Sunday, August 2 "Compelled by Generosity" 2 Cor 8:1-24

Pastor Kyle Van Tine at Summit View Church Heritage Park Campus

Listen to this Sunday's sermon by "Compelled by Generosity"

Wisdom better than MONEY?!?

"How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!" Proverbs 16:16
According to the scripture it's better to be wise than to be wealthy.... I guess you can have a lot of money but not have the common sense to use it well.

A powerful example of this occurred multiple times during my pastoral training years. I worked in a church near the largest military base on the west coast. I saw a lot of 18 year old guys who would sign up for 5 years of service with the United States Army and get $40,000 dollar signing bonus.

It was more money than they had ever had in their entire life and needless to say their wallet was far bigger than their wisdom. Instead of investing that wealth in buying real estate, long-term high yield stocks or saving for their future children, they would drop 15,000+ dollars on a brand new speaker system to install in their 2001 Honda Accord which would bust 2 years later.....That's a liability not an asset. That's foolish, selfish and stupid. They may as well have burned their money because they like the smell of the ink, that would have just about the same value 20-40 years later when their poor wife needs a house to raise the kids, who also need food, clothes and an ever-increasingly costly education.

How are you with your money? Are you growing in wisdom? Are you stewarding your wealth in such a way that you can look back as an older man or woman and be proud of how you invested, saved and spent?

Ultimately what's needed is more wisdom not necessarily more money.

Are kids the center of life, the curse of life or something else?

I wonder what is your perspective on kids? 

As I was playing with my girls today I was thinking about how surprising it is to me that for the most part our culture seems to fall neatly into two pretty extreme camps when it comes to kids. 

1. Kids are the Center

This is the classic suburbanite perspective in which a family doesn't just love their kids but obsesses over them constantly. The kids set the priorities, run the schedules and determine the budget. These families can be blamed as the main reason Chuck E. Cheese is still able to keep their doors open despite selling cardboard that vaguely resembles something similar to a pizza. When kids are the center they transform life's ultimate purpose from glorifying God and enjoying him forever to raising honor students. Often the suburban church doesn't address this subtle idolatry for fear that families will pack up in leave for the church down the street but the truth remains the truth and "family-friendly" has often been an excuse for "family-idolatry." It should go without saying that I love my girls to the moon and back and would gladly take a bullet for them but they don't fulfill me nor do they give my life meaning. What's heart breaking to me is that those families that put the kids as the center of their lives usually end up crushing those kiddos with outrageous expectations and demands. Your kids cannot bear the weight of your worship.

2. Kids Are A Curse  

In this view, which seems to be growing in popularity especially among the beard-growing, flannel-wearing millennials of our day, kids are astronomically expensive, overly time-consuming, and completely destroy one's individual freedoms. Stand-up comedian Aziz Ansari sums up this perspective well when he shares a conversation he had with a friend that just announced the birth of their new baby. Aziz: "I’m so sorry that happened to you. You're going to have to take care of that thing forever! I’ll talk to you later because I’m going to go do literally whatever I want because all MY options are still MY options." To summarize, kids just rob us of our personal freedom. This perspective seems to be gaining lots of credibility in the mainstream with TIME magazine featuring "The Child Free Life." The growing trend seem to be waiting until the late thirties and even into the forties to begin a family or forgoing the family altogether.  

Psalms 127:3 "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord" 

The strange thing about these extremes is that they're both true in many ways but lack the balance of a biblical, god-centered perspective. Kids should never be the center of your life but when you have kids they do radically change your budget and your schedule. They're also incredibly time-consuming, difficult and require a great deal of selfless serving from willing parents. But the whole truth is that kids aren't meant to be the center nor are they a curse. Both extremes are reductionistic and overly simplistic. Kids are not God and they’re not gross. We should not make kids any more or any less than what they are. They’re a great gift from God to enjoy and manage well for a short season. They are not the end or the beginning of our lives but a season, an opportunity and a gift to manage well as we glorify God and enjoy him forever.          

Captain Ellie and calling out orders to her first lieutenant Izzy in the Pink Army

Jesus and Management

“The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1)

Big Idea: Everything we have is a gift from God to manage for a short season.  

God’s Gift of Marriage (Mark 10:1-12)

God’s Gift of Kids (Mark 10:13-16)

God’s Gift of Stuff (Mark 10:17-27)

You can listen to Jesus and Management by following this link.