Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 27, 2023 | Guardrails - Finances

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August 27, 2023 | Guardrails - Finances · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning, everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're finishing our series in guardrails today.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And just to kind of give you a heads up, because some of you love it when I do this.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we have the director for Jews for Jesus going to come and give a presentation, David Brickner.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Jews for Jesus, if you're not familiar, is an international organization that our church has partnered with for a very long time.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Jim is the chairman of the board.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we are big fans of Jews for Jesus.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so David Brickner will be here next week to preach for us.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the following week, we will begin the book of 2 Corinthians.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we will go through that for the fall.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you guys want to go ahead and start reading 2 Corinthians to prepare for that, that would be wonderful.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, though, we are finishing the series in guardrails.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal in this, if you're new with us this morning, has been that there are certain topics in the Bible that aren't necessarily black and white, but more of a spectrum.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that the Bible nevertheless, with those things, presents us with these guardrails.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go too far this way and don't go too far this way.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But live not only in the balance, but sort of between these two principles.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of use, I use the example of bowling with the bumpers, right?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you're able to stay within the bumpers, you're gonna hit some pins, right?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there's still a journey for us to make sure that we can try and get a strike instead of a spare.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we are going to round it out with another topic that relates to everybody, which is finances.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as you all begin to unclinch, because I said that word, um listen, whether you have uh a few dollars in a piggy bank or whether you have a lot of dollars in a foreign bank, okay, the Bible has something to say for everybody with regard to the money that we have.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I, to be honest with you, I have I am of the personal opinion uh that for how often the Bible speaks about money and resources and being a good steward, that we don't talk about these things enough.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so my part of my goal is to normalize some of these conversations without making you think that I'm some like robber baron that is coming to you know get in your pockets.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I recognize the irony of announcing the student ministry project last week.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, but no part of my application this morning is going to have to do with you giving to the student ministry project.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is so much more to say about finances.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and beyond that, really, this morning, it's not even what to do with your money necessarily, but it's how to think about the money that you do have.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, what does God think about that money?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so you might have also noticed as we've gone through the series in guardrails, how many of our verses are coming from the wisdom literature of the Bible.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a specific genre, uh, which includes the books of Psalms and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and others.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's this section of books in the Bible, in the Old Testament, where it presents things which are sort of rock solid guidance.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's guidance because typically and generally speaking, by following them, the things that they say will happen will come to pass, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if you have a child or you yourself, you know, you ever wanted to try out for a team, be a part of a play, join the ballet, something like that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody close to you said, well, you need to practice for the tryout.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, just because you practice, it doesn't mean necessarily or automatically that you're going to make it into the show or on the team.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But not practicing surely means that you're probably not going to make it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why we're looking at so much of this wisdom literature is because as we're trying to say that there are these standards that apply to every person, what is often the case is we have the opportunity to look at one and say, oh, but I I know the exception to that rule.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have this person, they're my second cousin, and when they did that, it didn't go the way.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the point is that generally speaking, when God presents wisdom here, it is something that we should follow through with, and it will help us in our life.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we are beginning in the book of Proverbs, as we look at our first guardrail.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in Proverbs 10, verse 4, it says, idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring riches.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we can use our thesaurus here and say, idle can also mean laziness, and diligent can be those who are careful in attention and hard at work.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so what this is saying is that those who are able to work but unwilling to do so, they create for themselves many wounds and self-inflicted problems because they aren't working, and therefore the poverty that comes upon them is something that they should be able to expect.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the other coin is that for those who work hard, that wealth comes when we follow after dedicated effort.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Typically.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We all know people who are lazy, who have vast sums of money, and we all know people who have worked their hands to the bone and who struggle to provide for their families.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking, these things are true.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not here to talk about uh some kind of, you know, this is no commentary on government programs or things like that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about laziness, when we talk about hard work, really the reason I'm bringing this verse to you is because of the way it frames riches.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Riches are a blessing that is shown here.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And see, in America, we have this kind, and across the world, but especially in America where so much of our culture revolves around money, we have a very interesting relationship with it, and that for those who have more money than we do, the, again, typical response is to both idolize them and despise them.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very interesting sort of thing that we have where we seek after and are pre- are impressed by and sometimes model our lives after those who are more successful financially, but then we also love to tear them down.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it normally undercuts this concept, which is broadly speaking, finding riches, being wealthy, is something that is a blessing.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's clear in the Bible that it's a blessing, and it should be clear for us today, too.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: But there is, as we look to this first guardrail, there is something very important we need to talk about when it comes to riches, and that is that our American conception of riches is much higher than the way that God describes true riches in this world.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: See, in Proverbs 10, verse 4, let me show you the verses that came before that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Verses 2 through 4.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ill-gotten gains do not profit anyone, but righteousness rescues from death.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord will not let the righteous go hungry, but he denies the wicked what they crave.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring riches.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this concept of riches in this sort of framework is not presented as the Ferrari, the mansion sort of thing, but the two things that are shown to describe the person who has riches is that they didn't die and they were able to provide food for their families.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you might say, well, okay, calm down.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't necessarily call that riches.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of the point, is that the biblical definition of wealth is that anything that you have over and above your ability to sustain life is simply a bless.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, you're the breath in your lungs is a blessing from the Lord.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: But over and above that, anything that you have, that means that you are able to not only provide for your family, but do something in addition to it, provide for yourself, but still go ahead and have some money left over, that this is what is represented by wealth.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, normally when we talk about wealth, these are some of the statistics we'll talk about.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: According to Forbes, there are 2,668 billionaires in the world, and 735 are Americans.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: This means that 27.5% of the world's billionaires are American.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a lot of money here.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Eight out of the top 10 billionaires are American.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to spot the wealth.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to look at our neighbor or on social media or whoever we want, just listening to stories that we tell, and to spot wealth.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is easy to see oftentimes, especially for those who want you to see it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But wealth, as it is defined in the Bible, is not based on the third and fourth luxury car.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Wealth is what comes over and above God sustaining our lives.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, there is a greater understanding we need to have of our own wealth, even if you're somebody who doesn't have that many assets.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, here are some other statistics that paint a more realistic view of our wealth in America, especially considering the surrounding world.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you have over$10,000 in wealth, not make that much money, but if you just have that much money, you are in the top half of wealth among the world's adults.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even the uh so the American median household income is$71,000, which means uh median, for those of us who failed stats class, is 50% of people in the world are above that number, 50% of the world are below that number.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the average.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The median household income of$71,000, so if you as a couple make that much money, places a family in the top 4% of richest people in the world.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Final stat, even the bottom 10, you say I haven't even sniffed$71,000 in my life.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even the bottom 10% of household income, meaning if you make$15,000 or more a year combined as your household, that is over 5.5 times the average global income.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm saying with all of these things is that for the vast majority of us, I'm not saying for every single person, but for the vast majority of us, our floor is the ceiling for much of the world.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, because we are often so wrapped up in comparison and focusing on what somebody else has, our concept of wealth has shifted.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first guardrail that we're looking at this morning is one particularly for those who have never, you know, sort of looked at that median income, who don't have much money, who have struggled.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first guardrail is really for those people and to say, right, all of us need to have a better understanding of what wealth looks like.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because God, and this is only financial wealth.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't even talking about all the ways in which the Bible loves to use the phrase wealth and riches to describe the relationship that we have with God and the benefit of knowing Jesus Christ.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You look to the New Testament and you see that the word riches is used primarily, primarily, in two cases.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Either Jesus is talking to somebody who is very rich, in which case it didn't always go well for them, or they're using the phrase riches to describe faith in Christ, the grace of God, the blessing of holiness, the beauty of knowing his word, that these are the things that bring riches.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: This morning I am just talking about finances, but wealth is much more than being able to go to your third vacation for the year.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing I want to say about that, though, is I do understand and personally feel the pressure that is affecting so many of us, especially in these last few years, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Inflation's out of control.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And for some people, even in our church family, they know personal abject poverty.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about if they can go to Tahoe on their vacation.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's about if they can afford to put a meal on the table.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want anything that I'm saying to act like I'm undercutting the genuine struggle that some people are facing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what I am trying to say is that we need to have a much more expansive definition of wealth.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that, yes, even at that sort of lowest end of financial prosperity, the ability to provide for our families is still a blessing from the Lord.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so financial wealth of all shapes and sizes is something that is good.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to see it as a shameful thing, we don't need to see it a sort of view it with derision.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: But financial wealth, if you're able to provide for your family and you are over and above that, you are already in the top tier of people across the world in terms of provision.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the problem is that so often we assume and have an expectation that we deserve far more than that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We know how hard we work, we know how hard we try, and when we see other people who maybe didn't try as hard as we have, or things like that, and we say, I should be where they're at, we lose perspective on what the Bible is saying.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I will remind you that when Jesus gives the model prayer, the thing that he asks the Lord for, and he says that we should ask the Lord for is our daily bread.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is really our expectation.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And above that, boy, how blessed are we.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But like Proverbs says, a diligent hand normally does bring wealth.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Normally does bring riches.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: What is generally true is that over the course of our lifetimes, we increase the wealth that we have, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: We grow in our financial prosperity.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Normally speaking, our paychecks get larger.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Normally speaking, we get more business opportunities or work or things like that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, we grow in wealth.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true for a lot of you.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's true for most people in America.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty though, now as we swing to the other side, is how we start to approach that kind of wealth, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: If the first guardrail is understanding truly how wealthy we all are, now the other side that we're going to start looking at is what happens when you when you do start to have a few more zeros in your bank account.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you do start to approach that sort of position where you've never had to question whether or not you could fill up your car with gas, whether you've never had to really look at the grocery bill, when we're starting to get into this territory, now there's a new set of standards that come into the equation.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So what often happens is that as we grow in wealth is that our lifestyle shifts and begins to creep.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Hannah and I have talked about this before when you know I was going to grad school and we were putting ourselves, we were married, newly married, we were putting ourselves through grad school, and um I was making$21,000 a year, and we had this tiny, tiny little apartment, and the fridge was so small, I'm a large person, but the fridge was so small that I had to get down on my knees to be able to reach into it, right?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our our oven uh wasn't large enough to be able to fit a normal-sized cookie sheet.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we look back on those times at how quickly moving out of that apartment into the home that we have now, right across from Topeka West, at how quickly, though, we now think that we need more things.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: At how quickly we look back on those times and think, yes, how simple they were, but how we were filled with so much joy, and we still have joy.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the creep happens.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember uh speaking with a former co-worker, nobody at TBC, uh, former co-worker back down in Texas, and uh she came from a lot more a family with a vast amount of wealth.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um her father was the advertising director for Sonic, and so you can, yeah, she she was doing all right.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um we were talking one day, and she was saving up for a down payment on her house.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we were discussing this, and she said, you know, yeah, my husband and I were really trying to like take in the reins on our expenses, and I was like, Yeah, what is what does that look like?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Well, we're just not eating out as much and all those things.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, I you know, I understand that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, and then she was looking at her nails and she said, But I couldn't give up my weekly pet um manicure appointment.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, really, I mean, first of all, right, that doesn't necessarily hit with me.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think it's just so funny, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: How um, and I'm not blaming her necessarily, but just how our perspective shifts that reining things in for her so that then they could afford the down payment on their$270,000 house was she could still go get her manicure.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they had financial blessing, and I'm not blaming them for that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that she was able to enjoy something like that.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you get what I'm saying about creeping, right?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your lifestyle, oftentimes we add these things to it, and the difficulty is that we don't maintain the perspective of blessing and how much we have and how much the Lord has given to us, but rather our floor raises over time.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, what we have now becomes the expectation.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: What we have now becomes what we think we should always have, and heaven forbid that floor begins to drop and we lose that perspective.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Timothy was instructed about this by Paul in his letter because Timothy had individuals in his church who had begun to overvalue and love money.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul says to Timothy in chapter six.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: It flows well from what we were talking about.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Paul saying, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole nother sermon about contentment in and of itself, but I'll tell you, it's because Paul knew Jesus Christ, and that was his primary relationship and the context through which he viewed everything.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is why Paul can talk about being so poor and destitute, and this was in 1 Corinthians, and yet knowing Christ, he was rich.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, when it comes to material things, he says, if we have food and clothing, we will be content, but those who want to be rich, and there we find ourselves the difficulty as we begin to skew towards the other end of wealth is the desire.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's classically, like you're probably aware of this, even if you're not that familiar with the Bible.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the phrase is not that money is the root of all evil, but the love of money is the root of all evil.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Money is a tool, it is a thing, it is a resource.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is a gift from God, just as your ability to sing or your ability to look at a spreadsheet and understand what it means is a gift from God.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: But all the gifts that we have from God, we are supposed to steward well and to use ultimately for him.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And money should be viewed in the same context.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is a blessing.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when we begin to desire money and chase after it, uh, these were the things that Jesus began to talk to the rich young ruler about, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: We know that story where this man comes up to Jesus and says, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, knowing the man's heart first, says, Well, first, you know, you must do everything that's in the law.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the man, uh, either ignorantly or foolishly, says, Oh, I've done all that already.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, being the only one who has ever done that, says, Okay, well then give away your possessions.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Give them to the poor.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the man, Jesus, first of all, knowing again what was in the man's heart, knew that this is something that would be impossible for the man.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: The teaching that's sometimes taken from that passage is that we need to give away all of the money that we have, but that's not the teaching of the passage.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: The teaching of the passage is that the man loved money more than he loved Christ.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, the thing which displayed very quickly that difference and that sad reality in his life is that when given the opportunity and the instruction from his Savior or his possible savior, to give all of his money to the poor, he says, No, I would rather hold on to it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: The love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself, but a desire.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To chase after it and lose yourself in the process.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things that we lose when we chase after money.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can lose friends, we can lose a job, we can lose family members.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can lose our faith.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what happens as we drift.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was a story in the Miami Herald just this month where there were two off-duty police officers who were fishing out in the Florida Keys with their wives.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they thought they saw a seabird flapping over in the distance.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were about six miles offshore.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so they drive over to it because they eventually realized that it wasn't a seabird that was flapping, it was a diver asking for help.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so they power their boat over there on this casual fishing trip and go and rescue the diver.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he comes on board and they radio the Coast Guard to let them know that they've found a diver, assuming that he came from somewhere.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the Coast Guard tells them that a diving vessel had just sent in a notice that they had a missing diver.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yet that diver was over two miles away from his boat.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: What had happened wasn't that the boat that he was diving from had been negligent in sending out the distress call, but that the diver, as he had gone down into the ocean and had been down there for a period of time, didn't understand the currents that were slowly drawing him away from the boat.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time he was rescued, he was two miles away from his diving boat.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happens so often when we begin to chase after money and wealth, is we desire the things that it ha that come with it, but we don't realize how we are moving away from our foundation.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, right, I hope you see what I'm trying to say.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that money is bad.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that a love of money is very bad and it is dangerous, and that is the thing that Jesus would speak about.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is easy for us to drift as we do these things.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the other problem that we have is that as a Christian culture in America, we are drawing very close to the prosperity gospel.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: 76% of American Protestant churchgoers, which is includes us, said that God wants them to prosper financially.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: 76% of American Protestant churchgoers said that God wants them to prosper financially, and 45% said that their behavior was tied to the material blessings they received from God.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let me break that down.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is that three out of every four people who believe what we believe and who represent our church say that God has a personal invested interest in seeing their bank account grow.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what they also think about 50% of those people is that their behavior and their obedience to God is what is driving passively all of those dollars into their bank account.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: What the prosperity gospel is doing in America and across the world, it has gripped Africa, and it is obviously gripping America in many ways.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But what the prosperity gospel is teaching is that there is a tie between your faithfulness and the money that you have.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And why that is so destructive is because what it says is that if you have money, you should feel content by your relationship with God because obviously you're doing something well.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are in poverty, that there must be something that you are not doing right.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And all that is needed to show the foolishness of this is to look at our brothers and sisters in Christ in Haiti or the Ukraine or Kenya or any other places where wealth is not dramatically known.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, man, look at their faith.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Look at how they know God.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: They are closer with the Lord, oftentimes, than many of us.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: At least I can only speak for myself than I am.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they don't have a dollar to their name.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is only in our exceedingly wealthy culture compared to the rest of the world that we've begun to attach these things.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the people who say those things are charlatans and false prophets who just want your money too.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody who says that God has a personal vested, I'm not saying that God, I already said that God gives blessing of money.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm trying to differentiate, if you can catch my sort of nuance here, is that it's not because you came to church that you got a raise at your job.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is not because you read your Bible more or prayed more that you then increased your income.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: These things are blessings.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: They come from the Lord, but it's not a one-to-one relationship.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is not a gumball machine, okay?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: We don't put in prayers and get out the things that we want.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of thinking of ourselves as being rewarded by God with finances, we need to think of finances.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Again, particularly as we're now moving in away from can I put food on the table, into I don't have to question if I can afford groceries this week.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: As we move into that space, it is not that you are being rewarded by God, it is that you have a responsibility from God with your finances.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus, when he speaks so often to those who are struggling, right, the Sermon on the Mount, uh, blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth, right?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh though financial blessings come from the Lord, there's a great responsibility that comes with it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul, as he continues to teach and send this uh message to Timothy, this is how he finishes.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of what is truly life.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: The reason Paul was writing to Timothy is because Timothy had prosperity gospel preachers in his church.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they were profiting off of the gospel in a way that was bilking good people out of their money, and they were trying to become wealthy off of it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul was condemning that, and then he was also telling those who had financial wealth what to do.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the second guardrail, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: If the first one is that we are far more wealthy than we normally consider, and that all wealth, even the smallest bit, is a blessing from the Lord.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: The other end of the guardrail is that wealth is a responsibility.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of scales as we have more wealth.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as we grow, and proverbially, as hard work brings riches, as we grow in those things, it brings a greater responsibility for them.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: All the money that you have is a big divine loan from the Lord.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in your bank account, everything that you have, all of your income, it has come from the Lord, and there's an expectation that you are a good steward with what you have.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Paul summarizes many of the things that can be done in the lives for those where money is no question.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope you can also see that money is still a gift, right?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can hold these things in concert.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to view those who have wealth as being evil because that's not how the Bible presents it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know how Paul paid for his missionary journeys?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: By a couple people who were loaded, okay?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is how he was able to travel around.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lydia, the person who was uh selling clothing and uh had this special die, this purple die, which was for royalty, she was loaded.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how she was the benefactor of Paul.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the early church, when you think about how they were able to gather together as a church, because they're not going to the synagogue and nobody's building churches yet, they're meeting in each other's homes.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know whose homes were big enough to house a church?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: They were rich.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Rich being rich is not something that is bad, but it is a responsibility.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let me summarize here.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: First guardrail, money is a blessing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: We need to recognize the blessings of the Lord and recognize that we are far wealthier than we would normally admit.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the things that the Bible says are good for contentment, such as food, clothing, and shelter, are the things that we have.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just because we don't have the wealth of Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett doesn't mean that we aren't wealthy.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: The other guardrail, money is a responsibility which scales with the amount of wealth that you have.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Though the gift of excess wealth is not given based on performance reviews, those who have excess wealth nevertheless have a greater responsibility to live in a manner that shows their role as a steward of God's resources.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: We combat the love of money most effectively when we store up treasures in heaven instead of on earth.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let me leave you with a final verse as we before we leave this morning that summarizes these things beautifully.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Hebrews 13, 5, keep your life free from the love of money, be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you where that quote came from.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 31, 6, which we'll actually go through the book of Deuteronomy this spring, but in Deuteronomy 31.6, Moses is speaking to the nation of Israel as they're about to go into the promised land.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were with us in the book of Numbers, you know that Moses isn't going to go into the promised land with the Israelites.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to die on the outside.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses has also walked with his people through 40 years of one amazing, God-honoring, and painful journey in the desert.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what he says to them as he looks into the promised land across the Jordan River, and as he speaks to the Israelites, and he says, Go into there and remember that the Lord says that he will never leave you or abandon you.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And keep in mind what is about to happen to the Israelites.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: They've had 40 years of hardship.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: They did.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Exodus from Egypt did come with wealth, okay?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is why they had gold on the journey.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: But for 40 years of walking through the desert and having to rely daily upon the manna that was on the ground, they have not known excess in many extremes, right?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: The world of wealth is not exceedingly familiar to them.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they are about to walk into the promised land that is known as the land of milk and honey, and about to be far more wealthy than their wildest imagination could ever bring to them.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Moses says to them is, remember, both in your poverty and in your excess, God says, I will never leave you or abandon you.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your life free from the love of money.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Be satisfied for what you have.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: These are the ways that we're supposed to handle finances.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you supposed to do with you, specifically your finances?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let us pray for these things.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to tell you exactly.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to talk to you about debt.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to talk to you about a 401k, I'm not trying to talk to you about how much you give or save or any of those things.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: What I am trying to say is that wealth is a blessing, and wealth brings responsibility.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we live in between those guardrails.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today, Lord, the one who gives good gifts.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we recognize, Lord, though, that you are not concerned with the number of zeros in our bank account.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, they don't come because of our obedience.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, if you give wealth, it is a gift.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: But God, what I desire that everyone would understand today is that you have brought wealth and riches to every single person, most of all through our relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: God, everything that we have in this life is a loan from you.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every single dollar that we have or we've spent, God, is something that you've given to us.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that we would handle our finances by living within these guardrails, Lord, that we would see how truly blessed we are, how truly fortunate we are, especially in comparison with the rest of the world.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: But God, also that we would not compare ourselves to those who have more money thinking that you have shorted us because we deserve more.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: God, you have given us more than we deserve.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, for those of us who have more wealth than we need, God, might you help us to be good stewards of it, understanding that it is for you that you have given us that blessing.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for all of these things.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the gift of the Spirit that walks with us and tells us with wisdom how we are to handle these day in and day out.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because, Lord, it is between us and you how we handle this blessing.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good week.