The Good Book and the Checkbook. That’s where the Darkness and the Dawn are revealed today in our sermon. We’re going to talk about finances and money. And I think the best place to start in a conversation like that is to take a few moments to look inside ourselves and re-evaluate our commitment to giving to the Lord’s work. Now, our organist has prepared a little song for our meditation, and as she plays it, I want you to think upon how much you give to the church. And if, at any time during that song, God convicts your heart and you feel that you can start giving more . . . then I want you to stand up. At any time during this next song, stand up if you feel that you can start giving more to the church.
( . . . Organist begins playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” :))
HA!!! I got you! Come on, now . . . I know what you were thinking! See, I think we’ve been sort of programmed to think that every time a pastor talks about money what he really wants is for you to open your wallet. “Pastor just wants me to give more!” But let me let you in on a little secret: I don’t care how much you give to the church.
Honestly, I don’t really care. Could be a lot, could be just a little. I don’t care what the dollar amount is. But what I do care about is how you view your finances and how you view your relationship with God.
Martin Luther once said that wherever you put your trust, that thing becomes your god. He said, “A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need.” Does that sound like money to you? Now obviously there’s two kinds of gods we can put our trust in: false gods or the true God. When we trust in money, when we find our refuge in our finances, we put our trust in a false god.
Putting our trust in finances is called materialism. Materialism is a desire to find refuge in things. As such, it is the opposite of another concept we’re going to talk about: the Biblical concept of contentment.
Nearly every place where the Good Book and the checkbook meet, we’ll become involved in a war between the darkness of materialism and the dawn of contentment. Materialism is something that needs to die in us. It needs to die and have contentment raised to life in its place.
There’s two ways that the darkness of materialism shows up in our lives. The first is pretty easy to spot . . . well, at least in others, anyway. The first way materialism shows up is in blatant greed.
If you want to get a glimpse of blatant greed, there are any number of places you can go to find it. Wall Street to Main Street—you can find it anywhere. I remember a comic strip from when I was a young boy. The main character was young girl who was watching TV around Christmas time. As each commercial came on advertising a new toy, the girl would squeal, “Oooh! That’s what I want for Christmas!” And this went on and on, “Ooh, I want that for Christmas! . . . I want that for Christmas! . . . I want that for Christmas!” And her father, sitting in front of a pile of bills, heard his little girl from the other room. His emotions overcame him as he listened to his sweet, precious little girl . . . so he got up . . . went downstairs . . . opened a closet door . . . and shut off the power to the TV. “That’s what I want until Christmas!”
Greed is pretty easy to spot in other people, and it wears you out when you see it! But it’s a little harder to see it in yourself. But it’s still there, isn’t it? Whenever you act like that little girl (“I want that! I want that! I want that!), you’re being greedy.
But the second way the darkness of materialism show up in our lives is a little more subtle. It’s a little harder to spot, but it’s no less a sin. The second way materialism shows up is whenever we depend upon material things for comfort and contentment.
You can see this kind of materialism in the restaurant. C.S. Lewis once wrote about a hypothetical lady who was a slave to this kind of materialism. Whatever she ordered wasn’t just quite right when it finally got to the table. It wasn’t that she wanted something extravagant . . . she just wanted it perfect. Just a piece of really crisp toast, an egg cooked just right, a cup of tea made just so . . . and she’d be happy. But until she got what she wanted, contentment eluded her.
See, rather than accepting something as a gift from God and giving thanks for it, she chose instead to complain that it wasn’t just perfect. Her dependence upon things—things exactly as she desired them to be—was a form of materialism. She had made something simple—toast, eggs, and tea—into a god without which she could not be content. She thought she wanted simple things, but she was very, very materialistic in the way she wanted them. Materialism—whether blatant greed or a subtle desire for things just so—rejects thanksgiving to God the Giver and instead focuses upon the gift as the source for contentment. Materialism tries to find peace and wholeness through having, collecting, or acquiring things. This can be anything, anything, from a high-dollar purchase to the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing. You want a really good example? Go look in your pastor’s office! Does any one man really need that many books? I’ve got books that are in boxes still packed up in my basement! Books I’ve never read! And no matter how hard I try to justify those purchases—“Well, you know Lord, this is really a tool for my ministry”—it just doesn’t hold water.
Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.”
Now right there’s a good verse to transition from darkness into light—if materialism drives us, we’re in the darkness. We need the light of Christ to deliver us and raise us up out of the darkness of the idolatry of materialism. Whenever we seek to find refuge in things, we’re putting something else in God’s rightful place and falling prey to the darkness of materialism.
The opposite of the sin of materialism is Godly contentment. Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
Paul understands that the secret to contentment isn’t in getting more things or getting things that are just so. He understands that the secret in being content isn’t in seeking refuge in the gift, but in trusting the Giver.
Where does this start? In thanking God for what you’ve been given. There was a woman who woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and saw that she only had three hairs on her head. Rather than putting her trust in having more hair, she said, “I think I'll braid my hair today.”
The next morning she had two hairs on her head. She said, “I believe I'll part my hair in the middle today.”
The next morning all she had was one single hair. “I guess I'll wear it in a ponytail today.”
The next morning she was completely bald, and she shouted, "Praise the Lord! I don't have to do my hair today!”
No matter what, whether you have a lot or have a little, it’s a gift from God. Thank Him for what you have.
When we thank God for all that we’ve been given, we acknowledge that we are trusting Him for everything. And surprisingly, this even allows for asking Him to supply things that we both need and want.
Pastor Dwight Nelson tells a story about a pastor who had a cat. A little kitten, actually. And one day that kitten climbed up a tree in his yard and got stuck. The pastor did everything he could to get it down, but it just stayed there, stuck up in the tree and meowing to get back down.
Now, the tree was a smaller one, not big enough for the pastor to actually climb up himself. So he figured, why not get the car, throw a rope around the tree, and then use the car to bend the tree down to where he could get the kitten? So that’s what he did.
But just as the tree was getting low enough to where he could reach up and get the kitten . . . the rope broke. As he was looking in the rearview mirror, the pastor saw the tree snap straight back up and the kitten sail out of sight!
He looked high and low for the kitten, but couldn’t find it anywhere. So eventually he gave up the kitten to the protection of the Lord and headed off to the store where he had to pick up a few things.
Now as he got to the store, he saw a church member coming out, pushing a grocery cart with a bag of cat food in it. That was kind of odd, because this woman wasn’t really what you’d call a cat person. So he asked her about it.
“Pastor,” she said, “the strangest thing happened. My little girl has been asking for a cat for ages. I got so tired of telling her ‘no’ that I finally said that if she prayed to God to give her a cat and He did, then she could have one.”
“Well, I watched her go out into the yard and kneel down. She began to pray right then and there for a cat. And pastor . . . I wouldn’t have believed it, but I as she prayed I saw with my own eyes a little kitten come sailing out of the clear blue sky and plop down right at her feet!”
God knows you have needs. He knows you have desires. And He doesn’t mind at all giving you both . . . but He wants you to trust Him as the Giver and not seek your refuge in the gift.
It’s not the need that makes us discontent. It’s not need that causes us to fall into the darkness of materialism, but it’s where we seek to find the answers to our need. Because we all have need. We all have needs that we can’t meet on our own.
At one time or another we’ve all fallen into the dark, dark sin of materialism. We’ve sought refuge everywhere, made every thing into a god . . . except God Himself. Did God turn His back on us when we turned away from Him? No . . . he sent His Son . . . His one and only Son . . . to be our Savior.
Jesus Christ met every spiritual need you and I will ever have by dying on the cross for us. He saw our need—our extreme, hungering need—and met it head on, offering His own life so that our need could be fulfilled. So that we could be content in knowing that we are forgiven before God in Jesus Christ.
Think about that! There we were, standing before God . . . empty handed . . . nothing to offer . . . spiritually bankrupt . . . and Christ stood before God and said, “I’ve paid the debt for this one. I’ve filled this one’s need.” There’s a God to trust in! There’s a God in whom we can find refuge!
Hebrews 13:5, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
Christ filled your biggest, most pressing need: the need for forgiveness. And if Christ filled our biggest, most pressing need like that, you can trust Him for all of your material needs, as well. The place where the Good Book and the checkbook meet is the same place where we find refuge for the forgiveness of our sins; right at the foot of the cross. You can trust the Giver, because He’s also the Savior. In Him you can do all things, give thanks for all things, . . . and be content.
