2 Timothy 4:2
Why I Preach Money
Introduction
After a long, dry sermon, a pastor announced that he wished to meet with the church board following the close of the service. The first man to arrive was a stranger. "You misunderstood my announcement. This is a meeting of the board," said the pastor. "I know," said the man, "but if there is anyone here more bored than I am, I’d like to meet him."(1)
I won’t ask you if you’ve ever been that bored during my time here, because it would probably hurt to hear some answers, but it has been my hope that during the past five weeks you’ve been anything but bored with the messages you’ve been hearing on money and personal finances. I’m not talking about the messenger so much as I am talking about the message we find in God’s Word concerning the money that God has entrusted to you to manage for His honor and glory – and the Bible certainly speaks about money and finance. The Bible is a wonderful love letter written from God to you that speaks to your needs; in fact, I understand that God has addressed over 700, possibly over 1000 references to money in all, either directly or indirectly. That means that the Bible has more to say about money than it does about heaven or church. Oh how we like to hear about heaven! But oh how we are much like the farmer I read about who went to church one Sunday to hear John Wesley preach.
On that particular Sunday he was preaching about money. His first point was, "Get all you can." "Fine," whispered the farmer to his neighbor. Wesley’s second point was, "Save all you can." "Better still," the farmer said. Then came the third and last point of Wesley’s sermon which was, "Give all you can." "Oh, dear!" groaned the man, "now he has gone and spoiled it all!"(2)
This is the first time I have ever spent so much time preaching about money. I believed the Lord wanted me to do it, and to be quite frank with you I was concerned with what the outcome would be. Attendance went down some, which is unfortunately normal. It may be normal, but it is a poor reflection on those who skipped. Others have asked me why I have spent so much time preaching about money, so today I want to tell you why. I had intended to preach about contentment, but instead I want to conclude this series on personal finance with this message, “Why I Preach Money.” I want to give you several reasons from God’s Word today that I have preached it and why I am going to continue to preach it to you in the future so long as I am here as your pastor. I preach money…
Because The Bible Tells Me To Preach Money
In 2 Timothy 4:2, the apostle Paul admonished young Timothy to…
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
I don’t think it gets any plainer than that does it? “Preach the word…” Paul didn’t say that we are to preach some of the word, or part of the word, or the words we enjoy and make us feel good. He said to preach the word – and that means all of it. If I am to preach all of the Word of God, then I am compelled to preach the one subject that may be mentioned more than any other in all the Bible outside of God Himself.
I’ll not preach what you tell me to, not what my peers tell me to, not what my feelings and emotions tell me to preach, but rather what the Bible says. When I or any other preacher forgets that then you might as well vacate the pulpit and get someone who’ll do it right! If you want what’s best for you, and I want what’s best for you, then we’ll be glad to come to God’s house and hear what the Word of God says even if it means that we have to hear about money!
Because The Work Of The Ministry Depends Preaching Money
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: it costs money to keep this church going and growing. It costs money to turn on utilities and open the doors. It costs money to mow the grass and keep the place clean. It costs money to run a bus and maintain a building and advertise and do all the things that have to be done. Not only does it cost money, but its going to cost more money this year than it did last year, and every year is going to be more expensive if we are going to grow and press forward.
There’s broken glass all around this building. There’s window stripping falling off all around the place. There’s carpet that needs to be put down, rooms that need paint, doors that need repaired, bathrooms that need to be remodeled, insurance that keeps going up, and much, much more.
There’s staff that needs to be added. There’s transportation that needs to be added. Brother Ron told us Wednesday night that he had 27 kids loaded on a bus that has a seating capacity of 22. That’s illegal and we can’t keep doing it in good conscience. We don’t need to stop picking them up, we need to get another bus. Did you know we had 44 kids here Wednesday night? It’s going to cost money to pay a youth director, but a youth director is needed to minister to them like they deserve. It’s going to cost money to add our daycare next fall – we don’t need to forget about it doing it – we need to make up our minds to press on and spend the money.
You have a pastor to support. I’m not preaching money for personal gain; you have a God-given responsibility to feed this ox! – and I’ll speak to this again in a minute.
Now as I see it there are three solutions to our money problems here.
· We can decide we like the status quo and sit on our blessed assurance and once we bury all of you shut the doors, or…
· We can decide that all of us are going to have to give more than we are giving today, or…
· We can get busy trying to win more people to the Lord and get them involved in a biblical plan of supporting the ministry so that more people are supporting the work
Listen, I’ll make a deal with you – when all the members of our church are supporting the work of the ministry like the Bible says they ought to, then I’ll stop preaching it – deal? And by the way, I want to brag on you this morning. I mentioned this a few Wednesday nights ago, but you remember that the first two messages dealt with giving. One was about Abraham and the other was about Ornan and King David. That next week Brother Ron told me that our church gave the largest offering he has received since he has been at Woodlawn, and our offerings have been up since then. Our missions offerings have been up, and I want to plead with you to be faithful to continue with your tithes and Faith Promise offerings. Do what you’ve committed yourself to doing for the Lord. It’s a win-win situation.
Because The Lord’s Mission Work Depends On Preaching Money
The Lord has greatly blessed our church, many of its members, and many missionaries through Faith Promise missions over the years. I receive great joy hearing about what God has done through the years since 1974, but we can’t coast on the successes of yesterday. There’s more mission work to be done. There are new missionaries coming on the field every year. Right now we are giving 2 parts of our Faith Promise support to state missions – we really need to give 3 to meet the needs of our state missions budget. We added Brothers Jason Sheffstall and Russell Knight who are going to Morgantown, West Virginia and I am excited to see what the Lord will do through them. I have missionary friends in Alaska; New York; St. Petersburg, Russia; Arizona that I wish we could support. There are plenty of others, and I know we can’t support them all, but we can support more.
The apostle Paul depended on the regular support of the churches that we read about in Scripture to continue to carry out the work God gave him to do, and it was an honor to be a part of that great work. We will never know how far reaching our offerings go until we reach heaven – we have no idea whose lives we touch with those monthly support checks, but God knows. So long as there are missions and missionaries to support and put on the field, I will be compelled to preach money to our church.
Because I Care About You Allowing Jesus To Be The Lord Of Your Checkbook
“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”(3)
“And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”(4)
Throughout the Scriptures we find that as children of God we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just want to be your Savior, He wants to be your Lord, and while in the strictest sense – He is whether you like it or not. However, Christ’s desire is that you voluntarily make Him the Lord of your life in every area of your life. Just as Jesus is interested in seeing godly virtues developed in your relationships with other people through humility and love and peace and gentleness and so forth, He also wants to see you develop godliness in your personal finances.
God cares more about your money and how you respond to Him through it than you and I will ever know.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”(5)
You can’t have God be your God and at the same time spend your life chasing the dollar. If financial security is your chief aim, if accumulating stuff is your pastime, if working for the weekend is your life’s motto, then God is not your god, and because I want Jesus Christ to be the Lord of your life and not money, then I am compelled to preach money. You can tell me all day long that Jesus is Lord, but after much study and preaching this series, I am convinced that our indebtedness and our lack of wisdom in financial matters in general, the very fact that the way we handle our money just like lost people testifies that Jesus is not the Lord of our money. That is why I must preach it.
Because I Don’t Want Woodlawn Baptist Church To Be An Inferior Church
Did you know that a church could be inferior to others? I don’t mean in the size of the buildings or the number of people we reach. If that’s the case then our aim would be to be the largest church in town at all costs, but that’s not our aim. I want you to turn to and read with me 2 Corinthians 12:13, Paul makes this statement,
“For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong.”
How was it that they were inferior? They were inferior in that they had failed to take care of their financial obligations as a church body. When a church fails to meet its obligations to its pastor, its ministries, its missions, those in the body who have needs, those outside the body whom we can help, then that church is an inferior church.
Brothers and sisters, when the Lord Jesus Christ considers our church as a whole, I want Him to say, Now there’s a church who not only knows what is good and right, they are doing something about it. Let me tell you something – when we as a church body know that we have a financial obligation and we fail to meet it, we make ourselves an inferior church. Do you know what inferior means? It means to be of poor quality. Is that what we want? I’m not preaching this because I want something for myself, I’m preaching it because not only am I the pastor here, but because I am a member here and I help make up what we are, and so long as I can do anything about it for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, I have no desire to be part of a church that is of poor quality – my Savior deserves the very best from us – and that is another reason I am compelled to preach money.
Because I Don’t Want To Owe You An Apology If The Lord Moves Me Away From You
Look again at the verse in 2 Corinthians 12:13. Paul apologized to the Corinthian believers and asked them to forgive him. Listen; do you know what that church was inferior? They were inferior because Paul had refused to preach to them about their responsibility to support him and meet their financial obligations. He made them that way because he failed to preach money to them. He didn’t want to be a burden, so he took care of himself, but in so doing, he robbed them of their God-given responsibility and not only that, a blessing. He robbed them of a blessing by refusing to take their support.
If the Lord ever moves me away from our church, or when I retire from here many years from now, I don’t want to be apologizing to you like Paul had to because I failed to teach you what your financial responsibilities are not just to your pastor, but also to the rest of our ministries. I don’t want to make our church anything less than what God wants us to be, and I don’t want to rob you of the blessings you’ll receive from supporting the work and men of the ministry with your finances.
I’ll take this a step further too. Imagine the following scene with me:
You’re standing before the Lord one day and He says to you, “Why did you go through life with maxed out credit cards? Why didn’t you save and plan and meet your family’s financial obligations? Why didn’t you give to your church and support my missionaries? Why did you spend every dime you made and not provide for your children and grandchildren? Why? I put it right there in my Word? Didn’t you catch that part?” Then you say to Jesus, “But Lord, that pastor you gave me (like Adam said about Eve), you remember that big tall one? Yeah, Brother Kevin, he never taught me that that’s what all that meant!”
Now that may sound silly to you, but it doesn’t to me, because God’s not going to hold you responsible for what you hear from the pulpit like He’s going to hold me responsible. I’ll answer to God for everything I preach and for the things that I don’t preach that I was supposed to preach. I don’t want to apologize to you for failing you, nor do I look forward to apologizing to the Lord for failing to do something that I knew to do, and that’s why I am compelled to preach money.
Conclusion
Well Brother Kevin, I’m glad to know all of that. Fine, so what do I do with this message? I hope you’ve asked that question this morning, and if you have, I’m glad you did. Let me give you some things I believe the Lord would have you to do with it.
· Examine your heart and your checkbook. This is our sixth week in finances. Have you done anything with anything you’ve heard? Did you make a commitment to God that you are already struggling to keep? Are you taking steps to put off old, sinful habits so that Christ can empower you to put on the new ones? Do you trust Him with your money?
· Pray for your church family. The fact of the matter is that no matter what the Bible says and no matter how compelling the reasons for preaching money are, some people in your church family are just going to lock up when finances are being discussed, especially when giving is being discussed. Don’t talk about your brother or sister; pray for them.
· Seek God’s will for your money. I am confident of this – that every Spirit-filled child of God in this room wants to do God’s will, even with their money. Now I don’t know what that means for you. It may mean that you need to begin to give to the Lord in a regular and systematic way. It may mean that you need to make a commitment today to get yourself out of debt, or some other thing. Pray for God to reveal His will to you in your finances.
It may be that the Lord has been telling you today that you have something more important to take care of than your finances. Let me ask you something. Have you ever accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior? He can’t be the Lord of anything in your life until you have first known Him as your Savior. Have you been neglecting your relationship with Him in study and prayer? Have you been failing Him in some other way? You make it right today during our invitation, and may He be pleased with our responses.
Works Cited
1. http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=p&whichFile=preaching
2. Adapted from the pamphlet, A Man and His Money, Author, Publisher & Date Unknown
3. 1 Corinthians 6:20
4. 1 Corinthians 3:23
5. Matthew 6:24
