Money-When Will We Ever Have Enough

Money- When Will We Ever Have Enough

5/2/99 Ecclesiastes 4:4-8 1 Timothy 6:17-19

A rich man wanted to make sure he had enough money with him in order to go to heaven. He learned that he would die in a few days. He called his three friends: a doctor, preacher, and lawyer to his bedside. He said, "The preacher has told me that you can’t take it with you, but I believe I have worked out a way so that I can. Doc tells me that I won’t live long, so I have prepared three sealed envelopes, each containing $10,000. When I die, I want each of you to walk by the casket and drop in your envelope with the $10,000."

A short time later, they attended his funeral and then met together. The preacher said, "I’ve got a confession to make. We’ve been needing to repair the organ in the church for a long time, and I took $2,000 out of Bill’s envelope and used it on the organ." The doctor said, "This makes it easier for me, because I took $5,000 out and used it for my new clinic and only dropped in $5,000." The lawyer said, "Well, my conscience is clear. I did just what Bill said. I kept my envelope, picked up both of yours and dropped in a check for the whole amount of $30,000."

When it comes to money, we have all kinds of reaction. Ever heard someone say, "I don’t want nobody to know how much I make?" Is it because the person wants others to think he is richer than he is, or that he is poorer than he is. If you ask a person who makes $20,000 a year, what would be a good paying job, she would probably say making at least $30,000. If you ask a person making $30,000 a year the same question, she would say $50,000.

If you ask the person making $50,000 he would say $75,000 and on and on it would go. Most people think a good salary is one that pays more than they are making. Do you realize that if you own your home, have two cars, and kind of retirement plant, you have more wealth than 98% of the world’s population. You are in the top 2% of the world’s richest people. Probably most if not all of us here are in the top 10% of the world’s richest people even though we claim we are broke and don’t have anything.

Money is something which is neither good or bad. It’s what we do with our attitude toward money that makes the difference. Our attitude toward life determines if we will ever have enough money. The Bible is filled with teachings on money. The worst thing we can do with money is to fall in love with it. That means we will never be satisfied no matter how much of it we get. For the Bible tells us is Eccl 5:10 Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.

Money is an important topic for us to deal with, because Jesus teaches us that if our financial lives are out of order, our spiritual lives will also be out of order. Jesus said in Luke 16:11 , if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches." So we have to demonstrate we can properly handle the money God has given to us, in order for God to develop us spiritually into what He wants us to be by giving us spiritual wealth.

In 1989 according to the records of Social Security, 85 out of 100 Americans will have less than $250 in the bank when they reach age 65. Now with all the money that has passed through their hands in the previous 50 years, where did it all go. How come they have so little to show for it? What are some principles we can find in Scripture to help us make sure we are being good stewards with what we have.

One thing we need to do is to quit pretending we are rich. Proverbs 13:7 says one person pretends to be rich, but has nothing, but another tends to be poor; yet has great wealth. Many of us have a serious problem of wanting to impress people with what we have, as though what we have determines our value as a person. In Proverbs, Solomon said, "I look at all the hard work people are doing and most of it is done because of a person’s envy of his neighbor." In other words, if they got one, I have to one. It will even be better if I got one first.

Our society is making it easier for us to pretend to be richer than we are. We can now lease cars that we could never afford to buy before. People see us in our nice cars and think we really are in the money now. Only now at the end of the lease, we still don’t own any more of a car than we did at the beginning.