Title: Get a Grip by Letting Go
Text: I Chronicles 29:10-17
Thesis: Money makes a good servant, but a lousy master… so if you want a life that counts, master your money.
(I used a sermon written by Bryan Wilkerson titled Finding Financial Freedom as a springboard in developing this message. I have noted when I used an illustration from his text and I adapted his points into the conclusion of this message.)
Introduction
If you want a life that counts:
• You have to learn to master your time… your involvements and activities.
• You have to learn to master your money… your resources or the things you own, possess, or control.
• You have to learn to master your gifts, talents and skills… the things you can do.
We generally personify the term “master”. The owner of a dog may be thought of as a master. The headmaster is the principal or dean of an educational institution. A master is one who holds a degree higher than a bachelors but lower than a doctorate. The captain of a ship may be thought of as a master. An artisan may be described as a master craftsman. A master is thought of as one who has control over others and things.
In his poem Invictus, William Henley declared, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
It was his way of declaring that it did not matter to him what he could or could not see… he alone was responsible for who he would be, where he would go and what he would do.
Those of us who have been around a while know that…
When we are young, we think we will be that master of our fate and captain of our soul… but we eventually learn that we will be fortunate if we can be master of our weight and captain of the bowling team.
Along the way, we all develop the perspective that having money and things is important and we set out to get it and to master it. The DENVER (AP) reported on January 10th that a Pueblo, Colorado ticket holder had won a multimillion-dollar lottery ticket for the second time in three years. He first won $1.3 million in 2003 and then another $3.4 million on December 20, 2006.
Many of us plant ourselves in front of the television set to watch Howie Mandel host NBC’s Deal or No Deal? It is probably the most totally lame, luck of the draw game show on television. It requires no skill but is indeed an indicator the daring and greed on the part of the contestants.
G. K. Chesterton wrote in his book, A Miscellany of Men, “To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
I must confess that I am sometimes stupid enough to want it. I am capable of daydreaming about what it would be like to win the lottery twice in three years or be fortunate enough to be holding the million dollar brief case on Deal or No Deal. And, if per chance, I should come into such a windfall… would I be master of that money or would that money be master of me?
The uncomfortable fact for most of us is that we like to think we are masters of our money but I suspect in reality, our money is master of us.
I make that statement based on two observations:
1. Money masters us if we cannot control our spending it. If we cannot hold on to it… it is master.
2. Money masters us if we cannot control our keeping it. If we cannot let go of it… it is master.
This morning I want to lift up four principles that I believe will be helpful in putting some perspective on what it means to master our money.
The first thing we need to learn is…
I. Everything is God’s and God rules everything!
“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours… riches and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything.” I Chronicles 29:11-12
Bryan Wilkerson tells the story in his message on mastering money, about how he and his family bought “a full-sized, customized, conversion van with reclining bucket seats, personal reading lights and cup-holders galore.” As is often the case when you own a van… the youth pastor of their church took note and asked if he could use it to haul a bunch of kids on a youth outing. He and his wife talked it over and they decided that it really was God’s van so they let the youth pastor borrow it.
When it came back, he had apparently backed into something because the tail pipe was bent down and nearly dragging the ground…. Wilkerson said he said, “Look Lord, they wrecked your van.” A short time later they loaned it to a missionary family for their vacation… the second day the phoned to say that backed into a light pole and bent the bumper and one of the back doors… he said, “I just kept reminding myself that it was the Lord’s van.”
He said that, “One of the most liberating things a person can do is transfer ownership of everything to God… it belongs to him anyway.”
The second principle is this…
II. You cannot master your money if money is your master.
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24
Immediately following this text, Jesus continues to teach, “So don’t worry about having enough… Your heavenly Father already knows all our needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” Matthew 6:31-33
Earlier I made the statement that one of the ways you can determine if you are master of your money or if money is your master is whether you can let it go. We who live in the United States have a difficult time when it comes to letting things go.
On July 7, 2005, the online daily publication, Slate, which offers daily commentary on politics, news and culture noted that according to the Self Storage Association, our country now possesses about 1.9 billion square feet of personal storage space outside of the home. All this space is contained in nearly 40,000 facilities owned and operated by more than 2,000 entrepreneurs.
According to a recent survey, the owners of 1 out of every 11 homes also own a self-storage space. This represents an increase of 75 percent since 1995. Most operators of self-storage facilities report 90 percent occupancy, with average stints among renters of 15 months. Last year alone saw a 24 percent spike in the number of self-storage units on the market.
But, amazingly, as the amount of storage space required by homeowners has grown, so has the average size of the American house. In fact, the National Association of Homebuilders reports that the average American house grew from 1,660 square feet in 1973 to 2,400 square feet in 2004.
So let’s get this straight—houses got bigger, average family sizes got smaller, and yet we still need to tack on almost two billion square feet of extra space to store our stuff?
The third principle we need to learn is this…
III. Mastering your money becomes easier when you realize it comes to you as a gift from a generous God.
“Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you have already given us.” I Chronicles 29:14
Several years ago at a conference, John Maxwell told the story of a congressman who took his son to McDonald’s. The father bought his son a Coke and a large order of fries and they went and sat down at one of those tables not built big enough for people to sit at.
The father took a drink of his Coke and reached over to get a fry from his son, and his son put his hands around the fries and pulled them back.
That experience started the father thinking, “Doesn’t my son realize I’m the one who gave him those fries in the first place?
Doesn’t he realize I can take those fries away from him any time I want?
Doesn’t he realize I can go up to the counter and I’ve got enough money I can buy all the fries I want? I can tell the people at the counter, ‘Go out there and bury my son in French fries.’ Doesn’t my son realize I don’t need his fries? I can go get my own fries… doesn’t he realize I just wanted to share a couple of fries with him?’”
Perhaps given the perspective that God is like a loving parent who provides us with all we have, a parent who is perfectly capable of buying his own French fries, who can get along in life just fine without our fries, but just wants to share a couple of fries with us, can move us to be gracious in sharing our God given gifts?
And the last principle we may learn from this text is this…
IV. You know you have mastered your money when you can give it away willingly and joyfully.
“I know my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there. You know I have done all this with good motives, and I have watched your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously.” I Chronicles 29:17
At a Religious Liberty Council luncheon held on June 3, 2003, author Tony Campolo told how he flew to a conference and disembarked from the plane only to discover he was scheduled to speak to a group of women at a World Day of Prayer event he had forgotten about. He rushed over to the meeting—held at a large, wealthy church—and arrived exhausted, not knowing what to say to the 1,000 women gathered for the conference. Before calling him to speak, the leader of the meeting produced a letter from a missionary in Venezuela. Campolo relates:
She read this letter from this missionary who had a hospital, and they needed $5,000 desperately to put an extension on the hospital because they couldn’t handle all the patients. She turned to me, and she said, "Reverend, would you please lead us in prayer that the Lord would provide for our sister in Venezuela?" And I said, "No!" She was taken back by that. I stood up, and I said, "I’ll tell you what I will do.” I pulled out my wallet and placed all the money I had on the pulpit and I said, "That ’s all the money I’m carrying. Madame Chairman, I want you to put all the cash you’re carrying on the pulpit." And I said, "I’m going to ask each of you to do the same. No checks. Just the cash you’re carrying. Bring it up. Lay it on the altar. We’ll count up the money, and if we don’t have enough, I will ask God to write out a check for the difference."
One by one the women came forward and placed whatever they had in their purses on the altar and when it was over Campolo counted over $7,000 dollars… he said that many of the women had looked at him with looks that suggested they thought he was one of the most audacious people they had ever seen but now they understood. “Asking God for $5,000 when God had already provided over $7,000 was what was audacious.”
Conclusion:
What can you and I do to begin to be master of our money?
1. Transfer ownership to God! It’s God’s anyway…
2. Set a goal to master your money.
• Tithe 10%
• Save 10%
• Spend 80%
The in addition to being obedient to God and mastering our resources by letting some of it go there are other benefits: Two men were marooned on an Island. One man paced back and forth
worried and scared while the other man sat back and was sunning himself.
The first man said to the second man, "aren’t you afraid we are about to
die." "No," said the second man, "I make $100,000 a week
and tithe faithfully to my church every week. My Pastor will find me."
3. Take steps to learn how to manage money God’s way, so you can be free to give it, save it and spend it wisely. Pray for wisdom, get advice, talk about it with your spouse, and take a biblically based course so you can learn how to manage money the way God wants you to manage it.
The bottom line is this… If we want our lives to count, one of the most basic things we must learn to do is master our money.
