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We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who want to be shrewd for Jesus said … AMEN!

Leveraging, OPM, basic B-School concepts. We Christians have become so caught up trying to appear pious and that is not what we are about. For example “money is the root of all evil”, complete quote is the “love of money is the route of all evil”. Money is a tool, how do we use that money, are we using it for the Kingdom, the proclamation of Christ or does our money go to things that are worldly?

This is not the only place in Scripture that Jesus tells us to be shrewd. Despite what many think, there is nothing in Scripture that says “be stupid”. Seems as a Church we’re supposed to roll over and play dead for every ridiculous concept the world foists on us, meekly schlep along, agreeing with everything the world says about the hottest topics now: “Obviously the Bible is wrong about these things, because our human/earthly institutions insist that these things are right. So maybe the Bible needs to be updated. We find over and over again that the Bible is indeed right, but it seems we all have to crash and burn with the rest of society when we fall all over ourselves to accept what is the newest and coolest. We have a loving Father who waits for us at the crash site to keep us from getting seriously hurt, while many insist on avoiding God’s outstretched hand and hitting the hard ground.

Not only does the Bible not tell us to be stupid, Jesus has told us a few times, be smart. We can play the world’s game in the power of the Holy Spirit beat the world at its own game, we leverage what the Spirit gives us in the world. But we insist the institutions around us are right. Jesus commends shrewdness in Matthew 10: Jesus sends His disciples to the world with these words: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” He tells them a lot of the people they go to meet are going to be judged, they will be condemned and destroyed. He qualifies that in the same passage by saying His disciples are going to get the brunt of things too. They are going to be delivered before governors and judges and will be cruelly punished. Not because what they are saying is wrong, but there’s a cruel world out there that rejects Jesus and His hope and promise and insists on its own silly, worthless words that it always finds out are wrong in the end.

Let’s talk about prayer, something very much on my heart. Before I really realized the importance and need for prayer Marge and I were the coordinators for the National Day of Prayer in our hometown of 100,000 and after three years, the coordinators of the Commonwealth of Mass. We had some really great day long rallies on Beacon Hill and got a lot of attention from elected officials, some of whom served on the state committee and who actively participated. Even bugged a governor because we went over time in front of the “Grand Stairway” in the state house and cut into the governor’s time. But we realized that when we took prayer right to the public forum, leveraging prayer to the best interests of the worldly people around us who saw how we could come together, grow in prayer, especially when those same people were included and helped to understand the importance of what we are doing.

Leveraging, OPM, often used cynically, by practitioners of these trades. The Gordon Geckos who have a very narrow vision of what life is about. We in a shrewd manner, like the steward in the pericope, use the resources of the world, not cynically, but positively, we stand strong in the things we do as Christians, in prayer, faithful to Christ’s teachings, ignoring the nonsense the world continually foists on us. That other “churches” buy into and are never successful in pursuing, even worse trying to leverage what the world tells them to those who are seeking Christ, they are revealed as phonies and cause many to become disillusioned in Christ because of their dysfunctional church, even reject Christ and condemn themselves. I don’t want to be a leader of any of those churches, I don’t want to stand before the Judgment Seat and explain to our Lord why I was the instrument of so many people denying their faith and coming into eternal destruction.

We can be smart about it, we can be shrewd about it. Talk about the ultimate “leverage”, that Jesus “gave Himself as a ransom for us”. Technically, it’s more in the sense of propitiation, He paid the penalty for us to be free and saved. But for us what He did really is OPM. That we have been given eternal promise and hope by what Jesus did. If you look at this as leveraging OPM so that we derive the return, that would be a great way to think about it. Not in a cynical way, but in a way that gives us a bright future of eternal bliss, and eternal life, what Jesus says is “life and life more abundant”. Paul is emphasizing prayer to his student, one of the men who he calls his son in Christ. What does he say about prayer? “^ESV 1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

When we did the National Day of Prayer we had the mayor of a large city, other city officials. At the state house we had many legislators, some city officials, both parties who were very supportive. None of them got upset that we were praying for all our public officials, they seemed to be quite pleased to be prayed for like this. No cynical attempts, a very shrewd, positive outpouring that we wanted to pray for these men and women. That the more we supported them in prayer, they would lead our state, communities in ways that would be positive, and help us all to grow.

We seem to get a little prissy when we come to passages like this one. We’ve been dealing with passages like this all summer. Jesus isn’t some milquetoast, quaking, pious little fella, who doesn’t want to offend. He’s not concerned with who He offends. If someone takes offense from God the Son, the One who makes the rules, who created all of everything, that’s on them, it becomes their problem. If they are so obsessed with their way, their agenda, and they reject God and His agenda, and then they’re surprised they end in eternal condemnation? Who’s being dumb here? Doesn’t sound like a shrewd move on their part. These people love to tell you how smart they are, genuinely smart people do not try to outsmart people they know are smarter and will shut them down. Smart people are shrewd people, they leverage what they have in order to move in their lives. Jesus wants us to be shrewd and smart, for the Kingdom, for the eternal life and salvation of all those around us. We can go right down the street to the county seat, we can go right across the bridge to the state capital. We can leverage our power of prayer, using OPM, in this case God’s currency and show people what life genuinely is in Christ. Or we can keep being hang-dogs, follow along in the world’s agenda, then wonder why we’ve crashed and burned with the world. We had the shrewedest, smartest, most powerful of all in Jesus and instead of being smart and shrewd, threw Him over for the silly, naïve, greedy, grasping, immaturity of the world. I’m smart enough to know where I should be focused.  Amin and Shalom  Christ is risen! He has risen indeed Hallelujah