Wednesday, May 4, 2016

For The Love Of Money


(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:

  1. We must focus on what God has already allowed us to have.
  2. We must disregard what we do not have.
  3. We must refuse to covet what others may have.
  4. 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.

            Perhaps you’d be willing to try this experiment. This is not a perfect indicator but if you have the courage, I’d like you to take some time this week and look at your checkbook or bank statement or credit card statement and create two lists. On one list place all your expenditures over the last month that serve the needs of others or advance the mission of the kingdom of God and on the other list place all the expenditures that satisfy your personal desires (Try to make a distinction between need and desire. For example, food is a need. Going out to a restaurant to eat is a desire. A new pair of shoes to replace a worn our pair than can no longer be repaired is a need. Another pair of shoes to add to those you already have is a desire). Add up each list and compare the totals. The length of each list is irrelevant. What matters is the bottom line. Do the totals demonstrate that you live life for the love of God and other people or does it demonstrate that you live life for yourself and For The Love Of 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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