We have been going through Matthew’s gospel, Jesus birth, his baptism and his temptation in the wilderness. And we have come to the Sermon on the Mount- Jesus summary of how to live with him as your king. His sermon on the Christian’s lifestyle. But we studied most of that last year, except we missed a bit out! We missed out the bit in the middle where Jesus taught about money worries and then when he taught about not judging others. 

Money worries are something that we all struggle with and unfairly criticising others is also something that we all are tempted to do! So I think it might be useful for us to complete our study on the Sermon on the Mount by filling in the gap and understand what Jesus has to say about these two pretty vital issues.

Now money is not evil. The bible says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But money itself is not evil. Money is like a chameleon it takes the colour of the heart of the person who uses it. A bad person uses it for bad but a good person can do a lot of good. 

John Wesley once said that money in the hands of the children of God – ‘is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, clothes for the naked… It is a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain..yes [money is], a lifter up from the gates of death!’

And its true. Money is a gift from God which can be used for great good or for evil. But a problem we have is that we can like the gift too much, we can become too attached to the gift, too attached to our money, to our possessions. And our possessions, our money, our house, our investments, our stuff become something like an idol, we raise them up above God and his will for our life.

And so Jesus gives us some investment advice. Don’t store up your money, don’t accumulate too much of it, because the wealth you keep, is not secure. It can be stolen, it can be lost- your investments may collapse in a stock market crash, and off course one day you will die anyway and you will have to leave it behind. But store up for yourself treasure in heaven. That means give to the poor and give to missions and yes give to the church and use your money to serve God and he will reward you and you will have treasure waiting for you in heaven that will never be stolen from you. He is saying that God will reward your generosity.

He is also saying that what you do with your money and possessions has a big effect on your attitude towards God. Your heart follows your money. If you give to things of God you will love God more than money. If you hold on to your money, then you will love your money more than God. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

So give! 

Now what does money have to do with your eyesight you might wonder? Well Jesus seemed to think your vision or lack of it was related, because in the middle of talking about money he says these confusing words:

‘The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness’

What is He meaning? 

Well it starts to make sense when we understand that having ‘good eyes’ was a Hebrew expression that meant ‘being generous’. Proverbs 22:9 for example says “He who is generous will be blessed. That word ‘generous’ literally means having ‘good eyes’. So the literal translation of the verse is: ‘He who has good eyes will be blessed.’

And having bad or evil eyes was an expression meaning the opposite, being stingy, mean or selfish.

And so what Jesus is saying is that when we have good eyes, are generous in other words, our whole lives are filled with light. And when we are stingy we are living in the dark.

Or to put it another way- there is nothing like generosity for giving you a clear and undistorted view of life and of people, and there is nothing like meanness for distorting your view of life and people. 

The generous see things clearly, they have their priorities straight, they can walk confidently along the path of life, the stingy are stumbling around in the dark, missing their purpose and missing what is important. They are living in mental darkness and moral darkness.

Regular acts of generosity are a spiritual discipline they are exercise for the human spirit, like going to the gym is exercising the body. Jesus mentions in the Sermon on the Mount three spiritual workouts - praying, fasting and giving. If you give regularly, you are doing your soul a lot of good. By giving regularly you are keeping yourself free from the grip of greed, keeping yourself from being possessed by your possessions, keeping the light coming in.

Sometimes God will test us to see whether money is our master or God is our master. He will test us to see where our heart is. 

I’ve been reading a book called ’Daring to Live on the Edge, The adventure of faith and finances’ by Loren Cunningham. And I’ve a few illustrations this morning that comes from that book. 

Loren writes how he was on the mission field in eastern Nigeria as a young man. He had just arrived and he was being driven in a car by an older missionary called Walt Kornelson along a dirt road. They were planning on traveling around villages in Ibo land preaching the gospel for five days. Loren was looking forward to it, when bam, flap, flap, flop, the tire of the car blew out. Walt whose car it was, turned to Loren and told him they now had a problem- a new tire cost $45 and he didn’t have that money. It looked like they couldn’t travel to the Ibo villages and share the gospel after all. 

At that moment a small voice broke into Loren’s mind- ‘you have 45 dollars.’ ‘Yes,’ Loren protested, in his mind, ‘but that’s all I have!’ In 5 days he would leave Nigeria and fly to Khartoum in Sudan for a two day stayover. It was a strange city where he knew no one – he would have to find a place to stay, $45 wasn’t even enough for that. 

So that was his dilemma, his test. Would he serve God by giving his money to buy the tire and thus allow for the gospel to be shared? Or would he hold on to his money, so he could travel on in a week’s time? Would he show that he was devoted to God and his mission and despise money or would he hold on to the money and despise God’s mission? 

Loren knew the next part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus made a promise, that God would provide for all our needs, if we put him first. Loren believed it, and so that is what he did. He said ‘Walt, let me pay for your tire. Lets go get it right now.’

They did, it cost $42 and Loren had $3 in his pocket left.

But now he had a problem. What was he going to do in a few days when it came for him to fly to Khartoum? He couldn’t survive there on $3!

Well what happened was- each day Walt would make his routine stop by the local post office to pick up his mail. On the last day of Loren’s stay, Walt came back from the post office with a pile of letters. One of them was addressed to Loren. Loren opened the envelope and swallowed. It contained $150 from some friends in Los Angeles who had never given to his ministry before and who had somehow tracked him down in Nigeria. 

God provided. Last minute, but he did!

Listen again to the words of Christ. ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not your life more important than food and your body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?’

And so here is one thing that Christians must not do, ever. And that is worry about money! Why? Because you have a father who promises to look after you. It’s as simple as that. 

Let us be simple people this morning and simply take Jesus at his word. Our Father will look after us.

He looks after the birds, who are fed and they never worry. You’ve never seen a bird with a deep wrinkles in his brow. His eyes bleary and bloodshot with circles underneath from many sleepless nights of worry. Lets learn from the birds Jesus says, stop worrying about money. 

And the flowers out in the fields are clothed more beautifully by God than great Solomon even was clothed. 

God will provide, so just trust him and stop worrying.

Maybe your financial worries are the result of something out of your control, like the economy or layoffs or the result of something you did, like the overuse of credit cards. The Bible command still stands. Don’t worry over money. God will show you what steps to take to overcome your financial problems. He will help. 

Notice something. Jesus is not saying when he talks about the flowers not working to cloth themselves that we don’t need to work. He is saying we shouldn’t worry which is different. Even the birds have to work to get their worms, its not that God drops them into their beaks all their life. And Jesus is not saying that we shouldn’t save for the future when he says don’t store up money for yourselves. He is saying don’t overdo it. Elsewhere in the Bible it encourages us to save for future needs. Joseph in Egypt prepared for future famine by saving and the people were fed. The Book of Proverbs encourages us to follow the example of the ants who work away storing up food for winter months. 

Paul tells the Thessalonian Christians that they follow his example and work and so not have to rely on others. He writes in 2 Thessalonians 3

 ⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, ⁸ nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, labouring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. ⁹ We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. 

Paul made tents, working with fabric and sold them to make money.  

Saving money and making pension contributions are important. They might be God’s way of providing for you and meaning you won’t be a burden on others in old age. Jesus is not saying don’t prepare for the future, but he is saying put God first and be generous to God and don’t worry about the future. 

Our Father looks after his garden and he looks after his pets, won’t he also look after his children which are much more valuable? Off course! So relax. ‘O you of little faith’ Jesus says. 

Here is a true story in Loren Cunningham’s book that shows God’s detailed care for us:

Shirley Alman and her husband Wedge were just out of Bible school, pioneering a Hispanic Church in Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA. One day, the cupboards were bare, bare, bare as Shirley put it. They had been scraping to get by for some time, but that day, there was finally nothing to eat. Shirley sat down at her kitchen table and cried out to God. What would they do? Her children were at school, and Wedge was at work. Wedge would come home hungry from working on the construction of their church building. He would need to eat something before going to dig on the foundation again that evening. What would she feed him and their four children?

Then she remembered. God was their employer as they struggled to build this church on the poor side of town. What if she wrote out a grocery list for God to fill? 

Shirley made out her list- a long one. She included the ingredients for dinner that night, planning on her family’s favourite- a Mexican dinner.

That afternoon, Shirley went to a meeting with the women of the church. Afterwards she drove several to their homes. One women invited Shirley inside for a moment.

As Shirley walked in the woman’s kitchen, her heart skipped a beat. There on the counters were several bulging supermarket bags. For her! A quick glance through the bags confirmed that everything on her list was in there except flour.

Shirley’s heart was bursting with joy, when she returned to her car to drop the other women off. It was hard to keep quiet but she knew she must- she didn’t want her people to know just how desperate they had been. She drove on, but inside she was asking God, ‘But what about the flour?’ I can’t make tortillas without flour!’

Just as the last women got out of the car, she said ‘Senora Alman, my mother said to tell you she had ten pounds of flour for you. Would you like to pick it up now?’

‘Yes,’ Shirley said ‘I want to pick it up now!’

When she finally was alone in the car, Shirley began to sing and praise God at the top of her voice. All of a sudden she remembered something. 

‘Beans! Lord I forgot to put beans on the list!’ Shirley tried to remember the contents of the bags, she didn’t think there were any beans.

At home she began carefully to put away her precious groceries. She reached into the bottom of the bag, and there were the pinto beans. God had remembered them, even if she had forgotten.

These kinds of provision are so personal from God, they mean even more that if He gave you the money to spend on your needs. He knows if your family likes Mexican food or not. He knows to remember the beans. 

But there is a condition for our Father to provide for us. God’s provision for Christians is not unconditional. The condition is that we must seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all these things, our needs, food, drink, clothes and so on will be given to us. 

Seeking the kingdom means seeking to be obedient to Jesus as king. Seeking God’s righteousness means trying to live right in Gods sight. It doesn’t mean what it can mean in Paul’s letters- being declared right in God’s sight, righteousness here means right living. 

A commitment to living according the will of God must come first. It is not be crowded out by material concerns, by money worries. 

Actually we can worry about many things, not just money. You might be worried about illness, or family problems or a problem coming up at work or anything. Jesus says don’t worry about the future in any way. Just focus on today. Today has enough trouble for its own. 

Which tells us that we are going to face troubles, Jesus never said we won’t. But why make our present troubles worse by worrying about tomorrow’s troubles? God knows about them and we can trust him to help us deal with them when the time comes. 

A father said to his son once, when his son was leaving home to make his way in the world- ‘Johnny, please remember the biggest troubles you have to face are those that never come.’ How often do we worry about things that never happen, and all our worrying was all a waste of mental effort? 

Worry doesn’t do us any good. In fact the opposite, it can steal our sleep, our appetite and even our health. But Isaiah gives us the antidote. He says of God’ You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.’ 



I think of the apostle Peter in Acts 12 who the night before his trial and likely persecution is fast asleep in his prison cell. He is not full of worry, wide awake. He is having a good night’s sleep. 

It’s not always easy, this message, but God will us to obey it.  

And remember the preacher of the message was penniless and homeless, and remained that way until his devotion to God drove him to a cross of wood. Jesus practiced what he preached. He lived simply, lived generously, and trusted his Father to provide and didn’t try and serve both God and money. That’s the path He calls us to follow. 

Maybe in response to Jesus’ words ask yourself; how well am I stewarding the money God has entrusted to my care? Because remember everything in this world is the Lord’s and what you have in your bank account is God’s money which you are simply stewarding. 

Ask; how well am I stewarding God’s money? Am I hoarding too much? Am I being as generous as I could be? Or am I playing a bit safe, being a bit selfish? Am I living in worry and fear or living in faith when it comes to my finances? 

Maybe ask yourself; have I prayed for guidance about my financial situation? Have I really asked God to guide me and give me his wisdom regarding the money he has put in my care? Am I trusting God with my money?

And as a church we should be asking, certainly we church leaders. Are we trusting God with what we do with our church’s money? Are we being as generous with our church finance as God wants us to be? Or are we a bit stingy as a church, worrying too much about the future?

With a Father like we have, we can afford to be generous. Amen.