{"id":33233,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/perils-of-money\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"perils-of-money","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/perils-of-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Perils of Money"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/19113.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Our lives revolve to a certain degree around money.\nIn fact, I dare say there was probably not a day this past week when you didn&#8217;t\nengage in some money related conversation during the course of a day. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe it was a conversation about how expensive back\nto school clothes are. Or maybe you were looking at the headlines of Thursday&#8217;s\n<em>Trib<\/em> or <em>USA Today<\/em> noting the radical drop in the stock market. Or\nmaybe you were expressing your hopes for a raise at work as the fall term\nstarts.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">God&#8217;s Word recognizes the key role that money plays\nin our lives. Did you know that sixteen out of Jesus&#8217;  parables\ntouch on the subject of money or material possessions? Did you know that one\nout of every ten verses in the Gospels&#8212;Matthew, Mark, Luke and John&#8212;speak about\nmoney? Did you know that there are approximately five hundred verses in\nScripture on prayer, and about five hundred verses on faith, but there are\nnearly two thousand verses on  topics? Money, evidently, is a\nspiritual issue. So God&#8217;s Word has a lot to say about how to save it, how to\nspend it, how to make it, how to use and not abuse it, and what happens when\nyou trust it and love it too much.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">No amount of money can keep you out of trouble. See,\nyou can end up at the bottom of the river with a wallet full of fifties just as\neasily as you can with a wallet containing a twenty and a few ones. Not only is\nmoney powerless to insolate you from trouble, money can cause of a lot of pain.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The first peril of money is a lack of contentment.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The perils and pleasures of money are flip sides of\nthe same coin. Today we&#8217;re looking at the perils. If you brought a Bible, would\nyou turn with me to 1 Timothy 6. We&#8217;re going to look at four perils of money\nthat the apostle Paul outlines for us in this text. The first peril it\ndescribes is a lack of contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6: &#8220;Godliness with\ncontentment,&#8221; Paul writes, &#8220;is great gain. For we brought nothing into the\nworld and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing,\nwe&#8217;ll be content with that.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There are a couple of important lessons here that we\ncould learn about contentment. First, contentment is an internal disposition.\nIn other words, it&#8217;s got nothing to do with external possessions or\ncircumstances. It&#8217;s got nothing to do with what you have or what you don&#8217;t\nhave. In fact, the word <em>contentment<\/em> in Paul&#8217;s original language meant\nindependence or . It meant you didn&#8217;t need anything outside of\nyourself to make you happy. Your contentment comes from within. Do you believe\nthat? I suspect that most of us believe that. We just don&#8217;t live like it.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> John Roseman is a nationally syndicated columnist\nwho is also very funny. He&#8217;s also a family psychologist, and I saved an article\nthat he wrote several years ago about the epidemic of boredom in our culture\namong suburban affluent American kids. He has taken three informal polls on the\nsubject.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He said for poll number one, he did a lot of\ntraveling internationally. He said whenever he was in a foreign country he\nasked parents, &#8220;Are your kids bored? Do they complain about boredom?&#8221; He said\nwithout exception he was always told &#8220;no.&#8221; He said not only that, but parents\nin other countries looked at him with incredulity, as if to say, <em>Boredom and\nkids? They don&#8217;t go together.<\/em><\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second poll he took was among parents who raised\ntheir kids in the forties and fifties; parents my parents&#8217; age. He asked them\nthe question, &#8220;When you were raising your kids, did you hear them complain\nabout boredom?&#8221; The response typical of those parents was, &#8220;Rarely.&#8221; In fact,\nthe parents said that when their kids did complain about being bored their\ntypical response was, &#8220;If you can&#8217;t find something to do&#8221; what? &#8220;I&#8217;ll find\nsomething for you.&#8221; How many of you remember that line? It had a way of cutting\nright to the quick on the boredom bit. Right?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">For his third survey, Roseman asked adults his age,\nin their , &#8220;How many toys did you have growing up?&#8221; He said the\nanswers ranged from zero to ten. In fact, he said those that answered, &#8220;Zero&#8221;\ntypically said, &#8220;Toys? We took a cardboard box and we made something out of\nit.&#8221; He said by contrast, according to studies, the typical American\n child has accumulated about two hundred and fifty toys. Now, when\nyou stop and think that a five year old has only lived for two hundred and\nsixty weeks, two hundred and fifty toys equals about one toy per weekand these\nkids are bored. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Where does contentment come from? Adults, does\ncontentment come from having more toys? Does contentment come from going to\nmore movies? Does contentment come from eating out more often? Does contentment\ncome from taking more weekend getaways? Does contentment come from enlarging\nyour wardrobe?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment comes from within. Contentment is an\ninternal disposition.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second lesson about contentment I want us to\nlearn from Scripture is that contentment is a learned disposition. I wonder how\nmany of us agreed with what the apostle Paul wrote in verse 8. Or were you in\nvehement disagreement? Let me read it to you again. Paul says, &#8220;If we have food\nand clothing we&#8217;ll be content with that.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When I read that, how many of you were thinking to\nyourselves, &#8220;You talking about me, Paul? Paul, speak for yourself. I mean, if\nyou&#8217;re happy with a steady diet and the clothes on your back, good for you. But\nit takes a few more worldly possessions to keep a smile on this guy&#8217;s face.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You know, what I didn&#8217;t like about what Paul said\nhere as I studied it this past week is that it&#8217;s so matter of fact. Please\nnote, this is not an admonition. This is not a challenge from Paul. Paul is not\nusing the imperative form of the verb here. He&#8217;s not preaching at us. Paul&#8217;s\nmaking a  statement here. He says if our bare necessities are\nbeing met, that&#8217;s cool. We&#8217;re content with that.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How could Paul be so certain that contentment is\nwithin our daily grasp? Isn&#8217;t the barebones contentment he&#8217;s talking about here\nonly possible for super spiritual saints and martyrs? Paul would tell us\nabsolutely not. Any one of us can learn this disposition. Please understand. We\ndon&#8217;t gravitate instinctively toward contentment. This is a virtue that has to\nbe learned. Paul says in Philippians 4:11, &#8220;I have learned the secret of being\ncontent whatever the circumstances.&#8221; I&#8217;ve learned the secret. What did Paul\nlearn? Let me tell you in three steps, three things you can do if you want to\nlearn contentment. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Number one, you have to trust Jesus to be your\nSavior and your Lord. You have to put your hope in him for the forgiveness of\nyour sin and the promise of eternal life. You have to ask him to begin\ndirecting your life as your Master so he can come and fill the vacuum you&#8217;ve been\ntrying to stuff with other things. When Paul says in Philippians 4:11, &#8220;I&#8217;ve\nlearned to be content whatever the circumstances,&#8221; he tells us how in the next\nverse. He says in verse 12, &#8220;Because I can do all things through Christ who\ngives me strength.&#8221; We often quote that verse out of context. We quote it to\nmean I can go after my goals and Jesus will help me meet them. Just the\nopposite. In this context Paul&#8217;s saying, you know what Jesus helps me do? He\nfills the hole in my life so that whatever happens to me, I&#8217;ll be content. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second thing I would recommend that you do if\nyou want to learn contentment is to make a habit of saying thank you. You&#8217;ve\ngot food. You&#8217;ve got clothes. Thank God. Every moment we&#8217;re tempted to be\ndiscontent over something we want but we don&#8217;t have is an opportunity to thank\nGod for what we do have in that same category.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> A week ago my neighbor\ncalled me over to his driveway and he showed me his new van. This thing has got\neverything on it. It has a CD player and a little button that you push and the\nside door opens and closes, and all sorts of cargo space. I  and I\n. Then I walked from his driveway to my driveway where my 14\nChevy wagon with 120 thousand miles on it was parked. Do you want to know\nsomething? As I walked in my driveway I prayed, &#8220;Thanks, God.&#8221; I meant it,\nbecause that car just got us back from a wonderful vacation, and it runs like a\ntop. We could fit nine   that wagon.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You know, when we came back from vacation we passed\nthrough Brooklyn, New York. It was Sunday, and we wanted to stop and hear the\nBrooklyn Tabernacle choir. Do you know I left my car unattended for four hours,\nand nobody touched it? The next time you&#8217;re tempted to grouse about what you\ndon&#8217;t have but wish you had, thank God for what you&#8217;ve got.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The third piece of advice I want to give you is to\nstop teasing yourself with images of what you don&#8217;t have. When you go to the\nmailbox and you see the Land&#8217;s End catalogue, drop it in the garbage can. Don&#8217;t\nhang out at the mall just to hang out at the mall. Don&#8217;t go out to eat when\nyou&#8217;ve got food at home in the refrigerator. I mean, there are times to go out\nto eat, but limit the amount of time that you spend doing so. Don&#8217;t stare at\ntravel posters dreaming about where you&#8217;d go if you had the money. Don&#8217;t keep\ndwelling on what you don&#8217;t have. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> I was working on a household project this past\nweek, and I had to go to Menard&#8217;s. What I needed was at the back of the store.\nBy the time I had wandered back up to the cash register after getting what I\ncame for, I was amazed at the number of things I saw that I couldn&#8217;t live\nwithout. I didn&#8217;t know I needed all of these things before I got to Menard&#8217;s.\nHave you been there?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment comes from within, and it is a learned\ndisposition.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second peril of money is a landslide of sin.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second peril that money can expose you to is a\nlandslide of sin. Look at the next verses. Verse 9: &#8220;People who want to get\nrich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires\nthat plunge men into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is the root of\nall kinds of evil.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In my study of this passage this past week I learned\nthat there are about 450 references to evil in the Bible but there&#8217;s only one\nverse that specifically states this is where evil can originate: 1 Timothy\n6:10. What&#8217;s behind much of the wickedness in our lives? Paul says it&#8217;s our\nlove of money.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Please note: he doesn&#8217;t say <em>money.<\/em> Money is\nneutral. He says it&#8217;s the <em>love<\/em> of money that can be <em>a <\/em>root, not <em>the<\/em>\nroot because there are other roots of evil, but it can be a root of all kinds\nof evil. If we get too chummy with money and the things that money can buy, if\nwe walk around with a mental wish list of things we&#8217;d purchase or things we&#8217;d\ndo if we just had more money, if our favorite indoor sport is shopping, then\nour love of money and the things that money can buy will open the door to a\nlandslide of other sins in our lives. I chose the word <em>landslide<\/em>\ndeliberately. Look at verse 9. It speaks of <em>many<\/em> foolish and harmful\ndesires. Look at verse 10. It mentions <em>all kinds<\/em> of evil. See, there is\na great variety of sin that grows out of  in our lives.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Friend, think about all of your sinful attitudes\nthat could be related to money in your life.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever lied for the sake of money? Have you\never shaved the truth on your income tax return or your expense report or in\nthe information you give a customer in order to close a deal and get the\ncommission?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever coveted something owned by somebody\nelse? Did you know that coveting is one of the big ten? This is amazing. &#8220;Thou\nshalt not covet&#8221; is right up there with &#8220;Thou shalt not murder&#8221; and &#8220;Thou shalt\nhave no other gods before me.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever become angry, bitter, or hateful with\nsomeone else because of money&#8212;a boss who didn&#8217;t give you what you felt you were\nworthy of? A business partner who cheated you out of a deal? A family member\nwho got a more sizeable portion of the inheritance than you did?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">How about sins related to the spending of money?\nHave you ever spent too much? Made a god out of the things you purchased? Have\nyou ever spent your money on stuff like smutty magazines or a movie you\nshouldn&#8217;t have seen? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever worked seven out of seven days in\norder to make more money, ignoring God&#8217;s clear command&#8212;another one of the big\nten&#8212;that you ought to set one of those days aside each week to focus on\nworshiping him?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever used your money to register your kids\nfor so many extracurricular activities that there&#8217;s no time left in their\nschedule for you to pass on spiritual values to them? You&#8217;ve got the money, so\nyou sign them up.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Have you ever ignored the Lord&#8217;s work? Have you ever\nignored the poor with that portion of your income that God says needs to be set\naside for others?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s your turn. What would you add to my list? What\nsin in your life could be traced back to a love of money?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This is serious business, friends. Look at verse 9\nagain. The apostle Paul says that our love for money, our desire for more,\nmore, more can lead us into a temptation trap. Did you know that when the\napostle Paul uses that word <em>trap<\/em> in his New Testament letters he is\ntipping us off that there is a spiritual enemy out there who is plotting our\ndestruction? He&#8217;s setting traps for us. See, the love of money is not just a\ncharacter flaw that we need to work out. The love of money is also a strategy\nthat the evil one uses against us to ruin our lives and destroy our\nrelationship with God.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Do not take it lightly. As you look at your own\nlife, keep an eye out for the love of money. Fight it every time you see it. If\nyou see evidence of the love of money in your life, take action against it.\nDeliberately do the opposite of what it&#8217;s tempting you to do. Get it? Good.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The third peril of money is wandering from the\nfaith.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Look at the middle of verse 10. Paul says, &#8220;Some\npeople eager for money have wandered from the faith.&#8221; Now, let me quickly point\nout that those who forfeit eternal salvation never had the real thing to begin\nwith. I say this because the Bible teaches this elsewhere. It teaches us that\none of the marks of genuine faith is that it keeps on keeping on. So when I\nspeak here of the loss of salvation, I&#8217;m talking about people who get real\nclose to owning it, but drift away from God because of their eagerness for\nmoney and for material possessions.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I wonder if the apostle Paul didn&#8217;t have this in\nmind when he wrote Mark 10. Remember the story of the  professional\nguy who comes to Jesus one day and asks the question, &#8220;What can I do to inherit\neternal life?&#8221; Jesus looks at him. He looks at his designer clothes and the\nRolex watch, and says, &#8220;Here&#8217;s what you do. Sell everything you have. Give the\nmoney to the poor. Then come and follow me.&#8221; Understand that nowhere else in\nScripture does Jesus make those kinds of demands of anyone who inquires about\nfollowing him. In this guy&#8217;s case, Jesus was perceptive enough to get right to\nthe root of the sin in the man&#8217;s life. The root of sin in his life was a love\nof money. What Jesus was saying was, friend, you have to choose. Is it going to\nbe all that stuff or is it going to be me?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus will never share priority number one in your\nlife with anything else. He will not share it with your job. He will not share\nit with your house. He will not share it with your family. He will not share it\nwith your vacation trips or your recreational activity. He will be number one.\nHe will be, as they say, Lord of all or not Lord at all. If that kind of stuff\nis getting in the way of you obeying him, stewarding your resources, worshiping\nhim, or serving him in some way, Jesus would say you&#8217;ve made your choice. He\nsays, you can&#8217;t follow me and follow that other stuff. I think it&#8217;s very\ninteresting. Sadly, the fellow in Mark 10 turned and walked away. He was\nwilling to turn his back on the offer of salvation in order to hang onto his\npossessions.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Look at verse 10 again and note the word <em>wander. <\/em>I\nfind this to be an interesting word to describe how a love for money and the\nthings that money can buy can cut us off from a relationship with God.\nWandering doesn&#8217;t suggest to me that this is something you deliberately set out\nto do, to defiantly turn your back on God. Wandering suggests to me that it is\nsomething that just happens. You get lost because you&#8217;re not paying attention\nto what you should be paying attention to. You get lost because your focus is\non other things.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Are you taking your eyes off Jesus because you&#8217;ve\ntold yourself,<em> This is just a temporary diversion. I know it&#8217;s a case of misplaced\npriorities, but I&#8217;ll find my way back to the trail.<\/em> It&#8217;s a good way to\nwander from the faith. What are you looking for? What&#8217;s taking your attention\noff Christ? Don&#8217;t forget that Jesus said, &#8220;You can gain the whole world&#8221;&#8212;Do\nit. You can gain the whole world.&#8212;&#8221;But in the process you&#8217;ll lose your soul.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The fourth peril of money is a lance of sadness.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Finally, the fourth peril: a lance of sadness. Look\nat verse 10. &#8220;For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some\npeople eager for money have wandered from the faith&#8221;&#8212;now listen&#8212;&#8221;and pierced\nthemselves with many griefs.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This word <em>pierced,<\/em> I learned this past week,\nis a strong word in the New Testament. I traced its use through other passages\nand I discovered that it&#8217;s associated with things like emotional distress and\nweeping and physical suffering and mental anguish. Paul is warning us here that\nour eagerness for money can result in us being pierced by many griefs. One\ntranslation puts it this way. Instead of the word <em>pierced<\/em> it uses the\nexpression, &#8220;put on a spit.&#8221; I thought, <em>That&#8217;s pretty graphic. You can get\nroasted over your griefs and troubles\nthat are brought on by your love of money.<\/em><\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Somebody handed me an Ann Landers column a couple\nof weeks ago. It was a collection of anecdotes that people had sent to Ann\nLanders describing local news stories in which crime didn&#8217;t pay. It was amusing\nto read of these accounts of people who were so eager to get their hands on\nmoney that they did stupid things and eventually were caught because of it.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Like the burglar in New Jersey who left a piece of\npaper slipped into the lock of the door at work so he could come back after\nhours and rob the place. Only trouble was the little piece of paper was a\ntraffic ticket with his name on it. They traced him down.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Or the guy in Wichita who was arrested for trying to\npass a couple of counterfeit bills at an airport hotel&#8212;two $16 bills.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Or the convenience store that was robbed in Topeka,\nbut the guy stayed around too long and was caught. See, when he first came in\nthe place there was so little money in the cash register that he tied up the\nclerk and began to wait on customers to get more money until the police finally\narrived.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">These stories about people who were too eager for\nmoney are obviously funny. But I want to tell you that there is nothing funny\nabout the lance of sadness that will pierce us with grief if we go that route.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You say, <em>What kinds of grief are you talking\nabout?<\/em><\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m talking about things like death. I&#8217;m talking\nabout workaholism. I&#8217;m talking about families pulled apart because both parents\nare working at breakneck pace to make enough money to maintain a certain\nlifestyle. I&#8217;m talking about foolish investments, the  schemes\nthat we fall into.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I&#8217;m talking about gambling. I never thought I&#8217;d have\nto say this, but it&#8217;s amazing to me every time I go into the city how many\ncasino billboards I see. I thought people were too smart to fall for such\nadvertising schemes. I was talking to a guy the other day who said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got\ntwo employees who are in deep weeds because of gambling losses; tens of\nthousands of dollars.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The list goes on. I was reading a newsletter by Ron\nBlue this past week, and I was made aware of another grief that hadn&#8217;t occurred\nto me among Christ followers. Ron Blue is a Christian CPA. He runs a financial\nconsulting business nationwide. Some of you hear him on the radio or you&#8217;ve\nread his books. The newsletter was titled something like, <em>Ten Reasons Why\nMost Christians Don&#8217;t Give to the Lord&#8217;s Work. <\/em>I thought, <em>this will be\ninteresting.<\/em> I read it. Reason number two was they want to but they can&#8217;t.\nThey want to, but their mortgage is so big or their car payment is so big or\nthere is so much debt run up on the credit card, or they&#8217;ve got their kids in\nso many expensive activities that their heart says, <em>I would love to give to\nGod&#8217;s work,<\/em> but they feel they just can&#8217;t do it.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You say, <em>What do we do to keep ourselves from\nbeing pierced with griefs like this? <\/em>In closing, here are a couple of\npractical suggestions.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">First, get serious about the topic of today&#8217;s\nmessage. Pick up the tape and listen to it two or three more times. If you&#8217;re\nmarried, you sit down with your spouse and say, &#8220;What ought we to be doing\nabout this kind of stuff?&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second thing I&#8217;d encourage you to do is to\nidentify the black holes in your spending where money is getting vacuumed out.\nThis is going to be hard to do honestly because for some of us we&#8217;re going to\ndiscover that the biggest black hole is a mortgage that&#8217;s too big and we&#8217;re going\nto be faced with the alternative of whether or not we&#8217;ve got the courage to\ndownsize. I want to tell  is a long time. The rewards that you&#8217;ll\nhave there for serving God in this life are incredibly important. Don&#8217;t forfeit\nthem to hang onto a bigger house that you can&#8217;t afford for the next several\nyears.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The third thing I encourage you to do is get some\nbudgeting counseling. Don&#8217;t let the perils of money put you on the spit and\nroast you over the griefs that result when money isn&#8217;t handled God&#8217;s way.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jim\nNicodem founded Christ Community Church in St. Charles, Illinois in 1984. Prior\nto that, Jim served as pastor of a  church on Cape Cod in\nMassachusetts.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Jim Nicodem<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching\nToday<\/span>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\"> Tape #\n205<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity\nToday International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1935],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3683,4100,4401,4435,4977],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33233","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-jim-nicodem","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-contentment","tax_ctp_tags-greed","tax_ctp_tags-love-of-money","tax_ctp_tags-materialism","tax_ctp_tags-sin"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Perils of Money - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/perils-of-money\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perils of Money - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our lives revolve to a certain degree around money. 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