Money Matters (part 2)

Our Father in heaven, we come before you this morning just so thrilled to be here, so excited to have the opportunity to take a day, even a morning, to reflect on your kindness, your goodness to us, extended to us through the person of your Son Jesus Christ, through his life, his death, his resurrection.

Father, that you would take us, that you would redeem us, that you would regenerate us, that you would bring us to yourself. Lord, it is a great blessing and we are thankful to be here, to be reminded again of your goodness to us and to celebrate that.

Father, I pray that you'd be with us this morning in Sunday School as we look to your word and what it says about money, about stewardship, about how we ought to view things. Father, I pray that you'd bless our time.

In Christ's name, amen. Well, last week we started talking about money, and really it is a very important topic, an issue that will get you into pretty much more trouble than just about anything else, or it can be a real blessing to you.

I mentioned in an email that I sent out that I've made mistakes. Let me just give you one of them. How many of you have ever bought a new car? You know, just walk into the dealership and you think it'll be like buying a sweater.

You're just going to go in, there's the sticker, there's the salesman, take your purchase up to the register and check out. It doesn't really quite work like that, although it did the first time I bought a new car.

We needed a new vehicle, so we went out and we shot for a Ford Aerostar, only we didn't really shop. What happened was my, I'll blame my brother, it was the brother that gave us to me. My brother sees this Ford advertisement, so we went to the dealership and we walked in, and I don't even think, they must have really, I mean, I'm sure the entire staff went out to dinner, not only on my large ass, but just laughing and joking the entire time.

Because I went in and I just paid whatever the sticker was, and, you know, walked out. I wasn't really fat, but I was dumb and happy. I was younger then. That's not how you buy a car. We'll talk about that later.

But, I mean, I'm guessing I probably paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 ,000 to $4 ,000 too much for that vehicle. Because that's what happens when you just go in and you say, oh, that's what the sticker is, that's what I'll pay.

I didn't know any better. So, one of the things I want to do is help you. When I bought, several years later, I bought a Honda Accord that we had to bury a couple of years ago. We had that car for 17, 18 years, something like that.

When I bought that car, I got, there's something called an automobile broker out in California, which is, he's not a dealership, he just buys cars from dealers. And so, I got this auto broker who was a friend of a friend in a bidding war with the dealer.

And neither one of them wanted to be undersold. So, by the time, I mean, it was like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to buy it from him because he's offering me a better deal. I won't be undersold. And I wound up paying $50 more than what the broker had paid.

He showed me the receipt. He goes, I can't do this. He was stealing from somebody else at the same time. So, he was able to give me that kind of deal. So, you learn and you learn how to do these kind of things.

But money is important. It can get you into a lot of trouble. Let's look at some of the things that the Bible says about money. Last week, we just kind of covered some of the introductory things, talking about some of the issues that people can find themselves in.

But we mentioned that money really tells us something about ourselves. How we handle money tells us something about us. Hope I don't step on any toes. Well, then again, if I do, that's the way it goes.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck, I'm going to tell you right now that you're doing something wrong. We'll talk about how you can address those things. But if you're always, like, sweating out whether your check is going to be cashed or not, you know, wondering whether the bank is going to process it too fast, there's an issue.

We need to learn how to build up a little bit of a buffer so that we're not like that all the time. I remember how I used to think about it. I used to think, you know what? If you're saving money, if you're putting money in a savings account, or if you're holding in a buffer in your checking account, then you're really wasting it because you could be applying it to other bills.

You could be doing this and doing that. But the first thing we're going to learn when we look at the practical side of money is the first thing you want to do is stop digging, right? If you're in a hole, stop digging.

And the problem we have is we're constantly trying to maneuver, trying to manipulate things around. We wind up getting ourselves in deeper and deeper debt. But how we view money reflects a lot about us.

Wealth as a Test of Contentment and Trust

This morning, I want to start by just saying wealth is a test. And when I use the word wealth, I don't mean if you're rich. Everybody has something. I should probably dig up the survey. There was a survey recently that showed compared to other countries, the poorest people in the United States are rich.

You can't go to somebody in some third world backwater country and say, let me see your home. A, they may not have a home. But B, you can't go in there. I mean, I've been in some very poor homes in the United States.

I used to go into housing projects and things like that as part of my job. It never ceased to amaze me that these poor people had VCRs, video games, a couple of cars in the driveway. I'm like, this is poor in the United States.

Poor in the United States and poor in other countries are not usually quite the same sort of thing. So even if you think I'm on the lower rung of society when it comes to income, you have more than most people.

And certainly the Lord has provided for you wealth, meaning money. Any kind of substance is a test. Let's look at Proverbs 30, verses 8 and 9. Proverbs 30, right before the chapter Solomon wrote about my wife.

Proverbs 30, verses 8 and 9. And who would want to read those for me? Yes, go ahead. Thanks, Ken. What's Solomon saying here? What's his point? Okay, when you have money, you're tempted to think, I did this.

I'm self-sufficient. It's not of the Lord. And when you're poor, you're tempted to think, maybe in some way the Lord has failed me. And so I have the right, I have the necessity to go and steal, which ultimately will bring shame on the name of the Lord.

What Carther says is, he says, wealth or the lack of it is a constant test for us. If we have more than we need, we'll be tempted not to trust God, because we did it. If we don't have enough, we'll be tempted to dishonor his name.

The key to passing the test of wealth is found in simply trusting God, who is infinitely greater than all the wealth in the universe. My question for you, or I have many questions for you, but are you content with your lot in life?

Are you happy with where you are? I mentioned last week that the purpose of advertising is to get you discontent. The only reason you need something new or something improved is what? You have something old and junky, or something old and unimproved.

And so, you know, the world says, you've got to go out and get something new and better. Are you satisfied with your lot in life? Now, what does that mean? Some will say, well, if I'm really satisfied with my lot in life, then I won't seek a promotion.

That's not what I'm talking about. If I'm really satisfied with my lot in life, I don't really need to work overtime. I don't need to get a second job. It's fine that we're making ends meet. Our head's not really above water, but we're not drowning either.

That's not what I'm talking about. The point is that wherever you are in life, you just say, you know what, God has been good to me. We have sufficient resources to do what we need to do. We have to reorganize, reprioritize things.

I like this. John Wesley was once told by someone. Someone comes running up to him and says, Mr. Wesley, your house is burned down. And he says, the Lord's house burned down. One less responsibility for me.

We don't really own anything. Therefore, if you lose something, you don't lose it because you never owned it. If we think about it that way, if we think about everything that I own is the Lord's, it becomes easier to manage things.

It's like Pastor Mike likes to say, what do you hold with open hands? You hold people and things with open hands. Why? Because the Lord will put them in and take them out, and you just need to have that kind of attitude that says, I trust God.

We'll take it a step further and just say, you know what, you need to be content with your lot in life because you are exactly where God wants you to be. If we think about Psalm 3311, the counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations, the counsel of the Lord, the decree of God, those things are, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be.

Now that doesn't mean that your thinking is exactly like it's supposed to be, but the world, all the circumstances around you are exactly the circumstances that God wants. What is contentment? Being content with our lot in life.

Contentment is joyfully accepting what God provides. MacArthur goes through the story of Abraham and Isaac, or Ibraham and Isaac, whatever their names are. I speak for a living. Genesis chapter 22, and you don't need to turn there, but after Abraham is ready to sacrifice his son and the angel of the Lord shows up and stops him, and ultimately we have verse 14 where it says, so Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide.

As it is said to this day on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided because God provided a ram to sacrifice in the place of his son. Contentment is joyfully accepting what God provides. Let me say that again.

Contentment is joyfully accepting what God provides. A lot of us will say we're content, but it's more like, sure, I'm content. Contentment is joyfully accepting what God provides. That's right. Yeah, well, and this is the point, ultimately.

Thank you, Pam. Ultimately, how we view things, our level of contentment displays maybe not our salvation, although it could reveal that, but it definitely shows where our allegiance is. Is our allegiance really with Christ?

Are we really satisfied with him? Are we really focused on him and glancing at our problems, and sometimes our problems are our budget, or are we so focused in the details of our checkbook that our allegiance is somewhat split, and we're going to be talking more about that.

We need to be focused on Christ and the riches we have in him. But we also need to be mindful of another thing. Let's look at 1 Timothy 6, keeping in mind that this passage here, this chapter is about false teachers.

It's about the greed of them. But listen to what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6. Again, just getting this mindset of thinking about money, riches, and our lot in life correctly. 1 Timothy 6, verses 6 to 10.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. Now when we say that this is a principle, we would see it over and over and over again.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. We even see, just even keeping in mind this context of false teachers, if we turn on our TV and we see some of these people in the opulent lifestyles and everything else, and the way that they tell you, you know what?

You can have the same thing. It's really no different than the worldly idea of you need to have this $250 ,000 car. Why? Because it opens your cans, cooks your meals, it does everything for you. It does the shopping, etc., etc., etc.

You know, you get away from your humdrum life. But when you watch those people, I don't know if you've ever watched any of these prosperity people, but they will actually say things like, why do I drive a Jaguar blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, $95 ,000 car and I trade in every six months, you know, and get the latest accoutrement, you know, and you have to say that right, accoutrement.

Why do I do that? Because when people see me driving that fabulous gold-plated, you know, it doesn't even run on gasoline. I have to put plutonium in it. When they see me driving that, they say, well, how did you get that vehicle?

And I say, well, because I'm a child of the King. And then I get to tell them about Jesus. They have all manner of justification. And they'll say, you know what? Things like Jesus wore a hem that had no garment.

You know how valuable or, sorry, a garment that had no hem. Again, I speak for a living. Do you know how valuable that is? You know how rich he was? And God wants you to be rich too. And they'll take verses out of context and everything to prove that.

But the love of money, the pursuit of money, is a root of all kinds of evil. Money is not evil in and of itself, but it is that total pursuit, it is that focus, it is that zeal to get money, to get more and more and more.

Wealth is not a sin, because if it was, there could be no wealthy Christians. We like wealthy Christians. That's fine. But it is a test. It's a matter of your heart. It shows your heart condition, what you do with it.

Now, desire back there in chapter 6, that word is a present participle, meaning they have an ongoing desire for those riches to the extent that it identifies them. It is part of their DNA, as it were.

They wake up in the morning, they think about getting rich. They go to bed at night thinking about being rich. I've known people like this. I've known people like this. And what it typically leads to is what?

Not just sin, but it becomes all-consuming, and all your friends and everything just get kind of left by the wayside because you have this focus like this. I remember, it's not too long ago, Lenny Dykstra was a Major League Baseball player when I was younger.

He played for the Phillies, and I don't know who else he played for, but he was a pretty good baseball player. And he recently went to, I think it was federal prison, because he was defrauding investors in his whole scheme.

And you think, well, a guy who was a professional athlete for that many years would have money, but it was never enough for him. And he had to pursue it and pursue it and pursue it until finally it led to him going to jail.

Literally, the text would say there in 1 Timothy 6 in verse 9 that they fall over and over into temptations. Their motivation to become rich causes them to ignore maxims like, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

You know, a lot of those old sayings are correct sayings. I just heard yesterday on the radio a commercial about working at home. Now, I don't have anything against working at home. Maybe it was on Friday.

It had to be on Friday, because I was thinking it was during a national radio show. And I thought, how much does that advertisement cost to put on the air? And then you just start thinking about it. You go, if this is such a good deal for the people who do it, how could they afford to do that sort of thing?

And so when you start thinking through things, you realize that most of these things are scams. Let's talk about guidelines and warnings about money. Christians ought not to think, you know, like the old Jerry Maguire line, show me the money.

It's not all about that. MacArthur says this, it's wrong and counterproductive to have the pursuit of money as your primary vocational motivation. In other words, the reason you go to work is just it's all about the Benjamins.

Everyone, believers and unbelievers alike, should rather strive to excel in his or her vocation, and listen, and let the rewards come. In other words, if you're a police officer, be the best police officer you can be.

If you're an accountant, be the best accountant you can be. If you are a ditch digger, be the best ditch digger that you can be. And guess what? People won't want to hire you because they'll say, you know what, Steve digs the best ditches around.

If I want a latrine in my backyard, that's the guy I'm going to go call. Well, I mean, it's good, right? You want to be known as the best at whatever you do. I mean, I can remember even, you know, being unsaved, there would be days where I'd be upset at my boss or whatever, and I'd just go, you know what, today I'm just going to go in, and I'm not going to do a thing.

I'm just going to drive around that radio car, and I'm not, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't make myself do it. I don't know why. I just couldn't. But that's a good thing. Even as an unbeliever, we need to just have the idea that I'm here to work, I want to work, and I'm just going to keep working.

Hard work will eventually be its own reward. You won't find too many people that will say, well, you know, what was the secret to your success? If you were to ask Steve Jobs, I haven't read the book about him or anything else, but if you were to ask him if he could speak to us now, I won't tell you what he'd be saying.

But if you were to ask people that are very successful how they got there, they're not going to say, well, you know what, I just kind of kicked back and watched the whole process unfold. It's hard work.

Hard work ultimately results in success, even if that success is being known as the best ditch digger in town. That's a good thing. Now, how can and how should salvation alter a person's viewpoint about money?

Let's look at Luke 19, verses 1 to 10. Luke 19, verses 1 to 10, talking about Zacchaeus, the narrative about him, and I'll read that. He, being Jesus, entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was. But on account of the crowd, he could not see because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he heard it and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled.

He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. Listen, verse 7 is significant because the crowd, the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders among the people there, to them Zacchaeus was the lowest of the low.

He was a betrayer of the Jewish nation because he was collecting taxes for the Roman Empire. And we'll see that it's even worse than that. Verse 8, as Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.

And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house since he is also a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.

So what, because Zacchaeus suddenly became generous, he got saved? It's actually the reverse of that. MacArthur notes how Zacchaeus' attitude toward money changed instantly in Jesus' affirmation of his salvation in verse 9.

In other words, he gets saved. And by virtue of being saved, his whole attitude about money changes. Listen to what Hendrickson says about Zacchaeus. He says, has he at times been guilty of directly or indirectly exacting too much money from anybody?

In other words, has he overtaxed people? Has he kind of sent the goon squad out to shake the people down and get extra money out of them? And the answer is yes. He says he has. So in the presence of all, he now declares that he is returning whatever he has unlawfully taken away.

Not only that, he is going to add something to it. The law in Leviticus and Numbers required that in certain cases one-fifth, 20 of the unjustly obtained amount, in this case it would be 20 of what he overcharged, had to be added when making restitution.

In other cases, double restitution had to be made. Zacchaeus, however, decided to restore not double but four-fold the amount overcharged. Incidentally, does not the four-fold plus half of my possessions, the latter for the poor, tend to prove that Zacchaeus had really overcharged people?

He had been quite the shark. Otherwise, he would not have been able to make such generous restitution. Hendrickson goes on and he says, Note salvation, nothing less. Does this not mean emancipation from the greatest evil, being placed in possession of the greatest good?

Does it not mean everlasting life? Today, Jesus had called the chief publican, that is, tax collector, out of that tree and had, with blessing, entered his home. So, Jesus takes who would be seen as really the worst of the worst.

I mean, prostitutes would be more highly viewed than Zacchaeus because he was a traitor and a thief. And Jesus scandalized people by saving them. But more than that, just the response of Zacchaeus, Look, when you get saved, do things change?

You know, I don't know about you guys, but I mean, changes take place instantly when you start thinking about what you've been forgiven and that's what happened with Zacchaeus. Okay, now how can money distort a person's viewpoint?

How can it twist our minds? Let's look at Luke 18, familiar account of the rich young ruler. And the ruler asked him, being Jesus, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?

No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. And he, being the young ruler, said, all these I've kept for my youth.

Yeah, liar is exactly right. I mean, if somebody tells you that, you know, I don't sin. And so what does Jesus say? Well, good for you, good job. Pats him on the back, sends him on the way. Nope, what he does is, basically I'll kind of allegorize it so we get the point, is if Jesus is the great physician and he's looking at the x-ray of this man, he sees where his wound is, where his little sore is, and he sticks his finger and just pushes deeply into that sore.

Here's what he says. You know, the rich young ruler says, you know, I don't sin. Verse 22, when Jesus heard this, he said to him, one thing you still lack, sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor.

And you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. Be my disciple. But before you do that, you're going to have to give up all that you have. Why? Is that a principle? You know, people, unbelievers especially, will try to use that.

Well, as a Christian, aren't you supposed to give everything to the poor? No, and that's not the point here. The point is, Jesus knew his spiritual condition. Verse 23, but when he heard these things, the rich young ruler heard these things, he became very sad for he was extremely rich.

And Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, how difficult is it for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God? For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

MacArthur says this, love of wealth presents an impassable barrier to regeneration. In other words, if money is your God, you will not be saved. It's impassable, because the desire for riches is greater than the desire for forgiveness in heaven.

Now, does that mean God can't change a heart? No. But that means if you worship the God of money and you can't give that up, as in this case, that's not going to change. Listen to what, here's a couple of quotes from rich people.

The first name you'll recognize, the second one you won't. The only reason I recognize it, well, A, because the university is named after him, and B, because he was a rich railroad tycoon and industrialist, and I like that whole thing.

Not that I wanted to do that. That whole era fascinates me, the robber barons. But John D. Rockefeller said this, I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness. And I really like this one.

This is Cornelius Vanderbilt. I think he also has some genes. I don't know, wrong Vanderbilt, but same line, I think. The care of millions is too great a load. There is no pleasure in it. Now, a lot of you are thinking, well, you know what?

I'd like to experience that load, that burden. But if you had it for a while, it doesn't ultimately bring you happiness. You think, well, it solves problems. Well, not really. I mean, the number of people who, I mean, when you pursue wealth, even at our point of reference, where we are on the economic spectrum, when you pursue it mindlessly, what do you do?

You do things like buy lottery tickets. How many stories have you seen where people won the lottery, and then they visit them three years later or whatever, and they're completely broke? And you go, how does that happen?

Because money isn't the issue. The issue is how you view money, how you view yourself, how you view God. Pan. Yep. And we're going to get to that. You know, money is really ultimately is a responsibility, and that's kind of where we're going to be going.

Because how we think about it influences what? What we do with it. And, you know, if you trust in wealth, boy, you are really barking up the wrong tree. Those who love money will never have enough. I mean, it's amazing to me.

The people, I just think, you know, if I had billions and millions of billions, I mean, frankly, if I was Warren Buffett, I'd stop doing all that stuff and find something else to do. I mean, why? Why are you going to just keep doing that?

I guess you could say it's for the other people, but okay, whatever. I mean, I just have better things to do than pursue money endlessly. But people who love money even, you know, and again, this doesn't mean just if you're rich.

If you are poor, you can have a love of money. And how do we know that? Because some people love money so much that they're willing to do anything, including cheat on their taxes. They do whatever is necessary to get to the next dollar.

But by contrast, Christians are to learn contentment. We talked about it. What is contentment? It's being joyful in whatever circumstances you're in. Those who are in love with money will continue to spend it, no matter what the circumstances are.

You know, the old saying, I can't be out of money. I still have checks. Or why wouldn't I use the credit card? I've still got money on my line of credit. I'm still good to go, right? What is true about people who love money?

Are they generous or stingy? I think it's just kind of interesting to watch, you know, how different politicians mark things and then to look at what they give to charity. I find that somewhat interesting.

But I know someone who, in spite of the fact that he had a lot of money, before he got saved, I mean, if a group of us, because we were friends for a long time, and if a group of us went out for a hamburger, he'd be trying to find some way to make somebody else pay for the thing.

Or at the very least, he'd be down, seriously, calculating out exactly what he had, exactly what the sales tax was, and exactly what the tip was, in spite of the fact that he might have been making five or six times as much as the rest of us.

And so he would, you know, if his bill was $7 .37, he would take out $7 .37. And that was that. And then something funny happens. He gets saved. And what happens? Now, all of a sudden, he's like, oh, no, put your money away.

It's no good here. You know, it's on me. He's the guy making the secret gifts. He's the guy doing, you know, whatever he can to help people who are in need. Why? Because his focus changed off of how do I get more to what can I do with what I have.

Focusing on money will always leave you disappointed. Let's look at Proverbs 23, verses 4 and 5. And you know what? I mean, this is something, you know, part of the problem with technology is you can really kind of track things.

I mean, I don't even remember what it's called. It's not a 401k for me. It's some other thing. But, you know, now I can kind of see what happens on a daily basis. In the last few days, I've been checking it.

It looks pretty good. When it goes down, I don't like it very much, though. But we can really become fixated. I mean, it's not so much that I think, ooh, I'm super excited. But, you know, it's better to be positive than negative.

But look at what Proverbs 23, verses 4 and 5 says. Would somebody read that, please? Yeah, Charlie. Have you ever experienced that? You know, if you were invested heavily in the stock market a few years ago, you might have noticed that when your stocks went down by what?

About 50%. I mean, when the stock market went from, like, 14 ,000 down to 6 ,000 or whatever it went down to, I was like, boy, I'm glad I don't have any stock. It was the first time in my life I was ever happy not to have investments.

I mean, that's just what it does, right? I mean, how many of you bought a house at the very height of the market? I did. I see my wife's hand. I mean, we like to say, hey, we couldn't possibly have paid more for our house.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Would have been impossible. We had to actually, you know, outmaneuver somebody for our house. So we were honest about it. But, you know, I mean, we almost got into a bidding war over it.

And that's just kind of, we wouldn't have, but that's just kind of how it was. And, you know, now you look at the housing values and you go, gee, if we could have only waited a couple more years. Hindsight's 20 -20 and you are where you are and you have to be content with that.

But money is not something that you could just say, I mean, for example, I think I mentioned this in a message months and months ago, so probably nobody remembers, but if you had millions of German marks right before the air went out of the economy after World War I, and I think it was about 1920, the Weimar Republic, which kind of collapsed and then ushered in the whole Hitler thing.

But if you had millions and millions of marks, all of a sudden, like virtually overnight, you had nothing. You know, you could put all those marks into a wheelbarrow, take them down there and get, you know, maybe a quart of milk or a loaf of bread because that's how bad inflation was.

Now there was a point here in Zimbabwe just a couple of years ago where the inflation rate was 4 ,000%. So by the time you made it, it was almost worthless. And that's how wealth is. It just kind of sprouts wings and it flies.

Focusing on money can also lead to pride. Proverbs 28, 11 says, A rich man is wise in his own eyes. Again, it's that kind of self-reliance. You want to learn a lot about money, read the Proverbs. A lot of wisdom there about money.

But the love of money ultimately is what? Idolatry. We read this last week, so I'm just going to read the end verse of this in Matthew 6, verse 24. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money. Does that mean in no way can you be... You know, the old saying, you can't serve two masters, isn't quite true because in the ancient world, you could technically serve two masters.

But this is talking about with your whole heart, and you can't do it. Listen to what James Montgomery Boyce says. This is a story that Pastor Mike has told, but I think he skips over the ending, so I'm going to go on one better.

James Montgomery Boyce tells a story that Martin Lloyd-Jones gets to, and I wanted the Boyce part, which is what I'm adding. So, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones tells of a farmer who reported happily to his wife that his best cow had given birth to twin calves, one red and one white.

The farmer says, you know, I have been led of the Lord to dedicate one of the calves to him. We will raise them together. Then when the time comes to sell them, we will keep the money from the one calf and give the money from the other to the Lord.

His wife asked which one he was going to dedicate to the Lord, but he answered there was no need to decide that now since he was going to treat them both alike. Several months later, he came to the kitchen looking very sad.

When his wife asked him what the troubling news was, he answered, I have bad news. The Lord's calf is dead. His wife says, but you had not decided which was to be the Lord's calf. The farmer says, oh yes, I had always determined that it was to be the white one, and it is the white one that has died.

James Montgomery Boyce says, sadly, it is always that way with us. It is always the Lord's calf that dies. Unless we decide from the beginning that we are here to serve God above everything else and that everything we possess has been given to us by God and is to be held in stewardship for him.