Q2, S10 Trustees

Quarter 2, Session 10: Trustees

CAN I TRUST YOU?

Passage

Luke 16:1–13

Concept

This session falls under Jesus’ sixth question: Do you trust me? Jesus told a startling parable about a manager who learned he was going to lose his job and in response shrewdly lowered the amount his master’s debtors had to repay so that they would take care of him once his job was over. The parable teaches us that wealth is not meant to be hoarded, it is best used as a means of investing in relationships. Everything we have has been entrusted to us by God, so the question is whether we will hoard our things, or whether we will use them to invest in eternally significant relationships.

Key Question

What opportunities do you have right now to partner with God and invest in eternally significant relationships by being a shrewd trustee of the stuff God has given you?

The Journey Tool

Do you see our Journey tool being played out in Luke 16:1–13? With whom? How so?

Trustees

What is the most difficult financial decision you’ve ever had to make? The world of finance is difficult to navigate. It always involves risks and investments. It’s difficult to know what you should spend, what you should save, and what types of things you should be investing in.

Whether or not you give it a lot of thought, you are constantly making decisions that reveal your true beliefs on what the purpose of your wealth is. What you do with your stuff says a lot about what’s going on in your heart.

In Luke 16, Jesus tells a story about a dishonest manager. The story is surprising because it uses an unusual angle to discuss the purpose of our material wealth. We are prone to make material goods our pursuit, but Jesus pushes us to see the things that are more valuable. But it’s never really about the material possessions at all. It’s more about what we can be entrusted with. When we have the right posture towards wealth, we become trustworthy.

Without trust, relationships fall apart. In a sense, growing in our relationship with God means growing in our trust of him. But as our trust in God develops our relationship with him, we learn that God also wants to be able to trust us. He wants to place his trust in us regarding certain tasks. Trust relationships are symbiotic—it works in both directions. The more we trust God, the more we find that he entrusts us with responsibilities. With the parable of the dishonest manager, Jesus helps us examine this dynamic in our own hearts.

1.     Read Luke 16:1–13. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?

Entrusted for a Purpose

In the parable, a manager knows that he will be fired, so he goes to all of the people who owe his master money and reduces their debt. This is not just a way to get back at the master. He offers a debt reduction to these people so that he will gain their friendship. Though the master is no doubt angry about the financial loss he suffered, he is able to acknowledge the shrewdness of the manager’s actions.

Of course, the point is not that we should be more dishonest. Jesus takes the story of a dishonest man and uses it to present a lesson about shrewdness. The dishonest man does not use his master’s wealth to make himself wealthier. Instead, he shrewdly uses his master’s money to invest in relationships, which will benefit him more once he’s lost his livelihood than the money itself would.

The whole point comes down to the value of relationships. He’s not telling us that we should be dishonest, he’s praising the man who could see how critical relationships are.

One of the mistakes we make with regard to material wealth is that we tend to view ourselves as owners rather than trustees. But this is to misunderstand a fundamental aspect of our relationship with God. When you are an owner, all of the ultimate decision-making power comes to you, but so does all of the responsibility. When you are a trustee, you don’t have as big of a burden, but your role is to make decisions in the best interests of the owner. We have been entrusted with many different things. We like to think that we own our homes and our time and our potential and our families, but in reality, we are simply trustees. God is always the owner, and these are all things we have been entrusted with.

2.     How would your life look different if you truly believed that everything you have actually belongs to God, and that you are simply a trustee of all of it?

A good trustee uses worldly wealth for the building up of eternal relationships. If we use our worldly resources shrewdly, we can be investing in relationships that will last for eternity. Jesus is saying that there is a way in which we can convert dollars into relationships.

What matters most to God is the people he created and loves. God is probably not watching us with disapproval as he weighs the value of each dollar we spend. But with this parable, he is pushing us to look at the wealth we have been entrusted with and to begin to see it in terms of resources that will allow us to build the kind of relationships that will matter on an eternal scale. To invest that money in the lives of people.

3.     What would it look like to use your material wealth to invest in eternal relationships? Give some practical examples.

What Are You Pursuing?

The battle is to gain and maintain a kingdom mindset. It’s not ever about what you have. You can have very few things, but if your heart is wrapped around those things, you’re still a slave to them. You can have a ton of things but if your heart is set on the kingdom, then your heart is not wound around those things, and you don’t care about them in any ultimate sense. Those things are then free to be used for the sake of the kingdom.

4.     Try to do an honest assessment. Is there anything you have or are pursuing that hinders you from the kingdom of God? How so?

Which Master?

At the end of this passage, Jesus explains that no one can serve two masters. He insists that we will find ourselves either serving God or serving money. We always have to ask is if we are stewarding the stuff God has given us or worshipping it.

Everything you have been entrusted with is actually an opportunity for you to partner with God in relationship. The question is whether we will use our stuff to grow closer to God and partner with him in what he wants to do with it, or whether we will allow that stuff to come between us and God, to allow us to grow more self-absorbed and isolated. So which will it be?

5.     Have you ever used any of your stuff in a way that allows you to partner with God? What is that like?

6.     Do you have any opportunities right now to grow closer to God and partner with him in the way you use your stuff? What would that look like?

7.     Spend some time in prayer. Thank God for the material blessings he has given you and ask him for the grace to steward them well. Pray about the relationships you believe he’s calling you to invest in right now.

Key Question

What opportunities do you have right now to partner with God and invest in eternally significant relationships by being a shrewd trustee of the stuff God has given you?