Do you find people amazing? I find people both amazing and amusing. And I'm absolutely certain when people look at my life, they find my life both amazing and amusing. It takes a lifetime to learn the grace of giving, that other people's needs are more important than our own. And then the problem is when we get older, we begin to have needs that we cannot meet ourselves, and we have to start receiving. So we spend our lives learning the grace of giving, and then when we get older, we have to learn the grace of receiving. And if you worked hard all your life, and most of us have done that, and you get older, why, you find it just kind of contrary for people to be doing things for you. But giving is very, very important for the giver and the receiver both. That God would allow us to come into a very intimate, warm, personal relationship with himself. That God would treasure us, would treasure our lives, would be concerned about our needs and our feelings, would take an interest in our personal lives. That's an amazing thought. That's an amazing thought, that God would do that. And yet, why did God create us in the first place? He could have created more trees, more flowers, more rivers. But he decided, being a personal God, a great triune God, being intensely personal in his own nature, he decided that he would make man in his own image and in his own likeness with a capacity to love him and know him and walk with him. I've been reading through Genesis. I just finished my whole Bible through and I'm going through it again. I just keep going through it. And so I started in Genesis again. And God's out walking in the garden and in the heat of the day, and Adam has just disappeared from the scene. Gone. He would walk out there every day and expect to find Adam and Eve there, and Adam wasn't there. Of course, God knew everything, but God was appearing, I think, in human form, probably. I'm just guessing at that. God says, Adam, where are you? Where are you? And Adam's life had turned upside down because sin came into the picture, and all of creation was ruined. And then I got to Genesis 6, and I read this unusual man. This man who had three sons, three daughters, three daughter-in-laws, had a wife, but it says he walked with God. He and God just got along together, they walked with God, walked together. In fact, in chapter three, Enoch walked with God. Took a long walk one day and went to heaven, never came home. Enoch walked with God. So we have the privilege, we have the privilege of living life in a very special, very personal relationship with God. And we celebrate this Christmas season of the year The reason this is possible is because God dealt with that sin issue through his son Jesus Christ, dying for our sins on the cross. So, when our relationship with God changes, now this is wake-up time, when our relationship with God changes, then our relationship with our world changes. That's our relationship with people in the world, relationship with material things. Our total relationship with the world changes totally when our relationship with God changes. And before we are saved, our life is all about us. But when we come into this saving relationship through Jesus Christ with God the Father, then everything becomes about him. We've titled the message, Managing God's Resources. And I'll just, by way of review, notice the important concepts at the top of the page, the first page. God is the creator of everything. God is intelligent, infinitely wise, and God created everything with design, plan, and purpose, and God has created everything for himself. He made it for himself, he didn't make it for anyone but himself, and the highest form of existence is that which does, that for which it was created. God's the creator of everything. I'm a created being, I'm a creature, and I'm living on God's planet, and God is the owner of everything. God owns everything in nature. God owns everything in the animal kingdom. He owns everything in man's world, man himself. God's the owner of everything. And my proper relationship with my world is that I'm a manager of those things within my world. I'm managing somebody else's property, somebody else's money, somebody else's time, somebody else's resources. I'm a manager. that which God has placed in my world. He puts me in my world and he gives this world to me, and I'm the manager of those things within this world. And number five, I am accountable to God. God expects me to invest that which he has given me and to make an increase, which means a profit, and God expects to receive a share of that increase visibly, tangibly, And of course, as far as dedicating the whole to him is concerned, that needs to be done. So, we went to the middle of the page from whom have we received everything we have, and really from God. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the shelter over our heads, everything is a gift, every good and perfect gift comes from above. God has been generous to us to the extent that he sent his uniquely begotten Son into the world, that we might not perish but have everlasting life. And so we have the conclusion toward the bottom of the page, the earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle upon a thousand hills, the silver is mine, the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. So we're managers. We're managers of somebody else's estate. And it's God's property and we manage it. What is the proper response toward God's generosity toward us? And as we come to this service today, one of the things so often I pray, I will pray it here and I will pray it at home as I pray and prepare my heart for the services on Sunday. I ask God that he might fill our hearts with gratitude and praise. That is so important. That is so important. When we pour out our hearts and gratitude and praise, it is a recognition of God's goodness in our lives. And what happens in the normal course of events is that life gets to be ho-hum and hum-drum, and life becomes very difficult, and we begin to focus on the difficulties, and we lose sight of the benefits and blessings. I remember the hypnotist we had that attended this church, and he was not one of these occult hypnotists that would swing a watch in front of you. He was a thought-managing guy, and he said it was very practical. He said, so you're on there, you're putting a nail down, anybody tried to pound a nail in? Everybody here's pounded a nail? Anybody here hasn't? And you take the nail, and you take what? and you hopefully hit the nail, but ultimately you end up hitting your thumb, the other nail. And you smash your thumb and your whole body is in a state of perfect health. But what do you think about all day? What do you think about all day? Help me. What do you think about all day? You think about that thumb. It's a distraction. And what happens in life is we can have a life that is abounding with blessing, abounding with provision. We can have a life that is filled with good things and lose sight of the whole business and end up complaining. So it is so important that we get together just for the purpose of saying, look, God has been good. God is a good God. He's a great God. In the last scripture on the bottom of that first page, thou shalt remember Yahweh thy God. It is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that him may establish his covenant which he swear unto thy fathers, as it is this day. Remember Yahweh your God. He's the one who gives you the power to make wealth. You and I will not show up at work if God does not give us the strength to do so. and the health to do so, and the mental capacity to do so. It's He who enables you to have what you have. The ability to have what you have comes from Him because of His goodness. When we talk about tithes and offerings, we need to get a perspective on this whole business. I was thinking about this. What should be my philosophy? Do you have a philosophy of life? Do you have a way of thinking that governs how you live and how you feel about things? What should be the goal of life for every believing child of God? Now God has called us to different vocations. Some of us are retired. Some of us are in the business world. Some of us are in the medical world. Some of us are in the financial world. Some of us are just in the service world. We're doing other things. All of us are in a different part of our world. But what should be the overreaching desire of our hearts and our lives as individuals in the world in which God has placed us. That's our world, okay? So how should we view this thing? Think about that very carefully. My goal in life, and I think it should be the goal of every believer, my goal in life is to take everything in my world and bring it into God's service, God's ministry. What do you think about that? What do you think? Think it through. Everything in my world, bring it into the glorifying God and bringing it into the service of God. Is that true? That should be my goal in life. Take everything in my world and bring it to God and lay it at His feet so that it will accomplish His purposes. My business should accomplish His purpose. My work, whether the job is a clerk or mechanic, that should serve the purposes of bringing everything in my world to serve the purposes of God. And so when I give tithes and offerings, that's just a part of that big picture. That's just a smaller part of the bigger picture. And if the bigger picture isn't in place, generally the smaller part isn't. Because the bigger part isn't. So, we respond to God's generosity to us, His greatness, His goodness, and we seek to take our whole world and gather it up and lay it at His feet so that everything in our world and in our life accomplishes divine purpose. That's a good way to live. What do you think? Are you all thinking? That's important to me, okay? It's important to me you're thinking these things through, okay? Because everything you can legitimately do in life can be brought to God's feet to serve His purposes. Everything. Everything! Okay? Not just some things, but everything can do that. So we go to page two, and we have the question about accountability. Accountability. Very interesting that we go to Matthew 25 here, and you have the parable of the talents. The talents are large sums of money. I don't know if they're worth a million dollars or not, but they're worth more than five or $10, I will promise you that. A talent of gold is worth a lot of money. And the kingdom of heaven's like the man who traveled into a far country. He was evidently very wealthy. He called his servants, and that's what we are, are we not? We are God's people, every one of us should be God's servants. Huh? Huh? All right, we're God's servants. And he delivered unto them his goods. And I like that, it's a wonderful picture because what you and I have doesn't belong to us, God gave it to us for divine purpose. And we have the joy of managing it so that it might accomplish his purposes, top to bottom. He's the owner. We're the manager. He delivered under them his goods. And of course, he decided who would get what and under what circumstances. And God does that. And we wonder, you know, was God fair? The one guy got five, and then the poor guy, one guy got $5 million. The one guy got only $1 million. I mean, poor guy. We feel sorry for that guy. And we say, oh, listen, God has been getting here. Let's forget about that stuff. God's generous with everybody, yes? He decides what to give us. He decides what our world will be. Because if you put us all in the same world, then the rest of the world wouldn't have any ministry, correct? Correct? If you put us all to doing the same thing, there'd be no ministry out there in the world. It'd all be in one place, correct? We'd be like going to church every day. Huh? Yes or no? So he puts us all out in a different part of the world. He puts us all out there with his goods, with his abilities, his capacities that he's given to us. We're all different because he has a different purpose for every one of us. If you have a different purpose, you do things differently. How would you like to be the same as everybody else when nobody else was any different than you? I have four children. Boy, are they different. Now thank God they're different. I wouldn't want four exactly the same. Wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want 150 church members that all had the same gifts. Are you getting this? Are you getting this? I wouldn't want 150 church members that all did the same thing. Suppose they were all cooks. Who would eat? Suppose they were all mechanics, nobody would cook. So he galls his guys together and he gives to them his goods, he delivers unto them his money, his resources, okay? That's what he does to us, every one of us. Everybody here has resources, divinely given resources, and given to you to minister in a different world than anybody else, okay? So we are managers, and of course, in the end of this thing, after a long time, he wasn't in a hurry, and that frustrates all of us. We think God ought to be in a hurry like we are, but he's not in a hurry like we are. One day is with the Lord is a thousand years, a thousand years is one day, and that really frustrates the daylights out of all of us. You can say amen to that. God isn't in a hurry, and we don't like that. Say amen. Come on. All right. God isn't in a hurry, we are. So after a long time, he comes back and he says, now look, what did you do with my stuff? First guy said, well, he said, look, I invested it and I've got some increase here. Oh, he says, well done, good and faithful servant. The second guy comes, he said, what'd you do with what I gave? Oh, he said, I went and did, he said, I didn't get the five talents, but I had two and I took the two and I did what I could with two. And here, oh, he says, well done, good and faithful servant. So he was happy. He wasn't happy because the guy with the five talents got more than the guy with the two. That had nothing to do with it. Both of them did the same thing, worked the same way, had the same attitude, made the same kind of investments, and both of them made an increase, and that's what he wanted, and he got it. He was very happy with both of them. The last guy comes up and he says, look, he says, I got mad at you because you gave five to him and two to him, and all you are is you want to take my life and make money off of it. You're a hard man. Now anybody that knows God knows that God doesn't do that. God doesn't use people. We use people sometimes to get what we want, but God does not do that. God will have love from us, not involuntary servitude. So this guy had it all wrong. His relationship with God was totally off base. He said, you wicked and lazy servants, you're making a poor excuse for the wickedness of your own heart. I'm God and you're not. You want to be God and you want me to be your servant. You know, most people think God is a divine ATM machine. He's not. So, this guy had it all wrong. So there's an accountability. Now, if you have five talents, you better give five times the increase. You have two talents, you know, God will straighten that stuff out. Don't worry about how much you've got, just use what you do have. And in the middle of the page, to whom will we be accountable? Paul says, so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Doesn't matter how we compare with other people, and that is in that context in Romans 14, doesn't matter how we compare in gifts with other people, doesn't matter who's gifted and who's not, everyone gives account of himself, not somebody else. We give account for our world, for our gifts, for our abilities, for what God has given to us, we are accountable to God. A little section on living on credit. This is in our discipleship series. And a couple of verses, the rich rules over the poor, the borrower is servant to the lender. Boy, we learned the hard way on this. The wicked borrows and pays not again, the righteous shows mercy, he's generous and he gives. It is a bad thing. These credit cards have really, really done a bad number on Christians. There are a couple of things. If you don't have credit, then you have to live on what you have. Is that right? And if you don't think you have enough, then what do you have to do? You have to figure out how to more wisely use what you do have, or you have to pray for more. You know, prayer is wonderful when you walk in the will of God. That's how I got my first car. I asked God for it because I had no money, my parents had no money, and I had to pray for it. God gave me a car. I asked him for it. I didn't ask anybody else for it either. So, this business of credit, and usually we use credit cards because we buy more than we really need. We buy because we want, not because we need. Now if you are savvy, you can use credit cards, and if you're not, you ought to grind them up. We use a lot of credit, we use our credit cards a lot in the church. When I went to Japan to Martha Cochran's funeral, we had enough miles on one credit card, we pay them off every month. We don't pay interest. We had enough Credit on one of our cards paid $2,000 of my airfare to Japan off of using a credit card. If you're savvy, you know how to play the system. But the system usually plays you. And you end up buying things that you want but you don't need. And then you end up as a slave to the credit card company. And the Bible warns about that. Don't do that. Don't do that. So you need to be very, very careful as to how you manage the resources you have. There's a note there in the middle of the page. Living beyond one's means is a fruit of covetousness, which means to want more. When we desire more than we can afford, it leads to financial bondage. And may I say it leads to a lack of dependence on God. Have you ever had to pay for your rent money? Have you ever had to pray for you? Did I say pay or pray? Have you ever had to pray for your rent money? Have you ever had to? Usually we borrow the money. Is it a genuine need? Jesus said, go to the credit card company and you shall receive. What did Jesus say? He said, ask and you shall receive. Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. God knows about genuine needs. And When it comes to tithes and offerings, we look at our resources and we say, I can't afford to do that. But that's not the way it works. Because God is the one who gives us the money in the first place. God's in charge of how this all works out. And if we can't, see, we use the credit card instead of God. Can I have an amen on that one? Yes or no? We use the credit card instead of God. And then when it comes to tithes and offerings, we don't believe God can meet our needs if we pay the tithe. Because we've never asked God, we've never been in the place we've had to ask. Let me repeat what I've told you several times. When God called me to preach, I told God, I said, now God, if you do not answer my prayers, I cannot preach for you. I have to know that you keep your word. I have to know that. I have to know that. I have to know it by experience. And time and time again in my life, God has met my needs through prayer. You really sell yourself short if you're looking other places than God for your financial security. And it's doubly hard to give tithes and offerings when you live that way. You're in debt? How can you afford to tithe? Some of us pay fifteen, twenty percent of our income to credit companies. If we lived right, we could pay that to God. God's the owner of everything. I'm just a manager of His resources. Going on down on page two, what is the basic idea in the word tithe, both numerically and spiritually? This is interesting. I don't know what time we've got left here, but let's go to Genesis 28-22. Do you see that in your notes? What is the basic idea in the word tithe? Genesis 28-22, this stone which I have set for a pillar. Now this is Jacob here. Jacob's talking with God, wrestling with God, and he's resolving, he's at a point in his life where where he has no certainty of future. He's going back to find a wife. He's leaving home. His brother is threatening to kill him. And he is at a point in life where he is at a real crisis. And this stone, he says, which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth to thee. Surely give the tenth to thee. The tenth, the word tenth and the word tithe in the Hebrew have the same root, the same root word. Tithe means tenth. Tenth means tithe, as you go through the Old Testament. Those two words just come right back to the same Hebrew word, root, if you please. What is a tenth? I like it when I go to Japan, because they have a system... My mind just pulled a blank on me. The Japanese... Huh? The yens, the yens, the yens, the yens. 1,000 yens is $10. You just take the decimal point and you put it back. I mean, that's approximate, that's not accurate, but that's approximate. If you see something that says 10,000 yens, 10,000 yen is $100. You just put the decimal point back, two, you see. And I like it because in your mind, you can look at the price on the Japanese menu or in the Japanese store. If it's 3 million yen, what is it, 30,000, 300,000? You have to put the decimal point in, two zeros up, and you've got it, OK? You've got it. A tithe is a tenth. A tenth is a tithe, either one. And in Leviticus 17 concerning the tithe of the herd, that's the tenth of the herd or the flock, even whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. And basically what God said is in order to maintain the worship of God, and the teaching of the law and the sacrificial system, in order to maintain the people's proper relationship with God, there should be a tenth of the gross income that comes in that should go toward the service of God and toward the temple sacrifices, toward that system. So that was set up under Moses in Leviticus. But notice in Genesis 28, Moses hadn't showed up yet. That's interesting. Moses wasn't anywhere around. Moses came 400 years later. So where'd the 10th come from? Where did Moses get it from? Where did Jesus get it from? Well, go to the last question on the bottom of the page. This is interesting. Maybe you can help me with this. The commentators can't and don't. The thing I don't like about commentaries is they don't answer the hard questions. They answer the easy questions and the obvious questions, but they don't answer the hard questions, okay? So who is the first person of record in the Bible who paid tithes? Well, the first person of record, you'll notice how I phrased that question, because most of the time, people would say, who is the first person? But the problem is, who was he, by the way? Abraham, that's right, blessed be God most high who has delivered thine enemies into thy hands. He gave Melchizedek tithes of all, okay? And you read of that in the book of Hebrews, okay? But where in the world did Melchizedek come from? Who is this Melchizedek guy? People only guess about that, but he was priest of the Most High God, and Abraham is paying tithes to him, giving him a tenth of the spoils. When the kings had had their war and Lot had been carried away captive, and Abraham with a couple of friends went and captured the enemy and got all of the spoils of war back and defeated the enemy, and he gave to Melchizedek a tenth of all, tithes of all. But where'd that come from? Say, where'd that all come from? Where is the first blood sacrifice in the whole Bible? Well, we guess at that one. We guess at that one. When you go back to Genesis chapter one and two and three, you have man falling into sin in chapter three, but you have in chapter four, you have Cain and Abel offering sacrifices. Did Adam offer sacrifices? Probably. But who made the first sacrifice? How did God get the skin off of the animal to clothe Adam and Eve? Maybe God made the first sacrifice. Who paid the first tithes? I have no idea, but it could have been Cain and Abel. I have no idea. But I know it wasn't Moses' invention. I know God had a way for men to recognize his ownership of their life and their world. It's always been there. Jacob, he knew what to do. If everything you give me, I'm going to give you a tithe. I'm going to give you a tenth. And he made a covenant with God on that place. And then he went back and got two wives, 12 sons, and came back a wealthy man. and honored God with all that he had. Giving the tenth did not make Jacob spiritual, it just revealed the spiritual character of his walk with God, huh? So, when you're looking at this thing, we get caught up in all of the mechanical details of this thing, and we lose sight of the big picture in life. I want to challenge you today before we go home. I want to challenge you today to just determine that you are going to take everything in your world and bring it to God's feet to serve Him. Not just the tenth hundred percent. If you do that, the tenth will come very easily. If you don't do that, the tenth will be impossible. Take your whole world. All your bank accounts, your house, your car, your job, your business, whatever you have, you take your whole world, you gather it up and you set it at God's feet so that through your world and you as a king presiding over the kingdom, your world becomes a kingdom of God in a sense. And you rule your world for God and for His glory. Are you getting this? It changes your life. You gather your whole world up and you bring it and sit it at God's feet to serve God's purposes. And nothing is excluded. Everything in your life, everything under your managerial domain, if I can call it that, everything is brought placed at God's feet to serve divine purpose, to glorify God. And part of that has to do with the ongoing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And our lives need to be given to that in a very, very visible way. So may God stir our hearts today.