Running To Win

Voice (Male): It can be humbling, but also freeing. We humans are to look after God's property, property we do not own. That makes him the landlord, and we're free of the worry that being the owner entails. So, what exactly does he own? Today we find out in a look at Deuteronomy chapter 8. Stay with us.

Dave McAllister: From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, renters pay their rent, but the landlord has to fix the leaky pipes. It's freeing to not actually own the property we live in.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, that's a wonderful illustration of the fact that really all of us who live in this world, we are indeed renters. God takes care of his world and we participate in it to his glory and to his honor. I want to share with you a testimony someone wrote to us from Brazil saying, "After I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, I was freed from idolatry, from alcoholic drink. I've seen my whole family serving the Lord Jesus Christ."

The reason we receive testimonies like this is because of people just like you who have invested in this ministry. Would you consider making a gift during this month? Your gift will be doubled. Imagine that, doubling your investment. At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info. Meanwhile, I want you to listen, but may we all understand that all that we have belongs to God. Let us listen carefully.

Did you know that we are apparently alone in the universe? The New York Times recently carried an extensive article on a book written by two scientists who said that the conditions needed for life are so finely tuned that it is highly unlikely, improbable, and really impossible that life exists anywhere else in all the galaxies of the universe.

When you stop to think of it, it is remarkable that God should have chosen this planet to be the one upon which the issues of truth and justice and right and wrong and human life and animal life and plant life—it is indeed interesting that God should have chosen this planet to be the focal point of what he is doing throughout the whole universe.

And why are we here? As you know, this is the second in a series of messages titled "Managing God's Gifts." We learned last time from the Old Testament story of Adam that the purpose of it all was that God did the creating, God owns it, and mankind is to manage it. Mankind is to look after God's property.

We also learned that when we recognize that, it really frees us from worry because we learn that this body is God's, our money is God's, what we own is God's. Ultimately, if we punt the ball in his direction, if we say, "Oh Lord, this is all yours," then he has the responsibility of taking care of it and it lifts many, many burdens from our shoulders.

Well, this morning what we'd like to do is to look at all that God owns and then very briefly, I'm going to outline a biblical view of wealth. When we do this, I want you to know that the intention is that our lives be changed by the word of God. If you listen carefully and if you take to heart everything that I have said, someday you may meet me in heaven and say, "Thank you, Pastor Lutzer, for preaching that sermon because it helped me to understand the value of eternity."

That's where we're going, and I'm glad you've joined us for the journey. What is it that God owns? The text today is the eighth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 8, though I shall be referring to other passages as well, where the Lord is inviting the people again to remember the way in which he led them.

The Lord says in verse 5, "Know then that in your heart, as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you." What does God own? He's a landlord. What falls under his jurisdiction? Well, the answer is, first of all, God owns his people. He owns us. He says to Israel, "I disciplined you because you're my son, you belong to me."

If we had time, I'd give you the references, but in the Old Testament Israel is referred to as God's inheritance. God can't really inherit anything like we do. He owns everything, but he wants an inheritance too, and the people of God are his inheritance. Not only that, but they are the treasured possession of God. They are his treasured possession. With all of their rebellion, with all of their sin, with all of their mistakes, God says, "You are mine."

We come to the New Testament and we discover the same thing. It says in Ephesians 1 that we are God's inheritance, and in 1 Peter we read that we are God's own prized possession. So I want you to look into my eyes this morning just for a moment. Look into my eyes this morning as I tell you that if you're a believer, you belong to God and therefore you are his property.

Does he take care of his property or is he an absentee landlord? I think he takes care of his property. Oh, you say, but I've had some difficulties, maybe even you have experienced abuse, and where was my Heavenly Father at that time? That's a long story, but I do want to remind you that God has a purpose in this world that is eternal.

Even though the sufferings of this present world cannot be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us, God keeps reminding us that he does care for us and in eternity we will know how well we were cared for. The suffering of this life will not be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. God owns us and he loves us.

Second, I want you to notice that God also owns our environment. Now we're in Deuteronomy 8, picking it up at verse 6. "Observe the commandments of the Lord your God, walk in his ways, revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills, a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where there is bread, it will not be scarce and you will lack nothing, a land where rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills." God says, "I own it. It is my land."

All the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. But sometimes we speak of the Holy Land as the special place, not because the land is holy by any means, but the people who lived in it were to be holy before God. That land in a special sense belongs to God because he designated it for his people, Old Testament Israel. For example, he gave the boundaries of the land. God told Abraham it was going to be from the Great River, the river Euphrates, all the way to the river of Egypt. God mapped it out.

Later on when the tribes come into the land, it is God who has Joshua cast lots to determine where they are going to settle and ultimately it is God who determined it. God used that mean to settle the people where he wanted them. Now some of the people complained. Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh, they were on the east side of the Jordan and they didn't like it because they seemed to be cut off from others.

Others didn't like it because they say, "We live in the hills where there are rocks and we'd rather be out on the plains where it's easier to buy grain and to be able to grow it." You had all of this conflict. That's why we sometimes talk about people who are dissatisfied with their lot in life. But just as God determined all those things, he determines that for us too.

We're not all born in the same community. We're not all born with the same amount of wealth. We're not born with the same opportunity and we are not born with the same amount of ability. And yet back behind these kinds of decisions stands God. Now that doesn't mean that if we are born into a poverty situation we shouldn't try to better ourselves.

But the fact is that many people are very unhappy and angry at God because of their lot in life. Interpreted within a certain context, if you're angry because of your lot in life, you may be angry with God. God says the land is mine, I determine its borders, and Israel was to be self-conscious stewards of that land.

In the Old Testament they were, for example, to let it lie fallow one year in seven. Just like a man rests one day a week, so the land was to be fallow one year in seven. Then at the end of the period of seven of those cycles, there was to be the Year of Jubilee where all the land went back to its original owners so there could be no such thing ultimately as the haves and the have-nots because everyone would always get a new beginning.

In order to make sure that the people realized that the land was God's, in the fall they would bring a first fruits offering. They would actually bring sheaves of grain to the temple and they would wave it before the Lord. They were to bring the best of the grain and give it to him as a reminder of the fact that all of it was his. God owns the land and the environment.

Does that mean that God was not serious about this, and especially the Sabbath? He was very serious. The reason that Israel was in captivity for 70 years is because they forgot 70 Sabbaths. God says the land will have its Sabbaths and you're punished one year for everyone that you omitted throughout the centuries. Yes, God owns the environment.

Could I say parenthetically that we should all be environmentalists? That's controversial depending on what you mean by environmentalism. Many of the folks today who are into environmentalism have a very pantheistic view of God and maybe they are drawing the line where you and I wouldn't want to draw it. All that is negotiable and up for debate.

The idea of taking the earth and simply using it without replenishing it, without thinking of the environment, would be unscriptural because God says, "I have made you a ruler over it, take care of it for me and be a good steward of it." What does God own? He owns us. He owns our environment.

Thirdly, he also owns our wealth. Verse 10 of Deuteronomy 8 says, "When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increases and all that you have is multiplied, beware that your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt through the vast and dreadful desert."

Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. God says, "I own the wealth that's in the land. When I created the world, I created the land of Israel with copper. I created stones that would be like iron that could be used for various construction projects. I created the earth with minerals and nutrients that would be used to grow great crops. I'm the one that created the springs of water. I own it all. Now take good care of it and beware lest your heart is lifted up with pride and you say it is I who have begotten this wealth. No, it is the Lord your God that gives you that ability."

We think of America, a land of plenty, a land of technology. Computers and cell phones and fax machines and all of this technological revolution that some of us are beginning to experience. We think of the wealth that has been created. More wealth in America in a three-month period in 1999 than many countries have as the total amount of their budget for a year. And yet we have forgotten God.

Do we not say it is my mind that has given me the ability to make computers and microchips and whatever else is needed? We say it is our ingenuity, good old American ingenuity, that has given us the ability to be the strong economic power that we are. Beware lest your heart be lifted up with pride because it is God who gives you the ability to produce wealth.

What I'd like to do in the next few minutes is to give you five principles that will help us understand a biblical view of wealth. Principle number one, wealth has the power to bless. Especially in the Old Testament, you find wealth sometimes being directly linked to people that God just chooses to bless. God blessed Abraham and gave him flocks and herds. God blessed Solomon and gave him more wealth than any other person of the period. He became the most wealthy man on the face of the earth. Wealth can bless. The Psalms say wealth and riches are in the house of the righteous and righteousness endures forever.

I need to tread very carefully here. It's interesting that even though in the Old Testament wealth is often a sign of blessing, poverty is never a sign of disfavor from the Lord. In fact, sometimes God took men like Job and gave them a great deal of wealth and blessed them and then took all the wealth from them to see whether or not they were really trusting him or not.

So while you do have in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament particularly, that relationship between wealth and blessing, God never despises the poor. God never says that if you're poor it's a sign of disfavor. Those who have been poor and those who have been rich would say most assuredly it is better to be wealthy than it is poor because wealth can be a sign of blessing.

Wealth can enable you to live in a nice house, to buy nice clothes, to go to restaurants, to buy cars, to enjoy leisure. Wealth can be used to bless the lives of others as you generously give it. Wealth can be a blessing. Poverty, on the other hand, I suppose can be a blessing too, but we struggle with that.

About 25 years ago, I saw the film Fiddler on the Roof. I almost had a senior moment like most grandfathers do. Do you recall wasn't it Tevye who was in the barn and having an argument with his son-in-law? His son-in-law was interested in socialism, and he said, "Well, it’s no disgrace to be poor." And I remember Tevye walking out of the barn and looking into the sky and saying, "Well, it’s no disgrace to be poor, but on the other hand, it’s no great honor either." Wealth can bless you. All throughout the Scriptures, we can show that.

Let me give you a second statement of biblical understanding of wealth. Secondly, wealth has the power to curse you. I won't read it again, but why did God say when you get into that land with its wealth and with its crops and its iron and its blessings of pomegranates and vegetables, beware lest your heart be lifted up with pride and you say I've done it?

Why can wealth curse? Because wealth makes all of the same promises that God makes. Wealth says, "I'll be with you in sickness, I'll be with you in difficulties, I'll be with you when you're well and when you're going through difficult times. I will give you happiness because I'll be able to buy for you clothes and food and all these other things, and you don't have to trust God anymore because I will be there for you."

As a result of that, wealth curses people. When we forget that we are just stewards and we become owners and we begin to say, "This is mine. I possess this," and the wealth begins to possess us, beware. Some of you know people who are not generous. You know people who will take a quarter before they put it into the offering plate and hang onto it until their knuckles turn white because they say to themselves, "This is mine."

Beware, God says beware, because it has just cursed you if you look at it as yours. Wealth is magnetic. People who have high principles have sometimes sacrificed them when big money has been waved in their faces. I remember when the New Era scandal happened a number of years ago. Someone said he sat in a boardroom where people were going to invest in it even though he suspected it was bogus. He pled with them not to, and he said it was as if their eyes glazed over and they would not listen because the possibility of wealth was too overwhelming for them.

23 million people watched when a young woman married a man whom she had never met before on national television on the show "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" There are a number of concerns about what that says about marriage, but I'm interested particularly in the money aspect. Here's a young woman meeting a man she had never met and he had never met her. She did sign a pre-nuptial agreement that she really did not have any right to his wealth if things went bad in their marriage.

There are a number of things that are wrong with that picture. But let me just suggest one. Why "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" Why not have a show entitled "Who Wants to Marry a Poor but Nice Guy?" Why didn't they have that on television? I could think of some people then who could participate in a show like that.

Dave McAllister: Oh my friend, I want you to know that the grip of money is powerful. It makes all the same promises as God. "I'll give you happiness, I'll be there when the economy collapses, I'll be there in sickness and in health." You and I must be very careful that we not attach our hearts to it. I want to take this opportunity to thank the many of you who support this ministry. It's because of people just like you that we receive reports from different countries of the world expressing their appreciation for Running to Win, and you are a part of it.

During this very special month, which is the end of our fiscal year, any gift that you give to this ministry will be doubled. I want to thank the many of you who have chosen to double your investment. Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. We have a special resource for you as an expression of our deep gratitude for your interest in this ministry. It's a book I've written entitled "Christ Among Other Gods: A Defense of Christ in an Age of Tolerance." Right now, go to rtwoffer.com and thank you for helping us.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. You've heard Erwin Lutzer beginning "God, The Landlord," the second in a six-part series on "Managing God's Gifts." So God owns his people and he owns our environment. Next time on Running to Win, more of the five principles to understand the Bible's view of wealth. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.