The Unscrupulous, Irresponsible, Shrewd Steward

We end our series on the Parables of Jesus with the most difficult of all. It’s in Luke 16:1-15. There’s this unscrupulous, irresponsible steward who makes bad investments on behalf of his master. And upon being fired, he quickly scrambles, acts shrewdly and settles the debts, recovering half of what was lost for his master. His master praises his actions and Jesus tells us to be like this steward. It can only mean one thing - be shrewd with the resources God has given you to manage. No matter your past, no matter how you have spent your time and money, the resources God has given you, you can always turn that around and do something good with what you have. In this parable, debtors that owed more than what they could pay back ended up walking away with their debts paid off. The master is happy. The steward has secured a place in the next life. What does this all mean for us?

As I head into a three month sabbatical Sept-Nov, 2022), this will be my last message until December. Just so you know. It’s been eight years since our first sabbatical. This will be my second and final sabbatical as a pastor. Though we will be around, we are taking some time to prepare for finishing well when we return. I’ll miss you all. Don’t be surprised if I show up to soak in the relational goodness of all of you at the River, enter into worship, and hear the word spoken. I just won’t be up front. We have a very capable team that will launch us into an new series from the book of Acts that will take us on a Holy Spirit guided journey through the early years of the church asking the question, what does the Holy Spirit have for the River looking into its future? More is coming. Much more. We as a church staff spent two days praying and planning and hearing from the Holy Spirit. We kept hearing more, deeper, Jesus encounters. We are expecting this next season to be a season of spiritual revival in our church. We believe it’s coming.