The Joy of Discovering Hidden Treasure – 2

The Joy of Discovering Hidden Treasure – 2

Subject – God Owns Everything. I’m His Money Manager

By Rick Welborne

Matthew 13:44 (NKJV)
⁴⁴  "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 

Psalm 24:1 (NLT2)
¹ The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. 

Haggai 2:8 (NIV)
⁸  'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the LORD Almighty.

--Today we continue the series “The Joy of Discovering Hidden Treasure.” Today we are going to look at this principle. God owns everything. I’m His money manager.

--I must admit, as a young youth pastor, it was not easy for me to learn the lesson that everything I had belonged to God. After the first couple of months of being saved tithing and missions was not an issue but everything?

--Years ago I lived in Arlington, Texas, worked at Central Freight Lines, played tournament tennis and had a fairly comfortable life. Beautiful apartment, swimming pool, tennis courts…the life.

--I had a choice to stay in Texas and play tournament tennis with a sponsor paying me well to play or move to South Louisiana and work as a youth pastor with no income. Had to find a part time job. I moved to La.

--I went from making around $34,000 a year (1980) to my first year as a youth pastor making $3800. I had an apartment filled with furniture that I took with me. A man in the church said he would store it. All new stuff.

--After about a year and a half of being in La. I felt I needed my things for where I was staying. Everything, everything I had was destroyed or lost at the man’s house. To say I was upset was putting it mildly.

--Let me summarize my situation. When I moved to La. It took the largest U-Haul they had and when I left there and moved to Florida, I brought everything I owned in a Honda Civic.  

Doctor Choco De-Jesus – Obedience comes first, and then, understanding will come later.

--God taught me that all my stuff was just stuff and that it was not mine to begin with, it belonged to God. If God is the owner of everything I have and I am the manager, I have a steward’s mentality. 

--It is absolutely necessary you get this: what I have has been entrusted to me, not given to me. A steward manages assets for the owner’s benefit but it all belongs to Him. 

--The steward carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he manages. It’s his job to find out what the owner wants done with his assets, then to carry out his will. This is powerful if we can get it.

1. Generous Joyful Giving

--When we realize God’s ownership of everything especially in the light of missions, you realize you are giving away God’s money to do God’s work. 

--When you realize this, you find joy and peace you didn’t have when you thought the money was yours. The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.

--True story…one day a distraught man rode up to John Wesley (1703-1791) shouting, “Mr. Wesley, something terrible happened! Your house burned to the ground!” Wesley thought for a moment and then replied:

Wesley – No. The Lord’s house burned to the ground. That means one less responsibility for me. 

--Wesley’s answer was not denial, rather, it was a bold affirmation of God’s ownership. This says to us that when we start thinking like owners, it should be a red flag for us. We are managers and stewards.

--We are to care for the Owner’s money. One day we will undergo a job performance evaluation. 

Romans 14:10&12 (NIV)
¹⁰ …For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.
¹²  So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 

--God is the Owner but our name is on the account and we have unrestricted access to it. God trusts us to set our own salaries out of what He owns. The rest He wants us to invest for Him.

--Many get stressed out every year when our Mission’s Convention comes around. They just want our money. Not at all, we want to give you the joyful opportunity to invest God’s money into God’s missionaries. 

2 Corinthians 9:7&12 (NIV)
⁷ …for God loves a cheerful giver.
¹²  This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 

--If you ever spend time around people who have learned the principle of generous joyful giving you will hear words like fun, joy, exciting, and wonderful. 

--Shouldn’t it make us feel joy to help people be fed, to help people find Jesus, to help missionaries evangelize other countries, to help people who have no hope of eternity unless we give? God loves cheerful givers!

--Just from someone who loves you, if you decide to live a generous lifestyle, be careful who you share it with because some will try to talk you out of it. A man here in our church tried to talk me out of my blessings. Nope!

2. The Poor Can Be Generous.

2 Corinthians 8:1-2 (NIV)
¹  And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.
²  Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 

--How do “severe trial,” “overflowing joy,” “extreme poverty,” and “rich generosity” all end up in one verse? Giving is not just for the rich, it is a joyous privilege of the poor. In Mexico the poor were so generous.

--In verse 4 the Bible says they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. They probably were pleading with them because someone had told them they were too poor to give. 

--Though the people of Macedonia were dirt poor, they came up with every reason they could give. What a difference today when people who have so much come up with excuses why not to give. Laundry mat story.

3. To Be Like Jesus.

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

--Think about Christ giving Himself for us. An infinitely wealthy King chose to become poor, not only to save us from Hell, but also to make us rich by buying our peace with God through His own death. 

--When we give it is a response to the grace of God in us which has totally transformed us. We give because He first gave to us. Though our giving pales in comparison to His giving to us, it pleases God that we follow Him.

--This section of scriptures which many believe to be the greatest passages on giving does not end with a statement like “Congratulations for your generosity” but it ends like this:

2 Corinthians 9:15 (NIV)
¹⁵  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

--It beautifully sums up what our whole attitude should be about when it comes to giving. When God’s grace touches us, we become joyful givers. 

--In the movie Chariots of Fire Olympian Eric Liddell is portrayed as saying, “I believe God made me for a purpose…and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

--Those who have learned from Jesus’ example about giving and the principle about the hidden treasure can say similar to Eric Liddell, “I believe God made me for this purpose. When I give, I feel pleasure.”

--The other day I was going through McDonalds picking up some health food and I always give a dollar or two to the people at the windows (two of them). They sincerely appreciate it.

--I felt impressed by the Lord to give the person in the second window five dollars instead of my usual. The person asked was I trying to purchase something else and I said no, this is for you.

--The lady’s eyes teared up and she thanked me over and over. Pastor Rick, that girl got blessed. Yes, but not as much as I did. I left there with joy in my heart. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

--I believe being a generous giver jump-starts our relationship with God. It opens our fists so we can receive what God has for us. When we see what our giving accomplishes we open our hands sooner.

--I am so glad God the Father and Christ the Son thought we were treasures worth sacrificing and giving for.

John 3:16-17 (NKJV)
¹⁶  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
¹⁷  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.