Audio Transcript
You open your banking app. You look at the numbers, and your stomach just drops. It drops because the balance is lower than you expected, and because there are now rumors of layoffs coming at work. And everything you’ve built for years to keep your family safe feels incredibly fragile all of a sudden. It’s paralyzing. And you stand in church trying to focus and sing worship songs, but it feels almost impossible when all you can think about is next month’s mortgage payment and all the other bills. How can you find any kind of peace or even happiness now? Today on Ask Pastor John: surviving financial panics.
So many of you are emailing us to tell us this is the situation you are facing right now. And today in our Bible reading we are studying Luke 12:32–34, a timely text for a listener who wrote us named Marcus, a project manager now facing a corporate downsizing.
“Pastor John, I find myself in a dark place right now. My company is going through another round of layoffs, and for the first time in my life, I’m looking at the possibility of an unemployment check. I’m paralyzed by fear and anxiety every time I look at my bank account. I’ve worked hard to provide a certain life for my family, and the thought of losing our house or not being able to afford what we need feels like a failure. It’s hard to sit in church and worship when all I’m thinking about is the next paycheck and how I’m going to survive if those stop. Honestly, it feels like God is a distant judge watching my ‘performance’ during this crisis. How do I stop being so anxious about money when the threat is so real? Is it even possible to be happy when you’re in financial ruin?” Here’s how Pastor John addressed Marcus’s fears from Luke 12 in something I have shared with several friends. I want to share it with you today.
Luke 12:32–34, of the dozens of texts I could have chosen, is all about worshiping God with your money. There are four points I want to make. Many more could be made. I think I counted about ten sermons I’d like to preach on these three verses, but I’ll preach one and make four points.
Don’t Be Afraid
In verse 32 in particular, the first point is that God commands us not to be afraid about money, not to have fear about money. When it comes to money things, we’re not supposed to be anxious. Don’t worry. “Do not be afraid,” he says, “little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB95). That little verse there is sandwiched before and after with money. Luke 12:22–23 are all about money, things, clothing, houses, and whether you’re anxious about them. And then it’s followed by selling possessions and giving alms and laying up treasures in heaven instead of on the earth. So, the first point of this little verse — this beautiful, magnificent promise verse — is don’t be anxious. Don’t be afraid.
But now, there’s a deeper point in this verse. And the deeper point is that when you’re not afraid concerning money, you magnify five things about God. And that’s worship. When you’re not afraid or anxious or fearful about money, you magnify five things about God in this one verse. And when you magnify God through not being afraid about money, you worship. Here are the five things. These are precious things that we want to magnify about God.
1. God Is Our Shepherd
When we’re not afraid about money, we magnify God as our Shepherd. “Do not be afraid, little flock” (Luke 12:32 NASB95). The word flock means we’ve got a Shepherd, and we are sheep. And therefore Psalm 23:1 kicks in: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not [what?] want.” That word is the old Elizabethan word for lack. I shall not lack. I shall not be in want. That is, if I have a Shepherd like this, who loves to give me the kingdom, I will not lack for what I need. Therefore, if I believe that and thus exclude fear, I will magnify his shepherd love.
2. God Is Our Father
If I do not fear concerning money, I show that I treasure God as my Father. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” So, not only are we sheep who have a Shepherd; we are children who have a Father. He’s multiplying images for us here to get rid of fear. That’s what he’s doing. Don’t be afraid; you’re sheep who have a Shepherd. Don’t be afraid; you’re children who have a Father.
“Do not come to God with an agenda, defining for him what you need. Come to God and learn from him what you need.”
Now, what does that imply? Well, Luke 12:30, two verses earlier, makes pretty plain what it implies: “All these things [eat, drink, wear, money] the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things” (NASB95). Now, he didn’t say that to mock us. He said that because, knowing that we need these things, he’ll work to provide what we need in order to magnify his fatherhood. But now, be careful. Do not come to God with an agenda, defining for him what you need. Come to God and learn from him what you need. The word need today in America is so inflated that it scarcely has any meaning in a universal context anymore.
So, if we are fearless about money, we magnify him as Shepherd, we magnify him as Father, and that is worship.
3. God Is Our King
If we’re not afraid concerning money, we show that we treasure God as our King. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the [what?] kingdom.” Who has the right and authority to give us the kingdom? No peon disposes of the kingdom. The king disposes of the kingdom. And therefore, not only is he a Shepherd loving us as sheep and a Father loving us as children, but he is King, ruling us, providing for us, exerting sovereignty and power on our behalf as subjects against our enemies, including the lack of things we need. So, if we trust him as King and Shepherd and Father, and thus overcome our fear of not having enough money, then we magnify him, and he is worshiped.
4. God Is Generous
If we are fearless with regard to our money, we magnify him as free and generous. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” Not sell you the kingdom, not rent you the kingdom, not lease you the kingdom for payments, mortgage payments, rent payments, lease payments. He will give you the kingdom. He loves to give you the kingdom, which means he’s generous. And therefore, if we let his shepherd-like, fatherly, kingly generosity work on our fear, our anxieties — and I’m talking a battle here. You know I’m talking a battle here, right? We’re not talking something that happened yesterday and doesn’t happen tomorrow. We’re talking a weekly thing, a paycheck by paycheck thing or unemployment check by unemployment check thing. We’re talking a battle here.
The way we battle is by preaching to ourselves what I’m preaching right now. That’s the way I do it. It ain’t automatic for John Piper to be fearless about money, though I get paid plenty, by the way, plenty. It isn’t automatic for me. It isn’t automatic for you. We are battling fear and anxiety every day, not to mention greed. And we do it by saying, “He’s Shepherd to me. He’s Father to me. He’s King to me.” And he’s not a Shepherd, Father, and King folding his arms, standing off in the corner saying, “Maybe, maybe you’ll get the kingdom. I’ll watch your performances.” It’s not the way he does it. Give, give, give, free, free, free, is what the Lord does.
5. God Is Happy
When we overcome our fear and live free of fear, we magnify our God as happy in his giving. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” Or, “it is [his] good pleasure,” another version says, “to give you the kingdom” (NKJV) — or, another version, it “pleased” him (NIV). He’s pleased to give you the kingdom. He wants to do this. He is not selfish. Simony is not his virtue or vice. He is a generous God.
So, the first point of this message is to trust him as Shepherd, trust him as Father, trust him as King, trust his generosity, and trust the fact that it’s lavish because he loves to do it. Preach these things to yourself, and attack fear and anxiety in your life with these truths so that when you overcome fear about money, God gets the glory, and these five glorious things shine out of your life.
And if anyone asks you, “I know that you’re in financial straits, and yet at work you seem to be caring about others and fairly happy. How is that?” then you say, “Can I share five things with you about my God?” And he is worshiped. He is worshiped.
