Guardrails Pt 4 The Money Consumption

Guardrails Part 4 Money--The Consumption Assumption

Proverbs 3:5-10 Luke 12:13-21

Is there anyone here who has ever bought something you wanted really badly and once you got it, you either said, “I wish I could get my money back” or you would have been glad to have sold it for ½ of what you paid for it and been happy. Today we are going to talk about guardrails with money. At some point we all have some regrets over how we spend our money.

We are in week four of series on Guardrails. We have seen that guardrails 1) Direct and Protect, 2) Helps Us With Friendships, 3) Keeps Us From Falling Into Sexual Immorality and today we will see how they help us with money priorities.

Remember: Guardrails are a system designed to keep vehicles from straying into dangerous or off limit areas. Guardrails are designed to cause a limited amount of damage now, to prevent major damage or loss of life later. The guardrails are always placed in the safety zone. A guardrail is a personal rule, or standard of behavior that becomes a matter of conscience. A guardrail is designed to light up our conscience before we hurt ourselves or others.

Have you ever wondered why we let other people determine how we spend our money? It takes a strong willed person to spend their money the way they really want to spend it. How many times has somebody else got something, and because we saw what they had, we felt we had to get one. It could have been a book bag, a pair of shoes, a purse, a fashion, a phone, a type of car, a house, or a neighborhood. Just seeing what they had caused an appetite in us, to get one for ourselves. They were determining how we spent our money.

How many of us have spent more money for an item, just so we could be the first one to get an item? We even let people know, I was one of the first ones to get one of these. How many of us would be able to save about $700 next year if Apple or Samsung did not come out with a new phone? What is it that causes us to feel, we just have to have the latest, and the latest is different things for us, but somehow the latest amounts to some kind of stuff? If I told you Pastor Toby and I bought a flipter and put it on our tv, so that it now sounds just like you are in the movies, some of you have a perfectly good sounding tv, but you want to know, where you can get one and how much did it cost. There is no such thing as a flipter.

There was a guy in the bible, who won the lottery big time. He was so excited about what he was going to do with all his money. He was making plans left and right. How many of you know if you won the lottery big time you would have a hard time sleeping that first night? That’s how this guy was doing in the bible. His mind was racing on how he was going to turn this money into even more money. Unknown to him, God was looking at the man and practically with tears in His eyes God says, “you fool, tonight you are going to die, and who is going to get what you have prepared for yourself.”

Last week we saw that God was not against sex. God created sex and gave us marriage as a guardrail to keep it positive and healthy. Today we are going to look at money or wealth. We are going to see that God is not against money or wealth. God simply has guardrails for it, because God wants positive things to happen in our lives.

Jesus teaches more about money, and uses more illustrations with money than he does anything else. He also show us how we can use money for our greatest benefit, once we get it in the right perspective. When we put ourselves in God’s hands, do we just put in ourselves or do we put in all that we have as well.

Let me ask you, if you got into trouble because of a money issue, for instance you got into too much debt, you lost your job, your kids got in trouble and you went into debt to bail them out, or somebody robbed you, how many of you would invite God into the situation to help you out? So why not invite God to show you how to use your money when things are stil going well so that you can avoid a disaster.

Let’s see what Jesus has to say about money. In Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:24 (NIV2011) 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Now the word master here does not mean boss. It means to be in the possession of or it means to be owned by. In other words, you cannot be owned by two different entities who have different plans for your life.