Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.
How do we know where to find answers to the toughest questions in life?
While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search and how do we discover
this truth?
Today, in this teaching podcast, John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, takes a
specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth for the life we're searching for.
We're so glad that you're with us today.
Did you happen to see those six couples that got married last Sunday and I asked them those
services?
Isn't that a great thing?
Would you celebrate that with me?
Man, what a great opportunity.
I talked to one couple that said we got married during COVID.
Nobody could be there and we were actually married, but when we saw that you gave the
opportunity for us to have a formal ceremony, we joined with these other five couples.
It was a beautiful thing.
If you have your Bibles this morning, please take them and turn to Psalm 24 today.
Psalm 24.
I want to remind you, we've been in a series that is called Rooted and I believe we have
a picture of the Rooted book that we are encouraging people to find out about and to get.
This is a great book to pass on truths to new believers or those that have never been
discipled before.
This is great mentoring material because it deals with all these particular subjects in
a very simple way.
Sometimes people come to faith and they don't know where to find what book in the Bible.
They don't know about the table of contents at the front yet and they're looking through
their Bible trying to find out where do I find the truths that help me live by.
We want to be ready to help people no matter where they are begin their walk of faith and
begin to know what it means to embrace the truths of scripture.
Things like who is God?
How does God speak to us?
Is there an enemy?
How can I make the most out of my life?
Last week we talked about how and why do I tell others about my faith in Jesus.
I think two weeks from now we'll talk about what about the church?
Why is the church important?
And then today, what does God, how does God view money?
So we'll talk about money in just a few moments.
This was actually supposed to be the message that was in our series for last week but I'd
been off from preaching for 12 weeks and I knew that I was going to start preaching on
July 14th and I thought, boy that would be so bad for me to come back and preach on money
the first week back.
So I punted it to this week and last week talked about how to share the gospel.
I felt really good about that order by the way.
So today we're going to get to it and this is a message that you're going to want to
hear.
Now next Sunday morning is different.
We're not going to have our Rudy series next Sunday morning but we have what we call not
ashamed day.
Now many of you have been to our not ashamed day.
It's the day when we really focus on baptism.
It's not that we don't baptize every week.
In fact, in one or other of our venues we baptize nearly every single week.
When people come to faith we immediately want to baptize them.
But it also is a helpful thing to do that on one day a year we say, let's baptize everyone
that hasn't had the chance to be baptized yet.
And so we were doing that next Sunday morning.
Now during the course of the service next Sunday morning, I will walk through the aisles
of this church.
I will walk up and down the aisles and invite people to come to the altar with me and to
put their faith and trust in Jesus that they never have or if they've already been saved,
they've given their lives to Christ but they've never been scripturally immersed in baptism.
I'll invite them to come and we'll have spontaneous baptisms.
And that's always one of those awesome amazing things that the Holy Spirit begins to work
and people's hearts begin to realize I need to be baptized.
Now if you're one of those and you know that you need to be baptized, let us know.
Let us get you up here and next Sunday morning celebrate what it means to publicly proclaim
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's a great Sunday for us and it will be for you as well.
So how does God view Boney today?
Would you please take your Bibles open to Psalm 24.
Staying with me as we read this Psalm, actually a Psalm of worship, it has a bit to do with
money but it actually has to do with everything.
That is everything that you and I come into contact with, everything that God owns which
is everything.
Psalm chapter 24, by the way as we dive into this, let me just tell you one of the greatest
things I can do as a pastor is to help you know what the scripture says about money.
Think about this.
Everything that we do touches money when we're in another, doesn't it?
You got in your car today to come to the services, if you brought a car, you got into your car
and you paid money for that car at some point.
You had to put gas in the car to get here, that required money.
You had something to eat before you left today and you'll have something to eat after you
leave today and that will require money.
You've got clothes on your body and that requires money as well.
In fact, you have as many dealings with money as you do with air, air you breathe.
Every moment, the money that you deal with every part of every day.
Wouldn't it be wise to know what's God's view of money since I deal with it all the
time.
It's always my privilege today to talk about a few principles of giving and a few principles
of spending that will help us know how God views all we have.
So with that, let's read what it says in Psalm chapter 24, a psalm of worship.
The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.
The world and all those who dwell in it.
For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.
Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord and who may stand in his holy place.
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, who
has not sworn deceitfully, he shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness
from the God of salvation.
This is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, even Jacob.
Father, in Jesus name today, help us as we walk through this and several other passages
in the scriptures and help us understand your view of money and why it's important.
Help us to know what you want for us, what you want from us.
Help us to know what's ahead and why.
Lord, I thank you that you do love us, that you care and that you provide for us.
Lord, thank you for the privilege of calling us stewards of all that you've given us.
We ask this in Jesus name and God's people said amen.
Please be seated if you would.
Every day you deal with money as we've said.
Every day I deal with it.
But every day that I deal with money and don't include God is a day in which I've excluded
him from a major part of my life.
Right?
I mean, if I trust God for my decisions, if I trust God for my relationships, if I trust
God for heaven, if I trust God for all the things we trust him for as believers but don't
trust him with money, we are effectively keeping him out of something that he wants to bless
and direct in a massive way.
I don't want to be excluded from that.
I'm just a guy that doesn't want to be left out and I don't want to leave that part of
God out of my life because he does give me principles, he does give me wisdom about how
I'm to approach the issues of money.
So let's look at this morning at how God views money and helps us know God cares about it.
He cares about what's his and how he's allowed us to have a part of that and I really care
today that you might be blessed in a way that lets you practice the way you deal with money
in a way that aligns with his purposes and his will.
So we have an adventure as we are going to take off today.
We're going to find out three things that God gives us when it comes to money.
So first of all, God gives us the best perspective of money.
That's where we'll start in Psalm 24.
The best perspective of money is found in verse one.
The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.
That's a pretty simple principles, isn't it?
Basically that principle says everything that you have, everything that you see, everything
on the earth, everything in the earth and the fact that you are on the earth, everything
belongs to God.
The principle is God is owner over all.
Now if you read the Bible, you'll find the truth about this comes early and often all
the way through the scriptures.
From the very beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and of course God created it
so personally, so dynamically, so supernaturally, no one can take credit for owning the earth.
Only God.
The earth doesn't even take credit for owning itself.
I mean the heavens declare the glory of God.
We have this perspective that God wants us to have it.
It all belongs to him.
Back in the Old Testament, the very day that he led the Israelites out of Egypt and into
the wilderness towards the promised land, he reminded them, Exodus chapter 19 verse
5, for all the earth is mine.
As you leave, just know wherever you go, I've been there first.
Wherever you see, whatever you see along the pathway, I am there, have been there and I
own it all.
You're walking on my hallowed ground.
Before the Ten Commandments were given in Exodus chapter 19 and then later on in Deuteronomy
chapter 10, God gives them these tablets of stone and says to them, Behold to the Lord
your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.
And he reminds his people, I own it all.
The prophet Haggai, later on in the Old Testament, thousands of years after the previous passages
were spoken by God, the prophet says the silver is mine and the gold is mine.
He says, everything is mine, declares the Lord of Hosts.
Now if you begin to read through the Bible, you'll see a framework of perspective that
everything that we see, everything that is belongs to the Lord.
And the more you read that, the more you understand what Jesus says about money when you get to
the New Testament.
In fact, when you get past the words of Jesus, you get to another passage in 1 Corinthians
chapter 9 or chapter 6 verse 19 that says, Do you not know that your body is the temple
of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, that you have from God and that you are not even your
own?
So the earth is his, the silver and gold is his, everything we see is his.
I am his, you are his, if you're a follower of Christ, you belong to him.
So the principle that you find all the way through Scripture is that God is the owner
of all.
I just give this quote to you today, wherever you look in Scripture, the Bible reminds us
that God is the owner of it all.
And I would ask this question as we get into this message over these next few moments,
is it obvious that you see God as owner over all?
Is it obvious by the way you deal with your money?
Obvious by the way you deal with your life?
Obvious by the decisions that you make that you see that he is owner of all?
It's a great step to take if you haven't taken that step yet of getting to the place
of saying, okay God, I acknowledge it really is yours.
I mean it's in my hands, it might be my name that's on it, my account may have my name
next to it, but I understand that all I have is yours.
First principle, God is owner over all.
The second principle is our personal position with money.
God gives us our position with money.
We obviously have a role to play, right?
Because the money that we say belongs to God is in your hands.
At least it is at the moment, isn't it?
I mean you have your name on the title of a car, perhaps your name on the title of a
house.
The only things that you call your own when we give money to one thing or another, we
say that we give our money to this or to that.
God has given you a position and that position is one of a manager.
If you go back to Psalm 24 for a second, again the passage is about worship, it's about how
to be faithful to God, it's about how to walk with God.
It says, who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who may stand in his holy place, he who
has clean hands and a pure heart.
Since this is a worship Psalm and it gives us insights into how to position ourselves
with the right kind of heart and the right kind of obedience to the Lord, then it's important
for us to say that's what we need to pursue.
I need to do with the money God's given me whatever is done of clean hands and pure heart,
without deception, without idolatry, without letting money have a bigger position in my
life than it should, I should be faithful to God first and foremost.
God defines that position for us as a manager, as a steward.
Now I really like the fact that God defines our role here and the reason is, it's because
if God doesn't define our role, we tend to get the idea that we should do whatever we
want to do at any given moment with our money.
We miss some of the barriers and the hidden reefs that are in the waters as we try to
navigate life.
If there's not some way to understand an ideal, the best way or God's way to deal with our
money, we're just going to go in whatever direction our desires take us and those desires
can take us in some bad direction.
So God defines our position.
God sees us as managers over all that He's provided.
I don't own what's in my name, He does, but I'm a manager.
Some time ago I read an astounding story of a bank owner and the board of directors dealing
with the bank manager in a particular branch of a bank and this manager mismanaged with
the responsibility he was given, he mismanaged over a million dollars worth of money.
He took money from accounts, he took money from innocent people, from elderly people,
he did all kinds of things to get money for himself, he falsified records, everything
else until he had more than a million dollars that he'd stolen.
But there came a day of accountability and an audit was done and he was discovered and
of course the owner and the board of directors immediately said, you are an awful manager,
not only will we release you from your job but we'll release you into the hands of the
authorities and that man is in prison today.
True story.
It happens all the time.
Managers take money that doesn't belong to them and do something they shouldn't with
it.
Now that's kind of a sobering story because sometimes we do that with God.
If God is owner, we're managers, sometimes we take what we're managing and we move in
a wrong direction with it.
Sometimes we do that because we have fallen into some sort of idolatry with the things
that we want to have.
Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 6, no one can serve two masters for 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 God and wealth.
And the rooted book that I'm referring you to, there's a statement that I really like.
When we lean towards money, we began to serve power, prestige, pride and selfishness, none
of which were from God.
Money has the power to undermine our love for God and our desire to serve him and it
really can.
It can get in the way of everything that God really wants to be doing in our lives.
So what's the answer?
The answer is we are to serve God with our money.
We are to serve God with our money.
We're to find out how God wants to use money in our lives, how he wants us to give or spend
or save and to move forward with his divine instructions.
Aren't you glad God gives divine instructions?
I don't know where I would be in my marriage without the divine instructions that come
from the word of God.
I don't know where I would be in my personal life without divine instructions from the
word of God about how to walk with God.
I don't know where I would be in regard to the truth and the culture that's gone crazy
without the word of God giving me the instructions on what I am to believe and the same is true
of money.
So we are not the owners, God is.
We are the managers and the stewards that we are called to be faithful to everything
God's entrusted to us.
Do you remember that amazing parable that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 25?
I think we heard it recently in this room where Jesus gave or the master gave the slaves
five talents, two talents and one talent and then he left town for a long period of time
and Jesus telling this parable says that when the master came back he wanted an accounting
for all that he had assigned to each person.
And we pick up that story in Matthew chapter 25, just read a few verses here.
Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
Now the one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more saying, Master
you've entrusted five talents to me, see I've gained five more talents.
As master said to him, well done good and faithful slave, you were faithful with a few
things I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.
I love this parable because it really makes sense when we understand God's principle of
money from the Old Testament.
God is a master and he's entrusted it to us.
In fact in this parable are two words that you need to highlight or underline here and
one is the word entrust.
We've been entrusted something for this life but the second word is faithful.
That's how we are to use money in faithfulness to God.
For those of you that haven't heard my stories, we have six children, my wife and I and the
youngest is 27, almost 28 years of age now and I can remember when all six kids were
at home I was pastoring in Irving, Texas, a very modest salary but six kids were moving
into driving age and then college was on the horizon and I mean it was always hard to make
ends meet and yet at the same time I was a leader in the church, I needed to lead the
way, it was important for me to give generously to our church and obediently before God and
there was a lot of trusting that went on during those times.
In fact today in recent days I've had adult kids ask the question, Mom, Dad, how did you
all make it during that era?
Because we kind of know what your salary was and we don't know how we made it.
We don't know how we always had food on the table, we always had everything that we needed
and my response is always this, I can't show you on a spreadsheet, I can't show you exactly
how it all worked but I can tell you this, we were faithful to God and God was faithful
to us and whenever we were without it seemed that God was able to just meet our need in
ways that were either supernatural or opportunities that required hard work but nonetheless allowed
us to see every need met.
Some of you have heard the story I told years ago, most of our kids were still at home,
we were going on vacation one time and I put six kids in the back of a suburb and we would
go to Florida is where we were going.
I had a preacher friend named Wayne Barber, he was my exact size who said if you'll swing
by Tennessee on your way to Florida I have a couple of suits I would give you and I needed
some suits, the pastors need suits, you know that.
And I just remember during that period of time our church was trying to get out of debt,
we'd made a commitment and part of the decision making was that I didn't need to buy any new
clothes during that commitment, we were just going to give to get that free which we did
get that free but the need was big for me to have some new clothes.
So he said drive by the church and I'll give some to you.
So we went actually worshiped with him on Sunday morning.
By the way another interesting fact, Wayne Barber was 6'5 and weighed 240 pounds which
is exactly my size.
I mean that's kind of crazy, I've weighed 240 pounds for a long, long time.
But Wayne had gained 40 extra pounds and couldn't wear all these tailor-made suits so he said
come get them.
So that Sunday morning we worshiped with him, we went out to his car and I made some room
in the back of my suburban about that wide for three or four suits, whatever it might
be and he gave me some and I stuck them in and I closed the door and he said no there's
more, opened it back up so I stuck some more in, closed the door, he said no there's more
and he just kept coming and kept coming.
And before long I was just stuffing clothes in, I didn't care if they were going to be
nice or not when we got there they were going to be all crumpled and wrinkled of course
but these were free clothes, they fit me so I just kept stuffing them in there.
By the time we got to the hotel that night, hours and hours later I took them all out
and put them in a closet.
I tell this story sometimes to our kids, I remember taking all those clothes out and
putting them in a closet rod and kind of calculating, this had to be at least $6,000 worth of new
suits that he couldn't wear anymore because he'd been abundantly blessed with food and
I could wear them by then.
In the middle of the night after putting those suits on a wooden closet rod we were awakened
in the middle of the night because that rod broke and it went boom and everybody in the
hotel room woke up and immediately when we heard that I thought of Malachi chapter 3,
see if I won't pour out a blessing that you can't even handle, I'll open the windows
of heaven and pour out a blessing you can't receive.
Now I've moved past most of those seats but I keep one of them to remind me that God is
able to meet needs in ways you can't even imagine if you're trusting with what you have.
What an important lesson for people to have in life.
I've got in front of you several things here and this is what I would call produce.
The Bible says in Proverbs 3 verse 9, honor the Lord with the first of your produce.
Now this would be kind of the horn of plenty look that a lot of families that were farmers
would have in Old Testament Israel.
This principle meant very practical things to them.
It meant that when they had the harvest that they immediately worshiped God and gave him
a portion of that and that portion that we find in scripture is the tithe, is the tent.
I think I've got seven different kinds of fruits and vegetables over here so I'm going
to start putting them over here and hope they don't roll off but I've got cantaloupe and
I've got oranges and grapefruit and I've got apples and I've got peaches and I've got
areas of corn right here and I think that's about seven of them.
So what you're looking at right now is one-tenth of all the produce that is on this table.
I want you to take a good hard look at it for a second and I want you to see that when
God gives us a principle of giving this is what He wants for us and this is what He wants
from us.
I think it's important to see the visual of this.
Sometimes when God asks us to give a portion of what He's blessed us with and we think
it looks more like this and God there's no way that I can live on this but that's just
not what God is asking.
God is asking us to keep this, to spend this, to meet all the needs that you have in your
life and in your future with this and then to bring a tenth to Him and say we worship
you with this.
It's not a legalism, it's a worship.
It's done by faith.
It doesn't secure our salvation.
What it does is it says Lord we trust you with the things that you've blessed us with.
It's not even giving back to God because you're really just sending it to where God says to
send it to the storehouse, to the New Testament church in New Testament times.
So we've got this principle going on and part of what I learned when I was growing up was
there's the principle of the tithe and my mom and dad taught me that by giving me ten
dimes on Saturday afternoon so that I would give one dime to the Lord in church the next
morning.
My dad was so smart he knew he should not give me a dollar bill because if the offering
plate passed I would say I can't give because I haven't broken this bill yet.
He gave it to me on Saturday night so I couldn't spend it anywhere else before church on Sunday.
He said well that was a cheapskate dad, a dollar.
But do you know what a dollar could buy at a five and dime store back in the day I grew
up?
In the day of penny candy you could get sick on 50 cents back in that day.
I mean that's all a kid would ever need.
But my dad taught me look you take a tenth and you give it to God and there's plenty
for you the rest of the week.
And he would say to me son if you run out just remember I'm your father and I can help
take care of you with whatever else you need.
And I learned as a kid that you can give a tenth to God and still have all the needs
met in your life.
So we've got this picture for you today that God wants this for you and He wants this from
you as an act of worship.
I think this is an incredible picture for us to look at and to remember.
It's really more simple than what we would normally make it to be.
Now my dad was really wise when it came to financial principles in the scripture but
he wasn't wise in the way of putting away something for the future.
Thirty-five years ago an older mentor came to me.
He knew we had a big family and he said John what are you doing for the future?
I said what do you mean?
He said well I know that you give, I know that you're faithful with the money God's
provided for you but what are you doing about the future?
And I said well actually nothing because it takes all I have just to meet the needs of
my family.
He said well didn't you trust God in giving the tithe to Him?
I said well I did.
He said don't you think you could trust Him if you put some aside for the future?
And I said I guess so.
So I began to take ten percent and put it aside for the future at His insistence.
He said John who's going to take care of you in the future if you don't think about it
yourself?
And so I began to do this very same thing with the future and making sure that we took
a portion of our income and put it to the future.
I don't know how many of you are financial people but if you do something like this for
thirty-five years I can assure you it will grow and it has.
And I still trust God with the eighty percent.
I worshiped Him with the ten.
I set aside the ten percent and I trusted Him with the eighty and God has been faithful.
The reality is we can trust Him with anything small or large but the reality is the way
we trust Him is by following His principles and commands as He gives us those commands.
And I just think of what's happened with this tenth over the years.
I've been involved in some great churches.
This is a phenomenal church and I know that when I give it goes to impact people for the
Kingdom.
I can't tell you how many people have come to faith in Jesus through folks like you and
I who give and make that fund the things of evangelism, the things of discipleship.
People are counseled to have their baby instead of aborting their baby.
People are hearing about the gospel on the other side of the world because faithful people
give a portion of their income to the Lord and worship and the church makes that have
impact throughout the world.
We're a part of a larger organization as well.
We have four thousand missionaries and every part of the world, literally every continent
of the world has missionaries that we support through the gifts like this tenth percent
would give us the ability to do.
And I think of God's master plan and I wonder how can I have a better plan than God had
it for my life without this.
I can't find a better plan than God has for my life.
You'll hear us say that we're all about real people which means that you matter to us.
In fact, I would love the chance to meet you in person.
We have a guest reception every week after this 11 a.m. service on the U.S. 10.
Let me have four other services where you can meet our people.
How you spend the 80 now, God may lead you one way, may lead you another way and that
is your stewardship before him.
Sometimes God leads us to take another portion and do this for a building or he leads us
to take another portion and do this for the future, whatever it is.
But God leads us and God provides for us.
I want to make this super principle, super simple this principle and then I want to ask
you a question.
What do you do from here?
You may find that you don't practice this or this.
You may find that you see all that you have as something that is yours and only yours.
But I would challenge you to test God and to trust God because God is trustworthy.
I'm looking back on my life now and I'm thinking, oh I'm so glad I learned the financial principles
and the giving principles that I learned.
I'm glad I had a father that took the time to give me ten dimes instead of a dollar bill.
I'm glad for all those things because my life is counted for something because I think about
God in all the things that deal with money and you can too.
What do we do from here?
Well if you're already doing this, keep it up.
Keep it up.
Keep praying.
Keep trusting.
If you're not doing this, I would encourage you to make a decision.
Make a decision to start trusting God in an area that touches literally on every part
of your life.
If you haven't trusted Him yet, you can begin to trust Him.
In this book called Rooted, there's a line that says, if you want to respond to God and
His challenge for money, write a prayer to God, turning over trust to Him.
You can just confess your misplaced trust and that what God has done in your life, you
want to be faithful with.
Pray for strength as you turn over your faith to God and relinquish control.
And I like those last two words, relinquish control, surrender to Him.
I've been walking with the Lord for a long time.
There's not one thing in my life that I've surrendered to Him that I wish I had back.
Not one thing.
There's not one thing I've surrendered to Him that I regret surrendering to Him.
And here's what I know.
Whatever I surrender to God is better in His hands than it is in mine because He's God
and He knows how it works.
Now we know that financial principles are not easy.
I love the ministry that we have.
We have something that we call, I guess the slang term for it is the money ministry.
And the money ministry is helping people know how to manage their money.
I'm going to put a screenshot up here from our website.
These two fine looking young men, Ryan and Alex, would love to talk to you about how
to walk with them in their financial freedom classes.
They're actually being our guest central, or guest, I guess central at the end of our
service today.
They'd love to talk to you.
We have classes for this.
We have material for this.
But the bottom line is we want you to be blessed by the principles that God has given us in
the way of money.
God is the owner of all.
And He's asked you to manage wisely what He's given you.
And manage that with the wisdom that He's given us in Scripture.
I want you to bow your head for just a moment, close your eyes.
In just a few moments I'm going to have a closing word of prayer.
We have decision stations that we have at every door.
And I know today I've not talked a lot about that important decision of salvation.
In fact, today I would say to you that this only makes sense to us when we've already
surrendered our lives to Jesus.
I mean if I can trust Him for heaven, I can trust Him for earth, right?
And so today if you've never started that relationship with Jesus Christ, we want to
talk with you about that.
We want to help you with that.
Stop by the decision station and say I really think I need to start with my relationship
with Jesus.
And we would agree that's the first place.
Secondly, I invite you to our guest reception room.
If you're a guest today, I'd love to meet you and talk to you a little bit more and
help you know what God is doing here at Cross City.
And thirdly, we invite you to come back to what most would say is one of the most exciting
services of the year.
And brothers, I'm not ashamed.
I bring somebody with you.
Bring somebody maybe that doesn't know Christ.
And what they're going to hear is testimony after testimony of people that have put their
faith in Jesus.
It's exhilarating.
Would you stand with me as I close in prayer?
Father, I am so grateful today for simple principles that affect us in everyday ways.
Father, thank you that you care enough about us to show us what we are to do with even
our finances with the produce that we've been blessed with.
And Father, I thank you for these truths and pray that they'll resonate within our hearts
as we all make decisions based on what you say, what your Word says.
And Lord, I pray that as folks take the step of trusting you that they will also see that
you can be trusted and that you will prove that you're able to bless them and meet their
needs.
Father, as I look back over my life, I am so very grateful that I learned some of these
principles and that you were so faithful in blessing and providing.
And Lord, I know that you'll do that for others as well.
Thank you, Lord, for all you've given us.
Thank you that this earth we walk on belongs to you and we belong to you.
We ask all these things in Jesus' name today.
Amen.