Mental Strongholds & Money // 28 June 2026

Scott Wellard

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I am I spoke this morning uh on this topic, a different sermon than I'm gonna speak now, and I gotta say preacher twice in a Sunday is a young man's game. And um I'm not a young man anymore, I've realized. Uh I realized that the other day. I used to be able to play more than one game of lasso ball in an evening. I can't do that anymore. All sorts of things start to not work if I level back. But anyway, it's good to be here. This morning I started talking about giving at 10am. And uh if you haven't heard it, you can catch it up, it's live now. Um, but it will be posted as a sermon in the next foyer seven or two hours. But I encourage you to catch up on that. These kind of go together, but they are different sermons. This morning I addressed a mindset around money and how we need to shift that mindset from a mindset of mine to a mindset of his, so that we can love the Lord our God through how we steward everything that we have, but also that we can trust his sovereignty over that area of other life. So that was where we we hear this morning. But in talking about our mindset around money, I wanted to tier the conversation this afternoon by looking at the concept of the mental strongholds that we can have that need to be broken if we're gonna shift that mindset around money. And I spoke to a couple of them this morning. But I just wanted to read where this might this mindset of mental strongholds comes from. So it comes from 2 Corinthians 10, 45. It says, Paul says, We do not use those things to fight with that the world uses. We use these things God gives to fight with, and they have power. Those things God gives to fight, we destroy the strongholds of the devil. We break down every thought and proud thing that puts itself up against the wisdom of God, and we take hold of every thought and they get obey Christ. So, what Paul's talking about in this passage is those mental strongholds that are of the devil that get a hold of our mindset and our thinking and become a block in putting God first. Now, first and foremost, because whenever we use the the word devil when we're preaching, I always want to clarify the devil doesn't have the sovereignty that God has. He is limited where God is not limited. He is not omnipresent, he can't be everywhere at once, which means you could probably go your entire life without ever coming face to face with the devil. But it doesn't mean you don't feel his effect and influence. The best way I've ever heard it is explaining is it is in World War II, you could have been a British soldier in the war and gone the whole war, never coming face to face with Hitler. But every day you experienced the effect of Hitler and his influence. And that's how it works with the devil. We might not ever come face to face with the devil, but because of his influence on this world, every day we affect, we feel his effect and his influence. And his effect and influence is how we think, it can affect how we think about money. And so when I'm talking about these mental strongholds, these are castles that we build in our mind that are built brick by brick by the wrong belief. So wrong belief on top of wrong belief on top of wrong belief builds these fortresses in our mind in regards to money that need to be broken for us to have the right mindset. Now, I I can explain that a little bit because this morning I talked about some of those mental strongholds that needed to be broken in my life when it came to my attitude around money. I talked about Rachel's different attitude compared to my own. And I was just sitting with Rachel before the service started, and I said, Hey, what's what's something I can share that I didn't include this morning? And she reminded me of a story. And so this morning I talked about the difference between her attitude and my attitude. That's okay to do when she's here, but I'm not going to share a story on her behalf. So do you know if we can encourage her to get up and share a story for us? She doesn't know this is happening. That's why I mean very encouraged. Will you stand up about she should have wanted to?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Thank you so much. Um so I was thinking of the just before about um something that impacted me as a child, basically, where my dad kind of encouraged um faith in Dodd around money. Um, and that stayed with me forever. So we were a very wealthy family, we were quite poor, there were five children, and um I got into a netball tournament, a state netball tournament in Australia. I know it's really important, yes? Thank you. It was to me at the time, and very specifically, it was like I can't remember the exact amount, but let's say it was 138 Australian dollars. It's a very odd number, okay? And my dad sat me down and he said, I'm sorry, Rachel, like we can't afford that. Um so you can't go, basically, you can't go to the town because we can't pay that amount of money. Um, but he said, I believe God is able to do that, and if he wants you to go, then he can make that happen. So he he sat me down and he said, We're gonna pray. And we sat at the front of our house and we sat on the stairs and we prayed. We prayed for $138 to just magically appear so I could go to something very trivial, like a nipple tournament. But in that little girl's heart, I tell you something definitely changed in me because that day at church, um, the pastor came up to my dad and he was like whispering to him, and then they laughed so loudly, and I didn't know what was going on. And I found out later that he gave him the exact amount of money, $138. And basically the joke was he felt compelled by God to give $140 to someone, okay? But on the way to church, he in a really busy morning, he's he rushed out of the house and he was desperate for a coffee, and he bought a coffee with the $140 that he had in his pocket, right? Not even kidding. And they ended up laughing their heads off because the amount of money he spent on the coffee was like it ended up being the exact amount of money that I needed for Nipball, and it was just this joke, this ongoing joke that you know God must really care about coffee because he included that in the amount of money that was put aside. But for me, I think that was just, and and I'll I'll tell you this: Gond has not always provided in that exact way in our lives. Um, sometimes the opposite, where nothing appears and we have to still trust him. But that reminded me, and it still reminds me to this day, that our God is so able to do above and beyond what you could ask or even imagine, but to challenge us to always ask and to trust him with that plan. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

She's talking about a day where coffee costs two dollars. That was a long time ago. But I mean, what I like about this story is if you if you try to come to an answer on why when we first got married, we had such opposingly different beliefs around money and God's role in our money, is because Rachel grew up in a good, healthy church and from a young age was given, was taught well about money, but was also given time, chances after chances to have these live experiences. So they built on top of each other, and she was building the right mindset around money and God's role in that part of her life. Whereas I came into church as a fully formed 21-year-old owl with the wrong beliefs built on top of the wrong beliefs, which means I had this mental stronghold, this fortress that needs me to be knocked down for being able to have the right mindset. So it's a great story from Rachel because it's an example for all the parents and the grandparents and the great-grandparents in the room. If we've got these children in our lives to be teaching of the word of God from the youngest age possible, giving them these chances to pray and believe that God can move, even if it's about a net a netball tournament, you know, giving them the chance to pray and believe, experiences and build on that. Because when we don't, what we build on is the wrong elifs. And it's hard to knock them down. And and as we heard this morning, a warning from Paul to Timothy, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And so we need to make sure that our heart is in the right mindset. So as we're talking about stromology, we start there. I just want to go to the Bible right now to look for some guidance, and I want to go to Mark chapter 12 and the widow's offering. So I'm just gonna read it to us. It said, Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd, putting their money into the temple treasury. Many people threw in large amounts, but a poor widow came according to two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the young's. They all gave out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty. In everything all she added to lit on. So in this passage, we see something really powerful. It's the heart and mindset behind the giving that is worth more than the amount. Because Jesus watches all of these people give these large amounts, but the one he talks about, the one he draws attention to, is the one that gave the few coins. Because what that revealed was a deeper understanding of her heart and her mindset behind what she was doing. The people giving large amounts were giving out of their surplus, but she was giving out of her deficiency. And that's really important. So we read here poverty and we think of her circumstances, but the word poverty, and I'm not on a hot day and I tried to pronounce the Greek word, but the Greek word I'm not going to pronounce actually translates better to deficiency. She gave out of what she was lacking, which was what was necessary for life. So she gave out of her deficiency. And deficiency is a powerful thing because deficiency reveals our heart. Because when we face deficiency, our true character and behavior comes to the forefront. So in a time of crisis, scarcity, stress, that becomes a true test to our character and a reveal of our true heart's motivation. Now, after this week, seeing how we all behaved in a heat wave, I want to add heat wave to the list of things that exposes our true character. So times of prices, scarcity, scarcity, stress, and heat waves are exploded. It's mean hot. It's mean hot. Yeah. It's mean good. You know what? That the longer I live here, the harder I'm able to deal with heat. Um, so you know, I think I'm I'm becoming soft in my old age. But we are we have everything aircon in Australia, so we're never actually ever in the heat. It's like you live in a cave for all of summer. You go from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned workplace. You wouldn't even think of having a restaurant or a cafe or something in Australia that is an air con. So everyone's always like, oh, this is nothing compared to Australia. Like, yeah, no, it's worse than Australia because you are not a crick for this in the slightest way whatsoever. But anyway, I I think the evidence of that becoming British is that I'm complaining about hate. That's the evidence right there. But when our resources, our patience, or our support are in a deficit, a person's true motives, their empathy, and their moral core is exposed. So so hardship acts at this spill center and reveals the person we actually are behind Ruby Sabia. And that's really important to this story. Because whether it be material, emotional, or spiritual, the deficiency the deficiency exposes our human limitation. And that's actually a really powerful place to be in. When deficiency exposes our human limitation, then it should encourage us to depend on his sovereignty, depend on him as Lord. Because what happens in our deficiency is God's sufficiency is revealed. And so deficiency isn't a bad place to be in, whether it be financial or another, because it allows us to lean in on God and trust in his sovereignty, to trust in what he can do where we can't. And so this passage is an example about how our mindset combined with our heart motivation, that is more than the visible size of what we give. But the widow isn't the only one in the story. What about the rich people in the story? Because what we don't want to do is go, well, the widow was the good one and the rich one are the villains. We don't want to villain, villain fight a rich in the story because being rich is not a sin. Being rich is not a sin. Money is not the issue. It's our attitude and heart towards money that becomes the issue. It doesn't say money is the issue, it says the love of money is the issue. Wealth and being wealthy is not an issue, but what we do with our wealth can either create a good outcome or can continue to create suffering for others. How we choose to spend our wealth can either be towards God's purpose or our own selfish gain. And so the rich are not the villains in the story, but they are challenged like the widow. The best thing about this story is it has a challenge for both ends of the spectrum of wealth. It doesn't paint one as a good guy or one as a bad guy. It says wherever you are on the spectrum, there is a challenge in this story for you. But there is a caution too, because if you go moments before this story, Jesus is challenging the teachers of the law because he says that they devour the widows. So Jesus exposed this extremely corrupt system where the people that were the most vulnerable and were supposed to be looked after originally when they set out this law in Moses, they were supposed to look after the widows, they look after the poor, but in this system, in this time, they were being exploited, and it says that they devoured the widows. It meant that they they took such advantage of it that they had nothing left. And so the reason I draw our attention to that, and that being said before this, because although being rich is not a sin, we need to understand God is really interested, God is really concerned, it's really important to God how we accumulate our wealth and how we earn our money. How we accumulate our wealth and how we earn our money, it matters to God. Because scriptures condemns strictly any money that is gained through deception, extortion, or taking advantage of the vulnerable. So although there's not a billion in this story, it's always important to mention that how we've built our wealth and earned our money matters to God. The little isn't alone in this story, we know deficiency. Code deficiency might have been material, but the rich in his story had a spiritual deficiency. So the widow had a material deficiency, the rich had a spiritual deficiency. So there's these two strongholds that are present in this story. I talked about some of those mental strongholds I dealt with this morning about my attitude and money, but two strongholds that are present in this story that conform in our mind by building these wrong beliefs. The first one is greed. Greed is the mental stronghold that the rich were struggling with because it fostered a sense of security centered around accumulation. But I think the problem is they were giving out of their surplus, which means they weren't experiencing or feeling the sacrifice of giving that we're encouraged to feel when it tells us to give generously. But in the same way, on the other spectrum of the argument, the other stronghold that's experienced in this story is deception and worry. No, it's not deception, desperation and worry, which stems from a fear of scarcity, a fear of not having enough. And either of these on their own can cause us lots of problems and affect our mindset towards mine. You see, greed comes from a misplaced love, whereas worry comes from a misplaced trust. When we place our love in the right place is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul. Love can be misplaced when we decide to love anything else ahead of God, much as money. But trust can be misplaced and cause to worry when we decide to trust anything else but the sovereignty of God. So the widow here shows us this amazing example of the strength that can outweigh fear. The interesting thing is this word that translates into deficiency is only used one at a time in the Bible. It's used to explain the widow's situation, but then it's used by Paul to explain his situation later to the Philippians. And let me just read it again. In Philippians 4 10 30, Paul talking about himself says, I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renew your concern for me. Indeed you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned a secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or living in wants, I can do all this for gimli is me straight. That wasn't me. When it says in me and saying in deficiency, it's that word that we translated before. So he says, I know what it is to be in deficiency, and I learned to be content in whatever circumstances. Paul added, Paul's attitude towards deficiency is completely different to that of society's. So you see in Mark 12, we have this widow who gives everything she has, showing us the deep trust in God, despite deficiency. But then in Philippians 4, Paul says he has learned to be content wherever he has plenty or very little, because Christ strengthens him. And so together we see a faith that shows us God is enough even when I do not have enough. God is enough even when I do not have enough. And I think that's incredibly powerful because it reminds us that true contentment comes from our trust in his sovereignty, his ultimate power over all things, and our submission to that power over all things in our life. And so both of these passages challenge our dependence. In some ways, it would challenge: do we depend on our wealth and our comfort and our security, or do we pen depend on God for his provision and his strength? See, strength in hardship can only come from the Lord, like Paul teaches us, because he says, I can do all things through he who gives me strength. So as I said before, you've got this spectrum of wealth and no wealth in this story, and there is a challenge to both ends of the spectrum. To the wealthy in the story, there is a challenge about their heart attitude around their money. It's a challenge for them to give generously and give sacrificially, and it's a challenge to them that they don't gain their wealth at the expense of others. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you you have someone that that is bit out. You have someone that they said is in poverty. And to that end of the spectrum, it challenges them to trust in him alone, to not let the strongholds of worry and fear cause them to stumble and stand alone or try to deal with it in their own strength. To let their deficiency expose his sufficiency. So the way you speak about honey, how we burn it, how we use it, how we save it, how we invest it, shapes not only our financial outcomes but also our spiritual condition. As I said this morning, we believe here at OneChurch that giving and making an offering is part of being a disciple of Jesus. And so we want to encourage everyone to do that out of their heart to be a disciple. But I I said this this morning, I want to repeat it now because I think it's it's an important language. When we're responding to that call from God to give and make an offering, there's two things I want us to consider. Just so he wise in what we're doing, and we can do it for the right reasons. And the first thing to consider is to be intentional, planned and purposeful. Be intentional, planned and purposeful. 2 Corinthians 9 7 says this. I think it's great advice when it comes to being intentional. It says each of us should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So this reminds us to be intentional and purposeful about what we're giving, but it reminds us to do it from a place of joy. Because it's an act of worship, it's not something that's an obligation, it's something that is supposed to be joyful, an act of worship, something we do is how we love God with that area of our life and trust in his sovereignty. So be intentional. That the second one is be proportional based on your capacity and resources. 2 Corinthians 8.12 says, For if the willingness is there, if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. So be intentional, be proportional. To finish, I just want to ask a question, and then we'll go to worship. So I'm in the week, reflect on Drew the Week, and we can reflect on as we worship. And it's this question. I wrote it down because I wanted to get this question right. If Jesus measured my faith, not by what I give when life is comfortable, but by what I trust him with when life feels scarce, what would he see? And he related as terms: Am I giving God what's left over? Or am I trusting him with what I feet I cannot afford to lose? Why don't we stand and watch?