Managing What God Has Given Us

We have a parable that Jesus gives in the book of Luke that seems confusing to a lot of people, and yet when you look at it, he's making a very important point. Let's go to Luke 16. I'm going to read this from the NIV just because it reads easier. It flows a little bit better to read it out loud. Basically, it's very similar to the King James or other translations. It's just easier to read out loud. But this, at first glance, can seem like a very strange parable. What exactly is Jesus teaching? Verse 1. Jesus told His disciples there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So He called him in and asked him, What is this I hear about you, given account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer?

Here you have a man who is an important man in this man's company, to put it in modern terms. He's skimming off the top. He's doing dishonest deals. The owner finds out about it and he goes to him and he says, Okay, I want you to bring the books, because I've heard all these stories. I know what's going on and you're fired, but I want to look at the books. Well, he knows the minute he looks at the books, he's in trouble. He knows when he looks at the books, he's going to be caught. So what the man does, verse 3, the manager said to himself, What shall I do? My master's taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig and I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I'll do. When I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses. He says, I know. I'll get a job. I'll make sure that when I lose my job here, I'll get a job someplace else. So he called in each one of his master's debtors and he asked the first, How much do you owe my master? The managers, or the person said 800 gallons of olive oil, he replied. The manager told him, Take your bills, sit down quickly and make out 400. He's doing a favor to this man. I'm cutting your debt in half. Of course, what he's figuring on is, as he just said, when I lose this job, I'm going to go to this man. He said, You know, I remember when you did me a favor. You know, maybe I'll find some work for you here. So he's, what's he getting? He's cutting edges so that he can get favors.

So he goes to the second man. He says, How much do you owe? A thousand bushels of weed, he replied. He told him, Take your bill and make it 800. So he cuts these corners. Of course, the other problem with something like this, you can only do it once. You know, this type of thing was very common when I worked in radio. What happened is, in the bigger markets, if you were the number one in the market, that's how you sold, that's how you convinced people to buy your product. You know, you buy your advertising. Look, we're number one. But what happens, the arbitrant comes out every two or twice a year, every six months. What happens if you drop from number one to number three? You're going to lose a huge amount of your business. So what salespeople would do is they would go and say, you know, I've got a sneak at the arbitrant.

And this other company now, this other radio station is number one, and I've taken a job with them, so you need to move your account over now and go with me. And they would steal the accounts from other companies. So that's why, in most radio stations, if you have a job with a radio station, part of your contract is you can't work for another station for six months after you leave one. Now, you can fight that in court, and you can probably win it. That's how long it takes to win it. About six months.

Because they know what they're going to do.

So this is a common practice, you know. If I'm going to lose my job here, I'm going to shaft these people so I can get a better job or another job.

What's amazing, though, is how Jesus responds to this.

The Master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind that are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so when it's gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Excited a little bit to some of the concepts that were discussed in the Sermonet. Is Jesus saying here, go out and be dishonest with your wealth? Go out and do dishonest business practices so that you can have eternal life? Is this what he's saying? Well, no, that can't be what he's saying. The whole Bible condemns that.

The point he's making here is that we are not always very wise with how we use the physical things that we have.

In fact, he goes on here and explains as he goes on the principles he's trying to teach in this parable. Remember, all parables break down because a parable leads you to a teaching moment. Sometimes we tear a parable apart until it no longer has any meaning. A parable is supposed to lead you to a teaching moment. All the details in a parable aren't always exact. They bring you someplace. And then you learn from it. So Jesus now is going to use this parable to teach his followers certain things about managing, well, the physical things that they have.

Verse 10, Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Now, this is very important. He says, now let me tell you... I gave you this parable. Now let me make my points for you. First of all, whatever God has given you, whether it's small or a lot, He was looking at how you handle what you have.

Sometimes we think, well, physical things don't matter. Actually, they do. Because He continues on, He says, Jesus says, So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with somebody else's property, who will give you property of your own? Remember, the parable is about a man who is working for someone else. It says, if you can't learn to handle what God has given you, and you can't learn how to be, in this case, a good employee, how can God trust you with what God gives you? Now, this is Jesus saying this. This is an important point.

And His point is, we have to understand God is judging us with what we do and how we use the physical things that we have, that He has given to us, that we have the privilege to have in this world that we live in.

So we can't just get to the point where we say, okay, physical things don't matter, so we just waste everything that we have. Or can we get to the place where we are just centered on the getting of wealth?

He goes on here.

He says in verse 13, so He makes a second point here, No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

He didn't say you can't have money. He said you can't serve money.

We live in a society where the whole society serves money.

Everything is about the gaining and getting of wealth.

And He said you can't serve God and serve money. That's not possible.

This comes down to, then, one of the points He's making here is, okay, you're being judged by how you use your physical wealth, but also you can't be a servant to both things.

If you decide to serve money, you will compromise with God. If you decide to serve God, you will compromise with money. I mean, in the service of money, which means you will lose money sometimes. You will lose money to serve God.

So that's an important second point. Now, verse 14 is very interesting. And Luke here, I always like what Luke adds to certain things, that maybe Matthew and Mark don't pick up, because remember Luke's writing much later. He's gathering all this information, and people are telling him why Jesus did certain things.

And so he says, the Pharisees who loved money... Now, remember the Pharisees were very religious people. The most religious people... Well, the Ephesians were more religious, however you define religious, but they were super over-religious of their day.

Here you have these super-religious people, but they also loved money. They saw money, and the habit of money, as the sign of a blessing from God.

So if people didn't have money, they weren't blessed by God. Now, of course, we all know that whatever we receive something, any blessing we have, is from God. You have a good job, and you have a nice house, and you have a nice car, and that's a blessing from God. But what the Pharisees looked at that would say, okay, if you are wealthy, you must be more righteous than the poor. The truth is, some people work harder, some people have more skills, and some people get more physical blessings than others from God. That's the way it is. But that doesn't determine always your righteousness.

It's your character that matters.

So he says, the Pharisees who loved money heard all this, and were sneering at Jesus. They were laughing at Him. And this is how he responded in verse 15. He said to them, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in the God's sight. What he was telling them is, their service to money, their love of money, and the way they used money was detestable to God. This is a very amazing set of teachings here.

You know, the old saying, people love it when the pastor preaches about other people's sins, but don't talk about money. Now you're meddling, right? Well, Jesus gives a parable that seems to be a strange parable. And then He gives three points. Let me tell you what I'm telling you in this parable. Here's the points I'm making. People in the world are going to be much wiser in how they use their money than people in the church, people called by Him, the disciples. They're going to be much wiser than we tend to be.

And then He says, So you better be wise in how you use money. He didn't say, Go be like the unwise or dishonest manager. Notice that He would say, Okay, everybody go be like the dishonest manager.

He says, You better be wise, so let me define now for you what wisdom is. And He defines three things. Spiritual wisdom and relationships of money are defined here in three ways. How can God trust you with much if He can't trust you with little? The subject is our wealth. How we take care of what we have. The second is, you can't serve God and money. It's not possible. You can't have, This is your priority and this is your priority. One has to take second priority to the other.

And third, the love of money and the dishonesty He uses in this parable is detestable to God. So obviously, this is very, very important in how we relate to God. How can we abide that biblical teaching is about money? You'd be surprised how much there is in the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is filled with teachings about money and how to use money. The Bible is not against wealth, by the way. It's not against wealth. But, how we use our wealth does affect very important aspects of our spiritual character and how we relate to God. So let's go through some of the ways today that your character, your spiritual development is going to be reflected in how you handle money.

Solomon put it this way. Let's get to Proverbs 13.7. Christ said this. He said, What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? What does it profit us if we end up gaining all the wealth we want and we lose eternal life? Which is exactly what he is saying in Luke. We can lose eternal life because of our love of physical wealth and physical things.

Christ makes it a salvation issue. We don't think of that as a salvation issue. He does. Let's look at what it says in Proverbs 13. We're going to go to Proverbs a lot today. Proverbs 13 and verse 7. There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing, and one who makes himself poor, and yet has riches. Now, if you look at that carnally, that seems like a riddle. If you look at it spiritually, it makes sense. We can make ourselves physically rich and be before God detestable. Or, there are cases where people make themselves poor in service of God and they receive eternal life and the riches of the ages to come.

I'm not saying all of you should go sell all that you have. We're going to show that's not what we're saying. We're not saying that you should give about 50% of your money to the church. I'm saying you shouldn't do that. We're talking about the principle of how we use money in light of Luke 16.

The first area we would look at is the area of faith. This may be the most difficult issue we have sometimes when dealing with our wealth. Proverbs 3. Let's go back to Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3, verse 9. Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase. What's interesting is the next verse says, So that your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. Where financial difficulties is difficult to remember that tithing and giving of offerings is a command. It's a command from God. I have people I talk to all the time about tithing, new people that are coming into the church or whatever.

And I tell them, you know what? I'm not even saying give your tithes to our church. They're shocked by that. I'm saying give your tithe to God because you're commanded to do so. It is a command. In fact, in Malachi, he says to Israel, because you will not pay your tithes, you're stealing from me and you're cursed. I've seen people refuse to do this part of what God tells them to do, and they have lots of things, but their lives are cursed.

They're the most unhappy people you ever meet, and they can't figure out what's wrong. But I just bought my second car. I just bought my second boat. I just bought a house, you know, my vacation house, and I can't figure out what's wrong. Why is my life so unhappy? They're cursed. I know years and years ago, I met down with a man who was very unhappy, and he was talking about how, you know, I forget how it came up. It's been so long. I don't even remember the conversation. I just remember how he explained to me why he didn't tithe.

The reason he didn't tithe was his car, his house, his property. Everything he owned was in a business account. The paying of the electricity, the water, everything. His food, everything was a business expense. He didn't tithe. He had no increase. And he couldn't figure out why he was so unhappy. He had everything he wanted except the blessing of God, and the blessing of God. So we are committed to do this, but that is an issue of faith. It is an issue of faith. We have to step out of tithes because we believe God wants us to do so, and God will take care of us if we do.

I've had people say, I just don't have the faith to tithe. They'll say, I understand it. I hope someday you have the faith. And I encourage you to have more faith because it is an issue of faith. You have to believe that God requires you to do this, and God will bless you. And you have to believe that if you don't, you will curse you. And you have to believe that.

Look at Deuteronomy 8. I find this fascinating. Deuteronomy 8. So it has to do with faith. You know, and it's not just tithing. It has to do with faith that says, I will do what's right even if I lose the job. I will do what's right even if I lose the account. I will do what's right even if I get, you know, I don't get the raise that I should get because I won't do something dishonest.

And it's hard. I know it's hard. I remember working at a radio station where my wife was pregnant with her first child. And they said, no, what we want you to do is carry these accounts that you're working with that are the advertising agencies. And I had all these advertising agency accounts. They gave me all the ones with young women. You're unique. After, you know, at five o'clock, you need to take these women out for a drink.

You need to, you know, get to know them as friends. They said, wait a minute. That's not how this is going to turn out. And I remember being told, well, don't let them know that. They don't have to know that it's not going to go any farther than that. You just take them out for a drink.

And I said, no. Well, I wasn't going to let you know that very long. I thought it was my dream job. Please, this faith that, okay, I cannot do this. Boy, I'm not going to get any of the advertising agency accounts anymore. Deuteronomy 8, verse 7. God is talking to them about bringing them into the land that He was going to give them their wealth. Deuteronomy 8, verse 7. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, the land of brooks of water, fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat to barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity and which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are ironed and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

He's got all the minerals you need. They were in the Bronze Age. They needed it. And they were entering into the Iron Age not long after this. I mean, this was amazing, but they were going to get it.

And when you have eaten, verse 10, in a fool, that you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

This is one of the great things about blessings.

Sometimes the more we're blessed, the more we want. And so we're never thankful for what we have. You know what's the greatest? The greatest secret to happiness is that you're happy for what you have, not constantly thinking about what you don't have.

You're happy for what you have. Now, that doesn't mean you can't work harder to get something else. It doesn't mean, oh, good, I'm in poverty. That makes me better. There's a whole lot of instructions about people in poverty, too. The book of James is about rich people and their responsibilities. There's other places that talk about poor people and their responsibilities.

Or you end up in class warfare, which is, of course, totally wrong inside the Church of God.

He says, Beware, verse 11, when they finally reap all these blessings, beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments and His statutes, which I command you this day. Lest when you have eaten and you are full, and you have built beautiful houses and dwelled them, and when you are heard and your flocks multiply, and you are silver and your gold are multiplied, and then all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. He goes on to the next verses and says, Remember everything I've done for you, because when you get there, once you're there, you will forget.

You will forget where it came from. So when you forget where it came from, verse 18, And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that ye may establish His covenant which he swore with your fathers as did this day. And that's why, as Solomon wrote, we can become very, very wealthy and be very, very poor.

Very wealthy and very poor. Was it... Who was it? J. Paul Getty that said he would give up? Of course, he's dead now, but all his millions, hundreds of millions of dollars for one good marriage. He had lots of stuff. You know, lousy marriage. Lousy life, but lots of stuff. You know, he lived by that old adage. He who wins is the one who has the most stuff when you die. Wow, I said, what an empty concept. I get all this stuff, and then I die, and somebody else gets my stuff. You see this beautiful mansion in California? It's on a cliff over a lake, and the lands started to collapse, so the people had to burn their house down. That's got to be quite sort of hard, huh? It didn't matter how much money they had. It didn't matter how many millions of dollars this mansion was worth. They had to burn it down, because it was all going to collapse into the lake. Luke 12. This is why our priorities have to be God's priorities, and that includes our money, that includes our wealth, that includes our things. They have to be God's priorities, how we use them, how we don't abuse them, with what we have. Luke 12.22. And this passage, and we read from this and from Matthew, it's almost a cliché. It can't be a cliché. This is a powerful passage that has to do with our faith and our relationship with God. He says to His disciples, verse 22, Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sowed or reaped, which have neither store-housed nor barred, if God feeds them, of how much more value are you than birds? The point He's making is you are the children of God. God knows what we need. That's what's difficult. Sometimes He doesn't know what we need. He does. Now, He also knows what we want. And sometimes what we want and what we need are two different things. What I want is God to give me everything I want. Now, maybe you're not like that, but I am. I want God to give me everything I want. But He's not going to do that, and I'm thankful for that, because sometimes what I want is actually bad for me. You live long enough, you figure that out. It's actually bad for me. But He's going to give us everything we need. Now, for Elijah, that was a basket of flour. That no matter how much they ate out of it, the next day it was spilled. For years, everybody else starved, but He got what He needed. He got what He needed. We have to have a faith that allows us to give up the anxiety and the fact that we're in an economy that could collapse. We're in a world that could collapse. What's happening in Iraq right now will have long-term repercussions of the world. I mean, the group that's taking over Iraq was kicked out of Al-Qaeda because they're too violent. Think of that! And there's only a handful of them, and they've got a 200,000-man army running away from them because they're scared of them. With tanks, men with tanks and airplanes are running away from a handful of men because they're afraid of them.

They're that violent. They nail people to crosses. They behead anyone they don't like. If Syria has already collapsed, it's held together by a government that's killed 100,000 of its own people. Egypt has already collapsed. Iran now is trying to move in. What's happening is going to destabilize the whole world, and it's going to hurt our economy.

Which is in great shape, anyways. Now, you and I can sit around and wring our hands and make ourselves sick and end up having to be in the hospital on Obamacare, saying, I don't want Obamacare, but I'll need it because I'm in the hospital. Yeah, that's right. Or, we can trust in God.

Or we can trust in God.

That God will take care of me. I will have my basket of flour and my bat of oil, but He will take care of me.

He goes on. This whole passage is about how God loves us and will take care of us.

That's why verse 29 says, Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink or have an anxious mind. The whole point about this is anxiety. If we limit anxiety over economic conditions, then we have to refocus ourselves on faith.

Because what are you going to do? Refocus yourself on putting more money in the bank. Well, the bank collapses how good is that? Well, I'll put more money in gold.

Okay. You have a gold coin worth $5,000. Where are you going to spend it? Well, I must say you should prepare for things I'm just saying. There reaches a point where nothing you do works. There reaches a point, God. We prepare for the short run. We also prepare for the short run. But you cannot prepare for the long run because the long run is called the tribulation.

You can only prepare spiritually for that.

You can only prepare spiritually for that. So, we prepare for the short run. Yes.

I do.

But I also know whatever I am prepared for has a limit to its life.

Don't have an anxious mind. 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 these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Verse 33, sell what you have and give offs. Provide yourselves money in bags which do not grow old. A treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches or moths destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He goes on and talks about this is an issue of faith. You must believe that.

There is a time your car wears out. There is a time where your boat has been sitting dry rotting because you haven't used it for five years because you've lost interest over it. There is a time when you lose a job. There is a time when you have to move out of your house into a smaller house because you can't afford the big house that you bought.

That's life.

All of us have had to do that. But what happens when we're doing it, we think we're the only ones that have ever had to go through that.

All of us have had to do that.

So we fear these things. Now, I'm not saying you're comfortable with them. I'm not saying it's comfortable to go through those things. I'm not saying that it's pleasant to go through these things, but he's talking about an anxious mind.

Faith. See, our money has to do with faith. Second point is our money has to do with our honesty.

There's a really old story about a man who lived out in the country back before the age of automobiles.

He sold butter. This farmer sold butter to a baker nearby a village.

One day the baker came to the farmer and said, You know what? These one-pound blocks of butter aren't a pound.

He said, Yes, they are. He said, No, they're not. I have perfectly good scales, and you're charging me for a pound, and they're not a pound. They're less than a pound. He said, Nope, they're a pound. I know they're a pound.

And so, finally, the baker sues the farmer. And he appeared before the local judge.

And the farmer says, or the baker says, This man is cheating me. And he's been cheating me for years, and I'll show you. He brings out his scales, and he takes this butter, and he puts on it. And sure enough, as he puts the weights on the other side, it's less than a pound.

It's less than a pound.

He says, See, he's been cheating me. He's dishonest.

And the judge turns to the farmer, and he says, Don't you have scales? And he says, Yes.

He says, But I don't have any of those weights.

He says, Well, what do you use to measure it?

He says, The one-pound loaf of bread I get from the baker.

Proverbs 21 verse 6.

You've had to watch the little house with a prairie to understand that joke.

Proverbs 21 verse 6.

Getting treasures by a lying tongue is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death.

What a remarkable statement!

Getting wealth through lying is the fleeting fantasy of someone who wants to die.

Because that will be the result.

So when we get into all these get-rich-quick schemes that we all get into, thinking that we can somehow make money very quick, somehow off of other people, we have to realize that honesty in our wealth goes beyond whether you steal something.

Most of us think of, well, dishonesty is if I steal from my employer by getting some money on the cash register. You know, dishonesty in money goes a lot deeper than that.

When you offer money, or things, goods, or services to another person for money, things, or services, and you make an agreement.

How you carry out that agreement reveals as much about your honesty as anything else.

And I can tell you something, in the church sometimes, and I've seen many, many people carry out agreements with each other in the church with utmost honesty, but sometimes I've seen people not do that.

And part of the reason why is, we get this thing where he's my brother, he'll understand.

I know that he hired me to show up on Monday morning at 8, but you know, I'm just not feeling so good, so I'm going to show up at 10.

Now, would you do that if you were working for somebody that wasn't in the church? Well, of course not. Why? Well, they'd fire me.

I showed up at 10, and he fired me. He's not really my brother.

How many times do we see this where someone will make an agreement here? I'm going to, hey, you want my car? Yeah, I'll take your car. Okay. Five hundred dollars. Okay. I'll give it to you Wednesday. And the person doesn't give it to them Wednesday. They give it to them a month later. Or they don't give it to them at all. And, well, you understand. You're my brother.

Boy, if we can't be faithful in the little things, how can we be faithful in the big things? Because if you think about it, what we're saying is we'll be honest with the ungodly, but we will be dishonest with the godly.

Now, if we apply that principle at its greatest extent, that means once Christ comes back and sets up His kingdom, everybody can be dishonest. I mean, think about it. If we say we can be dishonest with the godly, but no, I have to do it in the world because I'm required. But my brothers will understand. Can you imagine a world where Christ comes back and everybody says, yeah, we'll all show up when we want to, we'll all do what we want to, we'll all make agreements when we want to, we'll all pay the money when we want to.

Boy, what kind of world will that be?

You see, family members do this all the time.

How many times have I said down, with a father and a son, or two brothers, or an uncle and somebody, and it's like they're all mad at each other because they all agreed to do something and nobody did it. But you're family! But we are too strived. There are times you can't always do what you're supposed to do. You know, everybody understands that. Yeah, I was supposed to come over and give you that money, my car broke down. That's understandable.

But this idea, well, I don't really have an obligation. The obligation isn't binding. It means that we can inherently be dishonest with each other, and it's okay.

Our honesty is tested by our money.

Our honesty is tested by our money.

A third area is our work ethic.

I'll be surprised how much in the Bible there is about work ethic.

And I'm going to talk to young people for a minute, because this is something that comes up every once in a while, too.

They're only paying me minimum wage.

You know, they're only paying me minimum wage, so I don't have an obligation to put forth any extra effort.

Well, you agree to work for somebody. I don't care what they're paying you. You made an agreement to work for them.

You have a moral obligation to give them everything you have.

That's your character. You have a moral obligation.

Yeah, but man, a lie. It's only dairy queen.

That's not the issue. The issue is you and your work ethic. You give everything you have.

At the end of the day, you want your employee or employer feeling a little bit like, boy, did I get an advantage over that guy. That's okay.

Because you go home knowing you are a bigger person than your boss.

You have more character than your boss. That you have value as a worker. Because I tell you what, you slop off enough because I only make minimum wage.

Guess what happens when someone gives you a really good job?

You slop off. It's what you've learned. It's your habits.

You build your habits by what you do in spite of what other people do.

Righteousness is totally independent of what other people do. It never was dependent on what other people do. It's what you do.

Because you'll never meet a human being that's perfect. Every human being is imperfect.

So if you build your righteousness on everybody else's imperfection, you'll be the most imperfect person on the face of the earth.

Because you will only absorb everybody else's bad points.

Look at 2 Thessalonians. How strong is this statement in the Bible? In the Bible, 2 Thessalonians, Paul is dealing with a problem that was in the church of Thessalonica.

Thessalonica didn't have the same problems as some of the other churches, but they had their problems. Paul has to deal with it.

In 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 7, Paul says, Thessalonians, I wonder. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 7, For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly, among you.

Paul is talking about when he and some others, Sylvanus and Timothy, were there in Thessalonica.

He says, now you remember how the three of us were when we were there. Nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge. What worked was labor and toil night and day that we may not be a bird to any of you. Now, why did he do that? There's other places where Paul says that the elders are worthy of their pay. And yet here he said he went into a church and he didn't take pay. He actually did a second job. He probably worked during the day at a second job at night he worked with the church. Why did he do it? First, knowing. Not because we do not have authority. He says, not because it was right for you to pay it, but that wasn't the point. But to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. He says, this church has such a core problem that he refused pay from them, even though he says, I had the right to take it. God gave him the right in order to show you, so he is the vanisthen Timothy, do this work on the side to pay their own way to make a point. What was the point? Verse 10, For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there is someone who will walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such, we command and exhort you through our Lord Jesus Christ, that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. He commands in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. In all the time I've been a pastor, I've seen, it doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, someone will come through the church. And they'll just live with person to person. And then you call the pastor where they came from. They said, Oh yeah, that person was here for six months. They lived with three different people, refused to work, and they just lived with these people. And finally, when nobody else would take them in, they left. I see that happen. In years past, I see that happen in numerous cases. And then they would leave, and you get a call from a pastor about six months later saying, This guy used to be in your church. He showed up here, and I've given him, you know, a thousand dollars out of the church fund. And he's lived with two or three people, but he's been fired from four jobs in six months. Pretty soon there's a pattern. So pretty soon it's like if you find out this person shows up someplace, you call the pastor and you say, guess what you're in for?

And I, especially in years past, I've seen that happen.

Here he says, now he's not talking about someone who cannot work. There are all kinds of instructions in the Bible about taking care of the poor, helping the widow, helping the fatherless, helping those who can't. For some reason, maybe they've come to this at some hard times. We all have an obligation to do that. If someone's out of work, it's not that they can't or won't work. If they can't, maybe they're just out of work, they're looking for a job. We're supposed to help each other. But a person who will not work, according to the Scripture, we are not to help. Sounds pretty harsh in our society, but that's what the Scripture says, for their own sake. Because why? This is an issue of their relationship with God. How you use your money.

If you just use other people's money, it's a problem. I know this sounds harsh in our world, but for that person's sake, and for the sake of the brethren, I knew a man, and he came to this church area ten years ago. And he basically stayed with elderly people.

So I finally said, you can't do it anymore. He would just stay with elderly people who felt bad for him. He never held down a job. I knew it for years. I said, you can't stay with elderly people anymore. So we left. And I played somebody else's thing. That's how I heard the state of Texas was taking care of it, with a penitentiary. But that's another thing. Fourth point, Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11. You see how important this is? I mean, Jesus says, how can God trust us with eternity if He can't trust us with money? Well, this is a big subject. Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11. Verse 24. This is our fourth point of generosity. How generous are we with what we have in helping and loving others? Proverbs 11.24. There is one who scatters yet increases more. There is one who withholds more than is right and leads the poverty. He didn't say we shouldn't withhold. There are times to protect your wealth. But generosity means we share what we do have. And He says that withholds more than what is right and it leads to poverty. Verse 25. The generous soul will be made rich, and you, waters, will also be watered himself. The people will curse him if it withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. He didn't say him who gives it away. It's people who spare, fair with their prices, fair with what they do, and there is a time to give away things, too. Generous people give away. They're not always looking for profit. It doesn't mean it's wrong to make a profit. We all have to work. We all have to make a profit to live. The Bible, I mean, talks about that. We're all supposed to go work and make a profit if we can. We're just supposed to be generous with our blessings. You know, generosity is an amazing thing, too. It produces happiness. Stinging is won't. The fifth point is contentment. We have to be learned to be content. Yeah, it's that hard. Remember the smell. Well, most of us don't buy used cars, or new cars. Some of us do. Most of us buy used cars. But now they have the new car smell they squirted over here. Remember driving a car that you just bought, and it runs so perfect, and it smells so good. You know, the dog hasn't thrown up, and it just... And the tires are still good. Remember that? Remember, there's always a point somewhere a year to two years later that you curse the day you ever saw that car. What? A water pump? They cost that much? What do you mean the transmission's bad? The car isn't that old! Or my favorite is... I've had a couple times where I've had these major problems, and then find out, oh, it's just a computer chip. I'm stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They have to come haul me off. It costs me $100. They have the car hauled someplace. You find out it's a computer chip? Yeah, I sort of told the car that there was something wrong with it, so it stopped running. Well, what was wrong with it? Nothing. Oh. It's like anything else. We get new things, and we should enjoy them. But nothing stays new physically forever, does it? Nothing. The house that was so perfect that you loved, that you now find needs a new roof. Right? And it's like, it isn't fun anymore. Contentment, 1 Timothy 6. Here Paul is talking about contentment with life and with things and with money. 1 Timothy 6, verse 6.

Now, godliness, 1 Timothy 6, 6. Now, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out of it. Well, that's already depressing, but he goes on. He doesn't mean this to be depressing. And having food and clothing with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a stare, and it's of any foolish and harmful lust which drown men of destruction and perdition.

Wow, is that a powerful statement. Now, he didn't say that we should desire to have things, that we should desire to have money. It's, you know, we desire to have good things. But when we desire to be rich, to get more and get more and get more, he says we just fall into foolishness, and we actually hurt our lives. Because we really think, whatever it is, the big screen TV, that I have no place in my house to put one, so I can never have one.

The big screen TV, the new jet skis, you know, are simple things sometimes. If you don't have much, right, that knows new end tables that you just got from Goodwill. I can remember buying stuff from Goodwill earlier in our marriage, and it was just as exciting as if we would have went and bought it new.

When we got to the place where we could go buy things new, it was the same excitement. Whether it was Goodwill or new, it was the same excitement. We learn to be content with what we have. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. That's what it says.

It says the love of money is a root of evil. Once again, we're back to that Luke 16. Everything we're going through today keeps bringing us back to Luke 16 at the three points that Jesus made. It's the love of money that gets to us. The obsession with money. The need for money. Beyond being happy today with what we have. For which some have strayed from the faith and their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.

He says flee the love of money and replace it with these things. You have to replace it with the love of these things. That's a total change of heart. If you love money, that's a hard thing to do.

To change your heart so that you take the same amount of energy you put into the love of money and put it in the love of righteousness, or the love of godliness, or the love of faith, or the love of love. The love of patience and gentleness. Let me just wrap up with a couple side points here. Principles of money management. We looked at five ways in which our character is reflected in how we use our money. But let me give you just a few very simple practical points.

One is in Proverbs 6, and we'll turn there. Proverbs 6, 6-11, where he says, Go to the ant you sluggard, and prepare for the future. You have to plan for the future. We already went through not being anxious about the future. But if you are 65, and you never planned for any kind of retirement because you said, God's going to take care of you, you're probably in trouble. If you bought a new car last month, knowing that you can't make a $300 a month payment, you've got about 60 more days to come and take your car.

You can't ignore the future and money management. Plan for the future. Two, please be careful about borrowing and lending money to people, including our own brothers and sisters. Now, we should be generous and willing to lend, but let me tell you something. Whenever you lend money to somebody, you have to be willing to never get it back and be willing to accept that.

Without bitterness. If you lend money to somebody, and you will resent if they don't pay it back, or you will be hurt if they don't pay it back, your own finances, then remember what it says in Proverbs 22, 7, the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. If you're going to borrow money, you have... if your agreement is, I will pay you back. You have a moral obligation from God to pay the person back.

If you don't, you're stealing from them. Now, once again, maybe you can't for a while, but you have an obligation, unless the person forgives the debt, you have a moral obligation to pay the debt. Now, once again, in the churches, they say, well, he's my brother. He'll understand. Which, what should we do? We compromise our own character because he's my brother. Families do this all the time. He's a family member. He'll understand. We have a moral obligation. So, do not let money, unless you are willing to give it up. Now, do not borrow money, unless you're willing to be a slave, until you pay it back.

And I mean a slave, sacrificing your own life, your own time, your own priorities to pay back what you borrowed. And what this means is, and this idea of borrowing, please use your credit cards sparingly and wisely. Credit card debt will destroy you because of the incredible high amounts of interest you will pay. And you will be a slave to the credit card company. It's that simple. Now, I'm not saying credit cards are evil. I have a few of them, and I use them occasionally. I tell you what, you start buying things you don't need on that credit card, and, oh, I'll pay the fifteen dollars a month, bit of a payment, and you end up being a slave.

Man, the garnisher wages. You're a slave. The Bible says you will be a slave. You say, well, how evil of that to do it to be? Well, it is evil for someone to charge you 22% interest. The Bible says you shouldn't do that. But that's the system you live in, so you're going to go participate in their evil. We all have to. You have to buy a car.

You have to borrow money. To buy a house, you have to borrow money. The problem is, you go borrow that money, you're now obligated morally to pay the interest, because you made an agreement. You made an agreement. Your honesty is at stake. I've seen people sit down and say, would you help me with my finances? And you look through their money, and they say, well, you can live off of this. And they say, well, let me show you my credit card debt. I have $40,000 in credit card debt.

There's nothing you could do but claim bankruptcy. At $15 and the amount of interest, it will take you something like 437 years to pay this off. So they have to go claim bankruptcy. Credit cards will destroy your financial stability, because you'll buy something that you cannot afford. Save the money and pay cash, or put it on the credit card and pay it off immediately.

Or if it's something you have to have, okay, but I will make $100. I'm going to make $105 a month payments for three months, and then it's out. And you have to set aside the money to pay for it.

Be very, very careful. And when a lot of young people are naive, they think they want what their parents have. But it took their parents 40 years to get it. And they wanted two years out of college. Now, some can, because they make so much money. And that's great. That's wonderful. But the bottom line is, most can't. And so you go buy your furniture at Goodwill, like we did.

And you build off of it, and you work hard. Once again, we're back to that work ethic. And then the last point is, learn how to budget. If you don't know how to budget, there's lots of budgets online. You can go find detailed budgets. The book, printed by the United Church of God, Anage of Your Finances, has a great budget sheet in it. You can sit down and work out a budget. It tells you how to set up a budget. If you don't manage your money, how do you even know where it's going?

I sit down with people and say, okay, well, I'm losing $50 a month, and I can't figure out why. Or, $100 a month. I'm losing $100 a month. Okay, explain what you do with the money in your pocket. I don't buy anything, nothing at all.

Well, every morning I stop at Starbucks and I get that Fente, you know, extra Frappuccino, Boca, Double Express, so whatever. With whipped cream. How much that costs? $5? How often do you do that? Well, just Monday through Friday. That's $25 a week. Yeah, that's $100 a month. Yep, we only just figured out where your $100 goes. Now, if you can afford to do that every day, that's great!

I'm not saying going to Starbucks is wrong. I've been known to occasionally sneak into one myself. My poor wife is addicted to Starbucks. I have to drive by them at extra speed every time I go by. But... Oh, man, am I going to get it tonight. The point is, is that if you can afford that fine, not too many people can afford the $25. I remember sitting down with the man one time, years and years ago, and he said, I just can't afford the tie.

And I said, okay. He said, would you help me with your budget? Okay. And I said, down it went through it. And in the end, I said, I don't understand. You have 10% of your income going someplace, and I don't know where it goes. Where does it go? Well, there's two things I really like in life. So with that, I beard my cigarettes. He said that you spend 10% of his income on beard cigarettes. He didn't even realize that we set and put his budget together.

So first of all, you need to get off the cigarettes. And second of all, I think you're an alcoholic. What you want? See, all of a sudden, how we use our money is important in our spiritual life, isn't it? It's all very important. Our money slips through our fingers because we don't manage it properly.

It's to manage our money. That's what Jesus is saying in Luke 16. He's saying to us, manage our resources properly. Enjoy the blessings God has given to you. Remember, it is He who gives us the power to get wealth. It is possible to have wealth and be cursed. It is possible to be poor and be blessed by God because of what we do with what we have. And in the meantime, through all this, He teaches us faith, honesty. He teaches all the things we talked about here. A work ethic, He teaches us about contentment. So these are tests. Having wealth is a test, and not having wealth is a test. But for those of us who have been at both ends of that, a few times in my life, I've never been really wealthy, but then I started to think about it.

Compared to most people in the world, I'm wealthy. Most people in the United States, we live in a level of wealth. If you have any kind of house with an air conditioning in it, you're better off than most people. If you have a car, you're better off than most people. If you have a television set, you're better off than most people. So, you know, okay, we're all the wealthy in the world, all of us in the room.

One way or another, we're wealthy. And all of us, most of us have been to a point where we didn't have a job, where we didn't have money, where we didn't know where the next food was coming from. Been there, too. They're both tests. What it is, though, when you're without money, it's like, God, that can't be a test. That must be great.

Give me wealth. Be careful what you pray for. Because what the Bible says is that any time, that's what pulls people away from God. That's actually what pulls them away from God. So, as you can see, what we're told is that how we handle our wealth, how we handle our blessings, is important. Because it's one way that God uses to teach us what He needs us to know in handling the things of the Kingdom of God.