Money Matters

Would you turn to Nehemiah chapter 5? We've been following the work of this amazing leader. His name means, "The Lord is my comfort." And you will find that through the book. You find it at least twice in the passage we're going to have today: the fear of God, constant prayer. Just God was his constant thought and frame of reference in all that he did. He left his high position as a cupbearer to assume a responsibility for a very risky project.

He was surrounded by opposition: the Samaritans on the north, the Ammonites on the east, the Arabians on the south, the Philistines on the west. They were called in Nehemiah chapter 4, verse 7, the Ashdodites. They were the inhabitants of Ashdod, which was a Philistine city. So there were enemies all around this city.

And he takes on this project to build a wall of defense against those people. And, of course, obviously, they don't want defense for these people. They want to take advantage of them. They're not going to be happy to have them defended.

Now, let's look just briefly reviewing the challenges he faced. In chapter 1, he faces a personal challenge. He hears about what's happening in Jerusalem, and it moves him. It says he wept, and he prayed. And what could he do? He's the king's cupbearer. He can't leave. This is an important job. And yet, here's a city that nobody seems to really care about doing something about their problem. This really moved him. That's where this all began, with a personal challenge.

In chapter 2, he has a political challenge. How's he going to handle this with this king? Will the king let him go? That was a risky thing right there. The king could have gotten very upset and could have had him put to death for even suggesting that he leave his job to do this.

So he made some bold requests of the king. He not only asked permission to leave, he asked permission for replies, letters of admittance as he went along the way. He asked the king for a lot to help him. So that was his political challenge.

In chapter 3, we have an administrative challenge. He gets there. Where do you start? He goes out by night. And for a long time, he didn't even tell anybody what he was there for. He wanted to survey the situation and try to organize this so that it can happen. And it was a great administrative job. In 52 days, they built this wall around the city, if you can imagine. Okay?

And then in the last chapter, the challenge was opposition from without. So there he meets that. But in chapter 5, we have him meeting the greatest challenge: selfishness of his own people. Now, somebody has observed it's much easier to fight an enemy without than to fight an enemy within.

Even Joseph found that out. I'm sorry, Moses. It's pretty easy for him to oppose that Egyptian and even kill him. But he went out the next day, and he had his own brother, and he ran away. He couldn't face that.

Okay? So here we have his challenge of disunity, brothers against brothers. Here he has this great work to do, and here he has this going on. What do you do? This man, the more you study, the more you have to realize he was a man who was very sensitive to God and to his fellow men. He was a very observant, very wise person. All right.

The results of this selfishness was iniquity, which is another way of saying inequity, which means something wasn't even, something wasn't balanced out, something was I'll let you find a word. The Psalmist faced this whole thing of the enemy within.

And David says this in Psalm 55, verses 12 to 14, "For it was not an enemy that reproached me. Then I could have borne it. Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me. Then I would have hid myself from him.

But it was thou, O man, my equal, my guide, and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together. We walked into the house of God in company."

That's what he was up against. He was up against his own brother, the people that should have been unified, and they were. They were unified pretty much up to this point. We're going to see that that unity was at a great cost, and that's what's happening now.

They finally have to face some reality. So the title of my message this morning is, "Money Matters." And, of course, there's a play on that word, matters. But here's my outline.

If I can get it on the board.

Number one, and it is, "Extremity Matters. The needs of people at their wits' end matters." Okay? Chapter 5, verses 1 to 5. Number two, "Executives Matter. You need a leader." 5, 6 to 13.

And finally,

"Example Matters."

And that's 5, 14 to 19. And that's our outline. "Extremity Matters. It does matter if there are people who are in trouble. That matters. It matters if you have a leader. And it matters what kind of example you set."

"Extremity Matters. The wall building was taking its toll. You'll find there's no wall building in this chapter. Apparently, it had come to a stop. This problem had to be resolved if there was going to be a wall around the city. It was well on its way, but it wasn't finished." Okay? "The sacrificial service of these people had left them exhausted. Many people had come to the city and had neglected their lands, had neglected their crops, had neglected their businesses. Nehemiah, in the last chapter, urged them to stay in the city to help defend it in the night, so they didn't go home. And so you had a lot of people there, and in fact, probably a pretty crowded city with people coming to help with this project and refugees and migrants and whatever in this city.

And many of these people did not own any land. They were totally dependent people, and they ran out of food." That's the first thing you find here. The second thing you find is you had landowners who did have means, but they were in their lands, and for some reasons we're going to talk about next, they ran out of money. They mortgaged their lands. And in that day, with interest and people handling business the way they did without laws against extortion, if you started doing that, that was a one-way street to ruin. So here they were. They had mortgaged their lands. They bought food. They helped to build the wall. They got the supplies, but they were losing their lands.

Okay? The third thing you have, you had high taxes. There isn't anything new, is there? The kings of Persia got tribute from the lands that they controlled. And they usually did not use that tribute money to help the people that had paid it.

It was for themselves. They were there to enrich themselves. So they were selfish. Okay? And so these taxpayers, they were forced to borrow.

And they were also headed for financial ruin. But the worst problem was the fourth problem. You had wealthy Jews who were exploiting people by loaning them money and then taking their land and their children for the payment for this land. So I'd like to read verses 1 to 5. Okay? "And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives," so it wasn't just the men. This affected the whole family, "against their brother and the Jews.

For there were that said, 'We are sons and our daughters are many. Therefore, we take up corn for them that we may eat and live.' Some also, there were that said, 'We have mortgaged our lands, our vineyards, and houses that we might buy corn because of the dearth.'" So there was a famine to aggravate everything that I just said. "There were those also that said, 'We have borrowed money for the king's tribute, and that upon our lands and our vineyards.'" They gave those for collateral, and of course, they were going to lose them.

Verse 5, "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brother, and our children as their children. And lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already. Neither is it in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and our vineyards."

That's a pretty pathetic picture. All right.

Like Joseph's brothers, these people that we just read about here at the end were selling their brother into slavery. That's really what they were doing. Can you imagine this? Here's this great project to build this wall, and here are people that are actually thinking about themselves and profiting off of their brother who is sacrificing to build the wall. I cannot imagine the mentality, but that's what was going on.

And they were destroying the unity that had made them strong. They had managed to have strength and avoid this problem, apparently, up until now, and finally came to the point where it had to be addressed and resolved. Community is important to God.

He expects believers to make personal sacrifices for community. He expects that. We're going to see that later on. We're not talking about what's legal. That's what people often are thinking about. I just read about John D. Rockefeller. I was sort of curious about him. He felt pretty good about what he was doing, running little guys out of business by handling the finances in a way that he went below their prices until they went bankrupt. Then he bought their businesses. He did not do anything illegal.

If you read about him, they'll tell you that he went out of his way to make sure he did nothing illegal. The law could not get him because what he had done was legal.

The state of Pennsylvania finally started to have to imagine what kind of laws you'd have to have for someone like John D. Rockefeller because he was trying to make sure he was under the radar. To add to that, he was a good Baptist.

His mother was a devout Baptist, and they'll tell you that he followed that scrupulously. He went to prayer meetings. He read his Bible every day. He carried a pocketful of change and gave out money to people. He was a philanthropist. He got this from the Bible, which is supposed to be generous. And he built a college. He did all kinds of wonderful things. So here's this man living under the radar, running other people out of business legally, being a generous person, worshiping God. I say all that to say what we're talking about here has nothing to do with what is legal.

It has to do with what is right. Okay?

The great theme of the Bible and of the prophets, if you were to put one practical theme on the whole message, practical theme on this earth, it's justice and equity, kindness, generosity, and mercy. That's what the prophets finally railed against. Let me read what Isaiah said. "For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel." God had a vineyard, and he had done everything he possibly could, and Isaiah describes that in the first part of the chapter. He wanted a good crop from that vineyard. "And the men of Judah, his pleasant plant." Now, what was the crop he wanted? "He looked for judgment, but behold, oppression.

For righteousness, but behold, a cry." That's what came from the vineyard. God wanted justice. He wanted righteousness. And actually, the words there in that last part, a cry, has the idea of a stench along with the cry, they tell me. I'm not a Hebrew scholar.

Thomas Merton, who was a trappist monk who was very concerned about what was happening in this capitalist country, said this, "To consider persons and situations only in the light of their effect on yourself is to live on the very doorstep of hell." That's a pretty strong statement.

So this was the situation. Now, Nehemiah couldn't do anything about most of it. He couldn't do anything about the famine. He couldn't do anything about the taxation. He couldn't do anything about most of what I just told you. It was only one thing that he could deal with, but he did deal with it.

And that brings us to our next point, executives matter. True leaders are moved to act. They do not sit back and wait for others to solve problems. They do not hope that the problems just take care of themselves.

They don't do any of that. They size up the situation, and they do something. They solve the problem. They're peacemakers. Remember I told you when I taught the Beatitudes, a peacemaker is not a peace lover in the sense that he just wants to keep the peace whatever it takes.

A peacemaker is a person who sees where the problem is that is destroying the peace, and he goes after that problem. And Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross. It's costly to make peace. Every leader takes up a cross and carries it and makes a tremendous sacrifice of his own blood, money, whatever.

That's true leadership.

And he proved himself to be a peacemaker. He saw where the problem was. He didn't just say, "Oh, well." No, no, no. He went to the problem and addressed it and dealt with it, and we'll talk about that.

The first thing it says about him, and we need to read this section, verses 6 to 13, "And I was very angry." Notice the word very there, "When I heard their cry and these words." And you can be sure that what he felt was exactly what God was feeling.

Okay? "Then I consulted with myself." I want to say this. Maybe I'll just discuss it as we go along here. Anger is a good thing. It's a God-given response to injustice. Jesus, one time, at least on one occasion, was angry. I mean, it takes that because we're hesitant. We don't want the danger and the risk and the blood and all that. We don't want to give any of that, so we're hesitant. And anger is just enough to push us over the edge, to get beyond that and do something.

But then it has its own problems. And so you see what he did. He said he consulted with himself. I think what he did was he let himself cool down. He consulted what he could do. And notice, as we read down here, he didn't threaten them. He didn't get up and say, "If you don't do this, we're going to do this." None of that. None of that.

That selfish desire to vindicate himself or whatever was gone. He handled it completely without a selfish motive at all. And when you're angry, they tell you to count to 10. I probably have to count longer than that. Give yourself some time to evaluate how much of this is selfishness and how much of it is a real problem to be addressed, and then how to address the problem without letting the selfishness dominate. I mean, that's quite a project right there. But he did that. Okay?

Well, let's read. "And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. And a leader who sees something that's not the way it should be should not apologize for feeling a strong indignation." Let's use that word. Okay?

In fact, he should. If he doesn't, he probably is not going to be a true leader. "Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the elders, nobles, and the rulers and said unto them, 'Ye exact usury, every one of his brother.'" I'm going to discuss this as we go down through.

That was forbidden in the Old Testament. He had the law of God on his side. You were never to permit. You were never permitted to charge interest of a brother in need. Now, you could charge interest of a foreigner, but not a brother.

So this was what a good leader does is he makes a case. He makes a case that is so true and so right that he can get the whole group to agree. And so then he's not dictating what's going to be done. We're going to do this. No, no, no, no. He has the whole group moving.

And you're going to find that it was the congregation that finally made the decision. But he had to make the case. And the challenge is to make the case so well. Now, you're not trying to win an argument. You're trying to win a righteous response.

And he did. He made the case. You're going to see that he really made this case. And a leader has to do that. A leader can't just sit back and hope the case makes itself and hope it solves itself and hope somebody else does. No, no, no, no. There's where the teaching comes in. He stands here, and he clearly says what is wrong, what we need to do, and what we're going to and gives direction and wins the support of the whole congregation.

He can trust the congregation that where the problem is, is a minority problem or a small problem, and at least before it gets to be a big problem, he can rally the whole congregation to take action. That's what a leader does.

So here he's making his case. What's he say? He says, "Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. You have disobeyed the law of God. You've come back to this city hoping for some kind of restoration of the city. You guys need a restoration of your spirits. There's something wrong here. There's something drastically wrong." And I set a great assembly against them. How do you do it? By making the case. "And I said unto them, 'We, after our ability, have redeemed our brother in the Jews, which are sold unto the heathen.'" So he's telling us something that a lot of Jews had sacrificed money to go to those heathen countries and buy back these Jews that had been sold into slavery.

That's what they had done. In fact, they were a redeemed nation themselves. Couldn't they think God had redeemed them out of Egypt, and they had just recently been redeemed out of Babylon, but they won't redeem their brothers?

Do you see what Nehemiah is seeing and what he's saying? He says, "There's something wrong here. You're treating these people differently than God has treated you. You're treating them differently than some of us have sacrificed to buy them their freedom so they can come here to Jerusalem and be part of the restoration of this nation. And now you're turning around and selling them right back into slavery in Egypt, in Babylon, or wherever. You're doing the very thing that we've worked so hard to remedy, and that God has worked so hard to remedy."

We're down in verse 8. "And will ye even sell your brethren, or shall they be sold to us?" You want us to start buying? You want us to participate in this slavery auction? You can't argue with this. I mean, this is an unassailable argument. And you'll find when you get down here, they didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

Leaders have to be good at that. They have to be good at seeing a problem and bringing absolute truth, not opinions, not their selfish desires, but absolute truth to bear on the problem so that everybody that has any conscience or any desire to be right sees it and is ready to move together to solve the problem. That's what he's doing here. "Also," I said, "it is not good that you do. Ought ye not to walk in the fear of God because of the reproach of the heathen, our enemies? Don't you know that the enemies are looking on, and they're making fun of God? They're making fun of God's people because of what you're doing?" So not only are they selling people into slavery, they're bringing a tremendous reproach on this whole project.

Why are these people even building this city that aren't going to be any better than anybody else? Look what they're doing. And they say they worship God. I guess it's the kind of God they have.

"I likewise," we'll get to this one later, "and my brethren and my servants might exact of them money and corn. I pray you, let us leave off this usury.

Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, their houses, and the hundredth part of the money and of the corn, the wine, and the oil that you exacted." I mean, they were exacting of them luxury, wine, oil.

Hundredth part, I don't know how to figure that, but the commentators say that was a 12% annual interest, which is a pretty high interest that they had charged.

Who were these people that were doing this? Would you turn back to chapter 3,

verse 5? "And next of them, the Taccoites repaired, but their nobles put not their necks to the work of the Lord." Ah. That's who it was. Like my dad would have said, they didn't have enough work to do.

So here were these people watching all these people working, and they were sitting there collecting exorbitant interests and luxuries for themselves and lands and even slaves. It's hard to believe this was happening. Just like it's hard for me to believe sometimes it happened among God's people. My wife will tell you, I often say to myself, and I say it to myself sometimes, "Don't we read the Bible?" The Bible is very clear. Some things get done and said among God's people that the Bible is clear on. But here you have it. It's the wickedness of the human heart.

Well, now we have a miracle.

"Then said they, 'We will restore them.'" If you've ever been in a leadership position, this is a best-case scenario. Sure. We'll do what you said, Nehemiah. I think that was a miracle. I think when we do things God's way, we've been talking about it in our Sunday school lesson, we finally did the place where, "Look, I've made the case.

Now what's going to happen?" And Nehemiah knew he could trust God. And he. When people heard that, God's Spirit was working in people's hearts and minds, and they said, "We're going to do it." To me, this is amazing.

When you have good leadership, this is what you get. All right. "They said, 'We will restore them. We will require nothing of them. So will we do as thou sayest.'" But he wasn't done. He knew that talk is cheap. He knew that it would be easy for them to say, "Yeah, we'll do it," and then it sort of fades as they walk off.

He said, "No, no. That's good. You said something good. I'm going to take you to the priest, and you're going to swear an oath. You're going to swear an oath so that it gets done." All right? Accountability.

Some people think they can do what Nehemiah did, really make the case, really get this resolved, have the congregation say yes, and now everything will take care. No, no, no, no. He said, "I don't trust you. I know myself. I know it's easy for me to make a promise. It's just as easy for me to forget it. So we're going to make sure this promise is kept. I'm going to make you accountable. You will come before the priest, and in the sight of all the people, you will swear an oath." Now, we don't do that, of course. This is Old Testament. "You will swear an oath before the Lord, which we studied last week saying, 'God, strike me dead or bring punishment upon me if I break my promise.'" You're going to do that before the priest, and this is going to get done.

Nehemiah was a leader.

He was able to go straight to a proud. He was able to organize the building of a wall. He was able to move the heart speaking a way that God could move the heart of a king. I mean, if you go down through this, this is just amazing. I read it, and I say, "Oh, God.

God, give us Christian leaders with this kind of courage."

Well, what happened? Let's look what happens. "And all the congregation said, 'Amen,' and praised the Lord, and the people did according to the promise."

My heart just leaped up when I got to that part of this passage. This is such a beautiful ending, but you had to go through the steps he went through. You can't just say, "Well, we're going to praise the Lord once he does it. We'll just wait and see what happens." No, no, no, no.

He made his case. He got a commitment out of them, and then he sealed that commitment. And everybody was going to watch to see if this was done, and God was going to watch, and they had invoked upon themselves his curse if they didn't keep the promise.

So they kept it. All right.

Too many leaders do not call for accountability. They depend on the teaching alone. And I'm here to say that's not going to cut it. That's not going to cut it. There has to be an agreement by the congregation, and then there has to be accountability for what the congregation has decided after the leader has wisely led them with unassailable reasons.

This is very cut and dry. This is very clear how this works. Okay. So that brings us this was our second point. Executives matter. If you don't have this, it's not going to happen. Extremity matters. There's a problem. You have somebody that knows how to deal with the problem in a godly way. He's not violating anything that God has told him leaders to do. And then finally, not only did he get a promise out of them and accountability out of them, he shows that he's fully committed to this himself. And that's a beautiful part of this passage. Let's take a look at this last part. Example matters. "Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the 20th year even unto the 230th year of our taxes, our sees the king, that is 12 years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor."

And they could have. He says back there, remember, I read that verse where he said, "We could have done this. I was the governor of the city, and governors can impose taxes. I could have imposed my own tax on top of the king's tax. I could have done that. That would have been legal. That would have been right for him to do."

But he said, "I didn't do that. I didn't take anything." It's the apostle Paul saying, "I had a right to live by the gospel, but I chose not to under this circumstance." Now, there were times when Paul did take. He took from the Philippians. It's interesting. They were the poorest of the bunch, and he talks about their poverty and how their deep generosity came out of their poverty. But he did take from them. And if you read what he said, he did it basically because he wanted them to have the blessing.

So it's not wrong. It wouldn't have been wrong for him to take something for his efforts and labor, but he chose not to. Somebody has said a leader picks up a big cross. He carries a cross. He sacrifices himself on that cross over and over and over again.

And that's exactly what he did here.

Well, let's keep reading. "But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people and had taken of them bread and wine besides 40 shekels of silver," and I'm assuming that was an exorbitant taxation, "yet even their servants bear rule over the people. They were dictators.

They said, 'This is what you're going to do, and this is what you're going to give, and it's all what I want you to do.' And ipso facto, that's it. But so did not I." And here's the reason. "Because of the fear of God."

You see, I think what this means is, in Nehemiah's mind, there was a universal reality. And he knew, and God had created that reality, and God was the guardian of that reality. And he knew that to do anything but what God said would violate that reality and would spoil everything.

And so he says, "I'm a person who fears God. I want to act within his perspective. I want to do things within the larger picture that he sees, that he has designed. I want to be a working part of his great piece of creation. I don't ever want to violate any of it. I don't want to spoil anything that God has planned. I fear God. I'm doing this because I want to be in perfect harmony, and I want God to have his way without any hindrance, and I want him to finally get what he finally intended to have out of this whole situation." Am I making any sense? The person who fears God, that's his mentality.

He's not thinking about laws. He's not thinking about himself. He's thinking about the fact that God created this universe, and he has some things in mind, and it always intended to work like clockwork, and he doesn't want to be any sand in the gears.

I think that's what Nehemiah is saying.

So let's keep reading. "But so did not I because I fear God, because of the fear of God. Also, I continued in the work of this wall. Neither bought we any land." Oh. He could have bought up some of that land. He could have had some of those people as his slaves. He could have made some investments. He could have looked out for himself. He said, "No, I didn't buy any land. I didn't make any investments. I didn't come here to do anything for myself." "Neither bought we any land, and all my servants were gathered thither unto the work.

Moreover, there were at my table 150 of the Jews and rulers besides those that came unto us from among the heathen that are about us."

Now, he tells that it took an ox and six sheep every day. Somebody said that would have fed 500 people. Somebody figured that out. So he talks about 150 people here, but apparently, there were a lot more than that every day. 500 people eating off of Nehemiah's own expense out of his pocket. That was his response. He was concerned about the people's needs. He wasn't concerned about himself.

Contrast this with Solomon. I found this interesting description of Solomon.

"Maddened with the love of show, Solomon swung into a feverish career of wastefulness, impropriety, and oppression. Not satisfied with the necessary buildings and legitimate progress of his past years, he overburdened his people with taxation, enslaved some, and ruthlessly instigated the murder of others.

All Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and those of his house were pure gold. The shields of his mighty men were made of beaten gold, and his great throne was made of ivory and overlaid with the finest gold. Solomon, like many another absolute monarch, drove too fast and traveled too far. The monarch became debauched and effeminate and egotist and a cynic. So satiated with essential and material affairs of his life, he became skeptical of all good. To him, all was vanity and vexation of spirit."

That's what happens to the selfish person.

Surrendering our right to God, which is what we're talking about here, it's what this man did. Surrendered all his rights to God is a deep act of faith because it calls for divine assistance. And you see that at the end. "Think upon me, my God, for good.

You're going to have to take care of this. I've extended myself. I've given everything. I'm dependent on you now, or this is going to be a disaster." He fears God, which the Bible says is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God is to want intimate fellowship with God. To be lavish like God is, God is able to make all grace I'm going to quote my favorite verse. "God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound into every good work." But if you look at the verses before, it's talking about a person who is a hilarious giver.

And God responds in kind. And so this is an act of faith for a person to forget himself and lavish his life on the needs of others and the flourishing of other people and the glory of God.

He wants intimate fellowship with God. He wants to experience all of God's reality without doing anything to hinder it. His life is about the glory of God and the flourishing of others. And did you notice in verse 17, it wasn't just his own people. The heathen were eating at his table. He was a missionary.

And that's what Israel was to be. God said to Abraham, "You're going to be a great nation, and you'll be a blessing to all nations." Nehemiah is doing it. They forgot it. They forgot all about it. They started enslaving their own people. That's how pitiful their vision was.

So verse 19 shows his utter dependence upon God. He's basically saying this, "I trust you to take care of us. We've done all of this, and we've made ourselves dependent. We've overextended it. In fact, I think he overextended himself. And now, Lord, it's time for you to act."

But in his expansive heart, he's also expanding the kingdom. He's making a secure city. He's feeding some heathen people, being a witness to them, showing the glory of God, how the true God really is to the attraction of the nations rather than the picture these people were giving of his jealous, selfish God.

I conclude by reading to you the actual life of St. Nicholas. We just came through the Christmas season. He's now called Santa Claus. But what he would have seen during this season would have been the furthest thing from his mind.

Here's what he really was. Many are familiar with Santa Claus, but not as many are aware of the beautiful historical person that St. Nicholas was behind the myth. Nicholas was born in the late 200s to very wealthy parents in the area of modern-day Turkey, then under Roman control.

He had been raised a devout Christian. So when he lost his parents in a plague, he decided to obey Jesus' instructions to sell all that he had and give to the poor. He used his whole inheritance to help the needy, the suffering, and the ill. He dedicated his life to Christian service and was made bishop of Myre when he was still quite young. He was known for his generosity, love for children, care for sailors and ships. He was persecuted under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and after having suffered for his faith, was exiled and put in prison.

In 325, after he was released, he went to the Council of Nicaea, which produced the Nicaean Creed. He died in 354 on December 6th. And that might be one of the reasons why the December date has been chosen to celebrate that holiday. That's just a guess, a wild guess.

I'm sorry. Eventually, he—I'm sorry. Nicholas' Day eventually became merged into Christmas traditions. St. Nicholas truly gave care for the poor his fullest and best efforts. And I read that, and I said, "You know what? They can celebrate Santa Claus all they want to, but I want to be like St. Nicholas.

That's the kind of person I want to be." All right? And so we come back to our title, "Money Matters." We can use it to build our own small, selfish dreams and our little empire. Or we can use it to advance the large perspective of Christ's kingdom by doing exactly the way God said we're to do it, and that is not to be hoarding it, to be free in our distribution of whatever God gives us. And we will only do that if we have God's perspective and we live in fear that we will somehow spoil that perspective.

Does anybody have any comments on the lesson?