Financial Peace: Being Crushed by Finances

Life comes at us fast and we can get hit by some really nasty sur­prises, includ­ing our finances. We can be crushed by finan­cial prob­lems. Our pas­tors are lead­ing us through a five week series address­ing the spir­i­tual aspects of finances. Pastor Bart really preached a good one Sunday, teach­ing us some real impor­tant truths regard­ing our money, the most impor­tant is that we must first start with our rela­tion­ship with God. By doing so, we can take the other steps of han­dling our finances with­out being crushed by them.

Here is my ser­mon notes first:

Matt 6:24 [show]Matthew 6:24 [24]“No one can serve two mas­ters, for 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 God and money. (ESV)
, you can not serve both God and money. God knows this.

Who is in charge? Older, wiser, more pow­er­ful. We can not mas­ter money.

Golem, from the book Lord of the Rings, thought he owned the One Ring but really the Ring owned him and every­one else that tried to mas­ter it.

Spend fool­ishly or save wisely, both can feel empty when money is the mas­ter. We must serve God.

God is the only one who can mas­ter money because He is older, wiser, more powerful.

It is hard to believe we are not the mas­ter of money nut we are not.

God gives us money for us to man­age. He has expec­ta­tions of us with regards to that money.

Tithing isn’t giv­ing back to God, it is giv­ing to God’s mis­sion — giv­ing to the local church.

God also wants us to give our taxes, to invest in learn­ing„ to bless oth­ers, and to meet own per­sonal needs.

God is con­cerned about how we man­age all the money that He has given us, all 100% of it. He expects us to man­age it well.

We need to have God as our mas­ter, not money.

Matt 6:31–32 [show]Matthew 6:31–32 [31]Therefore do not be anx­ious, say­ing, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ [32]For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heav­enly Father knows that you need them all. (ESV)
. God will take care of us.

The real answer to crush­ing finan­cial prob­lems is to work on our rela­tion­ship with God.

Joy and I are attend­ing a thir­teen week class at Flatland called Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. We are about half way through it. Joy and I are in a finan­cial dis­as­ter and I cer­tainly need some peace. Although this ser­mon series is focus­ing on the spir­i­tual truths that God has taught us in His Word, it tied into many of the things that we are learn­ing at FPU. The ser­mon series really helps keep us focused on the most impor­tant aspect of finan­cial peace, the spir­i­tual truths and God Himself.

A cou­ple things really stood out to me Sunday. One was the fact that only God can mas­ter money… with the run­ning semi-joke through­out the ser­mon about God being older, wiser and more pow­er­ful than money. This in a sense, really frees us from a lot of money wor­ries. How many times do we lay in bed fret­ting over our fnan­cial sit­u­a­tion and start try­ing to fig­ure out just how we are going to wres­tle it under our con­trol. By real­iz­ing and liv­ing the fact that we can’t mas­ter money, only God can, then we can start let­ting God take over. I am gonna try to keep say­ing that when I am toss­ing and turn­ing fret­ting over our finan­cial disaster.

A sec­ond thing was that Jesus Himself said that we can not serve both God and money, One or the other will become our mas­ter. God knows this! and He will be there to help us with our finances as we make God our mas­ter. I actu­ally was side-tracked by this thought for a bit dur­ing the ser­vice. God wants to be our Lord. He knows that money will mas­ter us. As such, He will equip us with every­thing we need to man­age the money He pro­vides us. I often feel rather inse­cure about finances. But if I remem­ber that when I fol­low God’s prin­ci­ples about money, He will help me.

Finally, and I am embar­rased to say, I kind of rebelled when Pastor said that tithing isn’t giv­ing back to God, rather it is giv­ing to God’s mis­sion in this world. I agreed with his state­ments to a degree. We are to tithe to help our local church and its mis­sion God has placed on it. Tithing is all about that. Many of the offer­ings brought to the tem­ple as spec­i­fied in the Torah, were to feed and oth­er­wise ben­e­fit the priests and their min­istry. We tithe to build up our local church and its ministers!

However, in part tithing is truly a giv­ing to God. What do I mean? Two things: first Malachi 3:8 [show]Malachi 3:8 [8]Will man rob God? Yet you are rob­bing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and con­tri­bu­tions. (ESV)
says that not giv­ing your tithes is cheat­ing God. This speaks to me that giv­ing tithes is giv­ing to God even though it is in prac­ti­cal terms giv­ing to the Church.

Second, there is a prin­ci­ple of ded­i­ca­tion to God in the Old Testament as we see in the story of the bat­tle of Jericho. In that story, God demanded the Israelites ded­i­cate every­thing in Jericho to Him by destroy­ing every­thing. This was a visual exam­ple of what it means to be ded­i­cated to God. Dedication means that it is God’s and God’s alone. By destroy­ing every­thing, no one could then posses any part of Jericho. Of course, in the story, some one did take stuff which resulted in dis­as­ter until all that which was taken was totally and irrev­o­ca­bly given to God by burn­ing it up.

Tithing is ded­i­cat­ing a tenth of what we make to God — it is a total and irrev­o­ca­ble turn­ing over to God. You can see this in some of the instruc­tions regard­ing tithing, such as in Deuteronomy 12 [show]Deuteronomy 12 “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be care­ful to do in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to pos­sess, all the days that you live on the earth. [2]You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dis­pos­sess served their gods, on the high moun­tains and on the hills and under every green tree. [3]You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pil­lars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. [4]You shall not wor­ship the LORD your God in that way. [5]But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habi­ta­tion there. There you shall go, [6]and there you shall bring your burnt offer­ings and your sac­ri­fices, your tithes and the con­tri­bu­tion that you present, your vow offer­ings, your freewill offer­ings, and the first­born of your herd and of your flock. [7]And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your house­holds, in all that you under­take, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. [8]“You shall not do accord­ing to all that we are doing here today, every­one doing what­ever is right in his own eyes, [9]for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inher­i­tance that the LORD your God is giv­ing you. [10]But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giv­ing you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your ene­mies around, so that you live in safety, [11]then to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I com­mand you: your burnt offer­ings and your sac­ri­fices, your tithes and the con­tri­bu­tion that you present, and all your finest vow offer­ings that you vow to the LORD. [12]And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daugh­ters, your male ser­vants and your female ser­vants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no por­tion or inher­i­tance with you. [13]Take care that you do not offer your burnt offer­ings at any place that you see, [14]but at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offer­ings, and there you shall do all that I am com­mand­ing you. [15]“However, you may slaugh­ter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, accord­ing to the bless­ing of the LORD your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. [16]Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. [17]You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the first­born of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offer­ings that you vow, or your freewill offer­ings or the con­tri­bu­tion that you present, [18]but you shall eat them before the LORD your God in the place that the LORD your God will choose, you and your son and your daugh­ter, your male ser­vant and your female ser­vant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you under­take. [19]Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land. [20]“When the LORD your God enlarges your ter­ri­tory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat when­ever you desire. [21]If the place that the LORD your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have com­manded you, and you may eat within your towns when­ever you desire. [22]Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. [23]Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. [24]You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. [25]You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your chil­dren after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. [26]But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offer­ings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the LORD will choose, [27]and offer your burnt offer­ings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God. The blood of your sac­ri­fices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, but the flesh you may eat. [28]Be care­ful to obey all these words that I com­mand you, that it may go well with you and with your chil­dren after you for­ever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God. [29]“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dis­pos­sess, and you dis­pos­sess them and dwell in their land, [30]take care that you be not ensnared to fol­low them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, say­ing, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?–that I also may do the same.’ [31]You shall not wor­ship the LORD your God in that way, for every abom­inable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daugh­ters in the fire to their gods. [32] “Everything that I com­mand you, you shall be care­ful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. (ESV)
where the tithing of grain etc was to be eaten in whole, by both the tither and by the priests. Again, yes, the pur­pose is to take care of the min­istry of the church (as can be seen in the con­stant reminder to take care of the Levites). But in the end, it is ded­i­cat­ing to God a por­tion of that which God has given us. This means for those con­trol freaks that once you give your tithes you have no say in how it is used! It isn’t yours any­more, its God’s!

Ok, to bring it back to how this ser­mon affected me, I will this whole week spend time in prayer and med­i­ta­tion releas­ing my fears about our finan­cial dis­as­ter to God. Wait, let me restate that. Although this week will be a focused effort, I desire from now on to allow God to be the mas­ter of money and not try to mas­ter it myself. I will also ded­i­cate myself to being a bet­ter man­ager of that which God has given us. Just because I am not the mas­ter of money, does not reduce my oblig­a­tions to man­age that which God has given me.