Money
Part 8 in series
Relating to God: What We Can Learn About God Through Our Closest Relationships On Earth
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
March 28, 2009
I haven’t talked to you about money since January of 2008! It has been a long time. But as I was thinking about this series we’re in, where we’re trying to see what we can learn about God by looking at various aspects of close human relationships, I realized that this might be the best possible way to talk to you about money. I also realized that in this series it would almost be a crime not to talk about money. Because we’re talking about relationships.
See, 50% of marriages in this country end in divorce, and a huge number of those divorces occur because of arguments about money. My guess is that there are a fair number of couples in this room who had an argument about money in this past week. And for some portion of those who didn’t, it wasn’t because they agree on money so much, but rather because the ice hadn’t really thawed yet from your last argument about money and you’re not really back to speaking to each other much yet.
For some of those couples who didn’t argue about money, I would guess there were many who stressed out about it – maybe a lot. For those who didn’t stress out about it, I’ll bet you made some plans this past week where money was crucial, and you were either depressed because you didn’t have enough to do what you wanted to do, or perhaps surprised or ecstatic that you did. And in case I haven’t covered everybody yet, some of you this week had a conversation with your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc., about money where there either was or was not some amount of tension. To be in a close relationship with a human being is to be in a particular kind of relationship with money. That’s why I think we absolutely have to hit this topic as we close out this series today. Money is huge.
In fact money is sexy. And money is romantic. Trips to Paris and Italy. Nights in Las Vegas. Cars that are fun to drive. Nights at the movies with the person we love most. Cruises. All of this and more, delivered compliments of sexy, romantic, money. But do you know what isn’t sexy at all? Money management! As sexy as it is to think about coffee under the Eiffel Tower, or an evening spent over dinner and a movie, it totally drains the fun out when we start asking ourselves the question, “How am I going to budget for this? How will I pay for it? Where will the money come from? How can I do this and still meet my basic needs for survival?” Money can be sexy. Money management never is.
Now I’m not going to preach a sermon on money management tonight, all I’m trying to say is that we can’t leave money out of any serious discussion about relationships. And I really believe that we stand to learn more about God on this topic of money than perhaps anything else we’ve talked about, because I believe more of us are living in denial and illusion about money as it relates to God than about practically anything else.
So let’s start by getting our heads around what matters most. I’ve already said money is absolutely, positively a major player in every serious relationship. If you dismiss money, if you think money doesn’t matter in a relationship, you are headed for relational Nagasaki. You will soon see that money and how you handle it will be a determining factor either in your happiness, or in your misery. I’m not going to stand here and say that money is what makes every single bad relationship bad, but I can say with some measure of confidence that no good relationship is good unless a couple has figured out a peaceful way to manage their money. In other words money isn’t always the door to unhappiness, but if you’re happy in your relationship, you have probably at some point walked through a door called “Money and How to Manage It.”
This is because money is connected to your soul. Money is not just a thing, but it is the thing that grants you access to nearly all other things. If you live inside instead of outside, that’s because of money. If you ate a bologna sandwich instead of a roasting a stray cat for lunch today, that’s because of money. If you drove a car here instead of walking, that’s because of money. If you’re wearing pants right now instead of a giant leaf, that’s because of money. If you talk on a phone to communicate instead of sending smoke signals, that’s because of money. If you’re going to dinner or a movie tonight for fun, that’s because of money. Or maybe you don’t have money for dinner and a movie, so you’ll just play cards instead. The cards are compliments of money. Money is connected to your soul. Money delivers the things you need to survive, and so much of what you want to enjoy. Think of money not so much as a thing, but as a power, and you’re starting to get it.
Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:12 (NCV)
12 Our fight is not against people on earth but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly world.
Money is a power, for by it you are granted access to the things of this world. Further proof that money is a power comes from the fact that money cannot grant you access to any of the things of the spiritual world. Money, though it can be used for good, is a power that opens for you the door to the things of the material world. A world that, if you are a Christian, you claim is on the way out, will be short-lived, and will one day fade into eternity.
Matthew 6:21 (NIV)
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Money is a power. It will determine your emotions and attachments and connections to things and people. You will care most for the things you spend money on. You will tend to disregard things that have no monetary cost and view them as without value.
So I’ve said that money is a major player in relationships and that it is connected to your soul. BTW, what’s the other major cause of divorce? Adultery. Sex, too, is a power and is directly connected to your soul. I don’t have time to go into that, but it’s worth thinking about.
Now I have laid the groundwork for the main point I want to make about money in human relationships. I want you to imagine an engaged couple , talking about their future. They are sharing their hopes and dreams. And at one point, one says to the other, “Sweetheart, I love you with my life. As long as we are together, I will serve you with selfless love, but you are not welcome to ask me about money. You cannot have any of it, you have no right to know what I am doing with my money, and if you ever bring it up to me I will remind you that it is mine, and ask you to leave me alone. But I love you and everything I have is yours. Forever and always. Except my money.”
How will the person feel who hears something like this? Well if they have any sense, any basic wisdom, they will realize that either they are being lied to, or else the other person is just clueless about life. You cannot love a person and refuse them access to your money. Even couples that have determined to have separate checking accounts (which I do not recommend, and if you’re curious why you can email me and I’ll let you know!) determine together who will do what, and what the responsibilities will be for each. They talk about it. They are earning money together and deciding together what happens to it – they’re just paying different things from different places, right? We all realize, intuitively, that there is no love in a relationship where money is not discussed, shared, and even sacrificed for one another.
Now let’s talk about God, shall we? Remember that at the beginning of this series I made it clear that although God is not human, he is a person. A person is just a being with personality, so God is a person! And a moment ago I said that you cannot love a person and refuse to grant them access to your money. The only conclusion we can form from that is that you cannot love God and refuse to grant him access to your money.
As I said at the beginning of this message, there is perhaps no area of human life where we violate a basic relational principle more than in the area of how we relate financially to God. We realize that an intimate relationship with another human being depends on 1) a commitment to financial openness and sharing; and 2) willingness to give and even sacrifice. Yet somehow, huge numbers of people think that this does not matter in a relationship with God. Some would say, “But Dave, that’s different. God does not NEED our money – whereas people do.” Does that hold up? Does that really change anything? Let’s look at it.
Imagine that young couple again. So in love. One fairly well off. One without much money at all. And the one without money says to the one who is well off, “I love you, but you obviously have plenty of money and do not need mine. So you use your own money for your stuff and let’s leave that whole money thing out of this.” Does that sound better? Does the well-off partner have a right to feel like, “Wait, I thought this was going to be a partnership”? Maybe the one with money might even say back, “Okay, if that’s how you want it, then you make due on your $20,000, and I’ll make due on my $200,000. Don’t ask me for anything. Oh, and I have this prenup here for you to sign.”
Doesn’t really change anything when one person has money, does it? Why not? Because we understand that money is connected to the soul. The one who is unwilling to share their money is unwilling to live in a fully connected, trusting, intimate relationship, and yes – what I’m saying is that things such as prenuptial agreements will actually bring about the dissolution of the relationship in most cases. Such an arrangement will usually show that the trust and connection upon which lasting relationships are built are fundamentally missing, and there is no intent to put those things in place, so there is really no future for a couple like this.
Yet we often go into a relationship with God with kind of a divine prenup in place. Of course because our expectations are so often unspoken, we may not call it that or realize it, but that’s what it is. And it shows in our behavior. It shows in how we use money and how we cling to it. And it may even show in the way we obsessively budget it. We’re mistaken if we think the way to avoid falling in love with money is to budget it and manage it carefully. We can be just as in love with money when we are over-careful with it as when we spend it lavishly. The lavish person demonstrates love for money by buying up all the things money can buy. The over-careful person demonstrates love for it by lusting after seeing every higher amounts rack up in that checkbook. They meticulously control every expense. Which of course means that if they see someone in need and don’t have the money set aside to respond, they can then justify not helping someone in need – after all, it’s not in the budget.
This shows how true it is that money is a power. It is controlling us when we can’t stop spending it, and it is controlling us when we can’t stop managing it and hoarding it. That is why giving is the only solution to this. When we decide to give to God, we begin to chip away at our tendency to buy up material things by directing our money in ways that make fewer material things available. And we chip away at our tendency to meticulously manage and hoard it by giving it away – not simply what’s in the budget, but in a spirit that is willing to respond to need where need is there.
1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV)
10 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.
We read this and think, “It’s not money, but rather the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil.” Whew, that was a close one! The problem is that it’s a lot harder to avoid the love of money than we would at first think.
So let’s look at one more thing we often see in the way we relate to money spiritually that totally doesn’t make sense if we think about it in any other relationship. I call it set it and forget it. What if I said to Christy, “I’ll give you 1/10th.” That in itself would be an issue wouldn’t it? And it’s not the number itself that’s the point – it’s even setting a number in the first place. Whether I go to her and say, “I’ll give you 1/10th, or I say, “You can have 90%, but I’m keeping the other 10% for myself” the problem is that that isn’t relational. In both cases I have chosen to just toss money her way and hope it’s enough for her, rather than entering with her into relationship, partnership, and connection, and saying, “Sweetheart, EVERYTHING I have is yours.” Now within the context of my RELATIONSHIP with Christy, we may decide together that a certain amount of our money will be just hers and a certain amount will be just mine. But we’ve decided together – in the relationship. I haven’t just unilaterally, in fear and mistrust, determined that I’ll keep X amount. That is fundamentally not a relational thing to do!
You probably know what I’m going to say. We do that with God all the time. “Well God, I’m giving you X amount – that’ll have to do.” We budget for it, get it automated with our bank, and then forget about it, as if that’s the end of the story. But it’s not! See, even though Christy and I have decided that we each get a certain portion of the family money that is just ours, there is still give and take there. Sometimes I have a week where I’m working a lot and my expenses for eating out are huge and I go into debt. As we’re managing our money, Christy may decide that she’d like to find the money in our budget to cover me on that and bring me current – or maybe even cover the debt and put in another $20, just because she wants to be helpful. I may do the same for her. In other words, we have ideas about what ballpark is, but money is connected to the soul. Can I see Christy struggling one week and not be moved to help if there’s some way we can do that? Of course not – to refuse to do that would be to not love her! But is it okay for me to routinely say, “I can spend whatever I want – I know Christy will cover me?” Of course not. That’s manipulative and wrong.
But don’t we do this with God? Don’t we say, “I’ve set aside my 10% (or whatever) God – now that’s it for you.” Then when a need comes to our attention, we can so easily just dismiss it because we feel we’re meeting our end of the bargain – staying on track with our percentage. What would be the relational thing to do? The relational thing would be to say, “Here’s this need someone has, and God has given me what I have so that I can be his hands and his feet in the lives of other people. I don’t want a need to go unmet if I can have any role in meeting it,” and so we look at where we are and do what we can. We don’t burden ourselves with guilt for not being able to meet the whole need. But here’s the huge thing. If we love God, we have hearts that WANT to be part of the solution – we make ways to do extra things. That’s what love does. We don’t presume on God’s goodness and hoard his money for ourselves. But neither do we assume that God is sitting in heaven ruthlessly demanding his cut, regardless of our circumstances. After all, this is a relationship, and God loves us too!
This is tough to navigate! We’re in a relationship here. There are no formulas. We set aside a certain amount for God as our commitment to him, but that’s only valuable unless we truly understand that God owns the whole thing! And if we truly understand that, then we will be always looking for ways that God’s people are suffering and helping out where we can. In this area we are almost always too easy or too hard on ourselves. That is why we need to be part of a community of people who understand the powerful pull of money, are seeking to be free from this, and are learning to live with God, like the people closest to us, in a loving and committed relationship where our financial habits naturally reflect our commitment and love.
And with that, I bring this series to a close, for now. I will pick it up again on Mother’s Day. I will spend the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day examining things we can learn about God from the experiences we have as parents. Just like you did not need to be married to learn from the current series, you will not need to be a parent to learn from that one – I assure you. Next week your new pastor, Jason Kotarski, will be preaching and I’m excited about what Jason is putting together.
In the meantime, I hope you will think deeply about your financial life and God. I thought deeply about it and one thing I decided as a result was to not pass out pledge cards to you. I want you to think deeply and decide what you need to be doing to move money out of your life as a god. Some of you don’t give to God at all, and I hope you will make that commitment (email me if you want to). Some of you have your giving automated through your bank (like me) and never even think about it. But what does it mean to approach money relationally with God and how should that be affecting your use of money even if you’re already giving? Some of you maybe need to lighten up on yourselves a little because maybe God wants you to experience his grace as you work to right past financial wrongs. Remember, it’s a relationship. Relationships don’t work well on formulas, but they always work well on respect, love, commitment, grace, and sacrifice. Let’s pray.
