5 Biblical Principles for Managing Money

Let's go to Luke chapter 16 because Jesus makes some statements here that causes confusion.

In fact, it's very odd. It is not normally what he does with a parable. He gives a parable and then gives the meaning of it is not at all what you think. It's not where you think he's going. There's an obvious meaning to this parable, but he gives a different meaning or draws a different lesson from it. In verse one, he also said to his disciples, there was a certain rich man who had a steward and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. Okay, so we have a rich man. He has a manager. That's what a steward was over his business. And he finds out the man's cheating him and wasting his money and being dishonest. So he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship for you could no longer be steward. In other words, we're going to look at the books now. Okay, we're going to sit down and look at the books and you are suspended until we find out what's really going on here. Then the steward said within himself, what shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig and I'm ashamed to beg. Okay, what am I going to do? I'm not going to do manual labor. That's beneath me. And I'm not going to go on welfare. I mean, to put it in modern terms, because that's beneath me. So what am I going to do? I have resolved what to do. Then when I'm put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. Who is they here? It's the other business owners that are doing business with this rich man. So he called every one of his master's debtors to him, verse five. And he said to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. So he said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly and write 50. In other words, he goes and he fixes the books. I'm still the steward. I still have some power here, which he didn't, but I'm going to write in my master's name. I'm going to represent my master that I just cut your debt in half. Wow. You know, because just because I'm your bunny, just because I'm a good guy.

And he says in verse six, and he said, a hundred measures of oil. So to him, take your bill and sit down and quickly write 50.

Then he said to another, how much do you owe? And he says, a hundred measures of weight. Take your bill and write down 80. So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. Now wait a minute. Okay. The master here. So we're looking at this. Okay. We get this. The master is Christ. The unjust steward is a bad minister, a bad person that's administrating what he's doing. And he goes around and he cheats him.

Right? That's what you think from this. That's what you draw from this. And that's not what Jesus says at all. In fact, the point he's making here isn't clearly stated in the parable at all. You can't find the meaning of this parable in the parable. He says, so the master commended the unjust steward, verse eight, because he had dealt shrewdly for the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.

He says, you know, when it comes down to dirty and down business, people in the world are so much better than we are. He doesn't mean that as a insult. He just means as a reality.

But now he wants to prove he wants us to understand something. And that's why this parable is different and how Christ takes it or he takes it. I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon that when you fall or fail, they may receive you into everlasting home. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Make friends? Now he's going to explain this a little bit. Okay. So we can't take that too far. What he's saying here is learned to use whatever you have properly.

Whatever has been given to you, he's not saying go out and be dishonest, right? If he's saying that, that goes against all these other teachings. He's not going out and saying be a cheat like in a liar like this guy, because that goes against all his other teachings. What he's saying is understand your physical things that are given to you. And all of us are given different amounts of physical things, right? I've known people who've worked all their lives and become a millionaire and lost all overnight.

I've known people who've worked and saved and end up retiring with a lot of money, but had to struggle their whole lives. Everybody has a different experience here with our stuff and our money. He's saying whatever you have here, you learn to use this and here's why. He was faithful on what is least, is faithful also in much. And he was unjust in what is least, is unjust also in much. Now the worker was unjust.

Now he goes back, okay, this man was unjust. He's not saying he's just. He's saying, but what I'm telling you is whatever you have, what you do with that determines, it shows a certain amount of what your character is. How we use what is given to us. Because remember the subject here is wealth, money. What we do with it, how we use it, is important in a spiritual sense.

Not how much you have, but what you do with what you have. He says, therefore, if you have not been faithful with unrighteous mammon that can be translated money, it actually, it'd be more strictly translated wealth. So unrighteous money, he doesn't say righteous money, he doesn't say wealth is necessarily righteous.

Actually wealth can be righteous or unrighteous depending on how it's used. He says, but if you take the stuff that has no eternal value, no matter what we have, it has no eternal value, right? Whatever physical thing we have has no eternal value. He says, take this, take this wealth that you have, this mammon, this money, that when you fail, they may receive you to everlasting home.

I'm sorry, verse 11. "'Therefore, if you have not been faithful in unrighteous mammon, who will commit to you your trust the true riches?'" God looks at how we manage physical things, and it tells him something how he'll manage, how we'll manage in the Kingdom.

See, physical things, what we do with them. I remember some people from Africa who came into the church, and one of the ministers said, he went to their house, which was a hut, basically made out of straw. And he said it was obvious that the woman had swept the dirt floor and had a rug laid out because a guest was coming. And he said, they took care of what they had, a dirt floor, but it was swept and a rug laid out. And he said it made him feel so humble to realize what they did with what they had was amazing, and may actually be more appreciated by God than what we do, and we're so wealthy. "'And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is not your own?'" He said, why should God give us things if we're not even faithful in the physical things we have? And then he sums up though to make sure here that people don't say, well, he's just saying it's good to be dishonest here. That's not what he's saying. "'No servant can serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in money.'" Now, that is actually a strange concept in the society we live in, because basically, we all are... what? We talk about the economy. What is the economy? It's the ability to work, and the ability to own, the ability to buy, and have a better house, a better car, and better clothes, and better food. We are a nation that's driven by wealth. Now, once again, wealth of itself isn't evil, but there's actually a lot in the Bible about being driven by wealth. In the scripture, there are some wealthy people. Abraham was actually a very wealthy man, very righteous man. Elijah was a very poor man, very righteous man. Many of the people in the Bible were just sort of average people. I mean, Jesus was born into the house of a carpenter, which would have been what we would call middle class today. He was born into a wealthy family, but others were. And so, he's making a point here that when we understand we can't live our lives totally dedicated to getting wealth and stuff, because eventually, that'll be our master. So, what I want to do today is talk about five important characteristics we must develop and how we use our money. How do we approach and how do we use our money? These are character issues. This isn't how you, you know, I'm not going to get very, here's how you should spend your money. No.

What we're going to talk about is the character issues that involve our wealth, whatever it is, whatever wealth you have. And of course, compared to much of the world, most of us in this room are incredibly wealthy.

I mean, just owning a piece of property, having a house, having air conditioning, having a car. I mean, we are, we don't realize sometimes, compared to much of the world, what we have. The first point is in Luke chapter 12.

And another parable that we have to work through here to see what Christ is saying. This is what sets this up, and it's important to know what sets up what He says next. Then from one of the crowds said to Him, teacher, tell my brother to divide his inheritance with me. Now, there were inheritance laws in ancient Israel. Inheritance was very important because inheritance was how the family land stayed together, the family wealth stayed together. It was passed on from generation to generation. So obviously here we have something that has to do with the law. Something you take to the elders and the gates or maybe to a rabbi. Jesus is seen as this sort of, you know, traveling rabbi. And rabbi, my brother is cheating me out of my inheritance. You think Jesus would sit down and say, let's look at the law and decide what we should do. And that's not what He does. But He said to him, man who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you, He said, I am not here to arbitrate these kinds of things. You need to go to another rabbi to do that. That's not what I'm here for. And He said to them, now He gets down to the heart of the problem, probably with both brothers, because He doesn't say which one here. So I would guess it's both brothers. He said, take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which He possesses. We have to be careful about coveting. And coveting is built into our system. I know I've mentioned this before. I got to where I couldn't write radio commercials anymore because I was just creating coveting. And you knew how to do it. You knew how to motivate people to do things by writing commercials. And if there wasn't a need, you create a need. There has to be a need. There has to be a reason. So for your product to be new and improved, all you have to do is change the color of the package. And now it's new and improved, and your clothes will be whiter than ever. Tied. Now in the new orange package.

And so everything's designed to even create a need if it's not there, because you have to sell more and more. Now once again, there's nothing wrong with having a product and selling it. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, what's the driving force behind everything? And he says covetousness is what we have to be careful of. Then because of this, he gives a parable.

And he spoke a parable to them saying, the ground of a certain man yielded plentifully. Now he didn't say that was a sin. This is a rich man who, of course, they were in the agricultural society. Most people worked in agriculture. There were businesses. There were manufacturing. There was actually construction crews. But most people worked in agriculture. So this made... He doesn't say it's wrong for him to have abundance, but he says, and he spoke a parable... Oh, I'm sorry, verse 17. And he thought within himself saying, what shall I do since I have no room to store my crops? So I said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Now you'd think, well, that's not a bad thing, right? Prepare? Prepare for retirement? Kim and I are preparing for retirement.

Trying to save money, trying to pay off the house, trying to do things we have to do, because we'll take a substantial cut in pay when we retire. That's going to happen. And it will happen sometime in the next... I don't know. They expect us to work until we're 75, but sometime... Of course, the idea is you'll die before that. But anyways, at some time, we're going to retire. And we have to prepare for that. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, we're supposed to do that. We're going to talk about in the Bible study a few practical aspects of managing money. But there's a problem in his approach. Verse 20, but God said to him, fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Whose will those things be which you have provided? It's like the old argument. And every time I've heard this, I've laughed and asked the question. There's just people saying, the winner is the one who has the most in the end. Well, what's the end when I die? If I have the most when I die, I'm the winner. And I always ask, what do you win? I don't understand. I would like that too. What is it I win if I die and I have the most? Well, no, you have the same fate as the guy that had nothing. You went in the same place, in the ground. The problem here is that he did not have God involved in his plans. Verse 21, so as he who lays up treasure for himself, it is not rich towards God. I'll make a comment here, rich towards God. Don't think this means if I pay my tithes, I'm being rich towards God. This is more than just paying your tithes. I mean, yes, we are to pay our tithes, but it's not a health and wealth gospel. There are people who pay their tithes all their lives and never get rich. Does that mean God was displeased with them? No. That means they just never got rich in this life.

There's people who live their whole lives in poverty, and they tithe faithfully. And it doesn't mean God didn't bless them. What he's saying here, we have to give our lives to God. And yes, that does include tithing.

But that's really not the point. His point is, it's everything we give to God. And he goes on here in this next part, which is actually given in Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, although he probably gave it more than one time. It probably was sort of a staple of his teachings. Verse 22, he says, and he said to his disciples, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life that you eat with a body, which you put on it. Life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. You know, he goes on in this section that says, how can you worry yourself into having things, anxiety, worry? He said, that's the problem. We must trust in God to take care of us. Now, God doesn't promise to always give us what we want. He only promises to give us what we need. He doesn't promise to always give us what we want. Now, every once in a while he gives us what we want. Every once in a while he gives us a blessing and we're like, wow, you know, that was beyond what I thought. But he does promise to give us what we need. We may, I've seen people have not enough to eat who were followed God and were faithful to God. I've never seen someone who followed God's starve to death. That's a difference. I've seen people need, I've never watched a person starve to death. God always gave them food. God always gives us what we need and we have to trust in that, which is the whole point here. That's why he says in verse 29, do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. He's not saying not to work for those things. We're actually commanded to work. He doesn't say it's bad to have those things or even desire those things. I mean, that's part of what we are as physical human beings, but to seek them as the center of our lives and not have God as the center of our lives. For all these things the nations of the world seek after and your father knows that you need these things, but seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. In other words, you're going to be taken care of.

That's hard to grasp because we don't want to just be taken care of. We want to physically thrive.

I mean, I want to physically thrive and you do, right? And sometimes God gives that blessing to us. In this room, even though the ones here that are really having a hard time financially, you're physically thriving compared to most people in the world. But we live in a country that tells us in an economy that tells us it's never enough. The health and wealth gospel is a false gospel. It is a lie.

It's just a lie. If you pay your ties and give money to the preacher, you get money and wealth and health. No, that's not true. This is all a personal relationship with God. So the first thing we have to learn is to trust God to supply your needs. And sometimes it's our wants. I think everybody here could talk about some time when you know God gave you a blessing, multiple times that God has given you a blessing, a physical blessing.

And then you make a talk of a time where it didn't work out, but you still got what you needed. The second point is honesty. What are we talking about here? We're talking about my wealth. That's right. How do we obtain wealth and what do we do with it? To a great extent, is the greatest test on our honesty. How honest are we in making our money? How honest are we in spending our money?

Let me read a couple proverbs from the book of Proverbs, because the book of Proverbs talks about this a lot. I'm only going to mention here a few verses. I'm encouraging all of you to study proverbs over the next week and look up how many proverbs there are about the subjects we're talking about today. Proverbs 21.6 says, getting treasure by a lying tongue is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death. Pretty strong, isn't it? Pretty strong. Getting treasures by a lying tongue is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death. Proverbs 13.11, wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase. That's why we have to be real careful about get rich quick schemes. Most of the time, a few people get rich in those things and all the other people pay for it. That's what happens. Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes. We have to get very, be very wary of those things. When you enter into a contract to pay people money or you offer your services in exchange for money, anytime we are exchanging money for services or money for money investments, we must be honest or we're sowing the seeds of ending up in poverty because God will end us, end us, let us end up in poverty. In one form or another, you'll end up there. So, honesty is a core issue and that's as an employer, read all the scriptures, especially in Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, that talk about God says, if you cheat your employee, he takes it personally and he will deal with you. If you're an employer, that should scare you to death. He also commands that if you're an employee, you have to give that employer, I mean, you have to give them a full day's work. You have to work hard and give them what they ask because they're paying you. And he considers that a spiritual issue. The employer and the employee, how they act is in the... This is about what? The transfer and gaining of wealth, that's right. That's what it is. Both are trying to make their money, has to be honest.

So that means Christian characters involved. A third point is generosity. I tell this story a lot, but it really affected me years ago when I first read it. It was about the first woman millionaire in the United States. It was in the 1800s. Her name was Hedy Green. And Hedy played the stock market and bought and sold businesses and became the first woman millionaire. Back when a million dollars, I don't know what it'd be today. She might be a billionaire today. Hedy wanted to make that money. So she didn't believe in generosity at all, even towards herself. She had one black dress and a few changes of underwear. Every day she'd wear the same black chest and just change underwear until they wore out and then she'd go buy another black dress and some more underwear. She had some kind of night clothes, but I mean publicly, that's all anybody ever saw wearing. She dressed the same. She looked the same. She never spent money on anything. She worked in a cramped space in a dump. It was a dump so that she didn't have to buy nice furniture. She absolutely lived like a person in poverty. In fact, her son needed an operation on his leg, which the doctor said they all believed it would be successful. She wouldn't pay for it. So they'd cut his leg off.

She died in 1916, the world's wealthiest woman and probably the most unhappy person on the face of the earth. Nobody liked her. She never helped anybody. She never gave to the poor. She was never generous. Every business deal, she won it. She got the best out of every business deal and she died living in poverty so she could have money in a bank.

Generosity.

Produces more happiness than stinginess, but that goes against human nature. Generosity is a character trait of God. He is generous with us all the time. He's always generous with us. The book of Proverbs says, Proverbs 1431, he who oppresses the poor reproaches his maker, but he who honors him has mercy on the needy. I want you to understand God says when we oppress the poor, we are doing something that offends God.

Proverbs 22, 9, he who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor. Proverbs 21, 13, whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard. Proverbs 29, 7, the righteous considers the cause of the poor, but the wicked does not understand such knowledge.

There are times when there are people who are poor because they choose to be poor. We're actually going to talk about that in a little bit. That's something different. But a lot of people end up in poverty just because either they don't have skills. A lot of people end up in poverty because they have mental illness. A lot of people end up in poverty of things that's not their own fault. Happens in the church, happens outside the church. We can't judge every person that's poor that it's their fault. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. We have to be very careful about that because according to the Scripture, we are supposed to have a mercy on poor people. Not all of them. We'll see that. But sometimes we go to the other extreme. We have mercy on none of them. Mercy on none of them. Generosity is a simple approach that says, I give what I can to whoever I can. And it's, you know, in the world we live in, giving seems so empty because you can't solve anything. I have this memory of buying a cup of coffee. We were in San Antonio. We'd just come out of the, where there was a concert. We'd just go onto a concert, a symphony concert in this beautiful hall. And we came out and there was a Starbucks there and it was very cold. And there was a woman all wrapped up in a blanket, just sitting there in front of Starbucks. And I said, are you cold? And she said, yes. I said, would you like a cup of coffee? She said, yes. I bought her a cup of coffee. And when I handed it to her and looked into her eyes, it was just vacant. And she wasn't, she was old. She just sort of, she's mentally ill, I don't know, maybe dementia. I don't know what it does. Just sitting there on the street. Now I can't save her, but I look forward to the time when Christ will be here. Our government can't, it can't fix this. These are all fixable problems if you had good government, but we'll never fix these things.

And it's like, wait a minute, is this her choice? I don't think so. Does she have the ability to get out of it? No. Is anybody help her? No. She can go down to the homeless shelter tonight. Maybe if she can get in, because they're full all the time. Ray Frost, the man that we've rented this hall from for the couple of years we've been here, he actually used this place as a homeless shelter for a while. Once a week, he would bring in all the homeless people in this area, bring them in here, give them a meal, let them get cleaned up and have a place that, I think it was once a week, give them a place to rest. He had to stop doing it because of two things. One, they trashed the place. And two, he realized he couldn't really help them. He said one time there was a woman he had talked to, she'd stopped using drugs and they found out she wasn't here the one night and they found out she was out here under a bridge with a couple men. So he and one of the deacons went to get her, or elders, I forget, to get her. The two men confronted them and said, you try to take her, basically we'll kill you. He said no, she's coming with us. And she says, I don't want to. This is actually the life I want. He said he came home and he was just devastated, or came back here was devastated. The next day he got a call from the police, they found her dead underneath. She'd been murdered by the two guys. He said, I couldn't do it anymore. Now if you know Ray Frost, he's a big heart. He says, I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't help people that I couldn't help. I couldn't save people that I can't save. And all that I was doing was ending up with a trashed place. But you know, he didn't say they're all meaningless, useless people. He just said, I can't help them. There is a hopelessness if we don't know Christ is coming back. Or we can write them all off as meaningless people. And the Bible doesn't let us do that. It doesn't let us do that. The fourth thing is we have to have a work ethic. It means that working hard to produce, to help, whatever your job is, it doesn't matter what it is. I've had people say, I've actually had people come to me and say, what kind of job can I get so that I'll get a better reward in the kingdom? I don't know. What are you doing now? Oh, I'm a car mechanic. Yep, that'll work. I'm a janitor. Yep, that'll work. Well, shouldn't I be like in charge of a business or something? I said, why? The character traits don't matter what you're doing. It's how you're doing it. It doesn't matter. It's not like God says, well, in the kingdom, I only want men who at least reach the level of a management over 20 people. Then they can be in the kingdom. That's not a qualification at all. There's no qualification in the Bible says that's important. Well, I'm just a house cleaner. Okay. That's what you need to be in the kingdom. It's who you are. It's the character we build. Generosity is a character trait. Trusting God is a character trait, right? Work ethic is a character trait. We can learn these things no matter what we're doing, no matter what we're doing. So we shouldn't feel that somehow God, holds me in less importance because my job isn't as quote unquote as important to somebody else's. That's not how he sees it.

That means when we work for somebody, if we don't do the job, give them a full energy to do the job the way they want it. We're stealing their time. It's actually theft. Look what Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3.

Boy, you thought I was going to tell you how to make money today.

No, we're learning how to be Christians today. We're learning how to take filthy mammon, unrighteous money.

Look what Jesus said. We're learning how to use that in a righteous way. That's what we're doing. It's all part of who we are as our character. 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 6. But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. Now, I find it interesting. He doesn't say to disfellowship them in other places he says there is. He says, just ignore these people. You think, what? A congregation ignores somebody that's in the congregation, you know, withdraw from them? And I don't know if he means disfellowship because he definitely says to remove people in certain situations. That's not what he says here. He says, we withdraw from them. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us for we were not disorderly among you. What do you mean, disorderly? You know, causing trouble.

Nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge but worked with labor and toil night and day that we may not be a burden to any of you. In other words, he says, I want you to remember my example. So now he's getting into the problem. He says, when I was there, Paul says with his companions, Luke might have been with him at that time or a couple of the other men that traveled with him. He says, if you remember, you know, we preached the gospel. We visited you. We talked to you. We taught you, but we also worked to make our own money. We did not take tithes from you.

And of course he was a tentmaker. So he was taking care of the church in Thessalonica and he was making his own money. Not because, verse nine, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. He says, yeah, we had authority to say we should receive pay for the gospel for being the minister here. But he said, we didn't take that authority. We didn't ask. We didn't receive money because we had to show you how to live. We had to be an example to you because there's such a problem in the church in Thessalonica. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. So the church is supposed to take care of the poor within the church. And we try to do that. There'll always be poor among us. And even if you're okay right now, you may lose a job in six months for now be poor, right? But he says, if a person is poor on purpose, because they play video games all day, and they just like, you know, getting what other people have, and they refuse to go out and get a job, he says, then don't give them anything because it's a character problem. And his point in proving it was, look at me, I could have received money from you and I did not. I refuse to take money from you. I worked all day, you know, or worked all day making tents and all night preaching to you all or whatever. He's working long days. Verse 11, for we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. In other words, all they do is cause problems in the congregation because they don't have anything better to do. Now, those who are such, we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. You know, you can have a meal, you know, you can have a steak meal, and you can have a meal that, you know, bread and some pasta or something. And if you earned it, it's a good meal. If you earned it, it's a good meal. Or if someone gave it to you because you're in need of help, it's a good meal. If someone gave it to you because you're sick, it's a good meal. If you're just getting it because you're trying to literally live in laziness and just take from others, then Paul says, just don't give it to them. That seems sort of harsh. No. If you're going to, at some point, we all have to stand up and work to do the best we can. And if you're doing the best you can, everybody else will help you along. Right? If you're doing the best you can, everybody else will help you along.

I always go back to when Kim and I were first married and didn't have anything. We're both making minimum wage. I needed a car, and my uncle had a car. And he said, well, you know, you want this car? I said, I can't afford that car. And my dad said, I'll tell you what I'll do. He said, he wants some cabinets put in his house. He said, he can't do it. So I'll go put the cabinets in. He'll give me the car. I'll give it to you. And you pay me. Okay. So I'm making these little payments on the car. And then I finally made enough money to get a nice used car instead of a car that was breaking down constantly. And I went to dad said, well, I'll pay you off. He says, I got a better deal for you. He says, I want that car. Because he fixed it up. And it was like, wow, I wish I'd have kept it now. I mean, he had this, you know, great car that he fixed up. We all helped each other. Right? None of us had a lot at the time, but we all helped each other.

A work ethic is so important. That doesn't mean we don't help. It doesn't mean sometimes we're not down. We are. That's part of life. That's part of life. But laziness is not acceptable. A couple of Proverbs about laziness, Proverbs 13, 4, the soul of a sloggard desires and has nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. Proverbs 24, verse 30 through 34, he says, I went by the field of a slothful person. You've seen sloths, how slow they move. Solomon would always compare lazy people to sloths moving real slow. And he basically says, yeah, you'll have nothing if you're a sloth.

The last point is contentment in the ups and downs of life. And life is always ups and downs. You know, you think you have everything, everything's financially fine, and then your air conditioner goes out in your house. And they come and say, oh, that's eight grand. Right? You finally have all your bills paid off and the transmission goes out in the car. You think I'm out of debt. I have no money to pay for the transmission. And you're in debt. I mean, this is what happens in life. And 1 Timothy 6, Paul once again talks about how we have to stay focused on the spiritual, even in physical. I had thought about doing this sermon and put it down to do it this week, months ago. Then I was going to change it. And then with the election and everything, oh, everybody's talking about the economy, the economy, the economy. You know the truth is, there's no way to tell what the economy is going to be like a year from now. There's too many, there's too many wild factors involved here.

There's no way to know what this economy is going to be. Now, some people are saying, I've read some economists saying it's going to collapse now. Others are saying it's going to get wonderful and grow. Others are saying it's going to stay flat. The truth is nobody knows. We live in an uncertain world, right? We always have. Always live in an uncertain world. But we're trusting in God, our first point, to take care of us. We also then have to be content to be in whatever state we're in at the time. First Timothy 6 and verse 6.

Now godliness, in other words, being like God with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and in certain we will carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these we shall be content. Now, he's not saying that we should stay that way if we have the chance to do better. We all enjoy having some physical things. We all enjoy being able to have better food. He's not against... He made us physical. He gave us a physical world to live in. But it's our focal point here that sometimes we can make ourselves unhappy because we don't have this, that, or the other when happiness isn't that thing. Happiness is the state of mind because of our godliness. Verse 9 says, But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, of which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." In other words, it's possible to actually lose out on our salvation because we're greedy. It's all how you approach it. Buying a brand new card, you say, I can afford a Mercedes. I don't think anybody has a Mercedes here so I won't make... I'm not making fun of anybody. I can afford a Mercedes. If you go to afford a Mercedes, that's fine. Right? But you may lose the Mercedes and you have to say that's fine too. And you may have a 15-year-old car that smoke rolls out the back. I've had those before. And smoke rolls out the back and it breaks down every other day and it's a stress. And you have to learn to have a certain contentment in that. And hopefully things get better and you get a better car. There's a fascinating prayer in Proverbs 30. Let's go here as we wrap this up. Proverbs 30 that I've thought a lot about. Agar, we don't know much about him really, except that he wrote a whole chapter of Proverbs. And he has this prayer that he gives starting in verse 7. Two things I request of you, deprive me not before I die, says in my life this is what I want. Between now and the time I want, this is a die, this is what I want. Remove falsehood and lies far from me. Now that's a remarkable statement. Help me to only know truth and help me to never spread falsehood.

I mean that's a remarkable thing to ask. To ask God, only let me have truth and let me not participate in falsehood. Give me neither poverty nor riches.

You know, I would say, well give me, okay, I don't have to be like really, really rich, just partly rich. But he says, give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me. And here's why he says this. Lest I be full and deny you. He said, lest I become so wrapped up in my physical stuff that I deny you. And say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. He said, I don't want to be poor so I end up sinning and profaning your name. And I don't want to be so rich that I forget who you are and I end up estranged from you. That's a remarkable prayer, isn't it? It reminds me of a story I read once about a woman who, and the figures were low because this was a number of years ago, but she was making $20 an hour at her work. And she looked at what she did and she said to her boss, she says, I deserve more than $20 an hour. He said, well, what do you deserve? She says, I deserve $40 an hour. He said, 40? Okay. Well, let me look at all the work you do. He looked at all the work she did and came back and said, yep, you're worth $40 an hour. I'm going to raise your pay to $40 an hour twice. She was so ecstatic. She was so happy. And after about 10, she started thinking about all the things she could buy, some new shoes. She won't have to worry about the electric bill anymore. Just all these good things are going to happen in her life. And then she stopped and thought, I should have asked for $60. And all the discontent came back. She was back where she was before she doubled her pay. Totally unhappy, totally discontented because now she won $60. There's the great problem of being discontented. Sure, we can be in a position where we need to get more. We need to grow more. We need to have more money to make bills. Okay, that's part of life. But discontentment that you can never have enough is actually a very dangerous place to be in because you will never feel like God blesses you enough. So we'll end with Proverbs 13 verse 7. Proverbs 13.

So we have to have faith that God's going to take care of our needs. We have to live honestly. We have to live with generosity. We have to have a work ethic. And we have to be content. We can't live life with the constant discontent over physical things. Proverbs 13 verse 7.

There is one who makes himself rich and yet has nothing. There is a person who can have lots of physical things, big house, big car, nice clothes, lots of food, money in the bank, right, buys whatever he wants, but has no faith towards God, no honesty, no generosity, no work ethic, and no commitment. Maybe we'll just give it to him. We were born into a rich family and they are rich, yet they have nothing, nothing of eternal value. And one who makes himself poor and yet has great riches. But we live with our commitment to God first, rich towards God first. And we use the physical things we have to build or have God build in us these character traits that are part of being holy, it's part of being converted. And then we may sometimes feel poor but we will be rich.