Money Matters - Part 1
Well, we have a 2 part lesson today, one that I'll start this morning and finish tonight. If you have, measured the difference between how much you'd like to spend for Christmas and how much is in your bank account, you realize that money matters, doesn't it? If you want to send your child to college, or if you want to put braces on their teeth, or if you want to change that old car of yours, you will quickly come to the conclusion that money matters. I guess you can figure out by now that the title of my sermon is Money Matters. In a survey of couples who were having marital problems, one of the top three reasons for tension, even divorce, was the issue of money.
Even in a relationship, money matters. When counseling young people who are about to be married, one of the key issues that needs to be discussed is how are you going to handle money in your family? What do you think about money? Very important, young people usually think about the wedding dress, the food, the cake, all that stuff, which is fun, it's great. It'll all be over in an hour.
It'll all be over in an hour, Zoom, you won't even see it goodbye. It's important though, it's important that day is important, it's a marvelous day. But you will find out long after you've finished talking about weddings and things like that, you're talking about money in your relationship Because money matters. Now money is not a problem in itself, money is a neutral thing, it's neither good nor bad. What determines the goodness or the badness of money is how we acquire it, how we use it, and how we feel about it.
You know, I've said before that God does not love the poor more than he loves the rich. He is concerned with how a person acquires, uses and feels about the money he has, irregardless of wealth or poverty. People have feelings about money, whether they've got a lot or they've got none, they have feelings about it. And these lessons today or this morning and tonight, on money matters, I'd like to review with you the Christian approach to money matters, especially in the areas of acquiring, using and feelings concerning money. And my hope is that these lessons will enable us to develop a spiritual approach to something which has been a trap for so many people, in and out of the church.
But since most of us here are members of the church, most of us are Christians, I think that what we're concerned with is how does a Christian approach money matters? Well, first of all, let's talk about acquiring it. Everybody needs to acquire money in order to take care of business, right? You got to take care of business. But not everyone acquires money in the proper way.
Not everyone acquires money in a Christian way, in a way which is acceptable as a Christian. For example, some people acquire it in a dishonest way, let's face it. Some people just gain money by stealing, period. You know, I mean, they rob banks, they hold up convenience stores, whatever, they embezzle, you know, corporations. I hope none of us are, you know, in that category, but some people do that.
That's you know, you make the nightly news if you're that type of person. But there are some types of theft, some types of dishonesty, which are more subtle, don't usually get you to the nightly news. Some people just cheat. They just cheat. They're always rounding corners, they're always taking a shortcut.
They cheat. They cheat the government, for example, by abusing welfare. They cheat by abusing unemployment checks, by not paying proper taxes. They just cheat. Nobody knows, but they know that they're cheating.
You know, cheating, De Gaule said, Cheating the government is like cheating your neighbor because the government is your neighbor. The government is your neighbor. The government isn't over there, something over there. The government's us. We make the government.
When we cheat the government, we're cheating our neighbor and we're violating the principle that we should love our neighbor, not cheat our neighbor. Other people cheat, but they cheat in business. You know, they sell overpriced goods or services, not really worth what they what they charge for them. Or they, you know, poor workmanship for a high price. Call a guy in to service something, charge you $50 an hour, you know, and really could have been done in 10 minutes, charges you 3 hours of work for 10 minutes of work.
Or some people manipulate others into buying things that they don't really need, or they manipulate them into paying more than the items are worth. 500% profit, 800% profit, things are not worth it. Some people cheat their employers by not rendering a day's work for a day's pay. And it works both ways, you know. People use and steal their equipment that belongs to their company, their supplies, the time, all the stuff that belongs to the employer, some people just cheat.
Now, I mean, I could this is a long list, we could go all morning here, but those you know what I'm saying. I'm just trying to get give you a feel for what I'm trying to say here. You understand. You could come up with your own example, I'm sure. The Christian, and that's where I want to go, the Christian, however, acquires money but acquires as much as he can or she can.
There's no limit. The Bible doesn't tell us there's a limit to how much money we can acquire. But the Christian does not use these methods. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28, Paul says, Let him who steals, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who is in need. The Christian gains not through cheating, but by exchanging his work for money.
An honest exchange. You know, a Christian can do any kind of work so long as it's good, and fair, and honest, which leaves open a considerable amount of professions. The Bible places no limit on the fair gain that a Christian can make on the exchange of his good talent and honest work. I have known Christian millionaires. I've known them personally.
Wonderful people, wonderful people. They had a tremendous ability, tremendous gift and they exchanged it for what it was worth. And they invested wisely and they bought and they sold wisely. And they were good Christians too, people who were elders in the church and leaders in the community, who served God with an honest heart. It's possible.
It's possible. Bible does not limit the amount of gain that we can make through honest exchange of our labor. In 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 10, Paul says that those who refuse, not those who cannot work, some people cannot work for a variety of reasons, illness or circumstance, But Paul says, Those who refuse to work should not eat. Boy, that is the essential motivation for laziness, isn't it? You don't want to work, you don't get to eat.
Boy, that'll kill laziness in the moment here. Once you start starving, all of a sudden you find the motivation to get out there and work. See, starvation is the antidote to laziness. Unfortunately, in our society, we underwrite many times, not always, but many times, we underwrite and promote laziness by rewarding this type of behavior. Now, other people don't gain just by cheating, some people gain through oppression.
Some gain their money by oppressing the weak and the poor. They don't cheat, they just oppress. The gaining of extreme wealth by the direct exploitation of the poor and the ignorant. The cheating of employees of their just wages. Some people rule and enrich in themselves through violence and through domination of others.
We read about that in the paper, don't we? We also see giant corporations, not all giant corporations, but we see at times giant corporations lay off thousands of employees and burden other employees with more work simply to add wealth to only a few shareholders. We've seen that, haven't we? Just a handful of people that have no direct input to the corporation will gain profit at the expense of thousands of families hardship. That's called oppression and it takes place every single day.
We read of fabulously wealthy leaders whose people live in poverty and misery, and on whose backs the wealthy live a life of leisure. We mentioned Haiti this morning, and that's certainly a country where that takes place, where only a few live off of the poverty and misery of millions of others. 3% wealthy, 3% middle class and about 92% extreme poor. And that's the way it works in that country. We learn of politicians whose only purpose is not to guarantee order and justice and prosperity to the people, but rather to exploit their position simply to make money despite the effects that their decisions have on the people or on the environment.
We know about that too, don't we? That's called oppression. Now for Christians, the making of money does not displace the primary responsibility. And the primary responsibility that a Christian has is to love God and to love his neighbor. And this love becomes evident in the way that the Christian treats his neighbor in the matters of money.
The Christian does not oppress his neighbor in order to make a profit. Christians provide fair wages, in line with the skill and the work of their employees. That's the Christian way. The Christian will give up his profit before defrauding his employees of their wages. Yeah, that's, that's, you know, that's an important principle.
The Christian will give up his profit before defrauding his employees of his wages. The Christian loves the poor. The Christian does not oppress the poor or exploit the poor. That's not the Christian way. The Christian recognizes that God is the protector of the poor.
In Deuteronomy, chapter 24, verse 14, God says, You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land and in your towns. You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it, so that he may not cry against you to the Lord, and it become a sin in you. God is the defender of the poor and the protector. And so, the Christian recognizes that God will judge him in a way that he has treated those beneath him in privilege and prosperity. In other words, if we're the ones that are on the top, God will judge us in how we've treated the ones on the bottom.
That's the Christian way. So we need to be careful not to oppress the ones who are poor, and we oppress them sometimes without thinking about it because we think there's one rule that happens here in the church building, then there's another rule for the business. You know, well, that's church. Now it's the dog eat dog world of business. Now that's the rules are different out there.
We play for Keith's out there. We cut throats. We bleed out there. I'm sorry. That's not the way it works.
Now there's also gain through games. Gain through cheating, gain through oppression, gain through games. See, some people try to gain money by risking just a little bit of money at great odds. They have all kinds of fancy names for this to cover it, but really it's called gambling. The key of course is the odds.
The greater the odds, the greater the prize, and the greater the temptation. For example, you know, you play in basketball, you got 2 teams, you know, the odds are 5050. You bet on 1, you know, you got one chance out of 2 to win. Put up $5, win $5. If you play the horses, that's different.
You have in many races 9 horses. Woah, that's 1 out of 9. The odds are longer now. The pot's a little bit bigger but the risk is a little bit bigger to lose. You put in your 5 bucks, your 2 bucks, whatever it is, you got one chance out of 9 of winning.
Now, you win more but you risk more. And then the lottery, fool's paradise, you know. You have a 1000000 tickets and you've got just 1 ticket. Sure, the jackpot's big but the odds are incredible. And I've lived in different places where they have brought in the lot.
You know, I've lived in Quebec where they brought in the lottery and had this whole argument, Shall we bring the lottery in? You know, and it's funny, 25 years ago they brought the lottery into Quebec where I lived and the arguments for bringing it in were exactly the same as they are today to bring it into any modern state. Lower taxes, be able to give money to education, it'll provide jobs, blah, blah, blah. Well, I can tell you, 25 years later, the taxes are just as high in Quebec, just as high, and education has never seen a dime of that money. And the only people that are financing it 25 years later, the big problem in Quebec is that the government is finding out that all they're doing is recycling their welfare money.
That's all they're doing, recycling their welfare money. In other words, there's no new growth. The same people that the government sends money to are sending it back to them through the lottery because it's a poor man's gambling scheme. But anyway, it's not a sermon about gambling, but I just want to throw that in as a free aside, not even in my notes. Let's suffice to say that it's gambling when a little bit of money is bet against great odds to win you a lot of money, and it can be any game you want to call it, but still gambling.
Now, the Christian has to walk by faith, not by risk. We don't walk by risk, we walk by faith. The Christian's odds of success for the things that God has promised us are 100% sure. There is no risk. Those who believe and are baptized will be forgiven and saved.
That's a 100% sure. Those who seek first the kingdom will have all the material things that they need. That is also 100% sure. If you seek first to do what God wants you to do in your life, God has promised you a 100% sure that He will then provide for you all the things that you need. Those who remain faithful will resurrect from the dead and live eternally.
That's a 100% sure. No risk involved. And so when it comes to money, the Christian doesn't play games. He gains his money through sincere effort in honest work. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 11, he says, And make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands just as we commanded you.
Work with your hands doesn't mean here that the only work that's valid is manual work, but it's your own work. You work with your own hands. The Christian doesn't have to take ridiculous risks in order to gain because God has promised to provide for all of his needs. So, when it comes to acquiring money, Christians profit through honest effort, by depending on God to provide their needs and basing their attitude in business on the Christian principle that we should do unto others what we want them to do unto us. What a wonderful world it would be if businesses based their practices on the principle that they will do unto you what you, what they would want you to do unto them.
Boy oh boy. The other area is the use of money. I've talked about the acquiring of money. There's also the use of money. God doesn't judge us, as I said, based on how much money we have.
He judges us on how we get our money, and also how we use our money. Of course wealth includes all of our talents and resources, I know that, but money is the most tangible of our wealth and resources, and it's the clearest indicator as how we use our wealth and resources. You know, if a person uses his cash well, he's going to use his other things well, as well. So the proper use of money for the Christian should include several things. For example, it should be used as a manner of thanksgiving.
In other words, how do you use money? Well one way to use it is as a way to say thank you to God. From Cain and Abel until today, mankind has had the opportunity to demonstrate their genuine gratitude for God's blessings by offering to God the very first portion of their grain or of their harvest or their profit or their paycheck. Nothing new. Very first portion, we've had an opportune it's always been there.
Whether you give it or not, that first portion has stamped on it thanksgiving to God. Now some people just take it and they spend it on something else, that's fine. I'm just saying from the very beginning of time, the first portion has always had a stamp on it that says, If you give this part to God, that'll be the way that you will say thank you to him. Money is a great blessing because it offers us the opportunity to demonstrate in a sincere way our gratitude towards God. Now I mentioned last week that the first sin that begins our separation from God is a neglect to express our thanks in some way.
Remember I talked about that in Romans 1 verse 21? How do we start sinning? We start sinning by forgetting to say thank you, and then it goes downhill from there. So we can pray long and pretty prayers, but if we don't give God the first portion of our money, we're just talking to ourselves. Another way that money should be used is to provide for our needs.
Provide for our needs. You know, God created us as dependent beings. You ever think of that? He could've created us in such a way that we didn't have to eat or sleep or anything. You know, we could've just been totally self sufficient, but he didn't.
Do you ever wonder why? Well, he allows us to exchange our work in order for things that we need, And this exercises our will. It gives us joy, and it gives us satisfaction. Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 18 and 19 describes this idea. He says, here is what I have seen to be good and fitting, to eat, to drink, to enjoy oneself in all one's labor, in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him, for this is his reward.
Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God. See what Solomon is saying? The ability to work and earn, and the satisfaction of building something, and earning something, and eating it, and so on. All of this is God's gift to us.
It's the enjoyment that we have from life. You know, you plant tomatoes, they come up, you chop them up, put them in a salad. Oh, man. What a good feeling. God could have made us that we never needed tomatoes.
But he created it in such a way that we have interaction with the environment, and that interaction gives us pleasure. Now, what is it that we need? That's the key. In 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 6 to 8, Paul tells us what we need. He says, But in godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.
For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. But if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. That's the bottom line. Food and covering. That's what we need.
Now food is sustenance, and that includes all that is necessary to gain it and keep it. We need an education, we need transportation, we need employment, we need leisure and rest in order to rest from our work, so we can be more effective at work and all that business, you know. But all of that includes the ability to get the food, the sustenance that we need. That's one of our needs. And the other is covering or protection, and that includes our homes, our medical covering, our governmental covering, the military, all that.
That's all covering. Paul says those are the 2 things that we need. We need to sustain ourselves, and we need to protect ourselves. That's what we need. And 1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 8, Paul says, But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Paul reminds us that the proper use of our money is to supply the needs of our families as a priority. So, what's another use of money? To provide for the needs of our families. You know one of the big problems in our society is that, this instruction is not being followed. People are abandoning the care of their families to the government or worse still they prevent the very existence of their families through abortion.
So they won't have to be burdened with this responsibility. Don't get it wrong, all this publicity about abortion, you know, they always use the one example, oh a rape victim. Well, there are very few rape victim type abortions. The majority of abortions that are performed are performed on women who just don't want another baby to feed, unfortunately, and the men who will not provide for that woman and that child, lest we forget. But that's a basic need.
A basic need is to provide for our families. And then finally, the other proper use of money is for helping others in need. I said, one proper use of money to give thanks. The other proper use of money to provide for needs for our families as a priority. And then the other proper use of money is for helping other people.
Helping other people. In Ephesians 4, the passage that I read at the very beginning, Paul says, and I'll read it again to refresh your memory. He says, Let him who steal, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. Not only to give thanks, not only to provide for your needs, but we work and gain money to provide for the needs of other people. See, our thinking in this area is this.
It goes like this: First I give my portion to the Lord. Okay, that's good. Then I take care of everybody, you know, my family, education, food, all that kind of stuff. And then the rest is mine, I can burn it. Money to burn.
Get that new you fill in the blank, whatever it is. Get that new gizmo, whatever that is, whatever your gizmo is. Okay? I wanna tell you something, maybe a new idea, but this is poor stewardship on our part. And it may be one of the reasons why we don't get ahead a lot.
It may be one of the reasons we don't have a whole lot to put on some new gizmos. You see, God has designed our proper use of money, so that the first portion goes to Him, the next portion is for us, and that's the largest portion. It goes to us for our needs, and our family's needs, and then the last portion should be invested not just in earthly treasure, but in heavenly treasure as well. I want to go back to Deuteronomy 24, and I want to show you this principle in action. In Deuteronomy 24, listen to what he says.
He says, When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheath in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again. You know, don't shake the trees till there isn't a single solitary grape there. He said, you know, you shake them out one time, you collect.
But if the ones that don't fall, you leave them there. It'll it it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt before I am commanding you to do this thing. You see in the old testament, when the harvest was in, the first portion was given to the Lord. Yes.
And the majority was kept for the various needs, But the corners of the field were not round. They were just rounded out. And the corners of the field, they were left for the poor, and the aliens, and the widows, and the orphans. And what was dropped behind was left there for them to collect on the trees and in the field. You see, the mistake of the fool who wanted you know the guy who wanted to build bigger barns?
His mistake was that when a surplus came, he thought it was just for him. So he could go out and buy some new gizmos. You see, today that extra portion, that extra money when there is some, and there is some sometimes, not always, but sometimes there's a little extra. That extra could be used to help parents or relatives who are in need. Could be used to invest in poor brothers or sisters in the church who have a need.
Could be invested in special community things where there is a need. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 9 verse 8, Paul says that God is able and He will provide not only for our needs, but if we have a ready heart to do it, he will also provide an extra portion enough so we can do good deeds. And that's the proper use of our money, not just to buy new gizmos. Now tonight we're gonna look at the way that we feel about money because we've run out of time. But for now we'll say that we acquire and use money, or rather the way that we acquire and use money will in a large part determine how much wealth God will allow us to have in good conscience.
Now I say in good conscience because a thief, or someone who oppresses or cheats, or a gambler or a lazy person may eventually get some easy money. But that person rarely has an easy conscience. See, it's one thing to have a lot of money, it's a lot of things to have a lot of money with an easy conscience. In Malachi chapter 3 verse 10 to 12, Malachi tells us that if we acquire and use money in the proper way, God will reward us in different manners. In Malachi chapter 3, and this is my final Scripture and then the lesson is yours, Malachi says of the Lord, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts.
If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows, then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it may not destroy the fruits of the ground, nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes, says the Lord of hosts. And all the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts. What is God telling us here about the proper use and the proper acquiring of money? He promised us, first of all, that we'll be blessed. That God will reward us with heavenly as well as earthly rewards.
And I'll tell you something, nobody ever became poor handling their money according to God's will. Nobody. Nobody gets poor handling the money according to God's purpose. Secondly, we'll be blessed by other people. Others will be blessed by our use of money, and we will receive the blessing back on ourselves.
That's what Malachi says. And finally, he says, we'll be blessed by our conscience. Our conscience will not crave money nor will it condemn us for the wealth that we have if we acquire it properly and if we use it according to God's will and purpose. Well, if you've not acted properly in your obtaining and use of money, I would encourage you this morning to ask God to forgive you. Just to forgive you.
And ask God to show you the way to acquire and use the money that you have in a manner that will bless you rather than condemn you. Because in the end, that's what will condemn you. You. How we've used it, how we've obtained it, very important. Also, if you need this morning to come for prayer, if you need to be restored for any reason whatsoever, if you'd like to place your membership with us, if you need to confess Christ, be baptized.
Whatever, whatever we can do to minister to you this morning. We encourage you to come during the song of invitation, and we also encourage you to return tonight. And I will finish this series and talk about how we feel about money and get into the emotional side of the money issue. If you have any need this morning to come forward and respond during this time, we encourage you to do so as we stand and as we sing.