How to Manage Money, and keep it from managing you

Matthew 6:19-34

Introduction

We're fascinated by dying words. Most likely its because we think that at the end, people's minds are clearer about how they've lived their lives - and it should give those of us with a few minutes left yet some wisdom.

Well, I don't know about that - but it is enlightening - especially if we listen to those who had a lot or who strove to create vast amounts of wealth here on earth.

P. T. Barnum, the entrepreneur, who died in 1891 is said to have uttered these words as he passed away: "How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?"

Queen Elizabeth the 1st had more power and money and treasures than you could imagine - but when her time came, nothing she possessed could stop the inevitable in 1603. Her dying words are said to be: "All my possessions for a moment of time."

Death puts life into sharp perspective, doesn't it? All of Elizabeth's possessions couldn't buy her that moment she longed for.

In fact, money is worthless after we die because we can't take it with us.

1 Timothy 6:7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.

So, if we know this - why does money have such a hold on us? Why do we cherish our possessions and fall into deep depression when the stock market tumbles? Why do we worry that unless we have enough money (and when is enough really enough), we're going to starve? And why is that every new thing that comes along fascinates us so much that we do anything to get it - then grow bored of it as soon as the next new thing comes along?

That's the theme as Jesus moves from telling us how we need to be different from those who profess to know God but don't live like Him - to how we need to be different from those in the world around us.

19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So what's your attitude about money and possessions?

I recently took an online quiz from Kobliner.com - rating my attitudes about money with such questions as:

Do you know within a hundred dollars how much debt you have?

Have you bought yourself something frivolous in the last three months?

Do you forget when people borrow money from you?

If you found $1,000 in a paper bag under your seat on a train, would you keep it?

The site rated me as a slacker - money to me, the site said, is like a Frisbee - I throw it around and if it comes back, all the better - but I should watch out about being swindled.

So what are you? A "slacker", a "monk", a "grounded middle", a "coveter" or, heaven forbid, a "greedhead?"

What's more important to you - your possessions or your God - material value, or eternal value?

The problem is the storage mechanism - Kobliner is right - there are plenty of people ready willing and able to rip me off - and have in the past. Does that mean we just change our attitude about people, becoming more suspicious or change our attitude about money - becoming less materialistic.

You see we don't have a way to store material wealth so we can take it with us - so is the answer to live large and extravagantly then die only to enter heaven a pauper?

On earth we have the FDIC to guard our money - God has the HDIC - a guarantee program that isn't subject to robbery or a fluctuating economy - but deposits of denaro can't be made to this account.

Jesus doesn't mean we shouldn't have money - but money shouldn't have us. We need to be good stewards, not good hoarders.

How do we make deposits into an account with a healthy interest rate in heaven? More on that later.

Jesus is making a point about our attitudes about possessions and its effect on our spiritual walk with God. Listen to verse 22 & 23:

22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

I used to be very confused by this verse - Somehow I thought that if I had bad eyes then I was full of darkness - a shame since now my eyes are slowly deteriorating (and thus the need for glasses).

But Jesus isn't talking about eyesight.

To the Hebrew mind "eye" meant the direction of someone's life - or the way they lived life. The point He's making is that if we think we are living our lives for God but are in reality living our lives for what we can get - then we are fooling ourselves and are most to be pitied - suffering from a sort of double vision - but it is self delusional and leads to darkness.

1 Timothy 6:10 says: "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." Notice its not "money is the root of evil" but "the LOVE of money." When we love money and possessions we cannot love God fully, we cannot focus our lives on Him and we cannot make healthy deposits in heaven.

Jesus further illustrates it this way in verse 24:

24 "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.

Bob Dylan, in his short stint as a Christian artist wrote some very stirring words: "you gotta serve somebody."

We all have a master - what is yours, really and truly. Jesus says here flat out: you can't serve God and serve money - it just doesn't work. Yet for many of us we try - its like the guy in the movie who has two girlfriends and tries vainly keep them from knowing about the other.

We run around trying to hold on to our possessions and not really admit that we have fallen in love with them, and then we run around the try to serve God - in the end we are just running around - and worse yet, just like sand - the harder we hang on, the more earthly possessions and wealth slip through our fingers because 1) on earth everything is working to steal or destroy what we have - and 2) we are not saving up treasures in heaven.

Listen to what God says to one of His churches who has let finances have the final word:

Rev 3:14-18
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

There are several important lessons to learn from these few verses.

1. It is God's creation (14) not ours to own.
2. Worldly wealth leads to spiritual apathy and arrogance (15)
3. God would rather we despise Him, than try to love Him and mammon (16)
4. Wealth is self deceiving (17)
5. Real wealth comes through the fire of God building our characters (18)

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Jesus touches on every one of our fears and longings and needs:

o Sustenance (the 1st step: getting by, staying alive and having enough)
o Appearance (the next step - what we have and how we appear to others)
o Security (the final step - setting ourselves up for independence of need)

But His point is - He doesn't want US to get any of our security from what we grasp for - but whether its just getting by or looking into the future, we need to realize that it comes from God, rely on Him to provide it, then refocus our lives to do His will.

That's why He says "life is more important than food - because life is to serve Him. Now that's not to say that He wants us destitute and on the street - we just studied the Lord's prayer where Jesus encouraged us to pray for our daily needs.

The point is: seek God FIRST - then the other stuff will follow AS NEEDED. Where are your priorities? I would encourage us all to take an inventory - do you soar when stocks are up - spending time at work watching the stock ticker on your portfolio - or do you instead focus on how God is changing your life and making you more like Him so you can be used for Him with ever greater effectiveness?

You can be either a miser or a fool - neither are good - but you tell which you are by what you do and do not worship. If you are a miser you worship money instead of God - if you are a fool then you worship yourself instead of caring to take responsibility for what God has entrusted to you.

One last word to share with you, the final words of this man whose life we are studying. As He lay on the cross Jesus uttered these final words:

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
From Luke 23:46

That's how we should die - and that's how we should live.