Advance Commitment Night SERIES SLIDE It was the summer of 1989, and Chuck Klosterman was 16 years old. After working his summer job for the day, he stopped by the local bank in his small North Dakota town. He needed to get a little bit of cash, so he went to the ATM, got out $20 and looked at his receipt- expecting to see about “$80” on the “remaining budget line”. Instead- his receipt indicated he had a little over $3,200. That’s a LOT of money for a 16 year old kid in 1989 North Dakota. So he walked into the bank, and showed his receipt to the teller. She told him that banks sometimes make mistakes and he shouldn’t worry about it. A week later, he went to get cash again from the ATM. This time, his receipt said he had $8,865. He, yet again, walked into the bank to alert them of the error. This time, the teller said it was probably just the decimal in the wrong place. He probably had $88.65 in his account. It was about a month before Chuck went back to the ATM. He got $20 out…and this time was staring at a receipt that indicated he had $63,000 in his account. But this time, it was after hours- the bank was closed. And, after all, he’d try to tell them already. So Chuck withdrew $180 more, to fulfill his daily $200 limit.
Transcript
Advance Commitment Night
SERIES SLIDE
It was the summer of 1989, and Chuck Klosterman was 16 years old.
After working his summer job for the day, he stopped by the local bank in his small North Dakota town. He needed to get a little bit of cash, so he went to the ATM, got out $20 and looked at his receipt- expecting to see about “$80” on the “remaining budget line”.
Instead- his receipt indicated he had a little over $3,200. That’s a LOT of money for a 16 year old kid in 1989 North Dakota.
So he walked into the bank, and showed his receipt to the teller. She told him that banks sometimes make mistakes and he shouldn’t worry about it.
A week later, he went to get cash again from the ATM. This time, his receipt said he had $8,865. He, yet again, walked into the bank to alert them of the error.
This time, the teller said it was probably just the decimal in the wrong place. He probably had $88.65 in his account.
It was about a month before Chuck went back to the ATM. He got $20 out…and this time was staring at a receipt that indicated he had $63,000 in his account. But this time, it was after hours- the bank was closed. And, after all, he’d try to tell them already.
So Chuck withdrew $180 more, to fulfill his daily $200 limit.
16 year old Chuck Klosterman was now rich.
The amount of money in his account would vary from time to time, sometimes getting as high as $75,000.
And to Chuck, he felt like as long as he didn’t go crazy, just drawing out smallish amounts of money at a time, that he would fly under the bank’s radar.
It was now time to live.
He bought his first CD player and replaced all of his old Heavy Metal cassette tapes with their Compact Disc equivalent.
He bought 2 pairs of $80 shoes within a week (remember, in 1989, that’s the equivalent of about $360 of todays money.)
Here’s Chuck writing about this time in his life in an essay from his book “Fargo Rock City”.
“There was [an] … unavoidable ethical problem with all this thievery, and it was slowly starting to wear me down. I worried about it constantly. Despite my best attempts at rationalization, I could not avoid the fact that this money was obviously coming from someone. Of course, a little omnipresent guilt still didn’t stop me from becoming an amateur embezzler.”
Chuck Klosterman was 28 years old when he wrote this essay. And he says in it…
“I still have all these purchases, and they continue to haunt me- or at least remind me- of my criminal past. My relationship to all the music [I purchased] has been replaced by my relationship with its acquisition. I wonder if Cuban drug lords feel the same sensation when they look at their collection of speedboats.”
As a result of that guilt- Chuck decided to stop using his ATM card. 10 months went by, and it was now April of 1990- and he needed some new shoes. He checked himself out of school to go shopping.
He went to make a withdraw from the ATM. He slid his card into the machine, punched in his PIN- and his transaction was denied.
He re-punched the code. Denied again.
And then- for reasons he still doesn’t understand- he went into the bank to complain.
The bank teller ushered Chuck over to the bank manager, who after a lengthy conversation with some of the other bank big-wigs, came over to Chuck and said, “We need you to give us $2,160.”
The bank had made some error, and even though Chuck knew he could fight it by playing the 16 year old ignorance card- he wanted the whole thing to end so his parents never found out.
So, he used money that he was supposed to have set aside for college, and wrote the bank a check for $2,160 from his savings.
He didn’t return to school that afternoon. He drove around the North Dakota countryside in his truck crying, listening to the KISS tape cassette “Hotter than Hell”- realizing that if he wouldn’t have bought that cassette- he would have only owed $2,150.
That’s when he writes-“The meaninglessness of that realization buried me like an avalanche of gravel. There was no singular purchase that had sealed my fate; there was no eight-hundred-pound-gorilla sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I had somehow wasted two grand of my future, one blistering power chord at a time.”
When I read Chuck Klosterman’s essay for the first time a few years ago- there were 3 things that struck me.
The first was thinking about the absolute elation I would feel as a 16 year old kid if my bank account suddenly got a few zeros added before the decimal point.
Second, and more notable to me is that as Chuck went through 10 months of having this access to all this money- and even for that kid- there was this sense of responsibility- this sense of having to answer for what he did with money that he knew didn’t belong to him.
Even for that 16 year old kid with thousands of dollars at his disposal- with virtually no accountability- somehow, Chuck could not bring himself to ever do anything more with that money than buy some shoes and some CDs.
Because in the end- he knew he was going to have to answer for every dollar he spent of someone else’s money.
And third- That last sentence I passage I read to you stayed with me. “There was no singular purchase that sealed my fate…I had somehow wasted my future- on a bunch of small purchases.
Title Slide- “Chuck’s Bucks: How to Use Money You’ll Lose to Make Friends You Won’t”- Luke 16:1-14
There are 3 things that would have really helped Chuck Klosterman- 3 words of advice that would have made a big difference in the way he approached that bank error in his favor.
And they are all contained in this story that Jesus told his disciples.
Luke 16:1-14Now he said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who received an accusation that his manager was squandering his possessions.2 So he called the manager in and asked, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be my manager.’
3 “Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig; I’m ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I’ll do so that when I’m removed from management, people will welcome me into their homes.’
5 “So he summoned each one of his master’s debtors. ‘How much do you owe my master? ’ he asked the first one.
6 “ ‘A hundred measures of olive oil,’ he said.
“ ‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘sit down quickly, and write fifty.’
7 “Next he asked another, ‘How much do you owe? ’
“ ‘A hundred measures of wheat,’ he said.
“ ‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘and write eighty.’
8 “The master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light in dealing with their own people. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. 10 Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much. 11 So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with what is genuine? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and scoffing at him.
Transition: I love this story- because its SOOO weird. And kind of confusing. Which makes me feel better about my metaphors.
So let me explain what’s going on by taking us through the truths that Jesus is communicating here. 3 things that Chuck Klosterman would have appreciated knowing BEFORE he had that 10 month financial windfall from the ATM.
1) “Your money” isn’t yours.
Notice how this story starts. It's the story of a rich man and a manager. A steward. Its like if you hired an investment broker to help you do the
best you could with your money. When you do that, you aren’t saying “Hey everything I have is
yours to do what you want with”.
You are saying… “all this money is still mine, I’m just allowing you manage it for me so it brings me the best Return on Investment”
Now, In this parable…you we aren’t supposed to identify with the rich man…
…we’re supposed to see our example in the manager.
16:1
This manager is not performing well. It says that he was wasting his masters possessions. Literally the word picture here in the original Greek is that he
is scattering his masters possessions.
The manager doesn’t have this secret evil plan to steal from his master…he’s not trying to figure out some corporate takeover…
Basically…he’s just sort of not paying attention to the way he’s handling his masters money. In fact, he may have completely forgotten that this money isn’t really his.
It's a lot like that scene in Dumb & Dumber, when Harry and Lloyd realize the briefcase they found contains millions of dollars.
At first they are very aware that the money isn’t their own. “We’ll payback everything spend. We’ll write IOU’s,
we’ll be meticulous- right down to the last penny.”
Then immediately they get the penthouse suite at the Colorado resort.
And then the next scene is them pulling up at the Resort in in a Lambourghini dressed in over the top ski gear- Applebottom Jeans, boots with the fur. The doors to the car open and packages spill out and then Lloyd starts passing out $100 tips to all the bellhops. “There you go, there you go. There you go”.
You know, this guy just kind of thinks (if he’s even thinking at all)…”My master has SOOOO much money…he’s not gonna miss a little bit here and there”
But after a while, the Rich Man notices that his estate is not gaining worth…its losing it.
16:2 So he calls the guy into his office and says, “Look, Go write
down all the passwords to my bank accounts…bring me up to date on how much damage you did……and then, once I figure out how bad this is…I’m gonna have to let you go.”
This isn’t an evil guy, so much as its a guy who’s just treating money that’s not his…like it IS his. …and so, he’s spending it like he wants to.
Kind of like Chuck buying 2 pairs of shoes and a boatload of Heavy Metal CD’s.
…and its now costing him his job.
Alright…lets get out of the story and talk about you and me for a minute.
The point Jesus is making here is that we don’t own what we have. We’re managers. Stewards.
Whatever God puts in my hands…whatever money is in my bank account…whatever house I’m living in…whatever car I’m driving…whatever job I’m working…
…none of its mine. Its all God’s.
Now let me address a word in our society that stands diametrically opposed to this parable.
The word is “deserve”.
I don’t think there is a word that is more used in advertising…and we are absolutely suckers for it.
We love to be told, “You deserve a vacation. You deserve to be paid. You deserve a break today.”
We believe that if we earned it…we get to have it. And NOBODY…I mean NOBODY…can tell me what to do with
my money, my house, my car…because I DESERVE these things…I EARNED THEM…SO I OWN THEM.
Here’s the theological problem with that idea. Look what King David prays when he is getting materials
together to build the temple. 1 Chronicles 29:12 & 16 (same slide)
Riches and honor come from you, and you are the ruler of everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all
Lord our God, all this wealth that we’ve provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand; everything belongs to you.
Do you see that? We have provided it. We have given it to build your house…
but none of it is ours. Its all yours. It comes from you. All riches, all power, all might
all honor…its all Gods…and any of it that we possess is given to us to manage for his glory.
Back to 1) So you might say, “Well I’ve worked hard for what I have and
I’ll decide how I want to use it?”
I’d ask you, “What about your physical health…your mental ability…where did that come from?” Not you.
Or how about when and where you were born? You realize if you were born in Myanmar in the 10th century…
you could work hard all you want…and you would still have virtually nothing in terms of money and possessions.
But…you happened to be in America in the 21st century. Who was in charge of that…you? I don't think so.
See, you worked hard for what you got with the CIRCUMSTANCES God gave you, the talent God gave you and the body and mind God gave you.
None of what you have is yours.
Which means, when you aren’t generous…you aren’t just being stingy…you are stealing from God. You are taking something for yourself that you’ve only been given to manage.
Sure, not in a twist the end of your mustache Italian Job Oceans Twelve Baby Driver kind of way…but in a Harry and Llyod- Dumb & Dumber kind of way.
In a Chuck Klosterman- ATM malfunction kind of way.
Listen, for most of us, just like for this manager in our story, our greed is not overt. Its under the surface.
Its probably more passive than active.
The reality is, you probably aren’t really paying attention to what you’re doing with God’s money.
Think about this. Do you have a budget? Do you intentionally make sure you know where your money is going?
Do you intentionally plan your generosity? Do you intentionally give to the church and to others?
Or…do you just, like this manager in our story, sort of pay the bills that come in, do whatever you want to do as the month goes on…and then…give God what little is left over?
That’s wasting God’s money… and its exactly what this guy got fired for.
Transition: And the chances are- if you are spending money that way- that you have forgotten or never learned something else Jesus explicitly teaches here- that…
2) Money will fail you. The money manager in our story rightly gets fired… ..and take a look at what he realizes about himself.
16:3 He says, “What am I going to do now? I’m nothing without my
master. I’m not strong enough to dig” (in other words…I don’t have the strength to provide for myself)
…”and I’m ashamed to beg” In other words…I have to protect something of my identity here…
“Because I’ve been using my master’s money for myself…people think I’m rich and powerful…and I can’t let them in on who I really am…a weak man with nothing of my own.”
…and right there you have the illusion that money gives us. That we are SOMEBODY because we have SOME
MONEY.
That’s called putting your identity in money. But Jesus tells his audience here… 16:9 that money used to establish yourself an identity of
power or worth… that’s what unrighteous wealth is…he says, IT WILL FAIL YOU.
We subtly buy into this idea that if we have money…it will make us somebody.
There are 2 categories of things we typically think Money will give us. First…
We think money gives us security that can’t fail. If you are a person that likes to save your money…you know…
stack up a big cushion in your bank account… You tend get this false sense of security. Like no problem can
come your way that you can’t solve with a big savings account.
No disaster can befall you that you can’t write a check to solve.
But, you know, the old cliché… “Hearses don't have trailer hitches”
You can’t take it with you.
Which means money can’t keep you from dying…and having stacks of cash in the bank doesn’t mean ANYTHING once you die.
Additionally, some of get a false sense of security because we think getting lots of money will keep people respecting us.
But let me ask you this… …if someone only respects you because you have money…
isn’t that shallow. Do you they really value…you? Or are they just believing the same lie you are…that money
keeps you safe.
If your security goes when your money goes…get ready for a crash. Its going to fail you.
The other part of our identity that we get from money is beauty.
We think money gives us beauty that can’t fail. These are usually those of us who like to SPEND money
instead of SAVE money. Because you think adding possessions to your life, building
bigger houses, having better cars, travelling the world, buying nice things…getting more trinkets and toys…you think that adds value…beauty to your life.
To you, a life well lived is a life where people look at you and say, “Wow, that person knows how to LIVE”
So, your chase of the treasure is tied to your pursuit of beauty.
But…if people only think you’re beautiful because of the car you drive or the sort of house you live in…isn’t THAT shallow?
Again…your identity is tied to something you can lose. If your security….or your beauty…depends on how much
money you have saved or spent…
Back to 2) …it will fail you… …and then, you don’t JUST have to figure out how to put food
on the table again…
…you won’t even know who YOU are.
TRANSITION: So…if you can’t use money for ultimate security…and ultimate beauty…if you can’t build a stable identity with money that’s not yours in the first place…
….what are we supposed to do with it? Well…Jesus says…we’re supposed to use it to keep the
Goonies together… he tells us to…
3) Use money you’ll lose to make friends you won’t. Ok, now we get to the tricky part of this parable…and really
the whole point Jesus is making with it.
Look at what this money manager does. Before we do that…let me say…that when Jesus tells this
parable…he’s not saying… “look what a great guy this money manager is”.
In fact, what he does in desperation is dishonest. …It doesn’t even prove that he’s not greedy anymore.
But Jesus often does this in parables. He gives you the worst example and then says, “If a person this grimy, this underhanded, this detestable…knows how to make wise decisions…how much more should someone who knows GOD make even better decisions.
That’s what he’s doing here.
16:4 Notice what happens first when the manager’s money fails
him. He immediately realizes he is NOT self-sufficient. He knows that all along he has depended on the master…
even though he had forgotten that…so now…he knows his hope is in making some good relationships with someone else who might take care of him.
He’s being kicked out of his master’s house, so he needs a NEW master…a new friend to open up their home.
16:5 So he goes to people that owe his master, and he slices their
debt…by 20% for one, and by 50% for another.
In hopes that these guys will see that he is doing them a favor and them invite him to stay with them when he’s homeless in a few days.
16:8a (end with shrewdly) Strangely, the master praises this manager he’s about to fire
for acting shrewdly. Do you know what it means to be shrewd? (BEATS, BEARS,
BATTLESTAR GALLATICA- no that’s what it means to be Schrute)
Being SHREWD- means you have a keen ability to look at the situations you are in and the resources you have…and use them to their full potential to do much more than expected.
You know who is the epitome of Shrewdness? MacGyver. MacGyver could take a grain of sand, a hairpin, and a shirt
button and use it to escape from a room made of reinforced steel that’s filling up with lava.
That’s shrewdness.
Its like the rich man here is looking at his manager that has just, once again, suckered him out of some of his money…and he just kind of smiles and shakes his head…and says, “You know what, I gotta at least give ya this, you are one shrewd son of a gun”
So the master isn’t praising this manager because of his righteousness…but because of his SHREWDNESS.
So…just exactly how is this manager shrewd? Listen carefully. He uses money that he knows he is going to lose…to make
friends that will last a lot longer. He uses something he has charge of temporarily , to get
something he will have for much longer.
That is the shrewdness being praised here.
Now look at the point Jesus makes. 16:8b-9 (start at “For the children”) He says, “If the sons of this world” in other words, people
who think their identity, their security and beauty can be found in money… (If they know how to use something they are going to lose to make friends that will care for them)…
…how much more shrewdly, wisely, prudently should the sons of light (those that know our security and beauty come from God)…how much more should we use the money we have to manage temporarily to make friends we get to keep for eternity.
That’s what he says in v 9. Use the money you have for a short time to bless, care for,
love, share the gospel with…show off the kingdom of God to…other PEOPLE…so that they would not trust in their money…but in the God who you serve.
Because, when they do that, anyone who puts their trust in God…instead of money…will be forever tied to GOD…and to all those who have ever trusted him.
Let me explain that. …by explaining why we find money and possessions…even
though we know cognitively they will fail us…we know hearses don't have trailer hitches…
Its just SO MUCH EASIER to put your hope in money.
Its because of what we all want from love…is so hard to find. Its because a relationship with money isn’t nearly as
hard as loving people.
Let me give you 5 things we all want from love…we want from friends…from people…that often, we don’t find…so we just decide to chase money for moneys sake. (by the way, I’m borrowing these from Tim Keller)
One SLIDE (add a reason every new slide but keep up previous reasons)
5 Reasons Loving People is Hard 1- We want to be loved for our own sake
This turns into heartbreak when you think someone loves you, but you out they were just using you…for sex, money, status whatever.
In fact, many of us love people primarily for what we get from them….and that hurts people.
2- We want to express our love without obstacles But because of pride, selfishness, defensiveness, or a myriad
of other sins…something holds us back. It’s like having an ocean of love…but it has to come out
through a straw You know, you get to the end of a day and look back at the
way you treated people you love and think “Why in the world did I say that to him? Why did I treat her like that? Why do I keep hurting the people I love most?”
3- We want to be loved back. Ever told someone “I love you” and get nothing on the other
end? That’s a big Matza ball hanging out there.
It hurts. You’ve just made yourself vulnerable…and it feels like you’ve been crushed.
Saying “I love you” is risky…and sometimes…it just feels better to shop than it does to take that risk with someone that's hurt you before.
4- We want everyone we love to be happy You know, we have this desire for the people we love to be
happy. In so many ways, our happiness is attached to the people we
love. Parents, you typically are only as happy as your happiest
child. Or, for me… I can have 1,000 people high-fiving me and
saying “Pastor, this message totally changed my life” …but I get the text that my wife feels overwhelmed or scared or at the end of her rope at home…those high fives are shallow…because the person I love is unhappy.
You know what that means? If you love more than 5 people…you are going to be unhappy….a lot.
Like CS Lewis said- If you don’t want your heart broken…just stop loving people!
5- We want to never be separated from the people we love
I don’t like to think about the prospect of burying my wife. It hurts. Some of you have buried a spouse…or like me…have buried a
child. There is a deep chasm of pain when that happens.
You know, if there are 5 people sitting around a table…chances are high that one of them will attend all the others’ funerals
See, sometimes its just less painful…just easier to love money than it is people…but you aren’t made for people…
We are made for perfect love…love that fulfills all 5 of these things…
…and the beautiful thing is…Jesus in this parable…is saying and Jesus is saying that is what heaven is. That is what eternity is like.
16:9 He describes eternal dwellings as forever friends welcoming
you home. To a place of perfect love…where you are always loved for your own sake….where love is always returned… …you’re never separated from those you love…and those you love…like you, are forever happy.
And with God…when he totally eradicates sin and death…there is no more pride, selfishness, defensive to hold our love back from each other.
The ocean doesn’t have to go through the straw…it just constantly pours out in a never-ending deluge.
Back to 3) Now, what if you believed that?
How would THAT change the way you earn and spend money?
See, that’s Jesus’ point.
If you really believe that…you are putting everything you have into loving people and helping them see the eternal love of Christ.
That’s exactly what Jesus came to show us.
Jesus is God in the flesh. And he left the position of the rich man. He had perfect love with his Father…all the riches of heaven…
but he descended…he became poor…limited himself as a man…
He had all his physical strength taken from him on a cross…he bled out and died.
He was completely shamed…stripped naked, called names…humiliated.
But he was still, in all that, chasing a treasure- not money… friends. His death was to ensure that a bunch of sinful friends would forever know the kind of love we all long for.
On the cross, he was dying for our sin. He was taking what we deserved…he was being fired as a squandering manager…even though he was the rightful owner…so all of us wasteful managers could have the treasure of the rightful owner.
16:14 And did you notice at the end of this story- who is scoffing? It wasn’t the disciples. They weren’t saying to Jesus “How can
you possibly bring up money!” No. It was the religious fakes. The Pharisees. They were the
lovers of money. They were the ones who used people for money. And they were the ones who hated Jesus for asking thme to loosen their grip on their money.
Imagine if the manager in Jesus’ story had known he was getting fired, and just decided to live life like normal.
Imagine if Chuck Klosterman ignored the thought and conviction that he was spending someone else’s money- and for 10 months would have just dug himself a deeper hole- in such a way that he outspent his savings.
All-In Series Slide
You would say about both- “They were ignoring the future.” They both had the ability to act in the present with the way they spent their money to affect the future…but they didn’t
Last week, I introduced our ALL-IN Generosity Initiative to you.
And that is a huge part of what All-In is about- deciding NOW to use our money to make eternal friends- instead of spending away our future in the present.
We have 2 goals with ALL-IN. The first is that 100% of us would engage this.
That ALL OF US would do the interior HEART work with God- to explore his call for his people to be generous with our money. And to repent and follow him in faith.
2nd- is that we as a church together would commit to giving $2.55 million over the next 2 years.
We need this for our future, literally for the next generation. As a church, we want to reach this city, and our kids. We are out of kids space- at the end of our lease- and God has provided us with land about a mile from here on which to build a new building. We want to hire 2 full time pastoral staff to give direction and vision to our youth and kids.
After 10 years in Murfreesboro- its time.
This 2.55 million is not a building fund. Its ONE FUND that is intended to take care of all of our ministry needs for the next 2 years.
My wife and I have sat down together, looked at our budget, and honestly- seen that the Lord has blessed us with everything we need. We are committing to upping our giving by 20%. Will that take sacrifice for our family? Yes. But its not our money. And we intend to use what we’re eventually going to lose to make friends we never will.
As you consider what part God is calling you to play- I want to point out a couple things we’ve given you in your ALL-IN book to help with this.
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