Grace Emmanuel Church

Pastor Sam Chess

God’s Plan for our Money

Money plays an important role in our lives; whether we have a lot or a little. Because God cares about the smallest areas of our lives it seems likely that God would have a plan for how we use our resources. If He did not…a major part of our lives would not be under his control. If God does have a plan for our finances, and we are not living is accordance with his plan, then a major part of our life is not in line with our Creator‘s plan for our lives.

I. Our attitude toward money reveals our attitude toward God himself

(Matthew 6:21,24) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. …"No one 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. (NIV)

This last word carries a lot of meaning…it doesn’t mean we look at a $20 bill and feel an emotion of love for it. It’s talking about an attitude of the heart that puts money and what it can buy ahead of our love for God.

God is very clear on this point; If you place a priority on the accumulation of wealth you will not place a priority on deepening your relationship with God. If you are preoccupied with your relationship with God, the accumulation of wealth will not consume you….

Jesus puts this in proper perspective for us….

(Matthew 6:31-33) So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (NIV)

You have come to a country that is very, very preoccupied with financial gain. So many Americans spend so much of their efforts trying to accumulate more, and more. We sometimes refer to this accumulation as “living the American dream”.

The more Americans have focused on accumulating wealth and possession, the less they seem to care about building a relationship with God. God is not against you, as a Christian, accumulating possessions but it is very important that you go about it in a biblical way. If you follow God’s course of action with your finances it is possible that God may allow you to accumulate money and possessions. But God demand first that you:

(Proverbs 3:9-10) Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first-fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. (NIV)

Your wealth is whatever you have….If you have one dollar or one hundred dollars that is the wealth God is talking about here. Wealth is a relative thing. If your have $1000 American dollars you have very little compared to someone with $100,000 American dollars. Some of you have relatives living in Port-au-Prince to whom a thousand American dollars would be a fortune.

God expects you to take whatever he has entrusted you with and “Honor” him with that amount. In fact God asks you to take the first fruits of what you have received and especially honor him with that.

How do you take the first-fruits of what God has given you and “honor him” with it?

By giving the first- fruits back to Him!!

God’s makes a very interesting promise to those who honor him with the first fruits of their increase.

(Proverbs 3:9-10) Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first-fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. (NIV)

II. God wants us to see our money as something we offer to Him in worship!

(Exodus 23:14-15) "Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. "No one is to appear before me empty-handed. (NIV)

(Psalms 96:8-9) Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth. (NIV)

In God’s economy, part of the process of giving him the glory due his name…..part of worshipping him in the splendor of his holiness….part of trembling before the awesome holiness of our Creator is giving back to him part of what he has given to us. It’s part of a whole picture of what constitutes true worship.

If we say we love God with all our hearts and we seek to worship him “in spirit and in truth” and at the same time we hoard all he has gifted us with to spend on our own selfish pursuits….something is not right!

Part of the worshipping process is this welling up within that makes us desire to take from our bounty and God’s gifts to us and gift them back to God’s kingdom for use in the lives of others.

It’s interesting that Jesus thought this process important enough that he gave a whole afternoon to it:

(Mark 12:41-44) Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-- all she had to live on." (NIV)

Jesus states that the one who put in the least, actually gave the most because she then had nothing left.

When God measures what you give He, also, looks at what you keep for yourself!

God gauges what you give by what you keep!

III. God’s Challenge to the Children of Israel

(Deuteronomy 14:22) Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. (NIV)

(Leviticus 27:30,32) "'A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD…. The entire tithe of the herd and flock-- every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd's rod-- will be holy to the LORD. (NIV)

Apparently God kept a record of their faithfulness….or unfaithfulness in honoring him with their first fruits…a tithe of all their increase. In Malachi, the final book written in the Old Testament God is once again pointing our how Israel has been unfaithful to Him. One of the points he makes has to do with their giving to him…… or lack of it.

(Malachi 3:7-8) Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, 'How are we to return?' "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. (NIV)

(Malachi 3:9-10) You are under a curse-- the whole nation of you-- because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. (NIV)

(Malachi 3:11-12) I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty. (NIV)

1) God’s seems to keep a record of our faithfulness….or lack thereof.

2) Holding back from God constitutes a lack of true worship

3) Worse than that, God calls holding back, stealing what is truly His.

4) Holding back brings a curse on those who do it.

5) Faithful giving tests our faith in God’s faithfulness to us.

6) Faithful giving brings God’s continued blessing on the faithful

7) God’s blessing brings glory to him, from those looking on.

It is so important that we lose the perspective that we get from the society we live in and we replace it with the perspective from God’s Word. If we could just come to understand that what goes on in this world is just preparation for the world to come. Why would we work so hard to accumulate wealth here when we are going to leave it all in a few years and go to heaven where money will mean nothing.

Here we will work so hard for a little bit of gold. There the streets will be paved with it. Here we save money to but a single jewel.. there they will be everywhere, adorning the walls of the New Jerusalem. We must get our perspective straight:

(Luke 12:32-34) "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NIV)

1) You cannot have all your money in one place and your heart in another!

2) Your Father has given you the Kingdom so you can afford to be generous!

3) You are a child of the King of the universe. You must learn to act like the children of the King!

(Psalms 112:1-9) Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD. His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes. He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor. (NIV)

IV. God compares giving to sowing seed, both in this life, and for the next.

We all understand the principle of sowing. A farmer has a bushel of wheat kernels. He has a choice…he can grind it all into flower and eat it all in one month…or he can plant it in the ground and out of the bushel of wheat, in biblical terms, can come as much as a hundred new bushels of wheat.

A good farmer has to be very careful…he would never dream of taking some of his valuable seed and throwing it in a place where it would never possible grow. That bushel of seed is everything to him…it is God’s gift of plenty. He can eat some of it.. that’s a gift from God.. but he must carefully plant some of it so there is additional crop next year and for years to come.

The farmer’s assurance of having enough for now and plenty in times to come is based on how carefully he stewards what God has given him. The more he plants, the greater will be the harvest and the more he will have to plant in the future; which of course will bring an even greater harvest then, which will, of course, allow him to plant even more……

(2 Corinthians 9:6-7) Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (NIV)

(2 Corinthians 9:8) And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (NIV)

This is such a profound biblical principle: