I want to say a word of thanks to those people who are a part of our greeting ministry week
by week, who are at the doors to give all of us as we come in a handshake and a warm
smile.
That's an important part of a greeting as we come into church.
It makes us feel welcome and happy as we come in.
Thank you for those of you doing it.
And if you'd like to be a part of that ministry, there's opportunity for it.
If you would be interested, just call the church office and we'll get you in touch
with the right people.
Something that you do maybe once a month, you can do it more frequently than that if
you care to, but it's just a time when you in a very personal way can greet other people
and in that way encourage them as they come to worship together with us.
Last week we had a great time at the luncheon down in Minneapolis.
Each month we have a fellowship luncheon in Minneapolis and then one in St. Paul.
I think that last Thursday as we gathered there in Minneapolis, it was perhaps the most
stimulating time that we've had.
It was just a very enjoyable time.
Of course the situation's not too shabby.
We're up on the 18th floor of the IDS building overlooking downtown all the way out to Columbia
Heights.
I mean it does something for you to get up there that high and it's inspiring.
And we share together a box lunch.
And if you're interested in coming to that, there'll be an opportunity next month for
you to make a reservation for it.
Now this week we're having one in St. Paul and if you'd like to come to that and join
us at the St. Paul Athletic Club on Thursday from 12 to 1, please call the church office
and let us know so that we can count your reservations, count your reservation for that
occasion.
One of the things that we have determined to do in the year 1988 as a congregation and
setting our priorities is to increase our awareness of the principles of stewardship
in God's Word.
We said in our ministry plan for 1988 that that is something that we feel as a congregation
that we need to emphasize and have taught to us.
And so this morning I'm going to begin a brief series.
This is one way we're going to address that particular concern that we have regarding
stewardship.
I'm going to speak for three Sundays on this very important topic from God's Word entitled
the Dollars and Cents, S-E-N-S-E, excuse me, S-E-N-S-E, I'm preaching on money, not spelling,
S-E-N-S-E of finances.
And would you turn please to the Gospel of Luke, L-U-C-E.
We're going to read in chapter 16 beginning in verse 10.
These are the words of our Lord when He says, He who is faithful in a very little thing
is faithful also in much.
And He who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, that is money,
who will entrust the true riches to you, that is spiritual things?
And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give
you that which is your own?
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
else he will hold to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and the mammon.
Let's pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, we pray that as we approach this topic, that you will cause our hearts
to be open, teachable, that we might be made aware of what you have to say to us personally
regarding the use of our money.
I pray that you will make it a practical series that we enter into.
And as a result of it, may we not only know more, but may we be doing more as good stewards
of all that you've committed to us.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Dr. Urban Lutzer tells the story of a farmer and a preacher who were having a conversation
regarding giving.
The preacher said to the farmer, if you had two farms, would you give one of them to God?
And the farmer said, preacher, you know I would.
And he said, well, farmer, if you had $2,000, would you give $1,000 of it to God?
And the farmer said, preacher, you know I would do that.
So the preacher said, well, if you had two pigs, would you give one of them to God?
And he said, now, preacher, you know that isn't fair.
You know I've got two pigs.
I suppose all of us can identify with the farmer to some degree.
Every aspect of stewardship is a test of faithfulness.
And of course, stewardship is a very broad topic in the Word of God.
We talk about the stewardship of life, the stewardship of time, the stewardship of our
bodies, the stewardship of our spiritual abilities.
But the one perhaps where we tend to ease off a bit is the area of the stewardship of
our money.
Dr. Lutzer further said, our attitude toward money is an especially accurate barometer
of our relationship to the world.
God has a lot to say in His Word about money.
In fact, there are over 700 verses that directly speak about money.
And there are hundreds of others that indirectly deal with the same topic.
So if God talks about something that many hundreds of times, we know that it's an important
topic.
It's one in which He has some important things to say to all of us.
The use of one's finances has a great bearing on his spiritual life and his fruitfulness
to God.
I'd like to begin this morning by this proposition that God wants you to have money.
That's an exciting proposition, isn't it?
Some of you are very excited about that, I know, and you want to know where you go to
sign up.
Well, I want you to think about that truth, that God wants you to have money.
All of it, all of wealth, all of money is actually His ultimately, isn't it?
Because He is the Creator.
And it is He, the Creator, who imparts to us, creatures, the ability to get a hold of
it and to use it.
For example, Haggai 2.8, the Lord declares, the silver is mine and the gold is mine.
And in the context there, He's talking about the wealth of all the nations of the world.
So if you were to combine the treasuries of the United States, the Soviet Union, Great
Britain, and every other country in all of the earth, and sum it up in dollars and cents,
God could claim rightful ownership to every penny of all of it, because it's all His.
He is the Creator.
In Deuteronomy 8.18, it says, the Lord gives you power to make wealth.
The Lord gives us the ability to make wealth, Proverbs 10.22.
It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich.
And again in 1 Timothy 6.17, God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.
So please understand that God does not condemn making money.
God wants you to have money.
But that is not the prosperity false gospel that we hear today.
I am not saying God wants everyone to be wealthy.
That is not the same as saying that God wants you to have money.
All of it is His, and He has given you and me the ability to earn it, to make it, to
multiply it.
Not with a printing press, but by other means.
He gives the abilities.
Now to some people, there's an immediate objection.
They say, well that sounds to me like a capitalistic message.
As someone in the West who lives in a capitalistic system saying something like that, I think
that we ought to go back to what the early church did.
And everybody's sharing common like they did in Acts chapter 2, and as it mentions
in Acts chapter 4.
Isn't that more fair?
Isn't that the way that God wants us to live in this age?
But we have to go back and think about what happened in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter
4.
There were needs within the church body.
And so it does say that they pooled things together so that there would be a supply of
the needs of those who had none.
But please notice with me that that was in the first place a voluntary thing.
There was no command that everyone had to do that.
It was completely free will.
Those who wished to do so did.
And then notice also in the text there that they sold the property as the needs arose.
It wasn't that everybody went out and sold everything and then gave everything to a central
pool.
That wasn't what happened.
But as the needs arose, those who had the ability simply sold some of what they had
and gave the money so it could be distributed to those who had need.
There is no indication in the book of Acts that that was setting a precedent for this
whole age.
In fact, it didn't even set a precedent for that day.
It happened in Jerusalem, but needs were cared for in other ways and other situations as
the church age developed and progressed.
So understand that what happened in Acts chapter 2 and 4 was a wonderful thing, but it was
not setting a norm for this whole age.
God has not planned for us to live under a so-called Christian communism or Christian
socialism.
I don't believe that that is the principle of God's Word regarding money and how we
are to get it.
There is a basic difference, by the way, between communists and Christians when it comes to
this matter of sharing wealth.
The communist says, what you have is mine.
The Christian says, what I have is yours.
And there is a lot of difference between those two statements.
Someone else says, well, you're telling us then if God wants us to have money that God
is really tempting us with evil because isn't money the source of all evil?
Isn't it the root of all temptation?
Of course, the answer to that is no.
Money is neither good or bad.
It's amoral.
It's how it's used that makes the difference.
It is not money that is the source of all evil, the root of many kinds of temptation,
but rather it's the love of it, according to 1 Timothy chapter 6.
It's our greed for it.
Our desire, consuming desire for it.
That becomes then a root for many different kinds of temptation.
But money itself is not evil.
Money does not bring temptation.
The temptation arises within the person.
Money is neither good nor bad.
Wealth is not inherently evil.
If you look at some of the great patriarchs of old, they were men of great wealth.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David, Solomon.
Some of God's greatest people have been people of great wealth.
Not all of them to be sure, but some of them.
God wants you to have money.
And he has written into his words certain basic principles designed to help us gain
wealth.
Now by wealth I'm not talking about a great massive fortune, but I'm talking about money
for what we need.
God has designed certain principles into life to help us gain wealth.
There are three of them that I want to mention.
And they are found in the book of Proverbs.
Turn with me please first to Proverbs chapter 14.
We would expect in such a practical book as this to find some help with regards to ourselves
and our relationship to money.
And we do.
Proverbs 14 and verse 23.
He says, in all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Principle number one is the principle of work.
God has designed for us to work to make a living.
Now for some people work involves their hands.
For other people it involves their mind or their speech.
We work in different ways.
But the fact is that one of the basic principles that God has written into his word and into
human life and existence is that we gain wealth by working for it.
In fact in the New Testament there's a verse that says, if anyone will not work, neither
let him eat.
There were some believers in that church in Thessalonica, some believers who were actually
sponging off of other believers.
They did not wish to work.
Apparently they felt that the Lord's coming was very soon.
And so they felt that they needed not get a job and they lived off of other people.
And when the apostle Paul heard about that he wrote and said, if they're not willing
to work, you're not obligated to give them any food.
Because God's principle is that we work to gain wealth.
Now granted there are some people who cannot work due to legitimate reasons, problems that
they have and they need to be cared for in other ways.
But a principle, a general principle of God's word is that we are to get a job and earn
a living.
A second principle of gaining wealth is that found in Proverbs 21 and verse 20.
It says, there is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish
man swallows it up.
Perhaps the living Bible makes this a little clearer by way of application to us and the
principle that's involved here.
The living Bible says the wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever
he gets.
That's the principle dealing with the oil here in the dwelling of the wise.
The wise man prepares for his future by saving.
And so here we see the principle of saving money.
Indeed, it is presumptuous not to save up for those things that we know we're going
to have need of in the future.
God intends for us to save money, to prepare for our future needs.
Now like other things, we can take that to an extreme and we can hoard it and be misers,
and that's wrong.
In fact, it's sin.
It's greedy to be that way.
But God expects us to gain wealth by saving and preparing for future needs.
And a third principle is found in Proverbs 27 and 23.
Again I'll read it out of the New American Standard, but then give you the living Bible
understanding of that, the paraphrase of it, because it helps in the application.
Look at Proverbs chapter 27 verse 23.
Know well the condition of your flocks and pay attention to your herds.
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
Here's how the living Bible paraphrases that.
Riches can disappear fast, so watch your business interests closely.
That gets the gist of it, doesn't it?
Riches can disappear fast, so be careful about your business.
The third principle is this, plan carefully.
God expects us in gaining wealth to plan carefully to watch our business so that we're not wasting
what we have.
In Proverbs 24 verses 3 and 4, again the living Bible paraphrases says, any enterprise is
built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping
abreast of the facts.
And so another principle of God's word concerning wealth is that we can preserve and gain it
by wise planning, by budgeting for example, that is part of God's design for us regarding
our money.
So how are we to gain and conserve the wealth that we have?
By working, by saving, by planning carefully.
God wants us to have more than we need to live on so that then we can be free to give
as He directs.
He wants a certain margin built in there.
It's possible for us, however, to increase our standard of living as our income increases
so that we never have that margin.
God wants us to develop a certain margin between what we receive by terms of income and what
we need to spend to live.
Dr. John MacArthur said a Christian should always be free enough to respond to whatever
God wants him to do at any moment.
He says we need a pilgrim mentality.
God wants us to be free to give and to be spontaneous in that giving.
Not impetuous, not impulsive, but spontaneous and wise in giving to those who have financial
needs.
Now the problem is that so many of God's people today are in financial bondage.
There isn't that freedom.
We can't be spontaneous because we're up to our necks and beyond in financial debt
and obligations.
God tells us in His word how to get out of financial debt, how to get out of obligation
that overwhelms us, the bondage that enslaves us so that we can't be free in our giving.
The problem is that most people don't want to do what God says to do.
What does God want us to do if we're in financial bondage, if we're not free to be spontaneous
in our giving, if there's not that margin?
What does God want us to do?
Well, of course, God wants us to work back toward having that margin in our lives.
How do we do that?
One way is by stopping immediately to borrow additional money.
That is life threatening to some people to talk that way because life is built on plastic,
but life is only built so long on plastic.
There's an end to it and it's sooner than most people think.
If a person is serious about getting out of financial bondage, he must immediately put
a cap on further borrowing.
He cannot do that.
If it means cutting up credit cards or whatever, that must be done.
There must immediately begin the practice in that person's life of living on what he
has coming in.
No more borrowing.
Then there has to be a plan established so that the creditors that are already owed can
be paid back.
One of the dangers that some people fall into is that they establish that plan and part
of their plan is that they go out and they borrow from another institution enough to
cover the several debts that they have.
They consolidate their loans.
Then they extend that over a longer period of time with a smaller payment so that they
can pay each month on that.
The problem is, that can work, but the problem is that they often then go out and borrow
more money on the credit cards they haven't destroyed.
Not only do they have this extended debt that consolidated their original problem, but now
they're creating more problems by borrowing additional money.
So the first thing that has to be done is a determination, a decision that is firm and
fixed, I will not borrow additional money.
Once that decision is made, then a person can go back and begin to work at the debts
that he's accumulated.
You say, well I think I'll pray that God will make me the winner and the readers digest
sweepstakes and then I'll just pay it all off.
That's a wonderful prayer, especially if you tithe it.
I say that in jest.
God very seldom works that way and there's a reason.
Because God knows that if we work that debt off too easily, that we won't have learned
our lesson.
So very often it's been the experience of most of us who have been in that situation
that God causes us over a period of time to feel the pain of having to pay off those debts
little by little.
And then when that pain accumulates, it helps us to remember not to get ourselves into that
situation again.
I am probably speaking to three out of four people here this morning who are at some point
of financial bondage, if statistics are right in our society.
Three out of four people here this morning are probably at some point of financial bondage.
For some it's just beginning, for others it is severe and you don't know where to go.
Let me encourage you to simply do what God says to do.
Stop the borrowing, go back and restructure what you've borrowed and begin paying it
off little by little.
Now it may be that you need some godly counsel as to how that can happen.
There are people who are trained to help you do that and to help you confidentially.
There are lay people in our church and if you want that you can let our office know
that you'd like to talk to someone about a financial situation that you're in.
You don't have to say more than that and we will get that person in touch with you.
But be serious about it before you do it.
Don't take their time unless you mean to follow through with the advice that they will
give you.
They'll help you get on a budget and begin working your way out of financial bondage.
God wants us to have money so that our needs are met, but also so that we can be free to
give to others who have needs.
Someone may say, I don't have enough money.
I really don't.
I just don't have enough money.
I'm not particularly in bondage, but I don't have enough money.
Well we need to ask ourselves some questions if that is our mental attitude.
Number one, if I don't have enough money, do I really need more?
I may want it, I may desire it for something I'd like to do, but do I really need the
money to live on?
Secondly, if I say to myself, I don't have enough money for this or that, I need to ask
myself, is God testing my faith?
Is God wanting to show himself powerful and able to provide for me in some other means?
Is God testing my faith?
Thirdly, if I have to admit I don't have enough money, then I need to ask myself the question,
have I wasted what God has already provided?
Has God provided ahead of time, and I have foolishly wasted that so that in fact I now
don't have enough money?
And then a fourth question I should ask myself if I say I don't have enough money is this,
have I violated some biblical principle so that God can't bless me the way that he wants
to?
Have I violated a biblical principle?
You say what kind of principles?
Well let me just list a few of them for you.
We won't take time to look up all these verses, but the first biblical principle that we can
violate is the principle regarding impulsiveness.
James 13, 18 says, poverty and shame will come to him who neglects discipline.
There is a whole science built up in our culture to entice people into impulsive buying.
There are people who study that.
There are those who have gotten their doctorates in it, trying to decide how to cause a person
to buy impulsively and to spend what he doesn't really have or to buy what he doesn't really
need.
We need to be on guard against that, to be disciplined.
It happens on television.
If you have cable TV coming into your home, you probably have a channel on there somewhere
where they're selling things many, many hours of the day, and all you have to do is dial
a number and put that on your credit card and you get that bargain that's there.
Have you ever wondered why the candy is up by the cash register in a grocery store or
why the magazines are there?
Did you know that a store places things in its place scientifically?
It's not by accident that you come in and you find what you do in the first aisle, in
the second aisle and so on around to the front of the store.
That is all designed, is designed to encourage you to buy.
I think sometimes it helps just to know that we are being studied that way to be on guard
against it.
The point is that we have to be careful of impulsive kinds of buying.
If we are impulsive in our spending, we have violated a biblical principle.
We need discipline in that area.
The second biblical principle relates to fraud.
Proverbs 13 and 11 says, wealth obtained by fraud dwindles.
We need to be careful of ever getting involved in schemes and concepts of increasing income
that really are based upon fraud and dishonest gain.
A third biblical principle relates to laziness.
Proverbs 20 and verse 13 says, do not love sleep lest you become poor.
As I said before, God intends for us to work.
If a person is lazy, that is the breaking of a biblical principle and God is not obligated
to bless in that situation.
There needs to be an awareness and confession of breaking the principle so that God can
bless.
Another biblical principle is that of indulgence.
It relates to indulgence.
Proverbs 23 and 21, the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty.
If we are self-indulgent in our living, we are breaking a biblical principle.
I've been amazed, I shouldn't be, I suppose, at the naivety of some people who come by
the church office asking for a handout.
These are just people off the street and it happens occasionally because we're so close
to a major artery.
They come by and they desire a handout.
They've got to have gas money to get to Mankato or somewhere.
One of the first things that strikes me is that often you see a package of cigarettes
in their pocket.
My feeling is if they've got enough money to buy those, don't they have enough money
to buy gasoline?
You usually get down to the heart of the issue when you say, well, you go up here to the
gas station up the street here and you put in $10 worth of gas and we'll call up an
OK-IT and they'll bill us.
Oh, no, no, they don't want that.
So what does that tell you?
They don't want gas money.
They want more money to be self-indulgent.
It happened all the time on the streets of Chicago when I was a student there.
People would come up and ask for money for this or for that or for the other thing.
It was very obvious as they spoke to you and breathed into your face what they wanted the
money for.
It was the next bottle.
And it helps them not at all to give the money in that situation.
Well, it may be that we're not indulgent in those ways, but there are other ways in which
we have been self-indulgent.
Beware of that.
Proverbs 28 and 19.
Here's a principle relating to carelessness.
It says, he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty and plenty, carelessness with
money.
And then one more in Proverbs 24 verse 33.
Here is a principle that deals with procrastination.
Proverbs 24 verse 33.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
Then your poverty will come as a robber and your want like an armed man.
Here's a person who puts off until another time what he might do now.
He says, oh, I just need a little more sleep.
Just 10 more minutes on the alarm clock.
A folding of the hands.
And when that kind of an attitude possesses the life, that attitude of procrastination,
putting off the inevitable, then that's a breaking of a biblical principle.
That doesn't mean you can't use the snooze on your alarm clock in the morning if you're
tired.
But the point is that when that becomes a habit of life, it's the breaking of a biblical
principle.
And so when we say, I don't have enough money, there's an examination that we need to go
through.
God wants you to have money.
But not only that, God wants you to think properly about money.
God wants you to think properly about money.
Turn into the New Testament to 1 Timothy chapter 6.
I'll begin reading in the sixth verse of 1 Timothy 6, but 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.
And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.
But those who want to get rich, the thought there, those who make it their aim to get
rich, fall into temptation and a snare, and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge
men into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered
away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang.
In the first place, God does not want us to love money.
He does not want us to set our affection on it.
In our culture, that is very difficult to obey, because the whole force of our culture
involves the gaining of money and living for it, loving it, and doing whatever is necessary
to have it.
What the word of God says is that if we love money, it will destroy our lives.
It will absolutely ruin us.
It will send us on the skids to destruction if we begin to love money.
But it will also make us useless to God if we love money, because we began in Luke chapter
16 where it says you cannot serve God and money.
So if we love money, we then are useless to God.
We can't love them both at the same time.
Thirdly, if we love money, it will lead us to compromise.
It will lead us to compromise.
Inevitably that will happen, because everybody you see has a price.
The question is, what's your price?
I can guarantee you this, that if you have set a price for obedience in your life, Satan
will meet that price.
The story has been told about a famous author who was at a banquet in New York City.
He was seated beside a lovely lady.
In the course of the banquet, he asked her a question.
He said, would you spend the night with me for $100,000?
She blushed and she said, well, yes, yes I would.
He said, well then, would you do it for $10?
She said, well, what do you think I am?
He said, we've already established that.
Now we're just negotiating the price.
What's the price for your obedience?
Satan will meet that price, because he seeks to get us to compromise and to disqualify
ourselves for God's service.
Do not love money.
God warns us about that.
Do not set money as the priority of your life.
And then God wants us, secondly, to be aware of its nature.
Jesus warned in Mark 4.19 about the deceitfulness of riches.
He says it chokes the word.
Money is deceitful.
Because it tells us, and our world tells us, that if we have enough of it, we will be satisfied.
Several months ago I read a story in a magazine about Julio Iglesias, a very famous singer,
especially in the Spanish world.
A man who has homes all over the world and jet planes so that he can fly his girlfriends
from one home to the next, wherever he's going to be.
He has unbelievable wealth.
And yet in the article he confessed that basically he is an unhappy man.
Money is deceitful.
It says, if you can only get this much, if you can only buy that, you will be satisfied.
You will have enough.
That is lying, because contentment is not found in how much we have.
Contentment is found in our heart attitude toward whatever we have.
Then God wants us to be aware that money is also temporary.
Money is not deceitful only.
It is also temporary, 1 Timothy 6, 17, right here where we are.
Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their
hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things
to enjoy.
What is the object of our faith?
Is it money or is it God?
Money is uncertain.
It can pass away in one day in the stock market.
It can pass away in one second with the end of life.
Money is uncertain.
God is dependable.
God wants us to think correctly about money.
God wants us to make money, our servant.
That is the third thing he wants us to know about it.
As we think about money, he wants us to see ourselves as the masters of our money and
not money mastering us.
He wants us to learn to use the mammon, the money of this world, for the glory of God.
Luke chapter 16, the first half of the chapter is all about that.
Using our money wisely for the sake of eternity.
He says if we do that, then there will be entrusted to us the real riches, spiritual
riches in our lives.
God can entrust to us ministry if we can learn to handle money.
But I believe he does tell us there that we need to learn to handle our money first.
God wants you to have money for good purposes.
God wants you and me to think properly about our money.
We'll pick it up at that point next week.
But as you think about your money today, as you think about your attitude toward money,
are you thinking rightly?
Or is your money mastering you?
Or is the lack of money mastering you?
God does not want our lives to depend upon having money or lacking money.
He wants our lives to depend upon him.
Let's pray.