Forces in Society #4 – What money is and is not
Matthew 25:14-28
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
September 2, 2007
Text
Mt 25:14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17 So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18 But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
Mt 25:19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’
Mt 25:21 “His master replied, ’Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Mt 25:22 “The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’
Mt 25:23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Mt 25:24 “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
Mt 25:26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
Mt 25:28 “ ‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Review
SO far, we have looked at how three different forces in society influence us,
fear, image and power,
and how all three can find a bigger and better role when situated in God’s hands.
1. Fear is a powerful force, and many of us fear many things, some trivial and some profoundly terrifying. We have reason to fear – the world is a fearsome place.
Yet when we start with the true and pure fear of God,
that essential knowledge that God is more than we will ever be able to grasp,
we can with his help put other fears behind us, or at least into perspective.
Pr 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. l
2. Image, how we perceive ourselves and how we think others perceive us,
can make us do many things, some good and others shockingly bad.
When we start with the premise that we are created in the image of God,
and can reclaim that image when we give our lives to God through faith in Jesus Christ,
we can allow the world’s attacks on our image to wash off like water off a duck’s back.
Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
3. And when we are faced with the exertion of power, for better and for worse,
we can and must always remember that we serve the God of all power and glory, and if we open ourselves to him, we can even be agents of his power in this world.
2Pe 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Introduction
In this last episode of my “Forces in Society” series, I want to take a look at how money influences us, and how we can use it to be a positive, God centred influence on the world we find ourselves in.
I’m not going to pretend to be a financial planner, business expert or money manager – anyone who gets to know me even a little can soon find out that I am not suited at all for these sort of occupations.
I do, however, want to demonstrate from the Bible how money can be a good thing when it is in the hands of God’s people.
I call this sermon “What money is and is not”, because I first want to dispel a few myths surrounding money. After that, we will look some truths about money that can help us see it as a tool for the work of God in our lives.
What money is not
1. A means to happiness
We’re tempted to think that those with huge amounts of money can’t help but be happy. After all, they have nothing to worry about - anything they want they can get. But listen to these words from some of the richest people this world has ever known:
I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness—John W. Rockefeller.
The care of $200,000,000 is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it—W. H. Vanderbilt.
I am the most miserable man on earth—John Jacob Astor.
I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job—Henry Ford.
Millionaires seldom smile—Andrew Carnegie
2. A source of security
Inflation makes it worth more one day, less the next. Whole fortunes can evaporate in days, even hours, due to forces outside of our control.
“Money loses it’s ability to protect it’s owner, who, on the contrary, is soon consumed with protecting it”
Story of Buddy Post
Buddy Post is living proof that money cannot buy happiness. He is a 58-year-old former carnival worker and cook. In 1988, he won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Since his “lucky day,” Buddy has been convicted of assault, his sixth wife left him, his brother in law is in jail for trying to kill him, and his landlady successfully sued him for one-third of the jackpot.
“Money didn’t change me,” said Post, “it changed people around me that I knew, that I thought cared a little bit about me. But they only cared about the money.”
Buddy is trying to auction off the future payments, valued at nearly $5 million, in order to pay off taxes, legal fees, and a number of failed business ventures.
He plans to spend his life pursuing lawsuits that he has filed against police, judges, and lawyers who he says conspired to take his money. “I’m just going to stay at home and mind my p’s and q’s,” he said. “Money draws flies.” http://elifeplans.typepad.com/elifeplans_weblog/2006/05/index.html
3. A measure of worth
Ever notice how we take the amount of money someone has at their disposal and refer to that as “what he’s worth”?
His or her character means nothing, we just look at the amount of money the person has and use that to determine what they’re worth.
Some of the best people in history have been sold off for next to nothing :
a. Joseph was sold for less than the price of a slave, and he became the Pharaoh’s Ruler of Egypt, who held the whole population under slavery!
b. Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver! How much is he really worth?!?!
What money is
A disclaimer - I don’t know enough about money to give sage advice on it.
These are just my thoughts on this particular passage in relation to money.
When I read this passage about the talents I came to see money as a tool we’ve been given to use.
All three servants are given money to work with, and the amounts given depend on what the master perceives to be the servant’s abilities to work with it.
The amounts are noteworthy for their size,
one talent could be worth as much as 20 years of a regular worker’s wages,
so even the lowest of the three has been given a vast sum of money to work with.
The two servants who go and invest the money given to them are doing the same thing as a carpenter who puts a new tool to good use.
They will encounter risk in using the money,
because there is always an element of risk to investing money,
but they see to realize that it’s something given to them to see how they will respond.
They respond to their master’s expectations by putting the money to use in ways that benefit everyone in the end:
the master benefits from the increase in his capital,
they benefit from the master’s generosity in rewarding them for good work,
and although we don’t see them in this story,
hopefully those who were part of the investments benefited as well.
The servants used what was given to them, and good came out of it.
The servant who chose to hide his money away made it effectively useless.
He would be like a carpenter who takes his brand new chisels, wraps them in oilcloth and buries them in the bottom of a soon to be forgotten toolbox.
He doesn’t benefit from the money, since it’s just buried in the sand,
nor does his master who gave it to him.
He didn’t even “save” the money like we understand savings,
the story itself says that the master condemns him for not putting the money into the bank, where it would earn some interest.
He just squirreled it away and ignored it until the master came to ask an account of it. And for this neglect he receives a harsh punishment.
His crime? Well, he didn’t squander the money, it was all still there,
but he held the owner in contempt by not taking his money seriously.
He couldn’t be bothered to even walk to the bank with it,
he just buried it in a hole until it was time to give it back.
Bringing this story back to where we live,
I see money as just one of one of many things God gives us,
and I believe that we are called to use it for doing his work.
Part of that work is raising our families, paying our taxes, building our homes, etc. These are things that require money, and if we don’t put it to work we don’t do these things well.
But part of our work as God’s children is building his kingdom.
Does this take money? That depends on what work we’re doing.
Praying doesn’t cost you anything unless you call certain TV evangelists.
You can share your faith at no cost,
and finding a bible and reading a Bible can usually be done for free.
But other things do cost, and God’s people need to invest in what’s going on.
The trouble is that we don’t always see building the Kingdom as a priority.
Let me share some interesting statistics, drawn from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Cromwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.
There’s some big numbers here, and for those of you who hate statistics,
please forgive and bear with me.
For those of us who love stats, I’ve got more where these came from :).
CHRISTIAN FINANCE (in US$, per year) 1970 mid-2000 2007 2025
57. Personal income of church members, 4,100 billion 15,230 billion 16,400 billion 26,000 billion
58. Giving to Christian causes, 70 billion 270 billion 370 billion 870 billion
59. Churches’ income, 50 billion 108 billion 140 billion 300 billion
60. Parachurch and institutional income, 20 billion 162 billion 230 billion 570 billion
61. Cost-effectiveness (cost per baptism, $) 128,000 330,000 349,000 650,000
62. Ecclesiastical crime, 5,000,000 16 billion 24 billion 65 billion
63. Income of global foreign missions, 3.0 billion 15 billion 22 billion 60 billion
64. Computers in Christian use (numbers) 1,000 328 million 490 million 1.2 billion
The total income for all the churches of world, this year, is projected to be 140 billion dollars.
That’s a fair chunk of change,
and when you add the income that is anticipated for all the other Christian agencies, missions, colleges and universities and other organisations,
which is is projected at 230 billion,
we come to a total of for a total of 370 billion dollars.
That’s a lot of money to put to use for God’s Kingdom! Or is it?
Well, compare it to this figure –
Christians world wide are projected to earn 16, 400 billion dollars.
That’s over 16 trillion dollars.
If you do the math,
370 billion, that amount Christians will give to all Christian ministry,
works out to 2.2 percent of the total amount Christians will earn world-wide.
370 billion is a lot of money, but when you think that it is only 2 cents to the dollar for what Christians actually earn, it looks a little different, doesn’t it?
And the portion of that going to churches will be less than a penny for every dollar.
Now let’s bring it back to our level.
Imagine if we tried to operate as a church with people giving less than a penny for every dollar they earned.
I’m terrified of starting to sound like a “dig deeper” kind of preacher,
I don’t buy into that kind of stuff at all.
But what I will say with confidence, based on this story of the talents, is this:
God gives us things to use - Time, energy, abilities, situations –
all these things are like gifts from him and God wants us to use them to glorify him,
to show that he’s important.
And that includes money. He gives it, and he wants us to put it to use.
To buy a house - sure.
To pay for food? Of course
To save and spend? Yes.
But he also wants us to put it to work for him. He could do it himself,
but he’s like the master in the story,
giving it to the servants so that they can put it to work.
That means taking chances, just like those servants had to.
But they worked hard and brought back double, or more, of what they were given.
Now God won’t take our bankbooks and double check the balances,
but he wants to see us using what he gives us for his good work!
Well, what we’ve done with what we’ve been given?
Can we say that it was put to good use - fuelling little bodies, building strong churches, saving souls and bringing lots of good memories?
Or do we bring him back what he gives us and say,
“here you go - at least I didn’t lose it?
Money, ultimately, is a gift from God.
Let’s use it for his good work in the world he’s put us in.
