I want to
speak with you this morning about our wealth. Our money. Our riches, because we are rich. We really
are. You may say, well I'm not rich.
One day a
father and his rich family took their son in their fancy car out to the
country. They wanted to show the son
how poor people live. So they spent the whole day there and spent the night
there. The son learned a lot. When they got back from their trip, the father
set the son down and said, well son, now you can see how poor people live. Did
you learn a lot? What did you learn? The son answered, well, I saw that we have
one dog at our house and they have four dogs. We have a pool that reaches clear
to the middle of the garden. They have
a creek that has no end. We have an imported lamp in our living room. They have
stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard. They have a whole horizon with no
buildings in the way. When the little
boy was finished his father was speechless and the son said, thanks dad,
for showing me how poor we are. Never criticize those folks. If they're
happy and they have some of the fine things of life like a creek, some dogs,
some happiness, it's okay. They're rich.
Isn't it true
that it all depends on the way you look at things? If you have love, if you
have a loving church family, if you have friends, if you have food to eat, if
you have good humor, if you've got a positive attitude about life, you've got
everything. Everything you need.
Are you over
the age of 65. If you are, you're blessed, because the world wide life
expectancy is about 65 years. You've exceeded that. God has blessed you because of that. Can you safely take a casual
walk in your neighborhood without worrying about being robbed or mugged? Did
you know that 29% of Americans point to an area near their home where they
would be afraid to walk at night. Here in our town, it's more or less a safe
place. There are members of this church who don't even lock their doors. It is
so unlike various other areas of the world. We are blessed here.
One in eight
households with a mortgage is either in foreclosure or in default. Are you able to pay the mortgage payment on
your house. If you are, then you're blessed. You really are. God has richly
blessed America. If you make $30,000 a year, you are in the top 7% of the
wealthiest people in the world. The top
7%. 93% of the people in the world are
poorer than you are. We're rich. Let's not be greedy with our wealth. Greed is
similar to murder, don't you think? You
don't think that. Greed is similar to
murder.
Turn to
Romans 1. This pictures the rough gang that greed hangs out with. Now I want
you to observe the friends that greed has. Romans 1:29. They have become filled with every kind of
wickedness. And now it lists what those wicked things are. Evil. Greed.
Depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are
gossipers, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent
ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless,
heartless, ruthless. What a gang that greed hangs out with. Greed is one of the
worst things in the world. It really
is. Greed caused this great recession
that we are in. These big bankers in the big cities of America. Greed.
Jesus says in
Luke 12:15, don't be greedy. What we want is more, and more, and more. Do we
need all that stuff? Let's sell some of the stuff we have. We are not satisfied
with what we have. We want something that somebody else has. In Philippians
4:11, Paul is speaking. He says, I'm not saying this
because I am in need. For I have learned to be content whatever the
circumstances. Be content with what you have. There's no problem with
that is there.
If you look
at Matthew 19, the rich young ruler came up to Jesus one day and in verse 16 to
22 he asked Jesus some questions and he basically asked what he needed to do to
get eternal life. He was a wealthy commandment keeper. He was rich. He was
young. He was a ruler and kept the law.
He had a lot going for him and Jesus basically said here, go and sell
your possessions and give away the money that you get from that. Sell them all,
and come and follow me. Jesus basically said to the rich young ruler, you go,
you have an estate sale. Clean out everything you have. Sell it all and give
your assets to help where the needs exist. Did the rich young ruler do that?
No. He did not want to do that. And so he walked away.
Now what was
wrong with the rich young ruler? He was trying to find a way to get eternal
life and still keep his money. That was his problem. He wanted to keep his
money and his possessions and have eternal life, and a true follower of Jesus
is always a liberal giver. The rich young ruler was not. If a true Christian
sees a worthy need in his church or in his world, he will not cling to his
money. He will generously contribute to that.
Imagine that
you are walking down the greenway and you see a healthy dog come along with his
head high and he holds a big juicy bone in his mouth. He comes upon a dog that
is emaciated. He's starving. He's weak.
His ribs are sticking out. The dog is hungry. Do you think that the dog with
the bone will place that bone in front of the starving dog? He won't. If the weak dog comes after the
bone, there's going to be a quarrel.
There's going to be a fight, because animals by their very nature are
possessive. They are. That's just how dogs do. Only human beings who are made
in the image of God can be taught to be giving. Giving is a wonderful Godly
trait. We're not born with that trait. We're born selfish. Even babies will fight over a pacifier.
But we can be
taught to be giving. Giving is a Godly attribute. Every time you give liberally
it shows how far removed you are from being an animal. That is true. You're not
an animal. How do we know that? Because you give. Animals rarely do that.
We're
actually rich here in America. If you see a homeless person sleeping under the
bridge of the freeway out there on I-75 with the sound of the traffic going
over their bedroom ceiling all night long, and that person, let's suppose,
makes $2500 a year holding up that
cardboard sign, will work for food, hungry, take pity on me. $2500 a year. Did you know that that person
makes more than 82% of the people of the world make. That's amazing. To all those 82% of the people in the world,
you as a homeless person sleeping under the bridge are a zillionaire.
Let me ask
you a question. Did you spend over $2.50 on your Thanksgiving meal that you had
a few days go? Over 3 billion people in the world today live on less than $2.50
a day. in fact, one fifth of the
population of the world live on less than one dollar a day. I keep a stock of
one dollar bills in my Bible to give for the children's story. Every time I do
I give one of those children more money than 1/5 of the world's population
exists on every day. One dollar. The parents of those types of people often
will skip a meal so that the children can eat. The whole family doesn't eat
together. They've got to rotate the times in which they could eat. Even here in
America. Now you probably think, well here in America we're all fighting the
battle of the bulge. Here in America 50 million people, one out of every six
people here in our country were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay
healthy at some point last year. One
out of six. Because we're in a great
recession. We're in a terrible time. Times are not good.
Do you know
what the most expensive vehicle to operate today is? The shopping cart. It's
true. Resolve that in life you will travel light and live simply. Isn't that
what we ought to do? We don't need all that stuff. In the United States
today there are more private vehicles
than there are people who are licensed to drive those vehicles. Because we want
more stuff. We are rich. Americans every year spend $8 billion on cosmetics. $8
billion which is more than the estimated yearly total needed to provide basic education for every human child in the
world. We're rich. We really are rich.
Look at Luke
12:16. This is what Jesus said to them. Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Then he says, a
man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. We don't go
through life trying to accumulate more than other people. Most of us buy things
we don't need, with money that we don't have, to try to impress people that we
don't like. At this Christmas season, give a present that will not gather dust
on somebody's neglected shelf in the back room somewhere. Most people really want
more love instead of more stuff. That's what your kids want. You demonstrate by
your life how true life ought to be lived. That's what a Christian will do. So
at this Christmas time, live the good life, and not the goodS life. All those
goods that you could have. Just live
the good life. All those goods, we
don't need those things.
Do you own
a $50,000 car? It's easy to own a
$50,000 car. How do you do it? Well you just go out and buy a $20,000 car on 60
monthly payments at a pretty high interest rate and you will own a $50,000 car.
Have we forgotten how to save up? We ought to be savers. Save up to make your
major purchase if you can. Now maybe you can't do that with your house, but
save up before you buy. Do you know how
long it takes to pay off an $8000 credit card bill at 18% interest? If you
don't make the payments you will be paying 18 or more percent interest. It takes 54 years if you make the minimum
payment to payoff that credit card debt of only $8000. Avoid credit purchases.
You become a borrower when you do that. Credit is what keeps you from knowing
how far past broke you are. You don't
need those plastic passports to poverty unless you can pay them off every
month.
Many
Americans are poorer because they love to take foolish chances. Did you know
that $650 billion was spent on legalized gambling in 1997, compared to 450
billion spent at the grocery store. That's not good. This $650 billion
represents $2300 for every man, woman and boy and girl in America. That's how
much is spent on gambling and the lottery in America.
Let's be
wise. Be generous with your church. The only money that you can take with you
when you die is what you have given to the Lord's work. Share your wealth by
choice while you live. Jesus said in Luke 12:21 that we should be rich toward
God. How do you become rich toward God? Any idea? Well that's what you have
given to the Lord's work. You share your wealth. That means that you give
generously to the Lord's work in life and when you die. Look at Proverbs 3:9 and 10. Honor the Lord with
your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops and then you barns will be
filled. How full will your barns
be? They will be filled to overflowing,
the Bible says. Your vats will brim
over with new wine. You're going to
have all the grape juice you could possibly need. Your barns will be overflowing if you are generous with the
Lord. You honor the Lord with your
wealth, and you honor God. Every time
that you turn in a tithe envelope, you are honoring God. That's what the Bible says.
We humans are
pack rats. Some people pack away more
than other people pack away but we are going to store up wealth. So the question is, where? So may I ask you, where do you bank? Do you bank here in town? Your main bank where you make your deposits
ought to be the bank of heaven. Where
one of the deposit slips is the tithe envelope. If God has blessed you, give back to Him.
Now here's a
serious question for you to ask yourself.
Go home and figure this out. How
much money did you make in the last 10 years?
Figure it out and then ask yourself one other question. How much of that do I have stored in
heaven?
Let me give
you five keys on how to manage God's money.
Number one. Recycle it. Did you know that wealth must be recycled? It must be distributed. This is the opposite of hoarding. God wants to use our money over and over. Money is supposed to be used. A whistle is not a whistle until you blow
it. Love is not love until you share
it. A song is not a song until you sing
it. It's just a poem. Wealth is not true wealth until you spread
it around. Where do we get this from. Come over to Ecclesiastes 5:13. I have seen a grievous evil under the
sun. Wealth hoarded to the harm of its
owner. You realize that what the Bible
is saying in here is that wealth that is hoarded harms its owner. God's Word translation says, riches lead to
the downfall of those who board them.
It must be distributed.
Number
two. Christians will manage God's
wealth. You are the manager. God gives you a limited quantity of wealth
and you are the caretaker of God's money.
A bad steward says, you know that money is for me to spend on myself. To enlarge my collection of stuff. A good steward will manage God's assets and
use them according to God's plan. I
hold in my hand a nail. It's a big
nail. I read a story of a man who kept
a nail like this on top of his checkbook to remind him of what Jesus did on the
cross. Every time he paid his bill that
nail was there to remind him. I wish I
had enough nails to give each one of you one of these to remind us when we
distribute our checks of what Jesus did for us, because Jesus did a lot for us.
Number
three. You can't get rid of God's
wealth. Do you believe that? You can't get rid of God's wealth. It's like a boomerang. Look at
Luke 6:38. It says this. Give and it will be
given to you. A good measure, pressed
down, shaken together, running over will be poured into your lap, for with the
measure that you use it will be measured to you. In other words, with the same size scoop that
you give God's money to God's needs, God will scoop back His wealth into your
lap. Paul says in Second Corinthians
9:6, remember this.
Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously
will also reap generously. If
you give lavishly, God will give back to you lavishly. If your scoop will hold 1 cup, you will get back 1 cup as the 1 cup gift
bounces back into your lap. Why does
God give it back to you again? Why does
He do that? Second Corinthians 9:11
tells us why. You will be enriched so
that you can give even more generously.
Number four.
Here's some wisdom on how to choose the right size scoop. This involves faith. You remember the hungry boy that gave his
lunch of five loaves of bread and two fish?
John 6:9. He could have thought,
if I give this I'm going to starve because all of these people are going to eat
that up and I'm not going to end up with one crumb. Let me tell you something about that little boy. His faith was bigger than his lunch box. He gave it all to Jesus, and what did he get
back? Five loaves and two fish back? You think that's what he got? I think all 12 baskets of leftovers were
probably given that little boy to take home for his mom and dad. I don't know that, but his scoop size
matched his faith size and it was extra
large. Remember the widow. She gave according to the size of her
faith. She gave both mites, and the Bible doesn't say what happened but I
would not doubt for 1 minute that she was largely rewarded for her lavish
gift. I believe that. Remember the Macedonian church. Look at Second Corinthians 8:3. Verse three says they gave as much as they
were able and even beyond their ability.
Entirely on their own. Verse four,
they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service with
the Saints. They thanked him for the
privilege. Here's how this could work
with you. Without faith, you sit down,
you add up all your income and you add
up all your bills and without faith then you figure out what you can afford to
give. That's how you do it without
faith. Sometimes it's going to be nothing.
I can't afford to give anything.
Faith will choose a slightly larger scoop than the calculator
dictates. God will reimburse you and a
little more in His way and in His time.
So give from faith, not from reason.
Trust God. Try it. Malachi 3:10
says bring one 10th of your income into the storehouse so there may be food in
My house and test Me in this way says the Lord. See if I won't open you the windows of heaven and flood you with
blessings. He's going to flood you with
blessings. Now this fine promise is
reiterated in Second Corinthians 9:10.
It says, and now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will also supply and increase your
store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You're going to harvest righteousness and
your gift which was a righteous gift will be enlarged.
Number
five. When you place your gift in the offering
plate, smile. Smile. Because God loves a cheerful giver. Second Corinthians 9:7. If it is true that
God's unselfish use of God's resources shows God's love for us, then your use
of God's money shows what you think of God.
That's logical. The more you
love God the bigger hearted you will be, and the more generous with His church
and His sheep. Greed will jeopardize
His kindness. So you pray for a liberal
love like God's love when God gave a Baby to us. A Baby in a manger.
Hymn of Praise: #125, Joy To the World Scripture: Deuteronomy 8:17-18 Hymn of Response: #124, Away In A Manger Sermon Notes: Sermon notes available as PDF
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 01/11/11