Where Is Your Treasure, part 2
TCF Sermon
October 12, 2008
Open with Chinese finger puzzle illustration – invite someone on stage to put their finger into the puzzle with the preacher and try to extricate themselves.
The key to this illustration is something we’re going to look at more closely this morning, in a continuation of the things we looked at two weeks ago, regarding money and possessions. Remember, a few weeks ago, those of you who were here and awake, we focused on Matthew 6, especially verse 21, which says:
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
And then verse 24:
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
We noted that throughout church history, people have seen that money is a significant temptation, and can even compete with our love for God. Yet, we also see that the problem isn’t necessarily having money or things. In and of itself, money has no power. It’s the love of money that’s a problem, and it’s a problem most of us wrestle with at one time or another. That’s made clear by another passage of scripture we read:
1 Timothy 6:6-10 (NIV) But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
And here’s where the Chinese finger puzzle, which is sometimes called the Chinese finger trap, comes in. Money has the same kind of pull on you that the puzzle does. The more you strain to get it, the more it traps you. The solution to the potential problem of money, the way out of the trap, is to loosen our grip on money and things. To let go of it.
Before we continue, I must correct an error in a statement I made 2 weeks ago. I told you it had been ten years since we last heard a full message related to money and possessions at TCF. Further research has revealed that’s not true. It’s been close to 6 years, but hey, who’s counting. And what I said last week remains true. If ten years is plenty of time between messages on this theme, so is almost six years. So there, for the record – I stand corrected.
We ended a few weeks ago with a passage of scripture which I think is key to our understanding of how to deal with money and things.
Philippians 4:11-13 (NIV) I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
So, as we move on this morning, considering the theme of money and possessions, we can say this:
1. money has no power in and of itself, it’s the love of money that is the root of all evil
2. that understood, it’s still just as clear that money often is a trap – a spiritual trap, that can literally lead to destruction
3. there is a secret to being content with plenty, and being content with little, in terms of money and things, and that secret lies completely in our Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else.
In challenging financial times, and when things are good, we must trust the Lord. Contentment is based on our trust in the One in whom we can do everything.
I think our first step in dealing with this hold, that money and things can have over us is recognizing the potential trap and real danger of money and possessions, and then being honest with ourselves, and asking ourselves regularly where we may be vulnerable.
Being honest with ourselves is key. We have this amazing capacity to justify ourselves, our attitudes, our behavior, and this is very true when it comes to our attitudes about possessions.
We’re all vulnerable to the traps that things can bring. So what are the signs we may have our finger in the finger puzzle too tightly?
First, I think, is anxiety over money. We see a lot of that these days. When we hear about the stock market plummeting, when we hear words like recession, or depression. When we consider what’s happened to our savings, our investments, our retirement accounts, this can certainly cause us to be anxious.
But anxiety about money is more than simple management of what God has provided. It’s worry. It’s lack of contentment. It’s lack of trust in God. It’s no longer just budgeting, no longer just taking care of the details of your money as a good steward of what God has given you.
Stewardship is an important concept to grasp. These things like budgeting and proper management of our money are appropriate and responsible, and a good response to the blessings God has given. Without these things, we’re guilty of another sin – the sin of poor stewardship – poor management, of what God has assigned to us.
Remember that we’ve learned that it all belongs to God, and we’re just His managers, His stewards. So when we’re not properly managing what God has given us, it’s like carelessly throwing away what doesn’t belong to us in the first place.
Here’s a minor but practical example of stewardship. Sometimes people will buy things for Bible Bowl and donate them. We appreciate that, and for small items that just cost a few dollars, that’s fine. But if someone spends more than a little money on something, I will often suggest to them, if you believe God has led you to give to Bible Bowl, and you’re able to get a tax deduction for a gift, why not give the dollars to the church for Bible Bowl, get the tax deduction, reduce your taxable income accordingly, and have more money to spend for Kingdom purposes?
That’s just good stewardship – making the most of what God has provided. But that kind of thing – exercising sound judgment and wise stewardship, is not what I’m talking about when I talk about anxiety over money. Anxiety is when you fret over things you can’t control. Things like the stock market. You’re concerned, you’re worried, you discuss it often, you may even get upset about it.
Another sign that our finger may be in the puzzle too tightly is what the Bible calls covetousness. It’s when we envy what others have.
So and so gets to watch the Oklahoma-Texas game on a 50-inch LCD. You don’t. When you’re not content with that kind of situation, when you’re not content that your friend or neighbor has a newer or nicer car, a bigger or nicer house…when you’re jealous that so and so makes more money than you, then you’re coveting – lusting for something you don’t have, while envying what someone else has.
That’s related to selfishness, another sign your finger’s in the puzzle too tightly. This is when you have no joy in giving or sharing. If someone wants to use what you have, it upsets you. Or if someone presents a need to you, you’re upset about the fact that you now feel obligated to give. You begrudge that. You don’t have the joy of giving, and that’s a sign of selfishness.
Greediness is another sign your finger’s in the puzzle too tightly. Clearly, the basic definition is wanting more, which would make it like covetousness, but greed is different than covetousness. Coveting is wanting what someone else has. Greed is simply wanting what you don’t have. Greed feeds on get rich quick schemes.
It amazes me how many things we see that are basically schemes to bypass the old-fashioned way of earning money, and instead becoming wealthy quickly. Lottery tickets – we mentioned that last week. There are many other get rich schemes out there.
Here’s a real one – listen for the appeals to greed in this marketing.
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Imagine this: instead of waking up at the crack of dawn next week and fighting the morning rush hour traffic, you wake up and open your email first thing in the morning and you see that while you slept, another $2000 to $4000 was sent to your bank account from people you’ve never met before…all for putting just a few simple methods into place. It’s 7 a.m., you’re still sipping your first cup of coffee and only half awake, and already it’s been another very profitable day. While this scenario may seem more like a dream than reality to you right now, it’s entirely possible to achieve and it’s much easier to do than you might imagine. Let me show you how…Get Started Now ! Anyone Can Achieve Wealth Following This Simple Formula
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A good rule to remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it is.
This is just one example of perhaps thousands of get-rich quick schemes you can find on TV, in magazines, in newspapers or on the internet – or nailed to a telephone pole – isn’t it amazing people would spend money on anything advertised by a flyer nailed to a telephone pole?
The one thing they all have in common is this: They appeal to greed. They appeal to the idea that all you need is this special idea, and you’ll never have to worry about money again, or work for it. They appeal to one of the worst aspects of our human nature we battle. And they’re speaking with great clarity to those people about whom Timothy wrote:
1 Tim 6:9-10 People who want to (remember a few weeks ago, we said that this could also be translated – set their hearts on) get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Greed is related to another sign that your finger’s in the Money trap too tightly. That’s discontent.
Of course, discontent is the opposite of what Paul wrote about in Philippians 4. Discontentment is not having, or losing, appreciation for what you have. Are you a glass half-full, or a glass half-empty person? I’m not talking about positive thinking – or positive confession. I believe we can recognize reality here. I can recognize and say that I have a lot or I have little.
What I’m talking about is a true recognition of what you do have instead of focusing on what you don’t have.
You may not have a 5,000-square foot house with hot and cold running maids and servants, but do you have a roof over your head? Did you know that 700 million people in the world live in shantytowns or slums? Did you know that 120 million children live on the streets? At least you have a house, or an apartment.
You may not have a $500,000 bank account. But did you know that 2 billion people in the world live in poverty and survive on less than $2 a day?
You may not have chateaubriand, lobster, or even a good steak for dinner each night. But did you know that 30 million people die each year from hunger, and 18 million of those are under age 5? Some of us work hard to keep from gaining too much weight.
Here’s something I’ve told my girls often. You have everything you need. What’s more, you have much of, sometimes most of, what you want.
Now our culture feeds this discontent with wants we don’t have, and tells us we need, or even deserve, these things. Our culture tells us you deserve a break today. Our culture tells us you can have it now. A Newsweek headline last week talked about The Credit You Deserve.
I won’t go into all the reasons why that kind of entitlement attitude has certainly contributed to our current national financial crisis. But, what do we really deserve? Nothing. Yet, what does God provide? Everything we need. I don’t know a single TCFer that’s starving. I know several who really struggle financially. But, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a roof over his or her head.
Instead of examining what we don’t have, contentment is about recognizing, and being thankful for, what we do have. Where is your treasure?
So how do we loosen this hold money and things seem to have on us? And if we’re not in the grip of money, we’re certainly vulnerable to it. And if we think we aren’t, then we’re even more vulnerable. But is there a solution?
The Bible teaches us that all money is God’s. All of it. That’s a refrain I’ve heard here many times in the nearly 29 years I’ve attended TCF. TCF’s first pastor, Bill Sanders, and another of TCF’s early pastors, Chuck Farah, both challenged us at one time or another, on this idea.
If it’s all Gods, and as Jim Garrett noted just a few weeks ago, we’re thankful that God allows us to use somewhere around 90%, what can we do to loosen that hold even more? We can strive to be bigger givers. We can set as a goal giving away a higher percentage of our income.
I’m going to say something that may shock some of you this morning. We don’t really believe in tithing at TCF, at least as it’s sometimes taught elsewhere. Now, before you start throwing tomatoes, let me explain. First, let me encourage you to throw money instead of tomatoes. I’m kidding.
The tithe is an Old Testament commandment from the Lord, and we live, as New Testament believers, under a new covenant. We’re not bound by the tithe anymore as a law. Yet, if it all belongs to God, I think we’re actually to attain to a higher standard than just a tithe.
A tithe is just 10%. It’s just a starting point. But, if it’s all God’s, that means none of it’s ours. We need to live the kind of lifestyle that allows us to give more. We need to have the attitude that causes us to constantly ask the question – should I give more to this need, should I give more to that need?
As we noted a couple of weeks ago, it’s OK to have things. But when having things gets in the way of our giving, then money’s beginning to tighten its finger grip on us, like the Chinese finger trap. That’s a key attitude in loosening money’s finger grip on us. We must develop the attitude, nurture the idea, that it all belongs to God, and He lets us use it.
If we’re wholehearted Christ-followers, if our treasure is in the Kingdom of God and not in earthly things, if we’re serving God, and not serving money, if we’re asking the question, do I use money or does money use me, if we’re asking the question, what or who owns me, and in whom do I trust, the result is that we’re going to be liberal in our giving. I mean that in this sense:
2 Corinthians 8:1-2 (NASB77) Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.
The wealth of their liberality – their generosity.
In a book entitled Money isn’t God by John White, he wrote:
"(there’s a) tension between the teaching of stewardship and the techniques for fund-raising. Christian leaders have a duty to teach both the responsibility and the joys of giving. Such teaching has a spiritual goal. Its aim is not to raise money, but to set Christians free from their bondage to money, to teach them the liberty of liberality and thus to increase their joy in the Lord."
Yes, we can be in bondage, in slavery, to our money and things. Money can own us and use us, instead of us owning and using money. But the liberty of liberality leads to freedom from that slavery, and it’s certainly part of Paul’s secret of contentment in having much or little.
I believe that, here at TCF, our desire to be extra careful about not manipulating you, just to reach our church’s financial goals, means we perhaps don’t teach stewardship as often as we should.
But, let me say this...our primary goal, in any teaching about money at TCF, is pastoral. Not only to teach a sense of financial responsibility, but to help us find release, freedom, liberty, from mammon, the Aramaic word for money. To find a release from the lack of contentment in money matters, and to heed the warnings of scripture about how things, which are purchased with money, can own us....
Remember the secret to contentment...it’s through Jesus. We trust Him for contentment. He’s the only one who can make us content, as we learn to rest in Him, and His plan, and His will for our life. Certainly, that plan, His will, must include how we use His money that He entrusts to us.
I found this illustration:
Money often comes between men and God. Someone has said that you can take two small ten-cent pieces, just two dimes, and shut out the view of a panoramic landscape. Go to the mountains and just hold two coins closely in front of your eyes--the mountains are still there, but you cannot see them at all because there is a dime shutting off the vision in each eye." It doesn’t take large quantities of money to come between us and God; just a little, placed in the wrong position, will effectively obscure our view. There are two ways in which a Christian may view his money— How much of my money shall I use for God?" "How much of God’s money shall I use for myself?"
George Mueller said: God judges what we give by what we keep.
When someone says it’s not the money, but the principle of the thing, it’s the money.
Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money.
These ideas are all related to our attitude towards money and things. And let’s remember that money is not the root of all evil, what is? The love of it.
The love of money is different than having it. You can have it and not love it. But, you can also not have it and love it - you don’t have to be rich to be materialistic.
As we’ve already noted, the first step in dealing with this hold that money can have over us is recognizing its potential danger. Then, we must recognize where we may be vulnerable. But the next, and perhaps most important step is illustrated by the Chinese finger trap.
What do you do to loosen the hold something has on you? What do you do to take away its power over you? There may be other ways to do it, but I think the key is: Giving it away
As we noted, giving brings freedom...or liberty... giving generously is even more freeing. There’s a liberty, a freedom, in liberality – liberality is giving with generosity. The Bible teaches that all money is God’s, all of it. If you believe that’s true, then these statistics will be troubling:
Cited: www.generousgiving.org
Between $1.54 trillion and $6.72 trillion in assets are in the hands of American evangelicals, not including the value of their primary homes. Researchers do not agree on an exact dollar amount.1
•In 2000, American evangelicals collectively made $2.66 trillion in income.
•Worldwide, Great Commission Christians have personal income totaling $6.8 trillion a year.
- Giving by North American churchgoers was higher during the Great Depression (3.3 percent of per capita income in 1933) than it was after a half-century of unprecedented prosperity (2.5 percent in 2004)
•Thirty-three percent of U.S. born-again Christians say it is impossible for them to get ahead in life because of the financial debt they have incurred.
•The average amount of money given by a full or confirmed member of a U.S. Christian church in 2004 was $691.93. This comes to an average of $13.31 per week.
•9% of American “born-again” adults tithed in 2004.
•Eighty percent of the world’s evangelical wealth is in North America—and the total represents way more than enough to fund the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Generally, the more money a person makes the less likely he is to tithe. (Barna Research Ltd.)
Only one-third to one-half of church members financially support their church. Contrast these figures with the often-heard example of John Wesley. He eventually got to the point in his life where he was a 90% giver. He set his lifestyle limit, and kept very little for himself, once he made more than he needed to maintain that standard of living. He took seriously the idea that all the money that you have is God’s money. Think about that:
- Haggai, the Prophet, chapter 2, verse 8, says, "The gold and the silver are mine, it’s all mine," God says, all of it is mine."
- Deuteronomy 8:17-18 confirms that, "But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth."
Everything is God’s and He gives you the ability to earn wealth. So whatever money or things you have, it came from God, He endowed you with it.
First Corinthians 4:7 says it this way, "What do you have that you did not receive?"
The answer to this rhetorical question is, of course, nothing.
James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above...”
Os Guiness notes that: God has the ultimate ownership, but we have stewardship of money, property and our time and talents. The resources of the earth are held in trust for a divine purpose. Thus our relationship to money and property may by custom or law be defined as ownership but is really a conditional form of trusteeship. In the true sense of the old English word steward, we are responsible for the prudent management of an estate that is not our own.
How do we break the power of money, and demonstrate who our master is?
Writer Jacques Ellul suggests this: (in book Money & Power)
He writes that we should Make money profane,that is, deliberately violate its claim to “sacredness.”
We do that, of course, by giving it away! After all, you don’t give away something that’s sacred. He says that in the world where money reigns, “giving is a suspicious, even traitorous, act. “
Guinness: For those of us who see the problem of money as excess, we are to give to get rid of the surplus wealth. For those of us who see the problem of money as idolatry, we are partly to give because in giving freely we decisively repudiate the power of money. But this is a secondary, not a primary motive. As the NT puts it, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” In other words, God loves a person so freed from the grip of Mammon as to thumb his nose at it and thus to give with a carefree abandon that is oblivious of its hold.
If we are to have any kind of attitude toward riches, I pray that it’s one that says:
- let the material blessings in my life count for the Kingdom,
- let us recognize we’re simply managers of what God owns.
- let our true “treasure be stored up in heaven...where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal...”
- let us experience the liberty of liberality. Pray
Song to close:
Things We Leave Behind – Michael Card
There sits Simon,
so foolishly wise
proudly he’s tending his nets
Then Jesus calls,
and the boats drift away
all that he owns he forgets
More than the nets
he abandoned that day,
he found that his pride was soon drifting away
It’s hard to imagine
the freedom we find
from the things we leave behind
Matthew was mindful
of taking the tax,
pressing the people to pay
Hearing the call,
he responded in faith
followed the Light and the Way
Leaving the people
so puzzled he found,
the greed in his heart
was no longer around and
it’s hard to imagine
the freedom we find
from the things
we leave behind
Every heart needs to be set free,
from possessions
that hold it so tight
’Cause freedom’s not found
in the things that we own,
It’s the power to do what is right
With Jesus, our only posession,
giving becomes our delight
We can’t imagine the freedom we find
from the things we leave behind
We show a love
for the world in our lives
by worshipping goods we possess
Jesus says lay all our treasures aside
"love God above all the rest"
’Cause when we say ’no’
to the things of the world
we open our hearts
to the love of the Lord and
its hard to imagine
the freedom we find
from the things we leave behind
Oh, and it’s hard to imagine
the freedom we find
from the things
we leave behind
