Matthew 6
19 – Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
20 – But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 – For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 – No one 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.
II Corinthians 9
6 – Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
7 – Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 – 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.
II Corinthians 8
7 – But just as you excel in everything-in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us-see to it that you excel in this grace of giving.
As you know, our nation has just declared war…and this week our Commander in Chief stated that the battles that are to come will be foughtin many different ways. I for one have been impressed because he has wisely decided that the first attack on our cowardly, demonic enemy will be a financial one. A few days ago President Bush signed an executive order freezing all financial assets of the ring leader of many terrorists, whose name is now familiar to us all: Osama Bin Laden. Now, Bush did not limit this action to the banks in America. He went farther than that. He also boldly demanded that all other nations of the world do the same. In fact he pledged that any nation that has banks holding funds that could even remotely be used to help further terrorist causes must follow our lead and make them inaccessible by Bin Laden’s gang. Otherwise our President vowed to have all assistance from the United States pulled. In other words, if they refuse to join us in this assault on the financial resources of the world’s terrorists, they will receive no further financial assistance from Uncle Sam. I am told that so far most nations have quickly complied with this request…even those who might oppose military action against Afghanistan. Their decision to side with us in this shows that the old cliche is correct….MONEY TALKS!
Now, this morning as we examine this last spiritual discipline-THE DISCIPLINE OF GIVING-I wonder? I mean, if we could somehow actually engage OUR money in conversation. If there were some way to TALK to our checkbooks, our wallets, and our bank accounts…what would THEY say?
Before we seek an answer to that question let me point out that the way we handle our finances, especially when it comes to giving money to the church, IS a spiritual discipline. Four weeks ago I told you that a spiritual discipline does TWO things. First of all, it helps us get the power to live life as JESUS would want us to. Through the practice of certain holy habits like Bible study, prayer, fasting, and worship, we learn act and re-act and think in any situation as Jesus would. But I also told you that spiritual disciplines are in RELATIONSHIP BUILDERS, in that they help us to strengthen and deepen our friendship with God. And the way we handle our money fits this definition because it does the same things. Giving breaks us of materialism and selfishness and helps us to react more like Jesus when it comes to the way we handle our possessions. The discipline of giving also makes it possible for us to deepen our walk with God. In fact the old quote is true. If you want to know how Godly a person is, look at their checkbook.
Well, how do you think you are doing when it comes to this particular discipline? Why don’t we let our checkbooks to answer that question because I think if we listen we may hear several surprising things….
1. First off all, our wallets and bank accounts will tell us who is really LORD of our life.
You see money is more than just money because the way we spend it is a good indicator of who or what is truly important to us. Perhaps this is why Jesus talked about money so often. Did you know that our Lord had more to say about stewardship of money than any other subject, including heaven, hell, salvation, and the second coming? He focused on this subject so often because He knew that if you and I are not careful, money can become an idol to us. It can become the true lord of our lives.
Jesus went so far as to picture money as an evil entity…a false god…opposed to the purposes of God giving it the Semitic name: Mammon. Now, understand, this was a new thing. No one else in the culture of Jesus’ day had given money a name like this as if it were a living thing. But Jesus did. He made this unique point because He of course saw everything in a unique way. He looked at everything with the eyes of God and from this eternal perspective, Jesus saw things the rest of the world could not. He saw that money was not just a neutral medium of exchange but was something that we can very easily lift to idol status. And Jesus knew that when we do this…when we love money to excess, well then, money-or Mammon-can take on a power with a life of its own and that power can lead us to do some very foolish…ungodly…things. A few years ago James Peterson and Peter Kim co-authored a book entitled, The Day America Told the Truth. The book was the result of surveys that were given to one thousand people who were asked to answer a number of moral and ethical questions in complete honesty-with a guarantee of absolute anonymity. One question asked was: What would you be willing to do for ten million dollars?
- 25% said they would abandon their family…spouse, children, or parents.
!* 23% said they would become a prostitute for a week.
!* 7% said they would be willing to kill a stranger.
!
Do you see the kind of power money can have over people who allow it to become lord of their lives?!
Now before we go any further, let me make a very important point here. It is not the AMOUNT of money that is the problem. Lifting material things to idol status is not a practice that is limited to those who are very wealthy. The poor can just as easily slip into this idolatry. John Michael Talbot is the General Minister of The Hermitage, a community of monks, nuns, and families belonging to a religious order called The Brothers and Sisters of Charity. Everyone in the group is committed to living a simple life, and has relinquished all but the most necessary possessions.
Talbot writes, taking a vow of poverty is not a cure for materialism. Many people come to this community and go from being selfish with thousands of dollars…to being selfish with a coffee mug. You see our problem with money and possessions is not how much we have. It is how much they have us. When we love money to excess, no matter how much or how little we have, it can take on a personality of it’s own and begin to govern our lives.
Jesus says here in this portion of the sermon on the mount that if your money talks and says that this has happened…well then you have a problem. Because, You cannot serve both God and Mammon. To try and do so would force us to hate one and love the other because their purposes are opposed to each other. Dietrich Bonhoefer said, Our hearts have room only for one all-embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord.
So, Jesus is warning us here that MAMMON can become a lord in our lives….a force that disrupts our relationship with God and leads us away from accomplishing His purposes. By the way, did you know that in Ghana the only way to ask the question, What is your religion? is to ask, Whom do you serve? Well, why don’t we each ask ourselves-or rather our bank books-that question this morning….Whom do I serve? For that is the question Jesus puts before us in this text from Matthew 6 . He asks it because He wants us to understand that we must make a choice. We can serve God, or we can serve money. We cannot serve both. Jesus doesn’t tell us it’s unwise to serve both. He doesn’t tell us it’s difficult to serve both. He doesn’t tell us it’s spiritually immature to try to serve both. He tells us it’s impossible to serve both. We must make a choice.
There is no way to grow to spiritual maturity without committing your finances to the Lord. Jesus can have our money and not have our hearts but He can’t have our hearts without our money, for as He says … where your treasure is…there will your heart be also.
So if we were to ask, our money would talk and tell us who we worship as LORD of our lives. But if we continued to listen it would tell us more than that.
2. It would also tell how wise of an INVESTOR we are.
You see, the record of our spending tells whether we invest in things that last or things that don’t. In our stewardship committee meeting the other day we were talking about the need to do an annual audit of the church’s books. This is where an outside individual or firm comes in and examines our spending to make sure everything is done properly. Well, if each of us as individuals we were to audit our books, I think that unfortunately it would show that most of the time we buy into things that moth and rust corrupt things that thieves break in and steal. Over and over again we spend our money on things that don’t last…things that don’t pay off in the long run…and Jesus is teaching here in this text that wise investors have learned not to make this mistake and instead to give our tithes and offerings to God because when we give to His kingdom we invest in eternity.
My father pastored the First Southern Baptist Church in Dover Delaware for 27 years. I remember hearing that before my dad came to this church, in the early years when that congregation built it’s first building, they arranged with the contractor to construct it in three stages. At each stage the church would have to pay a third of the construction costs. As days approached the end of the second stage church leaders realized they were $10,000 short so they began to pray. And on the morning of the last day…the day the sum had to be paid in order for construction to continue…they were still short $10,000. The pastor was about to leave for the meeting with the contractor to share with him the bad news when there was a knock on the door.
He opened it and found a stranger standing there. The stranger introduced himself and said, I’m a member of another church here in town and I know that you are building a new church over there on South Little Creek Road. Well, this morning while I was in the shower God told me to sell my private plane and give you the money so, here is a check for $10,000. Now think about this. That plane would one day have rusted into nothingness. But by selling it and giving the proceeds to that church, this man was following Jesus’ teaching. He did not lay up for himself treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt…rather he turned that plane…that temporary thing into an eternal thing. He made a great investment because…as a direct result of his gift, a church was built on South Little Creek Road in Dover, Delaware and for several decades now it has been a place where eternal truth has been taught. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have met God in that place! Many of them were in the military and have been sent at Uncle Sam’s expense all over the world where they have shared their faith with others. Who can calculate the impact on eternity that church has had and will have in the years to come!?
And all of this because a man invested his money in eternity.
What about you? Would your checkbook SAY that you have you made wise investments like that with your financial resources? Well, let’s keep listening. What else does our money say? If we eavesdrop closely I think we will find that it…
3. …speaks volumes as to how much we TRUST God.
You see God says in His word over and over again that He will provide for our needs. In verse 8 of our text from Corinthians Paul says, 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. Psalm 37:25 says, I was young and now I am old but I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed beg for bread. My favorite is in Matthew 6:31-33 where Jesus says, Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Well, when we refuse to give our tithes to the church we are saying in essence that we don’t trust God to do what He has said He will do in all these texts from His word. We are choosing to trust me to take care of me instead of God.
Now, all of us struggle from time to time to allow God to be the source of our sufficiency; our bank books show very clearly that it is often difficult for us to learn to trust God with our lives. But we must learn this lesson because God IS trustworthy. He WILL meet our needs…and more. R. G. LeTourneau, once said, I shovel out and God shovels in but God’s shovel is always bigger. This reminds me of God’s promise in Malachi 3 where He says that if we Bring all the tithes in the storehouse… He will, …throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that we will not have room enough for it. Now, we should never GIVE to GET but we can trust that as we give, God will meet our needs and He is better equipped to do this than we are!
I remember reading a few years ago about a group of singles who met weekly in Southern Texas for a Bible study. And during the Christmas season — this special time of remembering God’s greatest gift — they felt led to give back in some way, to give to others as God had given to them. One of their members knew of a group of people across the border in Mexico who eked out a living by sifting through a huge garbage dump for food or for things they could sell. He suggested that they take food to the dump for a special holiday meal. They were afraid to go on a typical day…thinking that feeding the typical crowd of hundreds of beggars would be something that was beyond their resources. So they decided to go on Christmas day…they thought that most of the people would not work on this holiday and that they could scrape up enough food to feed those who did work. So they all brought what they could. They loaded their sandwiches, salads, and one ham into the back of a pick up truck and headed across the border. When they arrived at first they thought their estimates had been correct. The crowd of garbage pickers looked like it was much smaller than normal. But as they unloaded the food suddenly people came from everywhere….hundreds….apparently many actually lived at this dump and had been under piles of discarded cardboard and thus unseen.
These generous singles feared that their food would run out very quickly and that people might even riot but miraculously it didn’t. They cannot explain how this happened but as the people continued to come for food…there were always enough sandwiches in the stack. And the more they cut from that ham, the more meat they found on it. They all ate until they were filled and they even had food left over. They have no explanation other than God who apparently multiplied their meager food resources in the same way He did the lunch of that boy which Jesus used to feed five thousand people. In this amazing experience these singles learned that God can be trusted….they learned that when He leads us to give, He always more than provides for our needs.
Now, you may look at your bank book and see that you give money to the church but still may not hear your money talking much about your trust in God. If this is true it could be you are not giving to the point that it REQUIRES you to trust God.
A couple years ago Ted Turner made the cover of NEWSWEEK when he announced his contribution of one billion dollars to the United Nations. I think it’s safe to say that no one in this room will ever be in a position to give that much money. And, while I don’t want to negate the value of his generosity, it should be pointed out that due to the tax benefits of that donation, along with the fact that the gift is to be distributed over a period of ten years, the donation will not have much of an impact on his 3.2 billion dollar net worth. And of course, he reaped a public relations windfall from the announcement. Well, I don’t think Jesus was very impressed with Mr. Turners gift because the Bible records that He recommended another way of giving. One day when donations at the temple were being collected many wealthy individuals like Mr. Turner were throwing in large portions of money to much fanfare. Along came a poor widow, who gave two small copper coins, barely worth a penny. Jesus said to His disciples.
This poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on. Mark 12:43-44
Now, Jesus was not saying that we should turn out backs on our responsibility to our children and give all our money away. But He was saying that we should give enough that we have to trust Him to do so because in this way our relationship with Him is strengthened as we learn to trust Him to provide. C.S. Lewis once said, The only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…if our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.
And then, if we continue to listen I think there is one final thing our money could tell us this morning. It would say that the way we spend it says…
4. …just how THANKFUL we really are for all God has done.
As I said a few moments ago, the greatest gift that we have ever received or ever will receive is the gift God GAVE when He sent Jesus into our fallen world. And giving of our time and our talents and our money provides us a way for us to show God how very thankful we are for His sacrifice on our behalf. As Matthew 10:8 b says …Freely you have received, freely give.
During the Vietnam war a young graduate of West Point was sent to Vietnam to lead a group of new recruits into battle. He did his job well, trying his best to keep his men from ambush and death. However, one night he and his men were overtaken by a battalion of the Viet Cong. He was able to get all but one of his men to safety. The one soldier who had been left behind had been severely wounded, and from their trenches, the young lieutenant and his men could hear their wounded comrade moaning and crying for help. They all knew that venturing out into the vicious crossfire of the enemy would mean almost certain death. But the groaning of the wounded soldier continued on through the night. Eventually the endurance of the young lieutenant came to an end, and he crawled out of his place of safety toward the cries of the dying man. He got to him and was able to drag him back. But just as he pushed the wounded man into the safety of the trench he himself caught a bullet in the back and was killed instantly. Several months later, the rescued man returned to the United States, and when the parents of the dead hero heard that he was in their vicinity, they planned to have him come to dinner. They wanted to know this young man whose life was spared at such a great cost to them. On the night of the dinner party, their guest arrived drunk. He was loud and boisterous. He told off-color jokes and showed no concern for his suffering hosts. The parents of the dead hero did the best they could to make it a worthwhile evening, but their efforts went unrewarded. At the end of that torturous visit, the obscene guest left. As her husband closed the door, the mother collapsed in tears and cried, To think that our precious son had to die for somebody like that. That soldier owed those parents the best that was in him. It was so wicked-so callous-for him to give so little thought to what they had lost because of him. Considering the price that had been paid for his life, his ingratitude was beyond comprehension. But, before we go too far in our criticism of that ungrateful soldier, shouldn’t we consider how much like him we often are?
Jesus died for us. God gave us his best. Jesus paid a terrible price to give us life eternal but so often we fail to consider the cost of our salvation. We fail to GIVE in a way that would reflect our gratitude to God.
You know every day that I live serving God in your midst I am more in awe of how wonderful a church this is. We are so very blessed here at Redland. We have people here who have an obvious faith in God. We are blessed with a wonderful staff, Sunday School for all age groups, Music Groups of all shapes and sizes, a beautiful facility. God has GIVEN us so much. But we must be careful for if we are to continue to enjoy this place where we abound in so many blessings from God, then we must balance our receiving with our giving. In our text from II Corinthians 8 Paul warns all churches when he says, But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in the gracious work of giving also. You see we can get all the essential beliefs right but if we do not have a super abundant willingness to give, then our church life will be in danger of becoming stagnant. The Christian life takes on a healthy balance when our taking in and giving out stay in step with each other. Remember, as II Corinthians 9:6-7 says: …whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
We are entering a time when we emphasize the importance of giving. In a couple weeks we will examine our budget for 2002. We will also begin receiving gifts for our international mission offering. As we enter this time of an emphasis on giving, let us be sure to give in such a way that when our money talks it won’t embarrass us with what it says.
Okay, take your check books and your wallets away from your ears. And let’s turn from listening to what they say…so that we can clearly hear what God is saying. As you listen, what do you hear? He may be calling you to join this church….giving of your time and talents here. Perhaps God is telling you that you need to dethrone MAMMON and re-commit to serving Him as Lord…or…He may be encouraging you to be a wiser investor, to show your trust in His provision by committing to give your tithes and offerings to further His kingdom.
You may be here this morning and not be a Christian and you now see your need to repent of your sin and GIVE to God your life. Any decision you have to make, I encourage you to make it now by walking an aisle and sharing it with me now as we stand and sing.