Is Money Your Servant or Master?: Sermon Guide

Discussing and Applying the Sermon

• Which of your material possessions are you most likely to view as your own rather than as God’s? What’s one way you can have more of a stewardship mentality toward that possession?
• Is money more often a tool in your life or your master? Find someone in the next week who has the opposite answer as you to that question, and then spend time learning from and encouraging each other in ways you can serve God and not money.

Summary

When you think of both money and God, what comes to mind? Do you think God is trying to rip you off? Does Jesus simply want to take your money and possessions from you? As we continue our series, “Summer on the Mount,” Jermaine Harrison walks us through Matthew 6:19-24, teaching us what Jesus has to say about money and possessions.

Key Takeaways

• The Sermon on the Mount outlines a kingdom ethic for a kingdom people.
• Jesus isn’t out to get your money and possessions. He doesn’t want your money and possessions to get you.
• Money and possessions compete for your heart.
• Storing up treasures on earth: The self-centered use of material resources to meet our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.
• Treasures on earth are temporary and do not have a lasting return.
• God is the owner of everything, and we are called to be good stewards of what He has entrusted to us.
• Stewardship: Managing another’s property according to the owner’s vision and values.
• Storing up treasures in heaven: The compassionate use of material resources to meet the physical and spiritual needs of others.
• Our financial transactions here on earth have eternal implications.
• What you see drives what you want.
• You cannot serve God and money…there is no loophole!
• Money is a great tool, but it is a terrible master.
• Money can be a tool, test, and testimony; or, it could be your heart’s greatest treasure and a trap.
• “How do you dislodge an affection from the heart? You replace it with a more beautiful thing.” -Puritan tradition
• If you don’t want money and possessions to get you, seek the Father

Mentioned or Recommended Resources

• Suggested Scripture study: Matthew 6:19-24; Psalm 24:1; 1 Timothy 6:9-10; Ecclesiastes 5:10
• Book: The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn (available wherever books are sold)
• Ministry: Moneywise
• Sermon Series: Switch
• Sermon Series: How to Be Rich
• Sermon: Stewardship
• Real Truth Real Quick: What Did Jesus Mean When He Said, “The Eye is the Lamp of the Body”?