Showing posts with label God and our money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God and our money. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2015
Creflo Dollar is Still Looking for His Jet
And he's still embarrassing Christians.
I wrote about Dollar nine years ago. Quite apart from his extravagant tastes and allegations of financial shenanigans, his theology isn't Christian or Biblical.
And while we're at it, here's one from the vault--it was written in 2009--about Rod Parsley.
I wrote about Dollar nine years ago. Quite apart from his extravagant tastes and allegations of financial shenanigans, his theology isn't Christian or Biblical.
And while we're at it, here's one from the vault--it was written in 2009--about Rod Parsley.
Monday, December 15, 2014
The 17 Year Old Who's Made $72-Million on the Market NOT
He's got a Beamer he can't drive yet because he hasn't gotten his license and he's got a Manhattan pad which he can't move into for another year, but this bright kid has amassed a fortune trading penny stocks.
It's an amazing story, but also a bit disturbing to me:
You might like to look at the following pieces:
Your Money or Your Life
"How Many Loaves Have You?"
[UPDATE: Turns out that the young man hasn't amassed a fortune.]
It's an amazing story, but also a bit disturbing to me:
"It all comes down to this," Islam told New York. "What makes the world go round? Money. If money is not flowing, if businesses don't keep going, there's no innovation, no products, no investments, no growth, no jobs."It's true that the flow of money can lead to innovation, new products, and new jobs. Those are important things. But money doesn't make the world go round. That distinction belongs to the One Who made the world, I think.
You might like to look at the following pieces:
Your Money or Your Life
"How Many Loaves Have You?"
[UPDATE: Turns out that the young man hasn't amassed a fortune.]
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Be Shrewd; Follow Christ
[This is the sermon prepared for delivery during Sunday worship with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on September 22, 2013.]
Luke 16:1-13
Today’s Gospel lesson is one of the most confusing passages of Scripture. Christians often read it and wonder, “Is Jesus telling us to be dishonest?” From the witness of the rest of the Bible, we know the answer to that question is, “No.”
So, the parable told here by Jesus and its attendant teaching, require us to think and to studiously delve into the text.
The Gospel message, of course, is simple: Unwilling to see human beings, the only of His creatures made in His image, go to hell for eternity without fighting for us, God took on human flesh in Jesus Christ. He bore the weight of our sins on the cross. He took onto Himself the punishment for sin you and I deserve. Then He rose from the dead to make it possible for those who repent and believe in Christ as their only God and Lord, to have new and everlasting life with God. That is a simple message.
But the living of our faith in that simple, life-giving Gospel in a fallen, sinful world, is not simple. And so, Jesus shares complicated parables like the one in our lesson for today. He gives complicated teaching we also find there. He wants to help us live out the faith of the simple Gospel message in a world complicated by the sin of the world, the sin inside of us, and the sin of our common enemy, the devil.
So, please go to today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 16:1-13. Verse 1 says: “He [Jesus] also said to His disciples: ‘There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.’”
Agricultural life in the first century when Jesus taught this parable was governed by a sort of a feudal system. A wealthy man owned vast quantities of land. There were tenants or sharecroppers on the land. They could farm the land and have a place to live. In exchange, the tenants were bound to give a share of their crops and earnings to the rich man. To oversee their holdings, it was common for rich men to have stewards, household managers.
In Jesus‘ parable, someone tells the rich man that his household manager is “wasting” or squandering the rich man’s money. The word translated as “wasting,” in the original Greek in which Luke wrote his Gospel, is the same word used of the prodigal son who traveled to a faraway land with the money his rich father had given to him and squandered it, wasted it all, on sinful living.
There are two passages in the New Testament I’d like to ask you to look at right now because I think they will help make the message Jesus shares today clearer.
The first is 2 Corinthians 8:9 (page 668 in the pew Bibles): “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Both Paul, the writer of this verse, and Luke, the author of our Gospel lesson, understood the God we know in Jesus Christ to be wealthy, rich. Psalm 95 in the Old Testament conveys the same idea, when it says of God:
But in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, God stepped out of heaven and, though sinless Himself, though immortal, took on the poverty of sin and death for us. Through His death and resurrection, God donates the infinite wealth of His goodness and His infinite life, to cover our sins and buy us out of our slavery to sin and death.
This rich man in Jesus‘ parable, in some way, represents God, rich in power, possessions, holiness, and love. Now, be careful! This is a parable. A parable is not the same as a metaphor. Jesus isn’t saying, “This rich man is God.” He’s saying, instead, “This rich man, in his richness and dominion is sort of a stand-in for God.” There are, obviously, differences between this rich man and God Himself.
The second passage is 1 Corinthians 4:1 (page 658 in the pew Bibles). It says: “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”
The word for stewards used here is the same one used in our Gospel lesson. Every Christian has been blessed with new life when they believe in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. But they are also called to be good stewards, good managers, of the new life God has given to them.
Part of what that means is that God tells us not to squander His blessings on us--our money, our time, our health, our friendships, our relationships--on ourselves in selfish pursuits. We are to use all of God’s blessings like good stewards, using our money, our time, our health, our brain power, our muscle to give God glory in how we live from day to day and to share the Gospel message with others. So, the steward in Jesus‘ parable, in some ways, represents all of us who are disciples--followers--of Jesus. The parable asks us, “How are you using your life? Are you investing in eternity? Or are you squandering it on the things of this world?”
Back to our Gospel lesson, starting at verse 2. It says: “So he [the rich man] called him [the household steward] and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.'”
When the rich man in Jesus‘ parable demands an accounting for how the steward has been spending his fortunes, the steward panics. Fearful of losing his job, he considers his options. He’s too weak to dig ditches. He’s too proud to beg. So he decides to devise his own golden parachute. That way, when he’s been turned out of his master’s home, there will be people willing to let him live with them.
This may be the most important part of the parable. The steward is afraid of not having a home. He realizes that the way he’s been squandering, wasting, his life on selfish things has put having a home at risk.
In John 14:2, Jesus says, “In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus poured out His body and blood to give us places to live, eternal homes with God.
Many people know that; far fewer trust that. They recite the creeds on Sunday mornings. But on Monday through Saturday, they put their trust in other things, not in the God Who died and rose for them.
Here’s a truth I have learned, more from getting it wrong than from getting it right: The more I trust Jesus, the more reasons I find for trusting in Him; the more I do things my own way, the less reason I find for trusting Jesus.
It’s the people who trust in Jesus, no matter how weak their trust may be at any given moment, who are assured of a place to live with God. Truly, we are saved by our trust--our faith--in Jesus Christ.
Next in Jesus‘ parable, He talks about how the steward reduced the debts owed by the tenants, winning their goodwill while, at the same time, bringing some wealth into his master’s coffers. What Jesus says next troubles us. Starting at verse 8: “So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Note, please: The rich master does not commend the steward for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. Jesus delivers a similar message in Matthew 10:16, where He tells Christians: “...be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Christians understand that, ultimately, money has no value because money can’t be spent in eternity. Money, along with homes, farms, cars, and tractors, will one day be destroyed with the rest of this earth.
But, like our non-Christian neighbors, God calls each of us to earn a living and manage His gifts to us. The difference is this: We Christians are called to use the sinful world’s material goods not to feather earthly nests or promote ourselves at the expense of others. We’re to use our money--along with our time and smarts, our friendships and knowledge, and all the blessings God has given to us--to help others know Christ, through our giving, serving, witnessing, listening, and loving in the Name of Jesus, so that in eternity, they, like us, will have one of those mansions Jesus promises to all who believe in Him. When we trust Jesus, putting Him first in our lives, we can live in the certainty that we will have a place to live with God eternally.
And this, I believe, is why Jesus ends His teaching as He does today. Verse 13: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [or material wealth, money]."
You know, God’s Word never says that money is the root of all evil. Instead, 1 Timothy 6:10, tells us: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Money in itself is morally neutral, neither bad nor good. Whether money is a force for good in people’s lives or a root of all kinds of evil depends on how we view it. If money is an end for people, a goal, a means for keeping score, of being able to buy whatever they want, or of measuring their value as human beings, then money is the master of their lives. Money is their god, the place in which they place their ultimate hope.
Money can’t buy eternity. Money is a lifeless deity that will, in the end, leave all who serve it cold and lifeless in the grave.
But when the God we know in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ is our God, when we put our lives and our paychecks at His disposal, providing for our families while also helping to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and spread the good news of new life through faith in Christ--the things we do together as a congregation here at Saint Matthew, we invest in eternal things.
We know that when we invest in eternity, trusting Christ with our whole selves, including our money, God will raise us from our graves and we will live with Him for eternity.
Will you bet your life on the dead things of this dying world?
Or will you bet it all on the God Who, in Jesus, has conquered sin and death?
Following Jesus, believing the Gospel message, isn’t simple. But it is shrewd.
New life and an eternal home with God for all who turn from sin and simply trust in Christ is what Christ offers.
It’s a great deal. It’s a shrewd deal. Be shrewd; follow Christ. Amen
Luke 16:1-13
Today’s Gospel lesson is one of the most confusing passages of Scripture. Christians often read it and wonder, “Is Jesus telling us to be dishonest?” From the witness of the rest of the Bible, we know the answer to that question is, “No.”
So, the parable told here by Jesus and its attendant teaching, require us to think and to studiously delve into the text.
The Gospel message, of course, is simple: Unwilling to see human beings, the only of His creatures made in His image, go to hell for eternity without fighting for us, God took on human flesh in Jesus Christ. He bore the weight of our sins on the cross. He took onto Himself the punishment for sin you and I deserve. Then He rose from the dead to make it possible for those who repent and believe in Christ as their only God and Lord, to have new and everlasting life with God. That is a simple message.
But the living of our faith in that simple, life-giving Gospel in a fallen, sinful world, is not simple. And so, Jesus shares complicated parables like the one in our lesson for today. He gives complicated teaching we also find there. He wants to help us live out the faith of the simple Gospel message in a world complicated by the sin of the world, the sin inside of us, and the sin of our common enemy, the devil.
So, please go to today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 16:1-13. Verse 1 says: “He [Jesus] also said to His disciples: ‘There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.’”
Agricultural life in the first century when Jesus taught this parable was governed by a sort of a feudal system. A wealthy man owned vast quantities of land. There were tenants or sharecroppers on the land. They could farm the land and have a place to live. In exchange, the tenants were bound to give a share of their crops and earnings to the rich man. To oversee their holdings, it was common for rich men to have stewards, household managers.
In Jesus‘ parable, someone tells the rich man that his household manager is “wasting” or squandering the rich man’s money. The word translated as “wasting,” in the original Greek in which Luke wrote his Gospel, is the same word used of the prodigal son who traveled to a faraway land with the money his rich father had given to him and squandered it, wasted it all, on sinful living.
There are two passages in the New Testament I’d like to ask you to look at right now because I think they will help make the message Jesus shares today clearer.
The first is 2 Corinthians 8:9 (page 668 in the pew Bibles): “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Both Paul, the writer of this verse, and Luke, the author of our Gospel lesson, understood the God we know in Jesus Christ to be wealthy, rich. Psalm 95 in the Old Testament conveys the same idea, when it says of God:
In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.The universe belongs to God; God is rich.
But in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, God stepped out of heaven and, though sinless Himself, though immortal, took on the poverty of sin and death for us. Through His death and resurrection, God donates the infinite wealth of His goodness and His infinite life, to cover our sins and buy us out of our slavery to sin and death.
This rich man in Jesus‘ parable, in some way, represents God, rich in power, possessions, holiness, and love. Now, be careful! This is a parable. A parable is not the same as a metaphor. Jesus isn’t saying, “This rich man is God.” He’s saying, instead, “This rich man, in his richness and dominion is sort of a stand-in for God.” There are, obviously, differences between this rich man and God Himself.
The second passage is 1 Corinthians 4:1 (page 658 in the pew Bibles). It says: “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”
The word for stewards used here is the same one used in our Gospel lesson. Every Christian has been blessed with new life when they believe in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. But they are also called to be good stewards, good managers, of the new life God has given to them.
Part of what that means is that God tells us not to squander His blessings on us--our money, our time, our health, our friendships, our relationships--on ourselves in selfish pursuits. We are to use all of God’s blessings like good stewards, using our money, our time, our health, our brain power, our muscle to give God glory in how we live from day to day and to share the Gospel message with others. So, the steward in Jesus‘ parable, in some ways, represents all of us who are disciples--followers--of Jesus. The parable asks us, “How are you using your life? Are you investing in eternity? Or are you squandering it on the things of this world?”
Back to our Gospel lesson, starting at verse 2. It says: “So he [the rich man] called him [the household steward] and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.'”
When the rich man in Jesus‘ parable demands an accounting for how the steward has been spending his fortunes, the steward panics. Fearful of losing his job, he considers his options. He’s too weak to dig ditches. He’s too proud to beg. So he decides to devise his own golden parachute. That way, when he’s been turned out of his master’s home, there will be people willing to let him live with them.
This may be the most important part of the parable. The steward is afraid of not having a home. He realizes that the way he’s been squandering, wasting, his life on selfish things has put having a home at risk.
In John 14:2, Jesus says, “In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus poured out His body and blood to give us places to live, eternal homes with God.
Many people know that; far fewer trust that. They recite the creeds on Sunday mornings. But on Monday through Saturday, they put their trust in other things, not in the God Who died and rose for them.
Here’s a truth I have learned, more from getting it wrong than from getting it right: The more I trust Jesus, the more reasons I find for trusting in Him; the more I do things my own way, the less reason I find for trusting Jesus.
It’s the people who trust in Jesus, no matter how weak their trust may be at any given moment, who are assured of a place to live with God. Truly, we are saved by our trust--our faith--in Jesus Christ.
Next in Jesus‘ parable, He talks about how the steward reduced the debts owed by the tenants, winning their goodwill while, at the same time, bringing some wealth into his master’s coffers. What Jesus says next troubles us. Starting at verse 8: “So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Note, please: The rich master does not commend the steward for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. Jesus delivers a similar message in Matthew 10:16, where He tells Christians: “...be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Christians understand that, ultimately, money has no value because money can’t be spent in eternity. Money, along with homes, farms, cars, and tractors, will one day be destroyed with the rest of this earth.
But, like our non-Christian neighbors, God calls each of us to earn a living and manage His gifts to us. The difference is this: We Christians are called to use the sinful world’s material goods not to feather earthly nests or promote ourselves at the expense of others. We’re to use our money--along with our time and smarts, our friendships and knowledge, and all the blessings God has given to us--to help others know Christ, through our giving, serving, witnessing, listening, and loving in the Name of Jesus, so that in eternity, they, like us, will have one of those mansions Jesus promises to all who believe in Him. When we trust Jesus, putting Him first in our lives, we can live in the certainty that we will have a place to live with God eternally.
And this, I believe, is why Jesus ends His teaching as He does today. Verse 13: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [or material wealth, money]."
You know, God’s Word never says that money is the root of all evil. Instead, 1 Timothy 6:10, tells us: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Money in itself is morally neutral, neither bad nor good. Whether money is a force for good in people’s lives or a root of all kinds of evil depends on how we view it. If money is an end for people, a goal, a means for keeping score, of being able to buy whatever they want, or of measuring their value as human beings, then money is the master of their lives. Money is their god, the place in which they place their ultimate hope.
Money can’t buy eternity. Money is a lifeless deity that will, in the end, leave all who serve it cold and lifeless in the grave.
But when the God we know in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ is our God, when we put our lives and our paychecks at His disposal, providing for our families while also helping to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and spread the good news of new life through faith in Christ--the things we do together as a congregation here at Saint Matthew, we invest in eternal things.
We know that when we invest in eternity, trusting Christ with our whole selves, including our money, God will raise us from our graves and we will live with Him for eternity.
Will you bet your life on the dead things of this dying world?
Or will you bet it all on the God Who, in Jesus, has conquered sin and death?
Following Jesus, believing the Gospel message, isn’t simple. But it is shrewd.
New life and an eternal home with God for all who turn from sin and simply trust in Christ is what Christ offers.
It’s a great deal. It’s a shrewd deal. Be shrewd; follow Christ. Amen
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Your Money or Your Life
[This was shared during worship this morning with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
1 Timothy 6:6-19
It may be an example of holy coincidence, what someone has called God-incidence, that on the Sunday following the premiere of the movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, our Bible lessons for the day warn us of the dangers to our very souls represented by the love of money. Gordon Gekko, the main character played by Michael Douglas in this long-anticipated sequel, is known for his tagline in the first film: “Greed is good.” Jesus, in our Gospel lesson, the prophet Amos in the first lesson, and the apostle Paul in the second, all tell us today that “Greed is not good.”
But more than that, they say, “Greed for wealth can rob you of life for all eternity. Watch out for greed!”
The most tempting thing for us to do when we encounter Bible passages like these is to ignore them, thinking that they don’t apply to us. We’re not millionaires or billionaires, after all. There’s little chance of our getting trapped in the snare represented by the greed for wealth, right? Don’t be so sure!
There’s a number that development experts and even the CIA use called PPP. It stands for Purchasing Power Parity. It measures the median household incomes of every country in the world. This is the average income and purchasing power of all nations' homes, measured in US dollars. The United States ranks 11th in the world in median household income: $46,000. If that seems high, it may be because the median household income here in Hocking County is $40,000, about the same as Canada, which ranks 27th in the world.
All through the list, there are countries where people enjoy comfortable life-styles, yet don’t rank that high: the United Kingdom is 35th, Japan is 40th, Saudi Arabia is 61st. The point is this: By the standards of the world, many of us in this sanctuary this morning are incredibly wealthy. While impoverished people may fall prey to making gods of money, ignoring Paul’s warning in our second lesson that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” it’s far more likely that those of us who get regular paychecks will do so.
Like the addict who finds that he needs a little more today in order to get the same buzz he got yesterday, the love of money can become an absorbing passion that pushes God clear out of our lives. God forbid!
Please pull out your Celebrate inserts and look at our second lesson. Read along with me silently as I read the first five verses:
First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. ”
All who are baptized and confess Jesus as their Lord have been bought out of sin and death through the death of Jesus on the cross. We belong to God. So does our money. In one of our hymns, we tell God that all that we have is “a trust, O God, from Thee.”
Last Sunday, during worship we prayed for those effected by the tornadoes that ripped through southeastern Ohio a week-and-a-half ago. As I greeted folks after worship, one of our members said to me, “Pastor, if you learn of anybody without a home, let me know. I have a place people could use if they need it.” When our desires are focused on God, greed is pushed from our minds in ways that cause a passion for God and God's will that supplants the greed for financial gain. God helps us then to use whatever wealth we do have for His purposes.
Verse 11 in our lesson says: “But as for you, man of God, shun all this [that is, shun greed]; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” The apostle Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy to a young pastor named Timothy in about 64AD. Paul meant for his words to be a primer on how to be a pastor. Shun the love of money, Paul tells Timothy.
It’s a tragedy when pastors become obsessed with money, when they confess Jesus with their mouths, but declare a greater faith in money with their lives. Pastors ought to be treated fairly by their congregations, of course. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Timothy, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” But, there are some clergy who seem to think that because they took a four-year Master’s degree after graduating from college, they deserve big bucks and fine things. This appears to be a bigger problem in the United States than it is in other countries where people are maybe, less addicted to wealth.
The Lutheran churches in Australia long ago instituted what I think is a great policy: Every single pastor, no matter the size of the congregation, receives the same salary, with adjustments for expenses like having families, living in more expensive communities, or extraordinary medical expenses. Each time this has been proposed at the conventions of Lutheran bodies in North America, it’s met defeat. In twenty-six years, I’ve never asked for a raise and I never will. This isn’t because I’m so virtuous—I’m a sinner like everybody else. It’s because I don’t want to give greed or the devil footholds in my life. I want to rely on the provision of the God I know in Jesus Christ and not on my capacity to shrewdly negotiate for or "guilt" people out of more money, which may in the end, only cause me to wander away from God, making me useless to God or to the congregation I serve as pastor.
Verses 12 to 15 say:
This is the confession that Paul makes in a famous passage in Romans: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Keep this good confession not only with your mouth, but also with your life, Paul tells Timothy in today's lesson. His words are for us, too.
In verse 16, Paul says of Jesus: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Please notice: Only God is immortal; human beings die. Life is not our right, something God owes to us. Life comes only from the One immortal being in the universe. And new life only comes from Jesus Christ to those who believe in Him. "If anyone is in Christ Jesus," the Bible tells us, "there is a new creation: everything old has passed away…”
It’s our mission as people saved by the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ to share this good confession with others. We are to be driven by love of God and love of others to tell everyone the truth about sin and grace, and to call them to make the same good confession God has used to save us from sin, death, and hell.
Finally, read along with me the final part of our lesson, verses 17 to 19. Paul is back to talking about money. But now he tells Timothy what he should teach the people of his congregation about the proper use of money:
In a very real sense, when it comes to being greedy for more than our daily bread, we face the choice given by villains in lots of old movies: “Your money or your life.” Today, our lesson from God’s Word tells us that whenever faced with that choice--our money or our life--God desperately wants us to choose life, the eternal life that only an immortal God Who has died for us and risen again for us can offer.
Money is nice to have, but money can’t give us life; Jesus can. Choose passion for Jesus over greed for financial gain.
Today—every day—choose Jesus.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
It may be an example of holy coincidence, what someone has called God-incidence, that on the Sunday following the premiere of the movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, our Bible lessons for the day warn us of the dangers to our very souls represented by the love of money. Gordon Gekko, the main character played by Michael Douglas in this long-anticipated sequel, is known for his tagline in the first film: “Greed is good.” Jesus, in our Gospel lesson, the prophet Amos in the first lesson, and the apostle Paul in the second, all tell us today that “Greed is not good.”
But more than that, they say, “Greed for wealth can rob you of life for all eternity. Watch out for greed!”
The most tempting thing for us to do when we encounter Bible passages like these is to ignore them, thinking that they don’t apply to us. We’re not millionaires or billionaires, after all. There’s little chance of our getting trapped in the snare represented by the greed for wealth, right? Don’t be so sure!
There’s a number that development experts and even the CIA use called PPP. It stands for Purchasing Power Parity. It measures the median household incomes of every country in the world. This is the average income and purchasing power of all nations' homes, measured in US dollars. The United States ranks 11th in the world in median household income: $46,000. If that seems high, it may be because the median household income here in Hocking County is $40,000, about the same as Canada, which ranks 27th in the world.
All through the list, there are countries where people enjoy comfortable life-styles, yet don’t rank that high: the United Kingdom is 35th, Japan is 40th, Saudi Arabia is 61st. The point is this: By the standards of the world, many of us in this sanctuary this morning are incredibly wealthy. While impoverished people may fall prey to making gods of money, ignoring Paul’s warning in our second lesson that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” it’s far more likely that those of us who get regular paychecks will do so.
Like the addict who finds that he needs a little more today in order to get the same buzz he got yesterday, the love of money can become an absorbing passion that pushes God clear out of our lives. God forbid!
Please pull out your Celebrate inserts and look at our second lesson. Read along with me silently as I read the first five verses:
Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.There is nothing wrong with wealth. The love of wealth though, can cause us to make money our god, even though it has no capacity to give us life beyond the grave. Greed for gain, rather than a consuming desire for God, can make us think that the money we have earned with the bodies and the minds God has given to us, is ours. But this isn’t true.
First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. ”
All who are baptized and confess Jesus as their Lord have been bought out of sin and death through the death of Jesus on the cross. We belong to God. So does our money. In one of our hymns, we tell God that all that we have is “a trust, O God, from Thee.”
Last Sunday, during worship we prayed for those effected by the tornadoes that ripped through southeastern Ohio a week-and-a-half ago. As I greeted folks after worship, one of our members said to me, “Pastor, if you learn of anybody without a home, let me know. I have a place people could use if they need it.” When our desires are focused on God, greed is pushed from our minds in ways that cause a passion for God and God's will that supplants the greed for financial gain. God helps us then to use whatever wealth we do have for His purposes.
Verse 11 in our lesson says: “But as for you, man of God, shun all this [that is, shun greed]; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” The apostle Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy to a young pastor named Timothy in about 64AD. Paul meant for his words to be a primer on how to be a pastor. Shun the love of money, Paul tells Timothy.
It’s a tragedy when pastors become obsessed with money, when they confess Jesus with their mouths, but declare a greater faith in money with their lives. Pastors ought to be treated fairly by their congregations, of course. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Timothy, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” But, there are some clergy who seem to think that because they took a four-year Master’s degree after graduating from college, they deserve big bucks and fine things. This appears to be a bigger problem in the United States than it is in other countries where people are maybe, less addicted to wealth.
The Lutheran churches in Australia long ago instituted what I think is a great policy: Every single pastor, no matter the size of the congregation, receives the same salary, with adjustments for expenses like having families, living in more expensive communities, or extraordinary medical expenses. Each time this has been proposed at the conventions of Lutheran bodies in North America, it’s met defeat. In twenty-six years, I’ve never asked for a raise and I never will. This isn’t because I’m so virtuous—I’m a sinner like everybody else. It’s because I don’t want to give greed or the devil footholds in my life. I want to rely on the provision of the God I know in Jesus Christ and not on my capacity to shrewdly negotiate for or "guilt" people out of more money, which may in the end, only cause me to wander away from God, making me useless to God or to the congregation I serve as pastor.
Verses 12 to 15 say:
Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.Before Pilate, the Roman governor, Jesus confessed that He was the Lord and King of the world, God in the flesh, making no attempt to deny that He had made this confession before. If we were baptized as infants, our parents and sponsors made this same confession at the baptismal font. If we were baptized as adults, we made this confession ourselves before water was splashed on our heads. When we were confirmed, we made this confession. And Timothy, like all other pastors over the past 2000-plus years, reiterated that same confession. Paul is telling us today to fight the temptations that exist within all of us to betray Jesus by fudging on our confession that Jesus is the only Sovereign of the universe.
This is the confession that Paul makes in a famous passage in Romans: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Keep this good confession not only with your mouth, but also with your life, Paul tells Timothy in today's lesson. His words are for us, too.
In verse 16, Paul says of Jesus: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Please notice: Only God is immortal; human beings die. Life is not our right, something God owes to us. Life comes only from the One immortal being in the universe. And new life only comes from Jesus Christ to those who believe in Him. "If anyone is in Christ Jesus," the Bible tells us, "there is a new creation: everything old has passed away…”
It’s our mission as people saved by the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ to share this good confession with others. We are to be driven by love of God and love of others to tell everyone the truth about sin and grace, and to call them to make the same good confession God has used to save us from sin, death, and hell.
Finally, read along with me the final part of our lesson, verses 17 to 19. Paul is back to talking about money. But now he tells Timothy what he should teach the people of his congregation about the proper use of money:
As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.The bottom line is simple, really. We can either be greedy for wealth or hungry for God. The dividends paid by wealth end at the cemetery, but those who “take hold” of the God we know in Christ, take hold of real life, a life of meaning here and a life with God in eternity.
In a very real sense, when it comes to being greedy for more than our daily bread, we face the choice given by villains in lots of old movies: “Your money or your life.” Today, our lesson from God’s Word tells us that whenever faced with that choice--our money or our life--God desperately wants us to choose life, the eternal life that only an immortal God Who has died for us and risen again for us can offer.
Money is nice to have, but money can’t give us life; Jesus can. Choose passion for Jesus over greed for financial gain.
Today—every day—choose Jesus.
Friday, October 24, 2008
What Money Can't Buy
From my colleague and friend, Pastor Glen VanderKloot...
WELCOME to the daily issue of ONLINE WITH FAITH.
ONLINE WITH FAITH is a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church,
2313 Whittier Avenue, Springfield, IL, 62704, Glen VanderKloot,
Pastor.
We encourage you to worship and be involved in a local congregation.
If you have any questions, comments, or prayer
requests please be in touch with us at
pastor@faithlutheran.com
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A Thought for the Day
Money can buy a house, but not a home.
Money can buy a bed, but not sleep.
Money can buy a wedding ring, but not love.
Money can buy a clock, but not time.
Money can buy an education, but not wisdom.
Money can buy jewelry, but not beauty.
Money can buy insurance, but not safety.
Money can buy a crucifix, but not a Savior.
+++++++++
Scripture:
Ecclesiastes 5:10 NLT
Those who love money will never have enough.
How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!
Prayer:
Lord, thanks for reminding me that money is not the answer. Amen
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To subscribe to Glen's daily inspirations, send an email to olwf1@gliq.net and put SUBSCRIBE on the subject line.
WELCOME to the daily issue of ONLINE WITH FAITH.
ONLINE WITH FAITH is a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church,
2313 Whittier Avenue, Springfield, IL, 62704, Glen VanderKloot,
Pastor.
We encourage you to worship and be involved in a local congregation.
If you have any questions, comments, or prayer
requests please be in touch with us at
pastor@faithlutheran.com
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A Thought for the Day
Money can buy a house, but not a home.
Money can buy a bed, but not sleep.
Money can buy a wedding ring, but not love.
Money can buy a clock, but not time.
Money can buy an education, but not wisdom.
Money can buy jewelry, but not beauty.
Money can buy insurance, but not safety.
Money can buy a crucifix, but not a Savior.
+++++++++
Scripture:
Ecclesiastes 5:10 NLT
Those who love money will never have enough.
How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!
Prayer:
Lord, thanks for reminding me that money is not the answer. Amen
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To subscribe to Glen's daily inspirations, send an email to olwf1@gliq.net and put SUBSCRIBE on the subject line.
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