09.13.2015 The Verses that Changed My Financial Future and Eternity

09-13-2015 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Churches have a bad rap as always talking about money. We don’t talk a lot about money – but if we never talked about money – we would be doing a major disservice to you – as the Bible references money in over 2000 verses – and Jesus talks about money more than heaven and hell combined! The reason we don’t talk about money a lot is we don’t want anyone to ever feel pressured to give – and I’ll talk more about that shortly.
A few weeks ago we were talking in our small group about unexpected financial strains – like a car breaking down – and Rick Reynolds said – My attitude is, it is all God’s anyway – it is His car, and if He wants me to spend His money to repair it, that’s what I have to do! I like that attitude, and it reminded me of several of the verses that have been foundational in how we handle our finances.
This sermon is going to seem a little bit more disjointed than the highly cohesive ones I usually try to give (it does say here, wait for laughter, but not too long) – because I have taken several of my favorite verses regarding how we handle our money and financial lives - - I’ve titled it: The Verses that Changed my Financial Future and Eternity - and I hope to give you insight into each one so that as you meditate on and memorize these – I’ve printed them on cardstock so you can cut them out and memorize them – the principles can come back to you and this can lead to long-term change in your financial lives and bring you godly financial success.
So – I copied these verses onto cardstock so you can cut them out and work at memorizing them. For Melissa and me, these verses have been foundational in our attitude about money – and I figure the best way to get God’s perspective on money into my being is to meditate on what He has had to say about it.
Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, thank you for Your word and that You speak to us. Allow these verses to penetrate our hearts and give us a godly perspective on how to best use that which You have provided for us.
The first verse on the sheet is a prayer as well - wememorized more than 25 years ago - and I think about it often:
1 Chronicles 29: 11b Everything in the heavens and earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as being in control of everything. 12 Riches and honor come from you alone, and you are the ruler of all mankind; your hand controls power and might, and it is at your discretion that men are made great and given strength.
What belongs to God? Everything . And that encompasses all of the everything. And not just on earth, but in the heavens and the earth. Why is this important? Because if God owns our everything, we can recognize Him as the One who provides for our needs. But it starts with the attitude of giving Him ownership of everything in our lives.
I love that line - We ADORE You as being in control of everything – this is part of worship. God is in control – we can trust Him. Riches and honor come from God. He is not out to get us – He loves us and wants our best – like a father providing for His children. His hand controls power and might – and it is at His discretion that… you get a promotion. Have you ever thought about that? God can help you get a promotion at work.
If we give God ownership of everything in our lives it is only right that we demonstrate our trust in Him in giving. Like I said, we don’t want anyone to ever feel pressure to give – that is really between you and God.
Look down to the second verse on your sheet –
Malachi 3: 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.
What a promise! In the New testament, Jesus was being tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and Jesus tells the devil that it is written to NOT test God. But this is the only time in the Bible we are asked to test God. A tithe literally means one tenth. Throughout the Old Testament - the tithe was given to support the Levites – the priests – and to support orphans and widows. This was their only means of support. And in Malachi, God was rebuking the Israelites for neglecting to tithe – in fact, in the preceding verse He says that they were robbing God by failing to tithe. In the New Testament, some would argue that the tithe is no longer in force – but we are called to live generously and to give cheerfully. – Let’s look at 2 Cor. 9:
2 Cor. 9: 6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. (God has a different economy) 7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (this word, cheerful – in Greek – is spelled almost like our word HILARIOUS) 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;
I love these verses. Again – it comes down to trust – do we trust God to meet our needs? Do we trust that God is able to make all grace abound so that always having all sufficiency in everything we will have an abundance for every good deed?
In the preceding chapter, Paul encourages the Corinthians to abound in giving – but then he qualifies it by saying that it is not a command, but a demonstration of the sincerity of their love. There was a church in Macedonia that was giving ‘to their hurt’ and Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to emulate their sacrifice.
What is the command of the verse? To give as you purpose in your heart – not grudgingly or under compulsion.
I like this quote from Crown Ministries’ – (Now – Compass) Howard Dayton: "In the New Testament the tithe is neither specifically rejected nor specifically recommended. What is taught is giving in proportion to the material blessing one has received with special attention and commendation for sacrificial giving.
“What I like about the tithe or any fixed percentage of giving is that it is systematic, and the amount of the gift is easy to compute. The danger of the tithe(and I can fall into this – as my wife writes the check every week and I don’t really see it) - is that I can treat it as simply another bill to be paid, and by not having the correct attitude I do not put myself in a position to receive the blessings and advantages God has for me in giving. Another potential danger of tithing is the view that once I have tithed, I have fulfilled all my obligations to give. For many Christians, the tithe should be the beginning of their giving, not the limit of their giving.”
“How much should we give?
“To answer this question, first give yourself to the Lord. Submit yourself to Him. Earnestly seek His will for you in this area, asking Him to help you obey Christ’s leading. In my family, Howard writes, we are convinced that we should tithe as a minimum and then give over and above the tithe as the Lord prospers and/or directs us."
A couple months ago – it was time for the annual power-washing of the deck – and so I did what I always do – and I messaged my neighbor – Can I borrow your power washer – and she replied, I’d love to loan it to you – but it is broken. I thought, Gosh I hope I didn’t contribute to it being broken - but then I thought, Maybe I can contribute to fixing it – I told her – I’m pretty good with carburetors – maybe I could help fix it – and she replied, it is the pump pin – so Melissa encouraged me to go buy a power washer. And I even offered to go in together with this other family to buy a new one – so I started lookin for a power washer. The next Saturdya morning, we are out on a walk, and ther eon the curb is a power washer! Usually, when things are on the curb, there is something wrong with it. I asked the neighbor what was wrong with it – he said the handle/gun was broken – and that his mother-in-law was moving out of town and had given him her power washer – so he didn’t try too hard to fix the old one. So after ordering a gun, I attached it and water was spewing out of the everywhere, so I got a few O-rings – and now I have a power washer that works perfectly fine.
I was telling this story to a coworker – when I first met him he considered himself to be an atheist – but now he would say he is no longer an atheist, but more like an agnostic – in that he doesn’t really care at this point in his life – I’ve given him Tom Short’s book – 5 Crucial Questions about Christianity – and he said, “Wow, it sounds like” – and it struck me the way he put this – “It sounds like the windows of heaven just opened up and gave that to you.” It gave me the opportunity to take him out to lunch and to share with him that verse in Malachi – how Melissa and I have made a point to follow that verse – and again – God promises to open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing…
Another attitude we need to have in dealing with worldly wealth is that of honesty.
Luke 16: 10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
I had a brief temptation this week. I bought a car on Craigslist – and in order to make a good-faith offer, the seller asked that I give him $200 – which I did on Paypal. Then when we got together to go to the bank, I paid him the remaining amount. When it came time to pay the tax on the vehicle – I was tempted to say that I paid the amount I paid the bank – which was $200 less – which would have saved me about $14 in taxes – because as far as the bank or anyone else knew, the purchase price did not include that $200. But when asked the purchase price, I said the full amount. Later in the day, the opportunity came up to tell the seller that I was preaching at Grace Summit this weekend. How would that have looked if we had lied about the purchase price earlier? Trust me – the world is watching for any hypocrisy in what we do and we need to strive to be 100% honest and trustworthy in our dealings.
And Luke continues:
Luke 16:13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
You might say – how am I serving money?
Let’s look at a few Financial Statistics to help us to understand the consequences of being a servant to our money:
1. Marital Problems - 37 percent (the highest rate) of marital problems derive from financial situations
2. Cash Flow - 70 percent of all consumers live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they run out of money before the end of the month – or as people say – there is too much month at the end of the money…
3. Savings - The average family would have to use a credit card to pay a $1,500 unexpected expense (ex: home or car repair).
4. Retirement - Nearly half of all Americans (46%) have less than $10,000 saved for their retirement.
5. Of those who have credit card debt, the average amount owed is $15,706. If you just pay the minimum payment, you may end up paying as much as twice the amount of what you borrowed!
Proverbs 22:7 Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender.
I mean, we all know that debt is bad – but we fall into the trap of thinking that it can’t be avoided. If you find yourself in debt, you should do everything in your power to get out of it. What are some things you can do?
First – Pray. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills – and all of the everything in the heavens and the earth – and he may choose to miraculously provide for you. I read a story this week in 2 Kings where Elisha the prophet met up with a widow whose husband had been a prophet – who loved the Lord – but the husband died and the woman had a lot of debt. He asked her essentially if she had any assets – she told him she only had a jar of oil. He told her to gather as many containers from her neighbors as she could find. Once she had done that – they began pouring oil into the containers. Each container was filled – and when the final container was filled, the oil ran out. He told her to sell the oil to pay her debtors. God can miraculously provide for us – but we can’t presume it upon Him to do so.
After praying - you need to understand what you owe – the average student loan debt is like $32,000 – make a list of how much you owe and to whom – what is the interest rate you are paying? Then you need to make a plan to pay it off as soon as possible. Do you have any assets you can sell? Can you get a second job?
Some people recommend paying off the highest interest rate loan first. Dave Ramsey recommends paying off the smallest loan first and then once it is paid off - taking what you were paying on that loan and adding it to your next smallest loan. He calls this the debt snowball. Usually debt snowballs the other way – one thing breaks and then another – but if you can reverse the trend, it really helps.
Another important thing is to have a written zero-sum budget. That means you know exactly how much you take home and you know exactly how much is being spent. If there is still too much month at the end of the money – something needs to be cut. You also need to plan for monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual expenses. We have a separate checking account for things like property taxes – and we take a certain amount out of each paycheck to contribute to that separate account so that when they come due twice a year, the money is already there and we don’t have to panic. My wife used to worry a lot about money – but having a zero-sum budget has helped her to not worry when those big bills come.
Also – when you take a look at your budget, you may be able to spot expenses that you no longer need. Do you really need a landline phone? A friend of mine came and asked my advice – we’ll talk about counsel next – and he was paying about $240/month for cable tv/internet and phone service. He called the company – and actually spent several hours on the phone trying to get this worked out – but he is now paying $35 per month for fewer services – he only kept the service he really needed – did you catch that – he went from paying over $2800/year to paying a little over $400 per year – just by cutting back and making a phone call.
If an ‘introductory rate’ has expired, you can usually get the company to give you the introductory rate if you call and threaten to cancel. I always say – so, apparently, you value new customers more than you value faithful long-time customers? Eventually they’ll give you the introductory rate.
The issue is to get out of debt as soon as possible.
Some people ask if all debt is bad? Because the Bible indicates that it is okay to lend money (and if you do lend money – you need to be willing to lose it – consider it a gift!), one has to presume that there are circumstances where debt is permissible – for instance, if the value of the asset you are purchasing is greater than the debt you will incur – but the general principle is debt is a thing to be avoided.
The next few verses deal with the fact that God’s economy is different from the world’s economy:
Proverbs 22:9 He who is generous will be blessed
Proverbs 11:4 Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Proverbs 11:24 One person is generous and yet grows more wealthy, but another withholds more than he should and comes to poverty.
Proverbs 11:25 A generous person will be enriched, and the one who provides water for others will himself be satisfied.
I like the third one there –Proverbs 11:24 – in the world’s economy it doesn’t make sense – if you are generous, you are giving your money away – and yet that is the person who grows more wealthy – and then there is the person who hangs onto his wealth and is not generous and he comes to poverty.
Each of these verses reinforces the fact that God is in control of our wealth and we need to give Him control of our lives.
The next few verses deal with getting advice – seeking counsel. I am surprised at how many people I know who make important financial decisions without seeking advice from people who have been in their shoes. We also have friends who are really growing in this and I am proud of them.
“The purpose of counsel is to gain insights, suggestions, and alternatives that will aid in making a proper financial decision. It is not the counselor’s role to make the decision – you retain that responsibility. “
Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.
Proverbs 19:20 Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise.
Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but in the abundance of counselors there is victory.
An abundance of counselors – Get advice from several people. The more important the decision, the more advice you should get. Sometimes you will get conflicting advice – but usually, that enables you to seek the Lord and think through the situation more than you would have otherwise – and allows you to make the decision that is right for you.
One of my sources of counsel that has saved me a lot of money – believe it or not – is YouTube. On YouTube I have diagnosed and fixed a bad washing machine, a bad starter on a car, a bad battery, a bad AntiLock Braking System (oops – couldn’t fix that one) – A weedeater, three lawnmower carburetors, Faucets, Programming Things at work, a (borrowed) 3d printer problem, a loose towel bar, and even how to change a headlight in a car! (Seems simple enough, but sometimes it is not!). Virtually any type of repair can be found on YouTube. Before throwing something away, you might be able to find how to fix it inexpensively.
I also try to seek counsel from experts. When I went to purchase this car this week, I asked my mechanic if he would come to Ashland with me – and he was willing to spend the evening with me driving down there. It gives me a lot more confidence to buy a used car when he tells me that if I don’t buy it, he will!
And the most important person to seek counsel from is God Himself:
Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
We learn His counsel by studying and meditating on His word.
The next important financial attitude/topic I’d like to tackle is Work –
Colossians 3:23-24 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
When you see yourself as working for Jesus, it is a lot easier to work hard and your employers will hopefully recognize that you are working hard and will reward you for it!
SAVING!
Proverbs 21:20 The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.
Proverbs 21:5 Steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty.
I think about this verse when I jog, because it seems like steady plodding…
And the second half of the verse is an admonition to stay away from get-rich-quick schemes – that is just hasty speculation.
I was looking at pictures of a car at auction – it was probably repossessed – and there were lottery tickets strewn about the front seat. I don’t know if they were trying to save their car by buying lottery tickets or what.
Proverbs 13:22 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.
This tells me that we need to be in this for the long haul. Life insurance is one of the most important and unselfish things you can do for your family. Do you have a will? If you don’t have a will – the state will decide who gets your assets. If you have a will, you can direct those assets to your beneficiaries and even to further the work of God through ministries.
The final verse on the sheet speaks of contentment:
Philippians 4: 11 Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
This is the secret: Be content with what God gives you. Recognize that it all comes from God and belongs to Him.
Why do we want to get out of debt and save and be content with the lifestyle God has given? Because when you are financially independent, you are free to meet needs. You are free to serve in a ministry without being compensated.

Last 2 Minutes

Jesus says to use that ‘unrighteous mammon’ or money - to make friends for yourselves – to make room for the gospel – buy people lunch – make room for the gospel. They say you can’t take it with you… - I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul – but you can send it on ahead! Yesterday Melissa went out and bought a housewarming gift for people in the neighborhood we’ve never met…
Sometimes you see a need – and you think – wouldn’t it be fun to have the resources to meet that need? I’ve heard stories of people leaving $100 tips at a Waffle House on Thanksgiving morning – because the gal working at Waffle House on Thanksgiving morning obviously needs the money or she wouldn’t be there – and then to be able to watch from a distance and see the joy that meeting that need can bring – that is a lot of fun.
If we can use what God has given us to further His kingdom I feel like we’ve fallen into the role He calls us to.
Lord, thank You for Your word and these verses on contentment and financial wisdom. We adore You as being in control of everything and we acknowledge that all we have comes from You and we ask that You would make us good stewards of all that You have given. Help us to be faithful. As a church, help us to meet needs in people’s lives – and most importantly to meet their need of a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.