christianity

Don’t Let Money Change You

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1 Timothy 6:17 “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

Some people are not changed very much by their wealth. You may know that billionaire investor Warren Buffet is among the wealthiest people in the world. Yet he lives in a $250,000 house. He drives a Cadillac, it’s true, but we all know that the label doesn’t communicate the same luxury it once did, and Buffet will keep driving the same car for 10 years before he trades it in on a new one. Money may be the root of all kinds of evil, but it doesn’t spoil everyone.

Then there are the train wrecks. Child stars on television evolve into brats. Money and fame corrupt them. By the time they reach young adulthood they are so arrogant and in love with themselves that they have respect for no one else. They are rude. They act inappropriately in public. Many lottery winners go so crazy with spending that tens of millions of dollars disappear in no time. In the end they are poorer than before they hit the jackpot.

The corrupting power of money is nothing new. Earlier in this chapter Paul had warned Timothy, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.” Some, however, get to be rich rather innocently. Maybe they were born into it. Maybe it was the side-effect of hard work and ingenuity. Still, they need Paul’s warning.

The first thing the wealthy need to hear is, “Don’t let your wealth make you arrogant.” It may make you different, but it doesn’t make you better or more important than anyone else. The Greek word behind “arrogant” refers to an attitude of extremely high regard for oneself that the Greeks actually considered a virtue. They highly valued assertiveness, strong self-confidence. They wanted the brash self-promoter. They didn’t see much use in humility or gentleness. To them those were signs of weakness.

We don’t have to be that wealthy to be affected by the temptation to arrogance. Comedian Dave Barry once noted that the person who is nice to you, but is not nice to the waiter at the restaurant, is not a nice person. When we notice a little economic class distinction between ourselves and the people who serve us, somehow we get a big head.

A second temptation may change us for the worse. Paul warns the rich not “to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain…” It is a godly thing to use our money wisely. It makes sense to spend less than we make, to have something in savings, to invest for retirement. You can keep it in the bank, or invest it in the stock market, or bury it in the back yard if that makes you feel better.

But wealth is always uncertain. Banks fail, stock markets crash, and a sink hole could open up in the middle of the back yard and swallow the secret stash of cash in a single gulp. The point is that wealth makes a fine tool, but it makes a terrible god. No matter how careful you are, you can’t count on it to be there when you need it.

We all know that feeling of security when you have something left over at the end of the month, or your savings has grown a bit, or the latest statement for your retirement account reveals it is worth much more. And we all know that panicked feeling, maybe only slightly, when it looks like you are a little short for the month, or the stock market drops 500 points a couple of days in a row. “Don’t let your wealth change you,” Paul would say. “Don’t let it convince you that it is going to take care of you.”            

Or, as he teaches us here, “Command those who are rich…to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” The place to put our hope is in God. Is that so hard to understand? He has richly provided us with our lives. He has richly provided us with a Savior. He has richly provided us with the forgiveness of our sins. He has richly provided us with faith. He has richly provided us with everlasting life. And if he has provided us with all that, why should we not trust him to provide us with the little things we need to live each day? A word to the wealthy: Don’t let your wealth change you–how you see yourself, your neighbor, or your Lord.

Go! Preach! Do!

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Matthew 9:35 “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness.”

There is something to learn from the first two words we run into: “Jesus went.” Sometimes pastors, churches, and those who serve follow an approach that might better be described as “Let them come.” Let’s sequester ourselves in our safe, comfortable building, put out a sign, do a little advertising, and hope that people come to us.

That’s not to imply that we are against people coming to us. We want them to come to our church, our programs, our activities. But the New Testament approach to ministry puts a big emphasis on the word “go.” Go and make disciples of all nations. Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Go out…into the streets and alleys…to the roads and country lanes (Luke 14:21,23).

This is not the time to play it safe, to sit on our hands, to stay inside and lazily let the world go by. Jesus sends us to our friends and family members, our neighbors and coworkers, those who are already Christian but are off wandering in their faith, and those who have never been Christians and need to know Jesus before it’s too late. Christian ministry happens here, in this building, it is true. But it needs to happen out there, where the people are, too. That’s how Jesus worked. “Jesus went.”

Where Jesus went, he had something to say, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom.” This was his work. This is the church’s work. The church without a message ceases to live and act as the church. It has forgotten its purpose. Teaching and preaching is always first.

If all the Christian churches were to disappear, there would still be people and organizations to feed the hungry, dig wells in third world countries, show up to help after natural catastrophes, help people pay their electric bills, and do all the charitable things that churches often do. But the fire department is not going to preach sermons. Local businesses are not going to organize Sunday schools. The mayor and city council aren’t going to go door to door on city time trying to teach people the way of salvation. That’s not what they’re there for. If the church won’t preach and teach the gospel, it loses the one activity that makes it what it is, the reason that Jesus leaves us here.

The message is the same one Jesus preached, “the good news of the kingdom.” It always comes back to this. We can teach people about right and wrong, too. Jesus did. We can tell them what it means to be a godly father or mother, son or daughter, husband or wife, employer or employee, citizen or soldier or public servant. The Bible teaches good stuff about all those things.

But no one can do those things right all the time. None of that information by itself ever saved anyone. The good news is that the King has returned to the world he made. Even though it was a world of rebels, he has put down the rebellion. He didn’t do it by slaughtering all the opposition. He has convinced many of the rebels to defect to his side. He invites them all to come over. He laid down his life to secure their pardons, and made it safe to join his forces. He doesn’t rule by fear or force (though the opposition often thinks that’s the way it is). His great sacrificial love makes his subjects willing. It gives them new hearts. It fills them with new freedoms. They serve out of gratefulness for the love that rescued them from their sins and led them from death to life.

Preaching this good news, teaching it, taking it to streets and homes and anyplace we can get an audience–that’s the work of Christian ministry. And people who love their neighbor’s souls enough to do this for them will also love their neighbor’s bodies enough to bring a little relief from life’s discomforts when they can–like Jesus “healing every disease and sickness.” Preaching the gospel and showing people love: that’s what Christians go to do.

Better than Hand-Made

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2 Corinthians 5:1 “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by hands.”

Tents are temporary shelters. Our family used its last tent for less than 50 evenings over a 10-year span. It’s not much use now. Along the way we had to replace polls, and zippers stopped working, and one seam looked like it could give way at any time.

Is the comparison with our earthly home hard to see? I don’t mean to complain about the generous accommodations God has given us. We are far better fed and sheltered than we deserve. But our lives in this world rarely feel deeply secure. We are no strangers to pain and discomfort. The world can be a cold place. It turns its back on us and leaves us helpless and alone. Relationships go bad. People just don’t care. It can also be a hot place. Problems and pressures press in around us. The “heat” we feel may be meeting the bills, the demands of our employers and deadlines at our work, people who persecute us, or fighting off temptation. Our earthly accommodations can become mighty uncomfortable.

Like a tent, our home in this world is temporary. It is constantly falling apart all around us all the time. My house needs maintenance. My car needs maintenance. Even my lawn is hard to keep alive. And to Paul’s point, my body needs more and more maintenance as it putters and sputters towards total collapse.

As a result, Paul said, “…while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened.” It’s hard. But why should our lives here be this way? We made our world this way with our sin. Every little body ache, family frustration, or office emergency is a reminder that we ourselves are sinners living in a world cursed by sin.

That is why we are longing to take the last step to a better home. “… we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by hands.” Paul describes our heavenly home as a house, a real building. It has all the climate-controlled comforts we desire. When we get there, we will at last know the feeling of safety and security we have always longed to have.

Because it is a solid structure, it isn’t falling apart all around us. It is eternal. Then Paul reveals something that may seem strange to us. The home we are longing for is better because it is “not built by hands.” It is not hand-made. All my life I have been accustomed to thinking that “hand-made” is the best. Hand-made automobiles, hand-made furniture, or hand-made clothing is the highest quality and far better than that stuff made by machine.

Handmade salvation, and handmade heaven, would be an unqualified disaster. Human hands make a mess of these things. But salvation comes with the hands of our Lord Jesus pinned to a cross. When those hands go limp and the life drains from his body, our sin drains away with his life. All is settled between us and heaven there.

Our house in heaven is better than hand-made. It is crafted by the power and perfect precision of God. It is untouched by sin, and untouched by sinners. It is an eternal home, the last one we will ever need.