Managing Money

One day, a big tall Texan walked into the church office. He said to the secretary “I wanna see the head hog.”

The secretary was taken aback. So she replied “Excuse me, sir, we don’t refer to our pastor that way.”

The Texan said “I don’t care what you call the old boy, I wanna see the head hog.”

The secretary responded politely: “Let me rephrase that for you sir. Our pastor is well-respected in this community. He is a man of dignity and stature. We don’t refer to him by any nickname, let alone that of a pig.”

The Texan looked her straight in the eye as he pulled his checkbook out of his pocket. He said “Now listen here, lady. I am about to make a $50,000 donation to this here church. But first, I need to see the head hog.”

The secretary stood up and said “Just a minute, I think I hear the little porker in his office now.”

How true it is that whenever we talk about money, we get people’s attention! And today, I want to talk about money, so I hope that you’ll give me your attention.

Last week, we talked about the subject of stewardship. We discovered that stewardship has to do with a lot more in your life than just money. It has to do with how you take care of yourself, how you treat your body, how you look after your family, what you do with your gifts and talents, how you manage your time, and so forth.

Because all of these resources have been entrusted to us by God. We don’t own any of them. God owns everything. But he places these resources under our control so that we can manage them for him. That’s what stewardship is all about. A steward is someone who has been placed in charge of managing resources for the best interests of someone else.

And that is one of the fundamental things we need to understand about our relationship with God. God expects us to use everything that he has placed in our hands—our life, our time, our talent, our resources—so that we might accomplish his goals, that we might strive for his good, and that we might bear fruit for his glory.

So one of the most important questions in all of life is: How am I doing in this matter of stewardship? And you know, there is one really good way to find out.. There is one particular area of life that is a leading indicator of whether or not I’m being faithful as a steward and that is the area of money.

1. How I manage money reveals my faithfulness as a steward

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at his checkbook. Your wallet is a window into your soul. By simply tracking your spending over just a few months, you can tell what your central values are. You can discover your real priorities, because people spend money on that which is important to them.

That’s why Jesus spent so much time talking about the subject of money. One out of ten verses in the Gospels deals with the subject of money. Sixteen of the 38 parables Jesus spoke have to do with how we handle our personal possessions. In the whole Bible, there are over 400 verses on faith, over 500 verses on prayer, but over 2,000 verses on the subject of money and possessions.

Because how we relate to money reveals how we are relating to God. Jesus said that you either serve God or you serve money—there isn’t any in-between. You’re either on one side of the fence or the other. We either serve God and use money; or we serve money and use God.

Many years ago, a young man of 16 left his home in the country to seek his fortune. All he had was the shirt on his back. On his way to NY City, he met a canal boat captain who asked him about himself. The boy told him that his family was poor and that the only trade he knew was how to make soap. The old captain was a Christian. He knelt down and prayed for the boy. And then he told the lad “Remember to give back to God all that belongs to Him, and make an honest soap.”

When the young man reached the city, he got a job in a soap-making company. On the very first dollar he earned, and every dollar after that, he tithed one tenth to the Lord’s work. Soon he rose in the company to become a partner. Later he became the owner. The business grew, so he decided to give 2/10, then 3/10, and 4/10 to the Lord. Finally, he was giving all of his income to the Lord’s work. This man’s name was William Colgate, the founder of the Colgate-Palmolive Co. William Colgate understood the principle of stewardship.

Let’s turn to 2 Corinthians 9, which is an excellent passage on managing money.

The city of Corinth was located in Greece. And there was a church there. And the Christians in that church had promised the Apostle Paul that they would send a gift of money to the Christians in Jerusalem.

The church at Jerusalem was in bad shape. The believers there were poverty stricken. There were suffering from a terrible famine and they needed help desperately. So the Corinthian Christians had promised to help. They were wealthy; they were well-off financially and they could help.

But even though they had promised to help, they hadn’t followed through on that promise. Almost a year had gone by, and still no gift came from the church at Corinth. These Christians in Corinth, with all their money, had forgotten how to give. They were just sitting on it. They were spending it on themselves.

So Paul wrote to them to remind them of the promise that they had made. And in writing to them, he revealed several important principles about managing money. The first one, we’ve already seen…

1. How I manage money reveals my faithfulness as a steward

2. Giving is God’s plan for helping me to grow as a steward

The church in Jerusalem had a problem. They had a need. They were starving because there was a famine, just like the famine today in Ethiopia.

God said “I’ve got the answer to that problem. I’ve got the resources they need. But I’m not going to give those resources directly to those people in Jerusalem. (God could have intervened directly and given them food; he could have sent manna from heaven. But he didn’t do that.) He said “I’m going to entrust the resources that those people in Jerusalem need to the church at Corinth ‘way over here in Greece—so that they will give the resources to the people in Jerusalem and, in the process of giving, learn how to be stewards.”

Because giving is God’s divine plan for helping me to grow as a steward.

Question: What’s the hardest thing to do with your money? The hardest thing to do with your money is to give it away.

But learning how to give, and how to be generous in giving is something that is vitally important to your spiritual health. Because giving breaks the stranglehold of money on our lives.

We have a friend in Buffalo who has a pet python. This python is about 14 feet long. When they get that big, you’re not supposed to handle them alone, because they can just wrap themselves around your neck and kill you.

And money is like that too. If you’re not careful, it can wrap itself around your soul and choke the spiritual life right out of you. (And by the way, you don’t have to be wealthy for that to happen. Some of the poorest people I know are also some of the most materialistic.)

Jesus said in Mark 4, in the parable of the sower, that the Word of God is like a seed. And that seed can begin to grow in your life, but then the cares of this world—the deceitfulness of wealth, the desire for material things—can come up like a bunch of weeds and choke out the fruitfulness of the Word of God in your life. Materialism—the concern for money and things—can spiritually strangle you.

But the discipline of giving is God’s antidote to that happening. Because giving breaks the hammerlock that money puts on my life. When I give systematically and regularly, it reminds me that I am a steward of God’s resources. That this money is not mine—it is God’s, and he wants me to manage it for him. And giving it away is part of his plan.

So giving is God’s plan to help me grow as a steward. And that brings us to our next principle.

3. God entrusts me with resources so that I might use those resources to bless others

Look at verse 6…

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

And verse 10…

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Just as the Corinthian church needed to give to bless the Christians in Jerusalem, God gives me money so that I can sow it generously—so that I can use it to help others and to further the cause of Christ. And if I do that, I will reap a harvest of righteousness and my generosity will result in people giving praise and thanksgiving to God.

You see, God is trying to teach me to be like him. That is his goal. That is his aim. God wants to make my character like the character of Jesus. And Jesus was always giving. He wasn’t selfish. He was always using his power and his resources to bring blessing to others. And that’s the kind of person God wants me to become. And there have been many Christians who have learned to be like that.

John Wesley was a great Christian leader who lived back in the 1700’s in England. He was the founder of the Methodist church. But what a lot of people don’t realize about John Wesley was that he was also a very wealthy man. In fact, at one time, he had one of the highest earned incomes in England. When it came to money, John Wesley had a three-part philosophy:

1. Make all you can - he was a hard worker, and there’s nothing wrong with working hard and making money.

2. Save all you can - Wesley made £1,400/yr. but he lived on just £30. He lived frugally.

Now a lot of Christians stop right there with those first two principles. They believe in the Protestant work ethic, and they believe in saving money and living frugally. But if you stop there, you become nothing more than a wealthy miser! John Wesley didn’t stop there.

3. Give all you can - Wesley learned the grace of giving. He gave his money to the Lord’s work to help people in need.

And unless we learn to do that, we will fail Stewardship 101. God gives us money so that we might in turn use it to bring blessing to others.

4. The more I use the resources I manage for God’s purposes, the more resources God entrusts to me

Look at verses 10 and 11 again…

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

In Luke 6:38, Jesus re-iterated this principle. He said…

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

When I give generously to bless others; when I give to the Lord’s work and to the Lord’s cause, I am putting myself in a position where God can further bless me. Because I’m being faithful as a steward. And God’s principle is that when a steward proves himself to be faithful with little, he will entrust him with more.

God blesses the giver so that he can in turn become an even better giver. God wants me to become a pipeline, not a pond; a channel, not a reservoir of blessing.

There’s a Christian businessman in Ohio whose name is Stanley Tam. He is the founder of United States Plastics. Stanley Tam literally made God the owner of his business. He set up a foundation to channel the profits of his company into supporting missionaries overseas. And God blessed him. His company grew so fast that the IRS audited it for ten straight years. They couldn’t believe that there wasn’t something fishy going on!

There was a couple in our church in Pennsylvania who knew Stanley Tam personally. They have been to his home in Ohio. He lives in a modest house on a small piece of property. Yet Stanley Tam supports 457 missionaries on the foreign field. That man is a channel of blessing.

Instead of being a slave to the almighty dollar, Stanley Tam learned to be a steward of the Almighty God.

Now you may not own a company. You may not have much money at all. But the key question is not: How much money do I have? but What am I doing with the money that I have? A lot of people say “Oh I’ll get around to giving when I have a lot of money.”

No you won’t!

Remember the widow in the Temple? She put two coins in the offering box. A rich man came along and deposited a whole bag of money in the offering box. Yet Jesus said “That woman is a better steward than that rich man. Because she gave all that she had to the Lord.”

It isn’t how much money you’ve got. It’s what you’re doing with the money that you’ve got.

5. A faithful steward gives deliberately, freely, and cheerfully

Look at verse 7…

Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

So many Christians approach this matter of giving haphazardly. We give on the basis of what happens to be in our pockets at the time. Or we give in response to emotional pressure. We give to causes we have not carefully checked out, simply because they use the right marketing approaches to press our buttons. So our giving ends up being impulsive, haphazard, and careless.

There are a lot of worthy Christian causes and organizations out there. And all of them are competing very fiercely for the giving dollar. But I believe in giving to the Lord’s work first and foremost through the local church. The local church is where you and your family are involved and serve and where you get fed. When you have a crisis and you need some help, you’re not going to get it from that TV preacher, you’re going to get it from your local church.

So it’s imperative to support the local church and to support it in such a way that it’s ministry can go forward. There are a lot of things that we want to do here at Erindale—a lot of ministries that we need to introduce, a lot of improvements that we need to make—we need to move the Chapel up to the next level. But we will not be able to do that unless our people fully support Erindale Bible Chapel in giving. Because ministry takes money.

One woman put it well. She said “I pay my bills where I get my groceries.” If you are a part of Erindale, then this church ought to be #1 on your giving priority list. And I say that without apology.

As a steward, you ought to be giving systematically and regularly. You pay your mortgage that way. You pay your utility bills that way. You pay your taxes that way. You should be giving that way. Because if you don’t plan your giving systematically, then your giving will be haphazard, sporadic, and meager. And you know what they say: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

We are managers of God’s money, and He’s going to ask us to give an account of what we did with it.

Stewardship studies have shown that in most evangelical churches like ours, 80% of the budget is contributed by about 20% of the people. That means that 80% of the people are only giving 20% of the budget. In a typical evangelical church, about half of the congregation gives a grand total of just 5% of the finances.

You know what that tells me? It tells me that not a lot of people in our churches are taking this issue of stewardship seriously. And as a result, there are a whole lot of Christians who are missing out on the blessing of God in their lives.

To help His people make giving systematic and deliberate, God instituted the tithe in the Old Testament. He said “You want a plan? I’ll give you a plan. Take 10% of all that you earn and give it to me. And see if you can’t go farther on the 90% with my blessing than you can on the 100% without.

Let me tell you a very personal story to illustrate how this works. It’s about my son Jonathan. He’s over in Africa at the moment, so I’m sure he won’t mind me telling this story about how he learned the principle of tithing.

A couple of years ago, we were living in Pennsylvania. J was a freshman at college, he was working a part-time job, and he didn’t have a whole lot of money. But we were telling him that if you’re faithful in this matter of giving to the Lord, God will take care of your needs.

It became obvious that J needed his own car. So every day, he scanned the classified ads, looking for a car. He couldn’t afford much of a car. One day, he received a $300 paycheck from his part-time job. Naturally, he wanted to set it aside to buy a car.

But he felt convicted about this matter of tithing. And it was a real struggle for him to take $30 out of that paycheck and put it in the offering plate at church. But J has a heart for the Lord and he became convinced that he should do it, knowing as he did that it would just mean that he would have that much less money to spend on a car.

So Sunday came and that’s what he did. He put $30—his tithe—in the offering.

That very evening, a man in our church came up to me and said “Hey pastor. Do you know anybody—a college student perhaps—who could use a car?” I told him that J was looking for a car. So he said “That’s wonderful. One of our relatives just died and we are going to be getting an inheritance. And we’re going to use part of that inheritance to buy a new car. And we decided that we would like to just give our old car away to a student who really needs it. So I’d like to give our car to J.”

You see how God takes care of us when we honor him with our finances?

In the book of Haggai, God had to rebuke his people because they were neglecting to honor the Lord with their money. They were not supporting the Lord’s work and the Lord’s house. The temple was in disrepair, but they were living in beautiful houses. They were not living as stewards. Instead they were spending all their money on themselves. And that’s why they were not prospering financially. Because God wouldn’t honor them for living that way.

God said to them in Haggai 1:4:

Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?

“Look at yourselves. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. You’ve got holes in your pockets because you’re not honoring me with your finances.”

Does that describe you?

One of the greatest problem areas I see in Christian homes and families today is finances. So many Christians are living chaotic financial lives. And it’s because they are not living as stewards, and that is revealed by the fact that they are not giving biblically.

The first thing that such people say is “Giving? You’ve got to be kidding! I can’t afford to give!” Listen—whatever your income, or whatever your station in life—the Bible says “You can’t afford NOT to give!”

You cannot afford to go it alone, without the blessing of God on your finances.

Why don’t you put God to the test? He invited you to!

In this matter of giving, why don’t you start small—take 1% of your income—and give that to God this month. And then watch what God does. At the end of the month, take out your pencil, and sit down and figure out if you’re further ahead or further behind financially. And if you’re further ahead, increase your giving to 2% next month. And at the end of that month, make another evaluation. And if you’re further ahead, then raise it to 3%. And keep doing this until you get your giving up to 10%.

God is real. And one of the areas that he wants to prove himself to be real is in the area of your finances. God will prove to you that it is better to have his blessing on your financial life than to try to live on your own, and manage your money by yourself without his blessing.

God said in Malachi 3:10…

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

He said “Test me”. Are you willing to do that?

You’re never going to grow spiritually until you do.

________

It might help you to make that commitment public… (altar call)

“God, from this day foreward, you can count on me to be your faithful steward in this matter of managing money.”