How to Make Your Money Count - Life of Christ Part 54

When was the last time you've been to McDonald's for a cup of coffee, huh?

Do you read about that in the paper? This lady, 79 years old, two years ago, went to McDonald's in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and she went through the drive-thru. She got a cup of coffee, and she opened the cup of coffee there in the drive-thru, and it spilled in her lap and gave her third-degree burns all over her lap. She was in the hospital for a week, and so she had some lawyers who did some checking and found out that McDonald's coffee is 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas the coffee that comes out of your coffee maker at home is 130 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So she sued McDonald's, saying that their coffee was too hot, and as a result of that, it was a safety hazard. You say, what a stupid suit.

Did the judge throw it out? No, actually, this past week, the jury awarded this woman $2.9 million. That's million with an M. $2.9 million, a jury gave her, and when I read about this in the paper, my first thought was, where is the closest McDonald's?

That's the first thing I thought. The second thing I thought was, what is a now 81-year-old woman going to do with $2.9 million? You say, well, Lon, IRS is going to take half of it. Okay, so what is she going to do with $1.5 million? What would I do if somebody took $1.5 million and just kind of dropped it in my lap, so to speak?

Got a stand? What would you do if somebody gave you $1.5 million? What would you do with something like that?

I know what I would do, and I think you'd probably do the same thing. First thing I would do is go find some investment counselor or some financial planner and say, look, I'm not going to get this again. I don't want to fritter this stuff away. This money's got to count. This is my only shot at this. I want you to help work with me to make this money count.

I'm only getting this once. Wouldn't you do that? I would do that. Now, I want to talk to you this morning about making your money count. You say, Lon, this is great.

This is great. You come back from vacation. First week back, what do you talk about? Money. What is wrong with you?

Do you have brain freeze on vacation or something like that? We don't want to talk about it. Well, okay, listen, I'm talking to you about money because it's the next passage in Luke, and I didn't plan it this way. But I promise you, I'm not going to ask you for a cent. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you for one cent. But I do want to talk to you about some biblical principles about how to make our money count.

God wants to talk to us about that. I mean, if you had money and you wanted to make it count, what would you do with it? Would you put it in mutual funds or tax-free annuities? Would you put it in CDs or bonds or trust funds?

What would you do with it? Well, I'm not saying any of those things are wrong, but I'm saying that God's got a much bigger picture to talk to us about than where you put your money so it can grow. He wants to talk to you about how to make your money count for eternity.

And I hope that God will change the way you live and the way you spend your money as a result of the Word of God to our hearts this morning. Now, let's look at the passage, verse one. Jesus told his disciples. Now, let's stop there. You see, Lon, you only did four words.

Okay, but let's stop for a second. The point I want to make from this is that Jesus didn't tell this to the crowd. He didn't tell it to the rabbis.

He didn't tell it to anybody. He told it to his disciples. And the reason for that is that God doesn't expect non-Christians to handle money God's way. God doesn't waste his time telling them because they're not going to listen anyway. But if you're a Christian, if you know Christ in a real and personal way, if you're one of his disciples, then there is a specific strategy and plan that God has, the eternal financial advisor has about how to make our money count. And he's going to share that with us this morning. And my suggestion is pay a lot of attention.

Okay, good advice. Now, Jesus said to his disciples, there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called the manager in and asked him, What is this I hear about you?

Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer. Here we've got Jesus telling us a story about a financial manager who's about to get his pink slip. And before he does, however, the master wants an audit, a complete audit of all the books, what everybody owes him in every place. And he says, What I want you to do is go do a complete financial audit and then you're fired.

And so the guy immediately now we come to the point of the story. The guy says, verse three, What am I going to do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig.

I'm too ashamed to go out in the street and beg. So what am I going to do? And then he hits on a strategy. He says, I know what I'm going to do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.

In other words, when I lose my job here, I want some kind of situation where I can go over Sam's house or Larry's house or Susie's house, and they'll invite me in for dinner and give me their old clothes and maybe even hand me a few bucks and let me drive the family car. I got a strategy how I can do that. Now, this is the whole crux of this story. Friends, you've got to understand this. What we have here is Jesus telling us a story about a manager who, while he still had some money at his disposal, looked long term and used it for future advantage. Understand he had been living for the short term.

He hadn't been worrying about the future. He said, oh, nobody's ever going to account. I'm never going to have to give an account.

My boss is never going to ask. I'm going to spend it on me, use it on me, live high on the hog. I'm living for the day. Suddenly there was a reality check. Suddenly, a boss said, you're fired. And now all of a sudden he's got to start thinking, while I have only a few days left with this money at my disposal, how am I going to use it?

Not for the short term, but for the long term. Now, watch what he does. Verse five. So he called in each one of his master's debtors and he asked the first one, how much do you owe my master? Well, the guy said, I owe him eight hundred gallons of olive oil. The manager took out a piece of paper and said, quick, quick, quick sign right here and we're going to cut it in half.

We're going to make it four hundred. Then he said to the next guy, how much do you owe? He said, I owe a thousand bushels of wheat. The guy said, quick, quick, quick sign right here and we're going to cut it to eight hundred.

And the presumption is that he went through every single creditor that the master had and cut all of their bills. He said, well, how come he cut one of them 50 percent and he only cut the other one 20 percent? I don't know. I don't have a clue. And it doesn't make any difference.

OK, it doesn't make any difference. The point is, he went through and cut everybody's bill down by significant amounts. Now, you say, well, did he have the right to do that? I mean, what is this guy doing?

How can he do something like this? OK, good question. We have to know a little bit about the Near East of Jesus's day to make this make sense. Rich people in Jesus's day would hire a manager, a steward, a financial advisor, and they would turn their whole estate over to him. They wouldn't worry about anything. All they cared about was the bottom line. He could lend money, charge interest, negotiate loans, do anything he wanted, buy securities. And they didn't care what he did. He had absolute and total authority to make loans, change loans, renegotiate loans. The only thing they cared about was the bottom line.

And so what we find out here is this man is acting. This manager is acting completely within the law of his day. He was still the manager. Remember, he had not been fired yet. And none of these creditors knew that he was on notice.

He still had the authority to renegotiate any loan at any time in any way that he wanted. He wasn't doing anything criminal, illegal, or in any way that broke the law. You understand that? You say, but it wasn't right what he did.

I didn't say it was right, but I said it was legal. And you understand why he did it? He was trying to get some people who take care of him after he was gone from this job. Now, how would you feel if somebody did this for you?

I mean, do you understand the strategy? How would you feel about this? Let's say you got a phone call. Do you need anything? Pick up the phone.

Hello? And it's from your savings and loan or your bank. And they say, you know, there's some things about your loan we really need to talk to you about your whole financial condition. We need to discuss it with you.

We need you down here Monday morning, nine o'clock. And we're going to talk to you about your loans. Well, man, I get nervous when I get a letter from the bank, you know, like what I do wrong.

Oh, no. Did I not pay something on time? They're going to repossess something. So, you know, what would you do if you got a call like that? Man, I tell you what I would do. I'd have my best suit on. I'd be down there. I'd have all my canceled checks. I'd have all my receipts. I'd be there early.

My armpits would be wet and I'd be nervous as could possibly be saying, what in the world is going on? So let's say you go and the guy comes walking in and says, good to meet you. Sit down, you know, like that says, by the way, how much do you still owe us on your house? You say, well, I owe you one hundred thousand dollars.

He said, OK, see this right here sign right here. And I'm going to cut it to fifty thousand. Oh, OK. OK, OK. How many more car payments of three hundred seventy four dollars a month do you owe us on your car?

Well, it's 18. He goes, all right, sign right here. We're cutting it to nine. Oh, keep going, man. You want to roll? What else you want to talk about? You want to roll, Jack? And he says, now, look, my boss doesn't know I'm doing this. He said, well, well, wait a minute. Why are you doing this for me?

Wait a minute. Something's up here. He goes, I just woke up this last week and said I want to do something nice for some people. And so out of the goodness of my heart, I'm just cutting all your loans in half. But, you know, my boss doesn't know about it. And if he finds out, I'll probably get fired. But, you know, it's legal.

It's done. Now, how would you walk out of that bank? I'd walk out of there going, all righty then.

I don't know who this guy is. But if his boss finds out, if his boss fires him, then he can come over my house for hot dogs anytime he wants. In the backyard, we'll have him over for patios. He can come to my birthday party, whatever this guy wants. He can borrow the car. After all, he saved me nine payments on it. Borrow the car. Super. You understand what the manager was doing?

You understand what his strategy was? So when he got fired and showed up at all these people's homes, they take him in and feed him and take care of him. Say, come on in, man. He'd say, what's for dinner?

They say, come on in. Now, how did the boss feel about this? You say, well, I don't think he was happy.

Well, actually not. Look at verse eight. And the master, it says, when he found out about it, when he got the audit and he realized what the guy had done, the master commended the dishonest manager because that manager had acted shrewdly. Now, even though the boss had been bamboozled, even though the master had been taken, he couldn't help but be impressed by this guy's cleverness.

Remember what the manager did was not righteous. In fact, it even says here in verse eight, he was a dishonest manager. But what he did was legal and what he did was also shrewd and cunning and resourceful. And the master has to commend him for that, that here was a man who made his money count, didn't he?

While he had it at his disposal, he made the money count for his future advantage. Now, you know, it's interesting when you read commentators on this passage that this passage gives people a lot of trouble because it looks like here that Jesus is endorsing and approving dishonesty. It looks like he's approving deception. But remember, the guy didn't do anything illegal.

He did nothing criminal. And what Jesus is actually commending is the man shrewd use of money, making his money count. Look at verse eight. Jesus says in verse eight, for the people of this world, meaning unbelievers, are often much more shrewd in dealing with their own things, money than are the people of life.

Christians, you say, Lon, what does Jesus mean by that? He means that the people of this world, they have no eternal future. I mean, all they've got for a future is this world.

And yet many of them look ahead to the only future they've got, which is their future in this world. And with discipline and with wisdom and with self-denial, they make plans to use their money now, making it count for the only future they've got, which is their future in this world. They put money in IRAs and education funds. They take money and put it in retirement vehicles. They sock it away in car funds.

They reduce their debt load in a variety of other ways. They make the money they have right now count for the only future they've got. Jesus said, that's the same way I want Christians living, except the difference is you've got a different future than they do. Your future is not just this world. It's heaven. It's eternity.

And I want you to do the same thing with your money they're doing for theirs in light of your future. I want to stop at this moment and just say, if you're here this morning and you can't say with absolute certainty that your future is heaven, you can't say that with absolute certainty, then I want to challenge you and tell you that you can know that for sure. God doesn't want you wondering about whether or not you're going to heaven when you die. And those of us who know Christ and understand what the Bible teaches, you can ask us, are you going to heaven when you die? And we will say, yes, we are with absolute positivity. And we're not saying it because we think we're all that good or we're all that special, but because we know the promise of God. And if you're here and you can't say that with complete assurance, then we want you to have that insurance.

God wants you to have that insurance. I can't tell you about it right now, but if you'll come up, meet me in the front and say, Lon, I don't have that assurance, but I'd like it. I'll talk to you right after the service.

Okay? You can have it by trusting Christ. Meanwhile, for those of us who do have it, our future is in eternity. And just like this manager and just like so many people of this world that Jesus talks about, God wants us to be looking ahead to our future and making use of the money we have right now for the greatest future advantage in heaven that we can possibly make.

That's why he said Matthew chapter six, do not store up for yourselves treasure here on earth, but store up treasure in heaven for where your treasure is there where your heart be. Now, that's the end of our passage. And you got the main point now, right?

It's all about using our money shrewdly, wisely to make the greatest future advantage possible as Christians. But of course, it leaves us with a really important question. And you know that.

What is it? Now, so what? Let's talk about making your money count. Did you see a Newsweek magazine this past week? There was this huge section, 12 pages in Newsweek called Focus on Your Money. How many of you read Newsweek this past week?

What? How many of you read Time? How many of you read The Compost?

I mean, what do you people read? Well, all right. Millions of people around the world read an article this week in Newsweek magazine entitled Focus on Your Money.

All right. And this article was all about how to make your money count for the next 20 years. It was about CDs and cyber scams and mutual funds and the whole nine yards. And one little interesting part of that. There was a little fellow in there, a little box by a fellow named Arthur Bachner.

He's 12 years old. He wrote a book entitled The Totally Awesome Money Book for Kids. And he said in this book that he, last year when he was 11 years old, took $2,000 and put it in an IRA for himself and then calculated it out. And if he never puts another penny in his IRA the rest of his life, when he gets to be 65, do you know how much that $2,000 will be worth? You say $100,000 more. $200,000 more. $500,000. Do you know when he's 65 years old that $2,000 will be worth one point, ready for this, five, seven million dollars? Nah.

Yes, sir. I bet you're going to be lying at the bank for your 12-year-old kids start Monday morning. $2,000.

$1.5 million. Anyway, it was a great article. And you know there are millions of people all around the world, not here, but all around the world who are going to read this article this week. And they're going to read Regardees Magazine and they're going to read the Wall Street Journal and they're going to read Business Week. There are hundreds and maybe millions of men and women hours going to be invested this week in figuring out how to make their money count. And if you've ever been out with some of these big rollers, high rollers like I have and maybe you have, people who get up in the middle of lunch and get up in the middle of meetings and run out to check the stock quotes and want to know what the bond market's at and checking on the commodities market, can't even sit still for an hour and talk because they're always getting phone calls about what's up, what's down. You say, are you criticizing these people?

No. No, I'm saying I have a lot of respect for those people. They are taking the money they have now and they have a strategy and a dedication and an intensity to making that money count for the only future they have, which is in this life. My question is whether or not we as Christians, how many of us have even an inkling of that kind of dedication and intensity to taking our money and developing a strategy to make our money count for the future we have? I suspect most of us have never even thought that much about it.

Sorry, Lon, I got the point. Well, good. I want to give you three suggestions in the time I have left about how to make your money count for not only time, but for eternity. If you're a Christian, take notes because you won't remember this.

You'll get to lunch and forget everything I said. So take notes. Write it down. Three quick suggestions.

Here we go. Number one, you want to make your money count for eternity? Suggestion number one, use it, use your money to meet the needs of your family. Use it to meet the needs of your family.

That's my first suggestion. I want you to turn back in the Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 5. If you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 840. But it's 1 Timothy chapter 5.

Turn back there, if you would, with me. And here's what verse 8 says. 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 8. It says, If anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Now, this means if you've got a spouse and if you've got children, certainly the responsibility for making sure they have everything they need to grow up healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually belongs to you. Whether it's tutoring or medical treatment or special therapy or counseling, whether it's helping them through college or helping them with the down payment on a house, is that something that God says is a wise use of our money?

Yes. But, you know, that comes natural to most of us, to most people. But this passage goes way beyond that to hit us in an area where most of us maybe haven't thought about. Look up at verse 4. It says, But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these, that is the children and the grandchildren, should learn, first of all, to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and repaying their parents and their grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. Folks, this passage, 1 Timothy chapter 5, is not about providing for your children and your spouse. It's about providing for your parents and your grandparents so that the church doesn't have to. The church will provide for widows, Paul says, who really don't have anybody. But if a widow has a son or a daughter that are living, they ought to take the responsibility to provide for their own parents. Now, this is a value that's lost in America today.

Today, I find so many people who are being cared for by Medicare and Medicaid and the government and welfare and Social Security. But this is not God's plan. Look, it says this is pleasing to God for children to do this and repay their parents and their grandparents.

And may I turn it around and say, when we don't do this, this is displeasing to God. There are nursing homes all over this country full of elderly men and women who are there after sacrificing what couldn't even be described for their children. And yet their children are too busy out spending money on themselves to provide the kind of care that many cases could be provided for these people much better outside that home.

And so they stick them in homes and let the government pay for it. I'd like to say to you, that's sin. That's unchristian. It's tragic. And it's a use of your money and my money.

God will never reward. And it doesn't just apply to our parents. Many of us have brothers and sisters who are in financial need.

Their families are not doing as well as ours are nieces and nephews and cousins. What about all these people? What did God say? You want to use your money wisely for eternity that earns you a reward and a blessing from God. God says you use that money to provide for the needs of family, not just the children that are close to you, but you tend to your family. If God's given you more than someone else, you take care of them. And God said, I'll bless your life. Secondly, if you want to make your money count for time in eternity, not only use it to meet the needs of your family, but second of all, use it to care for people who really need help.

Use it to care for needy people. Proverbs 19 says he who is kind, he who is generous to the needy lends to the Lord and the Lord will reward that person for what they've done. Every time you give to a homeless person, every time you give to a neighbor who's in need, every time you give to a friend who needs help or fellow Christian who needs something, you're lending to God and friends, God's going to pay you back with interest. God won't be your debtor. God will pay you back. Proverbs 14, he who is kind to the needy, God will bless. And St. Ambrose, the great church father, was commenting on that story in the Bible that Jesus told about the guy who had the barns and then he got the big crop, you know, he said, I'm going to tear down all my barns and build bigger barns so I can store everything for me, me, me, me, me. You know that guy?

Here's what Ambrose said. He said, and I quote, the bosoms of the poor, the houses of the widows, the mouths of the orphans, these are the barns that last forever. Understand what he was saying? He's saying, if you want to put your money in a barn where you can take it with you, don't put it in some barn here on the earth.

You put it into widows and orphans and helpless people and you'll be putting it in the barn of heaven and you can take that with you. I was at 7-Eleven not too long ago, two weeks ago with my son, we were coming back from ball practice, he's nine, named Jonathan, and we drive up, we're going to get a coke about nine o'clock at night and we drive up and there's this man outside 7-Eleven and he's, you know, I mean, he's not dressed so well and, you know, you could tell he was homeless or indigent or something, you know, wasn't all right with him. And so as we walked by him going into 7-Eleven, he says to us, hey, he said, excuse me, could you all buy me a coke, please? Well, we walked on by and went on in and John got a coke and I said, John, do it for you, go over there and get a coke out the thing there and we'll take it out and give it to this man.

So we took it out and gave it to him and got in the car and for a few minutes, a couple of seconds, John was real quiet. We started to drive off and suddenly John said, Dad, do you think that guy was one of those fakes who dresses up like a homeless person and gets rich off people like you? And I said, well, I don't know, son. I don't know whether he's really a homeless person or not.

I mean, I've read in the paper about these people, you know, who dress up like homeless people and go beg on the street and make a fortune and they're really not homeless. And I said, I don't know. But I said, I'll tell you something, Jonathan, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because our job is not to try to figure out whether this guy's a fake and cheating us. He looked like a man in need. Our job is to give to people who are in need as Christians. And God will worry about whether this guy's a fake. God will also bless us for caring for the needs of people.

And I said, son, don't ever worry about whether somebody is real or fake. If they seem like they need help, you give them help and God will bless you. And that's true, isn't it?

That true? You pass homeless people every day getting off the subway, walking to work, don't you? Are they really homeless or are they trying to pull one over on you? I don't know.

But it doesn't matter. Help them. Help them. You've got more than they do. Help them.

Minister to them and tell them it's in the name of Christ that you love them. And you've got friends at work and people in the neighborhood and people you know who are hurting and who could use a little bit of money or a little bit of something that you've got the money you could buy them in your savings account. Take it out and buy it for them.

Why? Because if you die with the money in your savings account, you didn't make it count for anything. But if you gave it to a person in need in the name of Christ, you made it count. Third, if you want your money to count, not only should you use it to meet the needs of your family and use it to meet the needs of other people who are in need, but third and finally, use it to spread the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Use it to spread the message of Jesus Christ. If you look back in Luke chapter 16, I want you to see verse nine very quickly. Luke 16 verse nine. Jesus said, I tell you, use your worldly wealth, talking to Christians now, to gain friends for yourselves so that when it's gone, your wealth is when it's gone, you will be welcomed by these friends that you made into eternal dwellings into heaven. You say, what's Jesus talking about?

What did this manager do? He took the money that he had at his disposal and he used it to make friends, right? By his generosity. Jesus said, I want you to do the same thing, but I want you to do it on a spiritual level.

You say, how do you know that, Lon? Because if all I did was help people on the human level, they wouldn't be there to welcome me into eternal dwellings into heaven. They'd still be down here on earth. What Jesus is saying is take your money while you've got it and use it to bring people to Christ to make spiritual friends out of them. So when you get to heaven, they're going to be there as your welcoming committee saying, thank you. The money you gave, the money you generously donated to the work of the gospel. I got reached. I got to heaven because of it.

And I'm here to welcome you and say thank you for being a friend to me. Understand what Jesus is talking about? He says, use your money to spread the gospel and make spiritual friends for eternity.

And you know what, folks? Most of that money you give, you'll never know the name of the person that became a Christian because of that money that was given to a missionary or was given to a church or was given to an evangelist. You won't know their address. You won't know their phone number.

You won't know their social security number. But God's got all that written down. You're gonna have a thing to worry about. And when you get to heaven, God's gonna have your welcoming committee there to meet you. Some of us gonna have a big welcoming committee. And some of us aren't going to have a real big welcoming committee, are we?

At least not the way we've been living up to this point. You know, we're starting an initiative now to 20-year-olds, Generation X, Baby Busters, 13th Generation, whatever you want to call them. They don't even know what to call themselves. And I don't know what to call them either.

But people in their 20s. And we're really excited about this. We're calling it Frontline.

There's some information in your bulletin. I mean, and we are really geared up and going for this. There's a million of these people that live inside the Beltway in Washington, D.C. That's why we're going after them. As a matter of fact, we've got a tape out in the foyer that's free by Ken Ball, who is our Buster leader, and all about why reaching busters is so important.

They're free. Pick one up. Listen to it on the way to eat.

Listen to it on the way home. You'll get excited about what God's going to do here. But when we went around the country looking for other churches who had some ministry like this to busters that they had done, where they had targeted them and gone after them and set aside the money and the resources to reach them. You know what we found?

We found there's hardly any churches. And I mean, I could count them on one hand. This is the truth in the whole United States who have done this. And the reason many of them gave us, not all, but many of them said one of the reasons they hadn't done it is because it doesn't pay for itself.

These people can't pay what it takes to reach them. They're living at home, driving the family car, working at McDonald's and eating out the family refrigerator. You know how that works. The world has changed. He used to be you send the kid to college.

He was gone. Now you send her to college and she's back. As soon as they graduate. Well, we said that's all right. We understand that they may not pay for themselves.

That's OK. We have lots of 30 year olds and 40 year olds and 50 year olds and 60 year olds and 70 year olds and 80 year olds. But we have a lot of those kind of people who we believe we can instill with the vision to give and support us so we can go reach those kids whether they pay for themselves or not. And so without apology, I'm challenging every one of you here and we have been for weeks and we're going to keep doing it that we need you to support that because there's a million of those people right inside the Beltway that the future of this country and the gospel in this world depends on. And they're not going to pay the bills to reach them.

We're going to have to do that. And every dollar you give to support that, you will probably never know the name, address, phone number or Social Security number of the kid your money reaches. But when you get to heaven, they'll be there to say thank you.

Thank you. Because of your generosity as a 20 year old kid in Washington, I came to know Christ and changed my life. Every dollar you give to a missionary, you may not know the name of the person they go to African Reach or South American Reach, but God knows and that person will be in heaven as your friend to welcome you when you get there. You want to use your money wisely? I have three suggestions. Number one, use it to meet the needs of your family.

And I'm not just talking about your children. Number two, use it to care for people who are in need. Make their life a little easier.

Make their day a little lighter. And number three, use it to spread the gospel message and bring people to Jesus Christ. Now, did you notice the one thing that all three of those have in common? There's one thing all three of those suggestions have in common, and here's what it is. All three of those involve taking money and doing what with it? Giving it away. Did you pick that up? Did any of that involve spending money on yourself?

No. All three, what ties them together is to do any one of them, you've got to give money away. So the bottom line is this morning, could we say that the way to make our money count for time and eternity is not to consume it on ourselves, but to spend it in Jesus' name in caring for people? How about that for a bottom line? I'd like to close with a little personal confession.

Can I do that? You know, I grew up in a home where, you know, there are takers and givers in the world, right? I grew up in a home where we were all takers.

That's the way the home worked. I grew up believing that the right use of money is to get as much of it as you possibly can and keep it all for yourself. I grew up in a home where I was taught the right use of money was to get every bit of it you can and spend it all on yourself. And if other people don't have it, then that's their problem. That's your problem. And I went into adulthood believing that was the right use of money.

I mean, that's the way it was. I tell you, it's been a very hard transition for me over these last 20 years to learn that what I was taught in my home about the right use of money was wrong, absolutely backwards. And the world system just reinforces that. You know, the world keeps telling you the right use of money, the way to make it count is to spend it on who? Yourself. All your creature comforts. Go out and buy a new Mustang convertible. Go get your red Miata.

Spend it on yourself. That's how you make it count. That's a lie. That's a lie.

Took me a long time to realize it, but that's a lie. And one of the things that really helped me realize that I was in transition a little bit already, but I'll tell you, I got turbocharged in the last three years with my little daughter coming along. Many of you know my little girl has a seizure disorder. It's been very sick. And I tell you, to watch how people responded to us when this happened, just put afterburners on this lesson God's been trying to teach me about how to use money. We've watched people come along over these last three years and do the most marvelous and wonderful things for us.

Most of those people right out of this church family. I mean, you all have been wonderful. I don't know how to say in words how you've been. And if we haven't thanked you enough, Brendan, me, I want to thank you this morning. You all have been just marvelous to us. You couldn't have asked for a church family to be any better. And we've had people come over and it wasn't always money, but often it has been and give us things and do things for us that I knew they probably couldn't afford to do, frankly.

But they insisted on doing it. And I know the blessing that it's been to us. I know the if you've been there, you know what I mean?

You can't explain it, but all that it means to be treated like that, to be cared for like that by people. And God just said to me, Lon, is this how you use your money? I mean, how many people can think of you doing this to them over the last years?

Boy, pretty indicting. And God said, Lon, don't you understand? Don't you see what I'm trying to teach you? The only money that really counts is the money you give away because that's the only money that blesses somebody else. The money you all keep for yourself. You die like John Rockefeller. You die like Paul Getty. You die with billions in the bank. The government takes three quarters of it. You didn't bless anybody with it.

It was no good. The only way to make money count, son, is to give it away and help people with it. And I'll tell you, God has just really taught me a lot about what that means and how to live that way. You say, well, Lon, if I do that, I'll be broke.

No, you won't. Because if God finds that you're a faithful vessel that he can give money to and you'll give it away, God will give you more money and you know what to do with. Dear friend, how about you? Are you making your money count or are you listening to the world that says just spend it all on yourself? The only way to make money count is to spend it on other people in the name of Christ. And I hope God will take what we've talked about this morning and change the way you spend your money and the way you live.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, none of us here this morning are rich. At least we, for the most part, I don't think would consider ourselves rich. Maybe somebody in the third world would look at us and think we're rich, but we don't think we are. And yet I pray that you would forgive us for using that as an excuse.

An excuse to escape the truth that you're trying to teach us this morning. That money is only a blessing. Money only counts for time and eternity when we give it away to others. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would take us and challenge our thinking, challenge our value system, challenge our spending habits with the word of God this morning. Father, that we would become wiser, more shrewd as Jesus is asking us to become in the use of our money now in light of the future that you've given us in eternity. Change the way we see the world, Lord, as a result of being here this morning, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.