Biblical Finances
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Intro
Intro
As we continue to live through historical events, it’s time for us to place things in their proper category.
COVID - Govt Overreach and statism - the national debt spiraling out of control - the reemerging of the bread-and circus - Cities Burning - Electioneering - Five Hurricanes in the Gulf - and one of the most destructive winter storms our modern history has ever recorded...
It’s time we start saying it out loud, and honestly I’ve been hesitant to say it for some time… but I don’t think I can hold off any longer and be faithful to you… this is the judgement of God.
The Bible teaches us that God is long suffering with disobedience, but that he also eventually brings judgement upon disobedient peoples/nations. He gives opportunities for repentance, restoration, but eventually (like Israel) his judgement is poured out.
Now yes, I recognize that we are not a theocratic society, but neither was Egypt or Canaan or Babylon or Ninevah… and yet they all were subject to the wrath and judgement of God.
But today when we say judgement is happening now we get the side-eye. Nah bruh. Time for us to say it out loud. We, as a nation, are under the judgement of God.
Why exactly? Pick from the list.
55 million babies killed in their mothers womb (5x the holocaust), a welfare system that furthers modern day slavery, corporate and institutional greed/coruption that is sending more and more people further towards poverty every year, and we’ve thrown away God’s designs for sex, sexuality, and gender altogether. We don’t even know what a boy and a girl are anymore. Should I keep going? Or do you get the gist.
And with the judgement of God comes opportunities for the church, for Christians , for reformation. Reformation within the church, yes, that then bleeds out into the rest of soceity around us.
Imagine, after the world has finished losing it’s mind and burning society to the ground (literally and figuratively) there is a shining city on a hill, a place of peace and prosperity, a land of milk and honey, a land of order in the midst of chaos...
This is what the church has the opportunity to be in our world right now.
but - if we don’t know what we’re doing. If we don’t know where to start building from.... then what good is it? What would we be rebuilding?
As we’ve talked about in the past, in terms of Biblical literacy - we are so rich we’re poor. Bibles in every house, Christian schools within driving distance of every home, Christian universities and seminaries in nearly ever state, and resources upon resources available on the internet.
But yet - we are probably the most Biblically illiterate people to call themselves Christians since the 1500s… simply because? We don’t read the Word.
Imagine having the cure for cancer and while dying, you still refuse to take it.
This is who we are. And it’s time for us to admit it… and to repent. To get serious about the Bible. in all of life.
2 Tim 3:16-17
English Standard Version Chapter 3
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Today - as we talk about REFORMATION - in ALL OF LIFE - we’re going to talk about something that impacts all of us, and all of the world.
I was hesitant, honeslty, with what to call this sermon. I knew one word would bring up a bunch of false categories that I’m not actually going after. Then another word that would make the subject to broad and not give us personal responsibilities of repentance.
So, I think I’m just gonna say - today we’re going to talk about wealth, and what’s God’s design for it.
Now I’m not talking about making a budget, or doing wise investing, but those are good and Biblical practices and you should do them.
Instead I’m going to go a layer deeper than that and talk about three guiding principles for wealth on a personal, national, and corporate level.
If you can get these three Biblical teachings, while they seem simple, and get them all the way down into your heart, you can survey the current status of your family, your business, your state and nation, and be able to articulate how those things should shift to become more Christian.
Don’t think “make a budget” today we’re talking guiding principles for all of life.
big picture stuff.
three big principles that will keep us on the right pace in the realm of finance and position Christ’s church to be solid and generous for years to come
Partiality
Ex:30:15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives
Lev 19:15
English Standard Version Chapter 19
15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
English Standard Version Chapter 23
2 You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, 3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
Ex: 23:2-3^^^
You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.
In our current social climate we are quick to jump into the “victim/oppressor” mindset - and where is the problem here?
It’s in our TV, our music - WandaVision?
Keep an eye on your children’s shows - it’s there as well.
The Bible tells us plainly - not to show partiality to the poor, OR to the rich.
makes sense given the Jews history/context.
“But wasn’t Jesus partial to the poor??” No. See this is what I mean by learning our Bibles.
Nicodemus - Matthew - Peter & Andrew
but our cultural lens right now makes stories like the parable of the rich young ruler and passages like the beatitudes weigh more to us than others, be careful.
NO PARTIALITY. Not to the rich, nor to the poor.
Many have taken advantage of this, and played the victim card, or played the intimidation card… repent.
The Bible holds a much fuller life for you, and with God as your provider of life, needs, and contentment...
But Church - here we are called to get this principle down deep.
It affects the way we live, it affects the way that we judge and assess the world around us (John 7:24), it affects who or what we vote for or against… it changes everything.
(Do not judge by appearances but judge with right judgement)
Envy
James 3:14-16; "But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t brag and deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil."
Envy left unchecked - gives birth to covetousness.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
And envy often manifests itself in our economic principles. We want what we do not have and so we do what we can to get it - including vote.
What’s the old saying? - Democracy works until people realize they can vote themselves more money out of the coffers of the state.
But as Christians - we have a moral law ABOVE the law. We have something that governs teh way we think/act/vote that is OVER the law.
For a Christian we don’t just ask the question is it legal.
There are plenty of things that are legal that are evil, and plenty that are illegal that are perfectly acceptable.
HERE WE GO BACK TO WHY WE NEED OUR BIBLES AGAIN
And envy/covetousness left unchecked leads to....
Theft
“Thou shall not steal”
This is the culmination of the other principles we discuss today. This is the ‘action’ that is given birth to.
Now Jesus and the Bible makes it clear that sin begins in the heart, and so to envy and covet is just as bad here. But a society that steals is a society that has tossed away the Biblical principle of private property.
and yes, you can steal through votes as well.
you can steal with your vote, you can steal with your lies at the office on your time sheets, you can steal by slipping your hand into the till.
*different types of theft* - working hourly? salary?
But I’m not just talking about the common issues - or progressivism and welfare here, although that is an issue.
I’m also talking about interest rates, the Federal reserve, the national debt, and inflation.
did you know that all of those things are a type of theft?
If we are intentionally weakening the dollar (printing more, inflating interest rates, inflation), who is affected by that? Everyone who needs dollars to live.
You see? Profoundly simple. But yet… we don’t have these principles down deep enough in our hearts.
Because we don’t have Bible.
If we had Bible deep in our veins, if we practiced repentance faithfully because of the word of God being shaper than any two-edged sword and piercing us deep
we wouldn’t run to someone else to be our provider
we wouldnt feel the need to pressure others with our victim stories,
we wouldn’t feel envy, we wouldn’t covet, and we wouldn’t be tempted nearly as much to steal.
So what’s the big pieces we need to get into our heart today?
Matthew 6:25-35
English Standard Version Chapter 6
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.