Introduction:
A. Several years ago, a Madison Avenue advertising agency surveyed non-church-going people and asked them their impressions of church.
1. Here is a summary of what the respondents said, “The problem with church is that the people are always sad, or they talk about death, or they ask for money.”
B. There is a classic joke goes something like this:
1. A mother of a young boy calls to her husband hysterically, “Henry, quick call the doctor, Johnny just swallowed a coin.”
2. Henry replies, “I think we should call the preacher rather than the doctor.”
3. His wife asks, “Why call the preacher?”
4. Henry replies, “The preacher can get money out of anybody!”
C. In response to these prevailing attitudes about churches, many churches today are upbeat, they don’t say much about death, and they rarely broach the offensive subject of money.
1. If you have been around Wetzel Road very long, then you know that we don’t talk about money all the time, but we do talk about it, because we are people of the Book, and the Bible talks about money a whole lot.
2. Because of the dangers and challenges inherent in money and in human nature, Jesus talked about money more than any other single topic.
3. So for that reason, without apology, I want us to spend four sermons exploring what the Bible has to say about money and how to use it.
4. I’m calling the series “Spiritual Dollars and Sense.”
5. We will be looking at what the Bible says about earning, spending, borrowing, saving and giving.
D. By way of introduction, let me share three common ideas or approaches to money that have been taught in Christian circles - two of the approaches have led to confusion and incorrect conclusions.
1. Some people have been taught what we might call Poverty Theology.
a. People who believe or teach this theology say that we should hate material things and that it is wrong to have money or material possessions.
b. They teach that poverty and spirituality are one and the same.
c. I do not believe that this is what the Bible teaches.
2. At the opposite extreme are those who have been taught the Prosperity Theology.
a. They believe that God promises that all who truly believe and obey will be blessed with riches. “God wants you to be a millionaire!”
b. This is often called the “health and wealth gospel” and it is pedaled by many TV preachers.
c. They say to their viewers, “Send your money and God will reward you.”
d. They promise, “The more money you give, the more money you will receive.”
e. Unfortunately for many, the only one who gets rich is the TV preacher with his mansion, private jet, and Rolls Royce.
f. I do not believe that the Bible teaches a prosperity theology.
3. In our series, we will be working toward what I could call Proper Theology.
a. What we will discover is that the proper way to view our possessions is that they have been entrusted to us by God and that we are given the responsibility for managing them.
b. We will discover that ultimately, God is the owner of everything, so why not start there
I. Everything Belongs to God.
A. God is the maker of heaven and earth, and therefore He is the owner of heaven and earth, right?
1. There is hardly anything more clear in the Bible than God’s absolute right to everything.
2. To Job, God declares, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” (Job 41:11)
3. Psalm 24:1 reads, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”
4. Haggai 2:8 reads, “The silver is mine and the gold is mine; declares the Lord.”
5. In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul is trying to make the point that none of us should take pride in ourselves or boast about what we have accomplished, for this reason, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
B. Therefore, we must understand that everything originates with God and is from God.
1. Everything is His and He distributes things as He has decided.
2. Don’t you think this should help us to have a humble disposition and to be less possessive and less anxious about the things we have received?
3. God’s ownership of everything also changes the kind of questions we should ask about giving.
4. Rather than asking, “How much of my money should I give to God?” we should learn to ask, “How much of God’s money should I keep for myself?”
5. We will get into the Bible’s teaching on giving in a later lesson.
6. For now, I want us to understand and appreciate the fact that everything belongs to God.
II. God Gives the Ability to Earn Money
A. Rather than teach that it is wrong to have money, the Bible actually teaches that God gives us the ability to earn an income.
1. In the passage that we read for the Scripture Reading from Deuteronomy 8, we see that God was reminding the Israelites not to forget Him, nor to forget that it is God who has not only given them what they have, but also the ability to get more.
2. In verse 18, they are told, “But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” (Deut. 8:18)
B. Additionally, not only does God give us the ability to earn an income, the Bible teaches that God expects us to do so.
1. Proverbs 14:23 reads, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
a. We’ve all known some talkers who never get around to working and earning a living.
2. Look at Paul’s instructions to the Christians in Thessalonica, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)
3. When Paul wrote his second letter to the Thessalonians, he added these words about work, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’ We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.“ (2 Thess. 3:6-12)
4. Let’s add to that what Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
5. Let’s look at one more example from Ephesians 4:28, “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.”
C. From all of these verses, we learn that God expects that each of us will use the abilities that He has given us to earn a living.
1. Every able bodied and able minded person should work.
2. Those who are disabled must do all they can to receive the help available to them.
3. With the money we earn we will provide for our families, relatives, and help those in need.
4. We will, therefore, not be dependent on anyone else, and we will win the respect of outsiders.
5. As I have said in other lessons, I believe that God’s people should be the most sought after employees in the world.
6. Because of our commitment to God, who is our ultimate boss, we should be the most honest, hardworking employees, who get along with others better than anyone.
7. All of this will bring glory to God.
D. So, let’s review what we have concluded so far: #1 – God owns everything, and #2 – God gives us the ability to work and to earn an income.
III. Keep Money in the Proper Perspective.
A. The truth of the matter is that money is necessary for life in this world, but money must not be allowed to take over our lives.
1. Even though money, in essence, is just a medium of exchange, it can become our god.
2. There is a very real dark side to money that God warns us about repeatedly in Scripture.
3. For instance, Jesus said, “No servant 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.” (Luke 16:13)
4. Jesus made this shocking statement on another occasion, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, 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.” (Mt. 19:23-24)
5. Paul gave us this warning, “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.” (1 Timothy 6:9,10)
B. But, why is it that money can have such power over us and our souls?
1. If you think about it, money has many of the characteristics that we attribute to deity.
2. Money can carry with it security, freedom, and power.
3. Money encourages self-sufficiency and selfishness.
4. Also, when a person pursues money as the primary thing, it is an insatiable desire.
5. Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.”
C. One truth that we have to keep at the forefront of our thinking is that “God is our God, and that He is the source of our security and happiness, not money.”
1. It is so easy to think that money is the key to life.
2. It is so easy to think that if we just had enough money then we wouldn’t have to worry, we could just enjoy life, and do the things we have always wanted to do. And then we would have no problems.
3. Ray Stedman was one of the foremost biblical expositors of the twentieth century.
a. He ministered in Hollywood, Florida, the so-called “gold coast” of Florida.
b. He said, “Every morning I taught the Scriptures to a crowd of 500 or more people who represented well over a billion dollars’ worth of accumulated wealth…I found that most of them, by their own testimony, though they had all the money to buy anything they wanted, had arrived at the place where they were suffering from what someone has so aptly called ‘destination sickness’ – the malady of having everything that you want, but not wanting anything you have, and being sick and empty and lonely and miserable because you can do anything you want to do.” (Quote from “The Money Trap” by Jeff Strite, SermonCentral)
D. Many people would love the chance to prove that money can’t make them happy.
1. Very sadly, we see the truth of that lived out week after week, and year after year, as we watch the rich and famous struggle with everyday life.
2. We watch as they are destroyed by their fame and fortune, or they find that fame and fortune don’t lead to happiness.
3. Some of the recent names that come to mind include: Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan, Heath Ledger, Mindy McCready and Robin Williams.
E. There are countless stories of big lottery winners who ended up in far worse shape than they were before they hit it big.
1. Like Buddy Post, a former carnival worker and cook who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery.
a. Since he won the money, he has been convicted of assault, his sixth wife has left him, and his brother was convicted of trying to kill him to get the money.
b. The gas has been turned off to the crumbling mansion he bought, and he feels lucky to have electricity and a telephone.
2. A couple from Texas named Lynette and Jimmy Nichols won about $16 million from lotto.
a. The big money exposed the 12-year-old marriage’s existing fault lines and created several new ones.
b. For several years they have been engulfed in a bitter divorce court battle over how much money each of them would get.
c. Mrs. Nichols said, “(After the money) We had about one month of good times…and about three years of misery…(the money) was a curse. It didn’t help at all.”
d. Mr. Nichols added his view, “More bad than good has come out of it so far.”
F. The very first person in our country to reach the status of billionaire was a man who knew how to set goals and reach them.
1. At the age of 23, he had become a millionaire, and by the age of 50 a billionaire.
2. Three years later, at the age of 53, he became very ill.
3. His entire body became racked with pain, and he lost all his hair on his head.
4. In complete agony, he could only digest milk and crackers, even though he could buy anything he wanted.
5. As associate wrote, “He could not sleep, would not smile and nothing in life meant anything to him.”
6. His doctors predicted that he would die within a year.
7. As he awaited his death, he awoke one morning with a vague remembrance of a dream.
8. He could barely recall the dream, but he knew it had something to do with not being able to take any of his successes or riches with him into the next world.
9. He called his attorneys, accountants, and managers and announced that he wanted to channel his assets to hospitals, research, and mission work.
10. On that day, John D. Rockefeller established his foundation.
11. The list of discoveries and the good resulting from his choice is enormous.
12. But perhaps the most amazing part of Rockefeller’s story is that his decision to change his approach to his fortune saved his own life.
13. He went from a man about to die at age 54, to a man who lived to be 98 years old.
14. Truly, money must be kept in proper perspective.
Conclusion:
A. There is so much for us to learn from God about money and its use.
1. First and foremost, we need to learn that God owns everything. It’s not ours. It is God’s.
2. Second, we need to learn that God gives us the ability to earn money and make a living and He expects us to do so.
3. Third, we need to learn that the pursuit of money must be kept in proper perspective.
B. There are a lot of good things that money can be used for, but there are a lot of things that money cannot do.
1. The most valuable things in life cannot be bought with money.
2. Money can’t buy happiness. Money can’t buy peace. Money can’t buy love. (Sounds like it would make a good song…oh, wait, the Beatles already made that a big hit.)
3. Money won’t produce the ideal mate or fix a troubled marriage.
4. It certainly won’t buy heaven, but it can sometimes purchase a corner of hell on Earth.
5. Let’s learn to value the things that money cannot buy.
C. What we will be working toward in this short series is a Spiritual perspective on money.
1. We will be looking to God to help us develop financial self-control, contentment, and unselfishness.
2. With God’s help we can learn to work hard and work well, and then enjoy the fruit of our labor. (There is nothing wrong with that.)
3. And with God’s help, we can learn to glorify God, expand His kingdom, and help others with the resources God places in our hands.
4. Let’s learn some Spiritual Dollars and Sense.
