Somewhere
along the line most of us have money problems. Sometimes there is too much
month left at the end of our money. Sometimes we are not sure how we will
handle a big bill or an unexpected expense. Sometimes we are not certain how to
handle our investments. Sometimes we are fearful of how to move from earning a
salary to a fixed income when we retire. The Bible has a solution to all of our
money problems. Believe it or not, the Bible has a lot to say about money.
Howard Dayton points out that 16 of the 38 parables speak about money. In the
gospels 1 out of 10 verses(288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money.
He has observed that the Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500
verses on faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money and possessions.
I believe
that there are three words which summarize the Bible's teaching on money and
they are: contentment, generosity and planned giving. If we learn how to live
three words, we will be able to be good stewards of what God has given us and
we will have a stress free approach to how we live with what is in our purse or
wallet.
I. Contentment
A. The Sin of Covetousness
The tenth
of the ten commandments, found in Exodus
20:17 is, "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or
donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Desiring what we
cannot have is identified as a sin and rather than getting trapped in that sin,
God invites us to be content. Hebrews
13:5 commands, "Keep your lives free from the love of money,
and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or
forsake you.”" In this verse, lack of contentment is identified as a sin because
it is an evidence of unbelief. We are commanded to be content because God is
taking care of us. If we are not content, it is because we do not trust in
God's provision.
Another
perspective on the sin of discontent is given in 1 Timothy 6:6-8 where we read,
"Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;
for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;
but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these." These
verses remind us that whatever we accumulate in this life is only for this
life. We will go into eternity with empty hands and that is the reason why we
came into this world with empty hands. We entered with empty hands and we
should therefore live content with what is provided for us. The implication of this is
that we are built for eternity and that gives us a powerful reason for
contentment. If this present world is our whole life, then it makes
sense to accumulate as much as possible, but it is not. Since we are built for
eternity and will live by the provision of our eternal benefactor, why spend a
lot of time gathering what will mean nothing.
I like the joke about the man who
was determined to take his possessions to heaven and gave instructions for his
possessions to be converted into gold bars and put in a bag and placed in his
hand when he died. As the story goes, he died and his instructions were carried
out and he came to the gates of heaven with his bag of gold in his hand. When
asked what was in the bag and why he wanted it, he showed the angel his bag of
gold, with a smug look on his face. When the angel saw what was in the bag, he
was rather puzzled and asked him “why do you want to take pavement into heaven.”
B. The Danger of Discontent
If we are
not content, we will get into a lot of trouble. I Timothy 6:9 , 10 says, "But those who
want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and
harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of
money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains."
If we want
to get rich, we put ourselves in the path of temptation. If we desire money we set
ourselves up to be jealous of what others possess. This can lead to a temptation
to cheat and steal. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of the movies
about crime are about people wanting to get rich and committing a crime because
they yield to those temptations.
Wanting to
get rich also leads to a trap. I have some experience trapping animals. We once
had woodchucks in our yard and I used a live trap to catch them. Of course they
would never have walked into the trap without bait and so a little lettuce worked
well. They were lured in by the lettuce and the trap snapped shut and they were
stuck. The worst trap related to wanting to get rich is that you are never
satisfied. When you get what you want, you always want more and are trapped in
a never ending pursuit of what does not satisfy.
Wanting to
get rich also plunges people into many foolish and harmful desires. The word "plunges"
illustrates a person being submerged and drowning. I don’t think there is a
more fitting illustration of this than gambling. People may get into it as a
fun game, but soon they want more and more and many of them lose fortunes,
jobs, families, respect and sometimes even their lives because they are
drowning in a sea of foolish and harmful desires.
Those who
yield to this desire pierce themselves with much pain because of love of money.
What kind of pain? There is the pain of a gambling addiction, the pain of never
having enough, the pain of dependence on things instead of God and the pain of
loss when we depend on things instead of God. One writer says that those who
desire riches are self torturers. So why would anyone want to do that to
themselves? Although radical compared to how we live, it is quite clear when we
examine this with spiritual eyes that the pursuit of godliness with contentment
is indeed great gain.
C. Learning Contentment
If we are honest, we all know that
this is true, but we still struggle with being able to actually be content. In I Timothy 6:8 it says that “if
we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” Who of us is content
with food and clothing? We all want much more than that.
Yet contentment
can be learned. Paul says in Philippians
4:11 , 12 ,
"Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be
content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what
it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of
being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in
need."
What is the
secret of learning contentment? The secret to contentment is found in Psalm 131:2 where it says, "But
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul
is like the weaned child that is with me." A child who is still feeding at
it's mother's breast cries until it is fed. A child who has been weaned does
not have the same ready source of food, but they are mature enough to know that
mother will provide and they are at rest. What a wonderful expression of
contentment. In my mind I have a picture of a child calmly in its mothers arms
knowing it is provided for. We will learn contentment when we live trusting in
God's care and resting in Him. That is the key to contentment.
II. Generosity
The other
key to freedom from money problems is generosity.
A. The Foundation for Generosity
The
foundation for generosity is the recognition that we live in a relationship
with God who is incredibly generous. In an article on giving by Gordon
MacDonald, in Leadership Journal, he said, "I pointed out that God's very
nature was a giving one, and I tried to show our people that God was actually
giving in the creation-story, giving in sending to us His Son, giving in
receiving us into his new redemptive community, and giving in providing us a
blessed hope. As God is a Giver in these ways, I said, he invites us to emulate
him in our own patterns of giving."
The Bible
repeatedly reminds us of God's generosity. James 1:17 says, "Every generous act of giving, with
every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with
whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." II Corinthians 9:15 expresses God's
generosity succinctly when it says, "Thanks be to God for his
indescribable gift!" What is the gift that God has given us? Above all, He
gave us the very expensive, greatly needed and extremely generous gift of His
Son, Jesus Christ, who made a great sacrifice in order to come into this world
to redeem us.
Because God
has been so generous to us and has provided so much for us and because we can
depend on His goodness, it is possible for us to be generous whether we have or
don't have. There is a wonderful example of generosity described in II Corinthians 8:1 , 2 where we read, "We want
you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted
to the churches of Macedonia; for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their
abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of
generosity on their part." The churches of Macedonia
When we
read these things it becomes clear that the foundation of generosity is trust
in God and hope in Him.
B. The Blessing of Generosity
Another
reason why we ought to be generous is because if we are generous, we will
experience a great deal of blessing.
Accountants
would tell us that the accounts must balance. What comes in must be equal to
what we have and what we have given away. But God's economy doesn't work that way.
God is so generous that we can never give more than God blesses. Proverbs 11:25 says, "A
generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water."
Just as God blesses a harvest of what is planted with much more than what is
planted, God also blesses those who are generous.
Yet we need
to understand that when we are generous, the blessings come back to us in more
than material ways. Timothy tells us that generosity is rewarded with life. I Timothy 6:19 says that
believers who are generous are, "storing up for themselves the treasure of
a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that
really is life." In this verse it doesn't say that we will become wealthy
if we are generous, but it does say that we will find life that is really life.
C. Learning Generosity
Naturally,
many of us are not generous but with such a foundation of generosity, and so
many blessings when we are generous, we will want to learn generosity.
One thing
the Bible says about learning generosity is that it is a fruit of the Spirit as
we read in Galatians 5:22 .
It is the Spirit of God who grows generosity in us. Are we allowing Him to grow
generosity in us?
Generosity
begins when we don't set our hope on the things we have, but on God. 1 Timothy 6:17 commands those
who are rich "…not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty
of riches, but rather on God…" I have wrestled with being generous. I am
always afraid that there will not be enough left for me if I am generous. What
has helped me learn generosity is to remember that God cares for me and to
trust in that care.
When we know how much God has done for us, it becomes much
easier to be generous.
We learn
how true this is from the time when the church began. One of the first things
that happened was that the believers had everything in common. We read in Acts 2:45-46 , "they
would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as
any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they
broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,"
Their apprehension of the wonder of God's gift in the gospel opened their
hearts to respond to God's generous gift of salvation and motivated them to
respond with great generosity.
As we learn
generosity we discover that it is not confined to money. Generosity must be a whole
life generosity. Yes, generosity gives to the poor, like the time I saw a needy
person filling up their car with gas, and someone else spontaneously paying for
it. But it goes beyond that and includes a generosity that values relationships
above things so that it is possible to say to other family members when the
inheritance is divided, “you take what you want first.” Generosity is also
demonstrated in the time we give to others.
The result
of generous living is that we make investments in the heavenly bank. When our
treasure is where our heart is and our heart is given to God, then our heart is
no longer focused on relying on our possessions, nor on worrying about whether
we will have enough. Our heart is focused on God because He is holding our
treasure.
III. Planned Giving
The
critical Biblical attitudes regarding money are contentment and generosity. It
is out of these attitudes that the way we handle our money is demonstrated. One
important and practical way in which we can express contentment and generosity
is through planned giving. We cannot just say, I will be content and I will be
generous. We also need to think wisely and strategically about how we will give.
A. Biblical Examples of Planned Giving
There are
many Biblical examples of planned giving. One early example was the offering
that was taken up for the building of the tent of meeting in the Old Testament.
A special project was initiated to build this temple in the wilderness and
everyone brought what they had, generously.
Both II Corinthians 8 & 9 focus on giving. They have to do
with a special offering which Paul was intending to gather from the churches in
Macedonia and Asia and bring
to the church in Jerusalem Jerusalem , but the fact of their
poverty required a response and Paul took it upon himself to gather a gift from
the churches who had benefited from the gospel which had come out of Jerusalem II Corinthians 9:5 and he
encourages them to think about what they will give in II Corinthians 9:7 . I Corinthians 16:1-4 speaks
about the same issue and there he encourages them to set aside some money from
what is earned every week. There we read, "Now concerning the collection
for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia Jerusalem
The example
given in this story and other Scriptures encourages us that it is good not only
to be generous and respond to a need as we see it, but also to have a giving plan.
B. How Much?
The giving
plan should include setting aside some money from each pay check and to give it
to the Lord, but how much do we set aside. Many people have followed the
principle of the tithe, which is ten percent, but 10% doesn't seem very
generous if our income is abundant. There are many ways of thinking about how
much to give. Some decide how much they need to live on and give whatever is
above that. That works well if we have learned the lessons of contentment, but
not so well if we haven't. Some give 10% as the portion of their planned giving
and then give much more out of a heart of generosity. Each of us must go to the
Lord and decide what we will give. II
Corinthians 9:7 gives some pretty good guidelines on how much to
give when it says, "Each of you must give as you have made up your mind,
not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
Please note particularly that God invites us to joyful giving. As we consider
this, we need to remember that everything belongs to God and when we bring an
offering to Him, we are merely returning to Him what He has given to us in the
first place. Giving is not an obligation which we pay back to God. It is an act
of worship in which we recognize His grace. The generosity of our giving will
arise out of the depth of our perception of His grace.
Conclusion
I heard
someone tell about a phone call they had made to their credit card company. In
the course of the conversation the credit card company was trying to sell the
person credit protection so that their balance would be paid if they ever
became sick or lost their job. The person refused the offer stating that they
always paid their balance each month. The sales person was surprised and even
envious of the person. This experience suggested to them that a majority of
people must be over extended and struggling with money problems.
There is no
reason to live like that. Many TV programs give good advice about wise
budgeting and living within your means. They are good suggestions, but the
Bible gives us direction that gets behind all money concerns and solves them on
a deeper level. Contentment, generosity and planned giving provide the
direction the Scripture gives. If we are content, we will not get into money
trouble by over extending our credit cards and we will be able to live happily within
our means. If we trust God, we will know that He will care for us. If we trust that
God is taking care of us, we will also be able to be generous with what we have
and reap the benefit of God's blessings and an eternal perspective on life.
Planned giving is one means of organizing our generosity and contentment. I
invite you to the peace that comes from contentment, generosity and planned
giving.
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