STEWARDSHIP: THE MISSING PIECE TO SUCCESSFUL LIVING
Poverty or Prosperity - Which is Biblically Correct?
Mathew 6:24
Dr. John Maxwell
INTRODUCTION:
You go home and you turn on the TV and you see a television preacher. That TV preacher says if you become a Christian and plant some seeds financially, that prosperity is your right and God will bless you financially. You come back to the same channel, maybe a couple of hours later, and another TV preacher is speaking and he talks about the fact that when you follow God, you give everything. Now you sit there and you hear, not only these two TV preachers; one talking about prosperity, one talking about poverty but both of them had Scripture. You sit there and you say, “Now, which is correct?” Am I as a Christian to begin to believe that if I serve God and follow biblical principles God will bless me, or does God disdain wealth and possessions and pretty much what I have I’m suppose to give it up? Which is biblically correct? When I talk to people about money and finances and possessions based on Scripture, I find that there is an incredible diversity within the family of God. Understandably so. When you have over 2,000 verses of Scripture concerning finances and money, you’re going to have a lot of diversity and to be honest with you, both poverty theology people and prosperity theology people can give you a list of verses that will back what they say. Well, you say, “Pastor, what’s biblically correct?”
To show you it’s not exactly easy sometimes to come to a conclusion, I have put in your sermon section this morning two different passages of scripture written by the same man. His name was John. He wrote four books: The Gospel of John, and I, II, and III John. Notice the seeming contradiction in what he says in two of his letters. I John 2:15: "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves of the world the love of the Father is not in him." Now, there’s a pretty strong statement; anti-materialism. Look at III John, verse 2: "Beloved I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health just as your soul prospers." This is the same guy. In one letter he says, "Love not the world neither the things of the world...” And then he turns around and he writes again and says, “I want you to prosper.” And he is not talking about spiritual prosperity. I hear people talking about it, but he wasn’t talking about it. He already assumed and said you’re soul prospers. He said I want you to prosper. He talked about health. I believe he’s talking about financial means. We can now begin to see why there’s confusion, even in the body of Christ, concerning materialism and stewardship and prosperity and poverty.
Now, one thing is for certain and here’s what Jesus said and it’s the text for this morning. Here’s what Jesus did say, "No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon." Now that’s for certain. In other words, we can’t have two masters. We can’t have God as the Lord of our life and serve and be a slave to God and also to materialism. We can’t divide ourselves up in that way. That word “serve” literally means to be a slave. That word “master” literally means absolute ownership. And all Jesus was saying is materialism cannot be the absolute owner of your life and make you a slave to it, and at the same time serve God and make Him your God and the Lord of your life. He said that is impossible. Three words describe this owner/slave relationship as Jesus gives it to us.
1. Choice
It’s apparent that Jesus is telling us that we choose who we serve. That’s a fact. You and I choose that. There are some of you today who are a slave to the world and to materialism. There are some of you that are a slave to God. But I can tell you what you are not, you are not a slave to both. All Jesus said is that you’re going to choose. You’re going to make a choice. You cannot do both.
2. Control
Jesus is teaching us in this verse that once we have chosen whom we will be a slave to, that owner will have absolute ownership over us and will be in control of our lives. That is what will be controlling our life.
3. Confidence
He tells us that once we make that choice and that owner has control over our life, it will be that which we place our confidence, our trust, and our dependence in. Note in that verse the word “Mammon” is capitalized. It literally means that which a person places its trust in. It is capitalized because it literally can become a god. Materialism can literally become a god, just as God Jehovah is a God to us. It is one that we serve. It is one that enslaves us. It is one that we devote our time, our resources, and our energy to.
Now, what I want you to notice about this verse before we really work on the poverty/prosperity issue. What I want you to notice about this verse is Jesus did not say, “You should not serve both God and money.” He didn’t say that. In other words, He didn’t come into our room like a counselor and say “Let me give you some advice; what you shouldn’t do is try to serve both.” He didn’t say, “You should not serve both God and money.” Nor, did He say, “You must not serve God or money.” No, if He said you must not, it would be an issue of accountability. If He said you should not, it would be an issue of advisability. He didn’t say either one of those things and I listen to Christians all the time and they quote that verse as if He said, "I don’t think you should serve both.” No. He didn’t say that. Notice what He did say. Let’s get back to what He said. He said, "You cannot serve both God and money.” In other words, He said, “I’m not giving you advice. I’m telling you it’s impossible. It’s impossible for you to become a slave to both.” You see the issue is control. No wonder Solomon said, "Whoever loves money never has enough money; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.” You see, no test of our true character is more conclusive of whom we serve, whether it’s materialism or God if you really want to strip it down let me do that. You know me; I’m a bottom line communicator. Let me just strip it down for you today so you can really tell who you serve. We don’t need to sing songs, we don’t need to pray prayers, we don’t need to spiritualize. Get off the mysticism for a moment. Let’s just face the facts. Two things will tell you who you serve:
• Your calendar: The time that you spend : what do you spend your time doing? Now I know, we all spend our time working and that isn’t the issue because we all have to provide for our families. We all understand there’s a certain amount of things in our calendar that are obligated, necessary things that we have to do. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about b see Jesus said, “This is a choice.” We decide who we’re going to serve. I’m not talking about the time that you spend taking care of your family and your job. Let’s talk about the other. Let’s talk about your spare time, your leisure time. You see there are two things. You see Christians, we are so funny. We sing "Oh, how I love Jesus" and all that stuff and as long you understand it’s just songs we’re all right.
• Your checkbook will tell you who you serve. What you spend your money on, what I spend my money on, will literally tell us who the God of our life is.
What I spend my time doing will literally tell me who my God is. You see, Webster defines materialism as “the theory that physical well being and worldly possessions constitutes the highest value and the greatest good in life.” That’s what Webster says about materialism. In other words, materialistic people say of the highest value, the greatest good that I can receive from life is my giving and serving the God of materialism. Not true. In fact, Gallop Poll just recently came out in the last two months with criteria which people in America said was personal success. And I’ll give them to you quickly. Probably too quickly for you to write them down.
1. Good health 2. Enjoyable job 3. Happy family
4. A good education
5. Piece of mind
6. Good friends
None of them had to do with materialism.
Now let’s get down to the issue: Which is biblically correct? Poverty or prosperity? In your sermon section, you’ll see that I have diagramed a range of theological perspectives. One side is the poverty theology. Clear to the other side is the prosperity theology, with the stewardship theology kind of in of the middle. Two observations:
1. Each perspective has verses to support it.
You’ve got to understand that. If you’re a prosperity theology person today you’ve got verses, you can quote them. If you’re a poverty theology person you’ve got verses. Both sides have verses, so don’t start thumping the Bible and try to defend your side because both of them have verses.
2. We pick a position, usually based on either our experience or our desire.
In other words, either our desire or what we have personally experienced in life will determine which position we side on. You see, a lot of people do what I call cherry pick the Bible. You know what cherry picking the Bible is don’t you? They go through and take out their favorite verses that will support their views. Then there are other people, they wink at scripture. They overlook certain Scriptures that don’t quite line up with where they’re coming. Now, I want to help you understand, so that we don’t cherry pick the Bible today, so we have a good biblical understanding of these three stances or perspectives. I contrasted them and have them here in your sermon sections. Let’s go with them.
Poverty theology
A person that is into poverty theology has a disdain for possessions. They’re non-materialistic. In a word, possessions are a curse as far as they are concerned. Their favorite scripture reference would be Luke 18. And that is the rich young ruler where he is supposed to sell and give everything he has to the poor. They say their needs will be met basically by a carefree attitude. They don’t worry because they seek God’s kingdom first. They reject possessions and their attitude toward poverty is that we are in God’s will. We are poor and therefore we are in God’s will. They have a preoccupation with daily needs. The reason they have a preoccupation with daily needs is because they don’t have them. And their attitude is basically carefree.
Prosperity theology
Now let’s look at the prosperity side, which is totally opposite. The prosperity people’s view of prosperity is that it is the reward of the righteous. They are righteous and they are prosperous, and that’s because they’re righteous. In a word, possessions are a right to them. They’re favorite scripture is Matthew 7, “Ask, seek, and knock.” Their needs are met by what they want to receive. They basically do what they call seed planting. They pretty much say if you have a financial need, plant a seed. Give it to somebody and God will return to you as much or more. It’s kind of an eternal investment type of deal. Their concept about prosperity is that they’re the owners. They possess everything themselves. Their attitude toward poverty is we’re not poor and that’s God will not to be poor. They have a preoccupation with money and their attitude is they’re driven to get it.
Stewardship
It’s a balance and it takes the best of both without attaching itself to the worst of both. Stewardship perspective is that possessions are a trust given in varying proportions. It’s a privilege. The parable of the talents probably is the foundation of people that believe in good stewardship and their question is “What have you received?” They’re into proportionate giving. In other words, you don’t plant a seed. You basically just give what you have and God will bless you for it. They look at themselves as a steward and God’s will is not known by possessions. They basically ask for wisdom and they put a high premium on being faithful to what God has given to them.
Now which is biblically correct? First of all let me give you four problems with poverty theology.
Four problems with poverty theology
1. There is a presumption that anyone doing well financially must be doing something dishonest.
The first error of people that are poverty theology people, is they look at people who have a lot of money or nice possessions and they say — they either look at them and say they were dishonest in getting them, or they look at them and say if they really loved God, they would give them all up. Are you with me? By the way, if you have that problem you need to go to Proverbs 22:2 and read it. It says, “The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all.” That’ll help you on that issue.
2. It exaggerates the role of sacrificial work.
Basically, this person that’s into poverty theology has made sacrifice, almost a God. They are usually legalistic. They are usually saying, “God loves me because I’ve given up so much.” They basically think that if they give up a lot, it makes them more spiritual. Can I tell you, you can give up everything and not make yourself more spiritual. God doesn’t love you because you gave up everything. God loves you because you are you. It’s unqualified. There are no attachments to it. But these people don’t believe that. These people basically — in fact, they become quite arrogant sometimes in their own spiritual walk. They say, “Well, I gave up everything to serve God and when Joe there really loves God, he’ll start doing what I’ve done.” And they begin to look at themselves as a measuring stick for spirituality.
3. They are extremely naive.
People that are poverty theology people are extremely naive. And the reason they are is that if everyone gave up everything, no one would be able to give financial support to them. You see, these people are dependent upon financial support for everything and they are extremely naive when they tell you — you see if everybody gave it up — where do they get their resources. They get their resources from people who didn’t give it all up. In other words, I don’t want to be nasty, but they would be out of business, if everybody jumped into the poverty pool.
I have people all the time that say, “You know what pastor, we shouldn’t relocate, what we ought to do is take all this money and give it all to missions.” They don’t understand something. They don’t understand that you’ve got to have a base. You’ve got to have a base and the bigger your base, the more that you can give. Sure, we can give hundreds of thousands of dollars today for missions or we can facilitate ourselves and give ourselves property and a place where we can continue to grow into the family where eight to ten years from now, we can give millions of dollars away to missions. It just depends on how big your base is. And another thing poverty theology people don’t realize is once you give up your base, whatever your base is financially, once you give it up, you have nothing else to draw from so you have nothing else to give. So all of a sudden you’re not a wise steward. You’re just like the guy who took the talent and stuck it in a hole and buried it. He was kind of proud of what he did. What he didn’t realize is the moment he buried it, he couldn’t use it. In fact, the master came back and said at least you should have stuck it in a bank and got some interest out of it. Poverty theology people are very naive.
4. It can become a manipulative lifestyle.
People that believe poverty theology, if they’re not careful can unintentionally manipulate other people. But you see, because they have no resources, they are many times very eager to tell of their needs. And so therefore, what they’ll do is maybe in a prayer group, they’ll talk about their needs in the hope that somebody will hear their needs and somebody will help them out. And by all means those who have should help those who have not. That is not the issue, but what I’m saying is if you’re not careful, even in friendships if you have nothing or you’re a poverty theology person, if you’re not careful, you’ll begin to use your friends.
I see it happen all the time. I saw somebody like that one time in my second church. As they came by the house, they were getting ready to go to New York, when I was living in Ohio. They asked if they could store all their stuff at the house. I said, “sure.” They said, “Well, I want to have an empty truck because when I go through New York, as I preach, I’m a missionary, people will want to give me things and I want to have room to take it.” Very common with people in poverty theology. You see, I even understand the inclination to do this. Because you’ve given up everything, you have nothing and so you are dependent. I understand this. I just want you to see the four errors. Now if you think I’m picking on poverty theology people, wait until I show you the problems of prosperity theology people. I’m fair. I pick on both.
The problems with a prosperity theology:
1. Prosperity is a sign of God’s approval.
This probably grates on me more than anything else about prosperity people. They basically say, if you’ve got possessions and you’re blessed, it’s because God approves of you, and God is blessing you and God likes you and so therefore I’m blessed because of God. They have arrogance in themselves just as the poverty people have arrogance in what they gave up, the prosperity people have arrogance in what they have.
2. It produces guilt.
In fact, it divides the Body of Christ many times. You see, nothing will produce more guilt than for me to stand up and say if you serve God, you’re always going to be prosperous. You’re sitting out there and you’re not prosperous, so you say, “I must not be serving God.” Or if I give some story about giving $10 to this mission organization and I got a thousand dollars the next Monday in the mailbox. You put $10 in and you don’t get a thousand dollars back the next Monday, you say, “What happened to me? I must not love God like them. I must not serve God.” You see, prosperity gospel people and those who say everybody is going to be healed put an incredible amount of guilt on the body. So what happens if somebody didn’t get healed? You say, “Well, I didn’t have enough faith. What’s wrong with me?” Nothing is wrong with you. You just didn’t get healed.
I was having lunch with Pete and Doris Wagner, they’re good friends and Pete really has a gift in the area of healing, no question about it. In fact, his strongest gift is praying for people who have bad backs, and his wife has a bad back. In fact, she has to go have surgery and Pete’s talking to me and he says, “Here I’ve prayed for people all over the world for their backs.” He says, “I can’t even pray for my wife and she can’t get healed. She’s got to go to surgery. Why is that?” I said, “to keep you humble Pete.”
Nothing’s dumber than for some guy to get up and say if you serve God you’re going to be rich or if you serve God you’re always going to be healed. That’s stupid. First of all, you can’t prove the point. You see, if everybody’s going to get healed when I pray for them then all I’m going to do is go heal everybody. Why would I be preaching? I’d go around here, next... next... next and just heal them all. It would be a marvelous thing. It doesn’t happen that way. Neither does prosperity gospel. When you say, “God wants you all to be prosperous and rich,” and somebody had some financial setbacks, somebody lost their job; they say, “What happened? My goodness, I don’t love God. I lack faith.” That’s a bunch of bologna. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Job knew what it was to be prosperous; he knew what it was to be poor. I’ve got to be careful; I’m going to preach if I’m not careful.
3. It creates wrong motives.
You have to be careful with your motives because after a while if you’re not careful, you’ll be serving God for the blessings. You’ll be into this give to get routine. You’ll be saying, “well I serve God because He’s going to make me wealthy or I’m going to get some money, so I think I’m going to serve Jesus.” Well, we’d all serve Jesus for that reason. It’s not a right reason to serve Jesus.
Two years ago, I got this thing from these people. They were into seed planting. Somebody wanted me to give them $100. They said if I would give them $100 God would bless them. And they put a seed in the packet there for me and I would get a $1,000 back. Well I thought that was good deal. Pretty quick return don’t you think? But I got to thinking about and I thought you know, if this really works, even if they really believe it, they’re the ones that told me to give them $100 and I’d get $1,000 back. So I wrote a little note and I said this sounds good. If you really believe this principal, you send me the $100 and you’ll get the $1,000 back. Shoot, I like that don’t you? Absolutely. We didn’t get the $100 did we honey? They never sent us the $100.
Let me explain something to you. You see there’s a theory that’s not true. And that theory is that you can create some kind of a binding transaction with God until He’s obligated to you. God’s not obligated to you and He’s not obligated to me. God doesn’t have any IOU’s floating around. I mean He’s not saying, “Oh, now let’s see, who do I owe? Let’s see I owe Maxwell three bucks. Let’s see how much do I owe you?” No. No. We don’t pull strings.
Let me tell you the difference between tithing and seed planting. You see the prosperity people say, “Plant a seed, plant a seed.” Here’s the difference and it’s very clear. It’s very biblical. Tithing is initiated by God. Don’t get aggravated when I preach on tithing. Go talk to God about it. It’s in the Bible. Be a biblical Christian. Grow up, mature. God said tithe. Seed planting is initiated by man. There is a world of difference. Seed planting is where I say, “I think it’s a good idea if you give to somebody and if you give to somebody you’ll probably get a return back out of it.” You see, tithing deals with what you have. Seed planting deals with what you want. God says, “Be faithful with what you’ve got. Whatever you’ve got, you’re responsible for.” He said, “Your supposed to be a steward of it and you’re supposed to give me my fair share of it.” He said, “That’s what you’ve already got. That’s what you’re responsible for.” Seed planting is where I’m trying to get more.
CONCLUSION:
Now if you are blessed and you have been blessed as a Christian financially, there are four errors I want to quickly get to as we wrap this up this morning. There are four great errors that I see people make, who have been blessed financially. I don’t want any of us to make these four errors.
Financially blessed Christians often fall for one or more of these errors:
1. They take credit for prosperity:
I run into people who say, “You know what? I was smart and I got up early. The early bird gets the worm.” And they basically take credit for what they have. And I’m here to tell you right now, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I’ve known an awful lot of smart people who lost everything they had financially. I’ve known an awful lot of people who loved God and prayed and lost everything they had financially. Don’t take credit. If God has blessed you understand it as a gift of God. Do not take credit for the finances.
2. Ingratitude:
I run into people who are ungrateful for what they have. They basically say, “Well, I’m God’s child.” That’s what they deserve. No. You don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve. We all deserve hell. God loved us so much that He sent His Son to keep us from going there and everything we get beyond hell itself, the privileges of eternal life and everything else is a plus, and God doesn’t owe us anything. Therefore, we’d better be grateful for it.
3. Guilt:
I run into people all the time that are guilty over being prosperous. Don’t be guilty. If you’re a multimillionaire and you love God, don’t feel one bit guilty about having multi-millions. In fact, instead of having guilt, remember this, God’s the giver and God’s the root. Instead of feeling guilty, find the purpose for why God has blessed you so much financially, so you can utilize it as a steward for the kingdom of God. That’s what your goal is. Your goal isn’t to feel guilty and don’t let anybody come around and try to make you feel guilty. Don’t let anybody say, “Well, you know I gave up everything.” That’s fine. By the way, there are some people who are called to give up everything. There are some people who are called, I believe, truly called, to give up all possessions and serve God. Mother Teresa is a classic example and it’s incredible what influence and marvelous things she has done. There are people that are called to do that. If you are called to be a poverty theology people go for it. There are people, I believe, that are called to make money. You go for it. What I don’t think is right is for the body of Christ to begin looking around and say I’m right and they’re wrong just because my perspective is a little bit different.
3. Dependence upon prosperity:
When you and I begin to depend upon it that is where we place our trust. It’s where we place our security. It’s where we place our identity. It’s where we get our ego satisfaction. When we begin to depend upon those things, then they become wrong. Poverty theology has some marvelous things. It says basically, “Care for poor people.” That’s wonderful. Prosperity theology has some wonderful things. They say, “Be a channel for God’s blessings.” Isn’t that wonderful?
But stewardship takes the best of both. It’s balanced. You see stewardship doesn’t ask the question what did he give up. Stewardship doesn’t ask the question what are you going to do with what you get? Stewardship asks one very simple question. I want to close with that this morning. You see stewardship just asks one question from us and every one of us can make the choice and make our decision based on this one question and we don’t need to wait for tomorrow. We can make it right now. Stewardship asks, What are you doing right now with what you’ve got? It’s that simple.
I run into people every once in a while who’ll say pastor, “I’ll tell you right now, you know if a get a million dollars, I’m going to give it all to this church property.” No you’re not. No you’re not, you little stingy fool you. No you’re not. No. No. No. No. You know why? If you haven’t given everything up now, you aren’t going to give everything up when you get it. By the way, how are you going to get a million dollars quick. Are you playing the lottery? You quit that. Somebody asked me the other day, they said, “Can you be a Christian and play the lottery?” I said, “Sure, you’re just a stupid Christian.” I’m not trying to despiritualize you if you play the lottery. You’re just stupid. Now if you plan the lottery and win, “Oh, remember your church!”
My father used to have a group of people in his first church in southern Ohio that were tobacco farmers. And they knew how he hated tobacco and preached against tobacco and those tobacco farmers would come in with their tobacco crop every year. One guy put his check out and said, “I suppose you don’t want this? I got it from raising tobacco.” He said, “I sure do, the devil had it long enough.” It’s a simple issue and you and I have to settle it. The issue isn’t what are we going to do when Aunt Hannah dies and leaves us $421,000. The issue is what you’re doing right now with what you’ve got. What are you doing with your time? What are you doing with your tithe?
Oh, God we love you. You own everything. You’re the boss. During this month, we’re asking ourselves some difficult questions. Help us to come up with good biblical answers in Jesus’ name.
Amen...
