Invest With Your Return In Mind "“ 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Christians have bank accounts on earth, but also accounts in heaven. They lay up treasures where moth and rust do not corrupt.

Today we'll learn why the long-term view is best. Investments in things eternal bear a return we cannot even imagine. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, those who trade in the stock market hope for a quick profit. What you're talking about is quite different.

It really is very different, Dave, when you stop to think of it, and this is my heart break. What we have today as Christians, and all of us I think are a part of this, we invest in this world sometimes as if the world to come doesn't exist, when in point of fact the world to come is eternal. And so that's where our investment should really be. And you know, speaking of investments, I've written a new book entitled The Eclipse of God. I wrote this book because ultimately our hope has to be in God, and there are two doctrines that destroy the church. One is the essential goodness of man, and the other is the tolerant God that we have created within our own minds. So, to put it very briefly, we have sanitized sin, and we have said to ourselves that God is whatever we want him to be, and my burden is we have to get back to the God of the Bible.

At the end of this program, I'm going to let you know how this resource can be yours, but for now let us listen. Many years ago I read a book entitled The Day the Dollar Died. Actually, the book was misnamed.

It should have been The Day the Mark Died. It was the story of what happened in Germany after World War II when the mark was devalued. I remember in chapter one there was an interesting story about a dear Christian woman who saved all of her German marks. Because she didn't trust the bank, she put them into a bag and she kept them at home. And then one day she took a walk to a Bible school to give it to the school that was training students for ministry that was trying to start up after a terrible war.

And the president of the school, his heart broke as he had to tell her that her marks were worthless. The German government had actually canceled the mark just the day before, and so this bundle of money, the best thing that could be done with it, is to be burned. Well, we don't live in a day and age when the dollar actually has been canceled, but we do live in a day and age when obviously we do not have enough dollars, do we? All over the country today ministries are suffering. You find that families are having their difficult time and the reason is very obvious. Some of you are those who have lost your jobs. Some of you are underemployed. Some of you who have your jobs may fear for the future.

And so we're all in the same boat. What does the Bible have to say about money? Today we're going to look at a very fascinating parable that Jesus told. It's a parable that some people have had a problem with because it appears, if you read it wrongly, it appears as if Jesus was justifying dishonesty. But if you read it more carefully, obviously Jesus would never justify dishonesty. What Jesus is doing is pointing out the need for wise use of money and shrewdness. It's found in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

Luke chapter 16, you will be able to find it in your Bible or the Bible that is there provided for you. Jesus tells the story of a wealthy man who had a manager who mismanaged the money. It doesn't say exactly what the manager did, but we can probably fill in the blanks. He perhaps had a scheme of some sort and maybe he embezzled some of the funds. At any rate, the rich man needed to fire this guy and get rid of him. But in those days it was a little different than it is today.

You were able to stay on, I'm sure, an extra day, even though the word had been given that you're through. Heard this week on television, a man was being interviewed and he said that he was on a street car in New York, on the subway in New York, and suddenly all of these people appeared around noon dressed in suits, all very attractively decked out. And he didn't know what had happened. And then he learned that the major firm in New York had just fired several thousand people and they all went home at the same time. I'm sure they all turned in their keys. And maybe the reason that they did is somebody was smart enough to read this parable that Jesus told. Because this man, he didn't have to turn in his keys immediately. So knowing that he had to be going and on his way, he decided to use some of his master's money by taking some of the creditors that the master had and actually reducing their debt.

Well, you're in Luke chapter 16 as I am. You'll notice it says he called his disciples. There was a rich man who had a manager and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you turn in the account of your management. You can no longer be a manager.

All right. And the manager said to himself, what shall I do? Since my master is taking the management away from me, my resume isn't impressive. I'm not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg.

I've decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses. So summoning his master's debtors, one by one, he said to the first, how much do you owe my master? He said 100 measures of oil. And the manager said to him, take your bill and let's say that it's 50. Then he said to another, and how much do you owe?

He said 100 measures of wheat. He said, well, take your bill and write 80. Obviously these two men, and there may have been others, they are going to be very careful in the blessing this man once he's without a job. I mean, I've done something good for you.

I expect you to receive me into your house and you do something good for me. Now notice what does the manager do? Well, the manager we know was dishonest, but you'll notice it says in verse eight, the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Now you see, if he had stolen it, the man would have been arrested and thrown into jail, but he didn't do that with the master's money, at least not in this instance.

What he did is he took it and he gave it away. And so the master, the rich man has to think this through and say there was something shrewd about using money this way. Jesus himself agrees. You'll notice he says for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Jesus is speaking there in verse eight and then verse nine, I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings just that far for now. Jesus obviously is not commending this man for his dishonesty, but Jesus is saying this is really shrewd. This man knew how to use money to make friends that were going to help him. And then Jesus said, use your money this way that you will have friends when you get to heaven and they will welcome you into everlasting habitations. Wow, what a story.

And it even gets better as it progresses. What I'd like to do today is to give you five principles, biblical principles of money management. And these five principles apply to you whether you have a job, whether you've lost a job, whether you've got lots of money, whether you've got no money. These are universal principles that come from this parable that help us to get some insight as to what we should do also during this time when we have a financial downturn. We'll comment on that as well.

As always, the Bible is relevant no matter what era in which it is preached. Are you ready for the five principles? Number one, it is very clear that money, money that we have is loaned. It is not owned. We don't own it. God lends it to us and says, be good stewards. We are here, the manager of the rich man's money. Visualize for a moment as if the entire world was God's inhabitation or God inhabits the world.

Of course he does. He inhabits the whole universe, but this world is like a house in which we have varying responsibilities and we are the managers of that which God has given to us and we own nothing. We own nothing. The money that this manager gave away belonged to the rich man, the money that he kept, the money that he was honest with, the money that he was dishonest with. It all belonged to the rich man, his master. Everything that you and I have belongs to God. You'll notice in verse 12 as Jesus continues the story and I should pick it up in verse 10, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much and one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you with 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? What Jesus is saying is, is that when you are invited to be entrusted with money, it is not yours. It is another's. And isn't that true? The minute we get our pay stub, we know that a lot of it is another's because we see on there, you know, federal income tax, state income tax.

We see social security right from the get go. A lot of it is another's. And then once it's put into the bank, it suddenly becomes another's very obviously. It becomes the electric companies and the gas companies and the mortgage companies and the clothing stores and the grocery stores.

Suddenly it belongs to another. But there's a much greater principle here and that is that we must acknowledge the fact that even that which may or may not be left over after we've paid our bills, that also belongs to God and our bank accounts belong to God and our savings accounts and the money that we have in the market and the money that we have out of the market, all of that is God's. This is the most fundamental principle of finance in all the scriptures. Now it's easy for us to hurry over this point and say, all right, yeah, it all belongs to God.

Now get on with point number two. I'm going to stay here just a little longer because you see when we really believe that it all is God's, we're not going to be as concerned about it because we realized then that it is God's money that was devalued last year. That's God's money.

It immediately takes a lot of weight from your shoulders. It is God's money that grows at an interest rate of 2% or that falls at an interest rate of 10. It is God's money and once you acknowledge it to belong to God, you look at it differently. I believe that one of the reasons that there are many, and I speak very hesitantly here because it may not be universally applicable, but the reason that so many are going through terrible financial times are because like this manager, some of us have been mismanaging God's money and this is a parenthesis, but one way that we can do that is no longer asking God how we should spend our money and no longer trusting God for what we need, but immediately bypassing all that by using the credit card used to be that when people needed clothes or a new refrigerator, they would pray and say, Oh God, you know my needs and maybe a neighbor had one that a secondhand one that they could use for a few years until they had enough money and they would ask God. Today we don't ask God because what we can do is to use those credit cards and we can bypass dependence on God, whether he's there for us or not, we can have what we want and we mismanage God's money. Are you willing to say sincerely what I have belongs to God? We can't go to the other principles until you've said that and meant it. Some of you are going to struggle.

Some of you are going to argue about it. Are you willing to say it all is God's? Oh, you say, but I earned it or like the commercial says, I earned it. My friend, it is God who gives you the ability to beget wealth.

It is all his. Would you bow with me right now in prayer before we go on to the next principle and would you pray with me as we finally end the ownership of our money and recognize that it is God's? Father, you know how covetousness builds a nest in our hearts. Would you help us in this moment whether we have little or much, nothing, whatever we may have, Father, it is yours. The money we gained, the money we lost, the money we earned, the money we inherited, we give it to you and pray, Father, that you will always help us to seek your face and your wisdom as to how it is to be used and may we be faithful managers of your gifts for those who struggle, for those for whom this prayer is just words work in their lives until they can say it is yours. Amen. Well that's the first principle.

Let's go on to a second. Money must be wisely transmuted, wisely transmuted. What does that word transmute mean?

It means to change the essence of something. You know, when a child is sick, you don't say, well here, eat this $20 bill. Then you know for sure that you're on your way to the ER. What you do is you go to Walgreens and you buy some medicine.

You transmute that $20 or $50 or $100 into medicine. There's a good example of what happens when you can't transmute wealth. True story, up in the north, what was found a number of years ago is a hut and in the hut there were two miners who had been mining gold and they starved to death. In fact, they wrote a diary and they said that we're starving because there's nothing around us.

There's a snowstorm. We can't get out. We have no food. And there they were, their bodies were had of course deteriorated, but they were surrounded by gold. Now isn't gold everything, the very thing that people want? Well, yes, but it could not be transmuted into something that they could use. That's what we mean. When you write that check to the electric company, when you buy that coat, when you buy shoes for your children, you are transmuting your wealth into something that is necessary in order to live. And it is a good transmutation. But notice the text, Jesus is talking about a different kind.

We have to look back at it here. It says he complimented the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Verse nine, and I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth. He doesn't mean wealth that was gotten unrighteously. This is the way in which Jesus characterizes money.

We'll see that Jesus has a very negative view of it because remember it always competes with God in our hearts. So he says, make wise use of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings. What Jesus said is what you should be doing is investing in such a way that you know that your rate of investment and your rate of return is going to be overwhelming.

It is going to be people who will welcome you into heaven so that when you die, there's a cheering section there, thanking you for your investment in lives that are also there. What a statement Jesus made. Paul says in Philippians chapter four, verse 17, he says, thank you for the money that you sent me.

And he said, I'm so glad that it does because I desire fruit that abounds to your account. I love to use that story of the princess in Europe who had a crown and she said to her husband, I want to sell the jewels of the crown to begin an orphanage and he objected to it, but eventually she prevailed and she won the argument. So they sold the jewels. She built an orphanage and when she came home one day and saw these children singing songs and she was a fervent Christian, so the children were instructed in the ways of godliness. She came back and said to her husband, I have found my jewels. I found my jewels. I found my jewels in the lives of these children.

Wise woman. You can't take jewels with you to heaven, but if you transmute them and you invest them in somebody's life, now there's something that enables your investment to get to the other side. You can take it with you after all, if you transmute it into lasting wealth. What do you think Jesus meant when he said lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven were moth and rust of not corrupt and were thieves cannot break through and steal.

He was talking about the very same principle. Who is it that supported the ministry of a missionary like William Carey, for example, whom we honor as one of the first missionaries of the modern era. I don't know who gave them money to go to India, but I do know this, that somebody is going to be rewarded someday for an investment made in lives that will be there in heaven, thanking them for their investment and the shrewd use of their money with friends who have been impacted by their gifts. When the offering baskets are passed at Moody Church, what I like to think of it as it's something like a mutual fund investing in a mutual fund because you know that when you're giving, you're investing in children's ministries, in family ministries, you're investing in the lives of young people, singles, college students, professional people, you're investing in the lives of missionaries around the world. And in that sense, we are all committed together and we are seeing, we are seeing lives changed, lives that will meet us in everlasting habitations. I'm sure that this is true of you too, but in addition to giving to Moody Church, Rebecca and I support missionaries, other missionaries as well.

I'd like to think that when I get to heaven, there'd be at least one person who would rejoice and say, thank you for your gift and the impact that it had in my life. Talking about your return on investment, your ROI, you invest in eternity when you give to the transformation of lives. There's a third principle. The first is that we don't own it.

The second is we must transmute it. The third principle is money is a basis for testing. Money is a basis for testing. First of all, let's look at how Jesus viewed money. We already commented on the fact that he referred to it as, you'll notice he says dishonest wealth. He says the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

Make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth. You know, the old King James, God bless it, it had a different kind of language, but here the King James used to translate it filthy lucre. We may not know the meaning of that exactly today, though you should. Yes, my friend, money is very tempting and Jesus warned against it many, many times.

Not the riches itself, but of course, as riches increase, we tend to depend on them. And you've heard me say it before that the problem with money is that it makes all of the same promises as God. We're living in a society where God is oftentimes redefined and he becomes exactly what we want him to be. That's why I've written my new book entitled The Eclipse of God.

My desire is that we get back to the God of the Bible, the God of eternal values, and of course that undergirds society and all that we believe. For a gift of any amount, we're making this resource available to you. Hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because this is what you do now. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Look for the book, The Eclipse of God. Let me give you that contact info again. Go to rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Some might see putting money in the offering plate a one-way trip to nowhere. I had $10.

Now I don't. Jesus told a parable, exploding this myth once and for all. The bottom line? Any given to transform the lives of others bears a thousand percent return on investment. Next time, why that phenomenal interest rate will never go down. Thanks for listening. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.