Facebook, you can be rich, but if you're without God, what do you have? You have nothing. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "Instruct those that are rich in this world's goods not to be proud. Don't fix your hopes on the uncertain things that money can buy. Fix your hope on God." Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Put God first; God will take care of the rest. But if you put money, pleasure, and power first, you're going to be deceived. You're going to come up empty; you're going to come up short-handed.
Well, good morning, CLC! In 50 years of preaching, this is the first time I've ever followed Billy Graham, and you guys have already said you're going to shout me down today, so I'm looking forward to it.
Before I dive into the message, though, it'll save me from having to repeat it about a hundred times. I want to thank every one of you who prayed for Chris and her surgery. She had spinal surgery this past Wednesday. The doctor says everything went well, and she got to come home on Friday. So, we know that was because of prayer. The pain has been a little worse than she was expecting, I think, so keep that prayer going for her. Hopefully, we'll be able to see you in the not-too-distant future. We did fly in our daughter from Florida, so I didn't leave Chris at home by herself. That would not be wise. So, Jen is there taking care of her this morning, but we appreciate every one of your prayers.
About five minutes after I left the house this morning, I was in a snowbank, and my car is still there. So, it's been an interesting morning already. But I'm ready to dive in. If you're ready to shout me down, I'll give you every opportunity.
I tell you the truth, I am flabbergasted at how many of you are here today. I expect there must be about two or three times as many as usual in the online audience today, and we're glad for you as well.
I read a story not too long ago during the holidays. You know, probably most of you prepare special meals during that time. I don't know if you've heard of this or not, but the Butterball company, their specialty is turkeys for Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever. They actually set up a Thanksgiving hotline so that people who had questions about exactly how to cook the turkey could get some help.
One lady—I'm not making this up; this is a true story—called that line and said she wanted to know if she could use the turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for 23 years. Yeah, not making this one up. She wanted to know if she could still use it. The Butterball expert—how's that for a job title?—told her that it would probably be safe for her to use the turkey if the freezer had been at zero or below zero for the entire time. But the expert went on to warn her that even if it was safe to eat, the flavor would probably have deteriorated so much over those 23 years that it wouldn't be worth eating.
To that, the woman said, "That's what I thought. We'll just give it to our church." [Laughter] [Applause]
Yeah, you may find that difficult to believe, but it's the kind of reasoning that people who are not in the Kingdom sometimes have. Brent just blessed us all last week with this whole teaching about the Kingdom because, as Brent told us, it affects every area of our life.
But I think there's probably no area of our life where the Kingdom is more important than our money. So that's what we're talking about today.
And why would I say that? I would say that because your money—hear me on this, because I've never taught this in my life—but this is what the scripture teaches: your money wants to be your master. Turn to the person next to you and say, "Your money wants to master you."
Control you. And if you don't believe me, believe Jesus, because he said, "You cannot serve two masters at the same time. You will hate one and love the other, or you will be loyal to one and not care about the other. You cannot," Jesus said, "serve God and money at the same time."
When he said you can't serve God and money, the word "money" there—in other translations, in fact, even English translations—it comes across as "Mammon." You cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. How many of you have heard that or read that? Maybe you've got a Bible that uses that.
Okay, money is Mammon, but that didn't help us a whole lot. Like Brent said last week, so many times we read scripture and we don't know what something means, and we don't bother to figure it out. You know, I was that way for a long time. I knew Mammon was there, but I never knew what Mammon was all about, so I didn't really worry about it.
But I discovered in preparation for this message that Mammon is the demon of greed. In fact, it refers to riches or possessions that have a debasing influence. They take you places you shouldn't want to go. Wow, they bring you down.
This one was probably the most interesting quote I read in reading about Mammon: Lucifer sees Mammon as his most adorable brother. So anything that Lucifer loves, I know I'm not going to love if I'm in the Kingdom, at least. But Lucifer considers Mammon as his most adorable brother.
So I said that much just to tell you that there really is a spirit behind your money. I'm not making this up, and you may not have heard this teaching before, but that's what I found in Scripture: that there is a spirit that operates behind our money.
Let's look at one man. This is what we call the Rich Young Ruler. It's in Matthew chapter 19, starting at verse 16.
"Another day, a man stopped Jesus and asked, 'Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?' Jesus said, 'Why do you question me about what's good? God is the one who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.'"
Again, I keep referring back to last week's message. If you didn't hear it already, you really owe it to yourself to go online and get last week's message. But one of the things Brent said to us is that if you're in the Kingdom, it's real simple: you just do whatever he says. Yeah, that's it. Period.
Somebody said, "Just do what he says." And that's what Jesus said to this young man who wanted to know how he could inherit eternal life. He says, "If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you." That's how it is in the Kingdom. We just obey the King; we obey the Master.
So the man asked, "What in particular?" Jesus said, "Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't lie. Honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself."
The young man said, "I've done all that. What's left?"
Jesus said, "If you want to give it all you've got, go sell your possessions, give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven."
Where will your wealth be? What was this young man asking? How to get eternal life? How to get to heaven? The very thing that he wanted, Jesus told him how to get it: "All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come, follow me."
That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. Crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn't bear to let it go.
When it says he was holding on tight to a lot of things, that's because of Mammon. Mammon wanted him to be controlling other things. He wanted him to pursue other things other than the Lord, and he couldn't bear to let it go.
Let me ask you right now—you don't need to raise your hand, but I would like for you to give it some thought. Is it possible that you've got some things you're holding on to? Is it possible you've got some things that you just can't bear to let go of if the Lord asked you what he asked this young man?
Let's just pretend, okay? Can we do that? On a day like today, we can do whatever we want.
Just pretend that you could have anything that you wanted, but the Lord then would come along and say, "I want you to give all of that to the poor." Would you be able to do it?
You know, I'm having a little fun with it, but I've known of some people who really—Robert Morris is one that comes to mind right now, but there are others—people in the Kingdom who heard the Lord say, "I want you to give away everything. I want you to give away your house, give away your car, give away your bank account."
I've read the stories of people who have done that. At this point in time, I don't think he's ever asked me to do that, and if I'd be honest, I'd tell you I hope he doesn't. But if he does, as an ambassador in the Kingdom, yes, I don't have any other choice.
So ask yourself, what would I do if the Lord asked me to sell everything I had and give it away? I would say this: the Rich Young Ruler—his money—can you imagine the difference it would have made if he couldn't let go of it because Mammon was controlling him?
Can you imagine what good he could have done? Can you imagine what an impact he could have had even for the Kingdom? Yes, if he had been willing to do so. He wasn't just somebody that, you know, this was just no big deal. After all, he's a rich young ruler, so he could have made a huge difference in the Kingdom if he would have done something.
But Mammon kept him from doing it. Mammon kept him hanging on and holding on to what he owned.
As he watched him go, Jesus told his disciples, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the rich to enter God's kingdom?"
I can tell you the answer to that question is no, because in that day, especially for people who weren't in the Kingdom, they regarded someone who was rich as this person is really at the height of serving the Lord. He's walking very closely with the Lord just because he had money.
You know, there are still people that think that. True, there are people that think that the more you have, the more spiritual you must be. That's not necessarily true.
But Jesus said, "Do you have any idea?" And they said, "No." For them, then he said, "Let me tell you, it's easier to gallop a camel through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter God's kingdom."
I specifically chose the message translation on this one because most of us have heard through the years that Jesus said, "You know, you can get a camel to go through the needle's eye." But we've heard that so many times, and it didn't stand out to me.
But when I read that, "It's easier to gallop a camel," I thought if I use that, everybody in the room is going to remember what I said. Well, it's not important you remember what I said; it's important you remember what Jesus said.
And that's what Jesus said: "It's easier to gallop a camel." So get a picture in your mind. I've seen camels several times in our visits to Israel, and I can't imagine them galloping. I've seen them walk; it's a really strange walk. They have a really strange gait. But I've never seen them gallop.
But this one galloped, and Jesus said he gets through a needle's eye. I've heard many times—maybe you have heard many times—that this was a reference to a little small door beside the gate of the city. The camel, when they got there, the only way the camel could get in, he would have to kneel down, and they could unload all of his burden, and then he could get by that little small opening in the wall.
It's a really nice story, but it's not true. There is no little hole or little space, and if you've heard that, you've just heard a preacher trying to embellish the word of God. I've studied this and looked at it for a long time, and I can't find any reference to that being true. That's just something that somebody made up; it's just a story.
But what I do know about the needle's eye comes in the next line: it says the disciples were staggered. If there was a small hole in the wall that they could bow down, take the goods off, and then put them through the wall, that wouldn't stagger somebody. They do that every day.
But the disciples were staggered at this realization that the rich, who had so much, could fit through the eye of a—You know what the eye of a needle is? That's impossible. In fact, several translations say that it would be impossible for that to happen. That's why the disciples staggered. They said, "Then who has any chance at all? If the rich don't have a good chance of making it in, and this one that you've told us about is impossible, they said, 'Who has any chance at all?'"
Jesus looked hard at them and said, "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself."
So if you're here in the room today or you're watching online and you think somehow or other you're going to get this all done on your own, you're going to find a way to get to heaven by yourself, you're going to find a way to increase your wealth by yourself, he says, "It's not going to happen. No chance at all. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."
I believe the reason that I wanted to share that verse with you is because, in my experience, when greed is at work—and most of us would say, "I'm not greedy," but Mammon is greedy. Come on.
The reason that—or not the reason, but the fact that Mammon is greedy, the only thing that I've ever experienced and learned from others as well is that the only way to overcome Mammon or to overcome greed is generosity. When you deliberately take something that's yours and give it away, that's what the Rich Young Ruler was asked to do.
But when you can take something that's yours and give it away, you're breaking the hold of greed; you're breaking the hold of Mammon in your life. Generosity overcomes greed.
Then that takes me to 1 Timothy chapter number six, which just backs up everything we've been talking about. Paul writes to Timothy and he said, "Teach those who are rich in this world..."
Let's pause right there. Make sure who in this room he's talking to. How many of you are rich? All rich people, raise your hand. I'm not talking about spiritual stuff now. Yeah, I'm not talking about spiritual stuff; I'm talking about in dollars and cents, money in the bank, possessions that you have. How many of you are rich?
One, two... I didn't realize this; there are several of you. We're going to be looking for you when we start our next building program. [Applause] [Laughter]
The truth is, every hand should have gone into the air—not on some spiritual thing, but on dollars and cents if you consider globally.
Okay, here's the step: if you have an income of $30,000 a year—which I think is about minimum wage—if you make $30,000 a year, you are in the top 5% of the world's riches. Yeah, you are. You have more money, you get more money, you're $30,000 a year than 95% of the world's population.
Okay, so he's talking to you. "Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud." Everybody say, "Don't be proud."
"And not to trust in their money." Amen.
Why would you not trust in money? Because he says, "Which is so unreliable." You can't count on your money to get you where you need to go.
Their trust should be where? In God. Do we not have that verse on the screen? This is 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 17. "Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment."
This is not a message about God wanting you poor and humble, okay? He said he wants to richly give you all that we need for our enjoyment.
"Tell them to use their money to do good." That's probably the most important phrase that I'm going to talk about today. You may want to underline that if you've got a paper Bible, and if you're reading from the U version, you can highlight it.
"Teach them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others."
See, if the Rich Young Ruler had followed the teaching of the Apostle Paul, he wouldn't have walked away sad. Everything that Paul just wrote to Timothy would have qualified within what Jesus had asked him to do.
"They should be rich in good works, generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others."
Verse 19: "By doing this..." I love this. "They will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life." Isn't that great?
You wanted to inherit eternal life, Rich Young Ruler? There's the way to do it. When you trust Jesus, trust God, and allow him to show you how to share with others, that's the real treasure that you've stored up in your life.
So ambassadors, don't trust your money. But how can you do that? How can you not trust money and trust in God instead?
I'm going to tell you something that you're not going to be surprised about. I'm going to tell you that the tithe is the starting point.
Now, when I say it's the starting point, it's not—and this is what has happened so much to those of us that are churchgoers or religious people, but perhaps not yet ambassadors—and that is, "I gave my 10% that the Lord said was his, and now I can do whatever I want with the 90% that's left over."
That's how I grew up. You know, you just give the first tenth, and then after that, you can have fun, you know, just whatever. That's not what an ambassador would do. That's not true to Kingdom.
In Kingdom business, I give God the first tenth, which he did claim for himself, and then I say, "What do you want me to do with the other 90%? You’re my master, and I'm going to obey you."
It's hard for you to be greedy when you know that the 90% doesn't belong to you. How can you be greedy with somebody else's money? And this is somebody else's money; it's the Lord's. It's the Kingdom's. It's good.
But tithing, he said, you need to trust in God. When I read that in preparation for this, I thought that's a definition of tithing. I've had this conversation many, many times in my ministry, and you've probably heard somebody.
How else would you explain the fact that 90% goes further than 100%? True? That's because you're trusting God.
Hello? This doesn't qualify as shouting me down yet. I'm getting a few sprinkled amens, but I've not been shouted down.
But honestly, I'm having fun, but I'm honest. How else could you explain that?
The first church that Chris and I served—we were, well, I shouldn't say served; the first church where we were the lead pastors was in Mount Morris, Michigan, which is a suburb of Flint. At that time, I don't know what the economy is like now, but at that time, if you didn't work for—we called it Generous Motors—General Motors, you didn't have a job.
Every man in our church, it was a small church, but every man in the church was working pretty much at General Motors, and they made, you know, $70,000 to $80,000 a year. This was 40-something years ago. They were doing quite well financially.
Because it was such a small church, we didn't have, you know, other—we didn't have a Carlton to take care of things for us. So as the pastor, I had to open the envelopes and record what people gave. You know, probably didn't help me to pastor them so well, but that was the—you know, because I'd get wondering why they were not paying their tithe, whatever.
But here's where I'm going with that, just a little more quickly. I saw people in that church literally who did not tithe, and they were constantly having financial difficulties. But their salary was at least twice what I was tithing, and I had a brand new car and lived in a nice house, and I could afford to eat at McDonald's if I wanted to.
And when I saw that—honestly, I'm not making this up for you—when I saw that over a period of time, I thought, "You know what? Tithing really works."
Because up until that time, I never gave much thought to it. I just gave. I was one of those that gave the 10% and didn't ask the Lord what to do about the 90.
But when I saw that with my own eyes, that I'm earning less than half of what these people are earning, and yet they can't afford to live—they're in a rental house, they're driving a raggedy car that's rusted out—they can't survive on what I'm making, and I'm making half what they're making.
It just didn't make any sense except to say that 90% with God's blessing will go further than 100% without his blessing.
Okay, so how else could you explain that? That's trusting. There is no explanation.
I've had people tell me, "Pastor, I've written it out and put the numbers on it, and it does not make sense that I can make these numbers work. I shouldn't even be able to survive. I shouldn't be able to make ends meet. I ought to be foreclosed on, and yet I'm making it because I'm trusting God."
And the God factor changes everything else.
All right, so use your money to do good, he told us. Now I want to read part of that first Timothy passage in the easy-to-read version, just a few of those verses again, because I think it'll help us.
He says, "Tell those who are rich to do good, to be rich in good works, and tell them they should be happy to give." That was a perfect place for you to shout me down: "Happy to give!"
"And ready to share. By doing this, they will be saving up a treasure for themselves, and that treasure will be a strong foundation on which their future life will be built. They will be able to have the life that is true life."
That's what it's like in the Kingdom.
And one last thing about that is that Kingdom investments have eternal rewards. I've been talking about giving and tithing, but it ought to be called investing.
That's good, because that's what we're doing when we are giving in the Kingdom. We are investing in the Kingdom of God, and as a result, we will have eternal rewards. Yes, amen.
We don't talk about that nearly enough. We talk about the stuff that I talked about already—leading up to this, that house or a car or whatever—but let me tell you, in the Kingdom of God, having the blessing of his Kingdom is so far greater than just having a house or a car or a nice bank account.
So much, so much so.
Let me talk about—I want to just give you some ways that you can do good. In case you haven't, you know, how would I do that? How could I use my money to do good?
I want to share with you about a few ways that you could do that. One is to give to missions. Jesus gave us the Great Commission to go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. When you give to missions here at CLC, that's exactly what you're doing.
Brent shared with me a card that says, "Thank you for your legacy." This came from our partners at One Hope. You've heard us talk about it a little bit. We don't talk about things like this often enough, I guess, but One Hope wrote to Brent and said, "I want to thank you and the CLC family for 10 years of partnership."
We started partnering with—I remember when we did it—10 years ago. We started saying, "We're going to give you $1,000 a month," and we're expecting to see harvest from that. They're the ones that taught us that principle, so we're expecting that God's going to bless this relationship.
Now the 10 years is up, but it's been 10 years that we've partnered with them at $1,000 a month, and that partnership, they're telling us, has helped us to reach over 543,500 children and youth that have been reached for the Kingdom because you gave.
Your giving turned into 543,000 children and young people who are now part of the Kingdom of God.
Another area of missions that had similar results would be the nation of Senegal. Carlton mentioned this in our sermon planning the other day. He said, "You know, it started out with just that little keyboard I told you about—that 18-inch keyboard that we brought to help their worship."
That's been over 10 years; that's probably been 20 years ago now. And that's turned into four church buildings and over $500,000 that we have invested in the nation of Senegal.
We're coming up on that campaign in the month of May, where we're fully expecting, with God's blessing, that there are going to be literally thousands upon thousands of Senegalese people who turn their hearts to Jesus—Islamic people who are turning their hearts to Jesus—people who have never known the Lord who are going to be coming to Jesus.
And you guys have a part in all of that because it's happening through your giving. Amen?
That same 10-year program—I should have put these in a better order, I guess—when we started with One Hope, we also started with the India Evangelical Team. We said to AB Vargas, "You choose an area that has no churches, and we're willing to invest."
We started at $1,000 a month. What are we at now? $2,000? Okay, $2,000 a month. But we started investing, and he said, "This will enable us to pay pastors to go into those areas and start building a church. They won't have to be working a job as well; we can pay them $100 a week—excuse me, $100 a month—and they can live on it in India."
So we started doing that, and AB contacted me just about two weeks ago and he said, "By the way, tell Brent you need to pick out a new area because we've already planted over a hundred churches there."
Yeah, we've raised up enough leaders now that they can run with it by themselves. They're planting churches now on their own, and so we need to choose a new area where we can start this process all over again.
That's happening again because of your giving. That's how you do good works, how you do good with your money. He said, "Use your money to do good." That's what I'm talking about.
I could go on about Elam and other ministries, but all of this is a way that you can make a difference.
Now, if you get tired of hearing us talk about Kingdom blessings like that, let me say simply this: give to charities. The principle works regardless. You don't have to give all your money through CLC.
There was a time that I wouldn't have known that or believed that, but I've seen these commercials for Wounded Warriors, and I've seen these commercials for the little children that have cancer and all the work that's going on. My heart is touched when I see these things, and I'm certainly willing to give to support that as well as supporting the work of missions.
The only difference is giving to charities doesn't have the Great Commission behind it, right?
Okay, and so I'm still going to give mine to the Great Commission, but if you don't want to do that, you can give to charities. You can give to the poor.
When J. Joe SLE was here just a few weeks ago, he talked about how he has a line item in his budgeting for intentional giving—money to poor people that are in need.
Honestly, when he was saying it, I thought, "I never thought about anything like that." Now my wife does that. We talked about it later for our budgeting, and she said, "I've been doing this for years." But I didn't know, and I hadn't practiced that.
But I want to grow in that area. I want to be able to give to people who are in need because that's one of the ways that I can use my money to do good. Amen?
They may not know the Lord, and it may be an opportunity for their hearts to be open to him.
Okay, you can give to projects that interest you. Some people get really turned on about building programs—if we're going to build a church building or the project that we're doing right now in Senegal to be able to do this media campaign.
So whatever it is, something that interests you, something that's in your heart, you have every reason to participate in that.
Let me finish this up. Keep in mind, I didn't give you the verses, but 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9—I would encourage you to read those two chapters sometime this week before we get back to another area of the Kingdom.
Keep in mind these are where these principles are found: that poor people in the Kingdom even can give. Amen?
Don't ever come here at CLC and tell me you can't afford to give because 2 Corinthians chapter 8 says this church in Macedonia—Paul said they gave way more than they could give. They were very poor, and they were operating out of difficulties and problems, and yet they begged us to let them give because they knew it was a privilege to give to the Kingdom.
So even poor people can give, even sacrificially. He said they gave even more than they could afford; they gave sacrificially, and they considered it a privilege.
Okay, everyone should give proportionately. You give in proportion to what you have. If you don't have much, you don't give much. That's a Biblical principle.
But if you have a lot—and there's more of us in that category in America—if you have a lot, then you can give a lot. It's in proportion. No one expects you to do something you cannot do. Amen?
That's good, and I think people need to hear that from preachers. Amen?
No one expects people to do what they can't afford to do.
But keep in mind, do not give reluctantly. Don't give wishing you hadn't—buyer’s remorse. Don't do that. And don't give in response to pressure.
I'm telling you the truth. I've been in church services—never here at CLC—but I've been in church services where a pastor announced he was going to receive the offering and announced what the purpose was, and I reached into my wallet, my checkbook. I'm going to—I'd like to be a blessing; I'd like to help with this, even though it's not the church that I attend.
And they kept talking and kept talking and kept putting more pressure and kept putting more pressure, so I put my money back in my pocket, and I didn't give anything. Right?
And I felt like I was doing the right thing by the Kingdom. Don't give in response to pressure, but give cheerfully.
And then I think I'm finished with this. This was probably one of my favorites of all the things that I looked at. When you give, Paul said this—not me—when you give, two good things happen.
Have you ever read that? I forget which—I don't remember if it's chapter 8 or chapter 9. I think it's chapter 9. But he said when you give, two good things happen.
First of all, the need that you gave to is met. You blessed somebody by giving, okay? And secondly, other people will hear about it and praise God for what you just did.
Yeah, two good things.
Every eye closed, every head bowed for just a moment. As an ambassador, I want to give you a challenge to use your money to do good.
Right now, I'm asking you to open your heart and hear the Lord as to what could you do that would meet a need—first of all, got to be meeting a need—and would cause other people to praise God for it.
What could you do? I'm talking this year. What could you do maybe this month? But what could you do that would be a blessing to some individual that met a need in their life and that would cause others to praise God for it?
Lord, I thank you for the privilege of sharing your word today, and I ask that you speak to us right now, all over this room, all over where people are watching online, and help us to know specifically what we could do.
You told us to use our money to do good, and so we're asking, Lord, we're ready to do that. Show us what you would have us to do. Show us a good project. Show us a need that we've passed day after day that we could do that would make a difference.
In Jesus' name, amen.
That was great! Come on, stand on your feet so we can go out and bear the code.
on Jan 15, 2024
