Priorities

that we have such technology that enables us in a time like this to be able to gather together

virtually and pray and worship. Although I have to say, as amazing as this technology is,

I never thought that we would be using it. So this is an entirely new experience for me and

for many of us. We've joked that this pandemic is dragging Church of the Advent, kicking and

screaming into the 21st century. And so here we are. This has been a time, I think, where lots of

things are happening that we didn't expect. Everybody is having to adjust. And we all, I think,

feel off, not just in our country, but in the world. Everything feels off. A lot of things are

being put on hold. I know that there are lots of opinions out there. Some of you may think that

all of this is overblown and crazy overreaction. I know others of you are feeling quite anxious and

quite fearful. And so there's a whole range of feelings about this. I want to encourage you to

do what Laura and I have been trying to do. And that is to allow God, rather than the 24-hour news cycle,

to shape how we think and feel and act in response to this crisis. I'm not saying don't watch the news.

I'm not saying don't stay tuned. But we do have a choice in what influences we allow ourselves to

come under in how we think and feel and act in response to the things that are happening.

And so we've really been trying to seek the Lord. And we've been trying to ask God what He may be

trying to teach us through these trials. Because God is always present and He's always active and He's

always calling us to Himself in one way or another. And so I've been feeling that this is a really good

time for us together as a community to take stock of our lives, to ask ourselves what really matters,

to reevaluate where we're investing, and to really figure out are we focusing on the things that we

need to be focusing on. And so because of that, I've been reading passages like the ones that we've read

today together out of Leviticus and Luke chapter 16, both difficult passages to understand. Luke 16,

Luke 16 · chapter mention

1 through 13, in particular, I think is probably the most difficult parable in all of Luke.

And yet it's worth the effort because it is a treasure trove of teaching and wisdom about what life is,

what matters, and what our priorities should be. So it's been a very rich study for me. And so I'm

excited to share some of that with you. I just want you to listen to what Jesus says at the end

of the passage in verse 13. He says,

No servant 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 mammon.

Now this is a fascinating statement that Jesus makes. In other words, everybody has a master.

Everybody has something that takes top priority in their lives. Now we may not know it. But this is

true for Christians and non-Christians alike, regardless of whether you consider yourself to be

religious or completely irreligious. Everyone has a master. And that master is either God,

or it is someone or something that God has created. It's either God or the stuff of the created world.

That's essentially what mammon means. It means the stuff of the world, our wealth, our possessions,

the things that clutter our lives. And here's the rub. We may think that we serve one master.

But when you look at our priorities and our daily lives, those are the things that reveal our true

master. So what I want to do is to spend just a few minutes looking at this parable. I want to explain

it and unpack it a little bit because there's some things that are hard to understand. And then we're

going to consider briefly three questions that I would commend to you that are for self-reflection,

to help you discern where your priorities are and what master you're serving. So if you have a Bible,

open it to Luke chapter 16 verses 1 through 13. Follow along at home. And let's dive in.

Luke 16:1–13

First, I want to give a little context to this parable. Jesus is having dinner with his disciples

along with some tax collectors. And there are some Pharisees listening in as well. And the Pharisees,

we know from reading earlier in Luke's gospel, are grumbling that Jesus would associate so closely

with people like these tax collectors. And so Jesus begins to share a parable that would have been

particularly relevant to the tax collectors who are really good at manipulating money and people.

And it also would have been very relevant to the Pharisees as we will see. But this parable that Jesus

shares is all about a steward. He's a money manager. And his job is that he's been entrusted with another

man's property to manage. But as we know, he has been wasteful. Maybe he's been a little too liberal

with his expense account. The rich man catches him, calls him in and says, I want you to get your books

and accounts in order and bring them here. You're fired. Now, being fired is no fun. Some of you

know that. And this man has no prospects. He looks around and he realizes he can't bring himself to

leave the cush white collar lifestyle and do manual labor. He is too proud to beg on a street corner.

And so he needs a plan. So he calls up everyone who owes his master any kind of debt. And most of

these debts are actually pretty large debts. And he brings these people in one at a time.

And he starts reducing all of their debts. And if we had time to get into the amounts,

these are massive debts, eight to 10 years salary worth of debts. He starts reducing these debts down.

Now, it's possible we're not sure exactly what he's reducing. It's very possible that he's cutting

out the interest that is owed on the debts and only requiring these people to pay the principal.

But what we do know is that he is very likely cutting out his own commission in the process.

So here's a guy who's about to be out on the street, who is cutting his own commission out

of these debts that are owed to his master. And so it begs the question, why in the world would

he be doing this? And there are two things going on here. Number one, even though this man is

sacrificing his commission now, in a little while when he's out on the street, he's going to have a

whole town full of people who owe him favors. And that is worth its weight in gold, way more than

whatever commission he might have made. He'll have plenty of people who want to hire him because

they owe him a favor. Number two, everyone is going to assume that he's acting on the wishes of

the rich man, of his boss. And so that puts his boss in a very interesting predicament. Either his boss

says, yes, this was my idea, and lets word spread that he's a gracious and merciful man who's willing

to forgive debt and interest. Or he has to be the guy who says, no, no, no, no, this was my steward's

idea. I'm actually going to need that money. In which case, people aren't going to like him very much.

So for this reason, we look at what this steward has done, and in one fell swoop, he has secured

for himself a future full of people who like him and owe him favors. And he has allowed his master to look

so kind and generous in the eyes of the public that there's no way he will possibly recall these debts.

So it's a pretty brilliant maneuver. Now here's where it gets interesting, because you can imagine

at this point, all of the tax collectors sitting there would be laughing, looking at one another

and saying, that's a pretty good move. I'm going to write that down and remember that in case I need

to use it. And all the Pharisees probably would have been grumbling and saying, I can't believe Jesus

is telling this story about this dishonest worldly man. All right, so here's where it gets really

interesting. Jesus then says in verse 8, the master commended the dishonest manager for his

shrewdness. That means his street smarts. For the sons of this world, Jesus says, are more shrewd

in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Now that's fascinating, because it sounds

like Jesus is saying, I wish my followers would be more like this dishonest steward, which would have

been very bizarre to hear in any generation, especially Jesus' generation. But notice what he's commending

here. He's not commending the dishonesty. He's commending the shrewdness. He's saying, this guy

is way more street smart than my followers. And this is an example of Jesus teaching by contrast.

He's essentially saying this, even though this manager is, what he says, a son of this world,

meaning he is someone who is only concerned about self-preservation, he's corrupt, he cares nothing

about the ways of God, he's entirely self-focused, even though he's a son of this world. He has his

priorities in order. He knows what matters, and he's pursuing it. So Jesus is saying, if a guy like

that can have his priorities in order, how much more should you, the people of the light, my followers,

people who belong to me, how much more should you have your priorities in order? It's teaching by

contrast. And there are three questions that rise up out of this passage as we think about our own

lives and whether or not we do, in fact, have our priorities in order. So I want to walk through

those questions very briefly. So question number one, do you live like an owner or like a steward?

Do you live like an owner or like a steward? See, an owner mentality looks at all of the things in

one's life and says, this is all mine, because I've earned it. And therefore, I have a right to do

whatever I want with it, whether it's my money, or my time, or even my body. It's mine. And so only I

get a say in how it is used, right? That's an owner mentality. And an owner mentality gives rise to

feelings of entitlement. I deserve this. This says something about me as a person. It gives me worth.

And yet Jesus shows us that just as the manager in this parable has been entrusted with the rich

man's possessions for a while, so each one of us has been entrusted with things for a while. But all

of those things ultimately belong to God. Our time, our money, all of our possessions, even our bodies,

they all actually belong to God. And they've been entrusted to us for a brief while, a very brief while,

when compared with eternity. And what Jesus is saying through this parable first is that we are

not owners as much as we would like to think that we are. We're stewards. One of the best ways of

understanding the meaning of the word sin is that it is living in this world like it's ours,

living in it while ignoring the God who made it and the God to whom it belongs. But Jesus is saying,

we are not owners, we're stewards. And what you will see is the more you begin to think of yourself

like a steward and the more that you begin to look at the things in your life as things that have been

given to you, entrusted to you by God, it will lead to the sense of entitlement in your life evaporating.

And that will be replaced by a deep sense of gratitude. You'll give thanks that God has given you

and entrusted you the things that you have. And as we think about what it means to be a steward,

a good steward has two primary characteristics. Number one, a good steward is somebody who never

uses the things that have been entrusted to them to advance their own interests. They use those things

to advance the interests of the owner. So in this case, that would be God. So that's the first thing to think

about. And then the second characteristic of a good steward is that a good steward knows that one day,

just like this manager, one day God is going to say to us, get your accounts and your books in order

and come to me, your time is done. And that's a sobering thought. But the hard truth is, coronavirus

or not, one day all of us will die a premature death. And as hard as that is to contemplate and

as upsetting as that might be for some of us, we're also told that that will not be the end.

And that we will come before the Lord and we will be asked to give an account of all of the ways that

we've used his possessions while we were stewards over them. So that's the first question. Do we live

like owners or like stewards? Number two, the second question, are you investing only in temporal things

or are you investing in eternal things? Do you invest in the temporal or also the eternal? Jesus says in

verse nine, 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. Unrighteous wealth simply means

worldly wealth, but the economy that we live in now that one day will be no more and will become

irrelevant. This is a way of saying all of the resources and the opportunities that you have

right now, none of that is going to last. So use them to invest in things that will last for eternity.

Use things that won't last to invest in things that will last, which means people. It means

relationships. It means loving and serving those people we will spend eternity with. That's what Jesus

is talking about. And, uh, you know, this coronavirus scare is very big and very prominent. It's on everybody's

mind right now, but you know, this is going to pass and life is going to go on and there will be other

things that crowd in for our attention and other things that demand a response. But while this scare

is here, we actually have an opportunity to reach out and care for our neighbors. Never have we had a

better excuse to get to know the people who live right around us and to check in on them and to make

sure they're okay. Um, it's in particular an opportunity to check in, uh, and to care for the

elderly. Um, if you have people who are elderly, who you know might be living alone, um, in your

apartment building or down the street, this is a great opportunity for you just to check in and see if

they have everything that they need. There are people all throughout the city who are lonely, who because of

the social distancing measures that are now in place, they are more isolated than ever before. There are children that have

a result of the public schools not meeting may not get the food that they need. And so there are lots of

opportunities for us to focus on and invest in the things that will last for eternity. So we should be

asking ourselves during this time, where am I investing my time and my energy and my talents and my treasures,

as they say, am I investing in things that are going to fade away? Or am I investing in things that are going to last for

eternity? Uh, I know just yesterday, some people from the Advent community joined together and you

helped to pack 550 bags of canned food and other non-perishables to give to the elderly who may be

at risk because of this crisis. And I want to say that's the kind of investment that lasts. That's the

kind of investment that matters because you're investing in the lives of people. So that's the

second question. Am I only investing in temporal things or am I also investing in things that are

eternal? Uh, the third and final question that, that I would like to encourage you to think about

as we think about priorities, do you follow Jesus? For those of you who follow Jesus, do you follow

Jesus in a compartmentalized or in an integrated way? Are you compartmentalized in your faith or are you

integrated? Now let me explain what I mean by that. A compartmentalized faith means that there is a

disconnect. You may have learned how to talk or act in Christian ways when you're around Christian

people. Maybe when you're at church or you're at a small group, if you're a part of something like a

small group, you've learned how to talk the talk. You've learned how to say and do the right things.

And yet your faith has no bearing on the way you approach or think about your job or on the way you

relate to other people, maybe friends from college. Your faith has no bearing in how you think about

what you do on the weekends or how you spend your money or where you're spending your time.

And so your faith is sort of compartmentalized. When Jesus says this very curious thing in verse 10,

he says, one who's faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in

a very little is also dishonest in much. In other words, true character is what runs all the way

through you. True character is what runs all the way through you. I love the illustration that comes

from Tom Wright, who compares character to Brighton Rock Candy. Brighton Rock Candy is a kind of long stick

of hard candy. And it famously has the word Brighton written on it. And wherever you break

into that piece of candy, wherever you cut into it, you will see the word Brighton because it runs all

the way through the piece of candy. And he says character is a lot like that. He says your true

character is a pattern of thinking and acting that runs all the way through you. So no matter what time

of day, no matter what situation or context you're in, whether there are people around or you're all

by yourself, your character is that thing that is always at the center of your thinking and your acting.

And so the point is, a person who is unfaithful in the small everyday details of life will probably

be unfaithful in the big defining moments as well. I know that I can very easily think that this little

thing over here, that little expense over there, that doesn't really matter. But if push comes to

shove, if I really need to take a stand for my faith, surely I'll step up. And Jesus is saying,

don't be too quick to assume that. In fact, it is those small, seemingly insignificant daily patterns

that determine the likelihood of how we will think and act in those big defining moments of life.

And that's what Jesus is wanting us to know. So the question that I want us to consider is,

does my faith and does my desire to follow Jesus run through my entire being? Or is it compartmentalized?

Do I have a Christian mode that I can switch on and off depending on who I'm around?

How do we know? How do we know whether this is something that runs all the way through us? Well,

look at your small everyday moments. Ask yourself, am I faithful in the small everyday moments of my

life? The brief exchange that I have with my kids, the way that I respond to them when I'm angry,

the brief exchanges that we have with people at work, the little ways that we spend money that

doesn't seem like a whole lot, but can really add up. This is going to tell you a lot about what really

defines you. You may have heard it said that if you want to know somebody's priorities, if you want

to know what really matters to them, look at their day planner and look at their bank statement.

Those are going to tell you what that person's priorities really are. So I want to bring all

of this together. Essentially, I want to say this, this is a tough moment for a lot of people. A lot

of us are shut up at home and not quite sure what the future holds over these next few weeks. But I

want to commend you to seize this moment and to recognize the opportunities that exist within it.

Not only is this a great opportunity for us as Christians to pray for our neighborhoods and our city,

and our world, which we should be doing every day, not only is a great opportunity for us to join

together in prayer, especially for all of those who suffer or are vulnerable, but we really have

an opportunity right now because everything is on hold to take stock of our lives and to reevaluate

and to ask ourselves what really matters? What am I really here to do? And so we need to ask ourselves

these questions. Am I living like an owner or like a steward? Am I investing only in temporal things or am I

also investing in things that are going to last for eternity? Am I following Jesus in a compartmentalized

way or is my relationship with Jesus something that runs all the way through my heart and soul

from the smallest, most insignificant interactions to the biggest, most defining moments of my life?

Do I have my priorities in order? This is a question that I want us to think about this week.

You know, even for us as a church right now, many of you know, we are in the middle of the home

campaign. This is a big push and this is in the middle of the public phase of that push. And the

hope is that every single person who's a part of the Advent family and extended family, that we would all

commit to financially supporting our goal to secure a permanent long-term home in the heart of the city.

For, for, for, for, to, to serve for generations. And so you don't have to be an expert to know that

right in the middle of a public phase of a campaign like this, it's generally not a good idea to stop

having public meetings. Generally, you want the opposite to happen, but what's going on? Well,

the entire reason that we want a home is because of our commitment to love the city long-term.

And it turns out that right now, loving the city means not having public gatherings. And so this

has been a great opportunity for us as a church to make sure that our priorities are in order.

Our ultimate, ultimate priority is to love the city in the name of Jesus Christ. And if loving the

city means not meeting, then that's what we need to do. And at the end of the day, if we lose sight of

that priority, then why in the world will we need to build it? And so for now we are here, but, but I

want to encourage you to continue praying for this campaign and to continue praying for this vision

that we all share to commit ourselves to loving the city long-term, not just for the next year or two,

but for generations to come. And of course, our greatest hope is this,

that even though many of us, myself included, most of the time find that our priorities are all out of

work. Our greatest hope is that Jesus Christ never wavered. His entire ministry, he was exclusively

focused on doing the will of his father, even though that led straight to the cross. But when we look at

the cross, and when we contemplate the meaning of Jesus's death and the hope of his resurrection,

what we realize is that even when we reject him, even when we deny him, we are always Jesus's top

priority. And when you realize that, and when you realize that that was true, even on the cross,

it shows you that when it comes to our time, when it comes to our, the things that we're investing in,

there's only one who is worthy to be our top priority, and that's Jesus Christ. Because even

when we didn't love him, even when we rejected him, he never stopped loving us, because he loves

relentlessly. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. And as we continue in prayer, I just,

I pray specifically for everyone who is at home right now, especially for those who might be alone.

I pray that they would be encouraged. I pray that they would know and feel the love of Jesus Christ

with them right now where they are. I pray that Jesus, you would make your presence known,

Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And I ask this in your son's name. Amen.

So now we're going to respond to...

Amen.