Christ, The Lord Of Our Finances – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The love of money is the root of all evil. Christians often get tripped up by issues of finance. Whose money is it, really?

Mine or someone else's? Jesus had much to say about money, and if we're serious about crowning Him Lord, we must heed His words. Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, when I think that God is counting every dollar He trusts me with, I'm very careful how I use them. David is very sobering to recognize that we will indeed give an account for the deeds done in the body, and how we spent our money is very critical in the sight of God. We're reminded that we should be investing funds in that which will last for all eternity. I'm so glad to report that here at Running to Win, we are investing funds for the future for the proclamation of the gospel.

As a matter of fact, just recently, Running to Win has gone into the Russian language, reaching a good part of Russia and also part of the Ukraine, all because of investments of people just like you. But meanwhile, let us keep in mind that all that God has given us will be an opportunity for Him to evaluate how we did with what He gave us. So let's listen carefully. Take myself and I will be ever only all for thee.

Have you ever thought of the implications? If you took that seriously, if I took it seriously and said, God, whatever it is that you want, I'm yours, no matter the cost, no matter where, no matter when, no matter how much. Join me one more time for prayer. And today I'm going to ask that as we pray together that you ask God to speak to your heart. Ask Him to give you a willing heart and open ears to hear His Word with clarity and power. And may He take these moments and transform them for me, for those on the platform, for the choir, for every single person listening to this message. May it be direct from God as an arrow to our hearts.

Ask Him to do that. And now, Father, take our life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. In Jesus' name.

Amen. A couple of months ago I quoted a poem at our New England dinner. I'm going to try to quote again and I hope I can get through it. A big silver dollar and a little brown cent rolling along, together they went. Rolling along the smooth sidewalk when the dollar remarked for the dollar can talk. You poor little cent, you cheap little mite, I'm bigger than you and more than twice as bright. Worth more than you a hundred fold and written on me in letters bold is the motto from the pious creed, in God we trust, which all can read.

I know, said the cent, I'm a cheap little mite and I'm not good nor big nor bright. But said the cent with a meek little sigh, you don't go to church as often as I. When I was younger, I used to have difficulty preaching on money in church. I can now say when I was younger, about a year ago, somebody called me and said, you know, Pastor Lutzer, we wonder if you would consider coming to our church and being our pastor.

And we talked for a little bit and then he said, you know, we have a rather large church and we've got so much going on that we thought it would be good to have an older man come and be the pastor. I had a midlife crisis right there on the telephone. When I was younger, I used to find it a little difficult speaking about money because I always knew that there were some people who were going to sit there and say, I just dare you to get a cent out of me. But now that I'm a little older, I love it.

I love it. Because I know that people who are generous enjoy it and it is the stingy folks who are saying there, you're not going to get a dime out of me. So you can tell today whether you're generous or whether you're stingy by your response to what I'm going to have to say. Now, what I'd like to do is to speak on the topic of Christ, the Lord of our finances. Christ, the Lord of our finances. What would it be like if we honestly and truly gave ourselves and our finances to God? How would we contribute to the Lord's ministry if we were serious about saying, Lord, take myself and I consecrate it all to thee?

What would that mean? Take your Bibles and turn to 2 Corinthians 8 because we have an illustration of some churches who did just that and we need to learn from them. 2 Corinthians 8, the Apostle Paul has been writing this letter to the people at Corinth and giving them an example of how to give because there were some saints over in the city of Jerusalem that needed some money. They were going through a difficult time and the Apostle Paul is saying to the people at Corinth, what you ought to do is to be like these other believers. He says, like the saints in Macedonia. That included the churches such as Philippi, the church in Thessalonica, and the church in Berea.

He said, what I want you to do is to be like they are. And just as they were an example to the Corinthians, so they are an example to us today. Let's look at the characteristics of those who know what it is to make Christ Lord of their finances. How did they give? Now brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

Let me stop there for just a moment. First of all, I want you to know that they gave out of deep affliction, it says, out of a great ordeal of affliction. What kind of affliction did this church have? Well, first of all, it was persecuted because remember that these churches were islands of Christianity in a whole sea of paganism. Some of them found that their jobs were in jeopardy. Some of them were falsely accused. They were lied about, which always goes with persecution.

Some of them actually experienced genuine physical persecution. And yet the text says that no matter what their great ordeal of affliction was, they gave liberally. Now for every one of the five characteristics that I'd like to give you today, for every one of those five characteristics, I want to also debunk a lie that many people have believed about giving. And the first lie that I want to debunk is the idea that somehow I should begin to give when I've got all of my personal problems solved.

There are many people who say that. They say, I can't be generous because you just don't understand the difficulties that I'm going through. I want you to know today that no matter what difficulty it is that you're passing through, no matter how deep your personal problem, what you and I are experiencing is very probably not nearly as bad as what the churches in Macedonia experienced. And the text says that out of a great ordeal of affliction, they were liberal in their giving. You see my friend, we bring rationalizations to bear when it comes to giving. And we say, I'm not going to give until I am healthy, until this problem is solved, until that happens.

And the fact of the matter is that every single one of us has problems and we will always have problems. It is a lie to think that giving should just take place once our personal problems are solved. So first of all, it says that they gave out of affliction. Secondly, notice it says that they gave out of deep poverty. That in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. Most of us don't know what poverty is. I'm not saying that there aren't people in America who are poor. There certainly are people who are poor and there are people around the world today who are poor.

But most of us are considered very rich in comparison to the people at Macedonia who were going through deep poverty. It was simply a matter of earning one day's living so that they could live another day. They had no insurance programs.

There was no such thing as retirement programs or social security. And there was not a whole lot of bright hope for change in the horizon so far as their economic status was concerned. They were in poverty and Paul says that because of joy, they were liberal even despite the fact that they were poor.

What is the second lie that needs to be debunked? It is the idea that somehow giving is just for the rich. You know, there are people who think to themselves, oh yes, this idea of giving is very good.

But it has to do with those who earn $100,000 a year or $50,000 a year or $200,000 a year. That's something that rich people do. I want you to know today that there is nothing more contrary to the teaching of the New Testament than that myth that giving is for the rich. You see, if you say that giving is only for the rich, what you're saying is that poor people can't be faithful to God. Only rich people can be faithful to God because it doesn't matter how much you have. It has to do with how you handle what God has given you. It's not what you do with a million if riches should be your lot.

It's what you are doing at present with the dime or the quarter you've got. That's the issue. You know, we can all say, well, you know, if I had a million dollars, I'd give half of it. You know, there's a story of a pastor who went to a farmer and said, if you had a million dollars, would you give half of it to the church? Oh, yes, of course I would. If you had a thousand sheep, would you give half of them to the church? Oh, yes, certainly I would. If you had 10 horses, would you give five of them to the church? Yes, I would. If you had two pigs, would you pastor? You know, I've got two pigs.

In other words, don't touch that. I want to say something to those of you who are teenagers and children. The issue is not how much you have or whether you have much or little, a few dollars or a few pennies or a hundred dollars. The issue has to do with faithfulness with what God has given to you because it has nothing to do with riches or lack of riches. It has to do with our love for Christ and whether or not we're going to serve him.

And that's the issue. One day Jesus was standing at the Treasury and noticing all the rich people who were putting in their money. They were blowing the trumpet. There was a piece of metal that had been shaped like a trumpet and people would put their gifts in it and some of the righteous people would stand there putting in one coin after another so that as people walked by they said, oh boy, look at all the money that he's putting in. And they loved to drag it out just so that they could be seen.

And then there was a widow who came and nobody was watching her and she gave her two mites. And Jesus said to the disciples, she gave more than all of them because she gave all her living. It has nothing to do with amount. It has nothing to do with riches.

It's a matter of being faithful with what God has given you. The text says that out of their deep poverty they gave. All of us feel poor, particularly around tax time. We all feel as if we're in the 50 percent bracket, namely that we're only earning 50 percent of what we really need to live.

Don't we all feel that way? And yet the fact is that comparatively speaking we are wealthy. Our problem is God does not have our hearts. So secondly it says that they gave out of their poverty. Third, and I love this, it says in verse three, they gave beyond their ability. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability they gave of their own accord, beyond their ability. I read the text and I say, Paul, what do you mean beyond their ability? I think very possibly the apostle Paul simply meant that they gave more than anyone could have reasonably have expected them to give. They gave beyond their ability. They gave beyond what was natural. They gave beyond what anyone could think this poor church could possibly contribute to the saints in Jerusalem. Perhaps another interpretation is that as they began to give, God began to bless them so that they could give more and more and more and ended up giving way beyond what they had ever thought that they could give because God took their gifts and multiplied them.

And God loves to do that. I think that the next myth that needs to be debunked is the idea that somehow we should give only what we can afford to give. You see, here's where many of us have gone wrong.

This is even where I've gone wrong. Namely, sometimes we think to ourselves, I'm going to choose my standard of living and then once I've chosen my standard of living, I'm going to choose my standard of giving. And then sometimes we give only what we can afford.

That's a big mistake that we make living here in the United States of America. What we ought to do is to say I'm going to choose my standard of giving and then once I've done that, I'm going to adjust my standard of living to fit my giving. My friend today, if you give only what you can afford to give, there's no faith in it. If at the end of the month you go through and you've paid all your bills and you've taken care of all of your obligations and now you say in the end, this is how much I have left for God, where is the faith?

There is no opportunity for God to prove himself faithful in your life financially because all that you're doing is what you can afford to give. The text of scripture says that they not only gave to their ability, but they gave beyond their ability. They gave more than anyone could reasonably expect. They gave more than they could afford to give and they were blessed as a result of it. Grace, as we shall see in a moment, was poured into their souls because they were so faithful in their contributions to God. And I want to emphasize again that God takes our contributions and he multiplies them in ways that are phenomenal. I think that they are even being multiplied in heaven. The two mites that the widow gave, 2000 years of compound interest at 4% would be 48 with 19 zeros.

And I can't believe that she'd have gotten more of an investment on earth than she has in heaven today. Remember two years ago when Forbes magazine had that picture of a man riding his $2.5 million lawnmower. In fact, I don't get Forbes, so I went into the library because I said I want to see this guy riding a $2.5 million lawnmower.

What happened was this, that in the late 50s there was a food chain, the Lion food chain. 86 people invested money. There are 85 millionaires today, but there is one man who took his money out because he wanted to buy a lawnmower.

So he got his lawnmower. If he had kept his money in, he'd be a millionaire today. Do you see how foolish we are when all that we can think about is what we spend today for ourselves?

We are buying lawnmowers and we are not making eternal investments in the kingdom of heaven. And that's why it is that sometimes we aren't blessed financially as God promises he will do. Notice number four, it says they gave themselves willingly. As a pastor, I just love this, they gave willingly. It says in verse four, and really I'm not making this up, I hope that you bring your Bibles when I preach because sometimes you may think that this is what the pastor is saying and not what the Bible is saying. Notice it says they gave beyond their ability, verse four, begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation and the support of the saints. Pulses, they were begging us to give. I'm still waiting for that to happen here at the Moody Church. I've never yet had people say, pastor, would you just pass the offering plate one more time? I've not had people say, we're not going home until you take another offering.

Pulses, this is what they were doing. I can just imagine the scene. Paul is saying, look, you folks are poor. There's no way that I'm going to take your money for the saints that are in Jerusalem. And they're saying, Paul, but we want to do it. Paul, please, please take our money.

Begging us, he says, what is the lie that needs to be forever exploded? The lie is that the real motivation for giving is guilt, that what we do is we lay guilt trips on people. We tell them how bad things are, and then we tell them how stingy they are. And if you tell a stingy person how stingy he is, maybe he'll give you a dollar more.

Forget it. Isn't it wonderful that the Bible teaches that we should give because of the joy that is in our hearts? God is generous, and therefore we as his people should be generous as well. There are so many opportunities to give for the sharing of the gospel, so many wonderful ministries. I want to encourage you to consider running to win. And I do that because we are now in five different languages in more than 20 different countries, and we continue to expand.

Let me ask you a question. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? An endurance partner is someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.

Of course, you do need more info, so I hope that you have an opportunity to write this down. Go to rtwofferer.com, and when you're there, click on the endurance partner button. I'm going to be giving you that contact info again.

Another option, of course, is for you to call 1-888-218-9337. As we think about the ministry of running to win, we are greatly humbled to realize that we are heard in so many different countries, and we receive reports from those who are being blessed and those who are being saved. But I want you to know that you are a part of this ministry. In fact, I like to think of you as part of the running to win family.

Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? As I mentioned, the info is available to you. Go to rtwofferer.com. That's rtwofferer.com. Of course, rtwofferer is all one word. Rtwofferer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Of course, when you're on our website, you simply click on that endurance partner button. I want to thank you in advance for standing with us. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Thank you for your gifts, because together we are making a difference. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. A lot of people wonder what happens after death, and Nancy has written via email with a kind of technical question about the afterlife.

She asks, I hope you can help me Pastor Lutzer. Are Sheol and Hades two separate compartments? Do we stay in Sheol until the saints reign with Christ a thousand years until the great white throne judgment? Is the compartment that holds believers a temporary heaven but not the real heaven? Well, Nancy, after listening to your question, I want to indeed say, wow.

Couple of comments. First of all, I believe that in the Old Testament, Sheol or Hades was the place where both the wicked and the righteous went. In fact, you know, the rabbis believed that it had two compartments and I think that that is right based on Luke chapter 16. You remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and there you have them.

They are really together in one sense, but of course they can't go from one side to the other, but they could communicate as indicated in that story that Jesus told. But Nancy, I have to tell you that since the resurrection of Jesus, I don't believe that that's the way in which the afterlife functions anymore because the entire emphasis in the New Testament is now in paradise, the presence of Jesus, heaven, and there's really no evidence that somehow it is still close to this place that in the Old Testament was called Sheol and in New Testament times was called Hades. So I believe that believers go to heaven today directly.

They are in paradise. And the fact is, however, that when we die and go to heaven, we do not have our permanent bodies. The whole emphasis of the New Testament is on resurrection. And those who are in heaven today are in a disembodied state. Now, I believe that they are fully conscious. I believe that their soul carries on the functions of the body so that they can talk and they can see, but they are awaiting the glories of heaven. And after the resurrection, you find in the book of Revelation, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. So even then, the people who are in heaven today are not in their final heaven because that still awaits the future. Hope that this helps, Nancy, and keep thinking about the future because we're all going in that direction.

Indeed, we are. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer, and thank you, Nancy. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Giving Christ first place in our finances begins with giving Him first place in our motivations. God wants us to see our money as a trust to manage, not a possession to squander. After all, it's really His money in the first place. Next time on Running to Win, Pastor Lutzer wraps up this message on the Christian and money. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.