Christians in the 21st Century Economy

Beautiful photos. I want to say hello to all those on the webcast. As was mentioned in the prayer, we're thinking of you and hoping you can join with us soon. And also welcome to our visitors today.

It's good to have you with us. As I shared in the announcements, we discussed 21st century economics during one of the breakout sessions on Monday at the GCE.

Andy Lee worked on the presentation and Patty Sexton, Frank Fish, and I assisted him. Patty Sexton runs one of the largest nonprofit employment agencies in the larger employment agencies in Oregon with 23 employees. It's called Mission Possible. And then Frank Fish runs a travel agency, and he has for many years. And so we talked about living spiritual lives in a material world, as you can see here from the title. So I wanted to kind of build on that discussion today.

And we'll see if that works. Good. To talk about economics. Functioning in our society requires that we spend money. And to spend money, typically we have to make some money to be able to spend it. That's not always the case. Some people are lucky enough to have big trust funds. That probably doesn't apply to most of us in the room. We have to actually make money to be able to spend money. And economic activity is obviously quite old. How do we think about economics from a biblical perspective? And this is becoming more important as we go along, because themes of economic inequality and social justice are a growing part of our modern discourse.

Obviously, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been very prominent, even here in Oakland, in this area. I'd like you to turn over to Proverbs 30 verses 8 and 9 to kind of get our minds straight on this, because it's a very meaningful proverb. I remember reading it as a young man, and thinking about just the balance in all things and how God thinks about money and how it's shared here in the Proverbs. It says here in Proverbs 30 verse 8, it says, Remove falsehood and lies far from me. And then he says, Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food you prescribe for me. And in verse 9, Lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord? That is, if I have great riches, then I can fall into the trap of forgetting who provided those great riches for me in the first place. Or lest I be poor and steal. So if I become poor, then I can fall into the trap of feeling like I need to steal to survive, feeling like it's other people's fault and they owe it to me anyway and I'm oppressed and I'm just taking from my oppressor and so forth. And so it says, Lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. And I think this verse gives us a hint that there is a balance and a balanced way of thinking about money and thinking about material possessions.

This is a slide that I shared in the General Conference of Elders on Sunday about Generation Z. So who here was born between 1999 and 2015? I have a few. Anybody else? No, we have a few back there. All right. Congratulations, you have now been named. You didn't know that. Maybe you did know that. You are officially Gen Z. I'm Gen X. I guess Gen Y was the millennial, so I guess that's where they come up with that. So anyway, Gen Z, this is a study that was put out just recently by the Barna Group called Gen Z, the culture, beliefs, and motivations shaping the next generation. So these would be people who are pretty much 19 and under. I think is how it works out.

There's a lot of information on this slide. The thing I want to point out to you on this slide is that 43 percent of those under 19 say that happiness is defined by financial success.

And you might think that kind of everybody says that, but that's not actually the case.

As compared to people in their 60s and 70s, those entering the workforce today, those entering college, define happiness by financial success versus relationships within a church or community environment. Millennials in particular have a much more happy-go-lucky kind of approach.

The Gen Z generation is defined to a large degree by 9-11, and the insecurities that came after that recession and then the great recession that we all experienced in 2008 and 2009.

So Gen Z tends to be much more focused on financial success because they've gone through some pretty tough times in the last 18 years. So this is becoming more and more of an issue within our society. And here's a specific quote on Gen Z on personal achievement. It says, personal achievement, whether educational or professional, and hobbies and pastimes, are most central to Gen Z's identity. Twice as many teens as boomers—baby boomers are those who were born between 1946, roughly, and 1965—strongly agree that these are important to their sense of self, while older adults are more likely to say their family, background, and religion are central to their identity. And so you have this shift in cultural values where family and religion really used to be at the center of life. Now, of course, here in California, San Francisco, we're thinking this is old news, right? But believe it or not, there are many parts of the country where this is not old news, and so much of the United States is about diversity, of course, but there's many parts in the United States where family and religion actually still is at the center of their identity, whereas Gen Z in general tends to focus more on personal achievement as a definition of their success. So this topic is important, I think, for all of us to understand. If we're Generation Z and we're listening, hopefully you'll be able to gain from this as you think about how you think about money. Whether you're a millennial or a Gen X or a baby boomer, we all need to be able to relate to one another in this. And so today I'd like to talk about three areas of Christians in the 21st century economics. One is talents in a digital world. How do we think about our talents?

How do we define talents? Obviously money, money, money. Everybody talks about money. And then finally gleaning in a modern economy. And we're going to talk about the concept of gleaning and how gleaning is an important biblical concept in economics. So let's go over to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. And let's take a look at this parable, Matthew 25 and verse 14.

And let's read through this and look at some insights here that come from this from this parable.

Matthew 25 and in verse 14. This section of Scripture is a whole series of instructions regarding prophetic events that are going to come to pass. And then parables in terms of how to think about the coming kingdom of God. And so it says in verse 14 of chapter 25, the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents and to another two and to another one. To each according to his own ability. And immediately he went on a journey. And then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents. This concept of trading can actually be very much an economic concept. It can be either in creating a business, it could even be investing.

In the ancient world, what was very common is investors would invest in ships that would take cargo from one port to another. And these ships would travel the Mediterranean delivering goods.

And people would invest in these ships. And of course, shipwrecks were very common. Paul was on a shipwreck. The person who invested in that ship probably lost their shirt, right? Because all those goods went down in the Mediterranean. And so you were investing and you had probabilities of how long the voyage was going to be and what the time of year was. And there were all sorts of very interesting market mechanisms to help you understand what your return on investment was going to be in that ship. So trading was actually a concept even at the time of the Romans. Now we think about the stock market and so forth. But this concept of trading, many people when you say stock market, you think gambling, right? Or you think, you know, sort of inappropriate activities, corruption, these types of things. But it's interesting that the word trading is actually used here, which implies an economic concept. And so he traded with them and he made another five talents. He doubled his money. And then he who had received, and likewise, he who had received two gained two more. Again, the implication is by the similar means of trading. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. And after a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received five talents came, brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I have gained five more talents beside them. And the Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant, you were faithful over a few things that will make you rule over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. And so this is the implication, is that we have to be productive with the talents that we've been given.

And that productivity will actually be something that will drive some type of reward. Now, mainstream Protestants get real uncomfortable at this point, because you can't earn your salvation, and we cannot earn our salvation. But this does imply that there are sort of stations, as it were, in the kingdom. There are greater opportunities to those who are faithful. Again, we do not earn our salvation, but there may be a greater reward in terms of what we would be doing in the kingdom.

He also, who had received two talents, came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Look, I have gained two more talents beside them. And his Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant, you who have been faithful over a few things, I will make you rule over many things.

Enter into the joy of your Lord. And isn't it interesting? It has nothing to do with the number that they actually delivered because one delivered five and one delivered two, and they got the same reward. It had to do with how much they were given and what they did with what they were given.

So even that person who received very, very little, if they did something with it, they received the same reward as the person who received much more and earned much more. And then he who had received the one talent came, verse 24, and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and when it hid your talent in the ground, look, there you have what is yours. I was, he thinks, this person is saying, I am a faithful servant. I guarded the talent that you gave me, and I'm giving it back to you. He thought he was doing a good job. He didn't go off and spend it in drunken, you know, parties and, you know, go off and blow it and, you know, the nightclubs and gambling. He took the talent and he took care of that talent just in the ground. He didn't do anything with it.

But as Lord answered, verse 26, and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gathered where I have not scattered seed. Therefore you ought to deposit my money. It's interesting now. He's actually going to talk about talents. There's some kind of connection here to money with the bankers, and at my coming, I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore, take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance. But from him, he does not have even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is pretty powerful. Those that person who thought he was doing a good job by protecting the talent that he had been given by not using it, but just holding on to it, will actually not receive a reward in the kingdom.

So the question we have to ask here to begin is, what is a talent? There's some reference to money in here, but different translations actually translate this differently. So before we just jump into it being money, because the translations are a little bit different depending on which one you look at it. What is it? Well, one definition of a talent is a unit of weight. We're not going to turn to this one, but in the Old Testament, a talent was a unit of weight. So for example, in Exodus 38 verse 24, they defined the gold that was given to the temple by its weight in talents.

It was 29 talents of weight. So in the Old Testament, and you can look this up in dictionaries, in ancient Greek and Roman times, a talent was a unit of weight. And it was clearly at the time, the Egyptians clearly used it as a unit of weight, because the Israelites wandering here at this time would have been using many of the Egyptian standards as they were wandering in the wilderness.

So it's a unit of weight. It is also defined as a unit of currency. It is defined as money.

And that's if you just turn over in Matthew 18, and in verse 24, you'll see that reference there to 10,000 talents. Matthew 18 verse 24, it makes reference to 10,000 talents. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. So the man owed a debt. So that was a currency. And we've been through that in another sermon. I think I define that as something around $5 billion at the time.

That was a lot of money. So that was a unit of currency. And a lot of people will stop there and say the parable in Matthew 25 is talking about money. So five talents would have been a great deal of money. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 million by definition. If you use a denari as a day's wage and a day's wage being something like $10 or $11, depending on what city you live in, and you multiply that out, it could be a couple million dollars for five talents. But it can also be defined as a spiritual gift.

And why don't we turn over to Exodus 31? And we'll look at this example here.

Now, I put the word spiritual here. That might be an interesting discussion during a sermon chat.

I'm using the term spiritual because in Exodus 31 verse 3, it says here that, and this is God speaking to Moses. So this is God speaking in the first person. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God. So he's talking about this gentleman named Basil. But let's see if I pronounce this right. Basil, the son of Uri, the son of Ur of the tribe of Judah in verse 2. So God says that he filled this man with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, in all manner of workmanship. Exodus 31 verse 3, and now verse 4, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship. So God actually gave this man of his Spirit that he might have this wisdom and understanding that he might have this capacity to create beautiful artistic works. It doesn't say spiritual gift in Exodus 31, but I think if the Spirit of God is given to somebody that gives them that ability, I think that's a gift and is spiritual. So that's Tim Pebworth sharing what he sees here in Scripture. Okay. Also, a talent can sometimes be defined as a physical talent.

And we can go over to Acts 16 and look in verse 14 here.

Acts 16. And in verse 14, we can look at the story of Lydia. We don't see a lot about Lydia, but we see here that she was from Thyatira. Acts 16 and verse 14, it says, Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

So she was a seller of purple. She was a businesswoman and likely successful in what she was doing because in verse 15, it says, And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she constrained us. So she is listed as head of household. It's kind of like on your IRS taxes, right? You can file married or single or head of household. She was head of household, and her whole household was baptized. And she asked them to come stay there in the household. So she probably had the means, first of all, to be able to host people, to feed people, and to make sure their needs were taken care of. So she had some type of physical ability. Now, if you've ever met, if you've ever gone down and bought a used car on a used car lot, you'll know that people who sell used cars, they have a certain gift of gab, right? They can, and they know how to sell you a car. That's, you know, it's like, it's like a talent. Now, you might call them, you know, maybe shady in some ways. But if you've ever, but if you've ever met a good salesperson, I mean, you know, they're, they're good at what they do, right? You know, they're friendly, they're personable, they talk to you, they want to understand your needs, you know, and, and they know how to sell. And, you know, I would work with a lot of salespeople, and I'm not a salesperson at all. I do not have that ability.

But when I would work with salespeople, they would wear me out. I was worn out. Could you just please stop talking? I mean, I'm worn out, you know, but they're just, they just, you know, they like that.

So I'm kind of imagining Lydia is kind of this shrewd businesswoman, has this ability to sell in the marketplace, you know, gift of gab and so forth. So she had some sort of physical talent that then was used in some way, in this case, to sell these goods. And God used that to provide kind of a base, as it were, for, for Paul and his companions to, to live. So what's interesting about the whole thing is unlike other parables, Jesus Christ doesn't actually define the meaning of the talent, right? A lot of times, they're like, you know, it's, if you think about the sower and the seed, for example, in that parable, he's very, very clear about, you know, well, you know, this stony ground means this, and this seed means that, and so forth. But we, we get hints, right? There's a reference to money in there. But again, depending on the translations, that may, that may not actually be translated money. So in actual fact, the meaning of the word talent is not really well defined in the parable. All we know is that whatever was given was meant to be multiplied, right? If you, if you go strict interpretation and say, oh, this parable is about money, and so everybody's given a certain amount of money, and you have to go out and start a business, and you have to trade in stock market, and you have to, you know, it, it would feel a little bit constraining. And that's not really, I don't think, the purpose of this, of this parable. So a talent can be understood as any resource with which we have been blessed by God. That's kind of a broader understanding of what this talent means. This, and this broader definition shows us that we have been entrusted in some way with some set of talents by God, and we are to use those talents. So the question is, how do we use our talents? Using our talents. So how many talents do you have? Now, there was a pastor years ago when I was growing up who would ask this question, and everybody would say one, right? Everybody says one. I have one talent. Do you, did God give you five talents, or two talents, or one talent? Right? That was a question he was always asked. So I'm going to follow his example. I'm going to ask you, did God give you five talents, or two talents, or one talent? And everybody always says, I got one talent. Nobody says, oh, I have five talents. Yeah, I'm a really smart guy. I mean, some people will say that, but most people are going to be diminutive, and they're going to say, oh, maybe I got two, maybe one, and so forth. And he would constantly say, no, why do you assume that? Why do you assume you only have one talent or two talents? Why don't you assume you have five talents? Why don't you go look and find out what those talents are? And so he challenged, and I will challenge you, to go and explore and look for what those talents are that you were given, either spiritual gifts, physical talents. Maybe you have been blessed financially, and so you are starting out with a little bit better base than other people, and so you can actually start a business with a little bit of money. And financially, you can be blessed, and that blessing can be a blessing to others, as in the case of Lydia. And I would especially ask those in their 20s and 30s to take a long, hard look at what you can do to be successful with your talents. Okay, I'm not looking at you down there.

Raise your hand there. I embarrassed them. Sorry. Anyway, take a long, hard look and think about what your talents are. You might have musical talents, you might have sports talents, and sports.

You might be a very good salesperson. You might have great tweezer dexterity. Whatever it is, look for your talents. That is, by the way, a talent. If you want to be a dental hygienist, right, you're going to need to be able to have good, who wants somebody bumbling around in their mouth with, you know, poor tweezer dexterity, right? These are talents that people have, and these can be measured. I've talked about the Johnson O'Connor aptitude test.

If you go take that test, they've got one, they've got a center over here. I'm going to point the right direction. I think it's this way. In San Francisco, off Union Square, they will actually test your tweezer dexterity, and they will tell you, oh, you've got tweezer dexterity. You could be, and then they'll list a set of things that you could do for your job. Take a look at what your talents are. Take a look at what you're doing. And now, I'm sure there's many people who are listening to me right now who are saying, okay, this is great for people in their 20s or 30s or so. But I'm in my 60s or I'm in my 70s, so I'm going to go to sleep now.

So don't go to sleep on me, okay? Because this is for you as well. Because you have talents, and maybe you're saying, well, okay, yeah, but, you know, maybe I had talents, but I don't have them anymore or something, right? But God can work with you as well, and you have an ability to support the church. And we're going to get to ways that you can help as well. What would cause you to bury your talent? What would cause you to bury your talent? We talked about this in an open forum on Monday, and we had some really good answers, but I want to share with you. One person put it very succinctly. The reason we bury our talent is because of fear of loss. Fear of loss. And that's what we read in Matthew 25. That person who buried his talent was afraid of the master.

And again, I'm quoting the person here in the discussion in the room. Fear of loss. Okay, what kind of loss? Loss of reputation, loss of money, fear of what people, or loss of sort of esteem from others, right? We're afraid in some way. If we do this, then, you know, I'm going to look dumb. If I do this, I might lose a lot of money, and then I won't be able to, and then, you know, fill in the blank. There's typically a fear of loss motivating hiding things.

So are you afraid of something? Are you afraid of something when it comes to using your talent? Now, an easy example you think about is maybe you might have a musical talent, and people say, oh, you should get up and do special music. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I can't do that, right? Because you're scared. Who wouldn't be scared? That's normal, right? So if you have a talent, maybe you get up there and you say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to brace myself, and I'm not going to worry what people think about me. I'm going to get up there and I'm going to sing, right? That's using your talents, and that's not being afraid. That's a very simple way of somebody contributing in church, right? We want people to contribute in our church communities, and we don't want people to be afraid to use that. You know, investing money for retirement, that's also a big fear factor, right? People invest money for retirement, and they have to make choices about what they're going to invest in, and we're afraid to lose our money. Rightfully so, right? So what we do? Well, we get advice, professional advice that tells us how to do that. Earning a return on our talents, by definition, projects us outward. This is a very, very interesting point, because everything in the, in the, we read in Matthew 25, is about going out and trading. You know, to trade, you know, if you've ever, you know, played settlers of Catan or something like that, you have to trade.

When you trade, you have to have somebody else on the other side of that trade. You actually have to engage with somebody. Whereas, if you bury your talent, you don't have to engage with anybody.

You can just kind of be in your own little world, right? Do your own little thing. I don't have to talk to anybody. Nobody has to mess, mess with me. I don't have to mess with anybody. I respect you, you respect me, right? And so earning a return on our talents, by definition, means that we are projecting ourselves outward towards others and engaging others. But the enemy wants us to retreat.

The enemy wants us to retreat into our own world, right? Fear of loss and so forth. So using our talents is something that God wants us to do. Our adversary, on the other hand, wants us to not use our talents. He wants us to retreat. So if you've got that little voice in your head, right, it's saying, oh, you can't do that. Oh, you're not going to be any good. Oh, people are going to make fun of you. Oh, you're not, you know. That's probably Satan working on your human nature to discourage you from stepping out courageously and doing something important. So that's talents.

So let's talk about money. Let's talk about money.

So let me make a statement here. Blessings from God and His plan for us are much greater than anything in this physical world. Do you believe that?

Do you believe that? I had a friend I think I shared with you. His son, this is a friend not in the church, his son said, dad, I want to be a billionaire. And his dad said, well, there's no book on that, right? I can't tell you how to do that. Some people, you know, that's what they want to do. And I just read a statistic 43% of Gen Z defines happiness by financial success, that's very common. Do you believe the blessings from God and His plan are much greater than anything in this physical world? Some people are overly focused on money. As my grandmother used to say, rich or poor, it's always good to have money. That's kind of, you know, rich or poor.

And they're fixated on material possessions. And so some people fall on that. Other people take the scriptures about not loving money as an excuse to not work hard or come up with a profession or career, you know, not be able to support themselves or, you know, start a family.

It's like, well, you know, I'm not focused on money. And frankly, this is a big thing with millennials. This is a very common thing. There's all this research that shows that actually our economy is shifted around a bit because people in their late 20s and 30s are saying, I don't need to buy a house. What's that? That's no big deal. You know, I don't need to get a driver's license, right? You know, that's not a big deal because they say, hey, money's not that important. You know, money is just there as a tool for me to be happy. And when I need it, I'll use it. And when I don't, I don't need it. And so that's actually a very common sort of, you know, view of millennials.

And, you know, hey, that's great, except that at some point it is important to be able to leave your father and mother and cleave to your wife, which means you need to be able to have enough money to do that. And we'll talk about other principles around that. So how do we find the balance between this? People are very fixated on one hand, and on the other hand, people use this as an excuse to actually go out and make something of their lives in terms of a career or something.

How do we find the balance? Let's look over in Matthew 6 verse 19, and let's get ourselves grounded scripturally in different parts of this. Matthew 6 and in verse 19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Matthew 6 verse 19, Where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You know, the saying is, life is short. And if your focus is on material things in this world, well, that's going to be your reward. That's going to be what you have.

I had the opportunity when I was working at Intel Corporation to work with the head of sales, and he eventually became the CEO of Intel. And, you know, he was a man who worked, you know, you can't get to that level unless you work. You know, that was his life. He graduated from college.

He was hired as what's called a new college grad at the age of 22 or 23. At Intel, he spent his entire career, he went from basically, you know, a young 20-something to the CEO. Okay? You don't do that unless you really have your act together. This man was incredibly intelligent. He worked his way up, and he became one of the most, you know, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, right? He probably wasn't the richest man, but certainly a very powerful man who would receive the President of China at Intel. We always joked, who's coming? Who? It was President Hu. Who's coming? Anyway, so that was, we enjoyed that one when President Hu came. And anyway, so he worked his way up, he retired, and a few years later he died, age 61. And we were like, wow, this man, you know, it's like he had, you know, he's like he achieved this great thing, he retired, and then he passed away. I had a colleague from Ambassador College, graduated the same year I did, just passed away, 52 years old. Very successful in business. He and I knew one another because he was in the finance area as well. He was Vice President, Hewlett-Packard, Vice President, Nvidia, and other companies died at 52. So if our focus is on material goods, well, that's what we're going to get. And those gentlemen did very, very well. And I'm, you know, I wouldn't judge them. Perhaps they were very, very generous with how they use their money. I don't know those things personally. But I do know that that is what we're going to receive. And the same thing could happen to us. At the same time, though, the Bible indicates that God's blessings can be reflected in multiplying our physical goods. So on the one hand, we're told don't store up treasures for yourself on earth, right, where moth and rust can destroy them. But on the other hand, the Bible also says that we can be blessed physically. Let's look over at Deuteronomy 28.

We're going to read a number of passages here in Deuteronomy 28.

Blessings and cursing. That's right. Deuteronomy 28.

And we'll start in verse one.

Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. So now he's going to define how he's going to do this. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. You see, that was like stocks and bonds back then. You could actually look out and you could see your assets in the field. You could see the cattle and the sheep and you could see the lambs and you could see the herds. And if those herds were healthy and if it rained and they could graze, they would multiply. And as they multiplied, you became rich. You became a rich person. And so this is a blessing. It's a monetary blessing. If you go over to verse 8, the Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand.

And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. And then also in verse 11, and the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruits of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. And the Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow." So there's a specific reference to lending and taking money. So the Bible does indicate that we can be blessed if we obey Him. We can be blessed financially. It doesn't always work out that way. And we have a powerful example of how God says He's going to bless us if we honor Him.

It says here in Deuteronomy 28, to honor Him and to keep His commands. But if you go over to Malachi 3 verse 10, we have a reiteration of this. Malachi 3 and verse 10.

So honoring God with our possessions, obeying His commands leads to blessings. And those blessings can include financial blessings. Malachi 3 verse 8, we'll start in verse 8.

Well, a man robbed God, yet you have robbed me, but you say, in what way have we robbed you?

In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. And then in verse 10, he lays down the gauntlet and he says very clearly, bring all the tithes into the storehouses, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now in this. Test me, prove me, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. So there are financial blessings as we honor God with our increase. In Proverbs 3 verse 9, it says, honor the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of your increase, so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. So we can be blessed financially if we honor God. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. And often when we are blessed financially, we're able to give liberally of the physical goods. And in fact, if you go over to Romans 12, it's interesting here in Romans 12 and in verse 6, that giving, giving of our money is actually described as a spiritual gift. Isn't that amazing? Giving is actually described as a spiritual gift.

Romans 12, and let's start in verse 3 so we'll get the context. Romans 12 verse 3, For I say, through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one, a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So he's going to describe the gifts within the congregation. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, and he who gives with liberality, he who lend leads with diligence, and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

Imagine it's actually a spiritual gift. Now you've heard about the five love languages, right? Some people love to give gifts. That's one of the love languages. You want to be friends with those people. Oh, thank you very much! They love to give gifts. And so it's actually called out here that the person who likes to give, well, let that person give liberally. Let them give generously to other people.

That's very fulfilling for people. So then what are some key points and takeaways from this section as we think about money? Well, one of the questions that I have out here is, are we pursuing a goal of lifelong education? You know, education doesn't have to come from a university. It can be simply growing our skills and knowledge, because as we're growing our skills and knowledge, we're fulfilling what's mentioned in Matthew 25 and the parable of the talents.

And with that, then we can be blessed. We can be blessed either in giving of our time or giving of our money. You know, growing our skills and talents generally doesn't involve sitting in front of a screen passively browsing or stalking friends on Facebook.

Okay? That's not generally a good use of our time. But if you use your time wisely, you can be, you know, growing your skills and your understanding. For my role in the ministry, right, I have to read a lot. Reading is very, very important, right? Because, you know, I'm connecting dots on things and sharing this, you know, well, let's understand this passage and let's understand this. And here's a good example that would bring this passage out, right? I've got to be doing that. And there's different ways that I go about doing that. I'm still a certified public accountant, so I have to take continuing ed for that as well.

As Christians, we're told to live by every word of God. So you have a lifelong learning command to read the Bible. Okay? That's a lifelong learning. We all have a lifelong learning plan that we have to read the Bible because we have to live by every word of God. And every day, we're going to read that and we're going to grow in some way in our understanding of how God thinks, how God wants us to think, how He wants us to behave around others, you know, love God and love your neighbor, right?

Those are the two... that's the summation of the two great commands or of the Ten Commandments. So we have to do that. But beyond that, we should also be looking at how can we be growing our talents and skills, you know, practicing music or practicing whatever skills we might have. Maybe you have a skill in terms of numbers or you have a certain skill or talent in terms of selling or you have some sort of skill in terms of working with your hands, right?

You need to be practicing that and growing from that. It's lifelong education that we're learning. Many studies have shown that lifelong learning actually contributes to better physical and mental health, right? When you're engaging your brain, your brain actually has to, you know, it's like it has to work and all those neurons and synapses are fired and connected, and you actually have better mental health and you have better physical health. In some cases, you can actually even have greater income because if you're working on the job and you're reading and you're growing and so forth, you know, that comes out, you know, it comes out in terms of who you are.

You're better able to articulate things. You're better able to describe things. You're kind of going above and beyond. Second thing here is, how do we, you know, how do we plan, excuse me, how do we become educated on how to be wise stewards of our money, right? Being wise stewards of our money. Now, we've offered the Dave Ramsey course here before. If you haven't taken it, I really encourage you to take that course.

Are you balanced in how you use your money in terms of, you know, current spending, saving, and giving, right? These are the things that we have to be thinking about. Are we thinking about our money wisely? Now, one of the things here of course is, are you faithfully tithing? So let's start with the basics. We need to set aside 10% of our increase. It should be an auto debit. It should just come right off the top, right?

To advance God's work. It should just be a given. It's the beginning. Now, we need to be saving a second tithe as well. What's interesting is when you look in Deuteronomy 14, we won't go there, Deuteronomy 14.22, and it talks about second tithe. That's where it says, try me and see if I will be faithful to bless you, is in the second tithe. It's actually in the second tithe. Oh, the first tithe, I do my first tithe, but second tithe, it's kind of tough, and I save a little money for the feast over here on the side, right? Some people think that way, but if you go back and look at Deuteronomy 14.22-26, it says, test me and prove if I will be faithful in your second tithe. You're supposed to save second tithe for use with the festivals. See, tithing isn't about money. We think it's about money, but tithing is not about money. Tithing is about putting God first. Tithing is about putting God first. I've advised people to not tithe. I've said to people, oh, you shouldn't tithe.

Why would I say that? Well, because they're receiving a huge amount of government assistance or church assistance. That's not their focus right now. Their focus is not on that. They're receiving all this. They're kidding themselves. They're the recipient of third tithe. They're the widow and the orphan. The widow and the orphan don't pay tithes. They receive tithes. That's how it works. If you're a widow and orphan and you're receiving a huge amount of government assistance, your job is to get yourself off of that government assistance. If you're incapacitated or debilitated, disabled in some way, well, you can't. So just be thankful. That's okay. You can give an offering. Offerings are fine. I've told people, don't tithe. The guy that's not interested in us being poor, he's not interested in this. He's interested in putting him first.

Now, if you want to tithe, that's fine, but I'm not going to tell you to tithe. The church has historically never told people on third tithe assistance to tithe. So God is not interested in our money. He's interested in whether we're putting him first or not. And when we tithe, what we do is we actually have to know where our money is going. This is one of the major principles that Dave Ramsey teaches. Do you know where your money comes from? And do you know where it goes? He asked people, how much money do you spend? And a lot of times people don't know, oh, I spend about what I make. And that's totally untrue. All the studies show that we spend typically 10 to 20% more than we make, because we don't know what we're spending. So what we do when we tithe is we say, okay, well, this is how much I make. Okay, I got to figure that out first. Now that I know how much I make, I can tithe on it. It's amazing, right, how that works. You have to know how much you make to know how much you're going to tithe. Now that you know how much you're tithing and how much you're making, now you know how much is left. Okay, well, how much do I have left? Most people don't know how much they have left because they don't even know what they're spending.

Tithing is a key to wealth. You know, I'm just quoting Dave Ramsey, okay? I'm going to quote the Bible too, right? Test me, improve me in this. So are we tithing? Are we faithfully planning our holy day offerings? It says we're supposed to not come before the Lord empty. If that means you come with a cent, that's okay. You came with a cent. Just don't come with nothing. You're supposed to come with something. You're supposed to plan for that. Are you generous in helping others?

Right? And again, if you know how much money you have, then you know how much you can be generous for various things. Are you saving for retirement? Are you saving for retirement and your long-term needs? You know, many people say, oh, I can't save for retirement. Oh, really? Well, have you actually... do you actually know how much money you have? Because if you know how much money you have, then you can begin to ask those questions. Now, in this area, it's very hard to save a retirement because we're spending all our money on housing, right? We can hardly afford to live around here.

But what that means is maybe you can afford to live around here. Maybe you need to live in another area where you bring your rent down and maybe you can begin to save a little bit better for retirement.

So we have to be able to think about these things. Saving for retirement and long-term needs, that's a very, very important thing within the scriptures as well. Look over at Romans 12, verse 15. You should be pretty close there already. Romans 12 and verse 15, it says, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. You know, that applied to money can sometimes be a challenging thing. You know, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where somebody pulls up in this brand new car, right, and maybe you wanted to buy that car and you can't afford that car, right? And they're like, let me show you my car! You're like, wow, great, I'm so happy for you. You're a brand new car, right? Well, you're supposed to rejoice with them, right? They bought a brand new car. They're happy. Go rejoice with them, right? Now, maybe you are the person who bought the new car, or maybe you just bought a new toy, right? And somebody's going through a difficult time in their lives. That's probably not the time to walk up and say, let me show you my new boat, right? Let me show you my new, you know, fill in the blank, because they're sad. So you need to like, okay, let's not talk about that right now. Let's go mourn with them. Let's go be with them. And so I think as members one to another, we need to rejoice with one another when somebody's blessed financially. And we need to be sensitive if we're blessed financially with somebody who's not blessed financially. And be careful about that.

That's how we think about money as we go through. Now, let me go to the third point, gleaning. Gleaning in a modern economy. So free market capitalism tells us that everyone benefits when the primary motive is maximization of profit. That's what capitalism is built on.

Now, taken to extreme, what you have is you have companies, there's a company in the in Silicon Valley that just relocated. I know this because somebody's losing their job. They're just relocating a lot of their staff to Mexico. Okay, now this is a company in Silicon Valley that has billions of dollars on their balance sheet. This is probably one of the richest companies in the world. And they want to save money by firing people in the United States and hiring them in Mexico. All right, now this is a hugely political topic you've probably heard, right? Why do companies do this? Well, because they're about profit maximization. And if they can get the same, you know, capabilities in Mexico for cheaper, even if they have billions of dollars on their balance sheet, they're going to do this because they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders that might be you who own their stock to do that. Is that fair?

That's rough, right? Now, on the other hand, I worked for one of those companies.

And I saw people in India be lifted out of poverty. I saw people living at home who got to live in an apartment. I saw people who had to ride the bus by a motorcycle. I saw people's lives completely changed in India because all those jobs from the United States were being outsourced to India. So now we go, well, America first, right? America first. Well, is America first the biblical principle? How do we think about these things when we think about capitalism? Are we going to start talking about communism is evil and capitalism is good and socialism is in between, and I don't know. The Bible teaches foundational principles about profit maximization. And one of those key principles is the principle of gleaning. So let's look over at Leviticus 19, and let's read about gleaning. And then we'll get to how this applies to us. Leviticus 19. I'm going to skip ahead and show that one. Leviticus 19 and in verse 9. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God. So profit maximization was not a biblical principle. It is not a biblical principle. If you were interested in profit maximization, you would make sure you get every last grape, every last blade of grain in every corner of your vineyard. But that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what God taught the nation of Israel. He said, leave the corners of your field so that people can come in who are poor and they can reap that and they can use that. They have to work for it. He didn't tell you, go and take the corners and give it to the poor. He says the poor have to come and they actually have to do it themselves. That's what gleaning is all about. Do we leave something behind for those less fortunate? Do you take things to goodwill? Do you take the time to actually take your things to goodwill? Or do you put them in the trash? Do you donate your spare change? A lot of us have spare change. Maybe we donate our spare change. Do you donate your time? Now, this is a big one for us.

If we spend our time just completely focused on our jobs, well, then we're not leaving a little bit.

We're not following this principle. During the conference, when we had this discussion, Patty Sexton brought out an interesting point. She said that she knows an IRS agent in Portland.

He has his job, works 8 to 5. And then on the weekend, he goes into a community center and he does people's taxes for free. That's his way of giving back to the community. He has a skill and he goes in, you imagine, and he works like four or five, six hours on a Saturday or Sunday, doing people's taxes to help people. That's his way of giving back. And that gets the same principle.

There's another principle here of giving. Giving versus lending. Giving and lending, huge issues that I've seen in the Church of God. We know one another. We care for one another. When somebody has a problem, what do we want to do? We want to help them. Well, maybe they have a big problem.

They need a lot of money. So what do we do? We lend them money. But lending money is not a good idea. Lending money is not a good idea in general. And if we lend money to Church members, I've typically seen that just creates a lot of strain. So if you have lent somebody money, or if you have been lent money, please come and see me. I ask you, please come and see me. Because what happens is, after a number of years, it blows up. And then it's kind of too late to deal with it.

I myself have done this. I have lent money to a fellow Church member and regretted it.

And that has happened to me. We should be giving. So if somebody says, oh, could you lend me $5,000?

That happens. I recommend that you say no, but I'll give you a thousand.

I'll give you a thousand. You want to pay me back? That's fine. But, you know, I'm not even going to think about it.

I'm going to give you the thousand, and I'm not even going to think about after that.

It's, it's, it's, I'm glad I can help. But I don't have $5,000. There's too much. Right?

Don't lend to people. Keep that in mind. And again, like I said, if you have, please come and see me.

It's just, it's, it's good to just make sure that there's understandings of how that's done, because oftentimes people can become resentful. The other thing about this, this principle of gleaning, is you're allowing people within the community to benefit from your labors. And how do we do that?

One to another? Often it comes down to, have you ever, you know, sort of done business with other church members? Sometimes what we say is, well, they're a church member, so I'm going to give them a discount. Okay, well, that's very nice. That's very good to do. Nothing wrong with that. But what I would say is, don't give them a discount. Don't give them a discount. Because if we're paying, again, it should be a fair price, right? If we're paying a fair price to one another, then you're benefiting another church member. And that church member then can take that, and that church member can give liberally. Their offerings can be higher, they might contribute locally, they might be able to help the church out in some way. That way we're just helping. If you want to get a discount, well, get a discount from somebody outside the church. But, you know, among one another, let's pay fair prices to one another. Sometimes people feel, oh, you know, the person didn't give me a discount. Well, you know, maybe they need the money. Maybe they have costs to cover. Maybe they have things we shouldn't be resentful when we don't get a good deal from another church member.

Again, that's our choice who we're going to deal with. So this is all keeping the productive assets within the community. That was the point. And again, the gleaning was not necessarily intended for, you know, sort of marauding armies to come through and take as they came through in pillage, right? This was intended for people within the communities to benefit. Let's go over to Leviticus 25. Turn over a couple pages. Leviticus 25 and verse 35.

And if one of your brethren becomes poor and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. Take no usury or interest from him, but fear your God that your brother may live with you. You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food for a profit. We shouldn't be making money off the problems and difficulties that people face in their lives. And then in verse 39, it says, And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave.

But as a hired servant and a sojourner, he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the year of Jubilee. And then he shall depart from you, both he and his children, with him, and shall return to his own family, and they shall return to the possession of his fathers. God's system was designed to recognize that people have difficult times in their lives. People fall on hard times. It's what risk-taking is about. Sometimes we take risks, and they're inappropriate risks. Or sometimes we take risks, and bad things happen, and we fall, and we have difficulties. And that's when our community rallies around us and supports us. Now, what I've seen sometimes is that people might say, oh, this person's having a hard time. I'm going to invite this person to come live with me.

Well, that's very generous. But a lot of times what I've seen is those arrangements are not done very well, and what's intended to be six weeks turns into six months or a year, and then there's a resentment. So be very, very careful about those types of things. Again, generally better to provide a little bit of money, provide a little bit of assistance, but if you're going to open your home, be very, very careful. And I would ask you to please get advice before you do that, because otherwise a resentment can kick in when that happens. The other thing I've seen is that sometimes there's situations where people have taken some risk and things have not gone their way. And other times, there's people who are just chronically in need. Jesus said, the poor will be with you always.

There's people who are chronically in need, and they basically go from one hand out to the other hand out. And, you know, again, that's... I'm sure they don't want to. I'm sure they want to have a different life, but it's kind of what they fall into. And so we can be sort of that next hand that's going to give them money. And if we're not careful, we can enable bad behavior.

Right? We can enable, oh, that's okay. You can come live with me. Oh, that's okay. Here's a thousand dollars. Oh, that's okay. We'll go buy you groceries. Oh, that's okay. And then what happens is those people are like, hey, this is good. Right? And so they end up being, coming dependent. And so it's interesting that gleaning involve people actually going and having to do it themselves.

They actually have to work themselves. So we have to be very, very careful about creating dependency.

And that's, again, where getting a counsel comes in. So I really advise you to get counsel when you're going to think about this. So some key points. Are we leaving a little extra for others in our time and money? Are we leaving a little bit of extra time? This IRS agent probably didn't have a lot of money, but he had time and he shared it. Maybe we have a little bit of extra money. Maybe we think that keeping third tithe is important. There's a whole doctrinal discussion around that. They don't have time to go into. But, and you have a little bit of money and you aren't leaving a little bit of that aside. Do you think about how to encourage self-sufficiency?

Right? So if somebody is in need, you know, get some, get a little advice. Find out a little bit more. Just don't jump in with money. Sometimes money is not necessarily going to solve it.

And how should we help the disadvantaged to gain access to productive resources in a way that helps them to provide for themselves? Right? How do we teach people to fish instead of giving them a fish?

How can we support this? And again, this is all about being intentional and perfect about how we think. So those are the three points. I hope this has been helpful to go through these concepts of our talents, how we think about money, and how we think about gleaning. I think the principles of God's Word are highly relevant in the 21st century. And I think there's a lot that we can gain from it.

And I think the Bible has a lot to say about the use of talents, money, and also about how we share with others. So I ask you to consider this and to study into it further and ask some hard questions of ourselves, whether we really understand these areas and whether we're growing.