Balancing Spirituality and Wealth: A Journey of Generosity, Faith, and the Teachings of Christ

Well, I think what we've just experienced and reminder of earlier this year baptisms, I would say is the greatest example of generosity in the history of the world.

How can a loving, omniscient, all-sovereign, all-powerful, creative God love me and you enough to send His Son into this broken mess and allow Him to go through what he went through for 33 years and then die on the cross totally innocent, only to be resurrected to make our relationship with Him, through Christ, completely voluntary and completely free?

We will never touch another example of generosity like that, so it does matter.

You know our economy, mortgage rates and inflation are higher than they've been in 20 years 20 something years and so with that, the tendency is oh man, we need to make sure we're gonna be okay for the later years and we need to reign in everything.

We need to batten down the hatches, we need to get very conservative on spending and other things, and there's a lot of wisdom in that.

I'm not knocking that.

But for us in the room and you out there, there's a little bit of a danger to let that become too important or too much of a priority and then we lose sight of what we're really after, and that is a relationship with Christ that pleases Him, because, as you'll see in the Scripture in a few minutes, that is a danger.

And so today starts a short series called Mindset.

Today we're gonna look at our mindset toward our riches, toward our stuff.

We'll also look at our mindset toward our emotional makeup, and we'll just take a step of that each way.

So let me start out with a question that needs to be asked because it's been kicking me around all week preparing for today, and it's simply this how does your financial situation inform your spiritual life?

Shouldn't it be vice versa?

Shouldn't our spiritual life inform our financial situation?

So that's what we'll wrestle with.

In the first century they had many, many financial matters.

They I won't.

I won't do all the list of various sundry challenges that if you lived in present-day Palestine, israel, then what you would be faced with Jesus walks into all of that.

So the setting is in Luke 12.

We'll go there in a minute.

In Luke 12, he's like a rock star.

He's early in his ministry.

He's done some healing, he's done some major teaching, he's got his followers in place.

He's growing favor by the day with people, whether it's just curiosity seekers or people who might think, hey, this guy's really the Christ At least.

He's a big prophet and if we hang around him, well, not only get more wise, but we might be favored with healings or stuff.

And so on this particular day he's talking to the 12 and maybe a few other followers, as he always doing, and mentoring them, encouraging them, coaching them up.

But then there's literally, as it says in Luke 12, a thousand people milling around.

There's a major crowd trying to get at him, trying to listen in, trying to do what not, and, as typically he does, he shuts them out.

His focus is on those 12 or that small group.

They're here, some of them are overhearing it, but he's focused on preparing his staff and he's doing some intense stuff y'all he's like talking about.

Well, you know, there is one unforgivable sin.

You don't want to be guilty of that unforgivable sin.

If you want to read about that, it's earlier in chapter 12.

And then he segues off of that into and you know there is an end coming, there's an end to this world coming, and then there's going to be this big transition into eternity and it's going to fool a lot of people, a lot of people not going to be ready.

I mean it can't get much more important and intense than that.

But in the middle of all of that, a guy in the crowd just blurts out Rabbi, tell my brother to share his inheritance with me.

And this is one of those moments.

If we had a video of Jesus, this is probably when we'd see him do this number Like how much longer am I going to put up with these people?

And here's the brilliance, though, of Jesus.

Rather than shut the guy down and keep on with what he had planned to talk about, he pivots and he actually addresses it in a general way by telling a story with a point.

It's called a parable.

And by the time he's through, he has captured the entire audience as relevant to this story.

It's incredible.

So we get to read it.

It starts in verse 13.

So you got your Bible.

Thank you for bringing your Bible.

If you got it, get your pew Bible out.

Those of you out there, grab your Bible, get your phone out or whatever, and look along with me how you doing in a balcony.

All right, just making sure you're still up there.

So I'm going to read three or four verses and then we're going to pray and then we'll get on with the rest of it.

Because the basics of Jesus' parable.

The story with a point in response to this guy is just out of the blue.

Question is God and greed do not mix.

Never have, never will.

So let's read maybe 13 through 16.

Someone in the crowd says Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

Jesus replied man who appointed me to be a judge or an arbiter between you and me, between you.

Then he said to him Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed.

A man's life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions.

So let's stop here and pray, but, as we do many times, let's give a minute of space to something that's in the back of probably all of our minds on a daily basis, and that is the war going on in Israel.

The next stage has started.

They're on the ground in Gaza now.

They have invaded, and there's so many people that have died, and there'll be a lot more people who will be dying in the days ahead, and so I just feel like that we need to do what the Bible says we should do, and let's pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but pray for a lot of innocence as well as what we will call the theology of the just war.

I'm not an expert in that, but I believe there are times when war is just and necessary and when innocent people are butchered and violated just because that demands.

That demands a just war, in my opinion.

And so if that's what's going on over there, we, as the people of God, certainly need to be praying.

So I'll let you have a few seconds to do that and I'll just kind of close it.

Okay, let's pray.

Lord, we're far removed, we have no wisdom to bring into this.

But, lord, you see, all you know, all, you were there before the beginning of time.

God, would you will be done?

Would you protect the innocent?

Would you bring the guilty to justice, as you define it?

Would you protect those who are fighting for the cause of justice?

Lord, somehow, as You've done all through history in that part of the world, will you, at the end of this, glorify Yourself and will you strengthen your followers and will you prove that your love, once again, is far, far greater than the worst kind of evil?

Thank you, now please come, holy Spirit, amen, amen, all right, let'show aboutlet's read the rest of this.

Shall we Verse 16, chapter 12,?

And he told them this parable the ground of a certain man produced a good crop.

He thought to himself what shall I do?

I have no place to store my crops.

Then he said this is what I will do.

I will tear down my barns and I will build bigger ones and there I will store all my grain and all my goods.

If you count in these few short verses he says I am I like ten times.

Ten times Verse 19,.

And I'll say to myself you have plenty of good things laid up for many years.

Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.

But God said to him you fool.

Now let me stop right here.

That word fool in the New Testament meant what we think it does today, like a very unwise person.

But it also had the added meaning of morally deficient.

You're a fool, but your heart is broken.

Also, this very night, your life will be demanded from you.

Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?

This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.

All right.

He's not saying that it's wrong to have rainy day money and save a head for, you know, future retirement and all that.

No, because in other places in the Scripture that is taught what he's saying and he may have not had a problem in his story until he got to 19,.

And the attitude of this farmer comes out hey, I got a chance here to put so much money away.

I'll have an abundance that will not make me have to do one thing for anybody else the rest of my life.

It's like he's saying I'll stop living the purpose that I'm created to do because I've just got so much stuff.

That's where he has a problem with it, because God and greed will never mix.

They'll never get together.

Reminder, you probably all know this.

You do not have to be rich to be greedy, do you?

Anybody?

Everybody can be greedy and it will attack us if we allow it to some point in time.

So I'm going to real quickly talk about this from the perspective of how it relates to happiness and our status and our security.

So we're going to talk about myths of that and then some mindset that we truly ought to have, based on the Scripture and informed by Jesus.

So the first myth is just like this and it's apparent the myth of hey, if you get enough money, it'll make you happy.

Your stuff or your money bring happiness.

Look at verse 23.

Jesus says life is more than food and the body is more than clothes, and he demonstrated that more than anything.

Now we got an honest discussion of this is we are all wired for reward.

That means we are brought up believing and it's really true is I get what I earn.

And if I do this and I do it the right way, I will be rewarded, whether it's income from a job or affirmation or you know, just the moral bounce.

All of that is true.

But when it goes too far and becomes too important, we have misplaced it, and there's some examples in the Bible.

Eve started the show off and that's really part of what her sin was.

Eve is told hey, you eat that fruit, you'll be kind of in the same neighborhood intellectually with God Translation what do you need with God anymore?

You will be rewarded with a high enough intelligence and all that you want.

So obviously that was a sin.

Jacob, if you know anything about his life in the book of Genesis man, what a sneaky, conniving weasel he was for a lot of his life.

He's cheating I mean, he cheats his brother out of his birthright and then he just goes on.

Now he reformed, but Jacob isn't a good example, jesus has a conversation with someone and he's known later as the rich young ruler.

Remember that one, the only time anybody ever came looking for the meaning of life.

And Jesus turned it financial when he says hey, I know, you know the 10 commandments, I know you keep the rules and all like that.

Here's what you need to do Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me.

Only reason he throws that out.

He's not saying that if you're, you know, generous toward God will be saved.

That's what?

No, of course he's not saying that.

It's a test, because he wanted to test his heart and the man failed because his stuff.

He saw that as too risky of, too sacrificial to do and he did not do it.

Our stuff, our stuff, doesn't make us happy.

Matter of fact, it's the opposite.

It's what we give away that makes lasting happiness.

It's taught in the Scripture, but it's also verified by studies.

You can look them up.

There's studies from Harvard Review, from Time Magazine, some other universities that have noted that hey, there's a new paradigm out now.

The old way used to be if you want to move up the work chart here and be a real good producer in our company, we'll pay you more and more money, and that's still somewhat the scale.

But what we now know is that's what, not what, really motivates people to stay with companies and to continue to do that.

It is working for a cause that's bigger than ourselves.

That's a form of generosity.

People stay the longest and work the hardest for organizations that they feel like I'm helping other people, whether it's making this widget or providing this service or selling them insurance.

One of my best friends in college has been an insurance agent the entire time since we graduated from college, and one time I was talking to it was our insurance guy and I said, man, I couldn't do what you do, couldn't talk to people about insurance all the time.

And he said let me tell you how it works.

If you believe that this will enhance their life in later years and this will give them some protection and their family protection afterwards, you'll never apologize for 15 minutes of their time.

I'm like, hey, this guy's pretty convincing.

He's very successful at it too, but he's an example.

I don't just sell insurance, I'm making people's lives better, and that's a form of generosity.

So another myth you ready for it.

More stuff will bring status and we're in a culture.

That man, if we ever love, stat.

Look back at verse 15, which I believe is the key verse to this section.

He said then watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed that a man's life does not consist because it does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

God gives us everything.

Notice this guy's crops produced a record yield.

He didn't do it.

Who gave him those crops?

God did.

Now he did some work, but only God can grow the plants, and so it's given to him, and so happiness can't come from that too.

So our stuff does not bring a status in the spiritual realm.

But can we be really brutally honest here today, in this culture?

It sure does bring you status, doesn't it?

How many people do you know are really held up as noble community leaders just because they are stinking rich?

A lot of people aren't they?

We make celebrities out of people who have a lot of wealth.

So on the temporal, temporary, it does create status.

But we're talking about the permanent kind, the kind that will last into eternity.

Because here's the deal.

Here's why this is a myth.

As some people gain more and more assets, their character is diminished.

Actually, not every time.

There's some people I know and love who are godly, godly men and women.

I'm not saying that it always corrupts you, but there's a lot that it does, because you know why.

Now, all of a sudden, this is serious.

I got enough money that I don't need to lose.

When I didn't have anything, I was pretty, you know, I didn't worry about all this, but now, whew, I am one big loss from really being in trouble here, and that makes us almost paranoid sometimes and we build up this idolatry and it takes away our character.

Some of you are looking at me like I don't believe that.

Well, it does.

They're studies, again, and you can look them up.

They're studies that have done one of the games.

They'll pull people in and they'll say all right, we're going to ask you some questions contingent on another, something you got to do.

For instance, what if we gave you ten million dollars but you have to turn your back on your three best friends?

Would you do that for ten million dollars?

Twenty-five percent of the people said yeah, do that.

They put their friends with a price tag right.

Here's another question We'll give you, we will give you maybe ten million dollars if, in this case, you saw somebody murder somebody, eyeball a witness, but then, when you go to witness on the stand, you testify no, he didn't do it.

We'll give you ten million dollars.

Ten percent said oh yeah, I do that Y'all.

That's a little bit of a character issue, isn't it?

Of course it is.

Of course it is, because God and greed do not do not mix.

Talked about idolatry.

In case you want to double check about how Jesus and the prophets of Jesus weighed in on that, look at Colossians 3.5.

Paul equates it.

He says greed is idolatry.

You're putting stuff ahead of God Himself, and that's never.

We can never be able to justify that.

Now, I know, I know we all have to really watch.

I know we're doing more with less these days.

I know what the reality is.

God's not against that.

We need to be frugal when we need to be.

We need to be careful.

We need to not be stupid with our money because he gave it to us.

The point, though, is generosity after the heart and the mind of God.

I've seen the studies there, too, where half of the people in this country, if their hot water heater goes out tonight I don't know how much those cost now six hundred bucks or something.

They won't have the six hundred dollars laying around to fix it, they'll put it on credit.

Half the people.

The average savings account in this country right now and that's, you know, even including older people who have a lot more than young families just starting out is about twenty thousand dollars.

That's kind of depressing.

But let me give you some good news no matter how little you have in checking and how little you have in savings, you are $33 trillion richer than the US government right now.

Right, it's all relative.

So let's now talk about our mindset.

Y'all agree those are pretty much myths.

Doesn't bribe you.

Security doesn't buy.

Okay, here we go.

Same, the same topics.

What's our mindset toward happiness?

Well, happiness comes from blessing other people.

It's not about being self-focused all the time, like this farmer was On the screen.

Behind me is Proverbs 11, 25,.

A generous man will prosper.

He who refreshes others will be himself refreshed.

See what he's saying.

It gives us more of a boost, more of a sense of well-being by giving to others than keeping ourselves.

That's why our little slogan that we go to all the time is blessed.

There are some of you are in this room and you have spent two days in the boiling sun on a roof, putting a new roof on somebody's house that you did not know he or she will never repay you $1 for what you've done, with all your blood and sweat, probably that you poured out on that, but it's two of the best days.

You spent that entire month because you understand.

You understand the principle of blessing.

The rest, it's a bigger mindset.

Jesus always made it about somebody else, did he not?

Y'all even on the cross.

He's hanging on the cross, he's a few minutes from dying and he looks down and tells one of His followers hey, take care of my mom, I want to make sure she's okay after I'm gone.

It's always in His mind about somebody else.

How about 1 Timothy 6?

Can we read that real quick?

How about turn to that if you have your Bible out?

1 Timothy 6, 18 and 19.

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share.

In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

So let me illustrate it to you like this.

Let's say you check into a hotel and as you check in.

You get to your room and you see one of those safes you know those little safes that give for you, for your stuff.

And so you take all your valuables and you put it in that safe and you're like man, I'm glad they have this for me, I won't worry about my stuff here.

I got nice ring, I got this, and that you throw it in there, you lock it.

Next morning you check out of the hotel, you go on your way, you leave your stuff in the safe and you never return to it.

Now that's crazy, but that's really our mindset when we are greedy toward our stuff to the point that we will not serve.

Blessed God by serving and blessing other people, because everything we store up here guess what?

Will leave one day.

It will not go with us.

But here's the reverse economy that Jesus is teaching Everything we share, everything we give away in the name of Christ over here, will come back multiplied.

The best financial plan in the world is to make sure we are biblical with our time, our talent and our treasures, because that's the only thing that will survive the fires of the Second Coming.

All of that will be waiting.

Our real reward will be in heaven, where we'll spend eternity.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have a retirement plan.

I'm not saying you shouldn'tplease hear me say that.

It just can't be the most important thing.

It cannot be our sense of happiness or our sense of status.

We shouldn't feel good or bad about ourselves based on how much money that we've got salted away.

It is the best plan, though.

So, talking about status, that's the second thing.

Status comes from a submission to Christ.

1 Peter 5-6,.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.

We all have an identity.

This world is telling you.

You can create your identity, whether you want to be a superhero or whatever you create on social media and everything.

You just be that person, and good luck with that.

I mean, how crazy is that?

Our Creator gives us our identity.

We don't make it up, so stuff can't either.

Our identity is not based on any of that.

Matthew 10-39,.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it, says the Lord.

How do we test our submission level to Jesus Christ?

The acid test is do I love Jesus more than my stuff?

If the time came where something really, really sacrificial is demanded of me.

If God told me to do it, would I do it Now?

In my years of leading a church I have been deeply inspired and deeply moved by some of the people who heard from God clearly enough and had the surrender, submission, had the courage to simply do that, to make real sacrifices.

I've seen conversations in the church gym where somebody who was pretty much already bowed over, drawn and is checking living paycheck to paycheck when he saw a child could not get into upward basketball.

He who he did not even know, by the way it bothered him so greatly that he just writes a check and he gives it to the director and says, hey, get him in here.

And then he goes home and has to tell his wife.

You know, I bet we're going to get hit with about a $25 charge here because I just wrote check.

I don't have.

He had to realize he had to double that pretty soon in the bank.

He don't know where it came, I don't know.

There's things that are important and there's things that are just not that important.

So let's talk about security.

Security comes from trusting God.

It's plain and simple.

Jesus taught us how to do it and this is where I want to thank a lot of you.

Thank you for being great stewards.

You are part of the reason I love hanging out here, because you're giving, and you're giving consistently, and you're giving, as the Bible indicates, not for brick and mortar, but for the mission that God's given us.

And that's one thing I'm very clear on as the years continue to go by.

We need to be more and more decentralized.

We need to be more and more spread out as the body of Christ in this county and in the low country, so that we can reach more people, and that is a mission that completely strips out what budget we have and what reserves we have, and you know that's how it ought to be, because if it's something we could handle and something we could pay for, that's not God, because he's always thinking bigger than we are, is he not?

And so, thank you.

This year we're on track.

This year the budget was the highest it's ever been, and this year you're going to give the most that has ever been given here to take care of that.

I praise the Lord for that.

So we're going to have Lord Willing.

After the next two months, we'll close the books and we will have an excess of cash compared to theand, by the way, with our budget right now rough numbers it takes about $50,000 to run this place every single week.

That gives you a little scale, but you have risen to the occasion and you're doing much more of that.

So our job is not to be this rich, stupid farmer.

We're not going to sit on it and say, hey, it's time now to just cruise, you know, just kind of enjoy.

No, now we'll plow that into something called the Kingdom Come, which, if you were around back in February, a lot of you made pledges above your tithes and offerings toona three-year base, say within three years.

I'm pledging this much.

I'm going to give it by three years and that's for the mission.

That's for finding a permanent spot for our Pinewood location and doing the renovations that we need to do here and hopefully, prayerfully, not too far off a third location will come, because that's the mission that God gave us to do.

So that's giving us another added boost toward that.

By the way, thank you for pledging.

You pledged like $3.5 million above.

We've received about 1.6 or 7, I think right now about halfway there already, but we just need to continue to give faithfully.

If you were not here then and you would like to be a part of that, like to be on that mission with us.

You'd love to have a pledge or just your generous gifts above tithes and offerings there.

I get asked this too, and so don't let me forget Four ways to give here.

There's the bank draft part.

There's the text to give.

There's the conventional way to give.

There's any numbers of ways to give to either of those the general tithe budget or to that.

This is just a thank you.

So many of you are giving and you're giving generously because you believe not in a pretty brick and mortar and this is a pretty place, but what's more important to you is to continue to see people come into the baptistry and y'all.

Nothing beats that.

Nothing beats people come into Christ and being discipled in Christ.

So our security is not in all this.

Our security is in the Lord Jesus Christ and His wisdom to keep us grounded enough to have the wisdom to know how to spend our money.

You know the principles is when you get paid, you pay God first, you pay yourself, second that's your savings or whatnot and then you pay your bills.

It's a very simple plan and it pays off in the long run and those who give will realize some benefit of that forever and ever and ever.

Do not ever buy into the false teaching that somehow we're earning our keep with God or that the church will go bankrupt if it doesn't have your money or my money.

That's not true at all.

God owns everything anyway.

He gave us what we have all.

He's asking us for a little bit back right, and then he blesses it.

We'll never be able to earn goodness.

This is a response out of gratitude to be generous toward other people and Jesus is very clear those that are especially hurting and especially in need.

That's where the biggest blessing comes from.

You go help somebody who can't help you back.

That's the most like Christ we ever are and that's why we try to do that.

I read about an old farmer who visited a pastor in a small town one day and the pastor didn't know him.

And the guy said sir, I'm just showing up, I need a favor.

My family's hurting a little bit now.

Our pet dog has been a part of the family for 20 years.

Our pet dog died.

Could you possibly do a little ceremony for our dog, like a little funeral for our dog?

The pastor said no, I can't.

We don't do that, I'm sorry.

He said do you have any advice or any other churches that might could help us?

And he said well, you know there's several down the road.

There's non-denominational church.

They probably do anything.

Why don't you go see them?

They'll be happy, I'm sure, to oblige you, just to kind of get rid of him.

And the old farmer said well, let me ask you another advice.

As a pastor I don't want to offend anybody If I go down there and I tell them I want to make sure I make a donation.

Would that offend him?

I mean, I'm going to give like $50,000.

And at this pastor, whoa, wait a minute, you didn't tell me that dog was a Baptist dog.

I just want to slip one in on you right here, at the very end.

There's a secret that a lot of people don't know.

Even churchgoers don't know.

Jesus shares it in this same chapter.

I think it's in verse 8.

And he says let me in on something.

It's a little bit of a hidden quality If you confess me here, I'll confess you up there.

And that's another way of saying what you give away here, what you share here, I'll make sure it gets stored up there.

The first base of that the first step of that is we give our lives.

That's why we have altar calls here.

And Braden, if the group can come up, by the way, I tell you what they showed out today, didn't they?

I was back there, but I was singing along, so that's why we have altar calls.

It's pretty biblical to come forward and say, can we pray about someone or something?

Can I take my next step of faith?

And we all have one.

We all have the next step.

For some of you, I think I need what Scott and Josie and Emma have.

That obviously I do not have.

Maybe I don't have Jesus fully, and can we do that?

Or I used to used to have Him, but I got away.

Can I rectify that?

Can I confess here on earth?

Or I am a Christ follower.

I'm trying to find His mission.

Now I need to be officially a member of the church.

I confess Him here.

He'll confess me there, right, absolutely Every single time.

Balsas is rejoicing in heaven over those who do that.

So that's why we do this, every single service that we have.

So why don't you stand and let me pray for you?

And if we can meet you down here, we'd love to do that.

Lord, give us wisdom we don't have every day.

Give us a heart of generosity that your Son and you have demonstrated.

Give us a sense of just raw obedience that says if you require it, I'll find a way to do it.

If you command it, I will take the risk to do whatever it takes to make sure I'm following you.

And so, god, we thank you for that opportunity just to be your kids.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.