A Living Dog Is Better Than a Dead Lion

This passage deals with the emptiness of life and with what we should truly set our hearts on. The writer himself realizes that the authority and wealth he holds mean nothing in the face of death, and declares that those who live in a low place, repenting daily and obeying God, are more precious.

Through the parable of the unjust steward, the sermon points out the need for wisdom to discern the master's will. The world praises those who hold on to what is theirs and pile it up, but God delights in the good steward who has compassion on the poor and shares. Believers must acknowledge that what they own has been entrusted to them by God for a while, and must use it according to God's will, not for their own pleasure or power.

The sermon asks believers not to be bound to the world's empty glory, but to live the life of a good steward as those whose sins have been washed away by the blood of Christ alone. Before we cross the bridge of death, it leads us to look back on whether our lives right now look like those of children who fear God, or like the unjust steward who builds up his own righteousness in the darkness.