Luke 16:10

In Luke 16:10-12 Jesus said, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore 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 that which is another man’s, who will give you that which is your own?” Some people dream of being given great responsibilities. Some people in the early years of their Christian life have great zeal to do something important for God. Jesus said that this is what is important: that you do the little things for God and that you do them faithfully. If you learn to be faithful in that which is least, then the Master will give you that which is much when the time is right. Even Jesus worked in a carpenter shop until the age of thirty. He went through the process of growing in wisdom and stature, even though without sin. Remember Moses? After becoming an adult, God placed Him in the desert for forty years before giving Him the responsibility as the leader of the children of Israel. Do you want to do something great for God? Then be faithful in the small things, and if it’s the will of God, the day will come when you will do great things for Him because what Jesus said is true: “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.”

Sometimes we hear about great ethical and moral failures on the part of people who have leadership responsibilities in Christian organizations. How can that happen? Why does it happen? One of the reasons that it happens is because some of these people tried to do that which is great before learning how to be faithful in that which is least. If you cannot be faithful to your spouse, then you will not be faithful to your work either. What is greatness? Greatness is doing the small things faithfully. You will be great in the eyes of God, and you will be great enough to do whatever God gives you to do.

If it’s so important to be faithful in the small things, then what do I need to know in order to be faithful in that way? What issue do I need to be aware of so that I can be sure to be faithful in the small things? Concerning being a faithful servant, Jesus said in Luke 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon refers to material riches. Many people in this world serve material things. Their joy, their hope, their happiness centers around their pursuit of material possessions. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and mammon.”

In order to serve God, that which is spiritual must be more important to you than that which is material. You cannot have both. If your first priority is material things, then you cannot have spiritual things. You can only have one master, and you must decide whom you will serve. Be careful what decision you make and do not waver. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Understand the grave consequences to the decision that you must make. Understand the singleness of purpose that is required for anyone to be a servant of God. God will only give you great things to do for Him if you first learn to be faithful in the small things, and you will only be faithful in the small or the great things if in your heart you serve God and God alone. The great, eternal God is standing before you with His arms open, wanting to guide you and strengthen you and use you in this world. If only you will choose to make Him your Master!

Of course, not everyone chooses to make God or Christ their master. Most of the Pharisees made the wrong choice even though they appeared to be religious. The Bible says about them in Luke 16:14-15, “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” The Pharisees were religious hypocrites. They were also highly motivated by their desire for material things. The Bible says they were “covetous.” This is a direct violation of one of the 10 commandments that says, “Thou shalt not covet.” To covet refers to having too strong of a desire for something. We should desire strongly the will of God. We should desire strongly to please God and to serve God above all other things. When we desire anything else too strongly, it has the potential to corrupt us. That’s what happened to the Pharisees.

Instead of loving and desiring and enjoying the words of Jesus, the Pharisees derided Him because of the things that He said. Jesus responded by saying that they justified themselves before men. In other words, it was important to the Pharisees what men thought of them, but it was not important what God thought. Jesus reminded them that God knew their hearts. We all need to be reminded of the omniscience of God. To be conscious of God’s all-knowing presence will help us want to do what is right. God not only knows what we do, but why we do it, which is just as important.

According to Jesus, one of the problems with wanting to please man instead of God is the fact that “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” Can you think of some of the things that are highly esteemed among man but are abomination with God? How about power, position, privilege, rank, and financial status? How about physical beauty? How about where someone lives or the car that someone drives? It’s not that there is anything wrong with any of these things, but no one should be esteemed more highly than anyone else because they possess them or do not possess them. God sees the heart. What’s really important is the kind of person that someone is. God views all humans equally. We should also. It is abomination to esteem anyone more highly than anyone else because of physical or material things, because it is a violation of the essence of who God is and how He views mankind.

In Luke 16:16 Jesus said, “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” In this verse Jesus gave some very revealing information about Bible timelines. We can see that from a biblical perspective human history is divided up into several different time periods. Even though God is always the same and His essence and His nature never changes, in each time period God has emphasized somewhat different requirements of the human race. In each time period there has been an increasing revelation of His truth. In each time period there have been different circumstances and different opportunities given to mankind. We live in a time period that is sometimes called the age of grace or the age of the church. It might also be called the age of the New Testament or the age of the Holy Spirit.

The time period that preceded the age of grace was the time of the law. The law was given by God through Moses, and the period of the law lasted all those years from the time of Moses until the age of grace. When did the time of the law end and the age of grace begin? Was it at the birth of Christ? Was it at the death of Christ on the cross? Was it at the resurrection of Jesus? Or was it at Pentecost when the power of the Holy Spirit was manifest in such a unique way? When did the time of the law end and the age of grace begin? This is certainly not a point to argue about, but the teaching that Jesus gave settles the question for me. Jesus said in Luke 16:16, “The law and the prophets were until John.”

The time of the law stretched from Moses until John the Baptist. In a way one could say that John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. Once Jesus came on the scene a new age was begun: the age of grace. The Bible says in John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Concerning this age that started with Jesus and continues even until the present day, Jesus said in Luke 16:16, “The kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”

If you have a public ministry in which you publicly spread God’s Word, your ministry should emphasize the same thing that Jesus did: the Kingdom of God. You preach and witness in order to help those who are not yet in the kingdom of God to get into it. You teach in order to instruct and encourage and strengthen those who are already in the kingdom of God so that they can be better members of the kingdom. You look towards the future waiting for a greater manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ when all of God’s promises will be forever fulfilled.

Notice that Jesus said, “Every man presses into it.” The kingdom of God is for everyone. “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” On God’s side there is this great desire that all would be saved. He sent His own Son into a wicked world to die for us all. I think that is one thing that Jesus meant by saying “every man.” God wants every person to be saved. God has done His part to provide for salvation. What does it take on the human side for salvation to be realized? This also was expressed when Jesus said about the Kingdom of God, “Every man presses into it.” Jesus used very strong language in the phrase “presses into it.” Literally it means to use violence.

Jesus was obviously using symbolic language to emphasize the fact that a spiritual battle takes place over the soul of every human being. The spirit of evil wants to keep souls shackled to the chains of sin, and enslaved to the spirit of the world, and alienated from God. Only those who have a strong desire to be saved and who reach out to God through Christ with all their heart will be saved. Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find.” He did not mean to seek a little bit, He meant to seek with all of one’s heart.

In Luke chapter 16 Jesus said something about the Old Testament law. He said, “The law and the prophets were until John.” In Luke 16:17-18 Jesus said something else about the law. He said, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery: and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband commits adultery.” First Jesus affirms the immutability of the law and in so doing He really affirms the same thing for all of the Bible. The law was given through Moses, and Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, and the law was in effect from the time of Moses all the way until John the Baptist.

Earlier Jesus had said that the law was until John. That means that in a certain way the period of the law came to an end. It lasted from Moses until John the Baptist. What happened to change things? What happened after John the Baptist? Jesus came on the scene in His public ministry, and Jesus began to teach. Jesus taught things that had never been taught before, and Jesus revealed things that had never been revealed before. Each age is characterized by new revelation. When the law was clearly spelled out and given to Moses, it was a new revelation. Things were revealed that had never been revealed before. The law did not totally set aside what had come before, but the law built upon it. The same is true about the age of grace that was brought by Jesus. Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law, and Jesus revealed greater things from God that had not been revealed by the law. Some day we will have greater revelation than we now have. The new revelation that we will be given will not destroy what we now have. It will build upon it.

The relationship that Jesus had with the law was different than anyone else has ever had. Jesus is the only one who fulfilled all the requirements of the law. The rest of us are sinners. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law in another way also. He took the punishment of the law, the punishment that we deserved, upon Himself. No one else is qualified to do that. During the time of the law many prophecies were given concerning the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled these prophecies because He is the Messiah.

Jesus did not destroy the law, but He did take the punishments that the law prescribed upon Himself. The moral principles of the law still apply because Jesus did not destroy the law, but the harsh punishments of the law do not apply because Jesus suffered them for us. Be careful that you do not take any harsh corporal punishments from the Old Testament and use them today. That’s why Jesus did not allow men to stone the woman who was taken in adultery even though the Old Testament law said that she should be stoned. Jesus affirmed the moral principle in the law because He told the woman to “go and sin no more.” But He did not permit the strict punishment from the law to be enforced. The same principle should be used concerning the corporal punishment of children. You can hold children accountable for their actions and punish them when necessary without using corporal punishment. The greatest responsibility of a parent is to love and to teach a child.

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