Community Church Sermons
September 30, 2007
Pentecost
18
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Listen to this Sermon!
Next week begins our annual Trails Through
Tellico stewardship campaign, but today’s text from First Timothy pries the
lid off the subject of money a week early. So lets get started on the subject
of stewardship today, okay? I know how you all just LOVE to hear sermons about
money!
Research shows that one reason many people stay away
from church these days is that “they’re always talking about money.” Unfortunately, that observation is all too
often true. We all have stories about sitting in a church service where a
second or third offering was taken because the first was not enough – or about
the stewardship campaign where a canvasser came into a house and TOLD the
family what they were going to pledge – or about the prayer request we sent to
the televangelist who now has us on his mailing list and he writes us
“personal” computer-generated letters every week asking for money.
Religion is big business. Long ago, people
discovered that the legitimate appeals churches make for money to support their
very important ministries can easily be transformed into illegitimate schemes
whose sole purpose is to line the pockets of a religious entrepreneur. Time and
again we’ve read or heard stories about Rev. So-and-So who’s going to jail for
bilking people out of large sums of money. Less apparent to many of us, though,
is the everyday ongoing religious rip-off, which is carried out by the religious
stores that are so popular today. This is a personal peeve of mine ever since
the day I peeled off a price tag on a book I’d bought for $30 only to discover
underneath it the publisher’s price tag of $15. Why would anyone buy a $15 book
for $30? I’ll tell you why – because Christian stores market your faith rather
than their product. And religion sells. Religion is a multi-billion dollar a
year industry – all in the name of Jesus, of course.
Separating people from their money is a
longstanding, widespread religious practice – and it goes back to the earliest
days.
We even run into it in the little letter of First
Timothy. Some scholars believe that this letter may originally have been a
sermon preached at the ordination services of new ministers. And when it comes
to the subject of money and all the unethical stuff we’ve just been talking
about, the sermon says to these young new ministers, “Don’t do that!” In
the verse immediately preceding our text for today, great condemnation is
thrown upon those who – and I quote – “think that godliness is a means to
financial gain.”
Let me repeat that, but from another direction. “The
point of faith is NOT financial gain.”
And there is no better illustration than that of
Jesus who lost everything – including the shirt off his back. No one has ever
been more faithful than Jesus. And no one has ever been left more destitute as
a result. The prosperity gospel that is so prevalent today is shown for the
idolatry it is when brought to the cross where Jesus died.
The point of faith is not financial gain.
So what is the point of faith? What do we get out of
it?
Well, the little sermon of First Timothy offers us
an intriguing thought. The great gain of being a godly person is not getting
what you don’t have now, but becoming content with what you DO have! Listen to
these words in verse 6: “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”
Are you content with what you have? Or is your life
tuned to what you don’t have?
Then the letter goes on to tell us how to find
contentment.
“For
we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if
we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”
The two greatest miracles in our lives are the
miracle of birth, and the miracle of death. In birth we are born into this
life, and in death we are born into a larger life. These are the two pivotal
moments in the life of a human being. And in the days, weeks, months and years
in between these two miracles, all that is necessary for life is food and
clothing.
What an amazing creature you are! What a fantastic
thing God has done, designing you and me to live a lifetime in between our
birth and our death needing so little! Food and clothing.
Our grandson Ryan NEEDS Band-Aids. There is never a
happier moment in his life than when he gets something on a hand or leg that
looks enough like a scratch to warrant putting a Band-Aid on it! Ryan LOVES
Band-Aids. Sandy recently bought some Band-Aids to take with her to New England
when she goes to a wedding up there next weekend. They’re Scooby-Doo Band-Aids
because Ryan NEEDS Scooby-Doo Band-Aids!
And as funny as that seems when you’re not a member
of our family, you have no idea of the hell there is to pay if Ryan doesn’t get
what he NEEDS! SpongeBob Band-Aids will NOT do, nor will Disney character
Band-Aids or any other kind. Ryan NEEDS Scooby-Doo Band-Aids.
Or else.
And right there is what First Timothy is talking
about. The things we THINK we NEED are the things that keep us from being
content with what we have. And when we grow up and turn our attention away from
Band-Aids and toward other material things, the next words in the passage speak
powerfully to us: “For the love of money is a root of all evil.”
For the love of anything we don’t have –
although often it is wealth that is at the heart of our discontent – is the
breeding ground for all kinds of evil. Notice that the Bible does not say that
MONEY is the root of all evil, but rather the LOVE OF money – the NEED TO GET
what we think we need to become content is the fertile soil from which all
manner of evil springs.
So how are we then to live as followers of Jesus
Christ?
First, by paying attention to the little things that
sustain us – food, clothing, shelter, families, friends – the basic
necessities. I once used a values clarification exercise with kids where I
asked them to think about this scenario: a meteor is about to strike the earth
and you are one of just a few people who’ve been selected to be launched on a
spaceship to another planet to start civilization over again. You can only
bring five things with you. What would those five things be?
Well, usually the conversation started with things
like “my CD collection”, or “my new Nikes”, or “my favorite pillow.” But as we
went on, the things the kids would take with them became things like seeds,
matches, a goat, a cup. They began to think of what things are truly necessary
for life. And we need to do that, too. You might spend some time this week
making a list of the five things that are most crucial to your being able to
live.
Second, we need to give thanks for the little things
that sustain us. I have to tell you that I was full of praise to God a couple
years ago when I got the car I always wanted to have. “Thank you, Jesus! You
are so good to me!”
And yet, the truth is that I don’t think I have ever
thanked God for a glass of water.
And yet which is the more important for life?
Practicing thanksgiving for little things can help
us reorient our bearings to appreciate what really is important, and to realize
how blessed we are simply in these things! I once heard of a man who thanked
God every day for his two good eyes. Then he lost an eye in an accident. He
thanked God for the one eye. Then he went blind in that eye. People asked, “Are
you thankful now? What can you be thankful for?” He said, “I’m thankful
for not having to look at idiots like you!” But then he said, “I’m only
kidding. What I’m really thankful for now that I’ve lost my sight is for all
the things I can HEAR today that I never heard before!”
When you practice thanksgiving every day for the
things that truly sustain you, you can discover how wonderful life is at its
simplest, and how joy and contentment can be yours.
And then one more thing. Being thankful for little
things and becoming content with what you need for life, sets you free to
appreciate the power of all the other things you have!
First Timothy says that when you become content with
the little things, you can then see how useful your other material blessings
can be for bringing about the kingdom of God! Listen: “But you, O person of
God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love,
endurance and patience. Fight the good fight of the faith! Take hold of eternal
life to which you were called…”
In other words, use all the extras of life that have
come to you for high purposes. Use them to bless others. Use them to make the
world a better place. You don’t need them to be content, but you can use them
to bring contentment to others and glory to God. You can use your gifts to
support the purposes of God!
When my best boyhood friend Dennis Astrella and I
were growing up, we used to take a city bus downtown to go to the movies. Our
mothers always gave us money for the bus fare, for the movie ticket, and also
EMERGENCY money – just in case. So off we would go to the movies, our pockets
bulging with change.
One day, we decided to cut through the Woolworth’s
store which was located nearby the movie theater. Lo and behold, there in the
center of the store was the largest candy counter we’d ever seen! We stopped in
our tracks, just gawking at the sight! And we were fingering the change in our
pockets. Well, we succumbed to temptation that day and spent some of our
“emergency” money on penny candy. When we got home, we told our mothers the
movie cost more than we thought!
This went on for some time. But it became more and
more difficult to explain where the emergency money was going to. We lost it.
We were mugged. We ran into a poor family who we paid for to get into the
movie. I think our mothers knew we were spending the emergency money, but they
never said a word. They just let us lie and punch our ticket to damnation.
Dennis and I thought this was so cool! And each time
we went through Woolworth’s we got the nerve to up the ante and spend even more
money on penny candy. We’d go into the movie theater with great big bags of
goodies. We thought we had it all…
…until the day we walked through Kresge’s instead of
Woolworth’s and saw the goldfish!
Why, do you know that you can buy a goldfish for
about what you pay for a bag of penny candy? Dennis looked at me and I looked
at him. The next thing I knew, we were sitting in the movie theater, each of us
holding a little plastic bag filled with water, and a goldfish in it! Other
kids looked at us like we must be the richest guys in all the world, having our
own goldfish in a plastic bag!
Well, we carried our goldfish with us on the bus
back to Burncoat Street, and gleefully ran all the way home.
Now there are two lessons that come from this caper.
One is about how NOT to live your life, and the other is about how TO live your
life.
Here’s the first: some of us are never content with
what we got from Woolworth’s and spend our whole lives looking for Kresge’s.
What we have is never enough. And that is a very sad and destructive way to
live. God wants us to find contentment in the simple necessities of life!
Here’s the second lesson: don’t settle for penny
candy when you can have a goldfish instead! In other words, use your wealth and
the abundance of material blessings that have come to you to invest in life and
not consumption. Use your resources for higher things – righteousness, justice,
love, peace, healing.
And then the little sermon on money ends with this
thought: faithful living – godliness with contentment – brings honor to God and
strengthens God’s work in the world.
So go this week and be content – give thanks for the
little things – and invest in the big things.
And bring glory to God, blessing to others, and joyful
contentment to your heart!