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I discovered some fascinating statistics the
other day. Did you know that out of 38 parables that
Jesus told, 16 deal with money in some form or other? If
you add up all the times that heaven and hell are
mentioned, it comes to fewer times than money is
mentioned. The New Testament says 5 times as much about
money than it does about prayer. There are about 500 or
so verses on prayer and faith combined, but there are
2000 verses dealing with money and possessions. |
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You can see from those figures that money must
be an important issue for the Christian. But why is that?
Is it because there's something inherently wrong with
money? No, the Bible never suggests that. In fact if you
look at some of the Old Testament stories, wealth is
often associated with God's blessings. But what we do
discover is that the love of money is the root of all
evil. It's when we elevate money to godlike status that
it becomes a problem for us. As we read in our first
reading, from 1 Tim 6, "those who want to be rich
fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless
and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and
destruction." Money becomes a trap, it captures us
in a way that causes us to lose our perspective on life.
In the end money becomes everything. |
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As you can see from those figures I just quoted
this is no new phenomenon. Money has always been a danger
to human beings. It's a means of wielding power. It
allows us to think we're in control of our world. It
frees us to spend our energies on ourselves. It can lead
us to think that what we have is our right because we've
achieved it. So the lure of money is a very subtle
temptation. |
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But I can't help but think that this temptation
is even greater now than it was when those words were
written. You see, of all the evils in the world, the love
of money is perhaps the most promoted evil around. Other
vices are looked down on. If you suffer from pride,
someone is sure to cut you down to size. If you suffer
from gluttony, there are plenty of organisations out
there waiting to help you with your diet. If you have an
alcohol problem, you'll be reminded at regular intervals
about the dangers of drink-driving, or of the effects on
your family of alcohol abuse. Similarly if you have a
gambling problem. |
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But no-one is going to help you if your problem
is consumptive materialism or hedonism. You won't find a
"Greed Watchers" or a "Shopaholics
Anonymous" being advertised on TV. On the contrary,
what you'll see is an encouragement to think about your
need for money, to spend more than you really need to, to
desire things that you don't have, not because you need
them, but for the status of owning. You'll hear a subtle
or even not so subtle message that money is the key to
happiness and security, even to love and intimacy. So
let's think about how money tempts us and then we'll
spend some time thinking about how to combat that
temptation. |
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First, lets think about 2 mirages that live in
the modern mind, relating to money. You know what a
mirage is don't you? It's something that looks
substantial and real from a distance but just as you're
about to reach it, it vanishes |
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Money can make you happy? |
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The first mirage is the idea that money will
make you happy. Now we all know that's not true don't we?
Don't we? So why do we envy those who have it? Isn't it
true that we've been sold this message that money is the
key to our future security? Have you seen that long
running ANZ ad? It's in serial form, with the man who
gives up his high pressure job to start a nursery, then
his wife joins him with a coffee shop, then his
son-in-law joins the business as well. And all because
ANZ provided the money! And what's the subtext of that ad
campaign? Isn't it that you'd be much happier if you had
access to more money so you could follow your dream?
That's just one example, but there are countless others
where the message is similar: Money will make you free
and independent. Money will give you power over others
and over your own life. Money brings you respect. People
will treat you differently when you've got the big bucks.
Money can solve all your problems. And people sit there
in front of the box wondering whether the next contestant
will become a millionaire, or who will be the one who'll
out-survive the others and walk away with the cash, all
the time living vicariously on the fortunes or
misfortunes of others. And that's linked to the second
mirage. |
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You can get rich quick? |
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There was a time in our history when otherwise
sane men dropped everything to rush off to Ballarat or
Bendigo to search for gold. But few of them actually made
it. Many died, many others went home penniless. They were
blinded by the hope of getting rich quick. But, you know,
we see the same phenomenon today. Only the gold fever
today is related to poker machines and blackjack tables,
or lotteries like Tattslotto. All last week we were
hearing how you could go home with $15 million from the
Powerball jackpot on Thursday night. Well, one person
might have, but all the rest simply blew their money. An
American psychologist, B.F. Skinner, once did some
behaviour modification experiments with chickens. He
taught the chicken to peck at a disk, by rewarding it
with a piece of corn. But he found that if he stopped
giving it the corn it would stop pecking. So then he
tried giving it a piece of corn at random intervals. With
this intermittent reward in place the chickens would
stand and peck at the disk relentlessly until they fell
over from exhaustion. That's the same psychology that's
applied to the pokie or to Tattslotto. They give out
enough rewards that people will keep pecking forever,
always hoping for the one big strike that will set them
up for life. |
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Of course these aren't the only ways we're
deceived into thinking we can get rich quick. There are
plenty of schemes around being touted to gullible
investors with the message that if you follow these
schemes you'll be rich in no time flat. There was a guy
out here recently running seminars on how to get rich.
Just come to his seminar, buy his book and you'd be rich.
Well it was pretty obvious that he'd found the secret to
riches. But it wasn't anything in his book. It was
finding enough gullible people who'd pay $20, or whatever
it cost, for his book. |
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But let's go back to the first mirage. If you
were to get rich quickly, would it make you happy? I
remember some years ago, being given what was for us a
largish sum of money as a loan. It meant we could pay off
our housing loan and all we had to do was pay it back
over a number of years. Did it make me more happy? No.
Just the opposite. It made me worry about how to look
after it so it was there to be paid back when the time
came. I was actually happier, I think, when I didn't have
it. The reality of money is that the more you have the
more you worry about it. The more stress you feel about
it. |
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The Emotional Pull of Money |
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Now you may not be like the majority. You may be
quite happy to live on what you have, but that isn't the
case with many of us. For many of us money gets us at the
point of who we are and how we're perceived by others. It
becomes the key to self-esteem. We may not be personally
affected by the pressures of advertisers to consume more
or to buy a Tatts ticket, but when we see our best friend
roll up in the latest HSV Holden or BMW sports car, we
get just a little bit envious. When we visit a friend and
they've just renovated their kitchen or got new floor
coverings, or perhaps put a beautiful extension on the
back of their house, we begin to wish that we could
afford that sort of thing. And when we see how people
treat our wealthy friends differently, just because they
have money, we start to wish we could get that sort of
attention and acceptance ourselves. You see, money is
never just money. Money affects how we see ourselves, and
how others see us. If we have money we feel good about
ourselves because of what we've achieved. We can look at
others and fell sorry for them for not being as clever or
as hardworking or as entrepreneurial as we are. That's
why when the stock market crashes people go crazy and
even commit suicide. Because a significant financial loss
translates into a substantial loss of self-esteem. Once
they were somebody, now they're nobody. |
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Money also gives us a sense of being in control
of our lives. If we have a good super scheme, if we own
our own home, if we're debt free, we feel secure. Even as
Christians we tend to think, subconsciously at least,
"I trust God with my life, but I want to make sure
I've got plenty of financial padding just in case."
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't plan ahead for retirement
or use our money wisely, but we need to watch where we're
putting our trust for our future, and what we're planning
to use our money on. |
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Do you remember the parable that Jesus told
about the farmer who had a bumper harvest? (Luke
12:16-21) In fact his harvest was so good that he brought
in enough to last him for years, perhaps even for the
rest of his life. So what did he do? He pulled down his
barns and built bigger ones. Then he sat back, feeling
very happy with himself and said "Take life easy,
your future is secure. You'll never have to work
again." Well, he was right wasn't he? Because that
very night he died, and all his riches were of no use to
him. You know if you ever go to a rich person's funeral
and someone asks how much did they leave, the answer is
simple: "Everything!" The point of the parable
is that money has nothing to do with true security. True
security can only be found in God. That's why Jesus
exhorts us to store up treasures in heaven. Because
that's the only place we'll find security. As we saw last
week, God is like a loving father who delights to provide
for his children. If we're worried about the future we
need to get a new perspective, to see that God is able to
provide all we need, just as he provides for the flowers
and the birds (Matt 6:25-34). |
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So how are we to get our perspective right in
this area of money? Well, let me suggest three Biblical
ideas that might help: |
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God made everything |
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It might seem simple, but I think we sometimes
forget that otherwise obvious fact. Back in Deuteronomy 6
as the people of Israel were about to enter the promised
land, they were given this warning: "When the LORD
your God has brought you into the land that he swore to
your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to
give you -- a land with fine, large cities that you did
not build, 11houses filled with all sorts of
goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did
not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not
plant -- and when you have eaten your fill, 12take
care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
(Deut 6:10-12 NRSV) James tells us that every good and
perfect gift comes down from our heavenly father. But the
temptation is to forget this, particularly in our
technology driven world, where it seems that everything
we use is manufactured. We think if we made it, or we
earned it, if we own it, then it's ours to enjoy as we
wish. God placed us on earth to have dominion over the
creation, but we pervert that call. We take what we have
and use it for our pleasure, we spend it on our lusts. We
forget the second important idea: |
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God retains ownership of everything he's made |
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As the psalm on our news sheet says "All
the beasts of the forest belong to me: and so do the
cattle upon the mountains. I know all the birds of the
air: the grasshoppers of the field are in my sight. If I
were hungry, I would not tell you; for the whole world is
mine, and all that is in it." We fool ourselves if
we think that what we have is ours to use as we please.
No. It remains God's. We're simply the ones who are given
responsibility to look after it. That's because: |
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Christians are Stewards of God's Creation |
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God gives us responsibility to look after his
world. That means that we're responsible to look after
the things that he gives, the money and talents that
we're given. You may remember that Jesus told a parable
about some people who were given responsibility for a
vineyard. But they forgot whose vineyard it was, so when
the king sent his servants to collect the rent they beat
them up. Even when the king's son was sent they ignored
it and killed the son. We have to be careful that that
story isn't told about us in the way we use the resources
that God has given us. |
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So how are we to be good stewards of our money? |
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The first area is |
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Giving. |
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Think back to that parable of the farmer with
the bumper harvest. What was wrong with what he did?
Wasn't it just good business practice to build bigger
barns? I think the point of what God says at the end of
that parable, is that good business practice wasn't the
issue. The issue was his attitude to his wealth. What he
should have done with his wealth was to share it with
others. In the end it was others who got it anyway, God
says. Far better if the farmer had taken the bounty that
God had given him and shared it with those who had
little. Now that's an idea that comes out strongly in the
New Testament. We haven't got time to look at 1 Cor
8&9 today, but there, Paul talks about how the
generosity of the Philippians was poured out even in the
midst of poverty. Jesus praises the poor widow for giving
a couple of cents to the Temple. The Bible calls for a
counter-cultural attitude to money, where we solve the
problems it brings us by being generous with it. Listen
to what Proverbs 11:24-25 say: (Prov 11:24-25 NRSV)
"Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others
withhold what is due, and only suffer want. 25A
generous person will be enriched, and those who refresh
others will themselves be refreshed." So how are we
to change our attitude to money? Let me suggest one way. |
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Next time you're thinking about how much of your
income to give to God, I want you to do two things. First
think about what resources you really need to live. What
could you live on if you had to? What if you were living
in India, or Africa? |
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Then take out a large piece of paper, put a line
down the middle and write down on one side what you have
that's really yours, and what you have that's really
God's. Now if you're honest one side of that piece of
paper will be empty. Then, look at what you have that
belongs to God and think what you might do with it. It's
an interesting thing, but if you're ever in the position
of giving away someone else's money, you'll find it much
easier than giving away your own. I remember a number of
years ago being asked to bid for a friend at a house
auction. It was much easier bidding for them than if it
had been my own money I was spending. So go over your
list, reminding yourself that these things, this money
belongs to God, and then work out what you're going to do
with it. |
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I heard of one Christian businessman who lived
on 10% of his income and gave 90% of it away, because he
understood this principal. On the other hand, I heard of
another wealthy man who went to see his pastor about the
idea of tithing. He was very worried because he'd made
$500,000 on a land deal and tithing would mean he'd have
to give $50,000 to the Church. Well, the Pastor was
sympathetic. He told the man he understood how difficult
his position was, then he suggested they pray about it.
Both men lowered their heads and the pastor prayed a
simple prayer: "Lord, please reduce this man's
income until he can afford a tithe." |
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Finally 7 suggestions for regaining power over
money: |
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- Stay close to the
bible and its teaching on money
Let God's word keep your perspective right
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- Find ways to keep
in touch with the poor
If the only people you mix with are wealthy
you'll find it very hard to keep a Godly
perspective on money and wealth.
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- Pray about money
and how to use it
Confess your greed and covetousness and ask for
the Spirit's help in setting right priorities for
your life
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- Form accountable
relationships
Talk about money with your close friends and
family.
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- Develop a counter
cultural attitude towards money
decide you're not going to try to get rich quick.
Give your money away. Don't show favouritism to
those with money. Show by your life that people
are more important than things. Deny the power of
money to diminish our values and depersonalise
our relationships.
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- Develop the basic
skills for money management
Learn how to set a budget that reflects your
personal and Biblical priorities of life. Work
out what you need to live. If you're thinking
about your retirement needs work out what you'll
need then and if you have that covered then stop
worrying about it.
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- Work to develop
attitudes that guard you in the area of money
Think about how you respond to advertising. Don't
be sucked in by the message that you need more or
newer things to be happy. Resist the pressure to
buy on impulse. Don't flip through the junk mail
whenever it arrives. Throw it in the bin.
Emphasise quality rather than quantity in your
lifestyle.
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Finally, know yourself. Understand what
particular temptations affect you most in this area of
money and wealth and prepare yourself to fight them. And
let God set your priorities, not the advertisers and
retailers |
