Introduction: A lot of you missed last week – and let me tell you – when you missed last week you missed out on a blessing! The Holy Spirit was here in a powerful way. One person trusted Christ as we introduced this series on Recession Proofing Your Finances. You also missed out on a fasting and prayer challenge that I put and 157 people decided to take me up on this challenge. The challenge isn’t about skipping food as much as it is about pressing into Jesus about areas of our lives where there is a battle.
Everyone in here faces a battle. You face a battle in your life over your marriage, or over a rebellious child, or there is a battle going on at work, there is a battle raging over your finances – and ultimately the battle is between having a cursed life or a blessed life. God wants you to move to the blessed life but before you can do that you have to face the battle. This battle line – represented by this rope – is the battle between your best and God’s best, it’s a battle between your power and God’s power, it’s a battle between cursed and blessed!
I told you what a blessed life is – a blessed life is a life that has the supernatural power of God working for you and working in you. A cursed life is the opposite. A cursed life is living life to the very best of my ability but living it without the supernatural power that is available to me in God. It may be good over here, but it is only as good as I can do – it is a far cry from the blessed life!
Okay, that’s what you missed last week. If you missed it I strongly encourage you to get the message on CD or download it for free from our website because it was an important message – but it was also important for our church because I laid out some ministry goals for our church.
Today I’m going to transition this series to talk about finances. Last week I didn’t say a whole lot about money – but today I want to get into some specifics about money. Now, I know that there are some people in this room who say – here we go again! Every time I come to this church – he is talking about money. Let me tell you, if that describes you then you only come to church 3 or 4 times a year. Because I purposefully present a message on stewardship and money issues 3 or 4 times a year – and I’m sorry if the 3 or 4 times that I teach on money just happen to be the same 3 or 4 times you came to church this year! If that is true – maybe God is trying to tell you something, I don’t know!
Others of you are thinking I knew it! That’s all the church wants is my money and he’s going to try to get it from me right now! Right? Listen, I don’t really have a problem talking about money in church, you know why? Because I believe that money is given to us as a test. Money always has been and always will be a test. That is why there are more than 500 verses in the Bible concerning prayer and nearly 500 verses concerning faith, but there are more than 2,000 verses on the subject of money and possessions. Jesus talked about money in 16 of his 38 parables!
Why is this? Because Jesus knew that money was a test. He knew that how you handle money reveals volumes about your priorities, loyalties and affections. I can’t look at you and tell where you are spiritually – but I can look at your check book and tell. I can’t look at you and tell if you are sold out to God in your life – but I could look at your giving statement at the church and tell!
So, I don’t really shy away from talking about money because I believe that money is a spiritual test. I told you last week that I think the spiritual affects everything else in your life – everything – including your finances. So, when I talk about money, I’m not really talking about money, I’m talking about spirituality! What would you think if you came to church and never heard me talk about the importance of reading the Bible? What would you think if I never talked about sin, or grace, or forgiveness? You’d think – what kind of pastor is he? That’s how I feel about money – it has to be addressed.
Not only that, but let’s face it – it is on your mind! You know the saying that money talks? It does! Last week 64 people turned in prayer requests – and 26 of them involved money matters! That means 46% of all of the prayer requests had something to do with money and that doesn’t count the prayer requests that were submitted with “unspoken” or the other requests that were never turned in. That means that right now – almost half of you are thinking about money. The other half of you aren’t paying attention!
So, what does money say? Money says, you need more of me, all of your problems will go away if there is more of me. Money says, hoard me, hang on to me, leverage me, spend me because you deserve what only I can give you! Money tells you that it can insulate you from life’s problems, that it can give you security, significance, power and freedom. Money does speak! It speaks to us all the time and what it tells us is the exact opposite of what God tells us.
Let me go back to this battle line – on this side there is the spirit of Mammon and on this side is the Spirit of God. What’s on this side? Mammon. What’s on this side? God.
What is the spirit of Mammon? Mammon is a New Testament word that often gets translated as money – but it is far more than money – it is pervasive in the cursed life. It is a mindset, it is a culture, it is a way of thinking – it is the attitude that surrounds money that competes against God for first place in your life.
Let’s look at our first verse, which is also our memory verse today. Jesus speaking in Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (NKJV)
You see from this verse mammon is something that competes for loyalty, service and worship. The word itself is an Aramaic word that means “riches.” You can see the spirit of mammon throughout the Bible. You see it in Genesis 11 when the Babylonians built the tower of Babel. Why was that tower such an affront to God? Because the tower was their way of saying, “we don’t need God. We’re self sufficient and independent.”
All money either has the Spirit of God on it or the Spirit of Mammon on it. Now, the money doesn’t literally have a spirit on it – but how you relate to your money does! This concept is critically important to recession proofing your finances, because as long as you relate to money and riches with a spirit of Mammon you will be prone to recession in your life because you are trusting in Mammon rather than God.
Money that is subjected to the spirit of Mammon is money that is cursed! It is over here. Money that is submitted to the Spirit of God and His purposes is money that is safe from the paltry forces of the economy, it is money that is set apart and it is money that is blessed. Money not submitted to God has the spirit of Mammon on it. Make sense?
See, Mammon is looking for servants, it is seeking worshipers. It will promise you everything but deliver nothing! It’s no coincidence that in the book of Revelation, the Antichrist attempts to dominate people through the use of economics – preventing people from buying or selling unless they submit to him – so the antichrist uses the spirit of mammon to rule people!
Like I said though, Mammon is not synonymous with money, even though many translations translate the word as money. But it’s not the same as money. Look at our next verse in 1 Timothy 6:10, it says, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.”
See, it’s loving, the spirit of mammon that God says is the root of all kinds of evil. It is the defiance of God that comes from saying that what I need is not God – what I need is more money!
For example, sometimes mammon says, “If you just had more money you could really start helping people. Many times when we’re under some kind of financial pressure, the thought will come to us (make no mistake, this thought comes from the spirit of Mammon) and the thought will tell us that we need one of two things to happen. Either we need God to miraculously change our circumstances or we need someone to drop a load of money on us! We’ll daydream of winning the lottery, or a sweepstakes or hope we’ll learn about the death of a wealthy relative that we didn’t know.
Do you see what happens there? The spirit of mammon tries to position itself as a substitute for God. You either need God to work a miracle right now or you need more money. That is a lie! What we need is God! When we start thinking that most of our problems can be solved by having more money, it’s a sign we’re under the influence of the spirit of mammon.
This is why Jesus said you can’t serve both – because Mammon says I don’t need God! You can’t worship God without acknowledging your need for Him. These two spirits contradict each other – they oppose each other. That is where the battle is in your life.
So, if the spirit of mammon is talking to us and telling us that it will provide us with security and power and prominence, what is the Spirit of God telling us? Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal (and where stock markets plummet! I added that myself). Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
See, when we use money (not the same as mammon) for righteous purposes, when we submit our use of money to the Spirit of God, this verse tells me that I am storing up treasure in heaven. That’s why I’m drawing this distinction between money and mammon. Mammon is the spirit that surrounds our distorted use of money. But, when God is in it, our money can be used to do powerful things.
I’ll give you one example. Ronda, our children’s ministry director, spent money to fly in Bibleman to our church last weekend. She spent money to put him up in a hotel, and to feed him and pay him for his ministry to our kids. You know what happened? The money spent, money that you gave by the way, laid up treasures in heaven as 20 young people trusted Jesus to forgive them of their sins!
Maybe now you understand why the enemy of our souls works so hard to keep the spirit of mammon in control in our lives because he knows that if the Spirit of God ever gets a hold of your money it will be translated into eternal treasures in heaven and he is vehemently opposed to that! That is why there is a battle in your life over this issue. That is why money has always been and always will be a test – because so much is at stake!
So, let me discuss real briefly some of the goals that we are praying and fasting about, because these goals are inter-related. We are praying for 150 people to come to faith in Christ this ministry year (which started September 1 and goes through the end of August). We are praying for 100 people to follow the Lord in Believers baptism (October 5, sign up using card). We are praying for 300 people to be in small groups (sign up today).
Now, we also have financial goals – but they are also spiritual goals! We are praying for $16,000 a week in giving. That sounds financial, but the money is used to print literature, to bring in Bibleman, to buy and print small group materials for our church, to support missionaries in 3 different countries where the Gospel is being taken to those who don’t know, you see what I mean? They are connected. We have goals for the building too – to pay down our loan by $300,000. (describe briefly how that can be done) – that is treasure in heaven! People come in here and find Jesus and when we pay down that so we can invest even more into ministry and missions. They are connected, God wants us to submit our finances to His Spirit so that he can take us from cursed to blessed.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking that you don’t have enough money for this topic to be relevant to you. You’re thinking if you only had some of this filthy mammon, this money, you could use some it for eternal purposes, but you’re saying, I don’t have any money! You’re also thinking, I thought this series was about saving my financial situation, and I can tell you’re starting to tell me to use some of what I already don’t have for eternal purposes, this isn’t making sense.
I would suggest to you that you will never have any money until you break the spirit of mammon in your life! This is part of the battle line in your life. How do you break the spirit of mammon? The answer to that question is found in our next verse. Luke 16:10 says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” (NIV)
The context of this verse is a parable that Jesus was telling about Mammon. You want to break the Spirit of Mammon in your finances, then be faithful with what little God has given you. You break the spirit of mammon by submitting what you have to Christ – by committing even what little you think you have to him, otherwise this verse teaches you’ll never have more!
In the next two verses of that same passage Jesus said this: So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
See what he’s saying? If you can’t be faithful with worldly wealth that doesn’t even belong to you, do you see that, how can God give you true riches – spiritual riches? What I want you to see here is that it doesn’t matter how much you have – what matters is whose it is!
Is everyone still with me? So far I’ve developed one big principle and that is the principle of the Spirit of Mammon versus the Spirit of God as it relates to money. I know that there are many people in this room who are battling with a spirit of mammon. For the sake of full disclosure – I fight this battle all the time in my own life. I constantly go from one side of the line to the other. Maybe you can relate to that.
Now listen, if I’m going to lose you this morning it is going to be in the next few minutes – so lean in and try your best to track with me. I want to share a principle with you that has the power to break the spirit of mammon in your life and the principle is this – the principle of first things first.
This principle is also known as the principle of firstfruits throughout the Bible. We see it in Exodus when God says, “Dedicate to me every firstborn among the Israelites. The first offspring to be born, of both humans and animals, belongs to me.” Exodus 13:2
Here, God says that the firstborn “belongs to me!” In fact, God declares that the firstborn is His 16 times in Scripture. For example, Exodus 13:12-13 says, “You must present all firstborn sons and firstborn male animals to the Lord, for they belong to him. A firstborn donkey may be bought back from the Lord by presenting a lamb or young goat in its place. But if you do not buy it back, you must break its neck. However, you must buy back every firstborn son.”
Here’s what this passage is saying. The purpose of this principle of firstfruits is to teach God’s people to live by faith. There are clean and unclean animals, and in this passage God is telling them that if a lamb is born – it belongs to the Lord, they have to offer it as a sacrifice. This is a huge step of faith. These people lived off their animals – but God said, the first is mine. You give me the first, and I’ll bless the rest. It’s a step of faith because they don’t know if that mother lamb, that ewe, is going to have other offspring. I mean sheep don’t lay 100 eggs or something – they just have the one. And God says when you get the first one, it’s mine, you give it back to me.
If you have a donkey, that’s an unclean animal, you either have to sacrifice it, because it’s the firstborn, it belongs to me, but in that instance you can redeem it, it’s what this verse says, you can buy it back using a clean animal. But either way, it’s mine. When you give the first, I’ll bless the rest! It always requires faith to give the first, always. Notice that God didn’t say let the ewe have 10 sheep and then give me the tenth – no, he said, give me the first and then I’ll bless the rest. The first blesses the rest!
We see this principle all throughout Scripture. Let me give you just a couple of examples. First one, Genesis 4:3-5, the story of Cain and Abel. Did you ever wonder why God accepted Abel’s gift but not Cain’s? I always wondered that and then I saw these verses in a new light. “When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift”.
What happened? Cain brought some of what he had. Abel brought the firstborn, the firstfruits! Abel brought the first because the first belongs to God, and when you dedicate the first, God blesses the rest! The first blesses the rest.
One other example. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, but when he was 100 he still didn’t have anything to show for God’s promise. Then along comes Isaac – the firstborn. What does God say? Offer him to me as a sacrifice. Abraham stepped out in faith – he gave the first and God blessed the rest. The first blesses the rest. You know that Isaac was redeemed – in another principle that we looked at – he was redeemed – the clean for the unclean.
Okay, I want to quickly jump ahead to your finances. Some of you this morning are living under the gun financially, you are! I know that. Maybe not all of you, but some of you are there because financially you are living cursed. Cursed. You’re over here. You’re doing your best in your strength but you haven’t ever dedicated the first to the Lord. And the first blesses the rest! Look at this verse with me from Malachi 3:8-10.
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple.
Did you catch that? Why was the nation cursed? Because they cheated the Lord of what was HIS! It is due him, why? Because it’s his. If the nation was cursed because they didn’t give God what was his – do you think that maybe your finances could be cursed too? Why wouldn’t you give God what is his? Because of the spirit of mammon. You’re in a battle.
You say, that’s Old Testament. I don’t have time to develop it all, but in this book, the author does a great job developing this principle in Old and New Testaments, I would encourage you to get it, it’s a very challenging book, but suffice it to say this. In Malachi 3:6 God says, “I am the Lord, and I do not change.” Okay – this principle of firstfruits is seen from the beginning of the Bible to the end. What happens if you give God what is due him?
“If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” (9-10).
Do you hear that? If you withhold what belongs to God – you will be cursed. If you give, what belongs to God, you will be blessed. You want to break the spirit of mammon in your life then you must give God what is his. Now, I’ll talk more about this next week, because this is not a promise to make you rich – it is a promise to make you blessed!
I want to close with a question. Some of you are thinking – I can’t afford to tithe. I can’t afford to give 10% of my income to the Lord. Let me ask you, would you rather try to make it through life with 100% of your income – but all of it cursed? Or would you rather try to make it through life with 90% of your income and all of it blessed? When you decide to break the spirit of mammon, you give God the first part of your income. Remember, the spirit of mammon tries to compete with God, when you give God the first part of your income you are placing him as the first of your life which allows him to bless your life. Because the first blesses the rest. According to Scripture, you give it to your place of worship because that’s where spiritual activities store up treasures for you in heaven. You give the first – the first blesses the rest.
Remember the principle of the firstborn. Remember the passage where the firstborn was to be either sacrificed or redeemed. There was no third option. Every time an animal delivered its firstborn you were to sacrifice it or redeem it. The clean for the unclean. With that in mind, think about John the Baptist at the banks of the Jordan River.
John is baptizing one day and he looks up and sees Jesus and he says, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”(John 1:29) Think about this. Jesus was God’s firstborn. Jesus was clean, perfect in every way. Every one of us was unclean – we are all sinners, we’ve all done things wrong. Think about the firstborn principle. The Law stated that if the firstborn was clean, it was to be sacrificed, if the firstborn was unclean it was to be redeemed with a clean animal. See the parallel?
Jesus, the clean, the firstborn of God, was sacrificed to redeem us – the unclean. Let me repeat what I said last week – you can’t go from here to over here without Jesus. He was sacrificed, not for his flaws, he had none, but for yours. God wants to bless you – he wants to bless your finances – but even more he wants to bless your life for all of eternity. Will you accept his sacrifice for you?
