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Colin Smith: Money, Proverbs teaches us, is a great blessing from God, and we should be thankful for it. Every good gift comes from his hand. But it brings with it certain inherent dangers. So, how can I master my money rather than have my money master me?

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. We're continuing a message that we began last time, taking a look at the topic of money. Colin, as you lay out these warnings, the word that keeps coming to mind for me is intentionality. We really have to be intentional with how we use the money that God has entrusted to us.

Colin Smith: That's exactly right, Steve. The reason for that is that money is a power. Because it's a power, it's going to try and gain control of your life. Jesus said no one can serve two masters, and the point of what he's saying there is that money wants to master you.

The only way in which you're going to get in a position where you are master of your money is if Jesus Christ is master of you. That's how it works. I submit myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and because I'm under his authority, I'm in a position in which I'm able to exercise greater control over the things that otherwise would be exercising control over me.

This is a very important practical subject that we're looking at in the book of Proverbs, and it's a wonderfully positive one. We're going to see today that whatever God gives to you, whatever he trusts to you, is an opportunity for you to be able to do good and to bring blessing into the lives of others. I hope this is going to be a really encouraging message for you today as we think together about seizing the opportunities that God gives to us.

Steve Hiller: Let's do just that as we head to the book of Proverbs once again and continue our message called Wealth. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Money, Proverbs teaches us, is a great blessing from God, and we should be thankful for it. Every good gift comes from his hand. But it brings with it certain inherent dangers.

These dangers are that money can ruin you, especially if it comes quickly, that it can't save you, and it does have the tendency to distract you from the reality that you really need to be concerned about, which is how are you going to be righteous on the last day when you stand before the Lord? It may tempt you. It may tempt you to control, it may tempt you to cheat, it may tempt you to credit yourself, and it may even tempt you to deny the Lord and feel that you no longer really need him. That's the power of money.

That takes us to the third thing because the question now is, all right, money is a master and it brings temptations as well as blessings. How can I master my money rather than have my money master me? The key to that lies in our third word, which is priority.

Proverbs chapter 3: Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Honor the Lord. Now, the word honor very simply means give weight to. Give weight to God in regards to your money.

The way that you give weight to God in regards to your money is that you take a certain portion of all that God has given to you, you set it aside, and you give it back to him. What should we put aside? The answer here is the firstfruits of all your produce. Firstfruits by definition are the first part of all that comes to you.

God is honored when what we set aside for him is our first commitment, not our last. When what we give is taken not from what's left when we've dealt with everything else that we've given a higher importance to, but when what we give to God and what we set aside for him comes first, we thereby honor him. We say, Lord, you are first in regards to all that you have given to me. In other words, what we give to him is taken off the top.

When our family came to this country, saying goodbye to parents on both sides of the family was one of the hardest things we have ever done in our lives. We made a commitment. That commitment was that we would go back each year so that our boys would be able to enjoy their grandparents and cousins, and their grandparents would be able to enjoy them.

From the moment we landed in this country, we had two financial commitments before we even began. Number one, what we give to God, which was first. Number two, four plane tickets to Britain each year. We had to divide that by 12 and put that aside so that we had enough money and weren't worrying about whether we could do it. We made a commitment to do it, so we just had to do that.

Here are two commitments that are taken off the top before we begin. Then there was the small matter of a mortgage. Then someone said to me, your boys are ten and eight years old. Now that you've come to this country, you really need to start thinking about college. To which I said, as a newly arrived immigrant, how much is that likely to cost? That quickly became item number four.

The principle of priority is profoundly helpful to settle what you give weight to and the order in which you give weight to it. You honor the Lord where you say, Lord, you're first in my life, and that means you're first in regards to everything that you gave to me to steward.

For some years, the amount that we set aside for the Lord as the first piece, the first cut as it were, was a portion of the paycheck that we received. Then it dawned on me that I'm saying that the Lord's first, but actually the government's first. They're taking their cut off first. I didn't like the feeling of that, giving God a portion of what's left after the government have had at it.

We decided to put the Lord before the government. That just felt right to me, and before the other deductions as well. Many of you have been doing what I'm describing here for many years, and you can testify to the blessing of it. You know that we sometimes wonder how are we going to manage. By God's grace and with some discipline and some wise planning, we do. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Honor him with it. And with the firstfruits of all your produce.

One more question before we move on, and it's a question that is often and reasonably asked. How much then should you give? What should you set aside? In the Old Testament, God's people gave a tithe or 10 percent of all that God had given to them. But there is no place in the New Testament where God tells us how much we should give.

Charles Bridges says very helpfully, the law dealt with us as children and prescribed the exact amount, but the gospel treats us as adults, as men, as women, and leaves us to circumstance, to principle, and to conscience. That's very helpful. With children, you do have to tell them what to do. You have to give them direction. But as people come into maturity, there has to be a freedom of choice that is exercised as before the Lord.

That is why, rather than setting a rule in the New Testament, we have language like this from 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 7: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. No one's to be put under any pressure to give a particular amount. For the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

God does not give you a command with regards to how much you should pray. You have to pray, as we must give. But God doesn't tell you how much you are to pray, how long you're to spend, or what time of the day you're to do it.

The whole point of prayer is that it should arise from a heart that desires communion with God. If there was some kind of rule that said you've got to spend ten minutes, thirty minutes, or an hour and a half doing it, it would kill the whole thing. The same is true in regards to giving.

God does not want any of us here this morning to view giving in the same way as we view taxes. He wants our giving to come out of love for him. The amount that you give is a matter of Christian liberty. It is a decision on which all of us will make choices, just as we make choices about how much we pray.

The choices that you make will reflect your heart. As you grow in your love for Christ, your desire to give will increase. Growing up, I had always thought of tithing as a command, and so for many years, that's simply what we did. In this season of our lives—and there are different seasons of life where circumstances are different—I've come to ponder this question and it has been helpful to me.

If I'd lived in the Old Testament time under the law of God and had been one of God's people, I would have given 10 percent of everything that God gives to me, and I hope I would have done it gladly. Indeed, David says, oh, how I love your law, and presumably he means the whole of God's law in that regard. I don't live under the Old Testament law. I live under grace. Grace is way better than law.

If grace is better, why would I not seek, if I am able, to do more? The last word is opportunity. We've thought about blessing, we've thought about dangers, and then we have thought about the very important principle of priority that is made clear in the book of Proverbs.

Here's the last thing, and it is opportunity. Proverbs 11:24: One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. This seems counterintuitive. Surely if I give freely, I will have less. Yet Proverbs says one who gives freely grows all the richer. How does that work?

Think about farming. The farmer has a sack of seed. What does he do with the seed? He scatters it. He throws it out freely. When the harvest comes, that which he has thrown out freely comes back to him in a more abundant measure.

The New Testament takes up that picture. Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Here are the two farmers. This is the contrast that's being made. Both of these farmers have a sack of seed.

The first one says the seed is very precious, and I need it to make bread. I can't afford to go out throwing it on the ground. So he holds back most of his seed. He takes just a little off the top and throws it out in his field. When harvest comes, there is not much for him to reap.

A second farmer has the same bag of seed. He says this seed is very precious, and I need it to make bread, but I know that if I sow this seed, it will multiply. I'm only going to hold back what I need for making the bread, and everything else I will sow.

He sows bountifully, and when the harvest comes, he reaps bountifully. That's what Proverbs is getting at when it says one gives freely yet grows all the richer, another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. No one ever gave more freely than our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich. The Son of God loved me, the apostle says, and gave himself—not a bit of himself, he gave himself for me.

What comes from Christ's self-giving? The Father is honored, we are forever blessed, and Jesus Christ will see of the fruit of the travail of his soul and he will be satisfied. He's going to have a great harvest. That day has not come yet, but it will.

The day is coming, the Bible tells us, when Jesus Christ will stand in the presence of the Father with a whole company of the redeemed around him, and he will say, Father, here I am, and here are the children that you have given me. The fruit of the travail of Jesus' soul will be reaped in heaven. What is true for Jesus will be true for us as well.

Suppose that a revelation was given to you that at some point in your life, your home would be destroyed by fire and everything in it would be lost. You don't know which home this will be or when in your life it will happen. You don't know if it's going to happen early in life in your starter home, in your family home, or in your retirement home.

You don't know when, you don't know where, you don't know exactly how. All you know is that for sure, at some point in your life, a day will come when your house will be destroyed by fire and everything in it will be lost. What would you do?

I know what I would do. I'd move as much as I could to another place. I'd only keep in my house what I absolutely needed. I'd look at things that I really value and I'd say, do I really need to keep that here where it's at risk? I'd rather put it somewhere that it's safe. Think about your money in that regard.

Then here's another analogy that Karen and I resonate with. John Calvin speaks about this, and Karen and I of course have experienced it as some of you have also. If we truly believe that heaven is our home, then we will be like those who emigrate to another country and send their goods ahead of them to the place where they can enjoy them for a longer time.

I will never forget the day when we stood outside of the home that was owned by the church we served in London. We'd lived there for sixteen years. The truck left down the street taking all that we possessed to bring it over here. It was quite a day.

It was a very happy day because our hearts were here already, and we were sending our belongings ahead of us saying they're going to a place where we'll enjoy them for a longer time. That is embedded in my mind from that experience. Can you see how a Christian person might then say that's how I should be thinking about all that God trusts to me? That I have the opportunity to put that in a place where it will be invested for a longer time.

Jesus said, do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Steve Hiller: Some really helpful word pictures today from Pastor Colin Smith. Those analogies help us understand a little bit more how we handle our money, and some helpful observations from the book of Proverbs about money: the blessing, the dangers, the priority, and opportunity with money. If you've missed any of Pastor Colin's teaching on this subject or any in this series called Wisdom for Life, come to our website and listen online.

Our website is openthebible.org. You can stream the program or you can download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at openthebible.org. You can also listen through the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free at your app store. It's a great way to listen on demand. Ask about ordering a copy of this entire series on CD. It's called Wisdom for Life, and our phone number is 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or you'll find ordering information online at openthebible.org.

Open the Bible is listener-supported. It's your financial generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching, whether you listen on the radio, online, through the app, or however you've connected with this ministry. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of Pastor Colin's new 30-day devotional book called Grow in Hope. Colin, what's one thing that you'd like people to take away from this book?

Colin Smith: It would be very practical because every Christian knows what it is to go through dark times when we feel discouraged and we don't know how to move forward. When these times come in your life, you need to know how to handle your own soul, how to encourage and strengthen yourself.

David, of course, speaks about this. He knew what this was like. In Psalm 42, he speaks to himself. He says, "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?" And then he says, "Hope in God." I hope what people will take away from this is that they'll be helped and encouraged in being able to speak to their own soul in the way that David did in Psalm 42 and to find hope in God, because there is hope in God for every circumstance of life, and it comes to us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: We'd love to send you a copy of this brand-new 30-day devotional from Pastor Colin called Grow in Hope. It's our thanks for your financial support this month. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. Again, that's openthebible.org or call 1-877-673-6365. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.

Colin Smith: This is Pastor Colin, and I want you to know about a resource that will help you in your devotional life. It's called Open the Bible Daily. My colleague Pastor Tim Augustine takes what you hear on Open the Bible and he edits it into daily, bite-sized chunks that you can read in your devotional time in less than three minutes.

Every day you'll find a verse of Scripture, a short teaching from God's word, and an application that you can carry with you through the day. People who use this tell us that they read it every day, and I think that if you try it, you'll love it too. For more information, visit openthebible.org/daily. That's openthebible.org/daily.