Sermon for July 26th (Stewardship of Money)

Do you remember the movie, “Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom”? Indiana Jones is an archeology professor who goes on adventures to find ancient artifacts. In this movie, he secretly enters inside an underground temple to the ominous beating of tribal drums to witness a very scary looking witchdoctor type man in the process of pulling out a still beating heart from a young man’s chest . . . the young man is scared out of his mind, of course, and is screaming and crying and beside himself trying to figure out how he can still be alive while his heart is now beating outside of his body and knowing that he is about to be lowered into this fiery pit as a sacrifice. Sometimes when people talk about money, I feel the same kind of fear and helplessness as that young man must have felt.

Ahhh! How can God expect me to give!! How can God expect me to live without my money!! You all got a little insert today from a Demotivational poster. The picture is of a temple, not unlike that temple Indiana Jones was in, and the caption is “Sacrifice: All we ask here is that you give us your heart.” It’s supposed to be funny, but I’ve always thought it was pretty profound as well. When money is brought up at church, it can feel as if God is trying to pull our still-beating hearts out of our chests!

And I don’t think that this analogy is that far off really. Except that Jesus said it in another way, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destory, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

Where your treasure is in this life? Have you been using the money you have according to your plan or according to God’s plan? I’d say most Christians think they are giving all they can. You plan on giving more when you make more money, or when things settle down, or when you’ve bought that “one more thing”, or when the economy gets better. But these things never happen . . . and so you do the next best thing . . . trying to look good enough to others. Lying not only to others (and yourself) but to God. The truth is you will start giving generously when you start working on your relationship with God pure and simple.

How does it feel for you when I talk about your money and your faith? If you feel like I’m going after your heart . . . you just might be right. God is going after your heart. In fact, that’s why God is into this giving thing in the first place: he wants your heart to be focused on him, his purposes and his ways instead of being focused on yourself and your plans.

How do you become free with money? Through a deeper relationship with God. Understanding what is God’s and what is yours. This isn’t really about your money . . . it’s about your heart. If you are making over $50,000 dollars a year and only putting $20 in the offering plate each week you don’t have a money problem—you have a trust problem—a faith problem. This isn’t about giving more or giving enough, it’s about placing your treasure in God’s hands and following His plans instead of your own with the money in your life. God says, “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” What kind of person are you going to be? Either God is telling the truth or He is lying. The choices you make with your money reflects the state of your heart and your faith in God’s Word.

Proverbs 11: 24 says this, “One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly (excessively), but comes to poverty.” This does not make any sense mathematically. You don’t have to have a real grasp of math to get this. If I have ten dollar bills and give them to ten different people freely, not being forced to do this, but freely, how much money do I have? None. That’s right. Except, that the book of proverbs says that giving freely means I will gain more. But if I had kept it, I wouldn’t be broke right now, right? Right. Mathematically, this is correct. But God knows something that accountants can’t put into their variables: the heart.

First of all, God isn’t against saving or investing. Proverbs 21:20 says, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” Only a fool spends all the money he works for. Jesus said, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower (or perhaps retire, I might add). Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicult him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’” If you plan on eating, traveling or paying for things when you are retired you ought to save for it. Charles Wesley, the great theologian and founder of the Methodist church once said, “Work all you can, save all you can and give all you can.”

But, according to proverbs, money has two dynamics. One is numerical and the other is cardiological-the logic of the heart. We all know that saving is important, but we can usually recognize when the mathematics make sense but the heart is out of whack. The most famous example of this is Ebenezer Scrooge in the Christmas Carol whose miserly love of money leaves him struggling through a nightmare of epic proportions when he realizes that his piles of cash aren’t going to mean a hill of beans at his death. He doesn’t have a money problem, he has a heart problem. And just as the proverb said, “when you withold unduly (excessively), you come to poverty.” Where is your heart? Is it tied up in your retirement fund? Your car payments? Mortgage? Or is it free to follow God’s purposes?

God calls us to keep our hearts free and our hands open. And you need to start now, not sometime in the future. The author Jon Acuff writes, “Sometimes it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that giving is something that will come later. And when we talk about later, it’s fun to imagine how generous future me is going to be. ‘Right now, giving doesn’t really fit into the plan. But in the future? Down the road? I’m going to be like Bill Gates! I’ll probably just rent a hot-air balloon and drop stacks of cash out of it. I’ll play Natasha Bedingfield music as I do, just to get people dancing and really enjoying the full depth of my amazing generosity. Gonna change the world, man, really change the world.’ But you know the truth about ‘future me’? He or she is incredibly slippery. Just when you think the future has finally arrived, something else comes up. Something more important or critical or . . . well, I can start giving later. Later is a make-believe land that never comes. Future me is a make-believe person who never really gives. The truth is, future me won’t know how to be generous with a lot unless present me learns how to be generous with a little.”

In the Acts story, Ananias and Saphira proabbly figured that, in the future, they’d be able to be more generous. But they NEEDED that extra money more now than they had originally thought. If we follow our plans, we’ll always find something we need more. But God says that if we follow His plans for His money, we’ll have all that we need to get through each day.

We read in Acts about what a community of people with free hearts looks like, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” The way you interpret this phrase makes a big difference. For example, any good socialist would think that that phrase sounded pretty good, “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” Except, in place of ME owning my possessions, they’d place the state. The state would now own everything I had and distribute the wealth as it saw fit. Or, perhaps, in place of the state, they would place someone else such as, my neighbor, saying that everything I own is in fact my neighbors to choose what to do with it. Both such cases have nothing to do with what God is saying here.

On the other hand, our beloved American capitalism isn’t actually the alternative God is suggesting either. Being a capitalist doesn’t make you somehow “Christian”. “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own.” Private ownership is not somehow the Godly alternative. So then, what is this referring to? The only way you can be free with your money is if God owns it. As long as we are focused on you owning your money, you will not be free with it. As long as the state owns it or you are forced to give it to the needy, you will be bitter. Only when you realize that your money is not your own are you free to give freely. As Acts goes on to say, “God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.” It’s much easier, even freeing, to spend someone else’s money. (Story of the 50 golden coins)

This week, take a moment of your time after this service, this afternoon or tomorrow, and ask God what he’d like you to do with His money. What are His plans? Keep asking and wait until you hear clearly what you are being called to do. Don’t focus on the money, focus on your relationship to God—on your heart. Stop worrying about how to spend your money and start paying attention to God’s plan for His money. “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” Amen.