Our world tells us that the best way to handle money is to spend it on ourselves. We can spend it in the present on our vacations, wardrobe, or new tech; or we can spend it on our future selves by storing it away. It belongs to you, the story goes, and you should spend it on you. Pleasure, adventure, security: these are the good life.
Those things aren’t bad; but when Jesus was on earth, he offered a better vision for how to see and use all our resources, including money.
Jesus flips the “good life” concept upside-down. Rather than finding more happiness by spending on ourselves, Jesus tells us “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” That the better way – which has surprising support from scientific studies – is to open our hands to others rather than close them for ourselves. That generosity is the good life.
He even modeled it by giving his very life so that we could inherit his kingdom.
In this series, we want to explore what it would mean to see our possessions as Jesus wants us to see them:
What if “my” money isn’t mine at all, but God’s money entrusted to me? (Matthew 25:14-27)
What if I “invested” more in heaven than in my own security or pleasure? (Matthew 6:19-20)
What if it really is better for me to use my wealth for others than for myself? (Acts 20:35)
We know that money can be one of the most uncomfortable subjects in the world to talk about, and that all of us have anxieties and problems when it comes to money. Some of our series resources are geared toward helping people become financially stable; we'd invite you to use those if you need them.
But wherever you're coming from, however you feel about this topic, we invite you to join us in looking at God's vision for the good life.
SERMON ARCHIVE
RESOURCES
This PDF has a lot of the visual content we used on Sunday mornings.
The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose by Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson
Managing God's Money by Randy Alcorn