Faithful in Stewardship

Announcements:

Evangelism Update

Our Book Study is beginning this Wednesday night!

5:00

Read the first two chapters so you can contribute!

Who’s your One

If you have your card we will nail them to the cross after the message.

Please remind me to pray over them at the end of service!

INTRODUCTION

We are beginning a new series today on the subject of money! I know that makes us all very excited because it is not the most popular subject in the church! In my born-again lifetime, I can only remember two sermons in the local church about money. Do you know how often Jesus talked about money? He talked about money more than He did heaven and hell combined. Out of the 39 parables Jesus told, 11 of them were about money.

Why do you think Jesus talked about money so much? Because money is so very closely connected to the human heart. In fact, Jesus told us if you want to know where your heart truly belongs, just follow your money trail, your bank statement, your check register and there you’ll find your heart.

Paul Tripp said, “The most serious money problem anyone could have is not debt; it is worship”. The reason Jesus addressed money so often is not because money is evil, it is because so many people fall into the worship of money. And if we worship money, then we will not worship God and that has eternal impact. Do you know we are so uncomfortable when the subject of money comes up in the church? I think it is because we love money far more than we’d like to admit. And I also think we have this great fear that we are going to have to give up more of our money than we’d like to.

But I want to encourage you, this sermon today is not necessarily about your giving, it is about your heart. It’s about understanding the use of money and how God intended it to be used. It is about some of the dangers of money and our call to be faithful stewards of the money that God has given us. This sermon is NOT a list of ways you can spend your money better, or stay out of debt, or how to create a budget. It is a message that is meant to reveal the true nature of your heart through your money.

#1) Everything that we have or possess belongs to God

This first point is foundational to the entire message. If you do not get this part, the rest will not mean anything to you. If you do not believe this part, then the rest of the message will go in one ear and out the other. God owns everything in heaven and on earth.

Psalm 24:1 NASB95

The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.

I want to ask yourself do you really believe that? How about this one:

Psalm 50:10–12 NASB95

“For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. “I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. “If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains.

I could give you plenty more but you get the point. Scripture declares that everything in heaven and on earth belong to God. Our houses, our land, our food, our clothes, our cars, our money, and even our own lives belong to God.

Here is an argument some of you may be thinking, “I worked my whole life and earned that money to buy that house and car, they belong to me!” My name is on my house and therefore it is MY house. My name is on my land, and I own that land. Was someone else’s name on the deed of your house before you bought it? Was your car in another’s name before you bought it? Was your land in someone else’s name before your name was placed on the deed? What is going to happen to all of our stuff when we die? It will be given to someone else.

Psalm 89:11

Psalm 89:11 (NASB95)

The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and all it contains, You have founded them.

Do you know why God owns everything? Because God is the Creator of everything. He created ever tree that has ever produced a board that built your house. He created the economy that that produced the business for your job that paid you that money to buy His resources. When He created us, He gave us the talents that were used to get those jobs and make that money. God owns because God created everything and no matter how you look at what is in your possession it belongs to God.

Even our own life is given from from the grace of God and every hour of every day is a gift from Him.

James 1:17

James 1:17 NASB95

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

There is not one good thing that has touched my hands that did not come from the hand of God. Nothing in my life belongs to me! Nothing in your life belongs to you! God created it, and it belongs to God.

Because of this God has the right to say how our money will be used

1 Chronicles 29:11

1 Chronicles 29:11 (NASB95)

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.

The word “head” used in this verse means chief. And as chief of everything on earth, God has the right and the authority to say how His creation will be used. This is so hard for us because we all want to be little chiefs over what has been entrusted to us, BUT WE MUST RESIST THIS TEMPTATION AND ADOPT THIS BIBLICAL VIEW OF OUR MONEY.

What I am saying is that we MUST resist to possess the spirit of ownership and embrace the spirit of surrender. Our money is not ours to spend as we like. It belongs to God and it has been entrusted to us for His divine purposes.

#2) We are stewards not owners of the resources God has entrusted to us

Luke 16:10-11

Luke 16:10–11 (NASB95)

“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. “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?

What do you think Jesus is talking about in these two verses? He is talking about our faithfulness of what God has entrusted to us! He is talking about stewardship! Look at verse 1 of this chapter, “Now He was also saying to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions.” The word manager is just another word for steward. And Jesus is teaching this parable to his disciples so they would understand the responsibility of earthly stewardship!

ILLUSTRATION: Think about a manager of our local Walmart store. You have probably seen him before, and you may even know him. He has been assigned to this store and is there to ensure the store operates as it should. He makes sure the employees come to work, he makes sure that the shipping trucks deliver the goods to be sold, and he makes sure that the store is turning a profit because that is the main purpose of the store! He runs the store! He has freedom to put things on sale, hire and fire people, or even close the store early on Christmas Eve! But the manager does not own the actual store, he must answer to the owner and give an account of how he is taking care of the owner’s things.

In the same way we are only managers of what the Lord has entrusted to us. And if we squander away the possessions that God has put in our possession, why do we think everything will be ok when we take our last breath? Notice what Jesus says, “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?”Do you know what true riches are? He is referring to the riches of the kingdom of heaven! He is referring to the heavenly riches that are to come! He is speaking about our heavenly inheritance that we have traded this whole world for! Like the man who found the hidden treasure in the field and he went sold everything he owned just to get that field!

The way we spend our money indicates where our heart truly belongs! When people are truly redeemed from this world and born into the Kingdom of God, they will spend their money, time, and resources to align with those eternal purposes! What sense would it make to be saved from this lost world and sealed for the afterlife, yet be all about our personal pleasures, possessions, and experiences of this life? “The world and all of its lusts are passing away, but the one who does the will of God lives forever”.

This life is a test of our faithfulness! It is a test of what we truly value and God is so gracious as to tell us how we can know! “For where your treasure is, THERE your heart will be also. This life is a test of how we will use what God has given to use! He gives us the freedom and has put us in the position as a manager, and we will have to give an account to the owner when we draw our last breath! Our money is a paper trail to where our hearts truly belong! If we prove ourselves unfaithful why would God entrust true riches to us?

# 3) What has been entrusted to us is meant to be used to accomplish God’s Will

Luke 16:12

Luke 16:12 NASB95

“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?

Notice what Jesus is saying, if we have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s.

Lets go back to the Walmart illustration. Do you think that store manager runs that store according to his own desires or the desires of the owner? I’m not saying there is no freedom in that mangers job, but the overall purpose of the store will be according to owners will not the managers.

Since God owns everything that we have, do you think He has desires of how our things are to be used? Do you think God has desires of how we spend our money, time, and resources? Absolutely! God does not want me to take my entire paycheck and blow it on books! God does not want me to go buy a $400,000 house because another preacher in Hoptown or Clarksville has one. God does not want me to buy a brand new car when I have two perfectly able vehicles! God does not want me to go spend half of my salary every year taking lavish vacations when those dollars could be used to start an entire church in another country!

Don’t hear what I am not saying, I am not saying that we cannot have a car. I am not saying we cannot have a house or take a vacation. What I am saying is that Americans do these things in great excess with God’s money while neglecting His will all together. What i am saying is we spend $10,000 a year on luxuries, going out to eat, buying new clothes when we really do not need them, living in a house that is big enough for 10 people, owning two or three cars when we really only need one, and then throwing God a $20 bill or a $100 bill in the offering plate and thinking we have done God some great favor.

Our biggest mistake with God’s money is that we spend it on what we want and then IF there is anything left we will give a portion of that to the Lord.

We got it backwards! The first thing we should do when we get our checks is ask the Lord how He wants us to spend that money. Again, there is nothing wrong with paying a mortgage, or buying a car, or getting some clothes, or taking a vacation. But it is wrong if we have all the necessities we need in this life and spend all of our extra money on our own pleasures.

Jesus never promised he would get us everything we wanted, but He did promise that he would always meet our needs.

One of our biggest problem is that we think our wants are really our needs. If you are living a luxurious life and others around you are living in poverty then you are not stewarding well. And if you are making 10,000 a month a giving God a couple hundred bucks while spending $5,000 on yourself you are not stewarding well. The more resources God has entrusted to you, the more responsibility you have to use them for God’s will.

#4) Faithful Stewardship is a matter of the heart

Luke 16:13

Luke 16:13 NASB95

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Notice that Jesus only gives us two choices in this verse. We either serve King Jesus or we serve King Money. He offers us no in-between and He offers us no other options. Everyone comes to this crossroad and must make the decision of who they will serve.

Notice Jesus tells us that our hearts are only big enough to serve one King. We will either serve King Jesus or we will serve King Money. He offers no in-betweens. He offers no neutrality to be somewhere in the middle. As plainly as the paper this is written on Jesus says EVERYONE will either serve God or they will serve Money. And every soul listening to my voice here today is now at this crossroad and you must decide in your heart what you will do!

How do we serve King Money? Well when we serve money we are really serving ourselves. Think about it, why would anyone serve a piece of paper with a number on it? Its not the paper we worship, it is the power that the dollar bill has. It is the power in having money to buy us anything that we want. It is the prestige that having a lot of money will bring us and make us feel superior to those who have less. It is what the dollar gives to us is what we really worship. At the heart of money worship is self-worship. And the reason so many do not give and share their money is because they are selfish.

Shocking statistics: The average church goer in America gives $17 per week, which is $73 per month and $884 per year. US Christians make around 5.2 trillion dollars a year. Who is the American church worshiping today? Are we worshiping King Jesus or King Money?

We are fooled into thinking our money is going to give us things it was never meant to bring us. We think it is going to make us happy, satisfy the longings of our hearts, bring us things we have dreamed of and so we make it our lifelong pursuit to make as much money as we can and horde it! Or we spend it carelessly on the pleasures of this life never considering Jesus’ warning about storing up for ourselves treasures on earth.

And when we are confronted with a message like this we love to justify our behavior by saying “everyone else is doing it too”. That is a mistake. You and I are accountable to God for how WE have managed His money. This is word is just as authoritative to us as it was to Jesus’ disciples 2000 years ago. A geographical location has nothing to do with the authority of what Jesus is saying.

What does it look like to serve King Jesus? It is adopting the biblical truth that everything belongs to God. Not just my wallet, but my house, my car, my retirement, even my own life. It is offering myself every day on the alter of God’s grace as a holy and living sacrifice pleasing to Him. It is thinking of the eternal impact my money could have for God’s Kingdom every time I open my wallet. It is beginning every pay period by saying God how do you want me to spend this month’s check? Lord, what do I need to do with what you have given me?

The problem is not money, it is our hearts. And when we love Jesus more than we love ourselves it becomes easy to serve Jesus like this. When our love for Jesus outweighs our love for ourselves we become living and acceptable sacrifices. Money in itself is not evil, it is neutral. Money can be used for both good and bad. It is our love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil.

Your giving will reflect whom you truly love. If you spend the more of your money on your own pleasures than you do on the things of God you serve King Money. If you cut God off what is left over after serving yourself, rather than giving Him back a portion first, you serve King Money. And let me say this, anyone can manufacture better behavior, but no one can change the heart. Only Jesus Christ can change someone’s heart.

CONCLUSION

This is an incomplete message without the message of God’s grace. Every one of us has been the unfaithful steward. Every one of us has misused the Lord’s things, we have decided not to help people when we could have, we have all been the prodigal son who wasted his father’s inheritance on worldly living.

The good news, the gospel proclaims that there is forgiveness. There is another chance to get it right and become a faithful steward. This begins by agreeing with God that He is right and we are wrong. That is called conviction. When then ask God for the grace and forgiveness for us to get it right and live a different way of life. And you can walk out of here today and blow this message off and never think of it again. Or you can decide right now you are going to be a faithful steward and make plans to do so! When we get our money right, we get closer tom God. Our hearts change, our love for God grows, and our joy increases.

~PRAYER~

PRAY OVER THE NAMES!!