Money & Our Mindset // 28 June 2026

Scott Wellard

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

We can breathe for a second. Alright, now we're not going to be moving and singing. We might cool down for a minute. See, it's easy for these guys. They got the fans on them. They're there worshiping happy. They got the fan on the rest of us feel like Jake in a cage. It's boiling. There's no fan on the preacher, so I'm in there with you guys. Alright? It's alright. No, I'm just filling time. So this week it was hot, right? 30 degrees on Wednesday, I think. Alright, okay. No worries. Yep, that's that's someone not British saying whoop whoop, that's someone from South Africa. But I get home from picking the kids up from school on Wednesday, and it was hot, it was not raining, and I said to Rachel, there was a lady walking very slowly in front of me for the whole way to school with an umbrella. And I looked at her like that confused me. And Rachel did the whole, oh sweetie, you ever heard that before? Oh, sweetie? Sounds like a kindergarten teacher about to speak to a kindergarten child about something they should have understood and they got wrong. But she gives me the, and I can say this because she's out praying for the kids. She said she can't heckle me now, right? But she says, Oh, sweetie, it's to give them shade from the sun. Like I should have known that. That should have been the obvious thinking in my brain. I was like, yeah, yeah, no, I I considered that, but the umbrella was clear. So I still laid awake at night recently thinking about this because it's only amplifying the situation. I don't think it's doing anything productive. So I'm still confused, but it but what I will tell is that lady with the clear umbrella on a 30-degree day, she looks so content. She is so happy. And isn't contentment wonderful? I want to speak a little bit about contentment, but before I get there, let me start with this. If through faith and repentance you have decided to follow Jesus, then he has given us this command that we all share. And it's to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength. And that's the foundation for godliness, to live a God-centered life that's about an inward devotion that ends up with outward results as we live to what we inwardly believe. It's a life that's lived to worship God. And so Paul, who wrote a lot of letters in the New Testament, wrote some advice to Timothy, a young believer. He wrote this godliness with contentment is great gain. So if godliness is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, what does it mean to be content? Now, a lot of the stuff I've read about being content talks much more about our relationship to our environment than our reaction to it, because it's speaking to something that's happening inwardly, not externally. But let's look at what the Bible talks about with contentment. It starts with this if we as believers trust in God's sovereignty, so this fundamental belief that he has the ultimate authority and power over all things, and then in response we submit so that he has that ultimate authority and power over our life, then that belief shifts the way we relate and react to our environment, and it's supposed to create peace. And from that place of peace, we find our identity and strength from his presence and provision. Does that make sense? There was a lot, I know. Godliness is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. Contentment is the trust in his sovereignty. And then if we do that, Paul says that equals great gain. Not great gain in the way the world sees great gain with wealth, status, possessions, because the Bible tells us they are all temporary. The great gain that Paul is talking about here is a Christ-like character and a peaceful trust that lasts forever. So obviously the topic today is money. But I don't know how we address that topic or even dance in that space without reminding ourselves of that as our starting point. That godliness is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and your soul, and contentment is trusting in his sovereignty. So now, as we narrow down and we look at money, how do we love the Lord our God in the way that we steward our money? And how do we trust his sovereignty over it? Let's look at that. So if we look at this advice that Paul gave to Timothy about godliness and contentment, it's followed with a warning. And the warning is this for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So Paul wants Timothy and all of us to know that the wrong relationship to our money is going to cause problems. It may cause us to walk away and it may cost us our faith. So our attitude and our relationship to that area of our life is extremely important. However, we've got to clear up the scripture because the scripture gets misquoted all the time. Because you will hear people say money is the root of all evil. That's not what the scripture said. It says this exactly money and the love of money is a a root of all kinds of evil. Not money is not the root of all evil. Sin is the root of all evil. Yep, we get that? Sin is the root of all evil. However, a love of money is a kind of root because money in itself is not prop the problem. It doesn't say money is a kind of root of all evil. It says that our love of money is the problem. So wealth is morally neutral, but when we focus on wealth, it can take control of us and lead us astray. He says, No one can serve two masters, either you hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. But to better understand that, Jesus tells us this story about a young rich man. I mean, we all sounded like that in 30 degrees, right? Nothing exposes how British we are more than 30 degrees. We complain about how cold it is, but the minute it gets a little too hot, we are dying. Emily, our center manager, was sprung across the cross floor in the office this week with a clough on her head saying, I'm done, someone else has to drive me home. Sorry, I'd have to do something to draw attention away from the crying baby. Isn't it great to have babies in church? That's amazing. You know, 15 kids right now are being prayed for and graduating from Sunday school to the next age group up. How amazing is that? Come on. That is awesome. All right, back on track. Best understood what Jesus is talking about with our attitude and relationship to money. He tells this story about the young rich man. So this young rich man comes to Jesus and says, What do I have to do to inherit a turtle life? And Jesus pretty much puts it back on him and says, What do you think you have to do? You know, why do you ask me what is good? Only God is good, so do what God says to internal life. And and and the rich man says, Well, well, what do I have to do? I've done it. And Jesus said, He quotes this, he said, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bore false witness, honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And the young rich man goes, I've done all of that. I'm living to that. I've I've I've ticked those boxes. So what am I what do I need to do? And Jesus says this to him. He says, If you would be perfect, go and sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven and come follow me. And when the young man heard this, he went away so sorrowful because he had great possessions. So this young rich man has said, I'm keeping the commandments. But Jesus actually exposes the reality of what he's saying because he reminds the young rich man and us reading it that the number one commandment is to have no other gods but God. And so what we learn is anything in our life that we put ahead of God not only becomes an idol, but it becomes something we worship over him. And so when Jesus said to the young man, give it up and follow me, he couldn't. Because in his life, what he had was above God, that's what he worshipped, and that's what he walked away to. So it's not saying that we have to sell everything we own, it's saying that we need to make sure that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and we don't place anything else above that because the risk of that is we live to worship that as an idol instead of worshiping God. Because Jesus says we can't have two masters, but Paul says the root, the a root of all kinds of evil is our love of money. You know, the Bible has a lot to say about money and management. 2,500 verses on money and possessions. I'm gonna tackle all of them now because the temperature is perfect. I can't do that, but what I do actually want to do for a minute is speak about tithing. Because some of us in this room will know what I mean when I say tithing, some of some of us will have heard it mentioned and have no idea, or some of us might have different ideas about tithing. So I just want to start there because if we're gonna talk about money and our relationship to money, let's start there. So tithing is the biblical principle of giving the first 10% of what you make and grow originally to God. And that's before tax, because we want to give our first of our income to God. Now, the first mention of tithing was in Genesis 14 when Abraham gave a tithe to the priest. Now, that wasn't legalistic, it wasn't out of obligation, he did this out of thankfulness and dependence of the Lord. Jacob, not long after that, took a vow of tithing, and it said that was from a place of worship. However, as we go further on, and I'm trying to do this in a snapshot, tithing became the law given to the Israelites from God through Moses. And the tithe was a requirement of the law in which all the Israelites were to give 10% of everything they earned and grew to the tabernacle and the temple. In Deuteronomy 14, it said that God's people needed to learn to tithe so they would learn to put God first. They had to learn the tithe so they would learn to put God first. That's really interesting because we've talked a lot about the Israelites in the wilderness this year, and we've talked a lot about their spiritual immaturity. And so quite often God's having to baby them. And so what we're learning in this is if we put God first in that area of our life, then it's easier to put God first in all other areas. I think that's something interesting to consider. Now I'm gonna pause the conversation on tithing there for one minute, because I know we're all dying for me to get to the New Testament argument, and we will. But I just want to talk to my own experience with this for a minute. First and foremost, I want to say I tithe. As a senior leader here at One Church, I tithe. It's something I do not out of obligation, not out of requirement, not out of rules, out of worship. And the rest of the senior leadership team are the same. We see it as a commitment, we see it as an investment, we see it as worship. But I have not always been like this. You see, when I was 21 and I first came to faith, I was in this church where they never spoke about money except once during a service, they would say now the tithe and offering will be taken up. And then in the row, these buckets would come down the row. Now, if the five people before you all put money into a bucket and then look at you and hand you a bucket, tell me you're not putting money into that bucket. You know, I had no idea why. Thankfully, I was 21, so 60 years ago we still carried cash around and we had cash on us, so I put money in a bucket. So my first relationship with giving and money in regards to church was literally out of fear and guilt of what other people on that road were gonna think of me. So whatever had on me on that Sunday, and I would make sure I had something on me, would go into the bucket because they were all looking at me, and that was where it started. No explanation whatsoever. You do it, or otherwise they're gonna judge me. Then I met Rachel, and this area of my life was extremely challenged. I mean, that that girl did a real number on me, I gotta tell you. But Rachel grew up in church, she grew up in a healthy church. Her dad was a pastor, and her mum and dad were deeply devoted to the Lord. So once Rachel started getting pocket money, her parents would teach her to tithe the first 10% of their pocket money. Then when Rachel got her first job, she would tithe the first 10% of what she got in her wage every month before tax. And then on top of that, so she's tithing 10% of her income, and then once a month they would have mission Sunday every month. Once a month, every month they would have mission Sunday, and they would take up a missions offering on top of the tithing offering that they're already doing every month. And then on top of that, Rachel would do a first fruits offering. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, it's a big Pentecostal thing in Australia, but when you get a new job, you give your whole first paycheck to God. And so it was a lot. It was a lot different than uh, you know, something going down the row. And when I met Rachel, I was in debt. So it her relationship with money and giving made no sense to me whatsoever. My attitude was look, it's real easy, Rach. When I get square, when I'm out of debt, when I've got a little extra to give, then we can talk about God getting some of that extra. But right now, I'm not giving money away because I need to deal with this debt. I've got to tell you, the first few years of our marriage, the most fights we had were about money, and they all stemmed from how we both felt about giving money to the church. See, we understand in Australia the tax system is different. So we get taxed with an estimate. The estimate is higher than what they assume you should pay. So then at the end of the financial year, you all have to go and pay to see an accountant and do your tax return. And you can claim lots of different things. But basically, the system is set up so everyone in July gets tax back. Now, depending on how good your accountant is, that could be $500, that could be a thousand, that could be three thousand dollars. But everyone gets tax back because the government has taken too much and they want to give some back. Doesn't that sound good? It's like forced savings. However, the economy is based around trying to be real effective at having you spend that money as soon as you get it because they have uh sales. But we get tax back because we had a good accountant and we get a good amount of tax back, and then Rachel would look at me when it came into the account and say, we've got to tithe off that. And I was like, nah, nah, no, we don't. Aren't we tithing 10% of our gross income before we pay tax? And then they're taking this money away from us and they're giving it back, but that's the same money I've already tithed 10% off. So if I tithe again, that's God double dipping. Why does God need a double dip in my income? I was like, isn't he a big God? And so like we would have these fights, and then she would we're in the middle of these fights. We are not on the same page around giving and money, and then in the middle of that, she would look at me some weeks and she say, Oh, next month I just want to let you know I'm gonna start tithing based on what I want to earn, not what I'm currently earning. I tell ya. So I started going to Bible college because I was like, I'm gonna be a pastor. You know, it's good that this area of my life was sorted out first. No, and so I start to learn at Bible college. I start to come home and I have the argument with Rach, like, uh uh no, Rach, you're wrong. Tithing's part of the Old Testament. You see, Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, so we're not under the law of Moses anymore, so we don't have to legalistically tithe because we're under Jesus, and there's actually no mentioning of tithing in the New Testament, Rachel. Did you know that the New Testament doesn't explicitly say whether we should tithe? And she'd say, Yeah, but it doesn't say whether we shouldn't either. But I'd have that argument with her. And and um, the New Testament nowhere commands or even recommends that Christians submit to the legalistic tithe system. But Paul does state that believers should set aside a proportion of their income as an offering, but not as a tithe. An offering is freely given by Christians to the work of the Lord, the local church ministries and missions. Now, the the good thing about this is you've got a loophole. So if you want to successfully argue tithing for as long as you don't want to have to give or tithe, you can do it for as long as you need to. That's a great loophole, isn't it? If you want to argue not giving and not tithing, you are able to do that. I argued that for a long time. I also argued about giving, tithing, and God double dipping because I wanted to find out exactly how little I had to give to stay in the good books. And every fight over those early years exposed my spiritual condition, my immaturity, and where my heart was. And the and the place it was wasn't nice. The attitude was simply this it's my money and I don't want anyone telling me what I'm gonna do with it. It's my money and I don't want anyone telling me what I'm gonna do with it. And that was the attitude, and that's where I was stuck, because in my mind, I worked for it, I earned it, I'll decide what to do with it. And so I was at a stalemate with God, and I was at a stalemate with my wife. You know, the New Testament calls us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our mind. It calls us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, which means it doesn't just call us to be generous with our financial giving, it tells us to be generous with everything we have to give: our time, our gifts, our ability, everything, and to do that as an act of worship. It calls us to gift and give generously. You know, money is a big topic. We're not gonna be able to tackle it all in one talk, and so I encourage you to be talking in your life groups about money. But I also encourage you to go to the Bible. If there's 2,500 verses on how to manage our money, isn't that worth looking into? Because I think the Bible has a lot of wisdom about the intention behind our spending, our sowing, and our saving. And the Bible even talks about budgeting. That was a new one I discovered this week. I mean, I you know what I mean, like I probably knew it, but yeah, I discovered it this week. But if we go back to where we started, godliness is about loving the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, and contentment is about trusting Him in His sovereignty. So then when that comes to money, we need a mindset shift. We need a mindset shift, a fundamental change in our attitude, perspectives, and way of thinking. You see, if we go back to this passage, Paul goes on a little further when he's talking about godliness with contentment, and he says this for we were brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with the 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, and plunge people into ruin and destruction. The contentment that Paul is talking about comes from this mindset shift. That first we understand we came into the world with nothing and we're gonna exit the world with nothing. And secondly, it's remembering the sovereignty and accepting that everything we have comes from God. Everything we have comes from God. Now I know we can still sit here and say, but I work hard for my money, but I earn my money. And it's okay, you can it's all right to think that and believe that because I've been in that place as well, and I wasn't coming out of that place from any kind of judgment or guilt. It's okay to believe that, but can I ask you a question? Is God the creator of all things? Does he give you the air you breathe? Did he knit you together in your mother's womb? You are faithfully and wonderfully made, which means he gifted you with all the skills and abilities that you uh use to work hard and earn your money. He gave you the ability to think, he gave you the ability to work, he is the creator of all things. So it's it's important that we see God as Father in heaven. It's important about how we relate to him, but we can't forget that he's also creator. And if he's creator of all things, including you and me, we need to remember that he created all things with purpose, intent, and rhythm. And to truly say we love the Lord and trust in his sovereignty is to be people that change our language. We've got to drop the mind from our language and replace it with his. You see, we can't be people that allow God access to a little part of our money and maybe a little bit of a conversation on what we do with the rest. We need to be people that in maturity go, God, how do I steward the full amount of everything you've given me? And that's the mindset shift. Understanding that it was never ours in the first place. We come in with nothing, we leave with nothing. That He is the creator and the provider of all things. So the best thing we can do with everything we have, not just money, is say, God, how do we steward what you've given us? Because the way we think about money, how we earn it, use it, save it, and invest it, not only shapes our financial outcomes, it affects our spiritual condition. So we believe at this church that the Bible teaches that giving and making an offering is a part of being a disciple of Jesus. I'm deliberately using the word giving and an offering because just because I believe that tithing and others believe that tithing is a fundamental part of following Jesus doesn't mean that we can say that through the New Testament. I tithe, I do it out of joy, I do it out of worship, but ultimately what we do believe is we're meant to give and make an offering as part of following Jesus. And so there's three ways you can do that in this church. The first way is we usually have two buckets. I we have no idea what's going on this morning. We have two buckets. You know, I I got here at 6 a.m. and opened these windows, and I was fully optimistic about the day ahead, and then everything broke. If you think a British person can't handle the heat, neither can their technology. I went to Poundland yesterday, but it was on fire because they turned the air conditioning on. That just summarized the week, right? But the first way you can give insurance. If you want to give by cash, we have usually normally two baskets on the stage, and I'm not asking you to do that in front of people, but when you arrive or during fellowship, if you want to put cash somewhere, we've got these baskets. The second way that we can normally give is we have a card machine on the connections desk that you can do on your way out. However, it's technology, which means it's not working today because it's hot. But like myself and many others, we just set up a standing order so it just comes out of our bank account every month when we get paid. Can I encourage you though? If you want to give and you want to make an offering, can I give you two things to consider in how you want to respond and how you want to pray? Because I want us to be rise. I don't want us to do this because I've told you you had to do it. I don't want you to do this because it's an obligation or because it's legalistic. I want you to do it from a place of worship and from a place of loving God, the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your mind, and soul with this area of life and trusting him in his sovereignty. But the first thing I want us to think about is one, to be intentional. Can we be planned and purposeful with it? 2 Corinthians 9, 7 says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So it encourages us to be planned and purposeful for what we're doing, but it also reminds us that this is meant to be something that we do joyfully, because it's an act of worship. So the first thing is when we're praying about this, can we be intentional? The second is can we be proportional based on your capacity and your resources? 2 Corinthians 8 12 says, For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. So if you haven't written down that on your phone, catch the replay. Consider those two points. Be intentional, be proportional, and those scriptures are something that you can meditate over. I'm gonna continue this conversation at four o'clock. If you want to continue this conversation, you can turn up in person at Deal. Otherwise, that sermon will drop during the middle of the week. We're not gonna tackle the whole topic in one sermon or even two. But I do have to apologize as your senior leader. I'm sorry it took me 18 months to have this conversation. We're not gonna take 18 months to talk it about again. What we need to do is be comfortable with talking about money, because if the Bible spends 2,500 verses addressing it, we need to be comfortable talking about it. So I apologize for taking 18 months. I won't let that happen again. As I finish, I ask you to consider this. Think about how you're reacting to what I'm saying this morning. And ask yourself this. What does your reaction to what I'm saying tell you about your current heart motivation? Because the reality is we are the young rich man or woman in the story. This is what I read this week. According to comparative economic reports, the UK's bottom 10% outpace most of the rest of the global population, placing them into the upper escalons of global wealth. We might not feel it in comparison to the UK, but in comparison to the entire population, we are wealthy. So as the wealthy person in the story, when Jesus asks us to adjust our heart and attitude towards money, are we going to respond by following him or are we going to respond by walking away? Godliness and contentment is great gain. So as the band come up, why don't we stand? I'm not going to pray. As they're getting set up and about to start worship, I'm going to encourage you as you stand to just spend a quiet moment reflecting, considering, praying in yourself how you want to handle and respond and do with what I've said this morning. And then they're going to lead us in worship and we're going to trust God with the rest.