What We Do Now Matters Then

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Thank you. Can you be seated? Well, good morning. How are we doing today? I’m doing good. We got three people. All right, fantastic. Well, it’s good to see you this morning. For you, that may be new. My name is Virgil Grant. I’m the senior pastor here at Eastside, and I’m one of the leaders around here. And four weeks ago, we began a sermon series called Slay the Monster. And we were. We were talking about how God wants us to have financial freedom in our lives so that we can focus on worshiping him, focus on living all in life. This sermon series is not about trying to get more money out of Christians. It’s not trying to make you feel guilty for not giving if you’re not giving. This is not to make you feel shame for all the dumb, stupid mistakes that you’ve made historically in your life. When it comes to finances because Rose and I we’ve made plenty of mistakes financially. And so it’s none of that. It’s all about teaching you God’s principles from His word so that you can be set free financially. And we’ve been on quite a journey and over the last four weeks, because we had, you know, their special speaker Ian Morgan in there over the last four weeks. We’ve had all kinds of wonderful things take place. 

Some people, some families, they’ve started an emergency fund. And remember that one of the simple things that Dave Ramsey talks about to financial freedom as we come up with an emergency fund is that they, you know, $1,000 as an emergency fund. That thousand dollars in the emergency fund does what it helps you to be prepared for any type of emergency, and you don’t feel overwhelmed. And then some of you have gone beyond that. You’ve already got your emergency fund established, and now you’re doing the debt snowball. And what you’re doing is you paid all the minimum payments on all of your credit cards, all of your debt, but you’re taking your smallest debt, and you’re applying every bit of extra money toward that. You’re getting that paid off, and you take all of that money, and you’re applying it to the second lowest debt, and you just snowball and try to get rid of your debt. For some of you, for the very first time, you have established a budget and a budget. It’s just telling your money where it’s going rather than your money telling you where it went. And then, for some of you, you’ve actually cultivated our heart of generosity. And we’ve seen all kinds of movement in all four of these areas and other areas in the financial world. And I’m just super, super proud of each and every one of you. And today, if you have your Bible or your Bible, I want you to turn with me or click with me to Matthew chapter 25. If you don’t have a Bible with the Bible up, all the verses will be on the screen. And a couple weeks ago, when we launched the sermon series, we actually looked at the parable of the talent in Matthew chapter 25. And I want to go back to Matthew chapter 25, and I want to revisit that story once again. And if you remember the story, the talent, or the story of the parable, the gold bags, there was this owner. He was very wealthy. He takes his money. He divides it out among three of his servants that we know of. And then he tells them to go in to take care of his money, and that one day they would have to give an account of that. And so, as we begin the story, it’s in verse 14 or 15. This kind of gives us a picture. 

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”

Matthew 25:14-15 (NIV)

Now again, please notice that the master doesn’t tell his servants how long he’s going to be gone. When he’s going to come back. All he gives to them is the different bags of gold. Five, two in one now, a bag of gold. You might be wondering how much is the value of the bag of gold? Is it $100? Is it 5000? Is it 10,000? Well, the best equation that we can do, the translation that we can make, is that. One bag of gold would be equated to about $400,000 in today’s terms. And so it was a lot of money that the owner entrusted to his servants. Now, the important thing for you to remember in this opening scene here is this phrase, his wealth. It was his wealth. It was the owners. It was the master’s money that he was entrusting to his servants to invest on his behalf. And so let’s look and see what the servants do with the money. Look at the next slide. Matthew Chapter 25, Verses 16 to 19. 

“The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.”

Matthew 25:16-19 (NIV)

The master distributes his wealth. He goes on a journey. He comes back, and he holds them accountable for what they did with his wealth. And one day, may I remind you that God himself is going to come back, and He’s going to hold you and me accountable for what we have done with his wealth. Because as we said in week one, God owns everything. We are just the servants entrusted with his wealth. And one day we have to give an account for that. And so this is the reason why I want to focus on this phrase and look at it with you on the screen. 

What we do NOW matters THEN. 

Say that to me. What we do now matters then. One more time. What we do now matters then. And I want to take this phrase. And I want to apply it to the five-bag people. The two-bag people and the one-bag people. And so what five-bag people do now matters. Then look with me at verse 16, if you will. 

“The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five more bags. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.”

Matthew 25:19-20 (NIV)

Now, folks, if you get serious about implementing the principles that we’ve been looking at from God’s Word, one of the things that are going to happen is that God’s going to be able to entrust to you more and more of these resources. See, folks, some of you are five-bag people. I mean, everything about you, it’s more it’s about more risk. It’s about more opportunity. It’s about more responsibility, more expectations, more pressure, more scrutiny, and more temptation. And this parable, if you are a five-bag type of person, is that you should be encouraged by this story because, in this story, the rich person is the hero of the story. Now, think about that. The rich person is the hero of the story because we know a lot of times when Jesus tells the story, it’s not the rich person who’s the hero, but it’s the poor person who is that. Notice what the owner said. The owner said, Well done. Good and faithful servant. Come and share your master’s happiness. Now, folks, if you are a Bob bag type of person, it’s your job not to hoard the resources that God has given to you. Your job is to put the resources into play to expand the Kingdom of God. But the problem is, is that when we get larger and larger bags of money, you can say, I know I’m not a five-bag person; I’m an eight or nine-bag type of person who knows who’s in the room. Right. But here’s the temptation. The temptation is, is that we begin to misuse God’s money. See, here’s the thing. As you know, when you’re making $50,000 a year, you know, a tithe, which is the starting place. And we’ll talk about that some other day. But the starting point is roughly $96 a week. And at 50,000, you go, you know what, I can do that. I can do that, no problem, because that’s kind of like a dinner in a movie with your spouse. And I’ll give $96 a week to the Lord. But you know what? When you make $250,000 a year, you know, if the tide goes to, the starting place goes too. It’s 2000 a month, and we go, you know what? I can’t give the Lord that much. I can’t give him that. I trust the church that much. Because you know what? I could take that money, and I can lease myself a BMW. And the escalating saga. I have two nice vehicles in the garage. And the temptation is for you. It’s for you to determine how much of your wealth you should give to God rather than trusting God’s principles. And the temptation is the five-bag type of people to misuse God’s wealth that he’s entrusted to them. But the story goes on to teach us. 

What 2-BAG people do NOW matters THEN! 

There’s a humbling phrase from verses 14-15 that I’ve been thinking about. Go back to Matthew chapter 25, verses 14-15. Notice what it says.

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”

Matthew 25:14-15 (NIV)

 God gave each according to their ability. So some people have five bags. Some people have two. And my suspicion is that most of us in the room here today kind of associate with a two-bag person in the story. It’s not I think we have tremendous wealth, but God has blessed us, and we have some resources. So we’re not the five-bag. We’re not one bag, but we can identify with the two bags. And so, but let me just say something to you as a two-bag person that I consider myself and most of you. Are there some temptations that you and I have that we have to deal with? And there are primarily two temptations that two back people deal with. The first temptation is that. 

We get jealous of the 5-bag people. 

Everyone gets to them. Give a testimony about that, you know, hey, man, here they are. They got a six-bedroom house. They drive a $150,000 automobile. They go on these exotic vacations, you know, and here I am, poor, pitiful me. I just get to go to Florida once a week for a year. Now, did you know all the exotic places? But there’s a tendency for us, instead of being grateful for what God has blessed us with, we get envious, and we get jealous of those who are five-bag people. And folks listen to me. Jealousy and envy, and resentment are all signs of greed and immaturity. And so, as two-bag people, we can be envious of those who have five bags. But look at this. Notice the second temptation. The second temptation is to have. 

A condescending spirit toward the 1-bag person. 

We think that we can be better than the one bag, because why? We have two bags. But, folks, can I remind you that the most powerful person who’s ever walked on earth only owned the clothes that were on his back. He had no wealth whatsoever. And it was Jesus Christ. Is it, folks, that you’re worth? It’s not determined by your wealth. Your worth is determined by what Jesus Christ did on the cross when he died for your sins so that you could have eternal life. And folks, I find that it’s very interesting that what the owner, what God said to the five-bag person, exactly what he said to the two-bag person. He said the very exact same thing. What did he say? Well done, my good. And what? Faithful servant. And if you are a two-bag person here this morning or with family, you have to understand that you have a responsibility that God wants to do something in your life. And he’s not requiring that you somehow or another give some big gift to the donation to the church or to the kingdom of God. But what God wants you to do, God wants you to step into generosity. Look with me at Malachi, chapter three, and I want you to notice something here. Very importantly is that when this was written, this was not just written to wealthy people but this was written to. Two bag people, to one bag people. And notice what it says. And God says. 

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse … because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.‘Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, land see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'”

Malachi 3:8-10 (NIV)

And so listen to me. Two bag people, God is challenging you to step into generosity. God is challenging you to step into generosity so that he can pour out his blessings on your life. Now, folks, I don’t know about you, but I’m grateful for my mom and dad. My mom and dad taught me a lot of lessons. And, you know, I don’t know about you, but the most powerful preacher that I’ve ever heard in my life was my mother. And she had laid down the hammer. Do you know what I’m talking about? I mean, she could put down the word of God. She could peel paint off a wall. I mean, my parents taught me it gave me a great foundation. And one of the things that my mom and dad taught my siblings and me at a very early age was that everything belonged to God, that everything that we have is a family, and that everything that you have as an individual belongs to God. God is the owner. We’re just the manager. From very day one, our parents taught us that principle. Now, let me just say that they taught us that we should give back as a way of recognizing that God owns it all. Can I just be honest with you? I have not always been faithful in reading my Bible. I have always been faithful in praying. I haven’t always been faithful in a lot of spiritual disciplines in my life. But can I tell you the one spiritual discipline that I’ve been the most consistent in my entire life, and that is giving back to the Lord and making him first in my life with the finances that He is blessed me with? Whether I was making $4.10 an hour back in the early eighties to my first paycheck here, to the paycheck that I’m receiving now, that Rose and I the one area that we can say that if you want to say where’s the area that we’ve been the most faithful, we have been the most faithful in the spiritual discipline of giving, because why it is what was taught to us from a very early age. And so you have to understand that what you do now matters then. And what does God say to the one-bag person? Here’s what I think about a lot of you. I think for a lot of you, you think because you’re one bag person, you get a get-out-of-jail-free card. If you’re here and you consider yourself a one-bag person, I want you to listen to what God has to say to you. Okay. Is it fair? And this is all in peace and love. All in peace and love. Look what it says. The one-bag guy goes, and he buries his treasure. And he made some serious mistakes. Look at Matthew chapter 25. 

“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

Matthew 25:24-27 (NIV)

When he’d finished all of his excuses. The master condemns him, and the owner takes one bag of gold. And who does it give the one bag of gold to? He gives it to the guy with five bags of gold, who turns it into ten bags of gold. Now, most of the time, I have already said this. Most of the time in the Bible, it’s the poor who is the hero of the story. But in this particular case, it is the rich person who’s the hero of the story. Now, why does God points all this out? Because here’s the reason why I believe God points out this is that none of us can say. The giving doesn’t apply to me. Now, let me just talk to the people who would consider themself a one-bag person or one-bag family. Or maybe you would consider yourself under-resourced. There are a lot of different reasons why you could consider yourself under-resourced. You could be on a fixed income. You could be a college student. You could be a high school student. You could be just starting out, just graduating from college, and landing your first job. I mean, there are a hundred different reasons why you could be under-resourced at this moment. But for whatever reason, your income is low. But what this parable teaches us is that you are not exempt from making the most of what God has blessed you with and that your master expects you to work hard to earn money the right way, to spend it wisely, and to be generous. Notice what it says in Luke chapter 16, verse ten. 

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.”

Luke 16:10 (NIV)

And the issue comes down to this can you trust God in the area of your finances? Can you trust God? Can you trust God? Who saved you from hell, Forgiving you of your sins. Written your name in the book of heaven. Giving you eternal life. Giving you a fresh start. Can you trust God with your finances? Now, here’s what I know. That we are living a culture. We’re giving is not emphasized. We live in a culture where giving is usually not taught to children. It’s like, honey, just spend everything that you get. You saw. You deserve everything you get. Just spend it on you. And as a result of that, there’s. Hundreds and hundreds of people in their church. In a community of faith that is never given to the causes of the kingdom of God. And this is not to make you feel guilty. This is to help you to start the journey. And so, how should you start the journey? Well, this is what I would do if I was sitting in your seat. Is that in the next week or two? I will make it a priority too. 

GIVE A FIRST-TIME GIFT

Can you imagine 100 families in our church who’s never given to the kingdom cause they would just say, you know what? I’m going to give for the very first time to the church. It doesn’t have to be today. You may not be prepared to do that. You may have already spent all of your checks from Friday, and you should have enough to get through to next Friday. It’s okay. Just the next week or two. But what would happen? What would that do to the heart of God? See, folks, let me just say something. So we think finances is about the church needing your money, your God needing your money. That’s not what it’s about. What God is after is your heart. And he can’t have your heart if money is consuming your heart. And so the way that you give God your heart is you release those things that have a grasp or clutch on your heart. So what? What? A good way would it be just for you to say, God, I just want to start recognizing that you own it all. Just give a first-time gift the amount. Does it matter? It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to God. God just wants to know. Are you just taking a step in the right direction? 

See, for some of you, as you give. But you’re not consistent with your gift. You’re not consistent with the amount. You know, we’d like for some of you, here’s what you do is that you give when you come to church, like twice a month. You give right now what you could do. Here’s what I would challenge you to do just. 

JOIN OUR GENEROSITY ROCKSTAR TEAM. 

And what that means is that you go to our website and you set up a profile, you set up online giving, then you sign up to do it on a weekly basis or every other week when you get paid. And this way, you become consistent and persistent, and you build that muscle of faith in generosity. It’s simple, it’s safe, and it’s secure. This is what me and my family we’ve been doing ever since we started online giving. Because you know why? Because that’s the area that we’ve been the most faithful in. And it’s just our way of saying the God, you own it all. For some of you, you have moved beyond generosity, rockstar, and you’ve kind of like given a percentage of your income. You’ve. 

BECOME A REGULAR PERCENTAGE GIVER.  

And you’re given 2% or 3% of your income. You know, if I was you, what I would do is I can take me to 5%? Can I take it to six? And see, it doesn’t matter just that you’re on the journey, you know. Here’s what the Bible teaches 10% of your money is the starting place in giving to God. It’s not the end. We think that God is the end. No, 10% is the starting point. And we’re just trying to help people get on that journey. You can’t get there overnight. You can’t get there with one paycheck. It takes time. And so for some of you just percentage, you’re at three or 4%. You want to move to five. For some of you, you’re on auto draft, which means that you’re on autopilot. Do you know what I’m saying? As you said, forget it. And you just it just comes out of your bank. That’s where it happens with Rose and me. And a couple of weeks ago, as I was preparing this message, I went, Well, I’m on autopilot. And I just went in online, and I just upped our giving, you know, for some of you go, well, I don’t need up my giving because you’re on autopilot, an auto draft, maybe what you can do is just. 

BECOME A SACRIFICIAL GIVER. 

You can just like make a one-time offering to the Lord, and you just look back over 20, 22, and you go, Lord, all the blessings that you have given me and my family and my company and my employees, here we go. We just, you know, we give all the employees a bonus, but this year we’re going to give you a bonus. You know, you can do something like that. And again, this is about God desiring your heart. This is not about Eastside needing your money. This is not about God needing your money. God wants your heart. And see, folks. Let me kind of close it out with this story in the Old Testament. The tradition was that whenever the firstborn was born to their mother, whether it was a goat, a lamb, or a calf. The tradition was, is that when a mother gave birth to the firstborn, is that the farmer, the owner of that firstborn, would get his family together. They would take that lamb and they would take it to the temple, and then they would take it to the priest. And the priest would do what? Sacrifice it. Now, Leviticus 27 tells us that this is what protocol is. Now you can imagine that there is this. Rancher. And he’s got goat and he’s got cattle and he’s got sheep. But he’s got a couple of kids. And his son comes running in one day, and he says, Hey, dad, we just got a brand new lamb. And they all go out, and they see this cute little lamb. And the dad goes, Well, that’s the first one of this mother. So, son, let’s get the little lamb together. Let’s all go down to the temple. And they all go down to the temple. They give the little lamb to the priest. The priest sacrifices it. Then, later on, the son grows up. And now the son is taking over the ranch, taking over the bookkeeping. And he goes, Hey, Dad, can I have a conversation with you? We need to talk about the finances of the ranch. And yeah, well, what we would talk about. He said, Well, you know, I’ve noticed something that you do, and you’ve done it my entire life, and I’m talking about this, that every time that a mother gives birth to the first child. Whether it’s a cow, a goat, or a lamb. You take that firstborn. We will take you down to the temple. And Dad, I’m in charge of bookkeeping and finances are really tight. And we need to somehow or another, we need to cut some expenses. I don’t know if you know this or not, but we’ve taken 72 animals to the temple this year. 72, don’t you think we cut back just a little bit, Dad? And the dad goes,. 

Son, sit down. Let me tell you something. I’ve never told you this before, but let me say it to you. Is that you need to understand something about our history. Is that your mother and we were in slavery. We were part of building pyramids and walls and cities for the Egyptians. We were under harsh slavery. We were not even treated like human beings. We worked from daylight to dark seven days a week. Never a day off. And we cried out to God when we cried out to God. God heard our cry, and he sent us this guy. The Moses and Moses, God used him in a great, mighty way, and he led the nation of Israel out of captivity. And if because we’ve been led out of captivity, we’re no longer slaves. And that’s how we became ranchers. And because you, you know, we experience death every day, there would be somebody that would die because of the anger of the soldiers of the Egyptian army. But, you know, you’re not witnessing any death. You’ve not witnessed or experienced any slavery. You’ve not experienced hard labor in the hot sun day after day. And, of course, we’re going to give God the first offering of every animal because it is our way of acknowledging the goodness and mercy, and grace of God in our life. Then you fast-forward it to 5000 years later. And you sit down at your kitchen counter, you pull out your computer and your iPad, and your teenage daughter walks by and says, Hey, dad, what are you doing? And you go, Well, honey, I’m setting up online, giving at the church. Come over here. I want you to see this. And she looks at the amount and she goes, Dad, you’re giving that much money to the church. What are you doing? Are you crazy? No, no, honey, sit down. Can I tell you something? Is that your dad has not always been a good man. I just want you to know that your dad used to be mean-spirited, full of anger, a womanizer, and abusive. Your dad was a bad person. But one day, somebody at work invited me to come to church. I went to church. And when I went to church, I met God, and God met me, and God forgave me of my sins, wrote my name in the Book of Heaven, gave me a fresh start, gave your mother and me a fresh start. Created a new heart in me. And because of that, you better believe that we’re going to honor God with the first of our income. And see, folks, That’s what God’s after is your heart. Not your money. And we believe that it’s about the money and not the heart. We will not give. But when we understand that it’s about the heart and not the money. We’ll say yes to God every single time. Would you pray with me, please? 

Father, This morning. Thank you. For chasing after hearts. Thank you. That is your wisdom that you’ve given accordingly to our abilities to some of the room. You’ve given thought bags of gold to others too, and others still one. The Lord, you know what you’re doing. And Lord, you want us to take what you’ve given to us and understand that it all belongs to you. You want us to. To be a steward, to be a manager of it. You want us to. Invest it in the kingdom. You want to push back the darkness in the world and farther as people this coming week or in the weeks to come will make the first-time gift. Father, that would be a monumental moment. As they will say, God, do you have first place in my heart? For those who join the generosity rock star, a man-giving teen father, they’ll build that muscle of faith quicker and faster because of that. For those, he’s going to up there give percentage-wise. It’s just they’re on the journey of giving you more and more of their hearts. And for those who can make a sacrificial gift, the father, we know that you will honor their gifts as well. And father. I just pray that we can learn collectively what it means to trust wholly in you. Father. We ask him, Pray these things in the name of Jesus. And everyone agreed and said together. Amen.