What Money Says
Mat 16:26, 2 Cor 9:8, Mal 3:8 -10, Matt 5:17 -18,
August 23, 2004
I. I have been talking about control issues, and one of the places that most people seem to have a lot of control issues is in the area of money.
A. I am pretty sure that you have heard the phrase " Money talks".
1. We use that phrase to talk about how people use money to get what they want.
2. But, money has more to say than that. Money tells people around us what we think is really important.
B. Bob Dylan (who is living proof that you don’t have to be able to sing to be a singer) once said "money doesn’t talk it screams". Well money is at least something that screams to the people around us about what’s in control of our lives.
C. Money gives us a sense of control over our own lives.
1. If we are honest during the times that we think about getting our lives under control, one of the first things that we think about is money.
2. If not money then it is the things that it will buy or the bills that it will pay off because of the things that we have bought..
D. We worry about earning enough money, or saving enough for a rainy day when all the time we are standing in the middle of flash floods that never seem to end.
E. All the possessions that money can buy so soon seem to possess us!
1. There are few things in our lives that can put our lives at loose ends more than fretting over money.
II. Now I don’t think that many of us would think that we have this problem but just in case let me say something about it.
A. Not having enough money is not the only thing that causes worry about money.
B. There are people who worry and fret over the conditions of their investments as much as others worry over their bills.
C. People with money are many times just as controlled by it as those without.
D. It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of money, just enough or not enough how we handle money says a lot to people around us about what is important to us, and who is in control of our lives.
E. And so many times money can hurt families, marriages and friendships.
F. It would scare most of us, or it should to think about how much of our time is spent thinking about money.
1. How many times does the Lord get pushed to the back of our lives because of something to do with money?
III. The old time highwaymen used the saying "your money or your life", and that may be closer to the truth than any of us want to believe.
A. The stress created over money has at least shortened a lot of lives.
B. For those of you who remember Jack Benny, he had a skit that is too close to the truth.
1. A robber jumps out and says "your money or your life" and he pauses for a long time.
2. "Don’t rush me", another pause, "I’m thinking, I’m thinking.
C. For so many people where ever they are financially, their money ends up being their life.
D. Jesus had a way of putting things into perspective though.
(Mat 16:26 NIV) What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
E. In one verse Jesus put our struggles with money into the right perspective.
1. Our money or anything else is not as important as our relationship with God.
2. I don’t think that any of us really want to gain the whole world, but we sure want to control our little corner of it, and one of the ways that we think that we can be in control is to have more money.
3. And there are a lot of times that in trying to get money, or use it to control circumstances, money causes us not to let Jesus have the authority in our lives that we should.
4. Which do we do more pray or spend time dealing with money problems or struggling to find ways to make more money.
5. So many times the things that we think we own end up owning us.
F. Please don’t think I’m downing money, I’d like to have more too.
G. I think the thing that we have to look at is how much of our lives does money control.
IV. It doesn’t take long to figure out that money can buy a lot of things but it can’t buy real love, or real joy or God’s power in our lives to bring us real peace.
A. Yea, money talks, but it starts to stammer real bad when health problems come.
B. Money doesn’t have much to say when you are old and alone because money was more important to you than people that you need now.
C. Money buys things, but it doesn’t give children the security of feeling loved and important.
D. Maybe the best gift we could give our children and grandchildren is not what our money can buy but some of the time that we devote to our money.
E. But probably the greatest need in our lives where money is concerned, is to let Jesus be Lord of our money.
F. The line from the musical Cabaret that says, money makes the world go round, is wrong.
1. The real truth is that money grinds a lot of peoples world to a halt.
2. Only God can make the world go round, and only our relationship to God can make our world right, IT CAN’T BE BOUGHT!
3. Martin Luther said we need two conversations (with God) one with our heart and the other with our pocketbook.
4. The first doesn’t happen until the second is included.
V. Jesus was concerned about money though. Seventeen of His thirty eight parables are about money, and one fifth of the New Testament is about money.
A. But what Jesus was concerned about was how money affects our relationship to Him, and what our use of it says to other people.
B. The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Cor 9:8 that He is able, and that he is able in all things.
(2 Cor 9:8 NIV) And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you NEED, you will abound in every good work.
C. Through the same grace that frees us from separation from Him, God provides.
1. So that in all things, at all times, we have all that we need.
2. And He will provide all that we need, so that we can abound to every good work.
3. We are here to carry out the work that Jesus wants done, and he expects part of what He gives us to go toward what he wants to accomplish in the world around us.
4. And he wants us to trust Him to take care of us even when we give Him part of what he gives to us.
5. And we only have what we have because He gave it to us.
D. We are distribution centers, God gives to us so we can distribute it to where He needs it to accomplish His work.
1. God does not rain down money from Heaven so we can live anyway we want and have anything we want.
2. God entrusts money to us to distribute to the places that He needs it distributed.
3. So what part of our income belongs to God? All of it!
4. All of it is God’s, but I do believe that ten percent is required by God from everybody, and at times He will require more of us.
5. There are a lot of arguments about tithing . I believe that is what God expects of us.
6. In Malachi 3:8-10 it seems to be pretty important to God.
(Mal 3:8 -10 NIV) "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, ’How do we rob you?’ "In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me. 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.
7. Some people say that we are not under the law anymore, and that’s right, are free from control by the law but Jesus never said that we were free to ignore the law.
8. As a matter of fact Jesus didn’t say that He came to do away with the law He said that He came to fulfill the law.
(Mat 5:17 - 18 NIV) "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
E. When I say something about money people always think it is about money, but its really not the main issue.
1. Its about our relationship with God.
2. Giving is just as much a part of worship as anything else we do.
3. When we give to God we say to Him I Love You, and I trust you, and I am willing to let you be Lord even in that area of my life.
4. Our finances are a part of us giving God control of our lives and it affects our relationship to God, and it shows our level of trust in God.
F. If we say that we can’t give God what is His we’re really saying , "I don’t trust you to be able to provide what is best for me if I give you part of what you have given me".
1. What we are saying is "You are not ABLE"!
G. But it all comes down to one thing. It’s the same thing that it always comes down to, our relationship to God, and the things that we do that affect it in one way or the other.
1. Money is a control issue in our relationship with God as much as anything else, and it is not about the money, GOD OWNS ALL THAT!
2. Its about trust, its about love, it about wanting to please God out of gratitude for what He has done for us.
3. Finding freedom in life where money is concerned is as much a part of finding the freedom that Christmas provides as anything else.
H. Don’t let the joy of life get swallowed up by the love of money, and don’t let the freedom of salvation get pushed aside by the struggle for money.
1. The real thief in life that steals is putting anything above God, because we are too focused on money.
I. The greatest gift ever, was given at Calvary, maybe the greatest gift we could give is to pass that on to someone else. But to do that we have to put our focus on what it should be, our relationship with God.
