Rick Warren - Transforming How I See and Use Money - Part 1
I wanna welcome you to "50 Days of Transformation". We're glad you're here. For seven weeks, we're looking at seven different dimensions of your life. Now, we've looked at your spiritual health, we've looked at physical health, we've looked at mental health, we've looked at emotional health, and we've looked at relational health. We got two more dimensions to deal with: work and money. And this weekend, I want us to look at financial health. Now, it may surprise you that Jesus actually talked more about money than he did heaven or hell. In fact, half of all of the parables that Jesus told are about money. Half of them.
In fact, in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke one out of every six verses is about money and money management. Why? Because money can dominate our lives and money influences our lives for either good or bad. It can be used for great things, it can be used for bad things, either way. And we spend so much of our time thinking about it, working for it, earning it, you know, studying it, saving it, and investing it, all these different things. And if you don't learn to manage your money, it will manage you.
Now, this weekend, we're gonna look at the most misunderstood story of Jesus in the entire Bible. It's a doozy. And it's in Luke chapter 16. If you have a Bible, you might wanna turn to Luke chapter 16. Otherwise, pull out your message notes. All the verses we're gonna look at are on that outline today, if you pull that out. And the reason why this is a confusing passage is because it appears that Jesus is approving of dishonesty. He's not. He just uses a clever crook as the hero of the story and he's using it for shock value.
Now, let me read you the story and then I'll make a couple of comments on it and we'll look in depth at it. Luke chapter 16. Here's the story of Jesus. It's called the parable of the dishonest or shrewd manager. Jesus said, "There once was a rich man who enlisted a manager to take care of his property. But the manager was accused of wasting his master's possessions, so the Owner called him in and said, 'You must now give an account of your stewardship... and report what you've done with what I entrusted you because your time as a manager is ending!' Now, the manager thought, 'What am I gonna do now? I'm losing my job but I'm not strong enough to dig ditches and I'm too proud to beg!'"
I love that part. He goes, "I know what I'll do". "'I know what I'll do, so that after I lose my job, I'll have plenty of friends to take care of me!' So he called in everybody who was in debt to his master. And he asked the first guy, 'How much do you owe my master?' The guy says, '800 gallons of olive oil.' So the manager said, 'Okay, here's what I want you to do. Tear up the bill, and write a new bill that says you only owe 400 gallons, okay. This is just gonna be between me and you. We're not gonna tell this to the boss.' And next, the manager found another debtor and he asked him, he said, 'How much do you owe?' And the guy said, '1000 bushels of wheat.' And the manager replied, 'Okay, here's what I want you to do. Change your bill to say you only owe 800 bushels.'"
So he's doing this under the table, obviously, without permission. "Now, when the Master," this is the owner, "heard what the dishonest manager had done, he still praised him. He praised him for his shrewdness. For worldly people are more shrewd in handling their affairs than are those who belong to the Light". Now, that is a strange story. In the next couple of verses, Jesus gives a little bit into the meaning of it and he says in verse 9, so Jesus said, "I tell you, use your worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves," what? Am I supposed to buy friends? This is getting even weirder.
"Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings". He's talking about heaven. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and who's ever dishonest with little will also be dishonest with much. So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth," he's saying, "If you're not a good money manager, if you're not taking care of the money that I've given you, if you've been untrustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who's gonna trust you with true riches, spiritual riches, the real riches of life"? "And if you have not been trustworthy with somebody else's property, who's gonna give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. He'll either hate the one and love the other or will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money".
Notice, he didn't say you should not. He said you can't, it's impossible. You cannot serve God and money. Now, that may be the most frustrating, the most shocking, and the most misunderstood story that Jesus ever told. And it's important to note a couple of things. First, Jesus is not praising the guy's dishonesty. He's praising his shrewdness, and we'll get back to that in just a minute, what that means. He's not praising his dishonesty. Second, you can learn from anybody, if you know the right questions. You don't have to agree with everything a person believes or does to actually learn from them.
This is very, very important because today people think because I disagree with you on something, then I can't learn from you on something. Well, that's nonsense. If you can only learn from people that you agree with 100%, well, guess what? You're not gonna learn anything because nobody agrees with you 100%. Have you talked to your wife lately? Or your husband? Or your boyfriend or your girlfriend? Nobody's gonna agree with you all the time and you don't have to agree with everything a person believes or does or acts or whatever in order for them to actually teach you something. I learn from people all the time who disagree with me. And you can, too. And Jesus is saying, "Learn from all kinds of people".
For instance, if I got a brain tumor and I'm looking for a neurosurgeon, my first question is not, "Did you read your Bible this morning"? My first question to this brain surgeon is not, "Did you go to church last week"? My church, my question is not even, "Are you a Christian? Do you believe in God"? My question is, "Have you ever done this before"? Because the guy might be cheating on his wife, but if he's a brain surgeon, he's a brain surgeon. Does that make sense? And so, it is nonsense to say you have to agree with everybody in order to learn from, this guy is dishonest, you don't wanna learn that part from him, but there are some things that he did right that you need to do with your money.
Now, the other thing I want you to notice is the two reasons Jesus tells this story. First, who is Jesus telling this to? He's telling this to the Pharisees. And who are the Pharisees? The Pharisees are the religious leader of Jesus's day. And here are the characteristics of a Pharisee. Number one, they're incredibly arrogant, they're not humble, they're incredibly prideful, they're self-righteous, they're judgmental, there's demeaning, they're demanding, and they really don't like people. But the number one characteristic of a Pharisee is they're hypocrite. They say one thing and believe something else. And they tell people to do things that they themselves don't even do.
So, Jesus loved to poke at the Pharisees. He loved to just kind of bop them in the eye. He loved to pop their balloon. Jesus had an amazing ability to comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable, and he still does that today. If you're in pain, any kind of pain, Jesus wants to comfort you. If you're comfortable, Jesus probably wants to put you in pain, because there's some things that need to change in your life. You become very, you know, comfortable with the status quo.
So, Jesus knew that the Pharisees loved money. That's why he tells this shocking story and makes a crook a hero. Look at this verse up on here on the screen. This is the rest of the chapter that I was reading from. It says, "The Pharisees dearly loved money. So when they heard what Jesus said, they made fun of him. But Jesus told them: 'You're always making yourselves look good, but God sees what's in your heart. The things that most people think are important are worthless as far as God is concerned.'"
Now, that last phrase is the reason why we're gonna look at what we're looking at today. The things that most people think matter, God says, "It don't matter at all". What do most people think matters? Possessions, pleasure, power, prestige, popularity, sex, status, salary, money, lust, power, those kind of things. God says those things really don't matter. Those aren't the important things in life. And in this series on transformation, we've been talking about the verse in the Bible that says, "Don't conform to the world's pattern, don't fall into their standard of culture, but be transformed by the way you think". I'm gonna teach you a whole new way to think about money today and it is radically counterculture. What God says about money is the exact opposite of everything you've been taught about money.
So, we're gonna look at that, but Jesus is talking about people who love money. And the second thing Jesus tells this story, the reason he tells it, is because most believers are poor money managers. Many of you are not very good at managing your money. You have no emergency savings saved up for an emergency. You have little or no retirement saved up. You're living from hand to mouth, you're living on the bills. In fact, you're living beyond your means. It's not, "buy it as soon as I get the money," it's "buy it before I get the money," and you're deeply in debt. And Jesus has some things to say to all of us about money.
Now, this message today is not a message about giving. It's not a message about tithing. This is a message about how to manage your money well and how to think about money the way God does, because money is one of the greatest sources of worries. It's the number one cause of divorce. It's till debt do us part. Now, Jesus doesn't praise the guy's dishonesty, but he does praise his shrewdness. What is shrewdness? To be shrewd means you're smart, you're sharp, you're strategic, and you're resourceful. And when you're shrewd, you see a problem clearly, you know what needs to be done, and then you figure out how to do it.
And what God wants you to do is God wants you to learn how to be biblically shrewd with your money for the rest of your life. And from this story, and we're gonna look at it today in detail, we learn four things not to do with your money, God says don't do these things with your money, and five things you need to remember every day of your life, and if you will remember them every day of your life, your stress regarding your finances is gonna go down dramatically and your joy and your satisfaction is gonna increase dramatically.
The first thing we need to learn in this story is four things not to do with your money. I don't spend a lot of time on this, so let me write quick and we'll get to the other part. Four things not to do. Number one, don't waste it. The Bible says, "Don't waste the money that God allows you to have". Luke 16:2, "The manager was accused of wasting his master's possession". You know, if I walk around thinking it's my money, well, obviously, well, it's my money. If I wanna waste it, who cares? But if I think, this is God's money, then all of a sudden I don't wanna waste God's money. Okay, this is a big difference. Don't waste it.
Number two, don't love it. The Bible says we are not to love money. Don't love it or live for it. And that's what he says in verse 13. He says, "No servant can serve two masters. He'll either hate one and love the other or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot," cannot, circle that, "cannot serve both God and money". It's impossible to live a divided allegiance.
Have you ever tried to work for two bosses? How'd that work out? Yeah, not very good. The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart and God wants your heart and Jesus lays that out in black and white. He isn't vague here. He goes, "Okay, you gotta choose what's gonna be number one in your life. You can't have two number one things in your life". You can't say, "My number one goal in life is to make a lot of money and my number one goal is to love God". You're going to have to decide what's gonna be number one. You can't have two number ones in your life. Is God gonna be number one in your life or is making a whole lot of money the number one goal of your life? You cannot serve them both.
Number three, he says, don't trust it. Don't waste it, don't love it, don't trust money for security. I don't care how much money you've got, you can lose it. And so, then he said, "Don't put your security in it". Now, the manager learned this pretty quick. In verse 3 he says, "What am I gonna do? I'm losing my job". Many of you know what it feels like to lose your job, to be out of work, and all of a sudden you got no source of security anymore. How many times have I told you, never, never, never put your security in anything that can be taken from you? If you put your security in your parents, how you look, I hate to tell this, you're not always gonna be as sexy as you are right now, okay? Those looks are gonna fade.
If you put your security in your health, you can lose your health. If you put your security in your job, you can lose your job. If you put your security in your marriage, you could lose your marriage. If you put your security in a loved one, you can lose a loved one. If you put your security in your bank account, there's 1,000 ways to lose all your money. If you want to really be secure, the center of your life has to be built around something that can never, never be taken from you. And there's only one thing that you can never lose: that is God's love for you. You can't make God stop loving you. You can try, but you will fail because God's love is unconditional. It's not based on who you are. It's based on who he is.
So, you build your life on God's love for you and that relationship. So he says, "Don't waste it, don't love it, don't trust in it because you can lose it so easy". Look at this verse on the screen. Proverbs 23, verse 5 from the Bible says this, I like this verse. "Your money can be gone in a flash, as if it had grown wings and flown away like an eagle". Money just flies away. You know, the United States government is so polite and helpful in this that they put an eagle on every dollar to remind us that money could fly away like an eagle, all right. So, every time you look at a dollar, you go, "I'm not keeping this one very long," all right. "It's gonna be gone like the wind," all right.
So, don't love it, don't trust it, don't waste, the fourth thing God says is, "Don't expect it to satisfy". If you think having more will make you more happy, make you more secure, make you more important, make you more valuable, you are seriously misguided because it's not gonna satisfy. The more you have, the more you want. Somebody asked Howard Hughes, "How much does it take to make a man happy"? He said, "Just a little bit more". It's always more. Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 10 says this in the Bible, "Whoever loves money will never have enough," so you can't love it, "and whoever loves wealth will never be satisfied with his income," because you always want more.
That's why Jesus says this in Luke 12, "Guard against all kinds of greed because your life is not measured by how much you own". Your self worth has no connection to your net worth. Your valuables do not determine your value. So, don't think, I have a lot, so I'm worth a lot. No, you're not. You're worth a lot simply because Jesus died for you. God made you, Jesus died for you, the Spirit wants to live in you. That's how much you matter to God.
Now, that verse, we've been looking at all for seven weeks. Don't conform to the way the world thinks about any of these areas, but be transformed by the way you think, the renewing of your mind. And so, what I must look at in this story are the five things God says about money, and these are so radical, they're so revolutionary, they're so counterculture, they are the exact opposite, as I said, of everything you've been taught. But if you act on these and you remember these and you live by these, the stress level in your life is gonna go down dramatically. Okay, here they are. Five things we learn from this story.
Number one, every day I need to remember it all belongs to God. It all belongs to God. The whole universe belongs to God. You belong to God. The heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the plants, the rocks, everything ever created belongs to God. You don't really own anything. What you think you own is really on loan. You didn't own it before you were born. You're not gonna own it after you die. God just loans it to you for 80 years. It was loaned to somebody else before you were born. It's gonna be loaned to somebody else after you die and you get to use it while you're alive. You don't loan anything. In this story, the owner has all this property and he lets a manager take care of his property. We're all in management.
You may not realize this, but you're in management. God has put some things in your life under your management. Everything you have is a gift from God. You'd have nothing if it weren't for God. You wouldn't take your next breath if it weren't for God. So, it's all a gift. It's God's love for you. Everything, your life, your brain, your thoughts. You say, "I worked with my hands to get this". Who do you think gave you your hands? It's all a gift from God, but it's all on loan. It's really God's and he's loaned it to you, and God is seeing what you're going to do with it. We're all in management. Now, if you'll start looking at everything in your life this way, that "I don't really own anything, it all belongs to God and it's just loaned to me for a while," your worry is gonna go.
See, if you go out after the service and you get in your car, you say, "This isn't my car, it's God's car," and then you go home and you say, "This is God's house, not my house," and then you sit down and eat some meal on a dish, say, "This is God's dish," and when you get in bed tonight, you say, "This is God's bed. He's loaned it to me and I get to use it. I get to take care of it. I get the management, but it's really God's, everything is really God's," what will happen is your worry goes down. Why?
Well, let's say you're driving a car and you're in an accident, you get in a fender bender and you say, "Hey God, you got a dent in your car. It's not my car. You loaned it to me. You gave me the money to get it. What do you wanna do about your car, God? You want me to fix it"? Your kids need braces, say, "Hey God, your kid needs braces". What are you gonna... see, here's the point. If I'm in charge, if I'm God, if I'm the master of my fate, then I gotta pay for it all. I gotta worry about where it's gonna come from. But if I'm really just a child of God, I'm just his child and he's loaned me these things and I'm just to manage it, I'm not responsible to pay for it all. Does that make sense? If I'm the employee and God's the employer, he is ultimately in charge of the benefits package. It all belongs to God.
Now, in the first verse of this story it says the owner enlisted a manager to take care of his property. Question: How well are you taking care of God's property? Your body? It doesn't really belong to you. God made it. How well are you taking care of your body? Your time? Your opportunities? Your mind? How well are you taking care of your mind? Your talents? How well are you taking care of your talents? What are you doing with whatever God has given you? It all belongs to God and you are to make the most of what you've been given.
The rest of... in fact of this verse says the guy was wasting his master's possession. Any time I waste money, I'm wasting God's money. That'll change the way you buy stuff. You know, nobody in the mall right now is going, "Hm, I think I'll just blow God's money on this piece of junk because I just wanna have it". No, it's God's money. It'll change the way you think.
Number one, it all belongs to God. Number two, second truth to remember, and I need to remind myself of this every single day is this, God is using money to test me. God is using money to test me. He's testing all kinds of things in my life. You see, God doesn't just automatically give his blessings to anybody. He tests you first to see if you're responsible, if you can handle it, and if you can't handle it, he's not gonna trust you with it.
God doesn't give his spiritual power to just anybody. And he says, "Before I give you spiritual power, I'm gonna give you some material possessions and I'm going to see if I can trust you with material possessions, then I can trust you with spiritual power. But if you're not even managing your money well, why in the world should I give you the stuff that really matters"?
This is a test. Life is a test, life is a trust, and life is a temporary assignment. This life is preparation for the next. This is the get ready stage. This is the warm up act before the real race begins. It's the first race around the track before the real race begins. This is the dress rehearsal before the real play begins, which is gonna go on for eternity, and God is testing you on earth to see what he can trust you with in eternity.