From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I had a conversation with my dear, dear friend years and years ago, and he told me one day, he said, "Well, Jeff, I can tell you right now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get rich." I said, "Well, there is. First Timothy chapter six, verse nine. There's a big warning about those who want to get rich, where that's the desire of their heart." When you want to get rich, well, then you're subject to temptation and difficulty and problems and adversity and a snare.

Guest (Male): Do you often find yourself worrying about money? Listen, money is not your problem. It most likely is your attitude toward money that's the real challenge. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today as he continues with part two of the lesson, "The Love of Money." It's from his new three-lesson series, "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money."

Most people believe that much of their worth or value on earth is based on how much stuff they have, what they've gained by wealth and money. And that idea blinds us to the value God sees in us. Today, Pastor Jeff continues the lesson we began yesterday, exploring four truths from scripture that will help each of us to better understand the dangers of loving money. Make sure that you go online this month and ask how to receive this series, "God and Money," when you make a gift to From His Heart of any amount. Just go to fromhishart.org. Now, though, if you can, open your Bible to First Timothy chapter six. Here's Pastor Jeff to continue part two of "The Love of Money."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Verse seven of chapter six, First Timothy: "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

The love of money. I want to share with you four truths from the passage that we read to help us understand this issue of the love of money. Truth number one: It is easy to fall in love with money. Now, we ask ourselves the question: Am I driven by the love of God, which is the greatest commandment? Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four and five: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

And Jesus said this is the great and foremost commandment. And so the love of God versus the love of money, those are going in two different directions. That's why you can't serve God and money. But here's the bottom line: It's easy to fall in love with money. Now, obviously, there's a strong, strong warning from the Lord to not do that. But it's easy to do. You say, "Why is it so easy?" Because all of us need money to live.

And all of us battle with the desires of the flesh. But I say walk by the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. And your flesh is that old residual part of you, that old adamic nature, the residual of the adamic nature that wants what it wants when it wants it. It's all about self. The love of money blocks out everything else. You just think about yourself. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money. It's easy to fall in love with money, so we need to be very careful with it.

Truth number two: Not only is it easy to fall in love with money, but it is foolish to fall in love with money. It's foolish to fall in love with money. You say, "Why is it foolish?" Because money is temporary. Money doesn't last. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath. Proverbs chapter three says this: "Do not weary yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens."

You know, we have that expression, "Well, money talks." And it does. It says goodbye. Money is—you set your mind on it, and it's gone. And so he says in verse seven of First Timothy six, "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either." You come into the world, as every baby comes into this world, just as you and I came into this world, you come in naked.

As Job said, "Naked I came to this world and naked I shall return there. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." We come in naked, and we go out of this world naked. And when a person dies, this is a profound statement I heard years and years and years ago: When you die, you leave behind all that you have and you take with you all that you are.

Isn't that interesting? We focus in so much time, effort, and resources associated with what we have. That has our attention. And we so often don't really spend the time on who we are, building our character. We'd rather build our bank account than build our character. But when you die, you leave it all behind. You leave behind all that you have, you take with you all that you are.

You remember the parable Jesus told in Luke chapter 12. He starts the parable, or gives the little introduction to it. He said, "Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed, for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions." And then he tells about the farmer. He said there was a farmer and his land was very productive and he had a bumper crop and he had more grain and goods and things than he could hold.

And he said, "What am I going to do? My barns can't hold all this. I know what I'll do. I'll build bigger barns. I'll tear these down and build bigger barns and fill them up, and I'll say to myself, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Eat, drink, and be merry.'" And the Lord said to him, "You fool. This very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?" So is the man who is laying up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

And Jesus called him a fool. It is foolish to fall in love with money because money is so temporary and because money can never satisfy your heart. It's not going to. It can't. It wasn't made for that. The devil tells us that, that riches will satisfy. If you just had more, then you would be satisfied, you would be happy. If you could just win the lottery, then you would be happy.

But riches can't do that. There are a lot of people who have a lot who are miserable. As the statement goes, they have a lot in their purse but very little in their person, and they're very, very unhappy. Well, Solomon, who had so much, he said this in Ecclesiastes chapter five, verse ten in the Easy-to-Read Version: "Those who love money will never be satisfied with the money they have. Those who love wealth will not be satisfied when they get more and more. This is also senseless."

So it's easy to fall in love with money. It's foolish to fall in love with money. Truth number three: It is devastating to fall in love with money. Devastating to fall in love with money. Let's read it again, beginning in verse eight: "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." That's having your contentment in the Lord and what he provides.

"But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." Serious stuff in verses nine and ten.

I mean, you read that and you say, "I need to make sure I steer clear of this thing called the love of money because it will wreck and ruin my life, my marriage, my family, my friendships, everything." It will destroy my relationship with God. It is a deadly poison. It's not just that it's easy to fall into and it's not just that it's foolish, it is devastating and deadly.

The love of money will put you on the wrong path. That's why Jesus said no one can serve two masters. Because the Lord is going in this direction and money is going in this direction. And you've seen a guy ride two horses, and he's standing up on the horses and he's riding two horses. You can ride two horses as long as the horses are going in the same direction.

But a guy riding two horses—look how cool I am—once that other horse turns and goes the other way, well, he's going to fall. And Jesus said no one can serve two masters. You can't ride two horses because I'm going this direction, and when you love me you're going in this direction. When you love money and the things of this world, it's going in a different direction.

And so you can't do it. It's impossible. You have to choose. Are you going to follow the Lord and love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, or are you going to follow after the world? And we've said before, if you try and compromise, you try and compromise on the fence and sit on the fence and I have one foot in the church and one foot in the world and just kind of live like that, the devil owns the fence.

The devil's going to use that fence to wreck and ruin your life. The love of money will put you on the wrong path. Now, it says in verse nine, "those who want to get rich." I had a conversation with my dear, dear friend years and years ago, and he told me one day, he said, "Well, Jeff, I can tell you right now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get rich."

I said, "Well, there is. First Timothy chapter six, verse nine. There's a big warning about those who want to get rich, where that's the desire of their heart." It's not, "I want to be all God wants me to be," it's "I want to get rich." When you want to get rich, well, then you're subject to temptation and difficulty and problems and adversity and a snare.

Well, you step on that, you put your hand in that, and it closes up on you. You talk about pain. It's a temptation. It's a snare. It's like a fishhook. It has some bait on it, but when you bite down, you're going to find the hook. And it leads itself to many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men in, literally drown men into ruin and destruction. For what? For money. For money. It'll put you on the wrong path, and it will cost you in life and eternity. Not only in this life, but for eternity, as it says in verse ten. Some by longing for it have even wandered away from the faith and they have impaled themselves, pierced themselves with many griefs and many sorrows. That's what the love of money does. It's not going to make you happy.

Guest (Male): Are you happy? Great. Life is short. Eternity is long. Every dollar you have is really just an opportunity to invest in something that will last forever, like the human soul redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And that describes what your support makes possible through From His Heart each and every day and why we're asking you to help transform even more lives through your ongoing support.

A listener named Ed is a great example of the impact that your gift will make. He says, "Pastor Jeff, I listen to God speaking through your messages each day and when you speak I see from his heart, God, coming from you and it's so fresh and powerful. It brings me face to face with the Creator." And that's exactly what we want this message about money to do for you.

We want you to come face to face with your Creator and find real happiness and help you experience the freedom that comes from trusting him completely, and that means also with your money. For your gift of support this month to From His Heart, we'd like to send you Pastor Jeff's new three-lesson series, "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money."

It's available in multiple formats. And again, it's to thank you for joining us in this effort to share the good news to a lost and a hurting world. To get your copy of "God and Money," call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-402-4253, or go online to fromhishart.org. And remember, when we truly trust God more than our money, something supernatural happens. Now, let's continue to close the message, "The Love of Money."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: How many times do we see people who win the lottery and then that wealth ruins them? I was reading a story about a person in the early 1900s, they had the Irish sweepstakes and they won and they said, "Well, this will never change us." But it did. And inside of a year, the family was at each other's throats and the mother said, after some time had passed and she looked at all the devastation, and she said, "Our family was impaled upon a dollar sign."

We traded all the love that we had in our family for what? For money. It's not worth it. Listen, you and I can learn from those who have gone before us who have wandered away from the faith because of the love of money. You know who the poster child is for that? Judas Iscariot. He was a lover of money. He was the treasurer of the twelve and he was a thief.

He stole money. They didn't know that he was a thief. They trusted him. They made him the treasurer. But he was stealing from the treasury. He was a disciple for what purpose, for what reason? Not for the love of Jesus. He was in it for the love of what I can get out of this. I mean, this following Jesus the Messiah is like being on the ground floor of Amway.

This is awesome. I'm going to have all this wealth and all this power and all this influence. And then when Jesus didn't take over like he thought he was supposed to, then he says, "Okay, now I need to cut my losses. I need to see what I can get from this situation, from this relationship, from following this guy." And so he goes to the chief priests. "What will you give me if I deliver him up to you?"

And they weighed out for him 30 pieces of silver. How much is 30 pieces of silver? It's the price of a slave. In today's money, the silver content would be, according to Grok 3, which is the Elon Musk AI, it's $405 in silver content. In buying power, it's a few thousand dollars. And here you have this guy who saw all the miracles of Jesus, who was there, one of the twelve.

He was there when Jesus calmed the raging sea. He saw him walk on water, saw him raise the dead, saw him heal the sick, heard all the sermons. He saw everything. And he determined that getting a few thousand dollars was worth more than the Prince of Glory, than the God who spoke the worlds into existence. And he traded Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

How moronic, how evil, how wicked, how terrible that someone would do that. But people are following in his footsteps all the time. Listen, we have an opportunity to love God. He loves us. We can love him back and we can walk in the light with him. And money is a terrible master but it's a great servant, and we can use money to glorify God.

Point number four: You don't have to be a casualty of the love of money. You don't. Just because it's easy to fall in love with money doesn't mean you have to do it. Just because you battle the flesh, as I battle the flesh, every Christian is in that battle, we can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. So three ways to not be a casualty of the love of money.

Number one: Learn to be content in the Lord and his provision, what God provides for you. Does that mean that you don't want to better yourself, that you don't want better things for your family if you have an opportunity to interview for a better job and get a better job that has a better salary? That's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. Money is fine as long as you have it and it doesn't have you.

That's the difference. So learn to be content. He says, "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." I love this definition of contentment. It says this: It's an inner sufficiency that keeps us at peace in spite of outward circumstances. That's contentment. Now, the Bible says in Hebrews 13:5, "Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for he himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'"

So that we may confidently say, "The Lord is my helper, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?" And when you understand he's never going to leave you, he's never going to forsake you, you have Jesus. What else could this world give you? You have the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the God of the universe who lives inside as a believer through the person of the Holy Spirit.

How rich I am since Jesus came my way. Redeemed my soul and turned my night to day. How rich, how very rich I am. We have everything in the Lord Jesus. How foolish to trade that for what? For the things of this world. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Your soul is eternal. And we can walk with God and we can learn to be content. The Apostle Paul said that: "I've learned to be content," Philippians chapter four, "in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to get along with abundance and I know how to be in need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

So learn to be content that you don't have to have more and more and more because you find your satisfaction in the Lord who will never leave you nor forsake you. Secondly: Determine to make money your servant, not your master. Use it because it serves you; it is not to master you. And then thirdly: Use the money that God provides you for eternal purposes.

Only three things last forever: God, his Word, and people. And we can use the money that we have that God has entrusted to us and we can invest it in heaven's bank. We can invest it in eternal things. Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

You want to know how you're doing heart-wise? Where's your treasure? Because there's a connection. Listen, there's a connection between your money and your heart. And where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. If you will invest in heaven's bank, if you will invest in spreading the Word of God to reach people for Christ as we do as a church and you will say, "Hey, I'm giving and I want to give generously and cheerfully because I can't take it with me. I want my money to count. I want to invest it in heaven's bank because then it will meet me when I get there."

Because if I leave it here, I'm just going to leave it all. If I have it in all these investments, so what? If I am a person who dies and I had $50 billion, so what? Because it all stays here. You leave behind all that you have, you take with you all that you are. But I can use that money and I can invest it in eternal purposes and when I die and go to heaven, the Lord is going to say, "Look what all was done with the money that you invested. Look at this person and this person and this person who received Christ because you gave and you gave generously and you gave cheerfully. You invested your money in heaven's bank. You didn't just put it in the things of this world that are destined for the ash heap."

Listen, as we close out today, I want to ask you: Will you honestly check your heart to see if you've fallen in love with money? And if so, that you'll get things right with the King because he is good and ready to forgive and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon him.

Guest (Male): Have you called upon him today or in your life? Are you really happy? Again from Hebrews chapter 13, verse five, we hear this verse: "Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" In some versions of the Bible, that word is "content," and synonyms for that word include the word "comfortable," "satisfied," and "happy."

To find true happiness, true contentment, we must be willing to check our attitude toward money today. And we can help you do that with Pastor Jeff's new series called "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money." We hope these messages from this series that we're airing now will move you into finding real happiness and help you experience the freedom that comes from trusting him completely.

And that means also with your money. For your gift of support this month to From His Heart, we'd like to send you Pastor Jeff's new three-lesson series, "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money." It's available in multiple formats. And again, it's to thank you for joining us in this effort to share the good news to a lost and a hurting world. To get your copy of "God and Money," call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-402-4253, or go online to fromhishart.org.

God bless you. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting today's message was a blessing to you. It was the first message in this series, "God and Money," and the lesson was called "The Love of Money." We'll continue with the second message tomorrow called "When You Forfeit a Blessing." That's on Wednesday, when Dr. Jeff Schreve will speak the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Join us then as we bring real hope to a lost and a hurting world, here on From His Heart.