Last Sunday, we began a new series entitled, “This is what we do.” This series is about exploring why God has called us to be givers and what that looks like. This week, as we continue this series, we are going to look at what attempts to keep you from being and doing what God has created us to do.
As I said the first week of this series, is that you need to know, we are not teaching on money because we need it. It quite the opposite to be honest. God has blessed our church through your giving this past year and we have done our best to continue giving from that to our community and around the world.
A couple of weeks ago, we had our Kingdom Builders Sunday, in which we were able to plant a seed of 1,000 dollars to help a church plant in Madison, TN. We were also able to help out a family in need in our community. This is what we do! We give as a response of what God has given to us.
Christians need to understand that we give because God is a giver! Its not just something that He does, it is who He is. It is a part of His nature. You and I were created in His image.
Genesis 1:27 (ESV) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Because we are created in the image of God, this is more than just in our physical appearance. He has put his DNA inside each of us and is wired us to want to do what He does and what He is. That doesn’t mean that we always live up to that. There are real enemies that put themselves up against God, that we can fall prey to.
I know people will say that I know a rich person who doesn’t serve the Lord that is an amazing philanthropist and gives away money like crazy. Remember, God created every person to look like Him. So it is real that people that don’t serve Him will still want to help others out and are givers.
But you will never find a true christian who is not a giver. You can’t follow God and follow His heart and not be generous at your core. Doesn’t mean that you are able to do all that you want, but God has given each of us what we need in the moment.
There are those that would say that when they get their money right that they will become givers. But you need to understand, God expects us to be obedient with little and with much. When we keep our finances in our hands, that means we are also at the same time keeping them out of God’s hands.
This is all about trust. What you worship and what you put your trust in, is the idol and object of your attention. You can’t intimacy with someone that you don’t trust. That includes with God.
In Genesis 3, we read the account of the fall of man. This is the telling of how Adam and Eve ate from a tree that they were forbidden from eating from. Whether you believe that this is an actual event or not, I do.
But their fall really came down to challenging their trust of God…Did God really say this…he knows that you will become like Him…It was all about getting them to question the plan of God. This doubt broke the intimacy and fellowship that they had with God.
The enemy of our lives doesn’t have to break you into horrible sin. He just has to get you to question the plan of God and the word of God. Money is a tool that He will use over and over to break your fellowship and intimacy with God.
Author Timothy Keller talks about money as a “Counterfeit God”. It begins to take the place of where God was supposed to be in our lives. We think sometimes that our way of doing things will help us get ahead, but it actually starts pulling us backwards.
Matthew 6:19-24 (ESV) 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!24 “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.
Some of your bible versions use the terms God and Mammon.
Mammon was an Aramaic term that meant riches…When you are rich or perceive yourself to be rich, you don’t think you need God quite the same. You start to become self-sufficient. Trust becomes about what you have in your hands or your ability.
Exodus 20:4-5 (ESV) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me
This scripture is talking about idols. Things that we make up to take the place of God. When I was doing to some research this week for this message, the idea of Idols really stuck out to me. We think of an idol as only a graven image or statue right? But what is an idol?
An idol in itself gives us the sense of being in control. We created it and have placed it in a place of honor in our lives.
Love them
Trust them
Obey them
To figure out what is an idol in your life, it comes down to understanding what you fear the most to lose. If you lost that thing it would make life less meaningful and worth less to live. Our idols that we put in our lives, make us feel more secure, confident, and safe. But idols are not under our control, but actually control us.
You are controlled by the Lord of your life!
Money can become a lord in your life. And its easy to think its just normal to live in fear about the money we have. Money and the love of money can become an idol in your life.
Luke 12:15 (ESV) 15And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Money as an idol in your life, will take your heart and it will blind you to the fact that it has done it. But its not hard to diagnose what has your heart. You may be asking why is any of this important…the reality is that there is a spirit of mammon that is competing with Gods spirit in your life. And you cannot worship both at the same time.
Mammon wants you to put more of your trust in your savings than you have in your savior.
Last week, we introduced an idea called the “Scarcity Cycle”. This cycle is not a pocket book issue. It is a mental approach to how you do life. It starts in how you think.
GOD PROVIDES…WE CONSUME…WE LACK…WE FEAR (Vicious circle)
It comes down to how we think about money and its role in our lives. Some believe that all money is bad. The reality is money is amoral. Meaning it is not either nor bad. What defines it is how we use it and the role it plays in our lives.
If GIVING is not what you do, its time for a mental makeover!
Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) 7for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
If you think that you can be generous you more than likely will be. But if you consider yourself poor, you wont be. You need to understand that God is our source of provision…that will make you think differently!
Matthew 6:24 shows us that your thinking and trust comes down to what is in control of your life. It is either love for God and to obey Him, or to love mammon and money and let it be what you obey. Jesus said you cant serve both at the same time.
You will love one and hate the other. You will find that there is no middle ground when it comes to your affection. Mammon just like God is jealous for your attention. It will not share you.
Our money will have one of 2 spirits attached to it:
Spirit of Mammon
Spirit of God
It all is decided by what you have submitted it to. Wealth that has been submitted to God has His spirit on it. That means that he can cause it to multiply and it is not devoured.
Money that is not submitted to God has the Spirit of Mammon attached to it. It will be used to manipulate. It is controlled by the spirit of the world and having more for personal gain. It will promise you everything and deliver nothing. Mammon will try to convince you that money is the solution to every problem you have.
Money submitted to God is Multiplied for his purpose and yours. It is protected from the day to day. The blessings of God flow through it and in it.
Mammon continually promises more security, significance, identity, independence, power and freedom. But more than anything it offers more bondage in our lives.
Mammon teaches us to buy and sell, to cheat and steal to get it. While God teaches us to reap and sow, give and receive.
When the antichrist comes into power in this world, its chief manipulation will be financial. Revelation 13:17, tells us that we wont be able to buy and sell unless you submit your worship and allegiance to the antichrist. People think this is far fetched, but if there is anything that we have seen in the past 4 years, it the power that money and a life has over us.
Mammon desires to get you to go for everything that is opposite of God. It gets you to think money solves your problems and works for you. But 1 Timothy 6:10 tells us that love of money is the root of all evil. The love of God breaks through those areas. Money is not the answer to you problems…God is!
Luke 16:10-13 (ESV) 10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.”
What you need to understand is that wealth can be righteous or unrighteous. The unrighteous only furthers yourself. While righteous wealth is focused on others.
Unrighteous wealth is focused on temporal things, while righteous wealth is eternal. When we use the resource that God has placed in our hands for righteous purposes, it will bring people to God. Satan hates it when we give it back, because it diminishes his kingdom as God grows the kingdom as a whole.
When we have learned to be faithful with little, God can release more into our lives. It doesn’t matter how much you have, until you understand you are just managing what is God’s.
I want to show you one example of how changing your thinking will change you life…Alexander Kerr (Kerr Jars)
San Francisco Fires
Telegrammed several times that everything was being destroyed.
Kerr gave his heart to the Lord before this moment, and had started to read the word and do it. When he got the call he started praying Isa 55:8-11 which says that Gods word will not return void. He honored God with the first fruits and gave God even when it didn’t make since. Every thing within a half mile was burned except his factory.
“Fearful circumstances cannot break God’s promises.”
What has your heart today? And what are you willing to let go of to allow God to be your only source that you trust, love and obey?