Luke 16:1-17:10

Read along as Matthew guides us through the Gospel of Luke. In these verses, Jesus tells the Parable of the Shrewd Manager and teaches about money, Moses and the prophets,  and our ultimate hope -- God's redeeming grace. In a world where sin is very real, Jesus is asking his followers to be people of forgiveness, trusting in Christ's redeeming grace. And we respond like the disciples, "Increase our faith!"

Matthew Schmidt is the Pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in the beautiful small town of Grand Haven, MI. Discover more about St. Paul's today. www.stpaulsgrandhaven.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So Luke chapter 16, starting in verse 1, Jesus is in the middle of teaching through parables. We'll pray and then we'll talk about this next parable. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time to read this book. We thank you for Luke, who so long ago recorded these things by your grace and by your spirit, so that 2,000 years later we could be wherever we are reading these words and wondering about your redeeming love in Jesus Christ. We thank you for this time together. We pray that your spirit would illuminate these words in our hearts today. Amen. Okay, so Jesus is speaking in parables. And let me just ask a question before we read another one. What's the difference between a parable and a story? Why why does the Bible keep using this word parable? Why does Jesus use the word parable? Well why aren't why isn't this just the story of the shrewd manager or earlier the story of the lost sheep or the story of the lost coin, the story of the lost son? Why parable? What's a parable?

SPEAKER_04 1:09

There's a moral to it. It's not just what happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah, so there's a moral to it. That's what a lot of people would say. I think that's a common definition of a parable. A parable is a story with a moral. Yeah. And I and I think that there's definitely some truth in that. Um, but I also think that um parables, like stories, have lots of meanings. And there isn't ever just one particular meaning. There is one obvious meaning, usually, but but there's also a lot of nuance and depth. And they are certainly stories that are sort of unique to Jesus. Jesus is using an art form here, and these parables are often about God and about God's kingdom. And so, you know, a story about a woman who finds a lost coin is really a story about God who finds lost human beings, right? Um and there's a moral there, but it's it's also it's a it's a defining principle of God. It reveals God's character and it reveals the kingdom to us, you know. So uh the parable of the two lost sons or the parable of the prodigal son. Yeah, there's there's morality there between what's right and wrong and how to forgive. But we also get the the father is the God character, and this is who God is. God runs with his robe tucked up high to his waist to greet you know that rotten scoundrel son who's limping home and greet him with love and put a ring on his finger, you know, and God treats you that way too. And God comes out to you uh when you don't want to come into this party and says, Everything I have is yours. Please come see what happened over here. He was dead, but he's alive now. He was lost, but now he's found.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Is there something to it from the standpoint of the I can tell these stories or these parables, and I'm not saying God is doing this because you can only blasphemy or something about telling the parable. Yeah, that could be. You could relate, you could relate, but I didn't say God did this.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. It it's a way to have him tell us things about God without it being blasphemy against Moses, right? Uh or again it's not well for us now, it's in the category of scripture, but as Jesus is speaking the story, it's not blasphemy, he's telling us a story. So it's subversive in that way. I like that, yeah. You know, uh Eugene Peterson has a great book called Tell It Slant. Reading that one for class, and and what he's saying is Jesus told it slant. That's a phrase from a poem by maybe Emily Dickinson. Um and it's this idea that Jesus is speaking a little bit coded, just a little bit subversive language, yeah, to avoid blasphemy. Uh but but to be able to like I'm talking about God, but I'm telling a story about a father, right? Yeah, yeah, I think you're right on.

unknown 4:38

Maybe have more than one meaning.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah.

unknown 4:40

It makes you think more than just a story that's so.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's in the parabole, if you parse out the Greek parabole, bole is to thrust or to throw. When uh when doubting Thomas says, unless I put my fingers in your side, that's that balo verb to throw, unless I just thrust my, unless I get my finger in there and throw it, throw it in there, you know. Uh so bole, para, para beside, to throw your heart beside the kingdom, to thrust your heart up to heaven's own ranks, to to toss you beside so that you can observe what's really going on behind the scenes. Uh parable. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, interesting kind of category of of storytelling. So Jesus tells the parable of the shrewd manager now. So Jesus told his disciples, there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, the rich man is different than the manager, right? The the rich man is above, he's the top. He has hired a manager to manage his possessions. This manager is being accused of wasting the rich guy's possessions. Who's accusing him? We don't know. But the manager and the rich guy are now going to talk. So he called him in and asked him, What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer. Any guesses about who uh was the rat? Who who would tattletale? One of the workers? Yeah. Sometimes Jesus tells parables to get the people thinking about how do we deal with a corrupt crust layer to our society, right? So sometimes it's like, oh, somebody snitched, somebody tattletailed, somebody exposed the corruption, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? Even though a lot of forces in our culture will say things like, Man, snitches get stitches. Isn't that what the rappers say? The whistleblowers, yeah, right. We've got whistleblowers. And we should. We should have transparency, right? We should learn about those Epstein files. I'm telling you, we never will, but we should. So uh he called him in and asked him, What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer. The manager said to himself, What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg. Okay. I know what I'll do. Then when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses. So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, How much do you owe my master? 900 gallons of olive oil, he replied. Lots of olive oil industry in the Middle East. This makes sense. Olive olive trees love to grow in this part of the world. So 900 gallons of olive oil, he replied. The manager told him, Take your bill, sit down quickly, make it 450. Whoa, 50% off on the debt? That's pretty good. Then he asked the second, and how much do you owe? A thousand bushels of wheat, he replied. He told him, Take your bill and make it 800. Uh the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. And for the people of this world, for the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself, so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. So the master commends the dishonest manager. Why? What actually ended up happening? When the dishonest manager went and canceled these debts to the people who owed money to the rich guy, what ended up happening? Read between the lines. You're running the business. Somebody acts shrewdly for their own gain. What ended up happening? He's not angry, but why isn't he? What could have happened to make the master not angry? He had really happy customers. Maybe some unintended consequences. And so somehow the shrewd activity of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing ended up benefiting everyone. The rich guy, he's still rich. He's got super happy customers. The customers are happy because they arbitrarily paid less, which also exposes how arbitrary prices are. I mean, we say that the market dictates prices, but let's be honest. The rich guys dictate the market, which dictates the prices. Who's getting rich right now on oil being up? Not the American citizen who's paying four bucks a gallon. It's the ExxonMobil executives who are making a killing, right? Uh, so they're happy. It's possible that the rich guys benefit from shrewd business behavior. Now, the manager also benefits too. He saves his skin, he saves his job. And this kind of stuff happens. I have a friend who works for, I don't know what the company is, Acrocher, Akrisher in Grand Rapids. It's like the fastest growing business in West Michigan. Uh the new stadium is the Acroixure Stadium, and the it's like the new big hot business in GR. Yeah, they've got the soccer stadium is named, they're acquiring insurance companies, mom and pop insurance companies all over the world, and they've grown, I mean, astronomically. And my friend works there, and when he tells me what it's like to work at a cutthroat corporation that is expanding and shuffling and renegotiating, and people are getting fired and then rehired left and right, he's just like, it is absolutely insane. And every single person walks into work like with a target on their back if they're doing well, or like always looking to turn the screw and manipulate and be shrewd. And it's just such a toxic, competitive business culture. And Jesus is pointing this out. This was happening in the ancient world that toxic, competitive business cultures were a real thing then, too. Here's a story that's exposing that. And notice what he's saying. The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. We've got some really kind followers of Jesus out here who are pretty naive. People of the light. Maybe learn something from the shrewd people. Like maybe learn something. Not the evil part of it. But are you working hard for the kingdom? If this manager can figure out a way to forgive debts, maybe learn from his shrewdness and forgive some debts. Anybody you gotta forgive? Cut that in half, right? You got a brother who's an idiot? If this business manager can act shrewdly towards a per maybe you need to go and forgive just as shrewdly and see what happens. And maybe that kind of debt forgiveness could totally benefit the system. He's not asking people of the light to become shrewd, corrupt business leaders, but he's saying, look at how this can be used over here to benefit something. Can you learn from that? Can you be so aggressive in your forgiveness that it totally changes the system?

SPEAKER_04 13:15

But he's giving away something that isn't his.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Right. Yeah. But he's doing it to benefit himself. Yeah, but it is to get. Yeah. But do you know that you would be benefited if you forgave that person? Like, do you get that? That it would actually help. Older brother Older brother. You know you could come into the party if you just forgave the debt that your little brother has towards you. You could eat that same fattened calf. It was killed and cooked and roasted and served for everyone, including you, and it tastes great. And you're choosing stubbornly not to taste the gift of grace. Right? So you can benefit here as they benefit.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Part of it bad, but he did not give the guy permission to discount what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

No, he did not. He did that behind the scenes. Yeah. Yep. He was a shrewd manager.

unknown 14:22

So the owner might have to be his role.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah. Except that it says the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. So we have to put the pieces together and figure out how did this benefit, how could that shrewd business, oh, he did do the right thing because it benefited the whole system. Yeah. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves. And so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwelling. So clearly the manager gained friends for himself, and the business owner, the rich guy, gained friends for himself, and everybody became friends with each other because debts were canceled. Maybe you could use your worldly wealth not to put people into more debt, but to make some friends for yourself is kind of what he's saying. I tell you use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? Again, Jesus is constantly separating out worldly wealth from true riches and human beings do their best to pursue worldly wealth. We just do. What's the difference? What's worldly wealth versus we know what worldly wealth is. What is true riches? He he gave us a hint, eternal dwellings. What are eternal dwellings and true riches? What is that?

unknown 16:14

Forgiveness and friendship and love.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Forgiveness and friendship and love and grace and peace. Laughter. When I hear my middle daughter laugh, it is known in our family. It's just the best, most infectious laugh. And she can get us all laughing. Laughter. You know, love. The kingdom. The kingdom where people are welcomed and people have enough and and God's love is readily available. Personal presence and relationship with Jesus. Uh heaven. Eternal dwelling. Real riches. Money runs out. Use your money to do good while you have the money and then watch that good spread until you reach eternal dwelling and you have true riches. If you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property who will give you property of their own. But they will also inherit what? Land. Property. And property is a gift. And it's a gift given by whom? God. The one who made the land in the first place. The one who spoke the word and dry land appears out of the sea, right? The one who spoke the word and vegetation and animals fill the land. The great creator gives humanity the gift of land. And then we do our best to convince ourselves we're the rightful owners of this land. And we're still doing that down a thousand rungs of history. I own my property. That's mine, not yours, neighbor. That's the fence line, right? Get off my lawn, grumpy old man says to the teenagers walking by. And yet God owns everything. And so manage your property, manage your land, manage creation with goodness and with charity and with generosity, and watch land itself become eternal dwelling. You know, so there's a whole nother message of like creation care. Why do we take care of animals and plants? And, you know, this type of farming is better than that type of farming, or this type of land conservation is better than that type of land development. How are we developing our natural resources? How do we use them? Not just so that rich guys get rich, but so that the kingdom is cultivated all over the whole universe. If you have not been trustworthy with God's property, change someone else's property. If you have not been trustworthy with God's property, who will give you property of your own? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. There's an either or a line in the sand. True riches can be used to glorify something more powerful than excuse me. Worldly wealth can be used to glorify true riches, but you cannot glorify worldly wealth and glorify true riches. You cannot serve God and money. Money can be a tool to glorify God. Amen. Yeah, of course. The rich guy can be a good rich guy and be incredibly generous and move the needle of, you know. But also, that's hard to do. And a lot of people just get attracted to the worldly wealth, not the true riches.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

If you can give in today's economy, they say for persons nowadays to rich hide, you should have at least a million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah. Right. And so it's hard to be if I need to get a million dollars. Right. Right, right. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, and it's hard, it's hard to plan that because there's tension there. Dave Ramsey likes to say, live like nobody today so you can live like nobody tomorrow. And what he's saying is, be smart today, manage your money well. You save and you invest and you be generous at a certain level here, so that there you can be radically generous, right? And he's always pretty good about saying when you get to the there there, it's not so you can buy a Lamborghini, it's so that you can give more than 10%, you know, and and really help change the world. Uh but yeah, is the average person capable of getting to that million dollar retirement mark? And for what purpose? Right? You talk to 10 different retirement managers and they're talking about, you know, you and your life and the life you want to live. How you imagine that, and some of them, you know, like a Dave Ramsey type will will include God as a piece of that puzzle, which is nice, but they're all kind of talking about money. They really are, they just are, you know, and and Jesus did not have a 401k. He didn't. Jesus did not have a Roth IRA. He did not own stocks in the SP 500. And he died when he was 33 years old. He didn't need to live till he was 95, right? And so part of this is like, what are we doing here with what it means to be human? You know, we're we're taking care of ourselves, and there are other ways to live. You can take care of others, you know? And a lot of people do that. They really do. They live radically generous lives. I see a lot of you doing that, being radically generous, and it's inspiring. But Jesus just reminds us you cannot serve both God and money. Verse 14 the the Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight. So apparently there was Instagram 2,000 years ago, and the Pharisees looked good on the gram. And uh and what's appealing in the sight of people, just because it's popular, just because the masses approve, just because a majority of Americans say, yeah, that is thumbs up. Does not mean that it's approving in God's sight. And how we parse that out takes some thought and care and nuance and additional teachings, verse 16. The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. That's John the Baptist. Since that time the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores, and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. Notice uh in this parable, where does Lazarus go when he dies?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Does he go to God? No, he goes to Abraham. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Uh the rich man also died and was buried in Hades, where he was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. Okay, so he goes to Hades. This is not okay, first of all, some people they take this story and they use this one to cultivate the three-tiered structure of the universe. Hell is down, earth is in the middle, heaven is up. And we just have to remind ourselves one, Jesus is telling a story, a parable. Two, uh, so far there's no God character unless Abraham is the God character, but usually Abraham is not the God character. But what we have is Abraham representing Israel, the father of Israel. Jesus is commenting on the law and the prophets. He's talking to Pharisees who love the law and the prophets.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

And he's commenting on their, you know, genetic father, Abraham. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Uh so Abraham is far away with Lazarus by his side. He looks up. The rich man called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. It kind of sounds similar to uh the parable of the prodigal son. We have gotten ourselves to a point where there's a guy who's in agony, and he's longing for just can you just dip the tip of water? I'm so thirsty. Is anybody gonna come? Will my father at least let me be like his slaves, you know, and not be working for the pigs? So we've got this happening here, right, in this story. Only it's not necessarily God who's dealing with it, it's Abraham. It's the law, it's the prophets. How will the law and the prophets respond? Right? Father Abraham, I have pity on me and sent Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. This is a just universe as defined by the law and the prophets. You got your reward, but you didn't care for the poor, so now you're being punished. Lazarus didn't get his reward, didn't get help. Now he's being blessed and receiving an inheritance. This is a just universe as defined by the law and the prophets. And besides all this, between us, there is this great chasm that has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot nor anyone cross over from there to us. What's the irony here? There's a great chasm, but they're talking to each other, right? So there's this great chasm that has been cultivated between Hades and wherever Abraham is. And how could we ever send somebody to go and give you a drink of water, guy who's in agony, because we're so far away we're talking to each other. We're so far away there's a line of sight. I mean, it says he saw, you know. Also, the rich man is still bossing around Lazarus. There's another fun detail. The rich man is like, uh, excuse me, Abraham, can you send that dirty, rotten slave that's been outside my home and have him serve me, please? I'm in agony down here.

unknown 29:12

Well, he should have thought about it.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

He should have. He's getting what he deserves, right? This is a just universe as defined by the law and the prophets, an Abrahamic justice. Yeah. Right. He didn't he was not a generous guy. He deserves to be punished. This is how we live. And there's a great chasm, we can't cross it. Obviously, grace could cross it. This is what Jesus does. There's no grace in this story, right? And besides us, between us and you, there is a great chasm that has been set in place so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. And a lot of people think this is how heaven and hell work. And we have to remember Jesus is telling a parable. And right now we don't even know who the character God is, right? He answered, I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment. Go warn my brothers to change so that they don't come down to hell with me. Abraham replied, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them. Here's the solution the law and the prophets. If they behaved and listened, they would end up in a different place than you. You did not care for the poor, the way the Mosaic laws and the prophets ask you to care for the poor. They have those things, they could listen. Now we're starting to realize Jesus is talking to the modern human being. You have access to the law and the prophets. Are you treating the poor any differently than this rich man? Answer. Some people are, most people are not. No, Father Abraham, he said, but it but if somebody from the dead goes to them, they will repent. It's not enough to give them the book. Give them a miraculous sign, somebody from the dead, so that they might change their mind. And Abraham said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced, even if somebody rises from the dead. Obviously, Jesus now is talking about himself. His mission on planet Earth is to do exactly what the rich man is begging for. That somebody from another world would miraculously appear rising from the dead to convince them that there is a better way to be human, God's way. And Jesus is lamenting that many in this world won't have eyes to see that and ears to hear it. Jesus is not necessarily saying this is how heaven and hell work. That's not what he's saying. One, Jesus absolutely is the thing, the bridge that connects that chasm that is so great, right? Jesus absolutely is risen from the dead, trying to convince us to change, right? And I think what he's exposing is the limits of the law and the prophets. The law and the prophets are what they are, and they should be enough, but they're not enough. It's not enough. The word of God is fantastic and beautiful and salvific in nature, but it's not enough. And because it's not enough in the fullness of time, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ, who fully embodies Moses and the prophets, who acts the way Moses and the prophets long for us to act, exposes who God truly is, reveals to us God's grace and God's mercy, goes to the cross to precisely to seek and save the lost, and get those rich men to start to see the Lazaruses in their life and be generous to them, to get to those Lazaruses in this world and say, Man, have some food, have some water. He bridges the divide between both, towards all, and does it all. Is that enough? Is that enough for people to change and see that the kingdom has arrived in the person of Jesus Christ, the word of Moses and the prophets made flesh, the incarnation of everything that the Bible is longing for humanity to become? Is that enough? Would people be convinced? If they do not listen to the words, will they be convinced if incarnation happens? If somebody rises from the dead and again, like the parable of the two lost sons, we're sort of left hanging. Pun intended. Will is it enough to make us change? And he's and he's not asking us to actually just follow the law and the prophets. He's asking us to see what God is doing in his own activity to enter the kingdom. So I I view this as an old understanding of heaven, earth, and hell. And and I think Jesus is transforming that. And so I think it's the wrong thing for Christians to lift this up and say, look, look, evidence of the three-tiered structure of the universe. Because I think what Jesus is doing is disrupting that. Heaven coming to earth now. Heaven going into hell now. Jesus rising back up from hell to earth into heaven, and the three tiers mixing with a new Jacob's ladder, a new connection point, with gates wide open, with the curtain in the temple torn in two, so that access to God is by grace and readily available to every single human being. Jesus Christ comes to make God available to every human being. And get those rich men to see the Lazaruses and give them some darn food and get those Lazaruses to get some medical attention so the dogs don't have to clean their sores for them and get some food and water, please. And I guess in Christ, people can end up in the bosom of Abraham and more so in the bosom of God. Right? His vision is higher. God's vision of what Jesus can do is better than what Lazarus experiences when he's at the bosom of Abraham. Be at the bosom of God. Right? Luke has just teaching after teaching after teaching here, and they start to stack up on each other, and we realize what Jesus is doing is you can sum it all up in grace. From the the lost being found, the lost coin, the lost son, here Lazarus being found, it's all grace. The rich man is offered grace in real life in Jesus, right? Not necessarily in the story. Chapter 17, Jesus said to his disciples, Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It's such a perfect thing to say after a story about heaven, earth, and hell, uh, because a story like that has been lifted up by the church throughout the ages to say you're going to hell if you don't change. The church has used a story like this to cause people to stumble. You know, insert Catholic indulgences here in the 1500s, right? And and if you're using the threat of hell to cause people to stumble, Jesus is gonna say that's not good. He says it would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourself. He doesn't say, I'm, you know, Jesus is absolutely causing the big ones to stumble. He's causing the Pharisees and the scribes to stumble. He's talking about the little ones now. If just a little Lazarus type person is listening to this, an ordinary human being, and they are now scared of eternal punishment, don't let these words convict you of eternal punishment. God loves you. God wants to give you a cool drink of water on that hot, parched day. God is risen from the dead, coming to show you there's a way to transform this whole system. Right? What's a millstone and what would it be like to if you were trying to swim? We've got Lake Michigan by us, this beautiful little town of Grand Haven. You can go out our church doors, you know, walk, I don't know, a mile, and you're at one of the greatest lakes in the world, Lake Michigan. You head out to the middle of the lake on a boat, and the boat captain pulls out a chain and he ties a millstone around your neck and says, Go for a swim, what would happen? Honestly, you would sink. I mean, how fast? Really fast. This would be terrible. Uh, how big is a millstone in the ancient world? It's as big as this table. If you're watching us on our very visual podcast, it's as big as this table that I'm sitting at, right? Uh four feet wide, five feet wide, foot and a half thick, solid rock, used to crush grain or or olives to make oil or something like that. You you can attach a horse or a donkey to it or something like that, and and run that animal around. So take the heaviest thing you can think of, tie it around your neck. This is terrible.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

This is the fate of those who cause those to stumble. Pharisees, you're getting rich off the masses.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

You're threatening. You're using Moses and the prophets to threaten the people. When Moses and the prophets are meant to liberate the people and empower the people and forgive the people. It's not good, Jesus says. Watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times a day, and seven times come back to you saying, I'm sorry, I repent. You must forgive them. The apostles said to the Lord, Increase our faith. I love that. I mean, Jesus is we're right back to the parable of the prodigal son. Okay, let's say this younger brother does it again after the party. He's got himself his ring, he's got a cloak on, he's got, okay, dad, give me everything that belongs to me. I'm heading back to Vegas. I gotta go find Barbara the stripper, who I'm you know what I'm saying. It's like forgive him again, forgive him again, forgive him again, forgive him again, forgive him again, forgive him again. And the apostles say to the Lord, Increase our faith. I'm gonna need a bigger faith if I'm gonna start forgiving such rotten scoundrels again and again and again and again.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

But didn't the master say to the prodigal son, oh, or to the other son, all this is yours?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Right. Yes. Yeah, well, he's saying everything I have is yours, which is a way of saying, uh, you say I haven't given you a fattened calf. I'm saying I've given you everything. I've given you the gift of work, I've given you a place to live, I've given you this party is for you too, right? Come into the party, it's for you too. This guy was dead and he's alive again. You're invited to the party. Everything I have is yours. Which also means if you're saying, well, everything was given and liquidated to the one son, and so now literally everything does belong to the older son. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the father is giving what you what belongs to you to the son. It turns the screw, it makes it even harder. Forgive him. He has repented. Give him a second chance. Increase our faith, the apostles say, Yeah, we're gonna need to increase our faith. Yep. He replied, If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the seed, in the sea, and it will obey you. You know what's interesting. Faith, faith like a mustard seed is one of those super popular phrases that Jesus tells people. Uh, and and often if you just hear in abstraction, plucked out of context, man, have faith like a mustard seed. What are you usually thinking about? What are you going through if somebody like a grandma quotes quotes that to you? Or if uh if an auntie who loves the Bible says, you know, boy, you need faith like a mustard seed in this situation. What types of situations might you be in in order to uh have a phrase like that tossed out towards you?

SPEAKER_03 43:27

You have to be really lost and lose all your honey, all your stitches, all your hit rock bottom, and grandma says, I believe, you know, faith like a mustard seed.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Yeah, you're suffering. Faith like a mustard seed. Yeah. My wife is in the hospital. Have a little faith like a mustard seed. God's gonna take care of her. It's like, but she's in the hot, you know. Jesus is not using that phrase in those types of contexts. He's saying, have faith like a mustard seed in the context of forgiving that rotten. Rotten brother. That's the context. The rotten brother, the rotten son, the rotten sister, the rotten person who you do not want to forgive. And the apostles say, increase our faith. And he says, Have a little faith like a mustard seed. And forgiveness can be it's in the context of forgiveness. Have faith like a mustard seed. Plant forgiveness like tiny seeds in your life. And watch the garden grow. It's like that butterfly effect. You know the butterfly effect? Did you ever see that movie with Austin Kutcher? Remember that? Anybody know what the butterfly effect is? Yeah. So there's the idea is like if you just on on like on a physical level, a butterfly flaps its wings above Sydney, Australia, and the ripple effect in air patterns from that one butterfly flapping of wing can cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet. It's this idea that something tiny can change the world. That's what Jesus is saying. They're saying increase our faith. They're saying give us a hurricane of forgiveness superpower, Jesus, and then we'll be able to do what you're asking. And he's saying, butterfly effect. Plant a tiny mustard seed of forgiveness. Plant lots of them. Watch the garden grow.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Making it virtually impossible to undo it.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Right, right. So you're taking this virtually impossible to uproot tree, and you're able to uproot it and say anything to it. Go into the sea. You're able to redefine the created order if you start with forgiveness. Jesus wants to bring new creation. Jesus wants to change the world. And he's asking his disciples to start with forgiveness. And that might change the way we do business. That might change the way we farm. That might change the way we do global international geopolitics. That might change the way we do family life. Practice forgiveness. Sow little baby tiny seeds of forgiveness. And watch things that shouldn't be able to be uprooted, be uprooted. Watch creation itself shift. Mulberry trees don't belong in the sea. Watch creation change when we start becoming who God created us to be. Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep? Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, Come along now and sit down to eat? Won't he rather say, Prepare my supper? Get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty. Let's read that again. Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing or cooking or looking after the sheep. Now he's not talking about a rich person, he's talking about you. And you've got a helper who looks after the sheep. That's their job. Look after the sheep. That's their role, that's their identity. Would you say to that person when they come into the field, Come now and sit down to eat? Won't he rather say, Do your job? Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink. Everyone would say that. Everyone would treat their helper with the expectation that the helper would do their job, and you treat them with kindness and dignity, do your job, and then you can eat. So also, you, when you have done everything and that you were told to do, should be saying, We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty. Are we even doing our duty? Jesus is asking. If your duty as followers of Jesus is to be planters of forgiveness, are you doing that? You so many people just want Jesus to be like a magician who gets them to heaven. And Jesus is very interested in our world being created and recreated into a good, loving place. And you've got a job to do. And it starts by spreading seeds, planting seeds, tiny mustard seeds of forgiveness. Are you doing that? We want to skip that. We want to uproot the mulberry tree. We want to be powerful in our faith, increase our faith. We want to skip all the way to the heavenly reward without doing the work God calls us to do, which is the cost of discipleship, which is forgiveness and love and generosity.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

And we can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

We'll try. Some of us will try, some of us won't even try. God does all the heavy lifting for us. We can fall at God's feet and say, look, we tried sometimes, we failed other times, we're not worthy.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

But if we grow in faith, we will change.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Totally. Yeah. Faith like a mustard seed. Trusting that God is also planting seeds of forgiveness. What God is doing in Jesus Christ will be the most dramatic display of grace and peace and forgiveness that God has ever done. And it will be a once-for-all sacrifice that totally changes our relationship to God and others and makes forgiveness all the more easy, all the more necessary, because you have first been forgiven and you now have no excuse not to forgive. Right?

SPEAKER_04 50:46

Yeah, yeah. But that's why we get an older smart.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Yeah. Well, friends, let's put a pin in it there. Uh Luke 17, verse 10. Uh, just want to say thanks for joining us. Grace and peace.