Money According to God, prt. 2
Series: Your Money Is Your Life, prt. 3
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
November 29, 2009
Two weeks ago I shared with you that there are 2,650 verses in the Bible that talk about money and possessions, and spent a little time going through them with you, looking at five differences between human attitudes about money and what appears to be God’s attitude. Last week I talked to you about God’s economy. I shared with you that as we move through these difficult financial times in our country, we need to remember that God is present and active in our lives, he is faithful to us, his intentions for us are good, and that the more we steep ourselves in this belief, the less anxiety and worry we will live with. Today I want to return to more of those 2,650 verses and more differences between human attitudes and God’s attitude about money, wealth, and possessions.
Here are the ones I shared with you two weeks ago:
Man’s Ways God’s Way
1.My view of money is none of God’s Your view of money is business pivotal to your spiritual life
2.All I have is mine All you have is mine
3.I must have more money You must manage what you have
4.I live for pleasure Practice sef-control
5.I love money Love me
A sixth difference between how we tend to think about money and how God thinks about it is that it is our tendency to spend it all, and God wants us to save for the future. Always find the middle path. Trusting in God does not mean living as if we’re not getting older. Properly managing our resources means facing the fact that one day we will retire and live on a more fixed income. It is good to have generous hearts and be reckless givers (in the positive sense I have talked about), but not saving for the future is reckless in the negative sense.
Proverbs 21:20 (NLT)
20 The wise have wealth and luxury, but fools spend whatever they get.
Proverbs 22:3 (NLT)
3 A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
A few years ago as Christy and I were struggling to get our financial house in order and get a handle on our finances, she asked the question, “How do you budget for things that creep up expectedly in life.” I said, “I’m glad you asked,” and showed her a spending category I had created called “Unexpected things.” We simply don’t know what is going to come at us. That’s why one of the first things we do is set aside $1000 for emergencies. If you do not have an emergency fund, you’re living hand to mouth, spending every dollar, then when your refrigerator breaks, how are you going to replace it? Chances are good you’ll march down to Home Depot, sign up for one of their credit cards, and walk out with your new refrigerator. You have solved one problem by creating another one that’s even bigger. If you make minimum payments on that $1000 refrigerator, at 20% interest, that refrigerator will take you 26.25 years to pay off and you will have paid $4083.81 for your $1000 refrigerator. Credit card companies make your monthly payments as small as legally allowed, because that keeps you paying interest to them for as long as possible. Without available cash on hand, what is your alternative? We can’t know what’s going to come at us in this life, but we can be certain that unexpected things are going to happen, and they will almost never happen the day you get your tax return and happen to have a little extra money sitting around. If we do not have money socked away to deal with those things, we will face two choices:
1.Do without. God doesn’t want you to do without your basic needs!
2.Dig our hole a little deeper. Bad idea.
Next, we tend to envy others, but God wants us to be content. Has that idea ever really sunk in? Think with me for a moment about the idea that God wants you to be content. Don’t think of it as a command from God, as God telling you what to do, think of as God’s desire for you. Now it is a command, but God’s commands to us spring from his desires for us. Last week we saw that God’s intentions toward us are good. God has good things for us, plans to give us hope and a future. And since God plans good things for us, and is fully capable of bringing about what he has planned, he therefore wants us to live free from constant craving, free of the feeling we’re missing out, free from a sense that if we only had this or that, or could go to this place or that, we’d be okay. God’s message to us is that we’re already okay – we already have what we most need, which is the constant presence of a God who is all-powerful, who loves us, and who desires good things for us. We are not different from the ancient people who wrote and read the words of scripture. Almost an entire Psalm is devoted to this, and it has some distinct movements to it. I want to give you samples from those movements.
Psalm 73:12–28 (NLT)
2 But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.
3 For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.
4 They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong.
5 They don’t have troubles like other people; they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else.
14 I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain.
17 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.
19 In an instant they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors.
21 Then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside.
22 I was so foolish and ignorant—I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.
23 Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth.
26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.
The Psalms were written in a time that saw constant wars, and many of the Psalms were written by a warrior, so notions of violence and destruction were just in his bones. That’s the way he saw the world. Our view of the world and of God, also, is deeply influenced by our times and the kind of society we live in.
So let’s look at the movements in this passage. First, here’s the writer griping that rich evil people get everything they want and kind of whining about it. Then in verse 14-16 he goes into this “Poor me, I’m so good and I have nothing” thing. In verses 17-20 he does this weird thing and starts kind of getting excited as he imagines all the terrible things that might happen to terrible people. He’s kind of having this fantasy. But then he has this incredible moment that gets right down to what you and I have to deal with every moment of every day. He says in verse 21, “Then I realized my heart was bitter.” Was it ever! And in the closing verses he writes these amazing words of praise.
Ever done that before? Have you ever thought that it really stinks that so and so has this and that and you don’t even have thus and such? Have you ever wondered why it seems like people who take the easy paths sometimes succeed and grow rich, and why you are stuck where you are trying to be honest? Have you ever found yourself slipping into visions of justice coming to other people who have more than you do? You know, I wonder if all of those people this Psalmist hates so much are even all that bad! After all, he admits his heart is bitter! Isn’t it easy to just find something wrong with people who have more than we do? We might say, “I’ll bet she slept her way to the top.” Or, “He probably wasn’t there for his family.” Or, “They are such total materialists.” I wonder if that’s a little of what the Psalmist was doing. For all we know, some of the people he had in mind and was praying destruction on were people who were seeking to honor God!
I’m conjecturing based on what I know about being human, but what we know for sure is that ultimately this person said, “I have a heart problem. There’s something wrong with me. I’ve been acting foolish, yet God, I belong to you and you are the strength of my heart.” Now THAT’S real religion, folks. That’s not the squeaky clean, “say your prayers or God will strike you down,” cheesy, ridiculous, caricature of religion we see in the movies. Nor is it a “The God of the Old Testament is a bloodthirsty sicko” theology we commonly see propagated by those who have a shallow understanding of what it means to be a person of faith. Here is a real person, struggling with real envy and anger, finding himself lost in notions of horrible things happening to other people, and then realizing the depth of his need for God. God wants us to have the contentment the Psalmist finds here. And I’ll bet anything that he had this same conversation with God a thousand times in his life. God wants us to keep bringing that to him, keep working that through, keep arriving at the place that says, “God, who have I in heaven but you? You are the strength of my heart.” That’s where peace is to be found – when we realize the evil envy and bitterness of our hearts and seek God in the midst of it.
Eighth, we tend to argue about money, but God wants us to agree in prayer.
Proverbs 15:16–17 (NLT)
16 Better to have little, with fear for the LORD,than to have great treasure and inner turmoil.
17 A bowl of vegetables with someone you loveis better than steak with someone you hate.
Relationships are so torn apart by arguments over money. Husbands and wives rarely see eye to eye on it and their differences drive them further and further away from what matters most, which is their love for one another and their desire to be companions and friends.
1 Peter 3:7 (TM)
7 The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.
1 Corinthians 1:10 (TM)
10 I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.
Acts 1:14 (TM)
14 [the disciples] agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included.
Money has power to tear relationships apart, not just between men and women, but between business partners, between parents and children, between friends. But pyer is a powerful force for bringing people together, and God’s desire is to see human beings united in prayer, not divided over money and the things it can buy.
Ninth, human beings are easily led into get-rich-quick schemes and gambling, but God wants us to steadily work hard.
Proverbs 22:26 (TM)
26 Don’t gamble on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,hocking your house against a lucky chance.
Proverbs 13:11 (NLT)
11 Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears;wealth from hard work grows over time.
Proverbs 28:19 (NCV)
19 Those who work their land will have plenty of food,but the ones who chase empty dreams instead will end up poor.
Proverbs 28:20 (TM)
20 Committed and persistent work pays off;get-rich-quick schemes are ripoffs.
Proverbs 28:22 (NLT)
22 Greedy people try to get rich quick but don’t realize they’re headed for poverty.
1 Timothy 6:9 (NCV)
9 Those who want to become rich bring temptation to themselves and are caught in a trap. They want many foolish and harmful things that ruin and destroy people.
There’s so much stuff there, and it speaks for itself. All I wish to say is that for those of you who wonder, “Does this mean I shouldn’t buy my weekly lottery ticket?” that is entirely a matter of conscience and up to you. You know if it’s a fun diversion or a dangerous dance you’ve got going there. If you truly don’t know, I’d recommend that you stop buying them and spend a few weeks in prayer about it. Seek God’s heart on it. Ask God to show you your heart and your motives and to give you a clear sense of what would be best for you. Ask that you will be drawn toward doing what is right, whatever that may be. And of course, you can always seek the counsel of others who are mature, clearheaded, and trustworthy.
Tenth and last for today, if we are not careful, we tend to approach money with grasping hands and a grudging heart, whereas God wants us to have generous hands and a grateful heart.
2 Corinthians 8:7 (TNIV)
7 But since you excel in everything…see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
Paul there refers to giving as a grace. Grace is God working in my life, so Paul is speaking about giving being a way that God works – brings his living presence – into our lives.
Proverbs 11:24 (NLT)
24 Give freely and become more wealthy;be stingy and lose everything.
I have to say I realize there are always those who are ready to suggest the church should never talk about giving. To that I would have three replies. First is that with 2,650 verses in scripture dealing with money and possessions, more than a few being directly about the importance of giving in the lives of those who want to be spiritually healthy, how could I reasonably ignore it? Second is that every major world religion focuses on giving and generosity as being of critical importance. Can you think of a religion that could justify making a virtue of greed, or that would not want to encourage frugality, simplicity, and generosity in its adherents? Of course not! To simply dismiss its importance out of hand, claiming we only talk about it to line the church’s pockets, is quite frankly naïve and uninformed. Third, people give to what they care about – whether it’s this church, NPR, PETA, the United Way, the Rotary, Habitat for Humanity, or Al Qaeda for that matter (BTW, whether or not you give to us, it would probably be virtuous not to give to Al Qaeda). The only people who would think we talk about money all the time are those who just started coming to church like a week or two ago, because the truth is that we very rarely discuss it.
Okay, enough on that.
Proverbs 28:27 (NLT)
27 Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to poverty will be cursed.
What I want to point out here is not the curse part, it’s the idea that those who give will lack nothing. Oftentimes we do not give out of fear that we won’t have what we need, but God’s promise to us is that it’s not like that.
Proverbs 19:17 (NLT)
17 If you help the poor, you are lending to the LORD—and he will repay you!
There are hundreds of verses like this in the Bible – and hundreds more in the guiding texts of other religions. In fact one of the clearest Biblical mandates we’ve been given is that we are to help the poor. I often wonder how it is that we manage to so easily overlook this as a guiding spiritual principle in our faith, and then I remember the answer: politics. Frankly the issue of helping the poor incites people into political discussions and since those nearly always end in stalemate, the idea that we are responsible to actually DO something sometimes gets lost. We think, since the government takes money out of my taxes to do that, am I already “covered,” or must I give more? (the “I paid at the door” argument.) Is it up to government or the individual? What if the poor person in front of me is clearly an alcoholic and will probably use my money to buy whiskey? What if he/she has been on that corner before and I suspect foul play? After all, I don’t want to reward those who are being deceitful. What if I’ve already helped this same person several times before? What if he/she is poor because they grossly mismanage their finances? What is my responsibility to them?
Let’s look at what we can be clear about. Though we see hundreds of exhortations in scripture to help the poor, we never once see any guidelines for what to do if they are poor because of their own irresponsibility. Or what to do if we think they might buy beer. Or what to do if we’ve helped them before. I think there’s a reason for this, and I don’t think the reason is that there were no irresponsible, alcoholic, or chronically poor poor people in Biblical times. I think those questions are not dealt with because they bring levels of complexity and complication to this picture that will simply not be there if a person cultivates a heart that loves to give, and stands ready to give as the need arises. Truly. The person who loves to give and gives joyously and with abandon, is giving because they trust in God to provide. They are coming to understand that they give not for the person they are giving to, but for themselves. They give not because other people need their money, but because they desperately need to get rid of it. They don’t get all bound up parsing out questions like, “What about alcoholism and chronic poverty and irresponsibility” because giving is already starting to teach them that this whole journey is about trust in God – that we cannot control outcomes, that we are not responsible for every detail, and that
Galatians 5:6 (TNIV)
…The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Those questions leave us riddled with burdens we simply do not have to carry. What’s more, they create lots of wiggle room for those of us who are struggling with giving in the first place and really would love to find what seems like good reasons not to. That kind of striving and trying to control outcomes lies outside of the freedom and lightness we can experience as God increasingly takes our lives up into his life!
This concludes our series called Your Money Is Your Life. We have taken a brief look at God’s thoughts about money, as well as what it takes to live with financial courage. Notice I have not talked about giving to this church. I have not addressed what is commonly called tithing. I have not talked about this church’s financial condition, our needs, our future, our financial dreams, or anything of that nature. We’re having a meeting next Sunday after church, and we’re going to talk about some of that stuff. It will be an exciting thing to be part of, and I hope you will plan on attending. There will be childcare for babies in the nursery, but older kids will need to stay with their parents. You are all invited to that meeting and we recommend that everyone who cares about Wildwind and wants to see our church move forward attend if you can. It will be about 30 minutes.
Next week we will continue on with the financial theme a little bit, but move into something new. We’re starting a new series called The Advent Conspiracy, and we’re going to spend a few weeks leading into Christmas focusing on how we can do Christmas with maximum generosity as families and as a church. Every season the church complains about commercialism and talks about celebrating Christmas in the spirit of Jesus, but we almost never talk about actually changing our spending, buying, or giving habits. After what we’ve been talking about the past few weeks, can that possibly Last week we sent 154 boxes to Operation Christmas Child! I know that’s just scratching the surface of what this church can do, and we’re going to be giving you an opportunity to get in on doing something that Jason and I are really excited about. Here’s a quick preview of the Advent Conspiracy.
