Financiall Faithful - Part 2: The Root of All Evil?

REVIEW
Last week, we started a new teaching series on the subject of finances, giving, and God’s attitude towards it.
And I do understand that this subject is a very controversial one in the Body of Christ as there has been much “unhealthy” teaching on the subject. You don’t have to watch Christian television too long to find that preacher out there who is just trying to get in your pocketbook to pad his or her pockets. So, yes, I acknowledge this is a problem and always has been a problem. And this is why a lot of Christians don’t like hearing the “preacher talk about money.”
But just because there are abuses on the subject and those out there who preach about it for self-gain, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the Bible has a lot to say about this subject. So let’s not let the misuse and abuse of these things spoil the riches of the revelation of this subject. It will change your life when you start letting God be first in your finances and you learn to seek first His kingdom in this area.
Nevertheless, the fact that a lot of Christians don’t like hearing this in church is not just because of the unethical teaching revolved around it. What I have found is that the majority of people who have a problem with when preachers talk about money are those are aren’t “doing” it in their lives. In other words, they are not practicing the biblical principles of being good stewards of their finances.
Yes, one of the main reasons people don’t like to hear about this is because they are not doing it. For example, if you are living in sin, you don’t want to hear someone tell you the need to clean your act up, right? Well, we might need to clean up our act in this area. It’s quite possible that people need to do what the Bible says in this area. Amen?
So I’m calling this series “financially faithful,” and while to most believers this concept doesn’t mean a lot, it really should – because God requires faithfulness from His children in every area of our life, including our finances & possessions.  
You see, when one gives their life to Christ, they are committing to be faithful to Him in every area of their life. It’s a lot like a marriage – Sure, we are supposed to have fidelity with our spouse, and yes, the Bible teaches us that even your body is not your own when you get married, but when we become one flesh with our spouse, being faithful means more than just the sexual things. It means that all that is mine is hers, and all that is hers is mine. Therefore, there’s not my money and Shannon’s money. It is our money – it doesn’t matter if I earn it or if it is given to her. Everything is ours.
Well, our covenant with the Lord is the same. It is not our stuff and His stuff. He has promised to give us everything that is His. In exchange, He wants everything that is ours – including our finances.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Lord expects us to give away everything that we possess. He understands that we have needs and desires. But this mentality that it’s “my money” needs to be erased. Our body is His. That means if he needs me to be present somewhere, then I’m there. Or if He needs my hands laid on someone, then I do it. Likewise, our finances are His. So that means that if He tells me to give someone a certain amount of money, then I do it. And if he told me to give it all away, I do it. In fact, this is not just with our body or wallet; this is with our entire life. Yes, our life is His. And what He expects out of His Bride is that we are faithful to Him in every area of our life. Amen?   
And what is so powerful about this truth is that when we see things this way, it is not quite as difficult to be faithful with our money, because, again, it’s not our money. It’s His! I’m simply stewarding the money He has allowed me to be blessed with. (We will get more into this in the coming weeks).
Now we started off last week looking at the way we, as Christians, think about money and what we believe that God thinks concerning it.
You see, I’ve come to find out that our lives will oftentimes reflect the way we think. In other words, as the Scriptures teach us, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. Therefore, we need to correct any wrong thought patterns concerning finances because if we’ve got some “stinkin’ thinkin’” in this area, it will impact our financial lives.  
For example, there are certain people out there who have the mentality that you spend all you have, you run up those credit lines, and live for today’s pleasures. This is why, statistically speaking, people who win the lottery don’t hold on to that windfall for very long. The same goes for some young professional athletes who come out of very poverty-stricken situations and get signed to huge contracts. A lot of them also go broke. Why? Because of how they think of money.
Therefore, our attitude, mentality, and way of thinking about money can greatly determine how much we attract or repel, keep or lose, etc. And this works both naturally and spiritually – meaning, not only does it work in the world, but if one has a wrong belief system about Christianity & finances, then it can greatly impact this area of our lives. 
So last week, we started off this renewal of our minds of the spiritual side of finances by looking at the subject of prosperity and asking the question – Does God desire for us to prosper? And we discovered that it is clear in the Scriptures that God indeed has pleasure in the prosperity of His people. In fact, we saw how He told us to continually say this about Him in order to magnify this aspect of Him (See Psalms 35:27).
And it’s simply logical as we made the point that there is no parent on this planet who doesn’t want for their beloved children to be successful, thrive, or flourish. No, we all want our kids & grandkids to prosper in every area of their life, including their vocation, finances, and possessions. And our Heavenly Father is no different.
Now as we saw in Third John 2, the Lord certainly wants our soul prospering, first and foremost. Kind of like you and I want to have a good relationship with our kids more than anything. So if they started prospering in this life and then didn’t have any more time for you, then you might not be too pleased with their prosperity, right? But if they are doing well in life and they maintain good fellowship with you and aren’t hurting themselves or others with their prosperity, nothing could be much more pleasing than this to any good parent. Amen?
Therefore, our hearts need to be okay with this truth that God wants His children to prosper – especially when there are so many Scriptures that back up God’s will to bless the financial lives of His children.  
THE ANTI-ADVOCATE
However, there is another side to this that we must address – because there are a lot of New Testament Scriptures that seem to take the opposite approach of this.
We covered one of them last week in talking about the rich, young ruler – You know, the story of the guy who came to Jesus asking how he could inherit eternal life and Jesus eventually responding with telling him to sell all he has and give it to the poor?
Well, we learned from that story that Jesus was just getting to his heart in telling him to do this. In fact, we don’t see Jesus asking anyone else to do this during His ministry. So it was apparently just a thing where Jesus knew that this guy loved his possessions and this was keeping him from fully giving his life over to God.
Not to mention, we learned from the Book of Proverbs that when one gives to the poor, that they are lending to the Lord, and He promised to repay them. So this rich, young ruler was not being called into a vow of poverty like so many have taught. No, Jesus was simply targeting an issue in his heart that needed to be dealt with. Do you see that?
But this isn’t the only stumbling block from the Bible that people use to disarm the teaching of financial prosperity. There is another section of Scriptures that I would like to address today – and these are found in First Timothy chapter 6.  
You see, people will use some of the truths from this chapter to say things like – “Well, the Bible does say that money is the root of all evil” or “I mean, the Bible speaks of being content with just having enough.” Let’s look at the verses of this chapter and see what Paul was teaching us about these things …
Now it’s important to note that last week, one of the verses we used to describe how God is pleased to prosper His people was also in this chapter where the apostle Paul said in verse 17, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.”
So we saw how this verse teaches you and I that our Heavenly Father desires to give us, not just some things; no, He wants to give us all things. Not only that, but He desires to give us not just all things, but richly all things to enjoy.
But what I want to draw our attention to this week is the context of this wonderful verse. In fact, some of the verses preceding this one seem to indicate that God does not want us blessed and that we are wrong in thinking that God desires to prosper us.
But unless we think Paul was schizophrenic, they obviously cannot mean what many have interpreted them to mean when you look at them through the light of First Timothy 6:17. So let’s take another look at verses 5-10 and see what Paul was teaching us through them …
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL?
You see, like I said, one of the favorite go-to quotes from the Bible when it comes to this subject of money is the one found in First Timothy 6:10.
Now there are many who incorrectly quote it as saying that money is the root of all evil, but that is not completely true. Paul said that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. It’s like people say in our world today, “Guns kill people!” Well, that is like saying, “My fork made me fat, pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk” No, it’s how we use these things that causes problems.
Many Christians have a great misconception about these things – thinking that prosperity is evil. But actually you can look at biblical accounts of those who walked with God and are today considered heroes of the faith, and they were multi-millionaires. Go study the lives of Abraham, David, Solomon, etc., and you will find that these guys were super wealthy but, most importantly, for the majority of their lives, were super godly. So for us to think that prosperity is evil in and of itself is just simply not true. Money is a tool! It is as simple as that. For example, if I have a flathead screwdriver and use it to fix things around the house, that tool is a good, useful thing. But if I start using that screwdriver to break into people’s house by prying open doors, etc. then I (not the screwdriver) am a transgressor. That make sense? So it is only the misuse of tools that is evil.
You see, wealth and prosperity can either be a great asset or a great enemy. If we would not serve money but rather let it serve us by being a blessing to others with it, then wealth will not be able to choke our spiritual development. It is only when we allow money to deceive us into thinking, for instance, that we have to have it or that it is going to make us happy that it becomes error. Therefore, it is trusting in riches and mishandling it in other ways that will hinder our growth and fruitfulness.
DEFINING TRUE PROSPERITY
Now back up to verses 5-9 here in First Timothy chapter 6 because, here, the apostle Paul gives us some good words of wisdom on the subject of money and the prosperity message …
Verse 5 says, “…who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”
Now it is important to realize who Paul is referring to here. He is talking about false teachers “who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.” So what you see here is that the apostle Paul is exhorting Pastor Timothy that he needs to withdraw from those so-called ministers & ministries out there whose motives are no different than people who are working a job to see their own needs met and to prosper in life.
You see, these ministers still exist today! You can turn on Christian television and not have to look too far to find those out there who are simply looking to get into our pocketbooks. These are those whom Paul is warning Timothy against.
But lest we become too critical of them, do we do this in our lives? Is our motivation in life mainly to have more money and possessions? Someone will say, “No money is not important to me!” Really? Well, then why do we spend most of our waking hours trying to get more of it? Most people do! They work 40 hours a week for their needs to be met and to have more than the guy next door.
Now sure God understands we need to work and these things are necessary, but let me ask you this question: What does the Bible say that our motivation should be for working at a job? Ephesians 4:28 gives us the answer – It says, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”     
On a side note here: Do you see how Paul refers to “stealing” in the same breath as working hard? Did you know that many people are stealing from their employers simply by not working hard? You see, when we are employed, our employer expects us to put our best foot forward and do our job functions as well as we can. But so many do the minimum at work that they possibly can do just to get by and keep their job.
How do I know this? Because I used to do it! For years in banking, I just showed up, did an adequate job and stayed exactly in the position that I was at. Then, through a chain of circumstances, I was put into the position where I needed to start busting my tail to prove that I was a worthy hire for a local bank here in Macon. Well, guess what this did? It created promotion in my life. Then the Lord showed me that when he told Israel that He would bless the work of their hands that this implied that their hands were actually being set to something and they were working heartily as unto the Lord. Amen!
You see, if our hands are not being set to something and we are not working with the most integrity, God has nothing to bless. So if our hands are not working, He has nothing to increase. A hundred times nothing is nothing! But a hundred times something is a whole lot of something. Just like it was with the miracle of the feeding of the thousands … Jesus had to break the bread with his hands before it multiplied. His Father blessed the work of His hands. Amen!
But again what did Paul say here is to be our motivation for working with our hands? “That he may have something to give him who has need.” Wow! Now that’s a revelation, isn’t it? God wants us to work, not just so that our needs our own needs are met, but so that we can be a channel to meet other’s needs!
Do you see the focus God expects us to have regarding our finances? He wants our focus to be on meeting other’s needs, supporting various ministries, etc.—namely, seeking first the kingdom of God! And, glory to God, the promises we have for doing this are extraordinary! And one thing I can assure you of is when you do this – You cannot out-give God! He will bless the work of your hands and your seed sown! Amen!
But Paul says here that regarding those preachers who are motivated by self-gain etc.— “From such withdraw yourself.”
Now you would think that this is common sense, but it isn’t! How do all those televangelists stay on the air with all of their various methods of financial manipulation? Because people keep sending them money! This is when we need to do what this passage of Scripture says, “from such withdraw yourself.” In other words, stop supporting them! Withdraw your support from them!
Herein lies a good principle regarding who we give to …
If we would just give to the ministries that are feeding us and we know are feeding others, we would eliminate a lot of these bad apples – because the reason they are continuing to minister is because people are evidently supporting them. So just ask yourself the questions: Am I being ministered to here and are others being ministered to? Not giving “grudgingly or of necessity” or, as the Message Bible says, giving because of their “arm twisting and sob stories.” Amen?
Then in verse 6, Paul goes on to say, “Now godliness with contentment is great gain.”
What Paul is saying here is- This is the definition of true prosperity (i.e. great gain)! It is:
a)“godliness” (i.e. being a well-worshipper or being a good God-fearer) Godliness is not an easy trait to define. In fact, it is only used a few times in the New Testament. In short, it can be described as being godly or Christ-like. So “godliness” is actively imitating Him—in love, peace, goodness, kindness etc. How many of you know that God is truly prosperous? And this isn’t just because of all that He has, but because of who He is. This is what makes us “truly rich” as well—not all the things they possess, but possessing true love, joy, peace etc. This is the sign of a prosperous soul.  
b)“with contentment” (i.e. “a perfect condition of life in which no air or support is needed” (BLB).) So contentment is not a complacent mindset but rather a person who is independent of circumstances, not needing anything else to be happy
So the truly prosperous Christian is the one who is godly—that is, actively imitating God and displaying His divine characteristics—while certainly being content (i.e. not needing anything else in our lives to show forth that genuine joy and peace.)
Now in verse 7, when Paul says, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that can carry nothing out,” what He was basically saying was – “You’ve never seen a hearse carrying a U-Haul.” Amen!
So no matter what we accumulate and have here in this life, we can’t take it with us anyways. So we would do good to lay up the true riches and treasures in heaven, which is what we do now for the kingdom of God. Amen! This is a mentality that takes our money from being a thorn that chokes our ability to bear fruit and makes it a tool for even greater fruitfulness.  
Then Paul goes on to say in verse 8 that with “food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” In other words, we should be satisfied simply with just having our basic needs met. 
You see, the moment we get to feeling that we have to have this or that to be happy, is the moment we are not drawing our strength from Christ who alone can satisfy us.
The apostle Paul taught this in Philippians chapter 4 when he said that he had learned that in whatever state he was in to be content (verse 11). He knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, he had learned to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need (verse 12). But the key to how he learned how to be totally “independent of circumstances” no matter what his circumstances were is found in verse 13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
You see, it is only through Christ that we find true joy, satisfaction, and contentment. The flesh is fickle. It will tell you that you will finally be happy if you get this one extra thing, but then after the newness wears off of it, the flesh will need something else. This is part of what makes the “deceitfulness of riches” so deceitful – because money has a way of lying to us, telling us that if we get some more of it, that we will be happy. That is just a lie! Friends, if you cannot be happy with how things are in your life right now; you won’t be happy if things change. Contentment is learned, not earned!
The contentment that Paul is speaking of refers to us being satisfied with our own basic needs being met, but this does not mean that we should be ok with having just enough to meet our own needs. There is a big difference between those two mentalities. You see, we ought to not let our own financial situation affect our joy, peace, and happiness. This is what the apostle Paul is teaching. But we should also not be ok with us just barely scrapping by, because we have a heart’s desire to be more of a blessing to others financially. Amen?  
Now let me recount a conversation I had one time with a Christian friend of mine … We were discussing the law of sowing and reaping and how when we sow finances into God’s kingdom, we will reap our needs being met in fullness and abundance. Well, he agreed that the law of sowing and reaping is a reality, but he said that he was content to have just have what he had and didn’t feel the need to believe God for more than that. Well, in the most loving way that I could, I looked at him and said, “Brother, you know I love you, but you’re selfish.” He looked at me like I had slapped him across the face! But then I went on to say, “Why? Because you are only concerned with having enough for you. If you are happy with what you have right now, great! But believe God for the harvest that is rightfully yours because of the seed you have sown and then give it away to those who need it!”
You see, saints, this is the purpose of prosperity! This is why God wants us blessed in our finances—so that we can have an abundance for every good work (Second Corinthians 9:8)! Yes, we should be content! Absolutely! But that doesn’t mean we should be content to not increase so that we can be more of a blessing to others now! No, that is the purpose of us being free from debt and having more than enough financially.
But it has to start somewhere … And that is where the principle of tithing comes in. God is setting us up for having all our needs met in fullness and abundance by us giving Him the first 10% of all our increase! Amen?
But going back to what we discussed last week regarding how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God, I can guarantee you that if someone does not give at least this first 10%, they are NOT trusting God with their finances.
It’s easy for us to say, “Oh yeah, I trust God with my finances” but if we do not practice the principle He laid out in His Word about giving Him the first 10% of our increase, then we are not trusting Him – because we are not trusting that He can make 90% of our income go further than 100% of it. It’s tight but it’s right!
Then, in First Timothy 6:9, Paul brings in that element of Jesus describing these thorns as the deceitfulness of riches even further. He says, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.” This is why Psalm 62:10 says, “If riches increase, do not set your heart on them.”
But the key here is found in the words “desire to be rich.” The word “desire” literally describes someone who “wills” to be rich – meaning, they are “disposed” to being rich, they “intend” to be rich, and are money “minded.” These are those who fall into temptation and a snare. Not just those who are rich and have an abundance of possessions.
This is why Paul goes on to say what we began with here in First Timothy chapter 6 – “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Being “pierced through with many sorrows” sounds a little like these people fell into a patch of thorns, doesn’t it?
And this is exactly what the love of money and the desire to be rich does to people. It pierces and it chokes. It ensnares and it hinders. This reminds me of Mark 4:7, 18-19 where Jesus taught us that the thorns of this world entering into our hearts will choke the production of God’s Word. But, again, it is not being rich and having money that does this to one; it is how most people tend to misuse it and how they view it.
We see this later on in this chapter when Paul addresses specifically those who are rich …
In verse 17 he says, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty (that indicates that a temptation that comes with wealth is pride and to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think), not to trust in uncertain riches (that sounds a lot like what we said earlier) but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.”
Now that last little statement there should correct some of our views on wealth and prosperity because Paul describes the living God, whom we are to put all of our trust in, as the One “who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” In other words, He gave these rich people their wealth. And for what purpose? To enjoy it! So God is the One who gives us richly all things to enjoy, not necessarily the devil. Do you see that?
So evidently God does not mind us having things. In fact, He evidently doesn’t mind us “richly” having “all things.” He just doesn’t want things having us! And that is what makes “riches” a hindrance in our lives.
This is why Paul went on to say in verses 18-19- “Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.”
So Paul’s exhortation to those who have money is to make sure they are using it to do good, good works, to give and to share. Why? Because of the reward and how it affects us throughout all eternity! Amen!