In God We Trust
Luke 18:18
Everyone wants to be free of debt. Until we are, we can’t be free to give generously. Today we are starting a new series called “Money Matters.” We will hear the challenge to experience God’s goodness by our own disciplined living and trusting God’s ability to provide through every circumstance. It is not God’s will that we be in debt. It is for freedom that Christ died on the cross so that we might have liberation in every part of our lives. However, there are many parts of our lives which we have surrendered to Jesus and experienced transformation. But what most experts have found in personal finance is that when it comes to financial matters, the average turnaround time is 7 years which means it’s not enough for just a short period of time to commit yourself to these financial disciplines. These have to be lifelong decisions. You are only going to experience financial freedom if these disciplines become a lifestyle rather than a short term decision. Freedom comes through cooperating and working with God in the act of liberation.
In 2006, the average American was spending a $1.22 for every dollar they earned. The average outstanding credit card debt for households that have a credit card was $10,679 at the end of 2008. One year earlier, that average was $10,637. Today we’re going to talk about establishing the first step in financial freedom and that starts with establishing a trust with God. Believing in God and trusting in God are two totally different things. Most people believe in God but very few trust God with their financial matters. In our Scripture today, we have one of those people, a young man who is a member of the wealthy elite. He may very well have been a trust fund baby. Now not everything he does is bad. In fact, he starts off on the right path. The first thing he does is ask the right kind of question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Second, he’s asking the big God questions of Jesus, God’s son, for the answer. So he’s headed in the right direction for answers. So this man is asking the right kind of questions, he’s going to the right source for the answers and he’s committed to moral Biblical living.
Now Jesus says to him in the 22nd verse that there’s still an area of your life which is holding you back, which is binding you and where you are not experiencing freedom and the fullness life that God has in store for you. Alot of us are saved, but we have areas of our lives where God is not working in his full entirety. We have things that we haven’t given over to God, habits we are still holding onto and ways of thinking we haven’t released to the healing power of God. Isn’t it interesting that this young man is wealthy and has more than he’ll ever need and yet he’s bound in his finances? You can be rich in the world but poor in faith. Now this is what Jesus says, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." In other words, release all that you are and all that you have to God’s purpose and give to the poor. As long was we are holding onto things in our lives, we’re limiting what God can do. There’s a lesson here: we have power with God when we make our resources available to Him. When Jesus is saying “you will have treasure in heaven”, he’s talking about a permanent investment portfolio. Following Jesus is all about faith. And the primary way we demonstrate our trust in God is with our money. For Jesus says, “where your money is, there will be your heart also.”
This is more than the young man can bear. He’s so bound that he cannot let go and so he walks away sad. And Jesus turns to the disciples and says, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When we hear this, we think of people like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or Tom Benson but Jesus is talking about us too. Why? I’m a wealthy person and you’re a wealthy person, because if your household income is more than $35,000 a year, you’re in the top 1% of wealthy in the world. Why is it hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom? Because we depend on our security from our money and possessions. We get comfortable in our material possessions instead of turning to God for our security.
The second point Jesus makes is the kingdom of God. Where is the kingdom of God? It’s not in heaven, it’s where God has your permission and cooperation to work most fully in your life. Jesus is saying that if you want financial freedom, it begins first with you and that starts in your money thinking. Now our culture defines life in terms of the abundance of our things. How many of you get catalogs sent your house? We get a lot. We used to get a lot more till I started canceling them. Well, the other day, I get a golf catalogue in and on the front it says, “Once in a lifetime super sale. Up to 70% off.” Giovanna’s in the living room watching TV and so I just start to take a peek. And I’m looking through the pages and all of the discounts and I see this I’d like to have and I see that I’d like to have and before long, I have a list of things I want to buy. And then it suddenly hits me: I don’t need a single thing. I don’t need any more golf shirts. I don’t need any more clubs. I don’t need golf balls but here I was shopping for the last 20 minutes as if I didn’t have anything golf related. That’s the impact of living in a consumer culture: it’s a continuous push to accumulate. Our culture defines life and happiness in terms of the abundance of things. And this is in direct contradiction to the mind and desires of God for us. And it moves us to the bigger barn syndrome, one reason the average home has grown from 1600 to 2500 sq ft
Jesus tells the story of a farmer who had an abundant yield of his crops and it creates a huge problem. The cop is so abundant that he doesn’t have enough room in his barn to store it all. And so he decides he’s going to build a bigger barn to store everything. Here’s the mistake we make: first, we fail to recognize the source of our blessing. All blessings come from the hand of God. And we fail to recognize the purpose of our blessing which is for those in need and the poor. We are blessed to be a blessing. What happens is that we continue to accumulate stuff, stuff we never use, stuff we don’t need and stuff we don’t know what to do with. This whole mentality has created an industry called storage facilities. It’s embarrassing that people have so much stuff that they’re not only paying house note or rent for where they live but also for all the stuff they own but don’t have space or use for. That’s called stock piling things here on earth and Jesus says, you fool, you die and you can’t take it with you. You never see a hearse pulling a U Haul. And so when you die, it becomes your children’s stockpile.
Jesus calls us to change our way of thinking from everything is about what we have or accumulate today to everything we can accumulate for eternity. Jesus wants us to live from a perspective of eternity. The key is to release everything you have to God and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven that will never fail. What is treasure in heaven? It’s part of your net worth. There are two kinds of net worth you should be developing all the time. The first is temporary net worth. That’s your 401K, your stocks, your retirement plan. The second is your spiritual net worth which is increased by any giving I do here on earth. And just as we are to be contributing to our temporary net worth, you should also be contributing to your eternal net worth and you do that through giving. Whatever I keep is temporary but whatever I give is eternal. Whatever I give today is permanent. Now we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ but just because you are going to heaven, doesn’t mean you can’t live like you’re going to hell. We are equally saved by faith in Jesus Christ but we will not all receive an equal reward. We’ re going to be rewarded in heaven by what we have invested in our heavenly portfolio. Jesus said, “The Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with angels and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” The word reward literally means paycheck or return on your investment. And if you say, my finances are so messed up that I can’t afford to give. I’d say you can’t afford not to give. Everything I give is permanent in terms of my reward in heaven.
It is not enough to know God’s laws for financial freedom. We must act in faith and demonstrate trust in our money practices. Here’s the first commitment of financial freedom: sacrificial giving. It is harder for a wealthy person to enter into the full purpose and provision of God. Peter responds, "We have left all we had to follow you!" Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." These men left everything they had for the sake of the least, the last and the lost. Here’s what Jesus has to say to those who make this commitment: they will not fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life. Do you see the secret to financial freedom? When you are willing to give sacrificially, God will bless that. God will not only bless your temporary portfolio but your eternal portfolio as well. People who will not hold on but trust their money to the purposes of God will be blessed. This is what God calls for in the tithe which is giving the first 10% back to God. “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Mal 3:10 Some Christians ask whether Jesus wants us to tithe on the gross or the net. That’s a question of trust. Do you want to be blessed on the gross or the net? This is God’s challenge to test him and see if He can be trusted and the way we do that is through sacrificial giving. God calls us to do this and more for financial freedom and it all comes back to the principle of sowing and reaping. People will reap what they have sown.
The first key to financial freedom is building a trust with God through sacrificial giving. Thomas S. Monson shares a story which taught him that all of us can afford to pay tithing. The letter begins: “We live on the edge of a small town, and our neighbor uses our pasture for his cattle and as payment provides us with all the beef we want. Each time we get new meat, we have some of the present supply left over; and since we live in a student ward, we take meat to some students we feel might have use for some good beef. “My wife had always prayed to know which students might need our help with our excess meat. When she told me she felt we should give some meat to Jack and his wife and their 8 kids, I was very concerned that we might offend them. So was she. We both were worried because they were a very independent family.
“A few days later, my wife said she still felt we should take the meat to them, and I reluctantly agreed to go along. When we delivered the meat, my wife’s hands were actually shaking, and I was very nervous. The children opened the door, and when they heard why we were there, they began dancing around. The parents were reserved but pleasant. When we drove away, my wife and I both were so relieved and happy that they had accepted our gift. “A few months later our friend Jack got up in testimony meeting and related the following. He said that all his life he had had a hard time paying tithing. With such a large family, they used all the money he made just to get by. When he became a church leader, he saw all the other people paying tithing and felt he needed to also. He did so for a couple of months, and all was well. Then one month he had a problem. In his job, he completed work and was paid a few months later. He could see that the family was going to be far short of money. He and his wife decided to share the problem with their children. If they paid their tithing, they would run out of food on about the 20th of the month. If they didn’t pay their tithing, they could buy enough food to last until the next paycheck. Jack said he wanted to buy [the] food, but the children said they wanted to pay their tithe-so Jack paid the tithe, and they all prayed. “A few days after paying their tithe, we had shown up with our package of meat for them. With the meat, added to what they had, there was no problem having enough food until the next paycheck.
