Work, Enjoyment, and Savings (w/ QandA)

Work, Enjoyment, and Savings (w/ Q&A)

Chet Phillips

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Good morning. We're in our fourth week of our money series, just talking about money. We're actually wrapping everything up today. I am the type of person, and you probably know someone like me, that talks to the television. So I talk to my television.

I respond to characters. And I don't do this in movie theaters and stuff, but mostly if I'm by myself, I'm going to interact with what's going on. And so I'll – like if I'm watching a movie and something happens that is just unbelievable. So like the movie Shooter, where he's like a really great sniper, and they explain that to us. He's a really great sniper. And then later, bullets don't hit him.

They didn't explain that to us. So like he can shoot really well, but then like 30 military guys are shooting AR-15s at him, and he's just like sitting on a hill. And so I'm like, really? Come on. Are we serious right now? And then he blows up a helicopter and runs into the woods, and that's the end of the scene.

Like we don't even know what happens. Like so I respond to my television, and there are two things that I respond the most to that I'll talk to my TV the most. Like that's sports, football, the sport. I talk to football, and I will talk to TV preachers. So when I'm watching football or a television preacher, I'm going to be talking to my television a good bit.

So I will yell. Like if it's football, I'll be like, yeah, come on. Let's go, son, especially if there's like a really good defensive hit. Like I will jump up and shout, which annoys Anna, but like I've got to. I will complain about what people are doing. And then when I'm watching TV preachers, I do the same thing.

So if they're saying good stuff, I'm like, come on. Yeah, that's right. Preach, preacher. Like I don't really do that, but I do talk to the television. And mostly though I get really angry at TV preachers. And so we recently had a son, and I have been catching up on all of my middle-of-the-night television shows.

So I don't know. So maybe me and one other insomniac who like you have insomnia, you have a problem with sleeping, you watch the shows that I've been watching recently. So if you get up in like the first shift with our son, because he eats every three hours, you get to catch up on like late-night shows. So like the late show, the late, late show, the later than the late, late show. Like the – you get to catch up on those. If you get the second shift though, it's like 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, and nothing is on except for paid programming and television preachers.

I should watch paid programming, but I end up watching TV preachers. And if you watch TV preachers, you would assume 85% of the Bible is about money. Like that is what they talk about. So I'm watching a guy last night, and he has really cool hair. Because if you're going to be on TV and preach, you have to have really cool hair. It usually needs to start here.

It needs to be slick all the way back here. There needs to be some sort of throne that you and or your wife sit on or you and a panel of other people. And wife needs bouffant hair, and she needs to look – her face needs to look like she lost a paintball match. Like she's back here. There's usually a spinning globe. I don't know why there's a spinning globe, but on any of these shows, there's a globe that just slowly rotates in the back.

That's going on. And then what they do is they just talk about money. And they'll talk a lot about like sowing seeds and I didn't have any money and then I gave money and now I've got money. And look at my suit and then someone will come up and be like, I didn't have any money and then I gave money. And now God doubled that and then I paid back and he doubled that again. And now I'm super rich and that's what God wants.

And so if you watch them, you would assume that being rich meant that God loved you, God blessed you. Like if you are financially secure and stable, that is the sign of God's blessing. And that is incorrect. So having wealth can be a blessing and in the Bible it is a blessing. It is not the sign of God's blessing. And the Bible gives a lot of warnings against wanting to be rich, making that your hope, your aim, your goal in life.

So people react to that. They don't have TV shows because TV shows cost money. But the way they react is they say, no, you're holy and you're good and you love Jesus if you're poor. And that's actually a sign of God's blessing is to be poor and to give everything away and to eat dirt and crickets. And God loves you the most if you do that. And the more you smell because you haven't bathed, more holy.

Like that's like you have people that start pushing on this end. And the Bible also does not say that. It doesn't say that being poor makes you more holy. Actually, the Bible is going to kind of stand in the middle and give a lot of warnings towards wanting to be rich. And then give some teaching about that you're blessed if you're poor and that's okay. But there's not a rule of if you start having money, you have to give it all away.

There are times the Bible is going to tell somebody, yeah, you're rich and you need to give it all away. You're supposed to. But that's not the rule for all rich people. It's way more in the middle. And so what we're going to do today is we're actually going to spend some time. We're going to be in 1 Timothy chapter 6.

And we're going to look at just as practically as we can as we finish up this series. We're going to try to just run through some stuff really practically looking at money today. And then we're going to spend a little bit more time doing Q&A. So we've been having people send in questions about money. We're going to spend a little more time doing Q&A when we get finished this morning. But we're just going to take a minute to try to look at some real practical stuff when it comes to money.

So what we've been doing mostly for this series is we've been looking at more big picture. How should we view finances? So if I'm a Christian, if I say I believe this, if I say that I believe that Jesus was God who became a man, who lived perfectly on my behalf, who generously, blavishly poured out love and grace and gave up his entire life for me, and then is a king who rules over my life, that he rose from the dead, and he is the king of everything, if I say that is true, how does that affect how I handle my money? If I believe that there's an eternity, if I believe that my God is a generous God, if I believe that this is the truth, how does that affect my money?

And that's what we've been looking at. And today we're just going to try to kind of wrap up the series with some real practical teaching on how to handle money. And really what we've said in the first three weeks is give money away. And as Americans, we need to hear that. But you're not going to give all of your money away.

And so today we're going to spend some time saying, okay, what else do you do with your money? Like where does the rest of it need to go? And so that's where we'll be as we're in 1 Timothy, page 644, if your Bible looks like this. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. That's our gift to you. I'm going to pray real quick, and then we're going to hop in and read some in 1 Timothy.

God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love for us. And we pray, Lord, that you would speak to us, that you would give us freedom and wisdom when it comes to handling money. And we just thank you for the time we have together this morning. We love you, praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

So we're going to be in 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 30. Raz, two weeks ago, spent some time here. We read through this text, and so we're going to read through it again. I'm going to quickly kind of recap some of the stuff he said because we're going to be looking at it from a different angle today. But as for the rich in this present age, okay, I'm going to stop there for just one second.

What Raz did was he explained to us that on the sliding scale of richness, and I'm going to swap. So I was poor here earlier and rich here, but we're going to swap that. Now this side is rich. Now this side is poor. So on the sliding scale of richness, down here you've got the poorest person in the world, probably in a third world country, probably lives in a garbage heap and picks around for food in that.

That's a real thing of children in our world live in garbage piles and look for food. So that's far end down there. Far end up here is like you've got your LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who pays LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who – Microsoft guy, Bill Gates, and then you've got like Warren Buffett. They're down on that end. And all of us are somewhere on this sliding scale. And as Americans, we're more towards this side of the scale.

But mostly what we do is we stand in line this way, and we say, I'm not rich because this person has more than me, and that's our logic. I can't be handling my money poorly. Look at how this guy handles his money. And I can't be rich because look at what that guy has and look at what my neighbor has, and so I'm not rich. And so what Raz said was, first of all, that logic doesn't make any sense. It's the same as saying I'm not full because you ate more than me, or I'm not wearing any clothes because you have on more clothes than I do.

Like the logic does – it's not sound, that I'm not rich because someone has more. And what he said was we needed to turn around, look this way, and realize how well off we are, how rich we are. And so as he walked through this passage, he was just trying to help us all see that really we all need to pay attention. So when it says to the rich, not many of us are like, shh, he's talking to me. I'm super wealthy, guys. Be quiet.

Like not many of us do that, but the truth is we're actually all very well off, and as Americans, for the most part, are more wealthy than many other people, and so we at least need to all pay attention and learn what he's going to tell them as he talks about finances. So as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, which just means prideful, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

Okay, we're going to stop there. For some of you, that really bothers you if we stop in the middle of a verse. So you see the 20 at the front of that, and you want us to read to the 21. The verses were added later to be helpful. We can stop wherever we want, and we stopped at the end of the sentence, and we're okay to do that, just so you know. Those are just for reference.

That's not how Paul wrote it. He didn't write and go, you know what, I'm going to add a little 20 here. He didn't do that. He just wrote a letter. So we're stopping at the end of his sentence, which is, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

If you have struggled with, you know, you need to complete it, go ahead and read the rest of the sentence to yourself. I'm not mad at you. We're just not going to talk about it. The rest of the verse. So, okay, so Paul finishes this up, and he says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so what he's saying is, Timothy, God has given you a deposit.

He's made a deposit in your life. And that includes everything. So when he's talking to Timothy, he's specifically talking about some of the gifts he's been talking to Timothy about, the responsibilities he has as being a pastor of this church. That's why he's writing the letter. But he's also including everything that's been given to him.

And so he says, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so here's the deal. Timothy will one day stand before God and have to give an account for how he handled what he had been given. And so Paul says there's been a deposit entrusted to you. Handle it well. Guard it.

Defend it. Take care of it. Be wise with it. And that includes gifting. That includes ability, talent. That includes his finances.

That includes everything. He's to guard the deposit entrusted to him. And here's what's really cool that we need to all be aware of. Timothy will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to Timothy. And you will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to you. And I will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to me.

And so that's life, health, skills, ability, talent, finances, everything. There is a day when we will stand before our maker and we will give an account for how we handled what he gave us. Because everything we have is grace. It's on loan. Like you didn't pick the parents you have. You didn't pick the genetics you have.

You didn't pick the skills you have. Like I could work my entire life and will never play an instrument well. It will not happen. I cannot clap and sing at the same time. I was in a gospel choir. I proved that publicly.

I showed the world I can do one or the other. I can clap or I can sing. I'm not doing both at the same time. It's not happening. I didn't know we had to clap until the very end. They were just like, all right, now we're going to clap and sway during these.

And I was like, I've only practiced the singing. I needed an entire semester to work on this. Y'all are terrible, terrible people. But we've only been given so much. I had a college football coach. We had meetings with our head coach every once in a while.

And so I sat down in his office and he said, Chet, you have done everything that you can do with the potential that God gave you. He just, God sometimes gives more people more potential. Thanks. I think. What my coach said was, Chet, the best you could ever be is a four. And you're a four, man.

You nailed it. And you will never play. You will be a four and you will be on the bench. And that's okay because there are some people on our team that God gave them the ability to be an eight. And they're a six. And that's better than a four.

That's what he said. That's how the conversation went. I read between the lines. I knew what was happening there. It was also in his conversation where he was telling me that I would not be receiving any scholarship money ever from them forever for any reason whatsoever. So, yeah.

So, just so you all know, I reached my potential. Just so you know. But for some, but like we'll be held accountable for what we have. So, some people are like, what we cannot do. Timothy will be held accountable for what he has, what he's been given. What he cannot do is say, I'm not held accountable for what I've been given because Paul has more.

What I can't do is say, well, I can't waste this because he's, look at what he has. Look at how he's wasteful. Like, then mine doesn't count. We can't do that. So, we can't look at someone who has more money, more talent, more ability and say that, well, what I do with mine doesn't matter because they have more. It doesn't make sense.

We are all going to be held accountable for what has been entrusted to us. And so, specifically for us today, we're going to talk about money. That verse means everything. It is definitely more than money. It's not less than money. And since this is a series on money, we're going to talk about money, not your ability to play guitar or sing or serve or dance or run or whatever other talents you have.

And I don't know why all those are physical, looking at a spreadsheet. Whatever talents you have. We're not talking about those. We're talking about money. So, all of us will be held accountable for how we handle money. So, what we're going to do is take, as helpful as we can be, we're going to take a second to look at how we can handle money.

And so, we don't usually do this, but we've got props today to be helpful. I was really tempted to just stay behind the wall and talk for a little while, but that would have just been weird and only entertaining to me. So, these are five buckets on where your money can go. Taxes is one place your money will go. And we're going to talk through all of these. Debt is another place your money will go.

And some of you are already nodding. I can't see you, but you know. You know about that. You're nodding. Your heart is nodding. You know what's up.

Are these centered? Because I don't want to, like, make someone not be able to pay attention the whole time because they're off center. And I'll keep referring to them if you can't read the labels. So, this is a bag of golf balls, but it represents money. These are golf balls of money for everyone in here. This represents you will only ever make a limited amount of money.

You will only ever this month make a limited amount of money. You have a limited amount of money that will pass through your hands. And one of the things we've talked about is that everything has been entrusted to you by God, and you will be held accountable for how you handle it. However big your bag of golf ball money is, you will be held accountable for it. So, some of us need to be really excited. I'm kind of glad that my intelligence is where it is, and my amount of money I'll make is where it is, and my ability to play football is where it is, so I just have less to mess up.

I'll be like, yeah. I reached my potential. It was a three. Wasn't that great? Like, I had less to do, less to go for. So, some of us need to be real excited.

You're really mad you don't make a lot of money. Be happy. You have less to mess up. Okay, so, taxes. We will only talk about this for a second. These are five places your money will go.

They will fit into these buckets. Taxes, debt, saving, giving, and lifestyle. So, and every, that's it. That covers everything your money will ever go to. So, taxes. Some of us don't make much.

We're not going to pay much in taxes, but we have to pay taxes. Some of us make more. You will pay more in taxes. But you're going to pay taxes. The government is going to get your taxes from you. You do have one option if you really want to stick it to the tax man.

Again, don't pay your taxes. Then you'll get arrested. And then other people's taxes will have to pay for you. You'll get three meals and a bed. And you will doubly stick it to the tax man. Otherwise, you're going to pay taxes.

That's how that works. So, we're not going to talk about that anymore. The next one is debt. First of all, let me say this before we get into debt. Here's the first rule when it comes to handling money well. And we're just trying to be as practical as we possibly can be.

Rule number one, make a budget. Some of you need to be writing that down. You don't make a budget because you don't write things down. Now would be a good time to start writing things down. Write down, make a budget. Here's why you need to make a budget.

You will be held accountable for everything that has been entrusted to you. You will be held responsible for it. Now, the best way to begin to plan on how to handle it is by having a budget, which is just where you write down where your money is going to go. If you are in this room and consistently you get to the end of a month and you think, where did all of my money go? You need to make a budget. Because you either tell your money where to go or you will wonder where it went.

Those are your two options. You're either going to tell your money where to go or you just will be like, what? Where did I spend my money? And then eventually you start planning a budget and you're like, how much money did I spend at Taco Bell this year? Yes, a lot. That's really personal.

I'm just confessing. I spend a lot of money at Taco Bell. I like that place. Okay. So make a budget.

Have a plan. Write something down. It's very simple. At the top you will write down how much you make and then you will write down how much you have to spend and that's really it. You'll start walking through that. Some of you are like, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget.

All you really just said was, making a budget will be very, very easy for me. That's what you just said. So if you think, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget. No. You just said, making a budget is easy. Okay.

This much money. Rent. Food. I'm done. I did it. My budget is made.

The truth is this. Some of us think, I don't make much money and I don't handle it well now, but I will handle it better later when I get more. That's not how that works. Not really how that works with anything. So we as Americans believe that.

I'm a terrible boyfriend. I'll make a great husband. There's no logic in that. You will just have more to mess up. You will just be a terrible husband. That's how that works.

I've said this before, but girls, if you're dating a guy and he is a terrible boyfriend, do not think that marrying him will fix that. You will just be married to someone who is terrible and that will be your fault. Okay. That was for free. So make a budget.

Make a plan. Handle your money. Pay attention to where it's going. Tell it where to go. So that's step one when it comes to money.

Okay. Debt. The goal with debt is that we would not have any. The goal with debt is to get out of debt. That's the plan. So there are a couple of different types of debt.

Most of us can't pay outright for a house, so we'll get a mortgage. That'll put us into debt. Now, a house is different in some ways because it is a, and the word has just left my brain. It's an asset, but it's an appreciable asset. Thank you very much. That's the word I was looking for.

It's an appreciable asset, which means that if you buy a house now for $100,000 and 10 years later you sell it, it should still be worth $100,000 or more, which means that at any point you don't get upside down in it most of the time. And being upside down just means that you owe more on something than it is worth. So if you had to sell it because the mafia was after you and you had to move and you had to sell and run away, you couldn't because you owe more than it's worth. Does that make sense? But a house is an appreciable asset.

So housing debt is one thing. The biggest problem for us as Americans is consumer debt, which is where we go into debt to buy things that we can't afford for our lifestyle. Our lifestyle bucket consistently just pours itself into our debt bucket, just so you know. So you have a limited amount of money and you're trying to decide what kind of pants am I going to wear. So you have an option for Wranglers from Walmart.

You could go with pants from Old Navy and that's going to cost you a little bit more. Or you could go with something from Buckle. And then if you went with pants from Buckle, you don't have that amount of money. So what you're going to do is get a credit card that just says, I don't own money, but I will in the future probably. And so then you just pour a bunch of money in here. Some ladies get, what are they called?

Credit cards at retail credit cards. And then you think, oh, I need to get this now because it's on sale. And so you pay interest, which is money for nothing other than just having something now on something that's on sale. And so you take something that would be cheap if you had the money and you make it more expensive over time because you put it in your debt pile. Does that make sense? So the goal is get out of debt.

Now, student loans. Should I just put the whole? Okay. Student loans. We're done. That was it.

Y'all have a good day. Some of us have student loans. And here's the thing. We're Americans. The average American has about $15,000 worth of consumer debt. And then you start adding on student loans and medical bills and different things.

This is not feel guilty, feel shame. It is make a plan, make a budget, and let's work to get out of debt. If you are choosing student loans, like if you haven't made that decision yet, consider going in-state, consider going public, not private because you are going to add on extra debt that really isn't going to help you too much in the future when you can get the same kind of degree somewhere else cheaper. That would be my advice there. And don't use student loans to pay for expenses if you can help it and get a job. Otherwise, though, we have debt.

So the goal is make a plan to work to get out of it. Don't assume I'm going to be in debt forever. Psalm 22, 7, Proverbs 22, 7 says, The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. Some of you are working 40-hour-a-week jobs just to pay the lender, which means your job isn't so much for you as it is for the person you owe money to. You are a slave to the lender. That's how it works when we borrow money.

In some small fashion, we become a slave to the lender. And as Christians, we're supposed to be slaves to Jesus, which means that we shouldn't be in so much debt that we're not freed up to move and to do what God asks us to do. Not freed up to, if he tells us to go be a missionary in another country, that we can't because we have so much debt. So the goal would be get out of debt. Now, be honest with your community group about this. Be real with where you are.

We have people in our church family who are good with money. They know math. They think through things well. They can do spreadsheets and magical things with computers. And so we actually can help do financial counseling or have somebody from our finance team sit down with you and just help you make a budget. Like we want to be as helpful as possible.

But the goal with that would be to get out of it if you can. Savings. Okay. Savings is one of these where it's, we kind of want to stay in the middle. You can't go too far one side or the other. So here's the thing that you need to know.

Saving money is okay and smart. Proverbs 21. Yep, save some money. That's number three. And we can go back to that in a second. Proverbs 21.20 says, Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.

Which just means that it is smart, wise, to save up. Because you're going to have emergencies, you're going to have problems, and it is foolish to just use all, to have your budget match your income. It is helpful to save some money. So, really practically, if you are in debt, pay minimum payments until you can get something into savings. Get an amount into savings so that if you get a flat tire, if your washing machine breaks, you don't have to go into more debt to pay for it. So get something into savings so you can handle emergencies so that you can then begin to work on your debt, and if something comes up, it doesn't derail you.

Have something in savings. And here's the thing. Timothy says this, and I think this is really beautiful and helpful when it comes to thinking about savings. Talking on verse 18, talking about the rich. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Which means they have finances ready to share.

And then he says this, thus, so by being ready to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future. Okay, what is storing up treasure for yourself for the future? I'll give you a hint. It's saving. That's what storing up treasure for yourself for the future is. That's savings.

That's all that is. So what he says is, people who have money, the part of the purpose of saving is to be ready to share. So that when someone in your group needs help, someone in your community group, someone you're in life with needs help, you hold your savings with an open hand. For people who have an emergency and you don't have savings, credit card is not your first option. Church family is. Our church is.

That's part of the reason we pull our money together is to help each other. It's part of the reason your community group exists. So don't just put it on a credit card, go talk to somebody. We should have people who save with an open hand ready to share. He also says this, verse 17, as for the risks in this present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. Perfectly good to save.

Don't put your hope there. Don't have your life there. Don't have all of joy and purpose of life is in savings. And also for couples, saving is not automatically more holy, just so you know. So some of us feel really self-righteous because we like to save money and our spouse likes to spend money.

Both of them can be very selfish, self-motivated, chasing after what makes us feel good. So someone likes to be able to look in the bank and see money and that makes them feel comfortable. And someone else likes to wear shiny shoes and that makes them feel comfortable. And we're both chasing after the same thing. We just have a different motivation. But we should save some and we should save with an open hand and that's okay.

Okay. Giving. This is what we've talked about for a lot of weeks. We're going to skip over, but that's just, we're going to come back to it, but that's just meaning that you give money away. Doesn't help you. Doesn't go to you.

That's giving to the local church, giving to friends, giving to people who need help. Like some of your money is just not going to terminate on you. That's giving. Everything else goes into this bucket. The lifestyle bucket. And so some of us say, well, I really just pay my bills.

Yes. But you, through your lifestyle, have chosen what type of bills you're going to have. Does that make sense? So when you buy a house or rent a house, you're choosing what kind of life am I going to have? What kind of house am I going to have? What's my mortgage going to look like?

How big is this apartment going to be? What kind of internet am I going to have? Am I going to have Netflix? Am I going to have cable? Am I going to have direct TV? Am I going to get the Hoppa?

Like what's the plan? What am I choosing with how I'm going to live? Where am I going to get my purse? Walmart. Dugan and Burks. I don't know if that's the name, but Dooney.

Maybe her name's Dooney. Dooney and Burks. What's the one with all the really weird patterns on it that looks kind of awkward and like super colorful? What? Louis Vuitton and Prada. So like, yeah.

Where's that coming from? Like I asked Anna this stuff yesterday and I don't remember any of the words she said. Sorry. I should have been paying more attention. So, but like we make lifestyle choices. What kind of car am I going to drive?

Does it get me to and from work? Or does it tell everyone I'm awesome as I get to and from work? We're making lifestyle choices. Does that make sense? So everything else is going here.

So here's what you need to know. Question your choices. Jesus says that life is not found in the abundance of possessions. And when he says that, he is talking to Americans because we believe that. Millions of dollars are spent every year to get us to be here and to be here and to know that that's what makes us okay. That's what makes us good.

That's what tells the world we're fine. That's what communicates to the world who we are and what we care about and what we value. And that's how people know you. And he says that life isn't found in the abundance of possessions. Life isn't there. That's not where joy and freedom and fulfillment come from.

So, when it comes to the lifestyle bucket, the fourth thing we need to know is we think about money. So we need to make a budget. We need to get out of debt. We need to save some. We need to plan ahead, know that there's going to be a rainy day. There's going to be some problems.

We need to provide for ourselves and we need to enjoy. I'm going to read you all one of my favorite passages in Scripture that I just think is great. This is in Deuteronomy. So it's in the Old Testament law, Deuteronomy 14, and it just kind of shows us some of God's heart towards why he gives us things. You shall tithe, which means 10%, and it means set aside for God, for his purposes. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from year by year, from the field year by year.

This is Deuteronomy 14, 22 through 26. I'm just going to read through it really quickly. You don't need to flip there if you want to. Write down the reference. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell, so this is before Jerusalem, but that's where the temple is, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock. So meat, wine, oil, grain, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

So part of tithing was to enjoy it for the purposes of fearing God, knowing that he's the one who provides. But then he keeps going and it gets really cool. Fear the Lord your God always, and if the way is too long, so you live too far away from Jerusalem for you, so that you may not be able to carry the tithe, which, like, I have a ridiculous amount of wine and grain and goats that I'm going to have to take up there. When the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.

That's cool. God says part of your money, part of the reason he's given you your money is to enjoy. He says bind it up, take it, go before him and in worship, eat, celebrate with whatever you desire. Oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink. Some of you are like, he told them to buy wine. What verse is this?

Like, I'm quoting that to my grandmother. Like, how's college going? I've been worshiping a lot. Sorry. What he says is that part of how you worship, part of how you celebrate, part of how you, you trust God and rejoice is by taking what he's given you and using it to celebrate, using it for enjoyment. So let me tell you this, part of your budget, even if it's very small, needs to be set aside for the purposes of enjoying it with worship.

So not just enjoying the thing itself, but letting it roll up and worship for a good God who provides for you and who invented that thing. God, creator of the universe, invented flavor. He made steak delicious on purpose. He made bacon more delicious and then he gave someone the idea to wrap bacon around steak. Can I get an amen? Somebody say praise the Lord.

This is real. Now, that's a real thing and we should sometimes order a steak and enjoy it and celebrate that we have a good God who blesses us, who we can trust, who even when money fills really tight, we should set some aside to enjoy, to celebrate that we have a good God who provides and cares for us. Some of us feel like we can't enjoy our finances because we're so worried and that's why he says, no, set some aside and celebrate and rejoice before me and enjoy it because I'm a good God who provides and takes care of you. That actually is in this passage that we read earlier in 1 Timothy. It says, verse 17, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

Which means that some of us, because we're unwilling to enjoy things, are putting our hope on riches and not on God who's provided you with the ability to enjoy something. Some of you are now going to pull that out on your spouse. See? I'm just worshiping. I'm just loving God. Like, I'm just, that's why I want to, like, and maybe you should.

Maybe y'all should have a discussion about the ability to enjoy your finances. Now, that probably was really helpful for two people who don't feel like they can enjoy their money. For everyone else, because we're Americans, that's not the goal of life. It's not just to enjoy, not just to celebrate, but we do have a good God who invented amazing things and invented flavor and enjoyment and roller coasters and all of that for us to enjoy and to celebrate and we should set aside money sometimes to do that. Should be okay with that. He invented gluten because he's a good and loving guy and you should partake.

So those of you who aren't actually gluten intolerant, stop promoting this gluten-free nonsense. I was at Raz's house the other day. He's gluten intolerant. He said, you want a cookie? And I said, sure, because I know what cookies taste like. And then he handed me a gluten-free cookie and I was like, this is not a cookie.

I don't know what this is and I'm very, very sorry for the way you have to live your entire life. So we have a good God who gave us things to enjoy and that's okay and we should. Now, this bucket, this one is the fun bucket. This is the one where a lot of joy is found in giving things away. And so, what we need to know, the last thing we need to remember and to hold, and this is what we've been talking about this whole time, is we want to give as much away as possible. We want to give as much away as possible and what I don't mean by that is wait till you're done with your whole budget, wait till you get to the bottom line and ask, how much of this can I give away?

No, when we set a budget, some of it needs to be towards saving and a lot of it needs to be, I want to make certain lifestyle choices so that I can give a lot away. Here's the difference between you and your neighbor if you are a Christian, just so you know. Your neighbor, for the most part, is going to be operating with these four buckets. Lifestyle, debt, taxes, saving. And there will be some giving. But for a Christian who knows that everything has been given to us generously from a lavish God, we automatically have places we want our money to go that our neighbors don't.

So if you live next to your neighbor and he makes the same amount of money that you do, it's quite possible that you should look like you make less because you automatically have places you want your money to go. You automatically because you know in response to God's generosity you have places where you want your money to go. And this is where you get to plot on people. This is where you get to have a lot of fun. This is where you get to find out about a need and sneak over in the middle of the night and stick money in somebody's mailbox. Do you know how fun that is?

This is where you get to send a certified check in the mail so it just shows up. There's no way like they just Wells Fargo sent me a check. Like what? Why would Wells Fargo do that? Like this is where you get to just go pay for things for people. This is where you get to just this is where you get to send some of your money for God's mission.

Some of you will never step foot in Africa. Some of you will never learn another language. Some of you have tried. It's not going to happen. You're American. You speak American.

You don't even speak English very good. You speak American. That's the way it is. But, so you're never going to translate the Bible into another language for a people group that's never heard it but you can actually send some of your money and get to be a part of that. You can actually send some of your money with a missionary and get to be a part of everything that happens in that country and when you get to eternity part of your money went ahead to that. You actually got to as Paul says here verse 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

So what he says there is he's kind of a play on savings because he's telling them to save for the purposes of giving it away and what he says is that by giving stuff away that's actually a better savings account. You save it for a better future. You have a better savings with a better treasure for yourself for a better future and he's talking about eternity and some of us need to start sending some money on ahead to that better savings account. I'm going to tell you a story about a guy named John Wesley. John Wesley started like that's where the Wesleyan church comes from and the Methodists and I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what he did and this is the idea of giving as much away as you possibly can.

In 1731 John Wesley started doing ministry stuff and they paid him 30 pounds which is like English money and back in the day that was enough to live on but for our sake because we're Americans and we don't use pounds and the exchange rate has changed a lot so that 30 pounds I don't know buys you like a cheeseburger now. We're just going to say $30,000 because let's assume that's enough for him to live off of and we're just going to keep the ratio that way so where it's 30 pounds I'm just going to have three zeros and call it $1,000 so that we can actually pay attention to what's being said here. So they paid him $30,000 he decided looked at his budget looked at his lifestyle and decided he could live off of 28 so he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000.

So he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000. How sweet is that raise? Like your boss calls you in and they're like we're going to give you a raise this year we're going to keep up with inflation no your boss calls you in and says we're doubling down on you like what? That sounds great.

Most of us though would have our budget our lifestyle begin to expand to our new income. What he did was he was like well I can live off of 28 so the next year he gave away $32,000 over half of what he made he gave away do you know how much fun that would have been? Think of what the stuff he could do with it like he doesn't make a whole lot

Of money but now he's being able to go hey you're going on that trip yeah let me let me just pay for that oh you're going to go there and try to plan a church yeah let me just pay for your salary for a year like that's cool the next year they moved it up to 90 he still was like well I can live off of 28 so he gave away

62 In his lifetime he got to where he was making 1400 pounds so adding three zeros that's 1,400,000 he never got much over his lifestyle being 30 pounds he towards the end of his life was giving away 1,370,000 of a 1,400,000 salary now how much fun would that be because we believe no no no the fun would be with the boat that you got and the fun would be

With your beach house and he said no I don't want a whole bunch of stuff I want my money here I want to send as much ahead as I possibly can I want to leverage as much as I can possibly can he actually got contacted by the tax service because they just assumed he was under reporting his property tax because they saw his income and were like there's no way you only own the stuff that you're talking about so they actually

Contacted him and had to question him a little bit here's the thing this is where the fun is this is where the joy is so ultimately as Christians we want to try to get this one gone so that we're just working with these four we want to enjoy celebrate Christians aren't supposed to be unhappy grumpy people just so y'all know

We're supposed to throw the best parties like Jesus showed up to a party at Cana and he made the party better that's how that works Christians should throw great parties Christians should throw great parties I'm just saying that we should enjoy we should celebrate like we have

A son every time he laughs I don't smack him and say stop it God hates happiness we don't do that that's not how that works we're supposed to enjoy but we're supposed to make intentional lifestyle decisions so that we can put as much here as we possibly can we should save with an open hand we should pay

Taxes and not go to prison that's how we ought to handle our money as Christians we ought to have a budget we ought to have a plan because we will be held accountable for it now just because we always do this flip over to Ephesians chapter one I want us to help us see one more thing as we finish up our series

On money we're going to read from verse 3 to verse 14 and then I'm going to help us see how the gospel the truth about who Jesus is and what he's done for us impacts our money on both sides and I'll explain what I mean by that so we're going to read through this really quickly it's just a

Really awesome passage blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ if you have one of these Bibles on page 633 verse 3 through 14 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly

Places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace which means he just poured it out on us we didn't earn it

With which he has blessed us in the beloved that's Jesus in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses that's our sin according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us

The mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose

Of his will who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him it affects our money on both sides which means

That as Christians we have an inheritance we have a salvation we have a better home that we're going to and that absolutely affects our money we have a generous God who lavished everything on us and that affects how we

See our money how we handle our money and what we believe it's for and how we handle our money will not save us will not justify us will

Not let us stand before God and say look at how well I handled my money I'm okay so we have a lot of freedom there aren't hard and fast rules on a

Lot of these things we have freedom to trust God and to know that if we mess up we get to repent and that

We've been saved by Jesus not by our ability to be smart with money we should try we will be held accountable for it but

We get to repent and we're saved by Jesus so there's a lot of freedom when it comes to money there's not a whole lot of

Tension and am I doing this right am I doing that wrong am I going to mess this up is he going to be

Mad at me we've been saved by how we see it but it also isn't used with this really clenched fist and this really

Terrible fear that we have a good God who wants us to enjoy things who's provided for us and we get to rest in

His ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross I'm going to pray and Matt is going to do Q&A to finish up this series

God I thank you for your grace thank you for how wonderful you are to us I praise you Lord that you made things

Good and enjoyable on purpose and I pray Lord that you would help us all to grow in wisdom and how to handle our

Money for your glory and for the good of those around us and for our joy we love you we praise you in Jesus

Name amen one more thing I will say questions on saving or giving or anything talk to us we do counseling on money and

Different stuff like that it can be really helpful as you try to think through some stuff part of the reason we do a

Song after the message part of the reason we are not doing that is the majority of our questions that you guys sent in

Were actually in this category and so we wanted to if you ask the question and you feel like we didn't answer it well

Or didn't go into the specific thing that you were asking just come and talk to us afterwards we'll try to clarify and go

More specifically into your situation but we do want to answer as best we can for everyone also if we say something that you're

Like I don't know that I agree with that don't but at least we know that we've clarified okay so I'm going to kind

Of take us through our questions and we've got a good bit so I'm going to walk through it pretty quickly all right we've talked a lot

About giving does serving count towards that or does it have to be money okay so serving and giving aren't like opposed to one

Another we are all supposed to do both when we should relinquish the things that we own that we get really attached to for

Some reason most of us seem less attached to our time and more attached to our money and so sometimes we say stuff like

I serve so I don't have to give and we're actually just defending our money and so the same way we tell someone who

Says I give so I don't have to serve we should all be doing both now some of us make more money and are

Gifted in giving and we'll give more and some of us make less money and we'll serve more but all of us are called

To both serve and to both give at what point does debt credit cards student loans mortgage etc. become sin or are they necessary

Evils yeah I think with credit cards that you probably should cut them up or freeze them in a block of ice specifically if you

Have a really hard time with handling them well and constantly putting things on them consumer debt mostly we should just pay for the

Things that we use there are some things like student loans like medical bills and mortgages that are a little bit different but everything

Else we really need to with our money with our time and just like the scripture you read the person who owes is a slave

To the lender and so if that is you if you are in debt be working be having a plan to get out of

It let your group in on that let other church family be a part of you helping you do that I get that we

Shouldn't go in debt but what about saving isn't saving a huge amount of money specifically to ensure a sum for retirement just as

Disobedient doesn't it show a lack of trust in the Lord's provision I think that it can show a lack of trust in the

Lord's provision I don't think it automatically does some of us like retirement is forced on us in America especially in certain vocations and

So having some money saved for retirement isn't bad the question is your hope there is that where your trust is is that the

Goal of life is to just enjoy to rest to retire then maybe maybe that is very disobedient and have you sat with the

Lord on it it doesn't I don't think it necessarily has to be and the Bible calls us to be generous and so for

The person who's in debt and for the person who just may be continuing to save the call is to be generous and so

The person who is in debt would be actively seeking to be out of debt so that they can be generous and the person

Who is saving is saving with an open hand realizing that at any point all of this belongs to the Lord and they can

Use it but it it's a heart level issue so absolutely every person on either side of that equation needs to sit and ask

The Lord where their hearts are and all of us have to save some so I get paid once a month so I don't

Just try to spend all of that or give it all away that day and then just hope that over the next three weeks

The Lord takes care of me part of us they are wrong I do think there is more of a chance that they would

Place their hope there so if you don't have much money it's harder to place your hope there because you don't have it does

That make sense so like when I don't have much money I'm not trusting in it because it ain't there so it's harder sometimes

If you have a lot of to to put more trust there although we do sometimes put trust and hope in the future money

We will make when we become awesome at something is it wrong to save invest for the future if you are faithful in giving to

Ministry and others I would say no just the way that question is worded if you are faithfully giving to ministry to our church to

Church family to others you have an open hand I would just encourage you that if you are saving and investing make sure that

What you are saving and investing you are also approaching it with an open hand too but I think someone who's faithfully giving and

Serving who's approaching things with the attitude of generosity that we've been talking about I think that's good yeah and I would add to

That that I agree with what Matt just said all right saving for future needs is hard I would rather just spend money got

Any tips on making myself save do it okay next question no put it in your budget early so go ahead and work to

Shrink your lifestyle your expenses and put saving at the top so have income giving and saving right off the top and then live

Off of 80% live off of 75% live off 70% if at all possible and that's the best way to do it and if

You have to start really really small $5 I'm going to save $5 from every paycheck so that you start building in the habit for

Yourself and then you can slowly grow that as that works more so some people have a really tight budget give away $5 save

$5 Change it to I'm going that's $10 does that make sense so on both giving and saving put it early in the budget

Don't wait to the end and then you'll actually do it should we strive to be debt free or should we carry some debt to

Minimize our taxes the person who asked this question is in a different tax bracket than I am yeah so we actually tried to

Look this up online because I have no clue about this question we sent Matt's dad a message and he's a CPA did he

Respond to that he did and said he would be willing to actually talk with that person specifically about the way you're looking at

That the Bible is going to say don't be a slave to the lender pretty clear on that but more specifically if you'd like

Some more information on that question we can get you in touch with him yeah so for all the other people that is not

A helpful answer but that's a very intense question that we did not know anything about and the Bible doesn't say much about that

Other than to pay your taxes and to try to stay out of debt next question can I spend anything on myself or should

I feel bad when I do that you should feel bad everybody else can spend money on themselves you are okay to spend money

On yourself obviously not all of it there but no shame no guilt it's not the goal of your money but it's okay how much

Is enough retirement savings cushion yeah that's a good question different people will tell you different things the guy who's on the radio all the Dave

Ramsey says you want to have three to six months of living expenses saved not income but living expenses in case you get hurt in case

There's something like that if you have an emergency he would tell you if you're trying to get out of debt to save a

Thousand dollars really quickly or save five hundred dollars really quickly and then begin to work off debt really that is the question to

Continually ask yourself given your lifestyle given what you need to continually ask is this enough am I putting too much here am I hoarding here that's the question

To keep asking versus that's what I would say and in the same way that we look at giving sit down with the cross not

A calculator be asking the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to you be talking with your group about them next question that we

Have we did math and we know when Jesus is coming back no I'm kidding yeah so here what I like about that question and

I think it's a little bit tongue in cheek whoever sent it in but I like the fact that whoever sent that in understands

That whatever they have saved when Jesus comes back or when they meet him no longer means anything or is worth anything so like

We said in the first week our money is kind of like playing the game uno when the game is over whatever you're penalized

For whatever cards are still in your hand like they were useless to you there's a story Jesus tells where a guy makes a

Lot and he says oh I'll just tear down my build bigger barns and God says you're a fool because you're going to die

Tonight and so yes saving for retirement is fine but always hold into your head I don't know if I'm actually going to make

It to retirement and the day I meet Jesus everything I have in a bank account no longer was useful to me was no

Longer helpful everything I gave away actually I sent on ahead I used to serve for his glory and for his name so just

Having that eternal perspective is important

Gospel Giving (w/ QandA)

Gospel Giving (w/ Q&A)

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, excited to be in our third week of our money series. And so you knew it was coming. We're talking about money, so today we're going to be talking about tithing. I mean, you had to have been getting yourself prepared for this. And the funny thing is, I know our church family, so I know that some of you are like, yeah.

And some of you are like, I didn't know that was coming. I don't even know what the word tithe means. So we're just going to spend some time this morning, really. We're in our third week of this money series, and we're going to take some time to kind of ask some questions when it comes to tithing. And what we realized with money in general is that as a church, we're very much, we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to talk about the gospel.

We're going to make much of Jesus every time we get together. We're a band that plays one song, kind of like Rush. But we're a band with one song. That's all we're going to talk about is Jesus. And as we're getting started, there were a lot of things we wanted to talk about, wanted to coach ourselves up on and understand. And then we just realized that we hadn't ever spent any time talking about money specifically, and that the Bible treats it very much as a gospel issue, as a heart-level gospel issue.

And so that we needed to spend some time talking about it as we talk about Jesus, as we grow together as Christians. And so today we're just going to be asking, what is tithing? Really, the word tithe just means a tenth. So it's an Old Testament concept, but tithing just means a tenth. So tithing is giving a tenth.

And most of the time when someone in a church setting talks about tithing, what they mean is giving a tenth of your income right when it comes in to the local church. And so really we're going to ask a bunch of questions like, is that a Christian concept? Is that for the New Testament? Is that just an Old Testament thing? Is it a flat 10% for everybody? Does it matter how much money you make?

Like, are you supposed to... Like, we just... There's a bunch of questions when it comes to this topic. And so we're just going to try to spend some time looking at those questions this morning and really trying to kind of dive into that. And here's the thing. We have a...

In our culture, we have a saying, put your money where your mouth is. And what we mean by that is, if you believe so strongly in something, if you're going to talk big game, we'll back it up. If you really think that you're telling the truth, back it up. And a lot of times that we mean money specifically, a lot of times we just mean like, you know, live that way. Or like if you're talking smack, you're about to fight somebody and they're telling you they'll beat you up. And you say, well, put your money where your mouth is.

You don't actually mean give me money. You mean let's fight. Let's do this. But I actually, I like betting. Confession time. If that's bad.

I don't do it a whole lot, but I do like betting because I feel like it makes trivial things more interesting. And so recently I lost a bet to Matt Freeman about... I lost a lunch. We bet lunch on it. We bet whether or not Cracker Barrel has omelets. And that was the bet.

And I know and love Cracker Barrel and basically have their menu memorized except for the low-carb stuff because why would you go to Cracker Barrel to eat anything low-carb? But we got into a discussion about whether or not they had omelets and Matt said they did and I said they didn't. And so we bet Egg Roll Station on it, which would be $6.26 because you have to pay cash and that's what you're going to spend when you go to Egg Roll. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. So we bet Egg Roll Station on it.

We went to Cracker Barrel and Matt said, can I get an omelet? And our waitress said, yes. And she was wrong. There are no omelets on the menu, which was really what I was trying to bet. But Matt got by on a technicality because our waitress said yes because she understands that if you have all of the ingredients, you can just fold it over and it's an omelet.

But I have had waitresses say no before because it's not on the menu. But anyway, I'm still bitter about it. I just need to get that off my chest. But we have this idea. We have this idea of put your money where your mouth is. And here's what the Bible is going to say.

It's actually going to say that you put your money where your heart is. That your money, that your treasure follows your heart and vice versa. So that if you move your treasure, your heart will follow. And if your heart moves, your treasure will follow. And so the Bible is going to say that to the extent that something gets your money in your budget is to the extent that you value it and really that you love it. And so some of you are thinking, okay, so I love carowinds 1%.

And it's like, well, not really that specifically. More, how much when you add up, how much you're willing to spend on vacations, how much you're willing to spend on cable or satellite, how much you're willing to spend on comfortable things in your house, like a really nice couch. Eventually, you begin to see that if you look at your budget, okay, I value comfort this much. Or you can look and, okay, I value control this much. Or my family, the way I think about my family, takes up this much of my heart. That's what the Bible is really saying when it comes to our money.

It shows us our heart. So any amount of discussions on the topic of money immediately get intense. You ever notice that? Like when you get into an actual discussion on money, you feel tense, the conversation feels tense, and it's because we're talking about heart-level things. So when you question your roommate's spending habits, and suddenly the conversation gets really like, whoa, I didn't mean for this to be this dramatic.

Or husbands, wives, when you say something really smart like, why on earth would you spend that much money on this? Are you crazy? And suddenly you've entered into a minefield, and you didn't realize how intense this was about to get. It's because it's all heart-level stuff. And so that's why, if you're hanging out with a church on Sunday, and it's like, we're going to talk about money immediately, you go, ugh. Because it's a heart-level issue.

So, with all of the questions that we have about tithing, what is it? How do we do it? What are the rules? How should we approach it? Where does this come from? Honestly, to really answer it, and to really have it take hold, we have to have a heart-level answer.

There has to be a heart, it's a heart-level issue, so it has to have a heart-level solution. Otherwise, we'll just have some information, but it won't actually change us. It won't actually move us, because when our heart moves, our wallet follows. And if we move our wallet, our heart will follow. And so really, for us to answer this question, we have to have a heart-level solution. We have to have a heart-level answer.

So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop into 2 Corinthians. Well, we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. That's on page 628. It's going to take us a minute to get there, because we've got to do a little bit of background work, but that's where we're going to land. So let me pray real quick for us.

God, we ask that you would lead us, that you would give us your wisdom, that as we study your word, you would help us to grow in what it looks like to follow and to submit to you. And God, we praise you, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So 2 Corinthians chapter 8, page 628, if your Bible looks like this, towards the back, if your Bible doesn't. And what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking through how are we to, as Christians, view tithing. And tithing, when we say that, what we really mean is how are we to view giving to the local church and giving towards mission kind of on a regular basis.

And the truth is, what we're going to see is that our giving should be based off of the cross, not a calculator. Then when it comes to the answer that is given in the text is that our giving is based off of the cross, not a calculator. And that's really, that it should be based off of the gospel. So where does tithing come from? Let's answer that question first.

Where does this idea come from? It begins in Genesis when Abraham meets a guy named Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is the priest of Salem, which ends up being Jerusalem. And he gives him 10% of everything he has. And so that's where the idea just kind of originates is that there would be 10% given to a priest, kind of a religious, someone in between you and God kind of thing. And then in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers, it's taught as a part of the law.

So Numbers 18 and Leviticus 20 are basically going to say that you give 10% of your increase. So 10% of whatever comes in, and this would for them would have been goats, sheep, grapes, like whatever came in, you would give 10% to the Levites, to the priestly class because those are the ones that were running the sacrificial system. Those are the ones. And so they didn't get land. They were one of the tribes, but they didn't have any inheritance. And so you were to give it to them.

Actually, you were giving it back to God. And then God said, I'm giving it to them. And that's what Numbers 18 and Leviticus 27 says. Deuteronomy 12, 14, and 26 says that the tithe serves three purposes, still 10% off of increase. And what it said was, it's to go to the Levites, the priestly class, for them to do what they do in the temple. A portion of it is for you to celebrate.

So they were supposed to take the tithe and eat it in celebration in front of God to celebrate His provision. And if the temple was too far away, you were supposed to sell the stuff, take the gold, go to the temple, go to Jerusalem, buy whatever you wanted. It says buy meat, buy wine, wine, strong drink, and drink it and eat it in the presence of the Lord as a celebration. That it was a reminder of God's good things. And so for those who even didn't have a whole lot and were just getting by, they were still supposed to take a portion of their money just to celebrate with. And the other reason it exists was for taking care of the widow and the poor.

So that was the three reasons for the tithe in Deuteronomy 12, 26, and 14. 12, 14, 26, if you want to do that in the way Numbers go. Then we see a few examples. Second Chronicles, Nehemiah and Malachi are all going to talk about the tithe and how it works. Malachi, God's actually going to show up and tell him, you haven't been tithing and you've been stealing from me. You haven't been giving and you've been stealing from me.

And then he's going to do something that he doesn't usually do. He's going to say, test me. Test me and see. Apparently they weren't giving because they didn't think they could afford it. And what he says is, test me and I will provide for you and I will open the floodgates of heaven and I will take care of you if you'll trust me. Now, Old Testament's pretty clear on it.

It's 10% of increase. Most of the time when tithing is taught in the church, every time I've heard it, someone goes to the Old Testament and says, here's the rule. And so even as we were praying about it and talking about it, we knew we were going to need to address this issue and as we started working on it, we just opened the Bible and started reading everywhere they talked about the tithe. And the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. Doesn't come up. There's no verse in the New Testament that's like, it's not like in second opinions where it's like, hey guys, keep tithing like we used to.

Just pretend like the church is the temple now. You're welcome. Like the New Testament doesn't say that. Paul never writes it. Jesus doesn't really address it. Jesus talks about it twice while he's fussing at Pharisees.

So he's in the middle of yelling at people, which I don't know if y'all know, Jesus does that. He yells at people. So he's in the middle of yelling at people and what he says is, you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, which are spices. So he's saying, you tithe, you're so legalistic, you tithe out of your spice rack. So when they went and got spices, they would have said, okay, let me measure out 10%.

So if y'all have a spice rack, go home, measure out 10% and then you gotta bring it in little bags. But if a cop finds you with a bunch of little bags of spices, good luck. But just be careful on the trip. Don't drive too fast. But no, he says you tithe out of your spice rack and what he says is, this you should have done without forgetting the way to your things of the law.

And that's the only time Jesus addresses it. Paul never talks about in any of his letters. And so the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. And so for us, we have to look at the Old Testament and say, how are we to understand this as Christians? Because the law was given in the Old Testament and then Jesus tells us, Romans 7 tells us that he fulfilled the law on our behalf so that we're no longer bound by the law but we've been set free. We died to the law when Christ died for us and that we're now bound by the law of Christ.

And Jesus says he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And so there are certain aspects of the law that have been fulfilled and there are certain things that the New Testament clarifies when it comes to the law. And so the Old Testament law kind of breaks down into three things if you're trying to just do this really quickly and kind of look at it. They had civil law which was because they were a nation. Because the nation of Israel existed they had civil law which was like if my bull breaks out and kills your bull I've got to give you my bull. That's the rule.

And we have civil laws like you can't drive too fast. Look at the sign. Do what it says. And so the civil laws for Jerusalem don't really apply even though when we've crafted laws we look to see kind of what God thought was fair and we took some of those out but they don't really apply to us anymore because we don't live in Jerusalem. We live in the United States. So the civil laws aren't really for us as much and the tithing does kind of fall into that category some.

They had ceremonial laws which was how they related to God through the temple system. Through sacrifices through clean and unclean laws through some dietary laws and basically what that was teaching them was this. God is holy and you are not. He is clean and you are unclean and there are things that make you unclean and it was a consistent reminder of that and even when you were clean when you had done everything you had to do to be clean when you showed up at the temple you still needed a sacrifice. So God's teaching us in the Old Testament that the best of us still need Jesus.

Still need a sacrifice on our behalf. But the ceremonial laws don't really apply to us anymore because Jesus fulfilled that in his sacrifice on our behalf when he died on the cross when he rose again. So we're not bound to that anymore. And then there's moral law which is like the Ten Commandments. So moral law is just here's how humans ought to interact with each other.

Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff. Don't steal. And those still apply. Those are still things that we would look and say this is how God thinks we ought to interact with each other so we should still follow these.

And really when it comes to looking at the Old Testament you have to look at the context and you have to look at what the New Testament says about it. That's why people will say stuff like oh yeah? Well the Old Testament says not to cut the corners of your hair. Nice flat top, hypocrite. Or oh yeah? Well you're not supposed to eat shellfish.

Let's go burn red lobster to the ground. Like people accuse you of these things but they don't really apply anymore because Jesus has paid for and taken care of those aspects of the law. And there are certain New Testament passages that just say things like you can eat whatever you want. God declares it all clean. And that's why if you ever eat bacon praise Jesus. So there are certain things that when we're looking at how do we apply this and then the Old Testament speaks on it and teaches on it and then the New Testament is silent.

It begins to you begin to ask the question why? Like why doesn't the New Testament address this? Hebrews talks about it a little bit but all it's talking about is the story of Abraham meeting the priest of Salem. So why doesn't the New Testament address it? Why doesn't the New Testament talk about it? Why doesn't the New Testament say how we ought to handle it?

Because we've got a lot of questions, right? And nowhere in the New Testament which the New Testament is pretty straightforward on most things does it address it. And here's what I think as we began to read it and began to look at it here's why I believe that the New Testament when you see how the New Testament starts treating money the way the New Testament is going to talk about money post-cross it actually begins to make sense why tithing isn't mentioned. Why there isn't a rule given why 10% isn't there and here's a way to think about it. My wife and I just had a son his name's Archer he is two and a half months old I don't know if you know many two and a half month olds he's the best.

So just take the greatest two and a half month old you know just go a level up and that's kind of what Archer's like you'll get to kind of be able to imagine him now. Just kidding. Anyway no I'm serious but we have a two and a half month old and right around the time that Anna got pregnant Matt and Katie realized they were going to be having a baby as well and so everybody we were kind of wanting to see if it was going to be two boys or if we knew we were having a son if they were going to have a boy or a girl and once they found out they were having a girl Emerson Lane Freeman who when I wrote all of this that we're about to talk about I just assumed Matt and Katie wouldn't be here so some of this is going to get a little awkward for them because I felt like I had the freedom to say whatever I wanted to but they apparently don't have their baby when they're supposed to.

[QA NOTE — 2026-05-10] The remainder of this sermon is missing from the cleaned transcript because Whisper produced a single unpunctuated mega-sentence at the tail of the audio. The raw text in transcription_work/ contains the rest. Recommend re-running the cleanup with timestamp-based punctuation restoration, or capturing the missing portion manually from the audio.

Genuine Generosity

Genuine Generosity

Raz Bradley

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G'day everyone. That means good morning. You can say g'day back or you can say good morning, whatever. My name is Raz. It's good to be here this morning. I'm willing to bet everyone here at some point in their life, at least a million times, has heard the phrase, is money is the root of all evil.

Yes? We've heard this phrase, money is the root of all evil. Nope. Money is not the root of all evil. Money, in fact, I believe, is very, very good. In fact, if you think back to a time when money did not even exist, think back to a time when no one traded money, they just traded stuff.

We commonly know it as the Stone Age. Other people know it as settlers of Catan. The idea is that I need to produce something for myself that I can trade with other people to get stuff that they produce. So I might produce a whole bunch of sheep, which are pretty useless, and you might produce a whole bunch of timber or wheat or something like that. And if I want some wheat, I need to convince you to trade your wheat with me for my sheep because I don't have any money. Problem is, you might not want sheep because sheep are pretty useless.

And so I have to convince you somehow to give me some timber so I can build my road. But you don't want me to build my road because then I'll beat you. But that's not how it works in real life. Everyone needed to produce something so that they could trade with other people. And that's how it worked. I would produce something.

You would produce something. We would swap. No one had any currency or anything. And so every individual person needed to produce something for themselves. Most people would try to live off what they had on their own land. But every now and then you would need to trade.

And the problem is, my stuff that I have is only worth as much as you're willing to trade me for. If you don't want to trade with me for the stuff that I've got, then I'm in trouble and I just don't get what I need. Enter into this situation money. Money comes in and suddenly everyone has this unique, special thing that you can trade for anything. Money holds value in and of itself and everything's value is measured against money. Sheep have a dollar value.

Wood has a dollar value. Bricks have a dollar value. And suddenly people who produce different things can use this unique resource to trade with each other. Money sounds pretty good. Money sounds brilliant. And you fast forward a couple thousand years, lots of thousands of years of money being used.

And now we have professions like athlete. That couldn't have existed before. No one said, hey, I'll give you a barrel of hay if you jump over that stick. I'll give you a sheep if you sing me a song. It just didn't exist. Everyone was producing things.

And so now because of money, CEOs, managers, farmers, musicians, athletes all have this thing that they can trade. They can use money to buy what they need to survive. Money is a good thing. It is not the root of all evil. Money is the root of all evil is actually a misquote. There's a similar quote.

Money is the root of all evil is a misquote. A misquote is a good. Misquote is a fine under particular circumstances. They're good if you're trying to win an argument that you're not going to win otherwise. You can always quote Shakespeare or Einstein. You don't need to know the quote.

It just has to be close enough that no one really knows. They're also good for annoying nerds like this one. This one. It says, use the force, Harry, by Gandalf. And there's a guy from Star Trek. His name is Jean-Luc Picard.

And all of the fonts are wrong. If you're a nerd, it kills your soul. Misquotes can be good. But the quote we're actually looking for is from 1 Timothy chapter 6. And it reads like this. It says, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

Hear the difference? The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Money in and of itself is not evil. It's the desire for money. The longing. The desire to have more and store it up and keep more and more for myself.

The idea that money will fulfill me. These are all different kinds of evil. Money in and of itself is actually a good thing. It allows everyone to trade. This love of money is the source of all kinds of evils. That's why the author of Hebrews, he says, keep your life free from the love of money.

Be content with what you have. It's the desire for more and more. It's actually what causes all the problems. Now, my goal today is not to convince you that you saving money is sinful. It's not necessarily. It could be.

My goal is not to convince you that your spending habits are in and of themselves evil or that your money is evil because that's not necessarily true, though it could be. My goal for today is to convince you that giving money away freely to other people, those who need it, those who don't need it, just giving it away with no benefit to yourself is actually a source of great joy. That's the goal for today. Being generous is a source of great joy. Let's pray.

We talked about the lens through which we culturally see money and how that lens can kind of corrupt our understanding. We talked about some big principles about how we should actually view money, but we didn't really get into the kind of nitty-gritty of how that applies to our lives. So the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk specifically about how that generosity, how that lens impacts the way we use our money. There's two big principles from last week that I want to highlight. The first one is that, let me just check it so I get the words right. The first one is, we cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead.

We cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead. The idea is that we are going to die. You are going to die. Everybody dies. Easy. You cannot take the money that you've stored up with you once you've died, but you can send it on ahead.

And what that means, what this idea of storing up treasures in heaven means is that the way that we interact with money now, the way that we manage money now, can impact what we will have for eternity. When you are generous with your money now, when you give it away with no kind of selfish greed ambition for yourself with that money, when you just give it away, you're actually storing up treasures for yourself later. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. The second one that we looked at, the second principle that we talked about was that God owns everything. I am his money manager.

God owns everything. I'm his money manager. The idea here is that God created the world, created us, created everything in it. Psalms talks about how he is the owner of everything in the world. We read other places where he says, all of the silver, all of the gold belongs to me. Everything in this world is God's.

I'm just the guy who temporarily uses it while I'm on earth. That's how our approach to money should be. And so when we ask any question that starts with this idea of, what should I do with my money? How should I spend my money? Who should I give my money to? What percentage of my money should I give?

We've already misunderstood. We've already believed a lie that the money we're talking about belongs to me in the first place. And so this principle is that the money belongs to God. You're just the person who gets to control it temporarily. The opposite of this, the opposite concept of this entire lens that we're looking at money through, is kind of how the world talks to us about it, how culture talks to us about money. The American culture in general is big on making it yourself, the American dream, making lots of money, getting a job, moving on in the world.

If you've ever seen a show called Shark Tank, you've probably seen this guy before. His name is Kevin O'Leary. Shark Tank is a show where billionaires like this guy invest in other people's products, other people's time and effort, and try to help them become billionaires as well. They're all obsessed with money. This guy is the epitome of it. They call him Mr.

Wonderful, which is totally wrong. He's a massive jerk. He treats everyone like scum. And when he was interviewed about money, this is something that he said. He said, you may lose your wife, you may lose your dog. Your mother may hate you.

None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like. That's pretty bold, right? That's pretty bold. Now, I know none of us would quite say it like this.

No one in this room is rich enough or brave enough to say that. But we can understand where this comes from, given our culture. We can understand this concept that money is worth dying for. Get rich or die trying. We can understand this concept that anything that gets in your way of getting rich is just an obstacle. It's kind of how our culture views money.

Whether we like it or not, a small part of us that does understand that also sympathizes with it. We might not go to the extremes of saying we're going to trample our mother and our dog and our wife and stuff. But we understand what it means to desire so much to have more money that we would do things for it. That we would push things out of the way to get more money. When culture is so overexposed on an issue like money, a little bit of that seeps into us, even if we deny the overall premise. And it's kind of horrifying that we could sympathize with something like that.

Open up a Bible, if you've got one, to 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you've got a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be on page 644. Page 644. 1 Timothy is a letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Paul was getting really old.

He's a bit of a geezer at this point. He planted a whole bunch of churches. He was the main primary leader of those churches. And he knew he was going to die soon, so he was setting up other people to kind of take over those roles. Timothy was one of them. He was leader at this time of the church of Ephesus.

And Paul is just giving him some instructions on here's how the church should be run. We're going to be in 1 Timothy 6 from verses 17 to 19. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty. That means arrogant. Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.

Thus, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Okay, back up to the top. Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, well, I don't know about you, but I know I am completely off the hook at this point in time. And as I look up at everyone, I didn't see anyone like, shh, quiet the people next to them. He's talking to us.

We need to listen. None of that happened when I said the word rich, because we all kind of think we're off the hook at this point in time. I understand that, because none of us are rich, right? We live in Columbia, South Carolina. That's not a rich city. Most of us, we don't own our own houses, not at least outright.

We probably don't drive a flashy car. We've probably got some loans to pay off. We're not like all those rich people out there that exist. Those rich people who own a nice house and own a flashy car and don't have any loans. They live on their cash. They're the rich people.

But then those people look at the other people with five houses and ten vacation homes in six countries, each of them with a Lamborghini. And they say, I'm not rich. That guy's rich. And the process continues. I'm not rich because someone is richer. It's all a bizarre trick, really.

It's all this trick that we tell ourselves to disassociate with this label. Rich. What does it mean to be rich? It's actually a very weird logic. I'm not rich because someone else is richer. Let me prove it to you.

I poke holes in this all day. If I substitute the word rich, it's no longer I'm not rich because someone else is richer, and add in something mundane. Clothes. I'm not clothed because someone else has more clothes than I do. What? I'm not full because Matt ate more food than I did.

What? What? It's true most of the time. It's true most of the time, but that's not how logic works. It's not this case of I'm not rich because someone else is richer. The logic is flawed.

I went to Belize a few years ago. Belize is a country in Central America. It's on the Caribbean side. They don't associate themselves with Central America. They're a Caribbean country. Let me tell you what it looks like to be rich in Belize.

If you're rich in Belize, you probably have a door on your bathroom. Your bathroom will be just in the corner of your square house, and you'll probably have a door instead of just like a curtain on your bathroom. You will probably, if you're rich in Belize, have a lock on your front door instead of a dog. The only building in all of Belize that I went to that had air conditioning was the airport. So we arrived, thought, this isn't so bad, and then spent two weeks sweating out in the sun all day long.

Fun fact about Belize. There's not that many flushable toilets. There's a few. They're around. If you plan your day, if you're a good planner for that kind of thing, you can plan when you need to use the bathroom, and you can find a flushable toilet. They're not everywhere.

Even the ones that you do find, you are not allowed to flush anything down it, including toilet paper. They have a little trash can that sits in the cubicle. So you can go, and then you can clean up, and the toilet paper goes in the trash can. Keep in mind, these houses are not air conditioned. If you've got a window, you're lucky, and it's probably 120 degrees with 100% humidity. Kind of gross.

But that's actually the rich, the wealthy lifestyle in Belize. It's kind of crazy. You want to learn a thing or two about luxury, you go to a country like that, and then come home. Then you experience luxury when you come home. And that's what happened for me. I spent two weeks in Belize, came back, and then found myself on day one eating three full meals, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet, flushing my toilet paper.

It was amazing. And then I would just pick up whatever I was doing from before I left, like watching TV shows on Netflix. The kind of stuff that normal people do. Not rich people. Kind of different when you come home. I will probably continue to play the I'm not rich card.

This Trump card. I'm not rich. I'll probably continue to play that card for the rest of my life. I probably will. But I'm going to be doing that from my air-conditioned department, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet that I can put my toilet paper in.

I'll probably be on my iPhone, maybe watching subscription television while I'm at it. None of that makes me rich here. Excellent. We measure richness in the Western world in kind of a bizarre way. We have like this sliding scale where we are able to, in our own minds, measure what rich actually is. And so if we have the poor, the poorest of the poor don't have a single dollar, probably in thousands of dollars of debt, whatever.

These people all the way over here that have absolutely nothing. And then all the way at the other end of the scale, the sliding scale of richness, you have Bill Gates and his buddies over here who have billions and billions of dollars. We're all going to land somewhere in the middle, probably on this side of the middle, probably. And we're going to look this way and say, that's where rich begins. Because we want to disassociate ourselves with this label of what it means to be rich. We're not rich.

All these people in front of me are rich. How could I be rich when they've got so much more than I do? And we push away this label because we're scared of it. Being rich comes with more responsibility. I have to look after more people. I've got to finance well.

And so we disassociate ourselves with richness saying that's something for all those people. And we don't really pay attention to all these people. We never turn around and say, wow. I am incredibly blessed. Look at all these people that I could help out. Look at all these people who have nothing compared to me.

This is how we evaluate richness. This is how we generally associate whether or not I'm rich. This is our criteria. Am I at this mysterious line on this side that I have to cross eventually? Then I become rich.

That's how it works. But the closer we get to that line, the further up that line moves because no one wants to be rich. At least we avoid it. Instead, I want us to evaluate it slightly differently. I want us to evaluate it like this. Answer the question, could I survive on less?

Could I survive on less? Would my family and I die? Would we cease to exist if we had less money, less stuff? Now, if a decent percentage of our income disappeared overnight, gone, it could be 5% for you. That might be a big deal. It could be 45% for you.

That could be a big deal. If a massive drop happened in our income overnight, we would probably have to make some lifestyle changes. That's natural. If we're forced to live on less, we make lifestyle changes. We might have a smaller house without two spare bedrooms that we keep just because the in-laws might come eventually but never do. We just have to vacuum an extra room every week.

We might have to cancel subscription television, HBO, that kind of thing. Maybe we would have to use a dumb phone. My suggestion is and always will be that you just get rid of the dog. That's a money pit. But there's no reason to do that to yourself.

It just costs money. But in the process of all of this, being forced to live on less, we would probably have to rely on God a little bit. Probably. But I'm willing to bet we wouldn't die. Willing to bet we could all live on less. Now, I don't know if I've proved my point or not, but I'm willing to bet also that when you got here today, you arrived by vehicle in a car.

Car. You probably are wearing clothes. At least I think you all are. You probably ate some food this morning. And you probably used a fully functional flushable toilet. If all of that is true, I'm just going to read the rest of this and assume it applies to us.

Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty or arrogant, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Rich people. That's us. Don't set your hopes on money. Don't set your hopes on money.

Set them on God. Now, you might think, I don't have any money. That's fine. Don't set your hopes on it anyway. For people who've got lots of money, don't set your hopes on it. It could go in a flash.

Some bank could go bankrupt and you lose everything. Your trust fund could disappear overnight. Don't put your hopes in the money that you have. For people who don't have any money, don't put your hopes on the money that you hope to have in the future. When the mortgage is paid off. When the car is paid off.

When the student loans are paid off. When the job gives you the promotion they've been promising. To say, I'll just be good. I can give more then. I can be okay then. I'll be comfortable then.

It's still putting your hopes on money. It's just future money that doesn't exist yet. It could be 10 years away. It could be 25 years away. Don't put your hopes in money. Put your hopes on God.

He's the provider of everything that we need. You can't take it with you. What's the point in hoping in it? When you start to get worried. When you start to get worried financially. Are you more likely to turn to your bank account.

And make sure that there's still that buffer zone in the bottom of it. And say, sweet. I'm okay. I'm good. I'll survive. I got the buffer zone.

Or are you likely to think. God has made promises to me. He's going to keep them. I'll be okay. When you're stressed. When you're anxious.

Are you more likely to find comfort in bankofamerica.com. Telling you you've still got that much money left. Or are you willing to find comfort in the fact that. God predestined you. He set you up since before the world began. He knows the number of hairs on your head.

And he has a plan for your life. Which one of them is more comfort to you. Sadly I think. A lot of people find comfort in this. Arbitrary amount of money. That's kept in their bank account.

We know that money is temporary. We know we can't take it with us. We can't take it with us when we die. Why put our hopes in it. Instead put your hopes in God. In verse 18.

They. That's the rich. Are to do good. To be rich in good works. To be generous and ready to share. Thus.

Storing up treasure for themselves. As a good foundation. For the future. So that they may take hold of that. Which is truly life. Paul is saying that for those.

With money. Those who are rich. Do good things with it. Be generous with it. Be hospitable with your house. And your stuff.

When you do. You store up treasures for yourself. In the future. And attain that. Which is truly life. That's a crazy thought.

But you. Can't take it with you. Send it on ahead. Store up treasures for yourself. In heaven. Where.

Moth and rust. Don't destroy stuff. Every time you. Be generous. Now. Every time you give away.

Not. Not expecting anything in return. You're storing up treasures for yourself. In heaven. It gets to be joyful in the moment. You have a lot of fun doing it.

But you're also storing up treasures in heaven. That's exactly what he says to do. Now. The early church is described as incredibly joyful. These are the guys who are around. Right after Jesus kind of ascended.

And I'm going to read a passage that we. We talk about a lot. As Mill City Church. We. We kind of believe that this is a model for. For how we do our community groups.

That's from Acts chapter 2. 42 through 47. As I highlight some things. Words are going to come up on the screen. It's not the whole passage. It's just chunks of it.

But. But that's the kind of the bits that I wanted to highlight for you. This is from Acts. Acts 2. 42. 42.

42. 42. 42. 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's the Bible.

And the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul. And soul. And wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together.

And had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing the proceeds to all. As any had need. And day by day. Attending the temple together.

And breaking bread in their homes. They received their food. With glad and generous hearts. Praising God. And having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number.

Day by day. Those who were being saved. Sell my stuff. And give it to people who need it. There's. Something about that concept.

When I do it for myself. When I see other people doing it. That just makes you happy. It brings joy. To see those who need it. Receive it.

And to be responsible. For allowing those who need it. To receive it. Is a source of great joy. It really is. It physically shows.

As I give money away. As I give things away. It physically shows that. I'm not the point. I don't need this. God is the point.

Other people need this. It's a tangible. Physical representation. Of me giving away. That which I don't need. And making God the point.

The guy that we've been talking about. The author of this book. Treasure Principle. His name is Randy Alcorn. We referenced him last week. Great book.

I think you should all read it. He says it like this. Generosity. Is the only antidote. To materialism. Generosity.

Is the only antidote. To materialism. When I. Give stuff away. I break. The stranglehold.

That that stuff. Has on me. We know that we cannot serve. God and money. And so when we give. Money away.

We break the stranglehold. That money has on us. We allow God. To be the focus. Of everything that we do. Generosity.

Is the antidote. To materialism. Materialism. Being the attachment. That we have to money. And stuff.

Now it's not easy. We know that. There's this guy. That Jesus met. It's recorded in Matthew 19. They call him the rich young ruler.

He comes to Jesus. And he says. I've kept all the commandments. I've done everything I should have done. What do I need to do. To inherit eternal life?

And Jesus kind of sees through him. He sees through the facade. He sees what's actually going on. In this guy's life. And he says. To himself.

Money is this guy's problem. So he says to him. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. And come follow me. And the guy leaves.

Upset. He leaves upset. Because he cannot see that which is truly life. He cannot see what it means to follow Jesus. And not be attached to his money. He's put all of his hope.

All of his comfort. All of his power. All of his everything. In money. He believes money is where his source of joy will be. Because he's unwilling to get rid of it.

To attain true joy. To receive true joy. To follow Jesus. He refuses. Because he has his hopes in the wrong place. You can loosen the grip that money has on your life.

You can loosen the grip that stuff has on your life. By simply giving it away. Selling it and giving it to the poor. It can be to the homeless. It can be to a thrift store. It can be to people in your community group.

It can be to an organization. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be clothes. It could be a car. It could be the money that you've been saving for a big vacation.

That you've always wanted to take. In all of these situations. You're saying. It's not about me. God has blessed me with this stuff. I choose to bless other people with it.

And I guess to be a source of great joy. There's no reason to not be happy about meeting the needs of other people. Now it can't become legalistic. Legalistic meaning. I'm just following the rules. It can't become legalistic.

Like. I have to do this. In order to be saved. Wrong. It can't become prideful. It can't become.

Hey everyone. Check me out. I give all my stuff away. Also not that good. In both situations. You're still using generosity.

You're using generosity as a tool. To earn favor with God. You don't earn favor with God. God has freed you. Of his own goodwill. There's nothing for you to do.

To earn favor with God. Because you're free already in the gospel. This is all. How you react. According to the gospel. It's not something you do to earn it.

Your generosity should be because. You want God's money. To be a blessing to God's people. So you bless God's people with God's money. That's your motivation. You want people to be blessed.

So you bless them. It will probably mean budgeting slightly differently. For some people. It will probably mean budgeting. Budgeting. You should budget.

For other people. It will just mean budgeting differently. Some people set up what they call a benevolence fund. Benevolence means. Giving to those. Giving away from what you are not using to help others.

Now that doesn't mean. Just use the fringe stuff that you never use. It means budgeting so that you've got fringe stuff. It means budgeting so that you've got a section of your income. That you're deliberately setting aside. To give away to other people.

That's something that someone with a lot of money might be able to do. You could set aside 40% of your income. And say I'm just going to give all that away. I'm going to set it aside. As a church. As a church.

Most of our financial support has happened. Within the context of our community groups. And so far it's been pretty amazing to see. Just within the little cells that we've got. We've seen a lot of people. In crazy ways.

In beautiful ways. Support each other financially. We have seen groups pay bills. Replace stolen property. Pay for counseling for people who need it. Completely outfit pregnant couples with baby stuff.

Because they couldn't afford it themselves. We've seen them fix cars. Buy car parts for each other. Pay travel expenses. Pay for hotels. When people were in a dangerous situation.

And needed to be temporarily removed out of them. We've seen mortgage payments paid. Gas for people to get to and from gatherings. In their community group times. We've seen prescriptions filled. We've covered each other's meals.

Our Christmas and birthday gifts. For families that have kids. And they weren't going to be able to get anything for them. We've seen our groups. When they want to go out to get a meal together. But there's a big family in that group.

That can't afford to take all of them with them. We've seen our groups sponsor the kids. So that everyone could go out in a big group. And eat together. And it's crazy. It's beautiful.

So far our groups have been nothing short of heroic. Incredible. At meeting each other's needs. If that isn't exactly how it should be. I'm not sure that we're doing it right. I think that when you see that happen.

You get overwhelmed with joy. Thinking that's exactly what family should be like. That's exactly what church should be like. People meeting each other's needs. And if it doesn't get you a little bit overjoyed inside. If it doesn't make you.

Even if you've got a stern face. Smile a little bit. Then you might just. I don't know. Be Voldemort or something. Our groups are amazing.

They meet each other's needs when they come up. And what's amazing and beautiful is that. Joy doesn't just come from the people who are getting stuff. You might think. Score. Someone bought me a free meal.

Victory. Yay. You might think. Score. Someone paid my bills for me. Victory.

Yay. And that only those people who are receiving things. Are the ones who are receiving. Or joyful about it. It's not the case. Those who have been meeting those needs.

Are equally. If not more joyful. That they were able. Out of their abundance. To be able to sacrifice. And give to people who needed it.

More than they did. There's something joyful about that as well. And that's why we've seen families. In our church. Who've needed to receive things. At one point in time.

Turn around and be generous. At another point in time. And bless others. Those who've needed things. In the past. Have turned around.

And provided food hampers. For people whose budget. Didn't have anything left in it. For the rest of the month. Who've catered events. From their own pocket.

Christina and my wedding rehearsal dinner. Was completely catered for. By other people. Largely by Mill City Church. People wouldn't even. Accept money from us.

Because it was a joy to them. To be generous to us. It's not obligation. It's joy. There's nothing that says. You need to do this for us.

Because we did something for you. No. It's joy. People do it. Because it's fun. Because it makes it feel good.

And within our church family. It's been pure joy. Over and over again. To see bills paid. To see people make it. When they didn't think they were going to.

And it's all because of this principle. It's God's money. Not mine. How am I going to bless people with God's money? It gets to be joy for me. Now I like challenges.

Actually I take that back. I don't like challenges. I just take them really seriously. It's not always good for me to accept a challenge. But I do anyway.

You're probably thinking to yourself right about now. Look at that amazing beard. It's red if I hold it up to the light. It's not if I don't. Sometimes. It's growing longer and longer.

And the only reason for its existence in all of its glory. Is a challenge. A challenge made by my wife. In front of 25 people. To get it down to here. It's currently in the regret stage.

It will probably continue to be in the regret stage. Until it stops falling out everywhere. Which it is doing now. Another challenge. If you're friends with either of us on Facebook. You've probably seen.

We've become rather artistic lately. Particularly in the realm of beanies. That's why people walk around now. Looking like minions. Ninja turtles. Vikings.

Whatever we can come up with. Started out as a challenge. I think we won. Challenge me to do something. I'm going to learn how to do it. And I'm going to trample everything in my path.

Until I can conquer that challenge. Puppies. Children. Doesn't matter. I'm going to get out of my way. Today I'm going to issue you a challenge.

I want you to take it as seriously as I do. I want you to take it seriously. I think it comes straight out of the verse that we've read. I think it comes straight out of the verse 18 and 19. They say, You're to do good. Be rich in good works.

Be generous and ready to share. Store up treasures as a good foundation for the future. And take hold of that which is truly life. Now I don't think there's anything particularly hard about my challenge. But I don't think it's particularly normal for us.

It's quite abnormal for us. Here's the challenge. Give generously to someone this week. Give generously to someone this week. It could be someone you know. It could be a family member.

It could be from your community group. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be a meal. I think you can. You've got some freedom here.

You can be pretty creative. You can do above and beyond that thing. And remember, generosity is not conditional. It doesn't have to be because someone needs it. You can just do it as a surprise. That will still bring joy for them and for you.

If you're like me and you're prone to a little bit of pride, you might want to do this for a complete stranger instead. The benefit of doing it for a complete stranger is that they typically don't come and thank you. Especially if you make it anonymous and you hide and that kind of thing. They won't be able to come and thank you. But you still get to see the effects of your generosity.

You still get to see what happens as a waiter goes over to a table and tells a family that their meal has been paid for and they look at each other like, What? This happens? What? And you get to smile to yourself and strut out of that restaurant thinking, I just made their day. Oh, yeah. And if it's a Monday, you get to think, I just made their week.

Oh, yeah. It doesn't have to be for any reason. It doesn't have to be for any particular person. You can go to a drive-thru and pay for the person behind you. You might want to make sure it's not a bus. You can go to a drive-thru and just pay for the person behind you and then drive off and they'll never know it was you.

But you'll know that you just made that person's day. You made that person's week. You made that person's month. Who knows? You might not have much money. That's okay.

Spare $5 from your budget this week. Go to Starbucks on Tuesday because that's the start of this week and everyone's going to feel like it's Monday. Buy someone coffee at Starbucks. Watch how that transforms that person's morning. They don't want to go to work. They want to sleep in.

And you just bought them coffee for no reason. That's going to crazy bless them. They're going to have such a good day because some random stranger bought coffee for them in the morning. So countercultural. If you've got quite a bit of money, you're in luck. You get to go crazy and you get to be super creative.

Go to start small. Go to a mechanic and pay someone's bill while they're gone. $500, $800, $1,200. Who knows? That is going to transform someone's day. That might transform someone's year. They might not have been able to pay for those tires.

They might have been pulling out their credit card for the first time. They might have been maxing out their credit card and you just paid that bill off for them. That's going to make someone's day. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Go to the DMV and make waiting at the DMV a little less torture.

That would be a fun way to spend some money and bless people. And you know what? All of it comes as a reaction to the gospel. All of it comes as our response to what God has done for us out of his generosity. While we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. God gave generously to us.

He sacrificed his only son to come and pay the sins of the world. To pay your sins, to pay for my sins on the cross so that we could be reconciled to him. That's what it took for him to be generous. And for us, it gets to be as easy as money, which we can't take with us. There is great joy from being generous. It feels good to bless people financially.

And you know what? Instead of laying treasures for yourself here on earth, you get to set them up for yourself for eternity. Lay treasures up for the future. Where they won't grow old, they won't rust, and moths won't eat them. You get to keep them forever. Let's pray.

Father God, we praise and thank you that you have blessed us with so much. We thank you for the opportunities that we have as those who can live on less to bless others abundantly this week. I pray that as we go out this week and think about the ways that we can be spending our money, the ways that we can be budgeting, the ways that we can be looking out for other people, that you be giving us discernment on how much, you be giving us discernment on when, you be giving us discernment on in what manner, but that overall we can be generous and that our generosity will come from a heart that is just loving you, responding to what you've done for us the way that you would like us to. Pray that this week and weekend, give to others with a glad and generous heart.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

God's Money and My Faith

God's Money and My Faith

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

We are starting our first week in our money series, and we're really excited to be able to spend some time talking together about money. We know that when we talk about money, we can get a little uncomfortable. It's kind of one of those issues you're not really supposed to talk about in our culture. You don't ask somebody how much they make. You don't ask about people's finances. And so we just know that in general, spending some time, we're going to take four weeks out to talk about money and finances and address some of these things that it can make us a little uncomfortable.

So we decided to start, thought it would be helpful today, to start by talking about a concept that the Bible says has a lot to do with how we view finances and how we think about money, but that isn't money directly to kind of ease in this morning. So we're going to kind of start off in one area, and then we'll move into money. You are all going to die. Isn't it nice to talk about something a little bit easier than money kind of transition in? We're all going to die. Like every single one of us, it's very clear.

This is the way the world works. At some point, we will take our last breath. We will buy the farm, kick the bucket, take a dirt nap. Like we're going to die. And the Bible says that our mortality, the fact that we won't be here forever, should have a lot to do with how we view finances. Our mortality should have a lot to do with how we think about possessions and how we think about money.

And so I just wanted to kind of ease in talking about money. We thought we'd address death first. Let's pray. We'll be in Matthew chapter 6 this morning. We'll pray together, and then we'll flip over there. God, we thank you for this time we get to get together and address really important issues.

Nobody in this room is going to live a life not affected by money. No one in this room is going to live a life where money doesn't play a major role in how their life plays out. And so, God, we just want to humbly come to you, come to your scripture, and learn how we ought to see money, view money, understand money. And we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would teach us today as we do that. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we'll be in Matthew chapter 6. The page number is on the screen behind me. I believe it's 526, I think. Yep, 526 is where we'll be today. And so here's what we're doing. Today we're mostly going to talk about big picture principles, foundational things for how we approach money.

The next three weeks we'll talk very practically about money. So today we're going to talk about principles. Next week we're going to specifically talk about generosity when it comes to giving money away to other people, to causes and that sort of thing. The following week we're going to talk about tithing and giving to the local church. Like is tithing still something we're supposed to do? Is that an Old Testament concept?

What does giving to the local church mean? How does all that play out? So that's what we'll spend our time on two weeks from now. And then the final week we'll talk about kind of working, spending, and saving. So the Bible's pretty clear that some of your money is meant to terminate on you and should be used for your enjoyment and your pleasure and for looking out for the future.

And so we're going to spend a little time talking about that. So we're really trying to address where is money? How are we supposed to handle money? Where is it supposed to go? And so we're going to talk about giving it away to people in the local church towards mission and then spending it, saving it, buying a steak, seeing a concert, that kind of thing. So, but today we're going to talk specifically about some big picture principles.

And then because we want this to be as helpful as possible, one of the reasons we wanted to do this is we, as a church family, have a lot of new Christians and a lot of people just hanging out and checking out Christianity. And that's a beautiful thing for us. And we just have a lot of questions when it comes to money, when it comes to how do we handle this? What do we do with that? What does this look like? What's the rule is kind of the question a lot we get.

And so we just wanted to address that. We also, over the next three weeks, are going to do some Q&A. So send in your questions to Twitter, Facebook, whatever. We're going to spend some time after each sermon just kind of answering some of those questions as best we can. Also, the Bible has a lot to say about money. Jesus talks about money a lot.

And so we have to talk about it some. To really address it. It's a big deal in your life. And the Bible Acts like it's a big deal. So we want to talk about that.

The one thing I do feel like we need to address, every time a church talks about money or takes time to do a series on money, it feels a little bit like, oh, so y'all need some money? Like it just feels like, oh, y'all hurting? Like, you know, what's going on? And so I just wanted to clearly say, we don't need money. Like we don't need your money right now. We're not in hurting or anything like that.

We're church plants, so we're not rich by any means. We try to do things very cheaply. We try to handle money really well. But we're not hurting for money. The Lord has graciously provided for us. And so this isn't a, hey, light's about to be cut off.

We've got to get kicked out of here. We've got to talk about some money or things are going to turn bad on us real quick. That's not what this is. It really is that we just have a lot of questions. It's an important issue. It's a big issue.

Now, that having been said, I want to be clear. Every time I've hung out and been in a church and they started talking about money and then the pastor said, we don't need your money. We don't want your money. I've always been like, come on. Tell the truth. Like, be real with me.

So I want to be real. I want to be honest. We don't need your money. We're not hurting for it. We want your money. Like, we agree with what we're doing here.

We pay for stuff. We rent things. We pay pastors. Matt and I are able to be full time because people generously give here. We are able to support church plants. We're able to do a lot of things.

And so we like money. It's not evil. We want more of it so we can use more of it for more stuff. For Kid City, for all the stuff we do now, we're starting to get student groups started. So don't hear me say, like, fakely, we don't want money.

No, we want it. It's good. We're going to use it. The more money we get, the more we're going to give away, the more we're going to spend. But that's not what this is about.

And we're not even going to talk about us, like, the church money stuff today. We're going to talk about some big picture principles. So Matthew 6, we're going to start in verse 19. And this is Jesus teaching, and he's going to take in this really short section. He's going to lay out some big picture principles, some foundations for how we ought to view money. 19.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Where thieves break in and steal. So treasure specifically means possessions, because he's talking about rust and moth and thieves. Like, you know, you can't be like, well, I treasure my children. No, he's talking about possessions. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where the thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. No one can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Okay, so that's where we're going to spend our time today. And so Jesus says some really clear, really concrete things there. And it's also, though, if you look at the section, it's kind of confusing. Because here's what he does.

He says, don't lay up treasures in heaven. Or don't, don't lay up, do lay up treasures in heaven. Don't lay up treasures on earth. Lay up treasures in heaven. So he's talking about money and possessions.

Then he says something about your eyes and lamps. And if your eye is a lamp and your lamp doesn't work, then you're in the dark. And how dark your darkness is if the lamp is broken. Like, if the light in you is darkness, how dark would that be? Is kind of how he ends it. Then he goes right back into, you can't serve God and money.

So he goes, money, lamp, eye thing, money. And he says this really like, you can't serve God and money. Feels a little bit like this intense, like really drove the point home. And it's like, what were you doing in the middle here with the light stuff? Like, it confuses me. It's a little bit like if you, if you did this on a paper in elementary school, you would make a C.

Like, my mom and I went to the store. I love puppies. Puppies are soft and great. At the store, we bought milk and cereal. Your teacher would circle the middle sentence and be like, what was all that about puppies? What were you doing?

Like, were there puppies at the store? This is not how you write stuff. And so he says money, eyes, money. And so what we have to understand is that the eye section has something to do with money. He hasn't changed the subject. He didn't randomly like, oh, he doesn't have ADD.

It wasn't like, oh, I forgot to tell you this earlier. Now let's talk about money again. Like, it has to do with money. And so here's really simply what I believe he is saying there in that section on eyes. When he says that, the eye is the lamp of the body, and if you don't see well, basically what he's telling us is when it comes to money, it's a vision problem more than anything else. It has to do with how we view money, with how we understand money, with how we see it.

And that the truth is a lot of us are just blind to how big of an effect money has, how actually weighty it is, how much control it has. And we're blind to how we ought to view it. And so that's why he's going to unpack some big principle things here. And really, that's what we're doing today. We're looking at principles, foundational things, so that we can actually know how to do practical things. And that's how life works.

That's how your life works. You have principles that guide how you practice, how you live, what you do. You have a foundational belief set that affects how you live. It affects how you handle money. It affects how you think about relationships, love, and marriage. It affects really everything you do, how you work, what the goal of life is.

You have some big picture principles that affect the practical things. A real easy way to think about this or to explain it is before I ever started dating, I had an understanding of what the principles behind dating, like what the goal was. And so I went in. I had some good principles and some bad principles. One of the good ones I had, one of the things I understood about dating was the point of dating was to get married. Like it was supposed to be fun, but it wasn't just about fun.

Just for the record, if you're dating someone and that's not fun, since dating is about marriage, stop dating that person because marrying someone you don't have fun with would be terrible. Just doing basic math there. But I knew that when I started dating that the goal of dating was marriage, was to find someone to marry. So I went into dating, always asking the question, is this person marriable? And for all the couples in here dating, this just got way more intense, you were like, dude, go back to talking about money. Like, stop this.

But I went into dating relationships knowing that I was looking for someone marriable. And then once I had like a framework for dating, once I had some principles, then I had practical questions. Like, how do I actually get a girl to go on a date with me? Once on that date, how might I get her to kiss my mouth? Like, I had practical questions. Does the wiping away the hair thing work or is that just in movies?

Like, what do we got going here? Like, you have practical questions. And so the next three weeks, we're going to have practical questions we're going to address. But today we're going to handle some big picture principles, foundations for how do we look at money? How do we think about it? And that's what Jesus is talking about.

And the first thing is we don't see money clearly. Money for us, I'm going to just try to quickly say a few ways that we just don't see how big of an effect money has. Money has a lot to do with how you view yourself, what your identity is. So you'll meet people who grew up with not a lot of money and have a lot of weight in, we were poor and we fought through. Like, we didn't have all this stuff. We didn't have, you know, and we fought and we made it work and we, you know, we had family and that's what mattered.

We had our neighborhood and that's what mattered. You'll meet people that had money and that completely changes their worldview. When we use labels like rich and poor, it's an identity label, not an adjective as much as it is like the type of person. And depending on how you land finance wise, it really has a lot to do with who you believe you are. Boils down to money, level of money. And we don't realize that.

For some of us, money just makes decisions for us and we don't even have to, like, we don't think about it. We don't think about the fact that the overarching decision-making process in our life is money. So if a job offers you more money, accept it. Why would you not accept it? It offered you more money. So people will just pick up and move somewhere.

They don't question anything about their family or church family or relate, like, just, oh, it's going to pay more money. And then we'll, like, and this will happen in, like, community groups. Hey, I'm moving here. This place is going to pay me more money. And the whole group just says, sweet, congratulations. And we don't ask the question of, do you realize your only way you decided was money?

College majors. I love history. But you can't make money studying history. So I'm going to do this major. I'm going to go be an orthodontist. Why?

Because of money. Do you like teeth and mouths? Nope. But I like dollar bills. Like, and that's how people make decisions. Job decisions.

Big, life-changing decisions. Not joy. Not giftedness. It's not just money. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to land?

Where are you going to be? How are you going to live? Just money. You're just following the money. We make big life decisions off of it. It affects who we think we are.

It affects how, like, and we just don't even realize it. We don't think about how much money is behind the scenes having control over things. In some ways, money is the Illuminati of our souls. Like, Jesus here says money has a lot more secret control than you think. And we're like, yeah, okay. Like, every time anybody talks to me about the Illuminati, I'm like, sure, okay.

But that's what Jesus is saying. There's a little bit of, like, we don't see it. We don't see how much power it wields. And then at the end, he's going to try to help us see it. So as he goes through this, he's helping us see money clearly.

How we ought to view it. And so that's what we're looking at. We're going to start back up at the top. And we're going to look really at three big principles that Jesus is going to kind of lay out for us. We did get some of our illustrations and some of our thought processes from a book called Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. It's a very good book.

It's really short. We suggest it. So once we realize we don't see money correctly, we need to then approach and say, okay, Jesus, how ought we to see money? How ought we view this? And so 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. All right, that's simple enough.

Jesus says the goal on earth is not lay up treasures for yourself. Another way that we're blinded, some of us, our goal on earth is arrive, be comfortable. Just get to the place where I can just have the things I want and rest and not worry. And your whole life goal is a financial goal. It's a money goal. And what he's saying is, no, that's not the goal.

Don't lay up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But what he's saying is, everything you have will rust, will rot, will eventually end up in a dump. Every Apple watch is going to be garbage at some point. Some of you are like, they already are garbage. Sure. But so is your Samsung Galaxy.

It's going to end up being garbage. Everything, everything you have is going to be garbage. Some of you right now drive a really beater car. At some point, it was really nice. I mean, as nice as a geostorm can be. But it was nice.

It was new, came off the line, you know. And now you drive a beater car and that's where all cars are headed. All of them. Will be junk. Will be a clunker. That's how that works.

And so what Jesus is saying is, don't pile up garbage. That's not a smart thing. And then he says something that's weird. So we understand that. We understand you can't take it with us. The Bible says that clearly in a couple of places.

That's really what he's saying is, all the stuff you have when you die is no longer yours. Like you cannot take it with you. Ecclesiastes 5.15 says, As he came from his mother's womb, he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 1 Timothy 6.7 says, For we brought nothing into this world and we cannot take anything out of it. I heard somebody ask John D. Rockefeller's money manager at one point, said, How much money did he leave when he died?

And the money manager said, All of it. And that's how that works. Everything you have, you can't take with you. But then Jesus says something interesting that I think is something we don't really realize. He says the back end. So don't lay up treasures on earth.

We're like, Okay, yeah, I kind of understand that concept. Can't take it with me, although it's probably enjoyable to have it here. You know, I just know that eventually it ends. But he says, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. So what he just said was not material things are bad.

Treasure is bad. That's not a Christian belief at all, that material world is bad. Christian belief is that God made the material world and it's very good. There's a reason that bacon is delicious, that riding a roller coaster is fun. Or terrifying for some people. It's still fun.

There's a reason. Like material world, that's why we like soft things and like holding something very well crafted. And when you see a really nice car, you just want to stare at it. Like material world is good. But what he says is, don't put all the weight here.

Seek real treasure. Because the Bible tells us that we were all designed for eternity. And that when we die, we will continue on into eternity. And it's not a ghosty, floaty, feetless, specter eternity. It's real. We have real bodies.

We'll have real things to do. We'll live in real places. We're going to spend eternity on a new earth for Christians. We'll be on a new earth with, he just renews creation. So what he's saying is send it to a place where sin doesn't exist.

Where it's not broken. Where it doesn't rust. Send it to a place where you can actually have it forever. That's why in another place, when he's talking about the same concept, Jesus says, Why would you be, if you can't be trusted with that which is not yours, why would someone give you that which will be yours? Give you real possessions. Give you something to actually own.

What he's saying is, everything you have now is on loan and eventually will no longer be yours. But everything then, you'll keep forever. Because you won't die and it won't rust and moths won't eat it. So what he's saying is, seek the treasure. Just send it on to eternity. You know how, you know how every time you get something new, or you get a box that has something new in it, but it's got wrapping paper around it so you don't know what the new thing is, and your little heart is like, yee.

Like, you know how you get excited about stuff? Like, every time your birthday was rolling around as a kid, or Christmas was coming up, or someone's like, I have a surprise for you. Like, you're just like, ooh, things, treasure, candy. Like, we just get excited. Every time you buy something new, hold a new gadget, like, there's just something in you. There's like an emotional, spiritual reaction to stuff.

Am I the only one who feels this? I feel like everybody has someone inside of them going, yee. Like, that's not true. We have this, and what Jesus is saying is, that is not in and of itself wrong. You're just too easily pleased. You're pointing it at the wrong stuff.

Seek real, eternal treasure. So the first thing we need to know, and if you're taking notes, write this down. I cannot take it with me, but I can send it on ahead. That's the first big principle. I cannot take it with me, but I can send it on ahead. What he is saying is that, and he ultimately says it's through generosity, through giving things away, that we actually get eternal stuff.

Jim Elliott was a missionary, and he's the guy from the movie End of the Spear. If you've seen that, he showed up in a place to help people meet Jesus and immediately was murdered. And he said at one point, wrote in his diary or his journal or whatever. I guess he's a man, so it was a journal. If you were like, nice diary, he'd be like, it's a journal, bro. I don't know him.

Maybe he thought it was a diary. Jim Elliott says this, He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. That's what Jesus is saying. It's not foolish of you to give things away, because you're actually gaining something that will never be taken from you. It's not foolish.

In a lot of ways, money, how we handle money, how we view money is like playing the game Uno. The goal of Uno is to be, you win when you run out of cards. And if the game ends and you're stuck with cards, there's a penalty for that. And the truth is, when we die, all of the stuff we've amassed around us immediately becomes useless. And all of the stuff we got rid of has eternal value. It's forever.

And that's what Jesus is saying. He's just trying to help us understand that we get to have true riches through generosity. So next thing he's going to point out to us. Well. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Verse 21.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. We spent some time talking in the Give series about one of the implications of this is that you can actually know what you care about by looking at your checkbook. You can know what you care about by checking out your bank statement. But here's the other thing that I think we miss on this. Our heart goes with our treasure, and so there's a lot of joy offered to us in this statement. There's a lot of joy offered to us in the statement, where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

Because what he's saying is you can take your heart and you can put it in eternity. You can take your heart and you can, by moving your treasure, by giving things away, knowing that you receive rewards in eternity, you can take your heart and move it to eternity where it's safe and secure. So we think that getting nice things is nice. But the truth is, whenever we get nice things, we get more worried about our stuff. Like our heart goes with it. So if you ever had a house and like, really, if someone broke in and stole everything, you were out 50 bucks, you might not even lock your door.

Like you wouldn't even care. I had a friend of mine said, his brother used to say, man, I wish somebody would steal my identity. And then the bill collectors could call them. Like he just didn't have anything, so he wasn't worried about it. And that's the way it works. But when you get a nice house, suddenly it's like, well, I kind of need an alarm system and I need some good insurance and maybe a moat with some crocodiles.

Like I'm really worried about this stuff now. Like if you, if you're, some of you, your car, somebody runs into you today. You're going to lunch with your community group or whatever. Somebody runs into you at a stoplight. You get out and just go. You good?

Ain't worried about it. Like you walk around, look at your bumper. It'll ride. You get back in your car. You don't care. If they totaled your car, you out 600 bucks.

You figure it out. Some of you though, like when you get, you get a nice car. My brother saved up and was able to get in high school. We were able to, he was able to get, my actual parents were able to give it to him. He got a used Camaro and then he spent a lot of time working on it and getting it real nice. And we were riding one day to the beach and he came around a corner because he ran into people all the time.

He came around a corner. His name's Logan. He's part of our church. You can ask him about it later. He came around a corner and ran into a Mustang of another guy who was probably in high school, college or whatever. It was the prettiest car accident I've ever seen.

A Camaro just, I mean, front of the Camaro crush, back of the Mustang crush. Both of them were just like, like little hearts were hurting. They almost got in a fight because the guy in the Mustang, like Logan didn't just run into his Mustang. He ran into his heart. Like something he treasured and valued and cared about. He just ran into it.

Some of you, if your car, like you've got names for your car. If your car got ran into, you'd jump out and be like, Tina. They'd be like, is there a child or something in the car? No, it's my car. Because wherever we move our treasure, our heart goes with it. And there's so much joy offered in sending your heart to eternity.

So much joy offered to you when he says, give it away. You won't worry about it. You won't care about it. And your treasure is secure. Nobody looks at eternity and says, I lost 3% this quarter. You don't have to worry about it.

So he's offering us joy. And that's the second kind of major point that I think is helpful. It's heaven, not earth. And this is for Christians. Heaven, not earth, is my home. And that's where my treasure and heart, I'm saying this wrong.

My treasure and my heart should be there. Heaven, not earth, is my home. And my treasure and my heart should be there. That we actually get to push our hearts towards eternity where we get to rest. You don't have to worry about it through giving things away. We're going to skip the eyes, the lamp part because we kind of talked about that.

Him just explaining that we just don't see this clearly. 24. Kind of the last major principle he's going to cover is, No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, Or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and money.

And even there he's hinting at how much control money has that we just don't think about. Really what he's saying here is that either you will serve God, And by extension, money that is in your possession will serve God. Or you can serve money. But you can't do both. So if money is the main goal, you're serving it, And you're not serving God.

Don't kid yourself. Or you can serve God, And the money that has been entrusted to you can serve him as well. So, kind of the principle here is this. God owns everything. I am his money manager. Because everything we have is on loan.

So, God owns everything. Let me quickly just show you some verses where the Bible says that. Psalm 24.1 says this, So he actually claimed you too, just so you know. He's like, I own you. You'd be like, no, I'm free. No, you ain't.

Haggai 2.8, The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. Deuteronomy 8.18, You shall remember the Lord your God, For it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. In Exodus 19.5, it's a longer verse, But in it, God says this, All the earth is mine. So, here's the deal. Everything that passes through our hands, Every bit of money that is in your bank account, In your wallet, Under your mattress, Is God's. It's not yours.

It has been entrusted to you. And as a money manager, You will eventually sit down and settle the account with God. So, a money manager looks like this. So, you're a money manager. You work for a really, really rich lady. Super rich.

And you manage her money, Because you're good with money. So, you watch all of her accounts. She does her thing, Making money or whatever, And then you help handle it. So, you help invest it. You're paying attention to what's growing, What's not growing. You're watching it.

You're investing some. You know, you're diversifying her funds. And you're investing in different areas. And you're, Now, because you're her money manager, You pay yourself a salary. You make sure that you're taken care of. You're going to discuss that with her.

But you're going to pay yourself a salary. You have the ability to handle money. But it's not your money. And every once in a while, You're going to sit down with her and say, Let me show you what I'm doing with it. Let me show you where it is. Let me talk to you about your money.

When excess money comes in, It doesn't go to your account. When you die, You don't leave all her money to your children. That would be frowned upon by her, I think. And what we've got to realize is that everything we have is on loan. And the Bible is clear. Jesus tells a lot of parables to this effect, That at some point, We're going to sit down and give an account.

What's beautiful is that through the cross, It's not going to make or break us. Jesus has already paid for our sin. We get into heaven scot-free because Jesus paid our debt. We are perfectly loved, perfectly taken care of. But we are going to give an account for how we handled the time and the money that we had, The talents that we were given.

Yeah, the Bible is clear on that. So at some point, We're going to sit down with him and give an account. So Jesus very clearly says, And we tried to make it into some principles, And took some of how Randy Alcone words it to help us remember it. But I cannot take it with me, But I can send it on ahead. Heaven, not earth, is my home. My treasure and my heart should be there.

Everything belongs to God or everything is God's. I'm his money manager. That is how we ought to begin to view money. And then we can start answering the other questions. Where can it go? How can I use it?

What's it supposed to look like? The real practical questions, But those are some of the principles. Now, one of the things that Jesus says, And he says it really clearly, Is, Go for the treasure. Go for the reward. Serve and give and be generous, Because you will receive back in eternity. So immediately we say, Alright, time out.

Isn't that selfish? Like if I'm only being nice, And only giving because God's going to pay me back, Aren't I just being selfish? And the answer to that question is no. And the first reason is, It's Jesus' idea. We didn't make it up. So if you made it up, Maybe.

Like if you make something up, It's probably pretty busted. Just for the record, Like question it a little bit. You might have just come up with a pyramid scheme, You know, And involved Jesus. Like I don't know. But Jesus came up with this idea.

And here's, He says it a lot. I'm going to run through quickly. Just places where Jesus mentions this. Earlier in this chapter, In chapter 6, He teaches on giving. He says to do it secretly, So you'll receive a reward from God. He says the same thing about prayer and fasting.

Do it secretly. You'll receive a reward. Luke 12, He says, Sell your possessions, Give to the poor, Buy money bags in eternity, Where treasure does not fail. Luke 6, He says that persecution gains us reward, And that we should celebrate when we're persecuted. That we should actually be excited When someone attacks us because of Christianity. That it gains us, He says you'll have great reward in heaven.

Your reward is great in heaven. It'd be like if I told you I'd give you a million dollars If you let me punch you in the face. When I punch you in the face, You're going to start laughing. That's going to be the most fun. You've ever had being punched in the face. Because you just got a million dollars.

Like you excited. That's what he says. Somebody starts punishing you because you're a Christian. You should be like, This is great. I'm just racking up treasures in heaven. This is amazing.

That's what he says. He says you'll be excited. Luke 6, Love and lend, And your reward will be great in heaven. Matthew 19, Luke 18, He tells a rich man to sell everything And to give it to the poor And that he'll have treasure in heaven. Several of Jesus' parables Have to do with settling accounts And being rewarded With how you handled what he had, How the people handled what the king gave them. Matthew 9 and 10 Says this in both of them.

He says, Even a cup of cold water Given to someone because they're my follower Will not lose its reward. He's keeping track Of cups of cold water. So we all need to set up a free lemonade stand. And just be like, Ka-ching! Like that's what he's saying. Like you will receive reward for this.

And here's why This isn't bad. Here's why it's not selfish. In order to live And to do this radically To the point that the New Testament Is going to call us to, We have to trust Jesus. He comes from eternity And tells us This is how you ought to see it. But in order for us to do it, We actually have to have our faith in him.

We have to trust him. Y'all know Wayne Brady And y'all love him. So, Everybody thinks Wayne Brady's the best, I'm sure. He has a new show, Or had a show. It probably got canceled. I hope it did.

It was kind of terrible. But, Let's Make a Deal. Anybody seen this show? It's weird. But in the show, What they do is, They will give you something So you can have this now, Or, And they constantly are trading.

So they'll be like, You can have a thousand dollars, Or we'll give you What's in this mystery box. And then you're like, Oh, Oh no, What's in the box? Like, But I also want a thousand dollars. And so the whole point is like, Trading, And then they have things called zonks, Which is where you open the box, And the word zonk comes out, And you don't get nothing, Go sit down. That's how the game works. So, What Jesus is saying is, You're playing, Like, Life is us playing, Let's make a deal.

And there's a moped in front of us. And they're like, You can have the moped, Or, You can have what's behind curtain number one. And we're like, That moped looks pretty sweet. How many cc's is that thing? Like, That's what we're doing. And what Jesus is saying is that he's walking out from behind the curtain, And saying, Don't take the moped.

I know what's behind the curtain. Don't take the moped. And in order for us to actually begin to leverage things, Leverage our money, Leverage our finances, View this the way, We have to trust Jesus. We have to have faith to do it. And so it's not wrong, And it's not selfish. It's actually us, Continually pushing more faith, More of our trust into him.

Hebrews 11, Talks about this, Talks about, Some people call it the faith chapter, But it kind of runs through a bunch of Old Testament saints, And it basically says this, This is the point of Hebrews 11. Abraham was told to move, Leave his family, And he's going to go to a land that's not his own, But God's going to give it to him. But God didn't give it to him, He gave it to his descendants. So Abraham, When he dies, Owned none of the land, Except for a cave that he buried his wife in, And he got to be buried in next to her. Isaac, Same thing. He goes through, He says that Moses, Left the palace of Egypt, Where he was treated like a king, Because he believed that the persecution of Christ, Was of more value, Than the pleasures of Egypt, Because he was looking ahead to his reward.

It says that all of these saints, All of these Old Testament followers of God, Trusted that they were invited into a better country. Trusted that they had been given a greater reward. Trusted that, Although their life was terrible now, Although they had given up everything to follow, Although they were consistently not gaining a whole bunch of stuff for themselves. That they had a better reward coming, And that they had faith. Now here's the thing.

We're not going to do this. We're not going to apply any of these principles. Like if we stop here, We're just going to be like, Yep, That's true about money, And I should think about it that way. But we don't really have the ability to do anything with it. Until, Until, Eternity, Is as real to us, As it was to Jesus. Until we see, It as clearly as he saw it.

Then we'll actually begin to be able to leverage some of what we have. Flip over to Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to look at this really quickly. We're going to begin to try to help ourselves see, And know what Jesus is talking about when he says this. You see, Hebrews chapter 11 keeps going. It says that there were prophets who wore sheepskins and goatskins, Who lived in caves and holes in the grounds, Who were persecuted and mistreated.

That the world wasn't worthy of them. That they were stoned. That they were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword. And that they did this so that they might gain a better resurrection. That they believed through sacrifice, That life would be better in eternity.

Because they trusted God. They trusted him, Took him at his word. And then it goes into chapter 12 and it says this. Therefore, Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Talking about all of the people that followed God, Trusting him through sacrifice and pain, Even when it didn't pay off in this life. Let us also lay aside every weight and sin, Which clings so closely.

And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Looking to Jesus, The founder and perfecter of our faith, Who, For the joy that was set before him, Endured the cross, Despising the shame, And is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him, Who endured from sinners, Such hostility against himself, So that you may not grow weary, Or faint hearted. That we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, And that for the joy that was set before him, He endured the cross. That Jesus could look and see so clearly what was to come. See so clearly the eternity that was to come. See so clearly the new heaven and the new earth, That were going to be created by God.

See so clearly that with joy he went to the cross. That he knew the joy that was set before him, And so he was able to sacrifice, Until we see eternity that clearly. We may be generous, But we won't be generous to the extent that the Bible says. We may view our money sometimes correctly, But we won't be able to approach it the way that the Bible says, The way that Jesus talks about, Until we know and feel and believe, That we have a greater hope. That we have a greater home. That eternity is real and really offered to us through Christ.

Until we look at the cross and see so drastically, Starkly and clearly, That Jesus knew, That an eternal hope and an eternal joy, Was offered through sacrifice. Sacrifice. When we see Jesus that clearly, When we consider him, When we fix our eyes on him, Then we are able to begin, To trust and to believe, And to taste and see, The joy that is set before us. To see what is to come. I love that it says, That they knew they had a better country. That we actually are going somewhere, That is not non-material.

It's better. It's this world, But nothing is broken. Nothing rust. Nothing stolen. Nothing is destroyed. That's why you actually have real possession, Because it lasts forever.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, Written by C.S. Lewis, It's a children's fictional story, But they're great. At the end of the last book, They all go to Aslan's country, Which is God's country, Which is heaven. The new earth. And there's a talking horse, Who says this. He says, I have come home at last.

This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land, I have been looking for all my life, Though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia, Is that it sometimes, Looked a little like this. And for every believer, Every person who's placed their faith in Jesus, To pay for their sin and their debt, When we enter into the new heaven, When we enter into God's presence, This is what's going to explode in our hearts. I'm home.

This is my real country. This is what I was looking for, Although I never knew it. This is what I was consistently searching for, Every time I chased after something, Although it never clicked. And the reason we liked the old stuff, Was that sometimes, It's a little bit like this. See, God made everything perfect, It was destroyed by sin, And through the cross, And through our resurrection with Jesus, As he rose from the dead, We get to rise from the dead, And we get to enter into, His perfect peace, His perfect creation once again. But there's glimpses of it.

Every time you've been captivated by a night sky, Every time you've seen a sunset, And you just couldn't stare away, You almost wrecked your car, Because it was over to the left. Every, Every time you've had a really good popsicle, On a really hot day, That you had to eat super fast, Because it was about to melt everywhere. Your first taste of coffee, In the morning on a cold day, When it's crisp. When you were wearing your Uggs, And drinking your pumpkin spice latte. That moment, In the morning, When you don't want to get out of bed, Because it's so warm, And you're just like, I could just be here forever.

Like you're laying really thinking, I might just quit my job, And stay here. Every time you've been captivated, By like an infant laughing, I watched a video the other day, Of an infant, Every time the parent took a bite of a potato chip, Just died laughing. And you just watch that over and over again, Just a little kid laughing. Like every time you've been caught off guard, By how beautiful scenery is, Or seen a deer standing in a field, And you just couldn't not stare at it. All of these moments, When you've bit into a really well cooked steak, All of these moments are just hints, Of what's to come.

That God in his good grace, Still lets us enjoy what is here, But it doesn't compare. There's a better country, And a better home, On the other side of a resurrection, For those who follow Jesus. With real, The way the Bible talks about heaven, Is it's a city, It's a banquet, It's a wedding party, It's a celebration, It's real. And until it becomes more real to us than this, We'll forever take the moped. Until we can trust Jesus, And see him so clearly on the cross, We'll take the moped every time. And for most of us, We're chasing after mopeds.

And Jesus is saying, Trust me. I have bought for you a better resurrection. I have given you and granted you a greater home. You will live for eternity. And realize that your money, How you use it here, Will matter then. And when you die, Everything you have, Will no longer be useful.

But what you've pushed towards eternity, Will be yours. Because in my presence, There is no sin, There is no brokenness, There is no rust, And no moths. Markets don't crash. And we get to stare at Jesus, And begin to see, That our eternity is made secure through him, And that that really is our home, Where we'll finally find our real country, Our real home. And the reason why we enjoyed all the stuff here, And what we were forever chasing after here. The band's going to come back up, We're going to sing, And make much of Jesus, And here's what I want us to do, We didn't talk about, What to do with money this week, We talked about how we ought to see money, And really we won't see money that way, Won't be able to view it that way, Won't be able to hold it that way, Until eternity becomes so real to us, Until we realize, That that is actually, Where we will go as Christians, If those who have been bought by Jesus, Rescued and redeemed by Jesus, Through the cross, Where he paid our debt, It says consider him, So that you don't grow weary, Or lose heart, And I would just encourage all of us, As believers this week, If you've trusted Jesus, If you've followed Jesus, If you're a Christian, To sit down at some point, And consider Jesus, To sit down at some point, And know that for joy, That was set before him, He endured the cross, And that he's invited us, Into that joy, And that an eternity is to come, And sit for a while, Carve out some time, And sit, And only try to hold in your head, The sacrifice of Jesus, And the eternity that follows, I find that when I've thought about, Sat and meditated on the cross, And on eternity, It helps change, And put everything into perspective, And that's what we're told to do, Is to consider him, To fix our eyes on him, And so as we go into the next three weeks, We're going to talk about really practical things, Take some time this week, To consider Jesus, To sit and weigh it out, And to think about eternity, Y'all stand, Let's sing, And so as we go into the beginning, мои juices, And so as we go inside, And so as we go into the bow, And so as we go into the down, And so as we go into the spectrum, And so we move into the distance, And gentle thought of actually, And so as we move into the middle of it, And so as we go into the next three days, And so as we go into the direction of theת loc Intelli, And then we show the topic of beautiful, And so as we go into the image, And so as we watch it, And so as we go into the next three days to a sûrinté clip on it,