If you’ve got a Bible, go ahead and get it out. You’re going to need it. You want to make sure I’m not just making this up. The series is “First Fruits”. We’re going to talk about what the Bible actually says about money, about the people of God, what they’re to do with it. We’re going to cover tithes. We’ll cover free will offerings. We’re going to cover perversions of the things you may have been taught in the past and some of the prevalent views which are errant. This is not going to be Bible-based. This is going to be Bible-Bible. So that’s what we want. We want to know what does God’s Word say about money and covering that from a standpoint of functioning as a local church as well. The title of this very first message in the series is this. It is, “We Need To Talk.” We need to talk. And when I say we need to talk, I’m not just saying that about this topic. I’m saying the Church of Jesus Christ needs to talk about anything that the Bible talks about. Anything. If the Bible talks about it, we have to talk about it, if we don’t, what we’re doing is we’re not letting the head of the church, who is Jesus Christ. We’re not letting the head of the church speak to the body of Christ all the whole counsel of God. And to do that is to actually rob the people of God. And it’s to rob God of His glory because it’s by the Word that people are fed. That’s where faith comes from, and that’s how sanctification takes place. That’s what John 17:17 says Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.” This will be a sanctifying journey, and my hope is that we actually lean into the fact that we need to talk. I don’t know about the rest of the husbands in here, but has your wife ever told you we need to talk? Yes, sir, absolutely. Now what she actually means is, you need to listen. She really wants to say, you need to hear. You can listen without hearing. Isn’t that right? I used to come home from work when we were raising our kids and we chose to home school, which is just basically a fancy way of saying parental abuse. You know, no, it was a wonderful journey, but it’s a lot of work. And oftentimes Kelly would meet me at the door as I got home from work, and she would say this, “We need to talk.” And she’d say it in such a way where I just kind of recognize, why don’t you just go sit on the couch, tell me who to spank, and I’ll just go get to work. She really did mean the same thing, “Steven, you need to hear, you need to hear what’s going on. I need you to be part of this.” And so that’s why we’re titling at this. Because we do. We need to talk about anything that the Bible talks about. Now, let me just push back a little bit on the culture that is anti-money, anti-church talking about money. And by the way, if you’re here for the first time, let me just let you know the last time we did this was four years ago. We’ve had significant growth. And some people have not heard the teaching on this, and those who hear it again, it’s going to benefit you even more. I assure you, we don’t focus on this. We don’t even receive offerings at this church. If you want to give, return the tithe, the give free will offering, we have receptacles in the back and on the sides, or you can go online. There’s no beggathon going on here, and we’re not in financial crisis. There’s not going to be any guilt trip involved? No pictures of puppies. I’m not gonna try and stroke your heart strings and make you feel guilty. We just paid off the building we own, the entire property. This is not out of some desperation. We have to cover this because it’s in the Bible.
Now I want to just give you something kind of a this is a fiction scenario. This first one, what would you think if, as your pastor, I got a letter? Now, I didn’t get this letter, but the letter said, quote, don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about money. Now you might think, “Well, yeah, maybe I’m going to write that.” Okay, that’s an easy scenario for you to maybe pause it but let me kind of flip it around a little bit. What if I got a letter that said, don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about prayer. I don’t know how you’d feel about that. And what if I got up here I said, “You know what? I got a letter and I’m really bothered I can’t talk about prayer anymore. In fact, we’re not going to pray anymore because somebody’s really upset about it.” You would have reason to start to vocalize your complaint. Let’s put it that way. Now we would have to remove 362 verses from your Bible. That’s how many. And now that that doesn’t count the instances where prayer is done. I’m just talking about the word. So, if you can imagine me holding a Bible, if you’re if you’re a former Baptist, hold your breath. This is going to hurt a little bit, and I’m not going to do it, but imagine me ripping out 362 verses from the Bible. If we didn’t talk about prayer, that’s how many we’d lose. What if somebody wrote me a letter and said, Don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about faith. Don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about faith. Now, if I was going to submit to that, if I was going to capitulate to that, we’d have to get the Bible and get rid of 500 verses. It’s over 500 verses, and that’s where the word is just used, specifically, not even in the narratives, not counting the narratives where faith is demonstrated. So now we’re up to about 862 ish verses? What if I got a letter, and this is fictitious again, and it said, Don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about sin. Yeah, people are at Sherman Bible, huh? Yeah, but a lot of churches won’t. They won’t say the word, they won’t talk about transgression, they won’t talk about the wrath of God, they won’t talk about judgment day. They won’t mention it. But if somebody said that and I capitulated listen, we would lose 1178 verses from the Bible. We’d have to rip those out. So we wouldn’t talk about prayer, we wouldn’t talk about faith, and we wouldn’t talk about sin, and we would lose that many. Well, let me just tell you, this is a story three months into my tenure. I’m in my 10th year at Sherman Bible. I did get a letter. I got a letter during a series on the book of Galatians, I casually, in passing, mentioned that Jesus referred to a correlation between where your money is and where your heart can be found. That’s all I said. It was. I didn’t teach on it. Didn’t bring it up. And a lady sent me a very mean letter, and she said this, “Don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about money.” Now, if I capitulated to that, we would lose over 2000 verses in your Bible. Think about that. More than the other three things I mentioned. God puts an emphasis on stewardship, on money, on possessions, and how we address those things, because they’re easy idols to set up. 2000 verses ripped out of the Bible, if we don’t talk about it, not to mention 16 of 38 Jesus parables. 16 of the 38 parables, they’re about money. Give it a fact check. Take a look. We’d lose 16 of the 38 parables if we didn’t talk about money. Also, we’d be doing a cruel disservice to any family that’s here that needs to learn how to really even view their finances as according to God’s Word, we would completely not disciple you in that. And that, to me, seems cruel. I don’t know if you’re aware but the number one stated cause toward irreconcilable differences in divorce is, guess what? It’s money. It’s money issues either stress for lack of it or misappropriation of what they do have. Those stresses are real. God has solutions for these things. We want to look at the word. We want to see what it says, and we want it to be applied to our life in light of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. So, we’re not here to be Bible-based. We’re here to be Bible we want to see what is God’s Word actually say in its proper context. I am not going to capitulate to the pressure of some that might say, “Don’t be the kind of pastor that talks about money” and I would answer it. You mean a coward? No hard pass. Jesus is the head of the church, and He chose to put what He put in the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, and we’re going to cover it. We’re going to cover it.
Paul puts it this way, when he’s talking to a group of elders. He’s in Acts 20:26-27 chapter 20, just these two verses here, 26 and 27 he’s saying his goodbye to the elders from the church at Ephesus, and he tells them this. He says, “‘Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all.’” What does that mean? Does that mean he wasn’t a murderer? Well, no, it doesn’t mean that. It means that he told them everything they needed to know so that their consequence for disobedience wouldn’t be on his head. Because he says in the next verse, “‘For I did not shrink (love that word, I did not shrink) from declaring to you (what does he say?) the whole counsel of God.’” Pen, no. Worky. Worky, if somebody from tech wants to, oh, there. Did it work? Am I being punked? All right? “The whole counsel of God.” If you guys can fix that, that would be great. If you can’t, that would be great too. As long as the Bible still comes up, what do? What? Why are you heckling me? Man, okay, the whole thing’s off now. Get up here, Randy, let’s go, buddy. Yay, smart people. No pressure, we’re all looking at you. 26 it’s 26. Yeah, if you’ll hand me that that can hold it. I don’t know where this went. Did you touch this one too? Don’t be the kind of person that talks about money? All right. Good. Oh, see if it writes, yeah. Right? There we go. You know, I’m going to put that on the TV show. I just want people to see that’s the kind of problems we have around here, all associated with life. He says this, “I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God”, right? In other words, I told you the whole counsel. I didn’t hold anything back from you. He wanted their full equipping, and he wanted them to be made mature. So oftentimes, when we hear we need to talk. What we’re saying is actually you need to hear, it’s all of us. We all need to hear. We need to hear the whole counsel of God. If that much of the Scripture is devoted to money, we need to talk. We absolutely have to do that. Now how will we hear?
Well, Jesus says it this way, Matthew 11:15 chapter 11, look at verse 15. He says, “He who has (what?) ears to hear, let him hear.” Now what does he mean there? Does he mean that if you’re in the crowd and you have flaps of skin on the side of your head and a hole that goes in there that you’re able to hear? No. What does He mean? He means the heart, doesn’t he? He does. He means ears to hear what he’s saying from a heart level. God is always, always, always concerned with the heart. The heart is what He’s after. That’s what it’s really about. It’s not something He wants to do working on you. It’s something He wants to do working in you. And the question is, how do I have a heart that actually hears? Well, there’s a way we can answer that question through three other questions. And so, I want to talk about hearing with your heart, not just hearing with your ears, right? How many of you know? Ladies, you’re aware of this. Sometimes we have as men, we have a weakness. We can listen but we’re not hearing you. And I want to readily confess that, and that’s because Kelly’s not in this service. I’m pleading with you, ask yourself these three questions, and even better, ask the Holy Spirit these three questions.
1. Do I Have A Tender Heart?
Do I have a tender heart? Now before you answer too quickly. What you want to do is you want to let that be reflected to where the Holy Spirit can deal with you. Do I have a tender heart? In other words, is my heart soft? Is my heart not hard? Someone whose heart is tender is someone whose heart can be easily affected by truth, by love, by correction, by information. It’s a heart that’s kind of childlike. It’s not childish but it’s childlike. It’s humble, and it says, “Yes, I want to learn.” I think we all need that posture. That’s the posture that Jesus would have us all be in, like little children, in that as we grow up into maturity. I want to demonstrate a tender heart to you in Scripture but I want to get there by showing you the opposite, which would be a hard heart. And I’m going to show it to you from two narratives with two totally different kinds of people, so that you can see this is common to people. Okay, here’s the first one, a hard heart, Mark 3:1-5 chapter three, one through five. “Again (this is talking about Jesus) he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.” So, Jesus goes to church, and there’s a man whose hand is kind of crimped up. “And they watched Jesus.” These are the Pharisees and the Jews, right? The Jewish leaders. “And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.” Okay, now let’s just come to understanding here. They don’t have a tender heart toward Jesus. Would you agree? They don’t. They don’t care what He says. We’re going to prove this. They don’t even care what He does. They already have their minds made up. Their heart is, we would say, set. Their heart is set to believe. “We know what the Messiah will look like. We know what the Messiah will talk like. We know who he’ll be friends with. It’ll be us. We know who you won’t be friends with. It’ll be the tax collectors and sinners.” Which is redundant. Anyway, whatever. Okay, third service. No. They have a preconceived idea. So, we could say it this way, their heart is set. Their heart is set. It’s not malleable. There’s nothing you can do about it. So, they’re just going to watch Him and try to accuse Him. So, look at this verse three, “And he said to the man with the withered hand ‘Come here’, and he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’” Now, what is He saying? Can you do anything on the Sabbath? Now, it turns out Jesus knows how to talk really good, because there’s no good answer to that. If you think it through logically, you can’t reply to that. Otherwise, you’re going to show yourself to be what they were, which was stubborn in their heart. “But they were silent. And he (now, this is Jesus, okay? This is in your Bible) and he looking around at them with anger.” I want you to see that. If you say, “Well, the Jesus I serve doesn’t ever get angry.” Then you’re not serving the real Jesus because Jesus is angry at them because there’s a man who has a need, and God is there to bless him. God is there to do something good. God is there to reveal Himself in Christ, right? And all they care about is, can we catch Him doing something against our preconceived ideas? How horrible is that? So why does He rebuke them? Here it says, He’s angry, grieved at their what? Their hardness of heart. You see, that’s what made Him angry. That’s what grieved His heart. They had a hardness of heart. They didn’t have a tender heart. They weren’t teachable. It wasn’t malleable. We have to ask this question, do I have a tender heart? I’ll just ask it to you this way, when you heard we’re going to teach about money, did you have any visceral reaction in your heart? And you don’t have to answer that. Some of you, you’re like, “Awesome, let’s go.” But I’m going to bet there’s going to be some this weekend, that when you got here, maybe you didn’t know the series was here, and we, you know, we’re cold freaking you out all of a sudden, it’s like “Money?” And you had a reaction that you got to ask, why? What is it about that topic that’s causing you to flare up? Now, some of you, it’s going to be because you were taught wrongly and you were abused. Some of you, it’s because you weren’t taught biblically at all. Maybe you grew up in church and nobody ever talked about money. Here’s what I’m going to say to you, you were abused too because you were neglected. So many portions of God’s word were kept from you and hidden from you. Neglect is a form of abuse. If I neglect my kids as they’re growing up, that’s a form of abuse. You have to deal with these things, and so I’m not trying to criticize or condemn you if you had a knee jerk reaction, but I’m just trying to say, let’s look at the Holy Spirit and say, “Do I have a tender heart? Or do I flare up at things like this? And then I love what the Lord still does. “He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out. His hand was restored.” God’s going to do what He’s going to do, even if you won’t give up your heart and let it be tender. But people can say, “Well, hang on, man, that’s the Pharisees. Those are unbelievers. That’s a picture of stubborn people on the way to hell.” True, true.
Let’s go forward to Mark 8:14-21 chapter eight. I don’t know if you remember how Mark chapter eight starts just off the top of your head. Mark chapter eight starts with Jesus feeding a crowd for the second time. Now He’s already in a few chapters earlier, He’s fed 5000 with just a few scraps of food. He multiplied it. Right? Remember that? At the beginning of Mark chapter eight, what does He do? He feeds 4000 and disciples are front row, and they see the whole thing happen. Now, after He feeds them, He gets into a discussion again with the with some religious people, and they get in a boat, and then they’re leaving. So, we pick it up, kind of in the middle, middle of the story, Jesus and 12 Disciples are in a boat. Now look at verse 14. “Now they (that’s the disciples) they had forgotten to bring bread, (oh, but watch) and they only had one loaf with them in the boat.” Okay, let’s do a little ciphering. He feeds 5000 with a few table scraps. He feeds 4000 with even less. There’s 13 people in a boat. You’ve got Jesus and you’ve got a Mrs. Baird’s loaf right there, whatever it was, Mrs. Hawkins. Is there a problem in the boat? Is there a shortage of food? How much bread do 13 men actually need to eat? They just ate. It’s like a road trip with my kids. That sets up the story. Look what happens in verse 15, “And he (that’s Jesus) and he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out. Beware of the leaven (that goes into bread, right?) Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.’” Now, what is he actually saying? He’s saying, watch out for the teaching of the Pharisees, which is legalism, watch out for the teaching of Herod, which is license, those two ditches, Legalism or license saying, watch out for that. He’s not talking about that the fact that they only want one loaf of bread, but they have a preconceived idea that Jesus really isn’t yet they’re not really believing who He actually is, because even though He said the things He said, even though He’s done the things that He’s done, their hearts have not learned from it. And you’ll see why. Verse 16 “And they began discussing with one another the fact (that’s not a fact) that they had no bread.” They do have bread. What is wrong with these people? Are they cognitively just in decline, little discipleship, senility setting in? What’s happening here? You got a loaf of bread? Is there really a problem? That’s why they basically start. Start talking about, “Well, you don’t have any bread. You didn’t bring the bread. No, you were supposed to bring the bread. Judas was supposed to buy it.” Peter’s like, “Everybody shut up.” I made that part up. Look at verse 17, “And Jesus aware of this.” I love that, yeah, it wasn’t because He was supernaturally cognitive right there. He was in the boat. He hears them arguing. “Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?’” He’s condescending. Now look, He says, ‘Do you not yet perceive?’ In other words, can you cognitively take it in through the senses, the things you’ve heard, the things you’ve seen, you’ve got that down, right? “‘Or understand?’” Can you not grasp it in your mind? Well, sure they can. That’s not the problem. The problem is they could perceive what had happened. And the problem is not that they couldn’t perceive what had happened. The problem is not that they couldn’t understand it cognitively. The problem is this, “‘Are your hearts hardened?’” That’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? Because their hearts were hardened, therefore everything they saw and everything they heard was going in to their ears. We would say in one ear and out the other. But it was, here’s the problem, it was bouncing off a hard heart. If you have a hard heart, guys, and you want to hold on to something, and you’re flinching in your heart right now, listen, there’s no hope for a series to break through that. God has to change your heart. The Holy Spirit has to give you a tender heart. He has to be the one to do that, and that’s a blessing that you deeply want, because those are the people that God draws near to, those with a tender, broken heart, even contrite heart, a meek spirit, a brokenness. That’s who God shows Himself to and draws close to. But if your heart’s hard, it doesn’t matter what I say. I mean, there’s not going to be like. I said there’s not going to be manipulation. We’re not gonna torque on you. We’re not gonna make you feel you know, like you know everything’s gonna end and the world’s gonna end if you don’t do this. It’s not where we’re going with it. I’m just promising you that you’ll see. What I am telling you is you’ll miss out on the benefit of it, no matter what you hear and no matter what you see, Jesus chooses to give them a pop quiz. Watch He says this. Verse 18, “‘Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?’” Well, of course, they have all those things. But look, verse 19, “‘When I broke the five loaves for the 5000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ They said to Him, ‘twelve.’” By the way, it’s the right answer. “‘And the seven for the 4000 how many basket full of broken pieces did you take up?’ And they said to Him, ‘Seven.’” That’s the right answer again. “And he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’” No, they didn’t, why? Because they did not have a tender heart. They had a hard heart. They had a hard heart. And I don’t think it can be overstated that when someone has a tender heart, the things that God says to them change them quickly. When someone has a tender heart, the things that God shows them helps them quickly, and they remember those things and it benefits them. Let me say it to you this way, it’s Miracle Grow for the Christian. You can sit in a church and have some guy yell at you for the next 50 years, but if your heart is not tender, it’s not going to benefit you. In fact, it’ll just make it harder. We don’t want to see that happen. We want you to grow up in grace.
I’m going to give you one quick picture of a man who did that. His name was King Josiah, and he ruled in Judah, and Judah came under judgment. In fact, God had promised he was going to destroy the place, bringing judgment on it. But Josiah had a different kind of heart. This is 2 Chronicles 34:24-27, “Thus says the Lord, behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah (that’s Josiah). Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. (But look at the next verse) But to the king of Judah.” That’s Josiah. Now, what did Josiah did? What did he done? Someone reported to him, “Hey, we found the law of God.” It had been hidden. It was lost. People didn’t care about it, and he it was read to him. And when he heard how he was going against God and how the nation was going against God, his heart was so tender and grieved. He tore his clothes and he repented. So, this is what God says to him, “But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, regarding the words that you have heard. Because your heart was tender. (There it is) Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me, and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord.” In other words, God found someone who would benefit from His blessing. Does that make sense? Because of a condition of his heart. It didn’t say he did something more righteous. He still needed a Savior. Do you understand? But he had a heart that was tender, that said, “God, if you deal with me, I want that. I’ll receive that.”
And that brings us to 2. Do You Have A Willing Heart?
Do you have a willing heart? Is it the same thing? It’s actually not. You can have a tender heart, but then what you find is your heart’s tender, but then when it gets pushed on some area, it turns out that, “Oh, that’s the area I’ve been holding back. God, you can deal with all these other areas, but this specific area.” And I’m just telling you, money is that kind of thing. It’s the kind of thing people hold on to. “Well, if we’re really spiritual, we don’t talk about money.” Well, then you’re more spiritual than God, right? But you’re not. I’m not. Do I have a willing heart? And what do I mean by that? A willing heart is a heart that says this, “Whatever You want, I’ll do it whatever You say.” My answer is “yes”. You put your “yes” on the table, we say. And if it’s in God’s Word and it’s shown to be in its proper context, and you become convinced of that by the Holy Spirit that you say this, “I’m going to obey. I’m giving You my “yes” in advance.” Here’s the principle in Scripture, if you are willing to do God’s will, you’ll know God’s will. I get asked that more as a pastor than any other question, “How do I know God’s will?”
Here it is John 7:15-16-17. It says, “The Jews therefore marveled saying (this about Jesus), ‘How is it this that this man has learning when he has never studied?’” Where did He get all this? Verse 16 says, “So Jesus answered them, ‘My teaching is not mine.’” Jesus says that, “‘But it is his who sent me.’” In other words, I’m just presenting to you what I’ve been told. Well, how would you know that’s true? Look at the next verse. Here’s the principle. He says, “‘If anyone’s will (that’s the chooser in your heart, right?) If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know.’” That’s the principle. When you put your “yes” on the table, that’s when you’ll know God’s will. And if your “yes” isn’t on the table, you’re not going to know God’s will. In fact, you’re going to be blind in many places in the Scripture. If you want to start reading your Bible and having things just blow you up, I’m gonna tell you what. Start telling God every single day, “Yes. I’m gonna open Your Word. And if it tells me I’m wrong, I’m gonna confess and I’m gonna repent. If it instructs me in the way to walk, I’m gonna head right toward that.” Are you gonna stumble? Are you gonna struggle? Yep, but put your “yes” on the table. He says, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, He will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I’m speaking on my own authority.” I’m telling you, that’s how you know it’s being willing to do that. Now, oftentimes there’s a problem in the heart because the heart doesn’t really believe that God has your best in mind. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but human beings, all of us, we tend to think that way. We tend to think of, “Well, yeah, God is lots of things, but, and I know we’re supposed to say He’s good, but there’s some areas that I’m just not willing to put my ‘yes’ on the table.” Right? In other words, “Tell me all the facts, and then I’ll decide I want to weigh it out against, you know, and I want to talk to a few friends and get on YouTube, and I want to see what YouTube thinks and then, you know, we’re talking about money. So, I mean, I want to go get my broke brother in law because he has a lot of opinions on money.” No offense to any broke brother in laws in here. I didn’t know.
What’s the barrier. Here’s the barrier. It’s Hebrews 11:6. Hebrews 11:6 says, “For without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” Now, faith in what? Well, it lists two things for the one that comes to God must first, what? Number one, “Believe that he is (or what is this version? What is it He?) exists.” This is NAS. Believe that. Here’s the first thing, faith is this first. You believe He exists. Now is that a big deal? No, did you know even the devil believes that? The demons believe it and they tremble. He that comes to God must believe that He exists. And here’s the second part, “He rewards those who seek him.” People that don’t have a willing heart don’t yet fully believe that. I’m just telling you, because what you’re actually thinking in the deepest part of your heart is that “God isn’t good in some area.” In fact, let me say it this way, you’ll believe that God is a taker and not a giver. That’s a hard attitude. And maybe you were, you know, put in positions with your parents, and you lost trust in leadership at some church somewhere. I don’t know. I don’t know whatever your story is but I’m telling you, a willing heart has to put its trust in God, that God is good. God so loved the world that He took? No, God so loved the world that He gave. He gave His Son a sacrifice for our sin. I mean that to me is the check mate that He’s going to give good and perfect gifts.
I got saved 39 years ago, this last month in September of 1986. 19 years old. I was raised in a well, I was raised outside the family. From about just after I turned 11 years old, I’d never seen a good marriage, not one single good marriage. And so, when I came to Christ, when He got me, I started seeing these marriages that didn’t look half bad. And I started thinking, “Maybe I want to get married sometime,” but I didn’t really, I didn’t really want to, because I thought, you know, I don’t want to yoke myself to some sinner. Turns out that’s the only people you can marry these days, right? So I thought, you know, what I’m going to do is I’m going to start the bachelor’s to the rapture club, and I’m going to be like, Paul. Be holy. But yeah, that lasted about two years. I was 21 I was like, I do. I think I want to get married, you know. And my pastor would tell me, you know, “He that finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Yeah, but I was afraid. And let me tell you why I was afraid. I was afraid because I knew enough about God to know He was good, but there was a place in my heart I didn’t trust Him. I was not willing to accept His will. And this is what I thought. I thought this, God, I know you’re after my sanctification, and so if I yield to your will and I get married, I’m going to marry the person that you want me to marry, and you’re going to make me marry somebody that I don’t like. In fact, she’ll probably be ugly to me because I know you want to sanctify me, and a lot of that comes by suffering. And you’re laughing but it was not a joke. I was 21 years old, and I was scared to death, and I would go to my pastor, and he would rebuke me, so I would go to my pastor’s wife, and be like, “Pat I just, this is the deal” and she’d take me here. James 1:16-17, “Do not be deceived, beloved brothers.” By the way, anytime you see, “Do not be deceived”. You’re about to read something that you can be deceived in. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” She’d take me right there into James one, and she’d tell me this. She’d say, “Steve, He loves you. God loves you. He loves you. He doesn’t want you to marry somebody that you don’t like. He doesn’t want you to marry somebody you’re not attracted to. He wants you to find your wife and you’re going to.” And then she’d land the plane here at Romans 8:32, I can’t wait to get to this in the series. “He (that’s the Father) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with Hhm graciously give us all things?” That’s all things that pertain to life and godliness. Turns out He wanted me to have a wife. Two years later, I got to meet and marry Kelly, and man, I’m telling you what that fear looks so ridiculous now. But you know what I find once I get rid of one another one shows up. And as we’re talking about money and we’re talking we’re talking about giving, we’re talking about what God’s word actually says about I mean, this is going to strain some of us. I’ve walked in freedom in this area for a long, long time, but I realize it’s a real challenge for somebody to finally just go, “God, I’m going to put my ‘yes’ on the table, and if your Word says that I want it.” That is a willing heart. So, do I have a tender heart? Do I have a willing heart? And we can’t leave this out. This is so important.
3. Do I Have A Noble Heart?
Now you usually won’t hear this in teaching about money, but what is a noble heart by the Bible’s definition? By the Bible’s definition, a noble heart is someone that goes to their own Bible and checks what they’re being told. I’ll show it to you. This is Acts 17:10-11. “The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away at night to Berea.” Yeah, they’re leaving Thessalonica, and they’re going to go to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. So, they’re going to go in there, and they’re going to teach, this is what they’re doing. They’re on mission. They go into Berea, and it says this about the Bereans. “Now, these Jews were (what?) more noble.” There it is. Now that doesn’t mean of their ancestry or their pedigree, or their, you know, their college degrees. This is talking about the nobility. Of the heart. These Bereans, these Jews, were more noble than those in Thessalonica. Now, watch what they did. “They received the word.” And what is that? That’s tender heart, that’s there’s a tenderness there. They were open, right? And look, “And they received it with all eagerness.” What’s that? That’s a willing heart. That’s a heart that says this, “Yes, well, if that’s what it says, if that’s what it means and that’s how it applies, okay, let’s go.” So they have a willing heart, and behind that, they have a tender heart, but look, they also have a noble heart. How do we know? Because this is what made them noble. “They were examining the scriptures daily to see if (I want you to notice that “if” you can underline that in your Bible) if these things were so.” This is very important. The things you’re going to be taught, you need to fact check please. Now I want to qualify what I mean by that. That doesn’t mean you go on YouTube and find an internet theologian who’ll tell you what your dirty, greedy little heart always wants to see. Because did you know with the internet, you can find somebody to tell anybody that they can do anything. You can go get permission. You can go find men that will try to undo what you’re going to learn and what you’re going to find, if you will receive. I just give it a shot and see if it’s not the whole counsel of God. And then you weigh it out. Then you can see, you can go back and you can get your Bible. And let’s say you’re going through the Bible and you have questions about it. Man, get on the email. You can, you can email me directly at jeff@shermanbible.com so this is why I’m saying this. It’s not a shopping for counsel. It’s a reaching out to go, “Hey, I want to know this clearly”, because if your heart is tender and your heart is willing, you’re wanting what God wants, and you don’t want to be misled. You don’t want to be mis taught. You don’t want to listen to either of the far away banks. There’s some far away banks, right? God is a slot machine. It’s the faith teachers, it’s the prosperity. Teachers, if you put in your money, boy out comes a Mercedes and a blessing, and you’re going to grow three inches tall or have whiter teeth and fresh breath and a bigger smile, and you’re gonna get a raise. You’re never gonna get sick. You’re never gonna die. Well, those people look stupid wearing glasses, don’t they? Faith healer with glasses on. There’s irony in that. I wasn’t talking about people wearing glasses in the room right now. Look, that’s errant. That’s a ditch. The other one over here is this, God doesn’t care at all. God has no interest in your money. God has nothing to do with that. That’s all Old Testament, or that’s passe, or churches are just greedy. Look, those are both two ditches, and they’re both wrong. And you’re gonna learn it right. We’re gonna cut it straight but you have to fact check it. I’m pleading with you to do that.
2 Timothy 3:16-17. I know we’re familiar here with this. Paul writes, “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable. (Here it’s talking about scripture, okay? only sola scriptura) profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. That the man of God may be (what?) complete and equipped for every good work.” Including handling the money? Does it apply to that? Absolutely it does. God’s Word has much to say, and most people have probably either heard it wrong or not heard it at all. This is very important as we go away, and we’re noble that we go and we find sources we can trust. If you’re going to listen to other attitudes and other opinions on it, I challenge you to compare those with the context you’re going to see over the period of these six weeks.
Lest we fall into the danger that’s warned about in 2 Timothy 4:1-4 chapter four, I’ll end with these four passages. Paul writes to Timothy, the pastor of the church at Ephesus. By the way, he says, “‘I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing and kingdom.” In other words, pay attention Timothy, “Preach the Word, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears (watch carefully) they (that’s the people) will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions.” You see it? False teachers don’t gather people. People gather false teachers because they want to find someone to tell them what they already want to hear because they have hard hearts. They have unwilling hearts, and they’re not noble enough to go search the Scriptures and find out that they’re being led by hypocritical liars. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that guy. Stay right here. And then finally, verse four, and this is the result of that kind of lack of nobility. “And they’ll turn away from listening to the truth, and they’ll wander off into myths.” And those myths are everywhere. So, you’ll notice, we’ve started the series, and we haven’t said a word about money proper. Why? Because God’s going to deal with the heart. And next week, we’ll talk about the heart again because when the heart’s in the right place, what we find is truth has an easy access, and change comes simply. I won’t say it’s easy but it does come simply.
KEYWORDS
Bible, Money, Tithe, Free Will Offerings, Local Church, Sanctification, Whole Counsel Of God, Tender Heart, Willing Heart, Noble Heart, Heart, Hear, Stewardship, Financial Issues, Gospel, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Berean, Grayson County, Texas, Online Sermon, First Fruits
SPEAKER
Steve LeBlanc