been set free from slavery to sin and from hell, we cannot then turn in servitude to the false god Mammon. We must not obey it. Rather, being confident of both our eternal dwelling and our daily bread by the generosity of our God, we seek to put our mammon to work in the service of Christ’s kingdom. We ought to work as if it depends on us, but thank God that it doesn’t. Unbelief causes one to neglect making eternal friends with the mammon God gives him. It comes from not trusting that God will provide for you today and tomorrow. It comes from doubting that God has an eternal dwelling prepared for you (John 14:1-3). So, in order to have a generous heart and to seek to use our mammon to God’s glory, we must believe that Christ has won an eternal dwelling for us. Then God will be your God. And you will be his servant. And He will store up eternal friends for you. Amen.

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God Is Faithful

8/11/2020

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Esteban March - The Golden Calf, between 1610 and 1668, Public Domain

Trinity 9
1 Corinthians 10: (1-5) 6-13
August 9, 2020

10 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

God is the same forever. He does not change. And although people do change, we all remain members of the same human race. And we share a common condition. We are sinners, who have fallen short of the glory of God. St. Paul says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” So, although each of us suffers from our own particular temptations and sins, nothing that afflicts us is unique. Nothing’s new under the sun. What tempts us; the sins into which we fall; they’ve tempted and caused to fall Christians before us.
And this is why it is so important to read and become familiar with the Holy Scriptures. Last week I urged you all to learn your Small Catechism. Luther’s Small Catechism teaches the basics of the Bible by simply explaining the Ten Commandments, the Apostles Creed, the Lord’s Prayers, as well as the biblical doctrine on Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. These six chief parts summarize everything you need to know to be a Christian. Yet, that does not mean that you don’t need to read your Bible. The Bible describes how our God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever deals with his people, who are very much in the same spiritual situation as we are now. St. Paul says these things were written for our instruction or admonition. So, it behooves us to read what was written and learn about ourselves.
St. Paul reminds us that our fathers in the faith, the people of Israel, were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, that they all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink, that they drank from the spiritual rock, which followed them, which was the same Christ we worship today! They worshipped the same God. They followed the same Christ. Notice even the similarity to the Sacraments we have today. They were baptized into the cloud, which was the very presence of God and into the sea, just as we are baptized not only into water, but in the name of God. They ate and drank spiritual meat and drink from Christ, just as we eat and drink the body and blood of the same Christ for spiritual sustenance. Yet, what does St. Paul say? “Nevertheless, with most of them God was displeased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”
What does this teach us? It teaches us that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not save us if we do not have faith! They were all baptized! Yet, they were not all saved! But doesn’t baptism save? Indeed, it does! But only through faith. If you reject Christ, Baptism is of no benefit to you. Doesn’t the Lord’s Supper work forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation? Indeed, it does! Yet, only those who believe the promise of Christ eat and drink worthily!
St. Paul used the example of the children of Israel in the wilderness to warn the Christians in Corinth not to despise their Baptism and not to abuse the Lord’s Supper. And from what we can read from 1 Corinthians, this is exactly what the Christians in Corinth were doing; living as if their bodies were not the temple of the Holy Spirit, who began his dwelling in them at their Baptism, and treating the Lord’s Supper like a common dinner party, even participating in pagan sacrifices in direct contradiction to the Communion into which they participated in the Sacrament.
And this lesson is as important for us to learn today as it was for the Christians in Corinth. Are we not prone to treat Baptism like a superstitious magic spell, which imparts salvation even if we don’t continue in the faith? “Get the child done.” is actually uttered by Christians in reference to bringing a child to the saving waters of Baptism! Yet, Baptism is not a once and done event. Baptism is placing a new-born Christian in to the safety of the Christain Church to be nurtured and to grow in faith. And the Lord’s Supper is God’s food for the faithful, not for those who continue in sin without repentance, or for those who do not believe in Christ.
We must not be idolaters as some of them were. Here St. Paul references Exodus chapter 32, where the children of Israel, impatient with Moses’ delay on top of Mount Sinai, worshipped a golden calf, crediting it for their deliverance from Egypt! God punished them for their idol worship. The Corinthians likewise were tempted with idolatry. They lived in a culture that worshipped many false gods and Christians would often be pressured by social norms to participate in sacrifices to idols. And this lesson is relevant to us today. It may be uncommon to be invited to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but idolatry is to fear, love or trust in anything above God. And that is a temptation that persists among us today. We trust in money more than God. We love our pleasures, more than God. We fear rejection from our family and friends more than rejection from God. Take heed of this idolatry. Your fathers were baptized into Moses and idolatry destroyed them. Do not let your idolatry throw away your Baptism.
We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. Here St. Paul references the episode at the Baal of Peor as recorded in Numbers 25. The unfaithful prophet Baalam enticed the Israelites to embrace cult prostitutes from Moab. In his anger God killed thousands of them in a single day, until pious Phinehas in his zeal killed the most brazen offender and put an end to the plague. The Corinthian Christians needed to be reminded of God’s wrath against sexual immorality. They had been rescued from the perversions of the pagan Greeks when they were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit in Baptism (1 Corinthians 6:11). Yet, the Satanic world in which they lived continued to pull these infant Christians to tolerate the worst forms of fornication.
And we currently live in a culture that likely surpasses the ancient Greeks in perversity. And we’d be naïve to believe that the church is passing through unscathed. Are your views on marriage formed by how the world behaves or by how God teaches us in his word? Do you promote with your words and actions fornication and adultery? See God’s wrath against this sin. Those who participated in the same Christ fell away because of fornication.
Some of Israel tested Christ and grumbled against God, and God destroyed them with snakes and with the angel of death. This is the sin of covetousness: not being content with what God has given you and desiring what he has not given you. Covetousness is rooted in unbelief, because when you covet you are not trusting in God’s promise to provide for you. Israel tested Christ in this way. We too are guilty of this testing of God, grumbling and complaining for what we don’t have. Our generation has it easier than any other generation in the history of the world. We have more food than we should eat. We have more stuff than we need. Yet, we still grumble.
Christians often think that keeping the faith is simply holding on to the basic doctrine of the Christian faith, and as long as you believe that there is one God and that Jesus died on the cross, then you won’t lose your faith. But Satan often doesn’t attack the chief doctrine of our faith head on. Rather, he tempts us into other sins. If he constantly attacked our faith in one God and in Jesus as our Savior, we would put up guards against him. Rather, Satan attacks from the side. He entices us away from the faith by first drawing us into other sins. He won’t tell you to deny God upfront, but rather to also love other gods like money and power and worldly acceptance. He won’t deny that Jesus is Lord, but he’ll still entice you into sexual immorality or simply to think that it really isn’t a big deal. Christians can be guilty of being the worst complainers and malcontents imaginable. They think they honor God, while not realizing that their complaints and grumbling about money, against their neighbor, against their boss, and so forth are really complaints against God, who provides for them and bids them to love their neighbor.
This is why St. Paul warns, “Anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall.” Don’t take for granted your faith in Christ, but rather beware of temptations that destroy faith. Too often Christians think that they can remain Christians by their own strength, merit, and works. They become proud that they will always be Christians no matter what. But as Scripture shows us and as our own experience tells us, Christians can fall away.
But how can you prevent yourself from falling? Who has the strength to resist temptation? And can anyone have certainty of salvation? To answer this, you must look away from yourself and to Christ Jesus. He is the way of escape from temptation. And he is your refuge when your own sins assail you. The reason so many of Israel fell in the wilderness is because they forgot Christ. Their Baptism into the sea and their eating of spiritual food did them no good, because they did not look to Christ their Savior, their God.
Can you have certainty of salvation? Yes, indeed! In Christ alone! Only in Christ Jesus do you find certainty of your salvation. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and follow me. I give them eternal life and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” This is a sure promise. Does Jesus lie? Certainly not! If you think you stand, take heed that you stand on Christ Jesus, or you will certainly fall! It is Jesus, his forgiveness and salvation, which will strengthen you in temptation’s hour. And it is Jesus who will restore you again when you come to him with a penitent heart.
God does not change. He always remains the same. And his promise of salvation in Christ cannot be voided or altered. The mercy he has shown to the saints in the Bible instructs us of this great truth. God forgave David, who committed adultery and murder. He forgave Peter, who denied Christ three times. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the worst sinners. We are cut out of the same cloth as all sinners. And we are saved by the same Jesus.
When we look at Scripture, we see how God punishes those who reject Christ by falling away into sin. Yet, also throughout Scripture we see a God who does not deal with us according to our sins, but according to his own mercy (Psalm 103:10). St. Paul writes to the Romans, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) The goal of the entire Scriptures, even when it shows the wrath of God, is to draw us toward the one who is our hope.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
No merit of mine own I claim,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the Solid Rock I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand. Amen.

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Making Friends for Eternity

8/19/2019

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Luke 16:1-13
August 18, 2019

“You cannot serve God and mammon.” Jesus here is clearly teaching the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Mammon is a false god. Mammon is often translated as money, but it refers to any type of riches or property. Martin Luther says that mammon is riches or temporal goods anyone owns over and above what his needs require, and with which he can benefit others without injuring himself. Of course, what one’s needs require is difficult to discern. Three-year-olds are not the only ones who use the phrase, “I need” quite liberally. The more money we have, generally, the more needs we seem to have.
But money, property, riches, all mammon are false gods. There is only one God, whom we should worship. The Father, who created all things through his Son, who died for us, and the Holy Spirit, who makes us holy through his word: three distinct Persons inseparably united in one Godhead. Apart from this Holy Trinity, there is no god. You make something your god when you fear, love, or trust in it most. This is why mammon is a false god. People fear, love, and trust in money and possessions more than the one true God, from whom come all good gifts. Your god is that which you fear losing most. Your god is that, which you serve. And far more people serve mammon than serve the one true God, who alone is deserving of service and adoration.
The First Commandment is law. When Jesus teaches us the First Commandment by telling us that we cannot serve both God and mammon, he is confronting us with our own sin. That is what the law does. “The law is but a mirror bright/ To bring the inbred sin to light/ That lurks within our nature.” (LSB 555:3) Through the law comes knowledge of sin. We serve mammon. We work hard to get it. We guard it. We prize is. We fear losing it. We are much more concerned that we might lose some of our extra mammon than that others lack what they need. Mammon is a false god that draws us away from the true God and his word and keeps us from serving our neighbor in love. This is a sin.
The law confronts us with our own sins, so that we repent. To repent means to turn from our sin. We must turn from serving mammon and serve the only true God. Yet, how can this be done? How can we make God our only master? The temptation to serve other gods we can feel, touch, and count are much too alluring to this sinful flesh!
The truth is, we cannot make God our master. Rather, he makes himself our Master, that is, our Lord. You are taught in your Small Catechism:
I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord,
who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death,
that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.
This is most certainly true.
Jesus became our Master by purchasing us from sin, death, and the devil with his precious blood and innocent suffering and death. Jesus becomes our one and only Master, our God and Lord through faith, when we believe that he has forgiven our sins and rescued us from the condemnation of the law. And even this faith, he gives to us as a gift through the Holy Spirit, who works in our hearts through the Gospel.
You cannot make God your one and only Master by serving him. You are much too sinful to do that. You will fail. Rather, you serve God, because he has made himself your Master through Jesus Christ, whom you receive through faith.
Yet, what should we do with all this mammon? It still exists, doesn’t it? We cannot just act like it doesn’t. Yet, since Christ Jesus has become our only Master through faith, we certainly can’t serve it either. So, what ought we do with it?
Mammon is a gift from God. It shows us that God not only provides us with what we need to support this body and life, but he supplies us with much more than we need. Yet, he does not supply us with these gifts in order for us to abandon him and serve the gifts. Rather, since we are now God’s servants and he is our Master, everything we own becomes in the service of God’s kingdom. We do not serve unrighteous mammon, rather, unrighteous mammon serves us to the glory of God.
Jesus tells a strange parable. And it is made all the stranger by the approval of this dishonest steward, who stole from his master in order to be welcomed into the homes of his debtors. Yet, the master does not commend the steward for his lying and cheating, but rather for his shrewdness, because he worked diligently to secure room and board for himself by means of mammon, fifty measures of oil here and twenty measures of wheat there. Jesus does not want us Christians to emulate this shrewd steward in his dishonesty, but rather in his shrewdness and diligence. Make your mammon work for the kingdom of God as diligently as this man made his master’s mammon work for himself.
Jesus says, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Many falsely claim that here Jesus teaches us to earn our way to heaven by giving to the poor or giving to the church. Yet, we have already learned that we cannot earn our way to heaven, but rather, Jesus has purchased us from all sin, from death and hell, and has made himself our Master. And we his servants, live under him in his kingdom forever. We do not serve in order to get to heaven, but rather, we serve, because we are already heirs of God’s kingdom in heaven through faith in Jesus’ blood. Rather, here Jesus is teaching us how to serve him even now.
The chief use of the law is to show us our sin. This is the chief use, because it shows us our need for a Savior. The law condemns us for our sin, in order that we see our need for Jesus’ blood and forgiveness. Yet, since we are Christians redeemed by Christ and no longer under the threats of the law, we do not fear the condemnation of the law. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Yet, the law still has its use for us Christians. Now, instead of condemning us, the law teaches us. Here Jesus teaches the law in order to teach us Christians how to serve our Master with the unrighteous wealth he gives us.
Mammon is called unrighteous, because it can be used for evil. That is why people steal. Mammon is a very disloyal god. It helps whomever happens to have it in his possession. Stolen money will buy a car just as well as hard earned money. And money can be used to satisfy sinners’ most vile desires just as easily as it can be used to feed hungry children and build churches. But you can use mammon for good, and that is what God calls us to do.
Mammon always fails, but God calls us to use it to make friends we will have for eternity. Who are these friends? They are our fellow Christians, who will receive an eternal dwelling with Christ on the basis of His merits, His suffering, death, and resurrection. Scripture teaches us to do good to everyone, especially to those who belong to the household of faith. We are going to live with them for eternity, so we should start getting along with them now.
The steward in Jesus’ parable was not working with his own money. He was playing with his master’s money. He used his master’s money to his own advantage. Yet, he made his master look generous. News surely spread that this master forgives debts, is merciful, kind and patient. We too do not work with our own property. Everything we own comes from God. And in reality, God owns all that we have. We are stewards, managers.
This realization should result in two things: great confidence in God and great generosity toward those in need. We should have great confidence in God, because God has given us all that we have and he promises to not let you starve, or be in need, but to provide you with everything you need in this body and life. You can be confident that you will not lose anything by using your unrighteous mammon to help those in need, because God will richly supply you and will make up for whatever you need. This should result in us being generous and eager to help. This truly is a fruit of faith, which shows that we have confidence in God.
Generosity with unrighteous mammon glorifies God. Scripture says, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). Yet, what is the result when the opposite happens? Then instead of God’s love being hidden, God’s love is revealed. All good gifts come from God. When you help those in need, particularly those who are members with you in Christ, what is their response? Is it not thanksgiving to God for his ever-enduring mercy? Yes, by your actions you can cause someone to praise God and to have confidence that God does indeed provide daily bread.
Your generosity also should extend to the Church and her mission to proclaim the Gospel both at home and abroad. The Lord commands in Scripture that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:14) and that those who are taught should share all good things with their teacher (Galatians 6:6). Yet, the Lord does not want you to give out of compulsion, but with a free heart. As Scripture says, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7)
This can only be done as a fruit of faith by one who has confidence that God will supply him with every good thing. This is what our fathers Abraham and Jacob did. Melchizedek did not command Abraham to give him a tenth of all he had, nor did God command this of Jacob, yet they did it with a free heart, because they trusted in God’s goodness and protection. Likewise, Moses had to command that the people of Israel stop bringing free will offerings for the construction of the tabernacle, because they brought gifts according to their hearts desire every morning in such abundance that they had much more than they needed to build God’s sanctuary.
This is how God uses unrighteous mammon, which fails in all its endeavors, to do work that will last through eternity. Through free-will gifts given by previous generations, we all have established churches where we have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through which we are saved for eternity. And through our free-will offerings now, God helps friends in future generations, whom we may never know in this life, but who will be our friends in our eternal dwellings.
Yet, this generous spirit has an adversary. Our old sinful flesh. And when we examine ourselves, the law which we should use as an example to live in service to Christ, again convicts us for having a less generous spirit than we ought. The law tells us that we aren’t good enough servants in Christ’s kingdom. That instead of putting our mammon to work for God, we serve it. The law causes us to doubt our place in God’s kingdom.
This is why we must always remember how God becomes our one and only master. It is through faith in Jesus Christ, who has purchased and won us by his suffering and death. That is the only way that we are placed in his kingdom and it is the only way we will remain in his kingdom. And this faith will produce fruit. Christ will work in you. But this fruit only comes when your heart believes that you have a generous God, who willingly forgives all your sins for Christ’s sake and gladly provides you with all you need both now and for eternity. May such faith in Christ produce fruit from us, so that we may make friends now, who will greet us when we enter our eternal home. Amen.

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"For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." ~ Romans 10:17

Everyone a Steward

Making Friends with Unrighteous Mammon

Who is your God?

God Is Faithful

Making Friends for Eternity

Rev. James Preus

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