Remember the height from which you have fallen and repent. Do the things that you did at first. That’s what I was proclaiming last Sunday. Love that counsel.
Now, we
are going to talk about money.
Over the
past several years, I have talked to many people who say that they have
attended congregations where all they talk about is money, mainly how much they
need.
I have
heard people use the term tithe in various ways that don’t exactly fit the
definition.
I have
seen people who had money for a big-screen television from the rental place and
a top-of-the-line cell phone but no money to pay the water bill.
I have
never had cause to help anyone with money who was a tither.
As an
elder and pastor, I have counseled men and women for over two decades now about
many things, but I have never encountered anyone who sought my counsel who had
a money problem. Think about that. I am going to discuss money from
a godly perspective and I have never counseled anyone with a money problem.
That
said, let’s get started. A godly person, a good person, a wise person
stores up an inheritance for his
children’s children. Holy cow! He’s already lost me. I can’t
even pay all my bills and have something left over for my own savings account,
and he wants me to give my grandkids an inheritance.
Let’s
stop right there. Why are you listening to this?
Perhaps
there is something to be learned, a new approach, a wiser way to deal with
money. If it’s somewhere in that ballpark and not just to see how many
new terms that Tom invents this week or how bad the dad jokes get, then
wouldn’t it be nice to have an objective—a goal?
What
exactly are we aiming at? The godly use of money might be one
answer. It is sort of general and a lot of people can’t put actions or
anything tangible with that big, broad target. In marksmanship terms, you
end up chasing the bull.
But here
is something tangible: Provide an inheritance to your children’s
children. It has some touch and feel to it. It’s a little more tactile. I can
measure it. I could do some metrics with that.
How much
inheritance? There is a lot of maneuver room here. Part of that
inheritance—perhaps the biggest part—will be a saving knowledge of life in
Jesus Christ. Part of it will be money, or not!
So many are in the or not arena at the moment.
So that
my grandkids don’t get too excited, you will receive copies of books by Tom
Spence when I die.
If you
want to make improvements, you have to set tangible goals. If you can’t
see and touch it, how can you reach it or even know when you are there? Something
else is required. It is something that you don’t get in the direct
language of a proverb, but you find in one of the Parables of Jesus.
Again,
it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted
his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two
bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on
his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and
put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with
two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag
went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
There is
much more to this parable and you will get that soon enough, but this part
defines what we need. What did the servants do when their master
left? The first two put their money to work. In the money-person
equation, the person was the master. The money was the servant. The
money was put to work.
Do you
remember Al Haig?
He had a distinguished military career, was chief of staff for presidents Nixon
and Ford, and was Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, but what is
he best known for?
His
statement after Reagan had been shot. “I am in control here.” Haig
knew that the vice president was next in the success of command for the
presidency but since the president didn’t say he was passing control to the VP,
Haig presumed to be in command.
It is
something to bring a smile to most students of American government and
history. Yes, Alexander Haig might have had a big ego, but he also had
the exact attitude that we must have in a relationship with
money.
I am in
charge. There is no discussion. There is no
leeway. I am in charge!
If you
have a relationship with money, you must be the master. Dave Ramsey put
it another way. You tell every dollar where to go. You don’t talk it over
with your money. You are in charge.
The
typical response is, “But I don’t have enough money to tell it where to
go. It’s all gobbled up in bills and rent and car payments.”
So, when
you buy more house than you can afford, who is the master in the equation? That
mortgage is going to be the master.
Who is
in charge if you buy more car than you can afford?
Who is
in charge if you spend more with the “Buy with One Click” button on Amazon than
you budgeted?
To tell
your money where to go, you must also be the master of your decisions. We
are told to seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness first. If we do
that, then immediate gratification seldom takes hold of our decision process.
We still
have free will and make the choice, but if we are seeking God’s kingdom,
righteousness, wisdom, and thoughts, then we might be on top of this money
thing. We can be the masters of our money.
We might
live by different priorities.
I said earlier
that I have never counseled anyone with money problems. That was only
half the information. I have counseled many with relationship problems
and with prioritizing problems that involved money. Money was not the
problem in these situations.
The
problem was rooted in people's relationships with money, their love of money,
and their desire for immediate gratification, which had turned their lives
upside down.
I have
$75 in cash because of a job I did for the guy down the street. The water
bill is $65 but it is not due until the end of the week. So I can afford
to eat out tonight, pick up a pack of smokes, some beef jerky, chips, and bean
dip from the convenience store to watch the game tonight.
When it
is time to pay the bill, I only have $32 left. I have a money
problem. No! I have a relationship problem or a priority
problem, but money is not the problem.
To be
able to tell your money where to go, you have to know what you want to
accomplish. As it turns out, I won’t be preaching the Parable of the
Talents next week, so I will ask the question now. What did you do with what God gave you?
What did
he give me? Every good gift comes from God. If you have an income, it is because
you live in the favor of God. Your free will comes from God. Setting your
priorities should be in accordance with seeking God.
If you
want God to bless your goals, they should be objectives consistent with his
will. We must be wise.
In your
relationships with money, you must be in charge. In your relationship
with God, he is in charge. If you can connect those 2 dots, then you are
ready to put your money to work.
What
gets in the way so much of the time? Debt. In
America, debt has become a part of life. The proverb tells us that the rich rule over the
poor. We see that in most societies. Democratically
based governments try to spread the ruling authority over a broader base, but
the rich have much more influence than the poor. That’s not the main
point here and does not have to govern you.
The
borrower is slave to the lender. Ouch! Double
ouch! Debt robs you of being master in the you-money equation.
Debt—and we should take this at the personal level—steals your authority.
I don’t know if we can directly apply this proverb to businesses and nations,
but surely the principle governs. So long as there is debt, sovereignty
is lessened.
I’m not
going to do my political scientist thing…
The
Bible does not prohibit borrowing and lending but does have strong counsel for
both, but the strongest of that wisdom is that the borrower is slave to the
lender.
Have you
noticed—I am sure you have if you have followed my discussions on this matter
over the past few years—that the verse about bringing up a child in the way he
should go immediately precedes this?
When we
think of debt, we often fixate on our personal situation, but what are we
teaching our kids about money? What are we teaching them about debt?
If you
have significant personal debt, what are you teaching your children? The
only debt that we should have is the debt to love one
another.
Let no debt remain
outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves
others has fulfilled the law.
Speaking
of love, how can we serve the one true God who is love and loves us so much if
we have another master? If we love money so much that we go into debt for
it, how can we say Jesus is our Lord and Master?
Tom,
that’s a might prickly there. We all have money problems. Don’t say that Jesus
is taking second place in my life. That’s mean.
Call me
mean if you will. It won’t be the first time that I have been called that. But
don’t call me the sugar coater. I don’t deal in the currency of confections.
Jesus
said that you can’t do it. You cannot serve two masters. You will love
one and hate the other. There is no middle ground and you can’t sit on the
fence.
People
say that they don’t love money but need stuff. It takes money to buy the stuff,
or debt, which is indenturing yourself to another so as to use their money.
Let’s
back up to the proverb. A wise—a godly person—leaves an inheritance for his
or her children’s children. How can you do this if everything goes to support
your immediate needs?
The
answer is that you can’t. But I can barely afford everything that I own, rent,
or have to pay for. Wisdom says, then maybe you have too many things or
services to pay for.
The
world tells you that you don’t have nearly enough. You need a
bigger car. You need a bigger house with a pool. You need a boat or
a golf cart or a bigger television. Your kids need all the new video
games and how can you live without the I-Phone 19 or the Galaxy 28Z Plus?
Remember
the counsel of Romans 12. Don’t be
conformed to the image or the patterns of the world anymore.
The world got its hooks into us but we must stop and turn around.
Many of
us say that we will do this, but we make an exception when it comes to our
money. Maybe we should have a smaller house or less expensive car or we
didn’t really need that 4K television. When all the bills are paid, there
should be something—a fair amount left.
That’s
for our children’s children, right? Maybe part of it, but mostly it is to
bless others. Consider God’s
blessing of Abraham. Abraham was blessed so that he could be a
blessing. The entire world would be blessed through him. We know
that blessing was manifested to us through Jesus Christ, but we forget the
concept of being blessed so that we can be a blessing to others.
So, is
this where the tithe comes out of? Does the tithe come out of the leftovers?
No, the tithe is entirely different. Tithe means tenth or
a tenth part set apart for the Lord. It comes
first. In seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness, we must
remember that God only finds first
place acceptable. He is jealous like
that.
We see
the tithe mentioned notably 3 times in the books of the law and in an encounter
between Abraham and Melchizedek in Genesis
14. Generally, the tithe was paid in
animals and crops, but in Abraham’s case, it was with the spoils of war.
Plunder or booty was the standard pay of fighting men until only a few
centuries ago. The tithe is a tenth of whatever income we receive.
Now
that’s after taxes, right? Does God ever take second place?
But
that’s Old Testament stuff? Only those under the law were required to
give 10%, right? If you lived under the law, you gave something just over
25% if you add up all the other offerings that went with feasts and special
occasions.
But we
live in the church age and are not under the law, are we? Didn’t Jesus
fulfill the law? Aren’t we free to live without fearing punishment
because of the law to include the tithe?
Do we
have to give 10% to God? No!
What
does God consider an acceptable offering from us?
Hold on, it’s 100%. We are to be a living sacrifice giving everything
that we are and everything that we have to God.
Where am
I going to live if I give my house to God? Most likely you will live in
the house that you gave to God, along with the body and mind and everything
else you gave to him.
That’s a
big paradigm shift. Everything we have comes from God and in response to the
great love that we know in Christ Jesus, we as believers, give it all back to
him. Back to the parable—how much money did the servants have?
As far
as I can tell, they had none. It all belonged to their master. So, they were
broke? They were trusted servants. I think the master’s money met all of their
needs, but it was still the master’s money. And they were excited to have taken
that with which they were trusted and to have made more for him.
Let’s
get back to just money. Do I have to give God a tenth of my income or
not? No, but considering God’s promise, why would you not want to?
God said, “Put me to test!”
Hold on!
I know better than to put God to the test. This is the one exception, and God
is very bold about it. God is double-dog daring us to give this tenth. God is
telling us that he has many blessings for us if we trust him. We don’t see the
word "trust" in this passage, but it is about trust.
Will I
give God a tenth of what I have before I do anything else with my money?
Do I trust him enough—this God who created everything and even gave his own Son
as an atoning sacrifice to take away my sin and make me right with God again—do
I trust him enough to give him a tenth of my income?
For
those of us who have done this, we can say that God makes 90% go farther than
100%. God doesn’t do math like the rest of the world. We enjoy the
blessings of the tithe. As a living sacrifice, we acknowledge that it’s
all God’s anyway, but we totally let go of a tenth.
Some
folks say that I give part of my tithe to World Vision, the Children’s Home, or
the Family Care Center. That’s not accurate. Today, ten percent given to the
church body where you worship without further individual designation that’s the
tithe. This is how we trust God with the tithe in this century.
I hope
that you also give to World Vision, the Family Care Center, the shoe project,
or the special fund-raiser for fire victims, but those are offerings given
beyond the tithe. The food that we bring in most weeks and that the children
bring forward to be blessed are offerings beyond the tithe.
You
might want to get your skin lotion out before this next part, because it’s
going to be a might prickly for many Americans. Sometimes, we think that
we know what God wants us to do with the tithe so we just do that thing with
the money that we would have given as the tithe.
Maybe we
are helping someone who needs help, maybe we think that God wants us to pay off
our mortgage sooner, or maybe we feel strongly about supporting a missionary
somewhere. When we do those things and call it a tithe, we are only fooling
ourselves.
I call
it a trick tithe. Understand that we can’t trick God. We are only
fooling ourselves that we are trusting God when we are trusting our own
understanding.
Read Malachi.
God’s people had once again strayed away from God’s ways, especially in the
tithe. Instead of bringing God the best lamb, the owner would just cut
out the scrawny, defective animals and say, “That’s good enough.”
Oh, man,
I’ve got to throw something in the plate. Do we have anything left over this
month?
Malachi
challenged God’s people by asking, “Do you think you could get away
with that with your governor?”
Do you
think that you could get away with paying your taxes with Monopoly money?
But why
did God put this on my heart if he didn’t want me
to take money out of my tithe to give to this person, cause, or whatever seems
to be tugging at me? Why?
Have you
considered that God wants to fulfill his promise of blessing to you because you
trusted him with your tithe, so that you can bless others and do those things
that are tugging at your heart? Have you trusted him to bless you to be a
blessing? Have you trusted him with the first 10% of what you have
received?
So, will
God strike you down if you take money away from your tithe to do other things?
No. He has given his own Son for you. He loves you. He will
not hurt you.
Will he
bless me as if I had tithed? Don’t bank on it.
The tithe is graduate-level trust.
It is a
simple, two-part equation. I tithe and the Lord blesses me. I get that
math. That logic is without fallacy. It is that simple.
So,
should I tithe as a mandatory tax I must pay to God? No! I say it
again: No!
The Lord
loves a cheerful giver. If you are going to tithe, do so with joy in your
heart and thoroughly enjoy the blessings that God will pour out on you.
If you
tithe, joyful or not, God will fulfill his promise. It’s a thing with God
that he does what he said he would do. He is like that.
But why
not enjoy it?
The
muscles in my neck tighten and my pulse increases when I hear other pastors and
elders and church leaders say that we need to bring in enough to keep the
lights on. We have forgotten the other blessing of the tithe.
About 20
years ago I was in a session meeting as an elder. Our balance on hand was
descending and Duawn asked if we should post the dollar amount needed to make
the budget broken down into a weekly amount. Other churches were doing it.
As an
elder, I think I tried to be supportive of what our pastor wanted to do, and
liked to think before I spoke, but I just said no, unequivocally, no!
I had
some clarity on this. Our tithe is between us and God and must not be conformed
to the patterns of the world.
We
didn’t do it. There wasn’t much discussion. I didn’t hurt Duawn’s feelings. But
something in me said don’t fix your eyes on the world. Keep them fixed on
Jesus.
Now, if
we are raising money for a mission trip or the United Way or a new van, that’s
one thing. The tithe is its own deal.
Other
than blessings returned to me, what else is the tithe for?
God’s
storehouse will be full. In today’s world, that means that the church
bodies will do most of the things that somehow people have come to look to the
government to accomplish. When God’s storehouse is full, government
programs of all sorts will be irrelevant.
But
God’s storehouse on this earth is not full. We here in this body are
closer than many, but it is not filled to overflowing. I don’t see who
gives what but I know that we have a very generous spirit for a small body of
believers.
I
typically give my money message every two or three years. I repost it online
every year for general consumption.
Shouldn’t
I do it it person every year? That’s not even one percent of the messages that
you give here. It wouldn’t even need to be at both services.
Why
would I do that when there are at least a dozen or so compelling testimonies
sitting among you right now? How much more powerful is it to hear it from an
elder, a Sunday school teacher, or the person who is just here on Sunday
morning but is faithful in the tithe?
Of course,
the preacher has to say that stuff. But when you hear it as a testimony, how
much more powerful is it from your neighbor?
I gave a
little personal tithe testimony with the First Light Message. I am cautious in such testimonies as some
people don’t want to know that the preacher struggled with straightforward
things like the tithe once upon a time.
Some
people when they hear about some stupid things that I did once upon a time,
might want to leverage them. Our human
nature still tugs at us from time.
Some
people might think it self-serving that I say that I tithe. The only part of that, that you get in this
service will be the part that says I tithe and there’s no turning back, no
turning back.
God’s
promise that we find in the tithe is real.
Many
individuals are blessed because they tithe, but the storehouse is not full.
Dave
Ramsey says that about 20% of Christians tithe. I am certain that our local percentage is
higher but not what it should be. We still wrestle with trusting God with all
of our hearts and leaning on our own understanding.
Giving
everything that we are and have as a living sacrifice to God is tough stuff,
but totally letting go of 10% seems even tougher until you have made a lifetime
habit of it.
It seems
too hard for some, especially when we see people living the all about me life,
raking in the dough, and living high on the hog. That’s enough mixed-money
metaphors for one sentence.
The
proverb says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the
righteous. To which many of us say, “Can we cash in on that now?”
While we
are at it, let’s cash in on all that money we have saved from decades of
Daylight Saving Time.
God’s
people are told not to be fixated on earthly accumulation. If you want to
start a money market account, open it in heaven. The interest rates are
out of this world.
Whatever
we have in this world is consumable. It’s meant to be put to work. It’s
that whole potential and kinetic energy thing.
What we
have in the hereafter is everlasting. Where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also.
Let’s
revisit the parable of the talents again. The first 2 servants took their
master’s money and put it to work. We got that part. They were the
master in that equation, but we should note that they put that money to work
immediately.
There
was no when I got around to it. One year, I printed up some Round Ties and
put them in the bulletin so everyone had one.
They
understood that money was a perishable commodity, especially if it is just buried
in the ground. It is meant to be put to work.
Had the
3rd servant just put the money into a certificate of deposit,
it would have at least earned a little interest. But the first 2 servants
put the money to work right away. They were not only the master in their
relationship with money, they were a wise master.
They had
surely done similar things with whatever their master had entrusted to them
before. Remember, that the master gave to them in accordance with their
abilities. They had surely taken what they had—it may have been very
little—and put it to work before and produced a return.
How much
or little we have has no bearing on our relationship with money. We must
be the master. We must be wise. We must take the initiative.
Money is
neither good nor bad. It is to be our servant. Debt makes us the
slave. The tithe is the litmus test of trusting God. Will we trust
him enough to let go of that first ten percent?
God
wants to bless us because he loves us. He wants to pour out even more
blessing when we trust him with our money. When our trust in the Lord wins out
over our own understanding in the money arena, we win.
God
wants us to bless others out of the abundance that he provides to us.
God
wants us to have more than enough so that we can not only be a blessing to our
children, but to their children, and to those whom his Spirit calls us to
bless.
There is
more counsel on money in the Bible but we will wrap up here and I am going to
shift to the first person.
Money
will not be my God, but I am thankful when my God blesses me with money. To
paraphrase Zig Ziglar, Christians can live with or without money, but things go
better with money.
I have
been blessed in my tithe, cannot think of a situation where I would give up
this most precious statement of my trust in the Lord, and because of this
unqualified trust, I have been blessed to bless others beyond my tithe.
I will
not serve two masters. I serve the Lord, seek his kingdom first, and
enjoy the fact that he blesses me with so many things that the godless world
chases after with futility.
If I
have to choose between going without and going in debt,
then I will go without; though as the Lord directs my steps, I have never found
myself without everything that I needed.
Don’t
get me wrong. I love being blessed with money. I have no unbudgeted money in my
life. I budget for discretionary spending, but I tell every dollar where to go.
I still have to make adjustments for what’s going on in the world. That’s life.
I enjoy
things of this world that it takes money to buy as part of the abundant life
that God has provided. He has not called me to be poor. In giving
my entire life to him, he has made me rich. In terms of money, sometimes
that means that I have enough money to eat the chicken fried steak at Fred's as
our meal out , and sometimes it means that I can go on a cruise.
Sometimes it means eating beans and cornbread, but I make some good cornbread. No
brag. Just fact.
I don’t
have gobs of money in the bank, but I have more than enough to meet my needs
and still have some to bless others. If I am blessed with gobs of money,
I will put it to work at once.
Will I
do anything differently if I have a substantial monetary blessing? No. I will
do the things that I am doing now as the master of my money, just in larger
amounts.
As far
as money goes, I have lived according to the rules of the world and I have
lived God’s way. I have known debt and struggled with the tithe and
purchased many things based on selfish impulse and not wisdom. There was
no peace in my finances and that robbed me of peace in my life.
Know
this: God’s instructions on money are very straightforward. His
promises are true.
Things
are so much better living God’s way, including my relationship with money.
I think
that God wants us to have:
· Some
money in our pockets.
· Some
money in the bank.
· Some
money set aside to bless our children’s children.
· Some
money to put to work and produce a good return.
· Some
money to bless others when led by his Spirit.
God
wants us to be the master in our relationship with money.
God
wants to bless us when we truly trust him with our money, most notably the
tithe.
God
wants the only debt that we have to be the one that we can never repay in
full. That debt is that we love him for his unbelievable mercy by loving
others every day of our lives.
I
suggest that you read the online version of this message to capture the
scripture references for future counsel.
What
counsel. Let the word of God judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart,
even in the case of money.
Amen.
Supporting
Scriptures about money and giving.
