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"SUGAR AND SPICE, BUT NOT EVERYTHING NICE!"
TEXT: Matt. 23:23-24 Mal. 3:8-12 2 Cor.9:6-11 Prov. 11:24 ILLUS: A new convert declared his determination to give all that he had for the Master. He said, "Preacher, if I had fifty pigs, I'd give twenty-five of them to the Lord." "That's very nice," said the preacher. "If you had thirty would you give fifteen to the Lord?" "Of course I would," said the new Christian. "If you had ten would you give five of them?" asked the preacher again. "You know I would," he answered. Then the preacher said, "If you had two, would you give one to the Lord?" "Now Preacher, don't ask me that. You know I have only two pigs." -- Unknown
INTRO: Jesus spoke 37 parables that we have recorded in the Bible, of these, 17 or almost half of them were about money and possessions and the use of material things. Why so much attention by Jesus about money issues? There is nothing that impacts and touches our lives more in every way than material "STUFF" ... money affects every area of our life! It is no wonder Jesus spent a great deal of time and teaching on this subject. The really valuable things in life however cannot be bought, but do require our time and energy to achieve them. An old saying goes like this: “MONEY WILL BUY A DOG, BUT ONLY LOVE WILL MAKE HIM WAG HIS TAIL!” Fortunately money has little to do with happiness and fulfillment, which is why the poor sometimes find greater joy in life, and why the rich can be lonely and empty! While we affirm this great truth, I wonder how many of us really practice what we believe ... does your lifestyle put a greater emphasis on spiritual realities or on the physical realities? Are you so busy making a living on earth that you are not storing up any treasure in heaven? How available are you for ministry or for building relationships? In these 2 chapters of Matthew’s Gospel (6&7) Jesus speaks on several subjects ... all relating to "RULES FOR THE REDEEMED." They are: 1. The Money Rule 2. The Worry Rule 3. The Judgment Rule 4. The Prayer Rule 5. The Golden Rule 6. The Fruitful Rule These will be the studies we will conduct over the next 6 messages; first we look at the "Money Rule." PROP SENT: The Scriptures teach us that we are to be balanced in our walk with God, considering and practicing two important areas of lifestyle ... the material realm and the spiritual realm. We need to let God affect the giving of our gifts and our temperament! The healthy believer is the one who does both! The Bible teaches us to be careful to store up treasures of a spiritual nature while we are busy living life on earth ... there is more than just the material realm to invest in. There is a worse poverty than that of money, it is spiritual poverty! I. SECURITY MOTIVATED Matt. 6:19-21 A. Investments Matt. 6:19-21 1. Jesus is not teaching against making wise investments materially, it is good to plan for a financial future, what Jesus is teaching against is the absence of making spiritual investments and focusing life toward material investments alone! 2. Why do people make material investments? To secure their future! a. This being so, if we are willing to work hard to secure a temporal future for some 20-3O years tops, what about the eternal future where we will live forever!? b. It would take a nut to spend all their money on an investment that would return very low yields for only a short time when they could have much more of a return for a longer period of time in something else! c. If we are really security conscience we should be thinking about our long term security! 3. Putting all our energy into material investments may take care of the here and now, but we may be sacrificing an important future blessing!
ILLUS: The butterfly “Maculinea arion” has a unique relationship with a special red ant. The eggs are laid on a leafy plant, and after hatching and eating for several weeks it drops to the ground. In order to complete its lifecycle it must meet the right type of ant. When such meetings occur, the caterpillar is stroked by the ants’ antennae causing a special gland on its 10th segment that secretes a sweet substance the ants just love. Once the ants get the sweet substance they hurry to get help and take and carry the caterpillar to their underground home, where they spend their lives milking it all the time like we do cows. The ants spend a great deal of energy and time taking care of the caterpillar ... the story might be happy if ended there, but tragically, the caterpillar at this stage of the cycle loves to eat ant larvae, so while the adult ants benefit from the sweet milk of this caterpillar, it is eating away the ants’ future ... they are left with no future generation and the ants’ investment to this caterpillar costs them their future, though they enjoy a pleasant present life! After winter, the caterpillar emerges as a butterfly and flies away leaving behind some very poor ants, and starts the cycle all over again! – Source Unknown
4. For whom energy and resources are spent only on the things of this world they will discover that while life in the here and now might have seemed pleasant eternity will be rather poor! 5. We should be careful to take inventory of how we invest, and in what we invest! a. Don't forget to secure the long range future! b. Be wise in investments. B. "Interest" Matt. 6:21 1. How do you know if you are not investing enough or wisely? a. Where is your heart? b. Jesus clearly identifies a marker for us to know if we are on the proper track with material things ... where is our heart, our desires? 2. Do spiritual things take a back seat to material things? 3. Are you so busy making a living that you are not building a life? 4. Do you find that the things of God take a low priority to other things in life? 5. What are you passionate about? 6. All investments yield interest ... including spiritual ones, they yield the highest interest rates and a guarantee that even the FDIC can't match! 7. It is quite interesting that these verses say to lay up this treasure "FOR YOURSELF." a. Self interest is not condemned here ... it is encouraged, this is something you can do for yourself to help insure your future! b. This is not a works for salvation passage, but it does demonstrate the importance of how we handle the physical realm and its impact on the spiritual realities! ILLUS: "How we use our money demonstrates the reality of our love for God. In some ways it proves our love more conclusively than depth of knowledge, length of prayers, or prominence of service. These things can be feigned, but the use of possessions shows us up for what we actually are!" I. GIVING & GOD Matt. 23:23a,c; Mal. 3:8-9 A. Rightful Portions Matt. 23:23 a,c 1. Is giving in the material realm important to God! YES! a. Jesus carefully tells the Pharisees that they should CONTINUE to give, and to also do the other things that are part of temperament. b. In Matt. 23:23c Jesus states that they are to continue to give! Jesus tells them to CONTINUE to give, and to add to this the weightier matters of the law like love and justice. Jesus never said to discontinue giving! 2. In giving God emphasizes 2 things: a. God's Ownership. b. Man's Stewardship. 3. 1 in every 60 verses in the Gospels speaks about money! 4. Jesus spoke of money twice as much as He did heaven and hell combined! 5. Money is mentioned 6 times as much in the Bible as is baptism by water! 6. It is spoken of 45 times more than communion! 7. ALL the Patriarchs, prophets, and priests tithed in the Bible who were in a right relationship to God! 8. Financial giving was many times the start of great revivals in the Old Testament! 9. The U.S. government takes from you around 30% for taxes ... do you ignore this? 10. Waitresses and waiters are given 15% tips (or more) ... how about God? 11. The taxes on gasoline are around $.41 for each gallon you buy ... do you ignore this or refuse to pay it? 12. God expects His rightful portion, we should not deny Him this! a. Jesus does not put down the faithfulness of the Pharisees in their giving, they were careful to give God His 10% in everything. b. If they did this and were evil, how much more careful should we be as God's people who are not evil?! ILLUS: We would be horrified by someone who called themselves a Christian and yet robbed a local bank at gunpoint weekly ... YET many Christians rob God each week in just as real a fashion when they refuse to give God their gives ... can this be ignored? HEAVENS NO! God’s own words in Malachi are “robbed” … God’s own words to His own people were: Mal 3:8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” Those are His words, not mine! – Dennis Marquardt
c. These are not the words of a minister trying to get more money ... but God's Word trying to help the believer have their needs met and be in a position to be blessed by God! B. Refuser's Penalty! Mal. 3:8-9 1. God attached a penalty to the one who would rob Him by not giving: a. You see, giving God of your finances is NOT a financial matter ... it is a SPIRITUAL matter ... we must be careful to see this! b. Spiritual people therefore will not have a difficult time giving to God His due! They see this as spiritual and not a financial issue! 2. Malachi 3:8-9 clearly states that not to give means the believer will live under a financial curse! a. The whole nation of Israel was put under a curse ... this included their ability to prosper! b. Many might have been tempted to say, "WHEN I GET CAUGHT UP I WILL GIVE" ... but while they are waiting to give they are operating under a curse which might mean they won't be able to get caught up! Was this just an Old Testament thing? NO! 2 Cor. 9:6-11 c. This is the irony of giving! If you wait till you can afford it you may not ever give! The curse isn't lifted until you give! d. Some will always argue, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" e. Some people say that won’t give because they feel the leadership isn’t good don’t feel they should give to leaders who don’t use it properly. However, when we give we aren’t giving it to leaders or people, it is given to God, so this is a poor excuse. God will hold leaders who misuse His gives accountable, but He will also hold us accountable for what we do or don’t do.
ILLUS: In the book of 1 Samuel, the nation started to withhold the giving of their gives because they didn't like the evil sons of the priest ELI. Eli's sons were so wicked that God struck them dead ... AND God cursed the nation too for withholding their gives! ... He brought the wicked Philistines in to destroy their prosperity for their withholding gives! Even evil priests like the sons of Eli were no excuse for not giving!
3. God has established a "REFUSER'S PENALTY" for the failure to give as He has asked us. a. No exceptions were made for this penalty, He calls for all to honor Him with their giving [WHERE IS IT SUPPOSE TO BE GIVEN? ... “LOCAL STOREHOUSE!” … LOCAL CHURCH!] b. Even the poor in the Bible were called upon to give to God ... God made it fair by asking each to give the same percentage. 4. To refuse God His due, is to rob Him just as if you wore a mask and put a gun to His head and took His money! I know this sounds strong ... but this is His Word, not mine! 5. To refuse to give God's due is to invite the "devourer" into your financial life! 6. DON'T MISS GOD'S POINT ... HE IS TRYING TO SHARE WITH US THE SECRETS TO LIVE UNDER HIS BLESSINGS! ... DON'T JUST SEE THE HARDSHIP IN GIVING! 7. Of course what we do with the other 90% is just as important too! 8. I spent this much time on this subject because unlike the Pharisees, we don't take the material commands of Christ that serious, just the more spiritually sounding ones; both are considered important by our Lord!
II. GAINING GRACES Matt. 23:23b,c A. Righteous Priorities Matt. 23:23b 1. The need to add to the temperament; Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness is vital! a. These are the characteristics of a godly heart ... something the Pharisees lacked! b. Though they passed the material test, they needed to add the important matters of the heart! c. True giving is first a matter of the heart. ILLUS: We heard of a man and woman who gave a sizeable contribution to the church to honor the memory of their son who lost his life in the war. When the announcement was made of the generous donation, a woman whispered to her husband, "Let's give the same amount for our boy!" Her husband said, "What are you talking about? Our son wasn't killed." "That's just the point," she said. "Let's give it as an expression of our gratitude to God for sparing his life!" 2. Had they had these qualities of justice, mercy and faithfulness, they would have likely had the qualities of giving anyway! The error was that they PRIDED themselves in their giving (which was wrong since it belonged to God anyway!) and ignored the need to love others in giving essential qualities of grace! 3. No wonder Paul says, 2 Cor 9:7 "GOD LOVES THE CHEERFUL GIVER" ... because just giving money isn't enough either ... it must even be given the right way, with God's graces in our life! B. Requirements Practiced Matt. 23:23c 1. Jesus thus calls them to do BOTH, not neglect one for the other, but BOTH! a. The 2 together round out the saint of Christ! b. Since giving is also a spiritual matter and not just a financial one Jesus says to them, "IF YOU ARE TRULY SPIRITUAL, DO BOTH!" 2. Jesus didn't want them to just "AMEN" these truths, but to practice them! a. And so too we today must be careful that we are not just in agreement with God's Word… b. But that we are also in practice on them! 3. How much we call upon God to give us His grace, mercy, and faithfulness; yet are we willing to practice these also! a. We must not hold back from 100% participation … being a servant of God includes all areas of our life. ILLUS: The empire of the Franks had an unusual commitment to Christ, sometimes whole armies were baptized as Christians because of their leader's conversion to Christianity. However, they were at war, and because of this so much was at stake that they didn't want to be too much of a Christian army. So, a solution was found, when baptizing the Franks ... as stated, sometimes a whole army at once, the warriors would go down into the water with only their right hands held high above the waters so that it was the only part of their body not baptized. This way, they could soothe their conscience in war by brutally killing the enemy because their hand had not been baptized! While we don't do this today with swords, some people hold high their pocketbooks so they don't get baptized so they don't have commit their finances to the Lord! -- Unknown b. We cannot excuse one part of our life while asking God to “anoint” or “bless” the other areas. 4. How often we call upon God to give to us financially, to meet our pressing needs, yet without giving God cannot respond as He would like, for we exist under a curse! To ask requires that we first are giving! 5. WE MUST PRACTICE ALL AREAS OF CHRISTIANITY ... even in giving, whether our goods or His graces! 6. This principle is true in other areas as well; if we want forgiveness, Jesus calls upon us to be forgivers or we cannot be forgiven, so too with finances. III. GENEROUSITY & GUARANTEES Mal. 3:10-12; 2 Cor. 9:6-11; Prov. 11:24 A. Rewarded Production Mal. 3:10-12 1. God promises to keep the "devourer" from those who give their gifts & offerings to Him! a. This promise is still true! 2 Cor. 9:6-11 b. We are invited to test God in this ... the only time God says we can test Him in the Bible! c. NOTE: The term "blessing" indicates more than just "financial" blessings! God's blessings may return in other ways beside greater income, but it will be things that are of greater value than what you gave Him! d. Such things as salvation of loved ones, the growth of His Spirit in you, the friendships of others, etc. 2. If all give, God promises to make that Nation or church the awe and envy of those around them! 3. This point is true also of the important areas Jesus was asking of the Pharisees, such as mercy, justice, faithfulness ... the more you give of this, the more it comes back to you also! a. To those who are faithful ... they will find many faithful friends around them. b. To those who forgive, they will find forgiveness when they need it. c. To those who are fair with others, others will be fair with them. 4. Giving brings us under God's blessings, the lack of it leaves us under His curse! B. Illumination Matt. 6:22-23 1. The point of this part of the passage deals with the ancient custom of viewing the eyes as the source of light for the body; the ancients believed that if the eyes were good the body was bathed in light that brought healing to the body. If the eyes were not good the whole body was plunged into darkness and disease resulted. Jesus picks up on this and uses the point metaphorically to say that if our EYES are on spiritual dynamics our whole physical existence will be whole and balanced, if not we are plunged into spiritual darkness as a result and are not likely to be healthy spiritually! a. This is a powerful statement by Jesus on the issue of materialism! b. Jesus is saying that those who do not discipline their lives to include an emphasis on using material things to build the kingdom of God they are not likely to be spiritually healthy or able to be spiritually perceptive! c. They are "blinded" spiritually if they are not laying up treasures in heaven! d. It affects the whole of our lives, and the perceptions we have! 2. Our ability to see “clearly” is deeply affected by what we have our "eyes" focused on! a. It is tragic when Christians take pride in their earthy possessions and have little spiritual riches to show for it! b. To gain the world and lose one’s soul is a great poverty! ILLUS: In A.D. 1260 St. Thomas Aquinas visited Pope Innocent IV. The Pope showed him all the wealth of the Catholic Church, its gold and silver. He showed him the magnificent jeweled buildings and artifacts and while touring the Pope remarked, "So you see, good Thomas, unlike the first Pope, Peter, I cannot say, ‘silver and gold have I none.’ Thomas agreed with the Pope, but then added, “And neither can you say, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Rise up and walk!’” – Source Unknown c. The church’s finest testimonies are not its buildings and possessions ... and that is also true of the believer! 3. This world's stuff offers no lasting benefit to our eternal existence except when it is used to build spiritual dynamics in people's lives!
ILLUS: For instance, money will buy a bed, but not sleep; books, but not brains; food, but not an appetite; a house, but not a home; medicine, but not health; amusement but not happiness; finery, but not beauty; a crucifix, but not a Savior! – Source Unknown 4. It is important that we see clearly! C. Illusion! Matt. 6:24 1. Jesus' final point about the money rule is very important; those who believe it is possible to serve both Christ and money are told that it is not possible! 2. It is not possible to be a slave for God and also for money! a. This is not a prohibition against becoming rich and successful by this world's standards... b. But it is a prohibition against selling your soul to get rich ... or an inordinate emphasis on material things! 3. Money makes a great servant but a terrible master! 4. Those that have pursued material things or power at the expense of their soul have discovered the illusion that riches offer as happiness: ILLUS: In the June 14, 1968 issue of "LIFE MAGAZINE" a picture appeared of young David Kennedy sitting outside the White House looking back at it. The picture had been taken years before by his Aunt Jacqueline and was inscribed with the words from his famous Uncle the president, John Kennedy with these words, "A future president inspects his property." David Kennedy had status, wealth, fame; and a possible future position of power. Yet in 1984 at the age of 28 he was found dead by his own hand, he had not found peace or value in life! The illusion of this world's goods had taken its toll on a bright young man's life! – Source Unknown 5. If only David Kennedy had had the teaching and opportunity to discover the eternal investments that yield so much pleasure and satisfaction! The pressures of living up to the material pressures were too much! Those “THINGS” were a hard task master! ILLUS: 0. J. Simpson gave an interesting interview to a reporter from "PEOPLE MAGAZINE" in one of its 1978 issues. He said about money and material things; "I sit in my house in Buffalo and sometimes I get so lonely it's unbelievable. Life has been so good to me. I've got a great wife, good kids, money, my own health ... and I'm lonely and bored, I often wondered why so many rich people commit suicide. Money sure isn't a cure-all." – Source Unknown 6. Sometimes we tell ourselves how wonderful life would be if we were only rich! a. Yet, many who are rich are very miserable! b. With riches come new temptations! c. Riches can demand a great deal of time and energy ... thus taking away from other spiritual ventures. d. Don't buy an illusion when you can have the real thing! 7. It’s nice to have social security ... but how is your spiritual security? 8. What are you really serving? ... What takes your time and talents, what demands your resources and efforts the most? What master are you serving! 9. Jesus warns his followers to beware of the MONEY RULE for the redeemed! 10. Master it, don't be mastered by it! D. Rewarding Principle Prov. 11:24 1. "Freely giving" … the “no strings attached” kind of giving! Prov. 11:24 a. The person who gives freely ... will never find themselves with less, only more! b. And yet, they are not giving to get more! c. Probably why this happens is because he who gives freely counts his giving in careful terms, thus he is really being a steward over the whole, even what is not given! d. This kind of management can only bring greater rewards! 2. Note too the one who "withholds unduly" comes to poverty! a. He who withholds is only thinking of self need, thus he will be left alone to make it! b. If we are left alone to make life work we will more likely fail, we need God and each other! 3. Giving is a rewarding principle! It brings life and happiness to the giver! ILLUS: No man was ever honored for what he received. Honor is the reward for what he gave. a. Thus, "IT IS MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE!" b. We live under God's blessings when we give the give and the temperament to Him: c. We live under God's curses if we don't! The only way out is to give your way out! d. Ask the farmer if this is always true! e. Ask the giver if this is always true! CONCLUSION: Jesus' teaching in this passage is the importance of faithfulness to God from your gives to your temperament! We are called to BOTH, not just one or the other! We are called to give grace and gold, mercy and money, faithfulness in all areas of life ... when we do; we live under God's blessings and not His curses. Are you faithful in both gives and temperament? Why not be blessed rather than cursed?
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