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Luke 16:13-18 Here’s a link if you haven’t read it yet: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016%3A13-18&version=NLT
Well, verse 13 is pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it? We can either serve God or we can serve money. When God is our priority, our money serves him as well. When money is our priority, it becomes our God. And when money is our God, it makes us slaves. We slave to get it. We slave to keep it. It rules our lives.
Luke records that the Pharisees in the audience that day took offense to his comments. They were among the elite in Jewish society, so they would have been both respected and well-off. Perhaps the thought of using their wealth to build relationships with the less fortunate sounded a little beneath them. We are told they would stand on crowded street corners giving coins to beggars to garner attention and admiration (much like online personalities with their camera crews delivering sandwiches and shoes to the homeless or paying for someone’s groceries). Their generosity was entirely self-serving. So Jesus’ talk of using wealth to truly bless people in the hope of showing them the way to God, well that was potentially embarrassing. Most people would have admired the Pharisee’s apparent altruism, but Jesus saw through it and warned them. God saw what motivated them and it sickened him.
God had given his people the Law and the writings of the prophets so that they could see what lives surrendered to God should look like. The Pharisees had studied the Law carefully and in their diligent desire to follow the law they created more laws about following the Law. Eventually what had been intended as a treasure map leading to relationship with God became a library of rules that forgot its source entirely. God gave them the Law and they took it and left him behind. Then along came John the Baptist (which the prophets predicted) and he taught a message of Good News. The kingdom of God (the kingdom in which that Law was practised perfectly) was arriving through Jesus and was taking root in people who followed him. And people were drawn to the kingdom. They were excited to be a part of this kingdom of moral perfection. The hearts of those who love Jesus, crave his righteousness.
See, although the Jews were given the Law, they never kept it perfectly. It was impossible. The religious leaders came along and tried to make people more perfect by adding to the Law with more and more rules for how to follow it. But John came preaching a different way to follow the Law. This was a way of faith, and repentance. So when a person broke the Law, it wasn’t enough to make sacrifices to pay for their transgression. They couldn’t pay a fine and then it’s in the past like when you are caught speeding. The Pharisees and religious teachers had been trying to heal broken laws. It can’t be done. When the law is broken it can’t be unbroken. The only thing that can be done is to ask God for forgiveness. And the Good News that John and Jesus have been teaching doesn’t wipe out the effect or authority of the Law. Jesus explains that the Law is eternal because it is established in the character of God. The Law stands and it has been broken. All our attempts to fix what we have broken are futile. Jesus takes divorce as an example. He could have used gossip or cheating or neglecting the poor, but he chose divorce. Why? It was very common in Jesus’ day, just like ours. And we can be fairly certain that some of the Pharisees to whom Jesus was talking had sent their wives away with a certificate of divorce for the pettiest of reasons. And they couldn’t hide that fact. Everyone would have known. He definitely chose a sin that would hit home. And laws about how to divorce your wife had been scrupulously crafted so that they could feel righteous in the midst of doing something God hates. But the fact is, God commanded husbands and wives to be faithful to one another for life. He had given them a law and they had broken it. And no certificate or sacrifice could make divorce something of which God approved. You can’t fix a divorce. You can’t pay a fine that makes it unhappen. When a marriage is ended, the Law is broken. No one can fix that. The right response to sinning by being involved in a divorce is not to make amends. It is to repent, acknowledge that you have sinned, and ask God for forgiveness.
Jesus continues to confront his audiences with the central premise of his teaching. The kingdom of God is coming. It is going to live within those who love God. It is not something we can do. It is not something we can earn with any amount of good living. It is a perfect kingdom and the only way imperfect people can enter it is by repentance and faith.
