Love Worth Finding

Adrian Rogers: I'm telling you there is a false god in the land today, and that is the god of credit who will give us things that God has not necessarily supplied.

Friend, I want to tell you there is one thing that money can't buy and that is poverty. You need credit cards for that.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the dynamic insights of beloved pastor and Bible teacher Adrian Rogers. It could be said that money is at the root of a majority of the problems in our households. The enemy's plan is to keep families in financial bondage. But 1 Timothy 6 provides wisdom regarding our finances.

And if you have your Bible, turn there now, as Adrian Rogers reveals four key things about wealth and success in part one of Family Finances.

Adrian Rogers: Take your Bibles, find 1 Timothy chapter six. Let me talk to you a little bit about your family and the finances of your family. I can say without a shadow of a doubt or equivocation that money is a root of all kinds of family problems.

Theirs was a perfect marriage, but for one feminine flaw. He was quick on the deposit, but she was faster on the draw. Now, that happens many times in marriages, and sometimes, however, it is not the woman who is the spendthrift, it is the man. Many families, many families, many of our best families are in financial bondage.

Would you like to take a little test before we get into the Word of God and find out whether or not you are in financial bondage? Just begin to count and see how many of these 11 factors are true in your life.

Factor number one: find out whether or not you are charging daily expenditures because of a lack of funds. Factor number two: have you put off paying a bill that is due until next month? Factor number three: do you borrow to pay fixed expenses such as taxes or insurance? Factor number four: does your annual debt retirement on a long-term debt exceed 20% of your annual income?

Next: are you even unaware of how much you owe? Next: are creditors and bill collectors writing you about past-due bills? Next: are you having to take from savings to pay current bills? Next: are you making new loans to pay off old loans? Next: have you even thought about being dishonest concerning money? Next: are you having difficulty returning your tithe to Almighty God? Next: do you and your wife ever argue over money?

Well, let's look in the Word of God here. 1 Timothy chapter six, and I'm going to break into a thought in verse five: "perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out.

And having food and raiment," boys and girls, that means food and clothes, "let us therewith be content. But they that will be rich," that is, they who determine to be rich, "fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

And then go down to verse 17: "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life."

Now, it is the devil's plan to keep families in financial bondage. And we're going to look right here in the Word of God and find out what God's Word has to say about your money problems. You say, "Pastor, mine is not a money problem, it is a lack of money problem." Well, whatever kind of a problem it is, it may not be truly a lack of money problem, and you think it is.

Four words I want to write upon your heart: the word lack, the word loss, the word love, and the word luxury. They're all right here. First of all, I want us to see something about the lack of wealth. The lack of wealth and I want you to learn this: the lack of wealth, the lack of wealth cannot take away genuine commitment.

Look, if you will, in verses six through eight of this passage again: "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out." Now watch this: "And having food and raiment, food and clothes, let us be content."

Now, one of the greatest things that most families need to learn is the difference between needs and wants. Many of us have wants that are not genuine needs. Madison Avenue is built upon this premise that they can create in us needs and desires so that we will go out and buy things.

Americans want something newer, bigger, better, shinier, and so we're constantly reading the catalogs, floating through the mall, and people are generating in us things that we feel somehow are needs and they're really only wants. They are not necessities.

And the children have become victims of these things as they watch television, and those masterminds of Madison Avenue know how to sow seeds of discontent in the hearts and minds of our children and make them see that they will not be happy unless they have the latest product that they saw on television.

And so we have all of these perceived needs. And then on top of that, they tell us what? "You deserve it! You have earned it! You need it! And you won't be happy without it!" The truth of the matter is that the desire for more and more is not making us happy. It is truly making us unhappy.

Surveys of married couples find out that a major problem in homes is not sex, it is not children, it is not in-laws, it is finances. And so many of our young couples today get married, and they think they have to have in three years what it took their parents 30 years to accumulate. And they can go out and get it with the false god of credit.

Now, the Scripture tells us here that you only have two basic needs: food and clothes. That simplifies it, doesn't it? I mean, that's all you need. That's what the Word of God says. That's all you need, that's all I need is food and clothes. And the Bible says if you have that, be content.

Now, what is contentment? Contentment is an inner sufficiency that keeps us at peace in spite of outward circumstances. If you depend upon natural or material things for contentment, you will never have it. Put down this verse in your margin: Ecclesiastes chapter five and verse 10. The Bible says, "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver."

Now, you think if you could just get more, it would satisfy you. The Bible teaches just the opposite. Sometimes people get on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, and they have not enough water and they're surrounded by water. And they think, "Well, maybe just a little drink of salt water would be better than no water at all."

But if you drink salt water, what happens? It makes you thirstier. And that's the way material goods are. It is like trying to satisfy your thirst with salt water. Warren Wiersbe told of an old Quaker who was in his house, and next door was a new family moving in, and they were just unloading everything that they had.

You know all of the stuff that we gather, that we accumulate? And they were putting all of the toys and all of the tools and all of the finery and all of the gimmick and all of the furniture and all of these things they were bringing it into the house. And this old Quaker was standing over there watching all of this stuff go into this house, and he'd learned what the Bible says: having food and clothing, be content.

Finally, when they got it all in there, he went over there and said, "Friend, if thou dost ever have anything that thou thinkest thou needest, come and see me, and I will tell thee how to get along without it." Oh, friend, that's what we need to learn, the difference between our needs and our wants. Not to want something is even better than to own it, you don't have to take care of it.

I'm telling you there is a false god in the land today, and that is the god of credit who will give us things that God has not necessarily supplied. Friend, I want to tell you there is one thing that money can't buy, and that is poverty. You need credit cards for that. Did you know that a lot of people are looking around for a good investment? Pay off your credit card debts, and you'll be making about 20%.

Where else can you get an investment like that? I mean, think about it! Why should you pay about 20% more, why should you cut your family income like that because you carry those little credit cards? I'm not talking about for convenience; I'm talking about so you can have more. Many of our young couples today need to learn what God's Word says: food and clothes, be content. Some need to get those cards out and have a little plastic surgery. I'm very serious about that.

Where is contentment found? Look in the Word of God, look at it! Verse six: "But godliness with contentment is great gain." Now, if you are godly, you're wealthy. Let me say this, that your personal value is revealed not by money, but by godliness. Your personal value! So many times we look at a man's stocks, bonds, real estate, cars, homes, etc., and we say, "Well, he's worth this or he's worth that."

You cannot measure worth by money! Godliness is worth more than a bank account. That's what God's Word says. And so when you ask, "What is an individual worth?" What an insult to Almighty God if you say he's worth what he thinks he owns. If you want to know what any item is worth, do you know how to find out what an item is worth? Find out what somebody will pay for it.

I don't care how much you think all that stuff is worth; try to sell it and then you'll know what it's worth, what someone will pay for it. Any appraiser will tell you that, isn't that true? Now, what are you worth? Jesus died for you. You're valuable. I mean, with His precious blood! He poured out His rich, red, royal blood for you, and you are valuable, and don't you ever, ever, ever measure your worth by your bank account. Don't you do that!

I'm telling you, friend, that your personal value is revealed by godliness. Your personal virtue is revealed by godliness. Do you think that God measures how good you are by how much money you made? That's exactly what Paul is warning about in verse five: there are those with perverse minds who say that gain is godliness.

That is, if you make a lot of money, then somehow you're more virtuous than somebody else. That is not so. Your value is not measured by your money, your virtue is not measured by your money. That's an incorrect barometer of your worth and of your virtue.

And I'll tell you something else: your victory, your victory is not measured by your bank account. Do you think that the most successful person is the person who has the most money? That's what everybody else says: "He's a successful man. She's a successful woman. Look what he or she has accumulated."

Success is not measured by the amount of money that you have in the bank, and I'm telling you that your value, your virtue, and your victory is not measured by money. You let people put this stuff on you, and you go around sitting in a corner, perhaps, or walking with Jesus and loving God with all of your heart and thinking you're a failure? The devil told you that.

The Bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain. Now, you can be successful and have money, and you can be successful and not have money, but success is not measured by the amount of money that you have. David says, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." That is, a little girl said she misquoted it but really quoted it right: "The Lord is my shepherd, I've got all I want."

Godliness, godliness with contentment is great gain. And what we need to do is get our families together, to have a family conference. One of the very first things we need to do is to confess the sin of discontent. Did you hear me? Confess the sin of discontent.

Another thing that we need to do is to have a Thanksgiving and a praise service. We need to think about what Jesus Christ has done for our families, and we need to add up everything that we own that money cannot buy and that death cannot take away, and then we need to praise God for that.

It needs to be a family affair. Get your children together, have a praise service. And then what I would like for you to do is to honestly, children included, let them in on it, take a frank look at all of your debt. Look at and write it down. It will be as painful as getting on the scales after New Year's, but I want you to do it.

I want you to do it. I want you to write it all down, how much you are paying on interest. And then as a family, set a goal. Say we will get out of debt and we'll do it as a family. We don't have to have a new coat. Our car will go 20,000 more miles. We don't have to have the latest gadget or gizmo or whatever.

And we as a family are going to get ourselves out of debt, and then we're going to celebrate when we do. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing for a family to do together? It'll take a lot of pain. Some of you are trying to hide from your wife, your husband, or from your children what the family situation is like.

How wonderful when a family comes together as a team and says together we'll do it as a team, and we can celebrate as a family, as a family. Do you know how to unify anybody? Get them all working on the same problem. That'll bring unity in your family. When you get all of the members of your family working on the same problem, you'll find a family unity that money cannot buy.

Just say, "Hey, kids, we've got a problem. Wife, husband, we have a problem." Now, here's the very first thing I want you to understand, listen to what we've said: the lack of wealth cannot take away genuine contentment. If you have God in your family, you're rich. You're rich.

All right, now here's the second thing I want you to learn: the loss of wealth is inevitable. Look if you will in verse seven: "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." Now, a lot of people don't believe that. They somehow think they're going to take it with them.

The Bible says we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we're going to carry nothing out. Now, we need to understand this. If you want to know how much you own really, add up everything that you have that money cannot buy and that death cannot take away, because money talks; it says, "Goodbye." And if it doesn't say goodbye to you, you're going to say goodbye to it.

Now, the Bible says this: Proverbs chapter 23 verses four through six. The Bible says, "Labor not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" That is, are you going to keep looking at nothing? "For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven."

And then put down what old Job said in the book of Job 1:21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Folks, when you were born, you were born naked, and when you go, you're going to go shorn of all of this world's goods.

And so, you don't need wealth to give you contentment. And number two, what you do accumulate, you're not going to be able to keep. When will we learn this? Now, sooner or later, we're going to die and they're going to have our funerals. If Jesus doesn't come first, we're going to die and they're going to have our funerals.

Now, I want you to imagine your funeral. Here you are, right here in the casket. And here's everybody coming by to look at you. Now, what do you want them to say about you? "Well, he really did spend long hours at the office. He really was a good business manager. He really knew the stocks and the bonds. He was a shrewd operator." Is that what you want them to say about you?

What do you want your children, your grandchildren, your wife, your husband, what do you want them to say about you? There you are! Jim Dobson is a personal friend, and Jim was telling some of us in a small meeting about a time when he was up with his family playing Monopoly. Do you ever play Monopoly?

Well, it's a great game. By the way, I enjoy playing Monopoly with my grandkids. And Jim Dobson was playing Monopoly. And boy, he was killing everybody. I mean, he had all the green ones, he had Boardwalk and Park Place, he had everything out there. And had hotels on all of them. He owned the railroads, he owned it all. You couldn't get around the board without paying old Dobson.

Boy, he was just raking in the money, making everyone in the family mad. After a while, he had it all stacked up there and finally he just wiped everybody out. They were so mad at him, got up and went to bed, and he sat there looking at that pile of play money. All those hotels, everybody'd been peeved and went to bed. There he was, the winner!

Jim said, "I had to put it all back in the box." Then he said, "I thought to myself, isn't that like life? Isn't that like life?" We spend our lives getting it all away from everybody else, and when it's over, they don't like us, and we put it all back in the box. One of these days, folks, you're going to put it all right back in the box.

We didn't bring anything into this world, we're not going to take anything out. Now, we need to understand this. Do you know what prosperity is? Let me give you another word sounds like posterity. Prosperity is posterity. What are you leaving behind in the hearts and lives of your children? What are they going to say when they come and look into that casket at your funeral? They're not going to be talking primarily about your bank account. Again, listen: you can't take it with you. When will families learn this?

Guest (Male): And that's a convicting question that we leave with you today: what will we leave behind in the hearts and lives of our loved ones after we're gone? Coming up tomorrow, part two of Family Finances. Do you have a prayer request that you'd like to share, maybe about your financial situation? At Love Worth Finding, we are proud to be a prayer ministry and we call on fellow prayer warriors to lift each other up spiritually. So if you can, go to our website homepage, lwf.org/radio and scroll down, you'll find our prayer wall. You'll find the option to either submit a request or pray for others right there. Again, lwf.org/radio and find our prayer wall today.

Hi, this is Cary Vaughn and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a non-profit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters just like you. So to give a gift today, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. That's 1-877-LOVEGOD. You can also connect with us online by going to lwf.org/radio. There we offer helpful resources inspired by the timeless teachings of Pastor Rogers. Or even write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Thank you for listening today and be sure to join us next time for more profound truth, simply stated, right here on Love Worth Finding.

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