Be A Community Builder

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

  In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a parable about a master and a dishonest business manager. If we were to put the story in a modern context, think of a chief operating officer. Or a CEO of a company and there's an owner, and the owner hears that the executive is spending money wildly and maybe even embezzling some of the funds.

So the owner comes and says, Hey, give me an accounting of the way that you have been spending my company's money. As after the master leaves, the executive says to himself. Oh man, I'm in trouble. Because once he looks at the accounting, I am going to lose my job. And if I lose my job and everybody knows that I lost my job because of embezzling and some other poor judgment, there's no way I'm gonna get another job. And I'm not really interested in sweating and hard work and labor and it would be embarrassing to beg for money. So I need to do something. So the executive gets this bright idea and reaches out to some of the other businesses that the company works with, and these vendors and customers owe this company a bunch of money.

And so what the executive does, he says, Hey, I wanna rewrite your contracts and I want you to cut your bills in half. And so how much money do you owe the company? Oh, you owe this company a million dollars? Well. Make it $500,000 and then he signs it and because he's a officer of the company, he has the legal ability to do that.

Well the owner of the company returns and hears about how he's done all this. And while the owner of the company is still gonna let this executive go, he himself is also a shrewd business person. So he admires the way that this executive has gone to work. And while he's still losing his position, he also knows that what this executive has done has basically worked out some other deals with some other companies. And so while he's leaving this one job, he'll probably land at another.

Jesus tells this parable, and then he says this. He says, you know, people today know how to work the system. People today understand how these systems work, and to the disciples, he says, what I want you to do is I want you to be as shrewd in the way the world works now in the way the kingdom works. So I want you to be shrewd about building God's kingdom.

Well, how do we do that? Building God's kingdom. There are three things from the parable in the story in Jesus comments that I think give us direction. First, what the shrewd business manager does is he cancels the debt of others, and in this way, Jesus has encouraged this.

Throughout Luke, Jesus has told parables about how when you canceled the debt of others that they feel loved, seen, forgiven. Another incident. He tells the story and asks the two Pharisees, which person loves more, the one who has forgiven a little, or the one who has forgiven a lot. And so what we learned is that the way God's kingdom works is God's kingdom works on canceling debt In Luke 4, as Jesus opens his ministry, Jesus says that he has come to set the captive free. To bring renewal, to bring freedom to people. And so there's a canceling of debt. Now, what you and I want to do to be a builder of community, to be shrewd in God's kingdom is that we want to be people who cancel the debt of others.

Now, obviously there's financial debt and we can go out and maybe pay down loans for people, and that's great. But I think we wanna also think about all the other kinds of debt. That people carry around. Relational debt, emotional debt, spiritual debt. And our ability to enter into relationship with people, to make them feel seen and heard, to be a listener, to be willing to wrestle, to be willing to rejoice, be willing to cry, be willing to be angry about the injustice.

All these things helps people cancel the debt. The debt they have maybe towards themselves in insecurity and guilt. Maybe the debt that they have in their view of God in the church because of the way that they've been hurt, or maybe just even the debt they have in the midst of feeling like they belong in society.

And so if we want to be community builders, if we want to be shrewd like the dishonest manager, what we want to do is we want to be a people who go and cancel the debt of others.

So ask yourself, whose debt could you cancel? What emotional, spiritual, relational, even physical debt exists in your social circle? And how might you erase it by offering your presence, by offering your relationship, by offering engagement.

The second part that we should ask ourselves is what does it look like to be shrewd about God's kingdom? So we are to be shrewd about the way God's kingdom works, as people are shrewd in the way the world works today. And to be shrewd about God's kingdom is to understand that the way God's kingdom works is, it's a paradox. The God of the universe comes in, the person of Christ, not to be served, but to serve. And so the way to be shrewd about God's kingdom is to understand that things like grace, mercy, forgiveness, patience, endurance, that those are the things of God's kingdom works. And to then use your resources to make those things a reality.

You know, one of the things I'm excited about here at Grace Communities, I think we're doing a pretty good job. Of being shrewd in as it relates to God's kingdom. Because what we are doing is we're creating a place that is passionate about traveling through the messiness of life with people, about choosing hope and about loving God and our world.

And every Sunday, whether it's over donuts, whether it's baptism, whether it's ministry, all these things work together so that we can be shrewd. And so you and I get to do that together as a community, but we also wanna remember, we can do it out in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and our workplaces to be shrewd about the way God's kingdom works.

And to be people who bring grace and generosity and forgiveness and welcome and hospitality wherever we go. So what does it look like for you at work, at school, at home, to be shrewd about the way God's kingdom works? Where can you expend some energy to grow in grace and forgiveness and patience and endurance? Offer that up and think about how you might do that here, coming in this next week.

Lastly, so we have been people who cancel the debt of others. We are shrewd about the kingdom. And then lastly, Jesus says, Hey, I want you to invest your resources in the kingdom in things that will last eternally. So we want to be people who build the community with the resources we have.

Jesus says to the disciples that they are to use their dishonest money to make eternal friends. That's what Jesus says, and by dishonest money, he's really not talking that they have somehow earned their money dishonestly. He's just recognizing that the way money works is that it can always be broken in this world, and that it also is something that can quickly become our God.

And so he directs us to use our resources to build community, build God's kingdom, and we can do that a couple different ways. Of course, we can do it in the sense that as we give. To the church, to local ministries, to nonprofits that are doing good work. That's a, that's a way for sure. But additionally, I think we can think about the way we do it just in our natural everyday lives of creating community and creating space through parties and hangouts and coffee and donuts.

And we can also think about it as stewards. So in Genesis, the picture of humanity is those who are stewarding the creation. Meaning that when we go off to work as nurses and doctors and professors and salespeople and builders, caretakers, these are all things that when we give ourselves to them fully and honestly, that we can be shrewd about God's kingdom because we're using the resources we have recognizing that those will not last forever. To build eternal community that will last forever.

So as you head out this week, head out with peace and joy and hope and be shrewd about the way God's kingdom work. And be a builder of community wherever you go. Hope you're doing well. Look forward to next week.

Take care.