Serve God / Serve Gold

Two fairly long readings this morning, both on essentially the same theme, but with some different emphasises. So we're going to look at the gospel to see what Jesus says in a small extract from the Sermon on the Mount. Then take a look at what Paul says to Timothy. Has asked Timothy to look after the Church in Ephesus while he moved on to Macedonia. This letter is advice and instructions to Timothy about running and growing the church.

I will finish with a vision of how the church might look if the behaviours presented in these two passages was enthusiastically adopted by everyone in our congregation.

Now lets take a look at Matthew 6:24-34, here the first verse from the NLT, not really any different from the verse we had read this morning. Jesus is talking about slaves and their masters. That's something none of us have first hand experience of. I've worked in an organisation that had matrix management, so I worked for lots of managers – that is difficult enough, trying to juggle the requirements of various projects without having any genuine understanding of the relative priorities. But here Jesus is talking about slave masters – when you're a slave you have only the one choice: You do as you are instructed, you do not get to choose. You can no more serve two masters than you can turn yourself inside out.

“Therefore”, Jesus continues, assuming that his hearers have made the right choice, “do not worry …”. He talks about food and clothing – both things that require money, so before we continue we should get an understanding of our attitude to money.

Stumpy and Martha

A man named Stumpy illustrates how money affects people. Stumpy and his wife Martha went to the state fair every year and every year when Stumpy saw the antique bi-plane he would say, “Martha, I’d like to ride in that air-plane.” Martha always replied, “I know Stumpy, but that air-plane ride costs 10 dollars, and 10 dollars is 10 dollars. One year Stumpy and Martha went to the fair and Stumpy said, “Martha, I’m 81 years old. If I don’t ride that air-plane I might never get another chance.” Martha replied, “Stumpy, that air-plane ride cost 10 dollars, and 10 dollars is 10 dollars. The pilot overheard them and said, “Folks, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take you both up for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and not say one word, I won’t charge you: but if you say one word it’s 10 dollars.” Stumpy and Martha agreed and up they went. The plot did all kinds of twists and turns, rolls and dives, but not a word was heard. He did all his tricks over again, but still not a word. When they landed, the pilot turned to Stumpy and said, “By golly, I did everything I could think of to get you to yell out, but you didn’t.” Stumpy replied, “Well, I was gonna say something when Martha fell out, but 10 dollars is 10 dollars.” (From: http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonID=83382   Attributed:Taken from Great Stories; vol. 6/Issue 24; p. 8)

It's obviously an old story, if you wanted a ride in that air-plane today it would cost you £230 per half hour.

Old or not it illustrates a particular attitude to money and I'm hoping that the attitude it illustrates is not shared by anyone here. At this point it would be a good idea to ask ourselves the question: What is my attitude to money? Because we will be coming back to that later.

[Pause]

 

Where shall we have lunch

Jesus though, moves on to remind his listeners that God provides for His creation.

In “The restaurant at the End of the Universe”, Douglas Adams writes “The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'”

In Jesus time, and in some places in our time the people are still at the 'How can we eat?' stage – there was a direct relationship between the crop that was harvested and the chances of physical survival to the following harvest.

We are now at the 'Where shall we have lunch?' stage, we do not see the link between the harvest and the amount of food we have available to us, the impact of a failed harvest is a small increase in the price of some of our foodstuffs, hardly any hardship at all.

So it is much harder for us to understand what Jesus is saying. The same is true for clothes, our concern is not having sufficient clothes so that we always have something to wear, our concerns are choosing from our extensive wardrobe what will best suit the occasion, whether that be work or social, church or sporting event. Every day I wear at least two different set of cloths – one for work, and one for home – a luxury that most in Jesus time did not have.

So the birds of the air sowing and reaping and the lilies of the fields labouring and spinning does not have the same impact. By the way these are supposed to comic pictures, imagine a bird sowing seed, and a lilly at a spinning wheel. You'll have to construct the mental image, because I couldn't find any cartoons that would help, sometimes Christians are too serious.

[Pause – assist mental image]

Jesus is poking gentle fun at his hearers for their very legitimate concerns, but He has a higher message. You only have these concerns, because like the pagans you do not know the Lord your God. First worry about finding God, and His righteousness, then you will have all the things you NEED to live in this world.

Letter to Timothy

While Jesus is talking to the randomly assembled crowd, Paul has only one person in his intended audience – Timothy.

In verse 3, just before the start of our reading Paul starts talking about teachers of false doctrine. He ends by saying that such people think that godliness is a way to financial gain.

That is proof, if you ever needed it, that the prosperity gospel is a load of rubbish, indeed, all the New Testament readings that we have had recently say the same thing about it – it is a sin – pure and simple. And the poverty gospel (sell everything and give your money to the poor) is equally sinful if it is preached without a specific word of knowledge.

Jesus continues “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”

Happiness vs Contentment

The American declaration of Independence talks about “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as inalienable rights, but Happiness is transient, and pursuing it usually means it is unattainable. We should pursue contentment, that is attainable and it is not transient because it is promised by the eternal God. Our life, our existence, comes from God, we could not bring anything into the world and we certainly can't take anything with us. So Paul says, if we have food and clothing we should be content. In his letter to the Philippians (4:11-12) Paul says “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” So Paul eventually found that God was sufficient for Him even in more extreme circumstances.

Love of Money

Now's the time to start thinking about our attitude to money again, how do we compare to Stumpy & Martha?

Paul is not thinking about slave masters when he writes to Timothy, but he still equates the love (or pursuit) of money with evil. Our society loves to bait us with mis-quotes from the Bible, and this must be one of the most common.

The KJV has “The love of money is the root of all evil”, which doesn't seem to work, because some evil is caused by, for example, jealousy, power trips, hatred and all sorts of other things. Our, more modern translation has “The love of money is the root of all kinds evil”, which is better.

The suggestion from my commentary is that the sentiment is, that there is no kind of evil to which the love of money may not lead men, once it fairly takes hold of them. (P385)

As a result, and unsurprisingly, people wander from the faith, because their love of money is greater than their love of God.

Timothy is to flee from all of this, flight is the best response to temptation – remove yourself from it presence. Instead he is to take hold of eternal life – only attainable because Jesus was killed as resurrected and therefore dedicated himself to serving God.

Man of God

There is some debate about the meaning of the phrase 'Man of God', (v11) typically used of Old Testament prophets. Does it mean all Christians, or only those in leadership roles? So is it for Timothy, Margaret, perhaps me, or is it for all of us? We know that leaders are supposed to hold to a higher level of purity and holiness, and more is required of them. Could it be that only leaders are to take such a strict attitude to money. The rest of the verse answers the question for me. “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness”. Compare this to the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5 (v22-23) “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”. There really isn't a great difference, so I'll say that this passage applies to us all.

After some encouragement for Timothy, to live up to the life he is called to, Paul returns to his main topic – Money. Now we have Commands for the rich.

Before we look at those, we need to establish, once again that we, in Britain, and especially in Billericay are rich by comparison to the rest of the world. The graph shows the distribution of earnings in various categories of countries. We are in one of the Developed Countries – the EU, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. As you can see from the very thin blue line there are a few in our region who are below the $465pa threshold for absolute poverty, but there are only a VERY few.

Having established that we are indeed rich – even if we don't think we are, in truth we are – we should listen to the Commands that Paul is giving Timothy to pass on to his congregation.

Lets take a look at verses 17 to 19

1Ti 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.

1Ti 6:18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

1Ti 6:19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

[Pause]

Choice

The choice is stark, and there can be no successful compromise, no third way. Whether you see it as a choice between slave masters, a choice between loves, or a choice between treasures, the choice must be made.

Which option are we going to choose? Are we going to commit to God's way, and serve him, store up our treasures for heaven, and love God above all else (the first commandment), or are we still going to count every penny and be the servants of our pay packet, and keep our treasure in the bank? - Which we know is unreliable.

Wealth Syndrome

There are two syndromes defined by psychiatrists – Sudden Wealth Syndrome and Sudden loss of Wealth Syndrome. They are both related to the stress that results from a sudden change in the amount of money available. Wealth affects you health, and not just by making certain drugs that you may need available or unavailable. That will be a greater effect, if wealth is the main target in your life.

Possession of wealth is not condemned in the Bible, and as 'money makes the world go round' (according to the Song Money from Cabaret), it is an essential part of the world we live in, so we should have some principals for acquiring money – without trying to get rich.

Here are four ways that the Bible supports (from http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/gambling--what-does-one-really-stand-to-lose-don-mcclain-sermon-on-money-54269.asp):

1. By honest work – Proverbs 13:11; Ephesians 4:28b.
   Pr 13:11 Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.
   Eph 4:28 He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
2. By fair exchange – Ephesians 4:28; Acts 5:3,4c.
   Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”
3. By investment – Mat 25:14-30d.
   The parable of the talents.
4. By gift – Acts 20:35
   In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

If you have any other methods that are supported by scripture, please come and discuss them with me afterwards, because I think this is the definitive list. So anything else, like gambling (playing the lottery), is a pursuit of money and is therefore a sin. i.e. not a valid activity a committed Christian.

Conclusion

We have looked at not serving Money, but serving God and trusting that He will provide all we NEED, we have looked at what we treasure, whether it is Gold or God and how to store it up, and we have considered our attitudes to money with the help of Stumpy & Martha. We have established that almost all of us fall into the category of 'wealthy', and heard how God commands us to handle our money. 

Now I want to leave you with a vision of how the Church might be if we were all to follow the commands that Timothy passed on to his congregation.

Vision

We wouldn't have to have appeals to buy things we need – like a new keyboard.

We may choose not to pay the Parish Share, rather than being unable to.

We may be able to employ a full time administrator.

We may be able to employ another youth worker, or a families worker.

We may be able to start new ministries, that we haven't even dreamt of yet.

We could support more missions in greater depth, and afford to give more than our tithe.