Mentoring Men for the Master

THUNDERING TRUTH ABOUT MONEY

There is no truth in the Bible which thunders out more loudly than the truth about money.  I can prove this by seven statements I am about to make:

  1. God Owns All Our Money. In our text today, the master owned all the talents.  Talents were sums of money, but in our text talents represents all the gifts God has given us – time, talent, treasure.  Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s and ALL it contains.”
  1. I Own Nothing. In our text the servants owned absolutely nothing.  They were given to him by the master.  :  Acts 4:32, “Not one of them claimed that anything he possessed as his own.  Illus.:  At our house we have one document stored away.  At the top it says, “The following is the property of God.”  We have listed everything we own and signed at the bottom: Doris and Bill Bennett.
  1. God Has Entrusted Some of His Possessions to Each of Us. In our text one servant was given five talents, one two and one only one.   Why the difference?  That’s God’s business.  Psalm 115:3, “God sits in heaven and does what He pleases.
  1. The Amount God Gives is Not Important. :  A poor widow gave ½ cent, others gave thousands.  Luke 23:3,  “Jesus said, ‘this poor widow put in more than all the others.’”
  1. The Important This is for Us to Handle What He’s Given for His Glory. The five talented man doubled his talents, the two talent man doubled his.  Both heard the same word, “Well done…thy good and faithful servant.” 
  1. So if I Handle My Possessions Faithfully, I Will Be Rewarded Accordingly in This Life And Abundantly in The Life to Come. 
  1. If I Am Unfaithful, I will lose even what God has given me and will suffer eternal loss in the life to come. The one talented man hid his talent in the ground and just returned what he’d received.  What did Jesus say:
    1. He took his talent and gave it to the 10 talented man and then said to him,
    2. You wicked and slothful servant and cast him into outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.  This means the unfaithful servant proved he had no personal relationship with Jesus by refusing to invest his life for the Lord.

 Now let us return to the 6th “I” – Investing your money redemptively, beginning with the tithe to your local church.  Why the tithe?  Because the tithe is the measuring stick of the total stewardship of your life.  Because the tithe is not just 10% , but the FIRST 10 % given off the top before anything else is paid for.  And only 10%, but 10% given each week, and not only given each week but given to God through His church to spread the gospel to the world – Malachi 3:10.

WE MUST Continually Remind Ourselves that We Do Not Give the Tithe but We Simply Return it.  It already belongs to the Lord.