Shauna and I got married on December 16, 2000. During our wedding ceremony, our parents surprised us by gifting us a Bible. Both sets of parents wrote notes to us in the Bible. A few days after our wedding, we were looking at the Bible and noticed something interesting. It was missing the first 40 chapters of Genesis. What if we were clueless and thought that the Bible began with Genesis 41? We would have missed out on creation, God’s design for life, marriage, and sex? We would have missed out on Noah’s story, the call of Abraham, God miraculously providing Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, and we would have missed the early parts of Joseph’s story?

And what if the Bible would have been missing the final chapters of Revelation, the story of where life in the kingdom of God is heading for all of eternity?

It really matters where something begins and where it ends.

This is true with so many things and it is especially true about money. If we don’t understand the origin of our wealth or everything our financial resources have been designed to do, then we’ll believe the middle of the story is the whole story. As we continue our More Than Just Me series, I want to talk about what it might look like to orient our beliefs and practices around the way of Jesus, when it comes to our wealth. Here are the two fundamental questions I want us asking as we seek to understand the nature and purpose of our finances:

Where does my wealth come from?

Who is my wealth for?

Your wealth comes from you and your wealth is for you.

There you go. Your pastor just said what you were kind of hoping to hear today, even if you didn’t expect it.

Proverbs 10:4 Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.

If you don’t go to work, you won’t have it. But if you go earn it, you’ll get it.

Ecclesiastes 5:19 Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil – this is a gift of God.

That seems pretty clear that God wants us to enjoy our wealth and our possessions. You are the source of your money and your money is for you. But those are both partial truths. And the whole truth lies in the title of the series we’ve been in for 7 weeks now – More Than Just Me. I’m calling this message, “The Whole Story of Wealth”.

Part of the story is that you are the supplier of your financial resources, but that isn’t the whole story. Part of the story is that you are the final recipient of your financial resources, but that isn’t the whole story. Let me remind us what our vision is as a church – we want to orient our entire lives around the way of Jesus, not just part of our lives. I want to teach from two texts today that will help us understand how self-indulgence and self-reliance go against the grain of God’s design for our financial lives.

Luke 12:13-21 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

2 Corinthians 9:6-11 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Both of these texts give us farming analogies that I know all of us who live in the city are so familiar with ☺. Jesus tells the first story to show the power of greed. Why does Jesus say, “Watch out!”?

Greed is so easy to spot in someone else, but we can’t easily see it in our own lives.

Jesus knows that greed is both subtle and dangerous. He says that life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. In other words, if your aim in life is to be the only recipient of your wealth, you will miss the bigger story God wants to write in your life.

If you believe your wealth is only for you, that will lead to a smaller life than the one you were made for.

There was nothing wrong with this man having a lot of resources. There is a false teaching that creeps into the church that tells us having a lot of money is evil. Scripture simply says that a love of money is the root of all evils…and you can be a lover of money whether you’re rich, poor, or middle-class. The rich man didn’t know where all his wealth came from or where all it was intended to go. He believed he was the sole source of his wealth and the sole recipient of his wealth.

Do you believe you are the sole source of your wealth?

By this question, I do not intend to belittle or put down your strong work ethic that is partly responsible for the money you earn. Scripture is clear that we should work hard, as unto Jesus. I believe this so much that if someone on our staff team consistently displays a weak work ethic, they will not remain on our staff team. But this is also true:

You are never the sole provider or supplier of your financial resources.

God provides directly and He also provides indirectly. Who caused you to be born in the family or even the country you were born in? Who gave you your mind? Do you really think you created every opportunity you’ve ever been given?

How does our self-reliance correlate to our practice of generosity?

If you are the only source for what you receive in life, you might feel like you need to hold onto everything you have…because it wouldn’t be wise to put yourself in a place where you’ll be in jeopardy of not having enough. Notice that Paul isn’t appealing to their generosity practice just because it’s the right thing to do. He’s saying something like this:

You are free to be generous because the God who provided for you in the past is the same God who will provide for you in the future.

If God is the ultimate source of all you have and he has a good reason to tell you to be generous, then surely He intends to take care of you in the future too. Paul writes that God is ABLE to bless you ABUNDANTLY so that you may have ALL that you need, so you can ABOUND in every good work.

Do you believe you are the sole recipient of your wealth?

The rich man was convinced he was the end of the story when it came to his wealth. Paul says that God will increase, enlarge, and enrich your seed and your harvest. God entrusts wealth to us so that we might steward or manage it on His behalf.

What would you need to become convinced of to become a cheerful giver?

God wants us to be cheerful givers because God is a cheerful giver. For God so love that he gave. For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.

You cannot follow Jesus very far without becoming a more generous person.

And like everything when it comes to following Jesus – intention matters, but it’s not enough. We actually have to practice it and make it a habit.

What is your next step when it comes to the practice of generosity?

Start giving something.

Start giving consistently. (every paycheck – you can automate your giving to live out this step)

Start giving proportionally. (tithe = 10%, give according to what you’ve been given, star with some %)

Maybe you took a step that Shauna and I took over 10 years ago and begin to give beyond the 10%.

Maybe your net worth is beyond what you could have ever imagined and you need to make a strategic plan to maximize your investments, for the sake of maximizing your investment in the kingdom of God.

Maybe you’re in a season of need and you simply need to receive from the generosity of others in this community.

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Responses: Trust Jesus. Acknowledge where it begins and where it’s intended to end.

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