(Audio version; Music: "Blessings" by: Laura Story and "Hope In Front Of Me" by: Danny Gokey)
Introduction
Three
of the four gospels tell the story of the rich young ruler. The story goes
something like this: One day, a rich young ruler approached Jesus and asked Him
what he must do to have eternal life. Unfortunately for the rich young ruler,
Jesus was gently leading him into a trap because He knew the heart of the young
man. Nevertheless, for the benefit of those who were looking on to see what
Jesus had to say, Jesus set the stage for a very important lesson about the
power that wealth can have over us. Jesus told the young man that he must first
keep all the commandments. The young man affirmed that he had faithfully
observed all the things required by the Law. However, the text seems to make it
clear that the man sensed that there was still something missing, and he was
right—he was missing the spirit of the Law.
The Law was the
vehicle God was using to guide His people into relationship with Him. It was
never intended to be a checklist to prove to God that those who kept its
precepts earned their way to eternal life. And the rich young ruler proved that
point because he sensed that there was still something missing even though he
could say that he faithfully kept all the commandments of the Law. There was
still something that he sensed barred him from being in an eternal relationship
with God and Jesus would expose exactly what that was. There are only a few
things that have the power to keep us from being in a deep and abiding
relationship with God—money is one of those things. When the ruler asked Jesus
what else he must do in addition to keeping God’s commandments, Jesus told him
to sell all he had and then follow Him. And there it was; the fork in the road.
One path allowed him to keep all he had but the path would lead him ever
farther away from God’s presence. The other path meant he would relinquish his
earthly wealth but the path would reward him with eternal riches in a deep and
abiding relationship with God. He chose the former and in a move that illustrates
the point that he chose the path that led him away from God’s presence, the
young ruler hung his head and turned away from Jesus because he couldn’t give
up his wealth.
Money must be
properly understood in its spiritual context and there are two myths about
money that must first be dispelled: “One is the myth that the making of money
matters more than the meaning of money, as thousands of salespeople, schemes,
and seminars trumpet daily. The other myth is that money is simply neutral,
merely a medium of exchange…The truth is that money is much more than a
monetary issue. It was, and is, a spiritual issue. Trying to solve the problem
of money through tinkering with economics or by switching systems altogether
will always fail. Money is money regardless of whether it exists in a free
market or a centralized market, and it must be understood as such…Throughout
history the most universally acknowledged problem with money is that its
pursuit is insatiable…The insatiability touches two areas—getting what we do not
have and clutching on to what we do…The overall lesson of insatiability is that
money alone cannot buy the deepest things we desire. Money never purchases
love, or eternity, or God. It is the wrong means, the wrong road, the wrong
search.”[1]
I
have always said that if you want to know the heart of a man or a woman, or a
business or a nation, or even a church; what motivates them; what drives them,
follow their money. You will always be able to get a sense of what is important
to people and organizations based on what they do with their money. Jesus said
that where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. Money keeps no
secrets from God. Your checkbook will reveal that your life is either consumed
by your love for God or For The Love Of
Money.
Subject Text
1 Timothy 6:3-10
3If
anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of
our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4they are conceited and
understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels
about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5and
constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the
truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. 6But
godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing
into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have
food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9Those who want to
get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires
that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of
money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have
wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Context
Paul’s
letters to Timothy are like a father giving advice to a son. Timothy is the
leader of the church in Ephesus but it is clear that he is young and perhaps
somewhat naïve. There were some believers in Ephesus that were perpetuating
some false teachings and seemed to be running roughshod over Timothy because he
was young and inexperienced. So Paul wanted to encourage him to stand strong in
the truth of the Gospel as it was handed down to him by his mother Eunice and
grandmother Lois and not let anyone try and introduce any false teachings that
could lead people astray. He also wanted him to understand how much of the
world worked. Specifically that not everyone was motivated by their love for
God—even if they say they are. Often times, people hide their true motivation
behind the disguise of religiosity. There were some people in Ephesus who
believed that there was financial gain in a show of godliness and Paul wanted
to warn Timothy that those people weren’t in it for their love of God, they
were in it For The Love Of Money.
Text Analysis
3If anyone teaches false
doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ
and to godly teaching, 4they are conceited and understand nothing.
They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that
result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5and
constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the
truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
There
are usually two types of people who either read or listen to my lessons every
week. Those who disagree with me and those who agree with me. I rarely hear
from the latter but the former always seem loaded for a fight. There are some
who question my lessons with such obscure arguments that I’ve actually asked
some of them if they are really believers or unbelievers who use my lessons as
a platform to promote their own manufactured belief system. They act like
experts yet nothing but foolishness comes out of their mouths. At times they
appear to argue their point simply out of a twisted joy of being disagreeable. They
hang on to their positions in the face of all biblical opposition.
Paul
was constantly battling people like this in his ministry and wanted Timothy to
understand in vv. 3-5 that these
people were motivated not by the desire lead people into biblical truth but to
manipulate them for their personal financial gain. We’ve seen this in our own
times haven’t we? In ministry we call it the “Health & Wealth Gospel” or
the “Prosperity Gospel.” It claims that God’s Word makes it clear that He wants
to bless us with blessings beyond measure and give us the deepest desires or
our heart. And those truths are all in the Bible. Except that the deepest
desire of our heart, and the thing which will bless us beyond all blessings, is
being in relationship with God. All other things may be necessary but are
nevertheless temporary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God’s primary
objective is to insure that we are healthy, happy, and rich. Instead, God’s
primary objective is for us to be intimate followers of His Son, Jesus Christ.
For some, that means giving up their health, their happiness, and/or their
wealth in exchange for riches that can’t be measured by earthly standards.
That’s why Jesus says that we must forsake our allegiance to all things if we
desire to be one of His followers.
My
suggestion is that you should always question Christians who draw a direct line
between their prosperity and their biblical faithfulness because there are
countless Christians in the Middle East and other Muslim controlled countries
who have lost everything, including their lives in some cases, because of their
biblical faithfulness.
In
Paul’s experience, “False teachers thought they had special knowledge. Whether
they claimed this came from revelation, intense study or just being ‘blessed,’
these teachers thought they understood faith and God more deeply and more
thoroughly than anyone else…These teachers actually enjoyed disputes. It was a
competitiveness designed to place them in the winner’s circle as they dissected
words, arguing over nuances and shades of meaning, debating issues that could
never be solved in this life.
The
results were clear: envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant
friction between men [and women] of corrupt mind. Sin is always a tangle of
evil. One sin breeds another, which spawns another, plunging the individual
deeper and deeper into its snare. Envy is a dissatisfaction which pushes an
individual to desire what another person has. This leads to strife (selfish
competition) and malicious talk (the need to exalt oneself at the expense of
others). Within such an atmosphere, evil suspicions are bound to develop as
people whisper and distrust thrives. The end result is constant friction—tension
and irritation.
The
mind is the control center for our lives; from our thoughts come our actions.
That is why we are told that our lives will be transformed through correct
thinking (Rom. 12:2). The opposite is also true; wrong thinking produces a
degenerate and wasted life. Men [and women] of corrupt mind…have been robbed of
the truth…Sound teaching produces godly behavior since it comes from Christ,
the source of truth…
True
Christian faith produces humility, gentleness, unity, and giving. It is based
in servanthood. But the false teachers, divorcing themselves from the truth,
had unhealthy reasoning. False doctrines produce pride, contention, disharmony,
and selfishness, which in turn produces greed…
You
do not have to watch religious television too long to begin thinking that much
of it is simply big business—trinkets and financial deals for blessings, money
that buys prayers. It can leave a person wondering if any unbelievers who watch
such dealings would ever give true Christianity a try. But using Christian
faith for personal gain can also be more insidious. We can use Christian
ministry for personal advancement and higher salaries. This is why it is
crucial to examine our hearts and our thinking against the revelation of sound
teaching.”[2]
6But godliness with
contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world,
and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and
clothing, we will be content with that.
I
wish Paul had placed v. 6-8 at the
end of our Subject Text because I
think it holds the key element for our lesson—contentment or the lack thereof.
If you think about it, isn’t it the lack of contentment, in many cases, that
drives people to always pursue more or pursue something different? Whether it’s
a bigger house or another house; a newer car or a nicer car or another car, it
seems like many people are never satisfied with what they have, where they
live, or even what they look like—they lack contentment. The reasoning goes
something like this: If having $50 is good and sufficient for my needs than
having $100 must be twice as good and provide twice what I need and having $200
is twice as good as that. Are you starting to see where the problem is? If $50
was good and sufficient to meet our needs, what are we doing with the rest and
what did it cost us to accumulate more than was good and sufficient to meet our
needs? Needs are subjective. Specifically, what you consider a need and what I
consider a need could be two very different things and that is why needs are difficult
to judge. The trouble begins, however, when the line between “needs” and
“wants” is obscured because of our lack of contentment. We need a house but we want
a bigger house because we aren’t content with just any house. We need a car but we want a fancy car because we aren’t content with just any car. We need to be healthy but we want other people to notice how healthy
we are so we become obsessed with fitness because we aren’t content with just
eating healthy and getting adequate exercise. Most people need to express themselves sexually but aren’t content to do so
within the confines of a marriage relationship between one man and one woman
because they want to jump from one
person’s bed to the next. We need
power to control our lives but we want
to control other people’s lives because we aren’t content to control just our
own lives. Lack of contentment often drives us to earn more money, buy more
things, take more vacations, and even to sleep with more people. And to
complicate matters, we may not even need
some of the things we think we need.
For example, we need a place to live but it doesn’t have to be a house. We may
need transportation to go to and from work but it doesn’t have to be a car if
there is adequate public transportation. So the line between “need” and “want”
can be very obscure indeed.
Paul
says that if we can develop a sense of contentment in our lives, then whether
we have much or little, we will nevertheless have peace. “The false teachers
thought religion was a means to get rich; instead, true religion is great
wealth in itself when accompanied with contentment. One’s religion does not
come and go with uncertainties of material wealth; faith in Christ, with
contentment, is the wealth, independent of one’s bankbook and possessions. The
false teachers had it backwards…
Contentment
grows from our attitude toward living God’s way. To have contentment in Christ
requires four decisions about the events and possessions in our life:
- We must
focus on what God has already allowed us to have.
- We must
disregard what we do not have.
- We must
refuse to covet what others may have.
- We must
give thanks to God for each and all of his gifts.
If we fail to make these decisions,
our contentment will diminish…
The
great wealth that motivated the false teachers was neither lasting nor capable
of bringing contentment. Their earthly profits would be left behind. What
brings great wealth has to do with eternal values. When material pleasures
become our focus, we quit contributing to our eternal accounts. Whatever gain
we may experience in this life means nothing if they cause us eternal
bankruptcy.”[3]
9Those who want to get
rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires
that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of
money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have
wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Paul
has slowly been transitioning his instruction from the specific to the general
by the time we get to vv. 9-10. What
started out specifically as a rebuke of false teachers at the beginning of our Subject Text can now be applied as a
word of warning for everyone generally. Paul’s message is clear: Pursuing
wealth as a life’s goal will destroy us. Note here what Paul is and is not
saying. Paul is not saying that we shouldn’t earn a living. He’s not even
saying how much we should earn. Nor is he saying that we shouldn’t earn lots of
money. What Paul is saying is that our focus shouldn’t be to earn money in order
to grow rich. The distinction can be subtle so let me try to explain. Work is
something we have been ordained by God to engage in as part of His created
order. It is one of the ways we are intended to engage with the world and
fulfill God’s will for humanity. It is one of the ways we partner with God in
being co-creators. However, God’s creative work is, among many things, a
revelation of Himself. Our creative work should be, among many things, a
revelation of God as well. Earning money is not part of our creative work, it
is a by-product of that work. However, the purpose of our work becomes twisted
and distorted when making money in order to be wealthy and enjoy the trappings
of wealth becomes the primary focus and can lead to unintended grief for ourselves
and others. Let me share a true story with you about Roger and Kathy (not their
real names).
Roger
and Kathy worked really hard all their lives. They earned good money and had a
decent nest-egg set aside for retirement. On top of that, the received a fairly
large sum of money as part of a family inheritance so that by the time they
were in their sixties, they had more than enough money to live comfortably.
They were always fairly generous with family and friends with their money but
they also enjoyed nice houses, dinner parties with friends, and nice vacations
around the world. However, even a large bank account begins to dwindle quickly
unless it is constantly replenished with more money. Unfortunately for them, a
family member introduced them to a “to good to be true” investment opportunity
that paid amazing dividends. Roger and Kathy thought they had done their due
diligence and obviously trusted the family member who introduced them to the
opportunity so they invested almost all of their liquid assets. At first, the
return on their investment exceeded their wildest expectations. It afforded
them nicer houses, more dinner parties with friends and even nicer vacations.
However, after a year or so, the returns began to drop off sharply until they
stopped altogether. When Roger and Kathy concluded that it was time to move
their money, they learned that it was all gone. They had been duped into
investing in an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are merely a shell game
where a group of individuals convince ignorant and unsuspecting people to
invest in a fictitious company with the promise of above market investment
returns. What actually occurs is that new investor dividends come from the
capital invested by older investors. As long as there are new investors and a
significant number of older investors don’t try to liquidate their investment
then the Ponzi scheme is safe. However, if new money stops coming in and too
many older investors liquidate their investment, the scheme begins to collapse.
Once the noose begins to tighten around the scheme, those who are running the
scheme take the remaining money and usually disappear and investors are left
with nothing and that’s what happened to Roger and Kathy. Now in their late
seventies and early eighties, Roger and Kathy are pinching pennies. Their nice
house is mortgaged, the fancy dinner parties are over, and the nice vacations
are a memory. Roger and Kathy already had enough money to live the rest of
their lives comfortably but they weren’t content with what they had so they chased
after more and managed to lose all of it.
Chasing
after money will make people do things they never thought they would never do. Growing
up, my mom used to tell us that money was evil because of what it did to
people. She was close to the truth but Paul tells us that money isn’t evil,
it’s the love of money that is evil because it shifts our allegiance away from
God. And anything, whether it is the pursuit of money, sex, or power, that
moves our allegiance away from God is evil. And the faster we chase after any
of those things, the farther we find ourselves from God and the more painful
life becomes for us and for those given to our care.
“To
attain financial goals, as they are often called, both husband and wife often
work, or one of them must work obscenely long hours. Those who are now young
children suffer more and more from a lack of parenting. Is amassing wealth
worth such piercing of hearts? The amount of time and energy invested in
attaining our financial objectives, if these are set on wealth, often leaves
very little time for the discovery and exercise of those gifts that God has
given each one of us for nurture of the church and the care of others. The
drive for acquiring more money means that seeking God and putting ourself at
God’s service recedes. We serve a new master. That lifestyle is a path of
pain—the pain of never acquiring enough to fill the void inside (because only
God and meaningful investment in other people can do that), The pain of
throwing away our life for things that cannot give life, the pain of regret at
the end of life, when our 20/20 hindsight will be our friend or our accuser.
One
of the great countercultural statements Christians can make is to flee from the
craving for wealth, living out a life that shows instead the value of family,
service and knowing God, putting the needs of others ahead of material goods
and their display. This is the kind of life that results in being rich toward
God, in finding that we have invested wisely and laid up quite an endowment
against the Day of Visitation, when Christ will return. Those who are graced
with wealth must be taught to invest wisely…in places where it will bear
certain good now and eternal dividends later. Wealth is measured by generosity,
the use of these material resources [shouldn’t be used] to make ourself look
upscale but to relieve the members of the family of God in any kind of need or
distress.”[4]
Application
There
was a day when pastors talked open and honestly about the dangers surrounding the
pursuit of riches yet were largely silent about the dangers of sexual sins.
Pastors today, if they talk about sin at all, are more likely to warn people
about the perversion of sex in our culture than they are about the deadly
enticements of worldly wealth and riches. In large part pastors avoid the
awkwardness surrounding the discussion of money because they don’t want to
chase off their wealthy churchgoers by making them feel bad about how they
spend their money. But we really have to talk about it because wealth and the
pursuit of wealth surround our lives every day so we better figure out how to
deal with it before our lives become entangled in its insidious web of deceit
and deception.
I
had a professor years ago who tried to illustrate his austerity by telling the
class that while he could easily afford a nice new car, he drove an old car
with over 100,000 miles. He thought his comments made him sound financially
responsible but it came across as boasting in his self-imposed austerity. I
suddenly began to wonder what it said about me as I was driving around in my
old truck with more than 200,000 miles. And therein lies another danger of
wealth—comparing our lives to the lives of others. So how do we know if we are
venturing near or are already caught in the snare of pursuing wealth? I wish
there was a mathematical formula that you could use as a test but unfortunately
there isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that there is no way for us to measure our
attitude toward the pursuit of wealth. However, it will require an honest
assessment of how and where we spend our money. It may even call for the
involvement of a disinterested third party who can review our finances with an
eye toward biblical faithfulness to determine if our finances reflect what we
say you believe about God. That can be a scary exercise! However, if we are
going to be serious about being faithful with the wealth that God has graced us
with then we must be willing to allow others, with a more objective biblical
perspective of our finances, to speak truth into our lives.
Think
about the story I told you at the beginning about the rich young ruler who
asked Jesus what he needed to do to gain eternal life. As Christians, shouldn’t
we be asking a similar question of Jesus? Not so much the question of what we
must do to gain eternal life but what we must do to be one of His faithful
followers. And what would you do if He instructed you to do the same thing He
instructed the rich young ruler to do—to sell all you have in order to follow
Him more faithfully? Could you do it? I can’t answer that question for you. We
all have to answer that question for ourselves. Jesus said we cannot serve both
God and money (Mt. 6:24) yet many Christians still try. But God isn’t
interested in competing with your pursuit of earthly wealth. He will allow you
to pursue all the earthly wealth you desire even if it destroys you. As always,
God will not force Himself on you. He wants you to chose who will be your
master—Him or money.
[1]
Os Guinness, The Call—Finding and Fulfilling
the Central Purpose of Your Life, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), pp.
129-130; 132.
[2]
Knute Larson, I & II Thessalonians, I
& II Timothy, Titus, Philemon—Holeman New Testament Commentary,
(Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2000), pp. 242-243.
[3]
Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), pp. 952-953.
[4]
David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the
New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 773-774.
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