Title: Guardrail From Greed
Place: BLCC
Date: 10/22/17
Text: Matthew 6.24, 6.31-33
CT: God wants your heart not your money.
[Screen 1]
Zogby recently conducted a large benchmark poll in which respondents identified "greed/materialism" as the number one "most urgent problem in American culture." "Poverty/economic justice" finished in second place. In a 2014 Vanity Fair poll, 78 percent of Americans disagreed with the famous Gordon Gekko quote "Greed is good." Only 19 percent agreed. A recent poll of Economist readers asked "What is the deadliest sin?" and, greed ranked number one.
But, surprisingly, although everyone thinks greed is a terrible problem, most people don't think they are greedy. When the BBC conducted a poll on the seven deadly sins (anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride and sloth), greed was last on the list in answer to two questions: Which sin have you ever committed? and Which sin have you committed in the past month? Plenty of Brits copped to being lazy, proud, envious and angry. But greedy? Seventh out of seven, last on the list.
Tim Keller, argues "even though it is clear that the world is filled with greed and materialism, almost no one thinks it is true of them … Greed hides itself from the victim."
Adapted from Ted Scofield, "Everybody Else's Problem, Pt. 2," Mockingbird blog (7-28-15)
LS: Are you greedy? Most all of us would say no. But when we see how God looks at it we may see it a bit different.
We have been doing a study on guardrails in our Sunday school class. Guardrails are important. They keep us from going too far and being hurt. We are familiar with the guardrails on the roads but what about in our lives. We need guardrails to keep us from going too far in our morality, our finances and any other aspect of our life. A guardrail is a personal boundary that stops us from going too far.
The thing is culture baits us to go as far as we want to and then chastises and punishes us when we go too far. Most of our regrets come from sex or money. When people come to me for help it is usually about sex or money. Today I am going to deal with money. [Screen 2]
Have you ever heard someone say the church just wants your money? They ignore what the Bible has to say about money. The reason the Bible speaks so much about money has nothing to do with money. It has to do with your devotion. God’s chief competition for your heart is not the Devil. You don’t sit at home at night wondering if you should worship Satan or God. I hope not. If you do we need to talk.
No, the real struggle is do I surrender myself to Him. Or do I depend on my own wealth and knowledge to get me through. Lets look at what Jesus has to say about this in the Sermon on the Mount. [Screen 3]
Matthew 6.24, “No one can serve two masters. [Screen 4] Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. [Screen 5] You cannot serve both God and money.
There is a tension here. God wants you and he knows his greatest competition is your money or your stuff. You cannot have two masters. Oh I know you may think you don’t have a master but you do. God is the master you need but stuff gets in the way if we are not careful.
How much would it take for us to have enough money? Remarkably, studies show that most people, regardless of income, answer the question the same way: We need about 10% more to feel comfortable. Ten percent will make a difference, and whether we earn $30,000 per year or $60,000 or $250,000 or a cool million, just 10% more is what we want.
When people are asked the same question over time, Professor Christopher Kaczor reports "when they do get that 10%, which typically happens over the course of a few years, they want just another 10%, and so on, ad infinitum." This reality prompted British psychoanalyst Joan Riviere to make the following observation: "by its very nature [greed] is endless and never assuaged; and by being a form of the impulse to live, it ceases only with death."
Ted Scofield, "Everybody Else's Biggest Problem, Pt. 5: You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat," Mockingbird blog (9-8-15)
There are two guardrails we have here. [Screen 6]
Consuming: everything comes to me to consume. Spender.
Hoarding: What if? Saver. Consume later. If ever.
Both of these are self centered and have you living as if there is no God.
[Screen 7]
Fueled by GREED.
Greed is impossible to see in the mirror. Greed is the assumption that it is all for my consumption. If anything comes at me I am going to consume it.
I will consume it now as the consumer or consume it later as the saver or hoarder.
God is not important. I can depend on myself.
But whom do we call on when our finances go bad? Our mom or dad. Our boss. No, we call on God. You may believe and even love God but you don’t want Him around your finances. Only when the bad comes do we call on God. We think maybe He can help us.
God wants to help us but He doesn’t want to be your backup plan. He knows his biggest competition is your stuff and money. He wants to be the master of your life. You have to break the power of the greed in your life. To beat greed God has to be the master and not money or stuff.
It’s a habit you will have to have to beat greed.
If God has your checkbook, your money He has your heart.
But it is not about the money. God doesn’t want your money, it’s about your devotion. He wants you only devoted to Him. For God to be in control you have to do this: [Screen 8] Give-Save-Live
You give a percentage to God to let Him know and yourself that money is not in charge. Then you save. And you live with the rest.
This takes work and cooperation in the family situation.
A good way to start is 10-10-80.
Financial Independence means you use your money, you don’t serve it. It serves me.
Need a guardrail to keep you in line. Lets look at scripture again. [screen 9]
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
The key word is devoted. You will either be devoted to God or devoted to money and yourself. You will either follow Jesus or will follow your money and stuff. This is going to cause distress with family and anguish for yourself if you have been following your stuff. Jesus offers and answer. [Screen 10]
Matthew 6.31, So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to get my kid through college? How am I going to pay for our home? These are all good and real questions we have to answer.
God doesn’t want money to steal your joy, to steal your confidence. God doesn’t need your money; He just doesn’t want you to worry. [Screen 11]
Matthew 6.32, For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
You are living as if God doesn’t care. Your heavenly father knows you need food, clothes and drink.
Do you believe he knows and yes, cares? If you do you move from self centered with God on the side to God centered and he will help you manage it.
Lets say He knows.
Let’s say he cares.
Cause he does. What if you lived like he did? What if you follow Jesus? You know you can trust God when you know He knows and cares. But Jesus still says there is one more thing you must do. [Screen 12]
Matthew 6.33, But seek first….. [Screen 13] His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
This is Jesus promise to us all that follow Him. To follow Him we must: [Screen 14]
Give 10%
Save 10%
Live 80%
Do you know when most people come to realize they need to do this? Only when they hit rock bottom financially. They have to reprioritize. They have to put God first, instead of their money or stuff. They have to reorder their life. God is first and it will show when we give Him the run of our money.
And you know what happens every time someone realizes this and actually give, saves and lives? Every single time someone truly gives it to God:
Their saving goes up and their spending goes down. But the biggest thing is if you ask them they will say, “I am more content with what I have.”
This is life changing. This is what I want for each of you to have. I want you to have the best marriage you can possibly have.
I want your kids to be the most content with their family life.
I want you to be content with all your life.
There are as many ways to not do this, as there are people in this room. Some say they have too little to give. Some feel they have too much and the percentage they would have to give would be too high. Others just don’t think they should give.
But here is what you need to hear. [Screen 15]
To not do this is to be disobedient to God. You are not seeking His kingdom if you keep it all for yourself.
It is to tell God to stay put. I’ll call you when I need you.
That might work with your dog.
That might even work with your kids.
That might even work with your husband or wife, for a while.
BUT…if you are talking about the God we worship and know as our Lord and Savior…He is not going to stay.
Rearrange your life and that is how God will enter in. Follow Jesus and you will [Screen 16]
Give 10%
Save 10%
Live 80%
If we all would do this, think of how easy paying for this new building would be. It would be paid with ease. I pray it will. I know it will.
Not by giving exorbitantly, but by giving obediently. Doing what every Christian is supposed to do. [Screen 17]Christian obedience.
In his book, Giving It All Away David Green illustrates the goal of life for believers:
Some people act like life is an oversized game of Monopoly, where the way to win is to accumulate as many properties as you can, either by purchasing outright or by clever trading with your opponents. Then you keep adding houses and hotels, extracting rent from the others, until you eventually drive them into bankruptcy. You sit back, rub your hands together, and start counting your stacks of cash.
No, life is more like Uno or Crazy Eights, where the point is to run out of cards first. You want to deploy every card you have, knowing that each card left in your hand at the end counts against you. Don't get stuck at the time of your funeral with leftover cards!
David Green, Giving It All Away (Zondervan, 2017), page 151
[Screen 18]
Give Save Live
Give God the undivided attention of your heart.
His Kingdom first—my kingdom second.
God will help you with your debt.
God will help you find your contentment.
This is the guardrail that will heal so many relationships. I want you to know the freedom of being obedient in this one area that bleeds over into every other area of life.
Give-Save-Live
Give-Save-Live
Prayer: Father I know this falls on many different people in different parts of their life. Will you please give us all wisdom to deal with our specific circumstances? Please use this simple truth to capture our hearts. I don’t want this to cause stress; I want it to bring peace into our lives. I want you to have our undivided attention. Give us the knowledge to understand what we have just heard and just do it. Let us trust you and follow you in all we do. May we as the stewards of this offering make it a usable source to promote your kingdom here in our community and the entire world?
Bibliography:
Stanley, Andy; Guardrails Avoiding Regrets In Your Life; Zondervan, North Point Resources, 2011,
