The Topic Every Pastor Dreads—and Every Congregation Needs
Ask most pastors what topics they find most uncomfortable to preach on, and money will be near the top of the list. The reasons are not hard to understand. Churches depend on giving. Pastors benefit directly from congregational generosity. The appearance of self-interest hovers over every stewardship sermon like an unwelcome guest.
And yet: no responsible pastor can avoid the topic. Jesus spoke about money more than almost any other subject. Sixteen of his thirty-eight parables deal with finances or possessions. One out of every ten verses in the Synoptic Gospels touches on money. If you're preaching the whole Bible faithfully, you will preach about money—often.
The question is not whether to preach it but how to preach it with integrity.
What Jesus Actually Said
The starting point is not your church's budget. It's the text. And the text is more confrontational than most financial sermons let on.
Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24). He told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor (Matthew 19:21). He commended Zacchaeus's decision to give half his wealth to the poor and repay fourfold what he had stolen (Luke 19:8). He told the parable of the rich fool, who accumulated and never gave, and called him a fool (Luke 12:20). He said you cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24).
This is not a prosperity gospel. This is not a health-and-wealth theology. This is the Jesus of the Gospels, and he was disturbing.
Now, this doesn't mean everyone should liquidate their savings. It means that Jesus took the human tendency to find security, identity, and meaning in wealth with deadly seriousness. Money, in his view, is one of the primary competitors for the lordship of the heart.
Preach that honestly.
The Two Errors: Avoidance and Manipulation
Avoidance happens when pastors treat the money texts as too hot to handle—spiritualizing them, rushing past them, or systematically omitting them from sermon series. The congregation picks up on this. It communicates either that the preacher is too insecure to say hard things or that there's a special rules zone around finances where the Bible doesn't apply.
Manipulation happens when money sermons become primarily fundraising vehicles. The text is weaponized to produce a giving response. The congregation is guilt-tripped, promised a supernatural return, or emotionally pressured. This is a betrayal of the pulpit and a corruption of the gospel.
The path between these errors is fidelity to the text. If the text is about giving and generosity, preach generosity. If the text is about the danger of wealth, preach that danger—even to wealthy people in your congregation. If the text is about God's provision, preach that provision. Let the Scripture drive the content, not the church budget.
Generosity as Gospel Response
The most powerful framing for stewardship preaching is not obligation but response. We give because we have received. We are generous because we have experienced the generosity of a God who gave his only Son.
2 Corinthians 8–9 is the richest extended treatment of Christian giving in the New Testament. And notice what Paul does: he doesn't start with the Corinthians' needs or the church's financial situation. He starts with the Macedonians, who gave out of extreme poverty, and then traces that generosity back to its source: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
The Incarnation is the ultimate act of generosity. When we give, we are imaging the God who gave himself. That is a far more compelling motivation than guilt, obligation, or promised return.
The Practical Dimensions
Good money preaching also helps people apply the text to their actual financial lives. Some guidance:
Budgeting and contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6–10 and Philippians 4:11–13 speak to the godliness of contentment and the danger of the love of money (not money itself—the love of money). Help your congregation develop the spiritual discipline of contentment in a consumer culture.
Tithing. The tithe (giving ten percent) is an Old Testament practice with a New Testament echo in the principle of proportional giving (1 Corinthians 16:2). Be honest about the debate among scholars and let your congregation engage it with maturity. The tithe is a helpful baseline, not a ceiling.
Generosity to the poor. Proverbs 19:17, Luke 14:12–14, Matthew 25:31–46—the biblical theme of giving specifically to the poor is relentless. Don't let stewardship preaching become only about church giving. God cares where the money goes.
Speaking to Different Seasons
Not everyone in your congregation is in the same financial situation. Preach with awareness of that range:
- The person in financial crisis needs to hear that God is not absent in material suffering.
- The person doing well financially needs to hear the genuine dangers Jesus identified.
- The young person just starting out needs a vision of a life shaped by generosity from the beginning.
- The retiree needs assurance that their legacy of giving matters eternally.
GoRhema can help you think through how to apply a stewardship text to different life situations—so that your money sermon lands with pastoral precision rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Goal: Cheerful, Free-Handed People
Paul's vision for Christian giving is not reluctant compliance. It is joyful, free-handed generosity: "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
The goal of preaching on money is not a bigger budget. It is a congregation that has been freed from the grip of wealth, formed by the generosity of Christ, and living in the joyful freedom of people who know that their security is not in their accounts but in the God who made heaven and earth.
That is the sermon worth preaching—every time.