Transcript
Will you open your Bibles to Luke chapter 16. The gospel of Luke chapter 16. Chapter 16 and we want to begin reading at verse 10. Luke chapter 16 and beginning to read at verse 10.
He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much. And he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Or to make it more modern, you cannot serve God and money.
At the age of 22 Angie King was an attractive young woman who was also an assistant manager at a Herman’s World of Sporting Goods store out on Belt Line Road in Richardson. She was loved and admired by her friends and by the people who worked with her. She had a twin sister named Pam with whom she shared an apartment in Denton and with whom she also shared a car.
One fateful third Wednesday last November Angie was scheduled to pick up Pam from her work but she failed to show up. And Pam knew that something was wrong, but she figured that it was probably a flat tire or perhaps that the car had broken down. She could never guess what had actually occurred.
Because on that particular Wednesday night in last November two vicious armed men robbed this sporting goods store where Angie worked. They murdered two of the male employees, one of whom died at the store, the other of whom died early the next morning at Parkland Hospital. As for Angie herself, they tied her hands with duct tape and slit her throat, making no doubt that they had killed her.
But Angie was not dead. And she survived by playing possum for the rest of the robbery. And after the robbers were gone, somehow remarkably she managed to get up and call the police. By the next morning she was in Parkland Hospital where she had only a sketchy recollection of the things that had occurred. She was complaining about her sore throat and wondering what all of the bandages and tubes were for. She was wondering where she was and why she was there.
One of the relatives who was interviewed by the media at Parkland Hospital said that what Angie had done was indicative of the kind of person she was, that her fellow employees loved and respected her, and that her first concern when she woke up was, “Are my employees okay?”
Terri Martinez who used to work with Angie said, “I wonder how she did it but it doesn’t surprise me.” Sue Kravitz who was currently working with Angie said, “She’s a strong person. She was always there for everybody. She would bend over backwards for you.”
Her twin sister Pam had gotten home without Angie and about 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday night had received a telephone call from the hospital informing her that there had been a stabbing, that her sister was in serious condition, and could she come down to Parkland. She went to Parkland and when she walked up to the bedside of her twin sister Angie, the first words that Angie said to her were, “I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up. I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up.”
Well now, what is that story about? Is it about a vicious crime that occurred here in Dallas? Yes, in a sense it is. And is it about the courage and bravery of a young woman in a very serious moment of crisis? And yes, in a very real sense it is also about that.
But I think that more than any of these things this story is about a word which is spelled C H A R A C T E R, character. Everybody who knew Angie or who worked with Angie agreed that she had character. And undoubtedly her relative at Parkland Hospital was absolutely correct when she said that what Angie had done was an indication of the type of person she was. She had unmistakably good character.
And one of the tragedies about the United States of America in our day and time is that so many people in America lack character. They don’t have character.
When we find a lot of people complaining about all the gays and lesbians that are in our midst and that’s a serious concern, and lots of people also complain about the crooked officials that we elect to political office and that is also a concern, then how about the people that are doing the complaining? Do they lie? Do they cheat? Do they evade responsibility? Do they commit immorality? Are they selfish? In the case of millions of the critics unfortunately that is true.
Now this would be bad enough wouldn’t it if it were a problem that is confined to the unsaved men and women all around us. But unfortunately, my friends, there are people who are truly born again by faith in Jesus Christ. There are men and women who have received from the Lord Jesus Christ the free gift of everlasting life and they say forever they know that they’re going to heaven and yet they lack character. They lack character.
And this morning I want to challenge you to the very painful task of checking your own character, of checking your own character. And I want you to do this as I spend the next few minutes talking to you about the following subject: Money is the measure of a man. Did you get that? That’s the title of my message this morning. Money is the measure of a man.
Without a doubt the most significant event that occurred all week long was the inauguration of a new president. And at noon on Wednesday Bill Clinton became president of the United States. But he had not been president for even as long as 38 hours before he suffered his first political setback. And of course I’m talking about the case of Zoe Baird whom he had nominated to be the first female attorney general.
Now the Attorney General is the highest law enforcement officer in America. And so Zoe Baird was nominated for that office. There was only one problem. Zoe Baird had willingly and knowingly broken the law at a time in the recent past. You probably know the details.
Zoe Baird was a general counsel and senior vice president for the Aetna Life and Casualty Company. Her husband, whose name she did not take, was Paul, a well-known Yale Law University professor. Together last year the two of them earned in excess of six hundred and sixty thousand dollars. They’re not exactly down on their luck. And yet Zoe Baird, knowing that it was contrary to the law, hired a couple of illegal aliens, a man and his wife from Peru. The man did some driving and the wife took care of Zoe Baird’s young son.
Now on top of that there was the legal issue too hard on. Her husband did not report Social Security taxes until her name began to be considered by the aides of President Clinton for the position of Attorney General. After talking to Clinton aides she coughed up and her husband coughed up somewhere around twelve thousand dollars in back taxes and civil penalties.
Now there are a lot of people who were prepared to defend Zoe Baird. And one expert in legal ethics in New York said, “I don’t defend the conduct but it wasn’t all that serious. That’s the type of violation that Americans usually blink or wink at.” However last week Americans were not blinking and they were not winking.
In fact when the thirty-three year old appeared in front of the Senate panel that was reviewing her nomination, Americans from all over the country were flooding the phone banks in the Capitol with protests against the nomination of Zoe Baird. Editorial writers all over the country were criticizing the idea that we might be about to elevate to the top law enforcement position in America a woman who had knowingly broken the law.
And I’m sure that you all know what happened. Early Friday morning before he had been in office for 38 hours President Bill Clinton withdrew the name of Zoe Baird to be Attorney General.
And I saw a very amusing cartoon. There was a little boy looking out of his living room window with a house that was obviously empty except for himself. And underneath the cartoon there was this caption: “Home Alone 3. My mommy is in Washington and the Immigration and Naturalization Service has just picked up my nanny.”
And remarkably, my friends, this story which was on our front pages last week is an almost perfect illustration of a principle that Jesus Christ lays down in the passage of Scripture that we read just a few moments ago.
Remember that this passage is coming off a discussion of a dishonest steward. And Jesus applied the story to money. And in the very first verse of our passage Jesus says this. He says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he who is unjust in that which is least is unjust also in that which is much.”
If someone impaired the laws of the United States of America, no matter how unimportant that law seems to her, can we trust her? Could we have trusted her to enforce all of the laws of this country? Obviously we could not have done so.
And the basic principle is just simply this: If you can be trusted in something that is really small you can be trusted in things that are big. But if you can’t be trusted in things that are really small you can’t be trusted in things that are big.
Do you understand that lying behind this statement is the assumption that Jesus is making? That one of our smallest responsibilities that we have is the use of money. Sometimes we think that’s our biggest responsibility. On a scale of 1 to 10, folks, it’s number 10. “Well God, can I trust you to use your money right?” He can’t trust you for anything more important than that.
So how about it? Would you pick up a small piece of property that belonged to your employer and bring it home on the theory that they have plenty of those and that nobody would ever know? Would you? Or to get down to brass tacks on your income tax, sometimes when you fill it out between here and April 15, would you report everything that you have earned? Or would you only report what the government is right there to be able to check up on? Money that you have received for which W-2 forms have been filed aside and one hundred dollars for this or that. “That’s no big deal. Just breaking the law. It’s dishonest.”
And whoever is dishonest in something that is little will be dishonest in something that is big.
Recently I was watching the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour and they were interviewing a woman, I think she was from the Denver area. Her face was covered with darkness so that we could not see who she was. But judging from her surroundings she was pretty well-to-do. And the reason they were blanking out her face was because she had done exactly the same thing that Zoe Baird had. This time she had hired an illegal alien. Contrary to the law she had failed to pay Social Security taxes out of the payments that she made to the employee.
And she explained to the interviewer that the reason she did it was, first, you can’t get Americans to do this kind of work and not pay a whole lot more money. And secondly, many of her wealthy friends did exactly the same thing. They hired illegal aliens too and they didn’t report for Social Security taxes either.
And the interviewer asked her how she felt about breaking the law. Did she feel bad about this? And she said, “Well,” she said, “I looked around.” She said, “Nobody else was following the law and nobody else was paying the Social Security taxes. And so I asked myself if I’m the only one that’s paying them maybe I’m being too blue and being too picky.”
Folks, never tell yourself that this particular law and that particular law you don’t obey it because you don’t know anybody else that does. “Why should I be so picky? Nobody else reports very little income. Why should I be so picky and report like fifty dollars that I made here or there?” You wrote the law. And he that is unjust in that which is least, meaning money, is unjust also in that which is much.
You know that I frequently travel to other cities where I preach at other churches. And I never tell these churches in order to have me come preach you will have to give me an honorarium of X amount of dollars. What they always do now, the churches who pay me like that are not required to report their payments to the Internal Revenue Service unless the payment is five hundred dollars or over. And most of my honorariums fall considerably below that figure I might add.
I knew a preacher once who told me he didn’t report money like that. He figured he hadn’t asked for it and he treated it as a gift. Gifts are not taxable. But that’s against the law. Anything that I get for services rendered is income. And my particular income from those churches is under the category of honorarium.
And I want you folks to know, not because I’m bragging on myself but because this is an important fundamental principle of life, I report every penny. And I don’t report it because I think the IRS may catch up with me. You know why I report it? Because God is watching. Because God is watching and He is testing my dependability, how I handle my money. And He has commanded me to be subject to the powers that be.
And I would like to feel that if I can show God that I’m faithful with money then He’ll trust me with higher responsibilities in His church. And then I would like to feel that when the new administration of King Jesus is inaugurated on this earth I would like to feel that He would consider me a good nominee, a good nominee for some important position in a government that will go on forever and forever and forever.
Listen folks, money is the measure of the man. And by the way you use your money you reveal whether or not you have true dependability. And true dependability is a part of real Christian character.
There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? There’s more to it than that. You see mammon or money not only measures our dependability, it also measures our discernment. It measures our discernment, our wisdom, our perception, our understanding of reality. And that is why Jesus goes on to say, “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what belongs to another man, who will commit to you that which is truly your own?”
Do you see un-Americans have a false view of reality. They think if you own a mansion up in Highland Park and you own a Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce and you have hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapped up in stocks and Treasury bonds and certificates of deposit that you’re really rich. And they also think that’s really true.
But they’re under an illusion on this point. What is that mansion? A bunch of lumber, timber, marble, plastic and other stuff. What are these Rolls Royces and Mercedes Benz? A bunch of metal and rubber and other stuff. And what are his stocks and bonds and CDs? Pieces of paper, pieces of paper.
And there’s a body on all of that lumber and metal and rubber and plastic and the rest of the stuff. Yeah, somebody owns it. God owns every bit of it because He created it. You see it’s not even yours potentially. And Jesus says if you don’t realize that and you treat it as if it was real, why He’s going to commit to you the riches of the future which are genuine.
Well, and if you can’t even be faithful with stuff that doesn’t belong to you how can God give you in the future the riches that can be yours forever and forever?
To handle your money has a responsibility to God. And as Dr. Hunt Robinson used to put it preaching when I was a teacher at the seminary, a very good friend of mine, he used to go out to lunch a lot and he liked to tell stories just like all preachers do.
And one of the favorite stories that he told, a true story, was this: A number of years before, around Christmas time, he’d received along with all faculty members a Christmas bonus check from the seminary. You have to understand folks that the seminary was not rich in those days and the bonus checks were just kind of little small amounts to let you know that the seminary appreciated you.
But in this particular year Dr. Robinson pulled out his bonus check and there he read on the face of it two hundred and fifty dollars, which was a big check for a DTS bonus. So what did he do? He rushed out and bought a brand new suit for his elderly father who needed one for Christmas. As I remember the story he bought some other stuff also that was associated with Christmas.
And then he picked up the telephone and he called the president of the seminary Dr. John F. Walvoord and he went on and on and on about this wonderfully generous bonus check that the seminary had given to us teachers this year. And after that he happened to look at the check again and he discovered it was a check worth twenty-five dollars. He had put the decimal in the wrong place.
And he was stuck. You can’t turn a twenty-five dollar check into two hundred and fifty dollars. And so that meant that he had to pay for his father’s suit and the other things he had bought out of his own pocket. He was really embarrassed. It was his call about the bonus. And he said he wondered what Dr. Walvoord was saying. He figured he was probably thinking, “What is wrong with this teacher of mine that he goes on and on and on about the lavish generosity on a check for twenty-five dollars?”
You know sometimes we put the decimal point in the wrong place. We look at our assets, we look at our material things and we think they’re worth something. Don’t forgive my language, maybe it’s worth a little more than nothing but not much more than nothing.
And if you don’t realize the true value of the material things you have your own perspective and you may use your material things the wrong way.
William Kelly was a great Bible teacher of another generation, a very knowledgeable and well trained man. He wrote books that you can still get in libraries today and they’re very good. But on one occasion because he was highly respected as a scholar a committee from a prestigious university in Great Britain came to him, I think it was either from Oxford or Cambridge, and they offered Mr. Kelly a teaching position, a prestigious teaching position at the university.
And to their amazement and annoyance he turned them down. So the committee said to Mr. Kelly, “Mr. Kelly, don’t you love to make your mark in the world?” To which William Kelly replied, “Which world, gentlemen? Which world?”
You see the rich in this world, which world have you chosen? If you choose this one you’ll never make it because nobody plus nobody plus nobody is really rich. But if you’ve chosen the world to come then that’s where the real riches and wondrous rewards are located. But they’ll be yours only if you know how to handle your money for the glory of God.
So don’t you see? Mammon is the measure of the man. It measures his dependability. It measures his discernment.
Now we reach the bottom line. Don’t we? The bottom line. So not only does mammon measure these things, not only does it measure a man’s dependability, not only does it measure his discernment, but mammon also measures a man’s dedication. Mammon measures a man’s dedication.
And Jesus concludes our passage with these words, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Did you know that all through hours out here on earth we are confronted with decisions between God and money? And the decisions that we make determine the depth of our dedication to God.
May I? The strength and I’m getting too close to the horn. With your name on Sunday night we have the Lord’s Supper. This is the only biblical meeting that we have. If we shut down this meeting on Sunday morning we wouldn’t be violating anything in the Bible. But the meeting on Sunday night is commanded in the Bible. That is commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ who said, “This do in remembrance of me.”
Now I know that a lot of people in our church don’t come to the Lord’s table. And I’m not interested in all the reasons. I just want to focus on this one. If you were offered an opportunity to take a job that paid good money but required you to work on Sunday night, would you take the job and decide to skip Sunday night? And if you would, who are you serving? God or money?
I suppose you already have a job on Sunday night that prevents you from coming to the Lord’s table. Well are you willing to pray every single day that God will get you out of that job so you can remember what His Son has done for you at the Lord’s table? Are you willing to do that? If you’re not, who are you serving? God or mammon?
Would you be willing to take some money that you have sort of felt like giving to the Lord and use it instead to buy something that you really don’t need but you really want? Would you? And if you would, who are you serving? God or mammon?
Am I making myself clear? All through life we make decisions like this. You can’t serve both God and mammon. It’s impossible. Therefore when they come in conflict you must choose to serve God.
Mammon is the measure of the man’s character. And if you are faithful with money I have no doubt you have excellent Christian character.
I don’t know that I can vouch for the story which I’m going to conclude with. I have read that many years ago two Vienna scientists decided to undertake a bacteriological experiment with banknotes, which is paper money. And they came up with the discovery that on banknotes there was a whole bunch of microbes, as many as nineteen thousand on a single banknote.
Some of the bacteria they found cause tuberculosis and some of the bacteria that they found cause diphtheria and some of the bacteria they found cause erysipelas. And I have to admit I had to go to the dictionary for that one. Erysipelas, whatever erysipelas was. It turns out to be a skin disease, the disease of the skin, the tissues just below the skin level. It is caused by the streptococcus virus and it involves a spreading infection and it is sometimes called Saint Anthony’s fire.
Now as I’ve said I can’t really verify the correctness of the discoveries reported by these two men. But one thing I do know: the money that we pass from hand to hand to merchants and back is dangerous to our spiritual health. It contains the microbes of greed, selfishness, materialism. And another company of people, including Christians, have come down with a spiritual form of Saint Anthony’s fire.
And the only way therefore to be free of this disease is to show through our use of money our dependability, our discernment, and our dedication to God.
A songwriter surveying the cross of Christ said, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”
And one of the first things that needs to be on the altar of my life is my mammon. Everything. Lord, teach us to be faithful with that which is least, with our money, so that You will be able to use us both in greater things in this world and in the world to come.
We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.