Money: A Biblical Perspective
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Opening Remarks
Opening Remarks
Todays sermon is going to be a little different, we’re going to be jumping about a bit all through the scriptures rather than focussing on one text.
Our consideration today is ‘money’. I don’t speak very often on this subject but I do try to teach on it at least once a year. So as we finish up the tax year I thought today would be a good day to look at this subject together.
WHY TEACH ON MONEY?
As a pastor, an under shepherd in Christ’s church, my job is to teach His word, not my own word, not the worlds word but God’s word. And scripture actually has a lot to say about money. It was a subject that Jesus never shied away from handling, neither did the apostles, and therefore it is my job also not to shy away from the subject for fear of upsetting people but to teach on it.
A great disservice is done to the church when ministers refuse to speak about money, and an equally great disservice is done to the church when it’s all that ministers talk about.
Many of us have been in churches where one of those two extremes has been the norm.
If you’ve grown up in a church where giving was never taught from the scriptures, and all you knew of giving in church was seeing a moth eaten offering basket pass down your aisle each Sunday with a few crusty coppers in it hearing Christians talk about money and giving openly, might make you feel uneasy. Why do they want my money?!
Equally, if you’ve been in a church where they tell you that if you don’t give then God won’t release your blessing, then it’s likely that you will also feel uneasy when the subject of money is raised.
SPIRITUAL ABUSE
This is one area where the devil has really had a field day amoungst Christians. The true biblical teaching on money and giving has been so abused and misrepresented. When something that is good gets twisted and abused, sometimes that good thing becomes tainted to us, it becomes a place of deep mistrust and unease. One of the things that all spiritual abusers have in common is that they all abuse and misrepresent the Biblical teaching on finance and giving. And so what was meant for good to the church has become tainted to so many of us, and we swing like a pendulum all the way to the opposite side and we don’t want to ever hear anyone talk about that subject again.
But this topic of money is one that we must redeem, we mustn’t let the misdeeds of a few who should know better keep us from the blessing of a true, Biblical outlook on our finances.
TODAY WE WILL SEE
That God is sovereign over every penny you have and ever will have.
That how we use our money is actually a good indicator of where our heart is at.
That for the Christian giving isn’t obligatory, but rather is the outflow of God’s saving grace at work in us.
That no matter how much money you have, you can be a generous giver.
That according to scripture, God always takes care of the needs of those who give and keep giving.
WHO’S MONEY?
The first thing that you have to understand in all of this is that it really isn’t your money anyway.
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.
10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,
“Praise be to you, Lord,
the God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. 16 Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you.
All that we have, and all that we ever have is not ever truly our own but ultimately belongs to God. We are stewards of the money that God has entrusted to us, all wealth and honour come from Him, and when we give we are only really giving Him what belongs to Him anyway!
Does that knowledge change how you think about what you do with your money?
GOD IS SOVEREIGN OVER YOUR FINANCES
7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
God distributes wealth according to His sovereign purposes. If anyone is rich they are rich because God ordained that they should be, they have no cause for boasting. If anyone experiences poverty then they can know that God has his sovereign purposes even in their lack.
18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
35 All the peoples of the earth
are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
or say to him: “What have you done?”
It isn’t wrong to have money, in fact scripture teaches that it is God who enables us to get wealth. Being wealthy is a blessing. When God blesses you with wealth it’s an opportunity to co-labour with Him in using that wealth to advance His purposes.
10 When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices;
when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
11 Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.
Every successful Christian missionary has behind them an army of men and women who’s wealth is at the disposal of their Master. When we think of the great advances for Christ made by Amy Carmichael in India, or more recently Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong, none of this would have been possibly without wealthy, generous Christians!
DON’T LOVE MONEY
God tells us that there’s no inherant problem with wealth, though wealth does carry with it great responsibility.
24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
The problem isn’t money, it’s the love of money. And when we look at the world today, in every generation there seems to be an intoxicating desire to be rich, to be powerful, to have means and to want the whole world to know about it.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
We watch the lives of wealthy people on Netflix or on social media and we think, you know, if I had more money I’d be a happier person, i’d live a more fulfilled life. But is that true?
10 Whoever loves money never has enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
This too is meaningless.
4 Do not toil to acquire wealth;
be discerning enough to desist.
5 When your eyes light on it, it is gone,
for suddenly it sprouts wings,
flying like an eagle toward heaven.
The Bible calls the pursuit of riches vanity, it calls it meaningless. Don’t waste your life pursuing a pay cheque, it will never deliver the peace of mind that you crave.
16 Better is a little with the fear of the Lord
than great treasure and trouble with it.
MONEY REVEALS OUR HEART
How we think about money, and how we use our money reveals a great deal about our heart:
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Are we laying up treasures for ourselves here on earth? Are we holding back on giving because we want to make sure we’ve got enough saved for that holiday or that new extension. All these things will eventually be destroyed, but good works done for the Lord will endure forever:
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
So evaluating our giving is actually a great way to see what’s going on in our heart. What we do with our money reveals what we really care about. We can say that God is the king of our hearts, the centre of our lives, but does our giving reveal that to be true? It’s a challenging question.
I’LL GIVE WHEN I CAN
When I was a student I remember the rector of our church speaking on this subject. The old building we met in needed refurbishing desperately, and he spoke to us about giving sacrificially as a church to get the project finished. As soon as he started to talking about money I switched off because I thought, I’m a student, I don’t really have any money, they won’t be expecting me to give. By the end of the sermon I felt deeply challenged, perhaps my ability to give generously wasn’t hindered by my fiscal means as much as it was by my heart. I could afford to get a few beers on a Friday night with my friends, but I couldn’t afford to give anything to my church. I’ve never forgotten that. Since then I’ve never wanted to have that attitude of ‘I don’t have enough to give.’ Generosity is an area I want to be consistently growing in, I want to be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and never start with that excuse of ‘I don’t have enough to give.’
1 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,
These Macedonian believers were POOR. Paul says that they were living with extreme poverty, the Greek word for extreme is βάθος which was a word used to describe the murky depths of the Ocean floor. These people were deeply poor. The Romans had come into their lands and taken over their gold, silver and copper mines, they had taken over their sea ports and now employed the Macedonians to work in their own mines for next to nothing, like slaves.
Yet Paul says in the midst of their severe affliction they overflowed with joy and rich generosity. They gave what they were able to give and indeed they gave beyond their ability. And Paul says they did this willingly. He didn’t have to brow beat them.
All Christian giving is to be willing and cheerful. In the Old Testament God’s people had to tithe, they were obligated by God’s law to give a tenth of all that they owned to God. In fact, counting all the various forms of giving under the law they would tithe nearer to 20% of what they had.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
We aren’t under the law, so we don’t have to tithe. Rather we are under the new covenant of grace, we have had the law written on our hearts, so it’s from the overflow of our hearts that we give. We don’t give because we have to, but rather because we want to. Now if the covenant of grace is a greater than the law, shouldn’t our generosity outstrip that of those living under the law?
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
God wasn’t after their money, He was after their hearts. But they showed with their money that their hearts didn’t trust Him.
See how God promises them that if they give, and give generously that He will pour out blessings upon them. Because this passage has been so abused by money grabbing prosperity teachers sometimes we can miss out on the deep truth of what God is saying here; ‘don’t worry that if you give you won’t have enough for yourselves. He’ll see to it that you have more than enough.’
25 A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
24 One person gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
6 He hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents of silver. 7 But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel, with all these Ephraimites. 8 But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down.” 9 And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.”
The Macedonian believers were giving out of deep poverty to help other believers in poverty who they had never even met! They were doing it willingly and in great joy.
How had they managed to do this? How had they raised this money? This same offering is mentioned in
1 Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2 On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.
The Macedonian believers had likely received the same instruction from Paul, put something aside each week, on a Sunday. Our giving is to be consistent and regular. We are to plan to give, to make room in our budget for giving, and in particular giving to the church.
WHY SHOULD I GIVE TO THE CHURCH, SHOULDN’T I JUST PICK A CHARITY?
We are to give to the needs of the church, because we are commanded to by the new testament. Giving in the New Testament Church was to support those ministering:
14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.
17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”
11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?
And to support the poor and needy
21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
17 Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord,
and he will repay him for his deed.
Paul lifts up these Macedonian believers as an example to the Corinthian church, who were much wealthier, as an example to them of true Christian giving. But notice that Paul shuts out all occassion for boasting as He attributes the source of their generosity not to their own kindness or innate goodness, but to the grace of God working in them. When we grow in generosity, it is because God is at work in our hearts. We are not to advertise our own generosity and kindness like the world does, but instead give glory to God who works in us to loosen our purse strings to His glory!
13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
So today is a good moment for each of us to take a look at our giving in light of what the scriptures say. Are we truly being generous? What would generosity look like for us? Are we giving cheerfully? Is it something that we are looking to grow in?
Whatever we purpose to give this year, we can be assured that God, the greatest giver, will not let us fall into poverty on account of generosity.
19 And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Pray