The Money Mirage: Finding Security in God

It glistens. There's water on the road up there. I just know it. And you get there, it's dry as a bone. Right? It's a mirage. And that's what the pursuit of money always winds up with. It evaporates. It's gone. It wasn't there to start with. There is no joy. There is no provision. There is no security apart from a relationship with the one true living God. It is all a mirage that will leave you empty. [00:56:49] (38 seconds)  #MoneyIsAMirage

If you see it as a gift, if you see it as a God, you have to hang on to your God. You you gotta you gotta grab onto that, not let it go. But if you see it as a gift, it's also easier to enjoy. Fast forward to the New Testament. The apostle Paul is writing advice to his young protege, Timothy, and he says, instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God [00:55:07] (40 seconds)  #MoneyAsGiftNotGod

Here's Solomon's point. Money as a gift is great. Money as a God is absolutely repressive. When when your money, the money that you have, whatever amount that is, is seen as a gift, you're able to be generous and enjoy it. After all, if you see your money as a gift, then it was given to you and it's a little easier to give it to others in need or to give it to kingdom causes to advance the gospel. [00:54:26] (41 seconds)  #MoneyAsGiftBeGenerous

a third and a fourth and and and pretty soon you're you're like doing really well in the taco business. And and then you got to think about, I've I've got to start providing insurance for my employees and and that I want to keep my manager. I I need a four zero one retirement, four zero one k retirement plan for them. And when good things increase, those who consume them increase. See, money doesn't shrink your problems, it scales them. Don't be deceived by thinking that money somehow is gonna make your life simpler. [00:44:12] (35 seconds)  #MoneyScalesProblems

And after a while, after a while, not only are you not thrilled with it, you become dissatisfied with it unless you get another raise. You see, those who love money will never be satisfied with it. Money is not a satisfier and especially not of your soul. Our abundance in life is not found in abundant wealth. Jesus said in Luke chapter 12 verse 15, watch out and be on guard against all greed because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions. [00:39:15] (43 seconds)  #WealthDoesntSatisfy

And then, Adam and Eve sinned and fell into sin and the creation was warped and fractured. And now, what we try to do is recover that joy and security and provision. You see that joy, security, and provision in Eden was in a relationship with God. Ecclesiastes is all about how we try to have joy and provision and security without God. And we do that by making substitute gods, and money is primary on that list. [00:34:45] (42 seconds)  #MoneyAsFalseGod

Jesus says, if you will focus on God, if you will make him your top priority, then he will rightly order all the other things. But when you put a thing at the top of the list, everything else gets disordered. When God is put in his right place, everything else will fall into place. It is true. Number four, more money will secure me. In verse 13, Solomon writes, there is a sickening tragedy. Now, this is that's a really bold statement. [00:49:22] (46 seconds)  #PutGodFirst

Money will never satisfy my deepest needs. The longing of your soul cannot be satisfied with stuff. With money or the stuff that money can buy. Number two or b, I think, in the outline. More money will solve my problems. There are some people, I'm telling you, I've talked to them who really believe, they they would say something like, if I just had a $100,000, I wouldn't have any problems. And you write you can write any amount of money in that you want. [00:40:16] (37 seconds)  #MoneyCantSatisfyTheSoul

He says, when you approach God, guard your steps. He begins with our attitude toward worship which is really, it's kind of interesting to me. I I wanted to dig in on this and here's what Solomon is trying to help us to understand, that a casual approach to worship will always result in distorted priorities. There's this moment in the Old Testament even before Solomon when Moses has grown up in Egypt, he finds out he's actually an Israelite. He tries to do God's will his way. [00:31:31] (45 seconds)  #WorshipWithReverence

This morning we're going to talk about some false beliefs that we have about money. They are rampant. They are present in our culture today. Even though Solomon writes this twenty nine hundred years ago, these things are are still believed by people today. And we're going to confront four money myths and then I'm going to write you four checks. They are reality checks, however. You can't cash them. And we're gonna talk about what the truth is. So let's move into this. [00:35:38] (33 seconds)  #MoneyMythsExposed

And we all think man to make that kind of money, but you don't want to bear that kind of burden. Reality check number three, more money means more worries most of the time. Jesus tells us about worry in Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six verse 25 he says, I tell you don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? [00:48:21] (32 seconds)  #MoreMoneyMoreWorry

He said, I've watched as people put their hope and try to find their security in money. A security built on accumulation will collapse. At least it'll collapse when your heart's heart stops beating. Jesus told a story about a man who made his wheat fields produced abundance of grain and he had all of this wealth and his barns were just overflowing with the grain that he had. And without even a thought of generosity, he says, I know what I'll do. [00:51:25] (34 seconds)  #AccumulationIsNotSecurity

And, a lot of those people interestingly enough were family and friends who were not even qualified to do the job he was paying them to do, but he's paying them. And then, rap music changed. Taste changed, music became a little bit different, more graphic, and MC Hammer was a follower of Jesus and he wouldn't go there, and so his popularity went down and the money went down. But that 100 people that he had on his personal staff were still standing there just like this with their hand out. [00:42:43] (33 seconds)  #FleetingFameHurtsOthers

That you don't have to remember that. That won't be on the test. But here's what they mean by that. You've got a job. You have an income. You go in one day and your boss says, you're doing a great job. We want to keep you in our company and so we're going to give you a significant raise. You're thrilled. This is incredible. I mean, they give you a big raise and you are overjoyed by this big raise. And so your income goes from here to here [00:38:25] (35 seconds)  #BigRaiseNewBurdens