GETTING MONEY INTO PRESPECTIVE

36-3557

TEXT – I TIMOTHY 6:9-12

INTRODUCTION:

  1. How do you react when you get caught in a trap? There are two spots between our house and the church building where police set up with radar to catch people going too fast. Both are as you are going down a lengthy hill and the only way to stay below the spend limit is to keep your brakes on as you coast down the hill. Stopping speeders is a good thing in my mind. But I question the idea of setting a trap to catch people who never intend to speed at all.
  2. The thing is with most of us that we just don’t like the feeling of someone setting a trap for us and waiting for us to fall into it. If we happen to fail in an area and someone notices it that is one thing, but for someone to set in motion a process to catch us in a mistake doesn’t feel right to us.
  3. Here in I Timothy 6:9 Paul describes how Satan sets a snare for us to catch us in a sin. A snare is a trap set for a bird that catches them when they are busy eating the food that is all around them.
  4. Probably Satan’s most appealing trap for most people is the one that uses money as the bait. Money is neither good nor bad. It is simply a tool to be used by us for good or bad. But Satan takes our love for money and turns it into an attitude of greed that pulls us deeper into sin.

DISCUSSION:

  1. WALKING WITH JESUS.
  2. When you think about the whole idea of longing to be rich, to accumulate more stuff and the love of money, you have to be reminded of the story of the rich young ruler that came running up to Jesus.
  3. Mark tells the story in Mark 10:17-22. He had just told of Jesus dealing with small children that were brought to him. When the disciples tried to stop the parents from bringing the children, Jesus rebuked them and said, “Permit the children to come to me and don’t hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
  4. Immediately after this Mark says that this young man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him and asked, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
  5. Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. “
  6. “You know the commandments, Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, and honor your father and mother.”
  7. He said, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.”
  8. Jesus could have started down the list to show him how he had failed in every one of the commands mentioned.
  9. Instead he looked at him with love and said, “One thing you lack; go and sell all you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
  10. Jesus knew it was more important to demonstrate to the man where his real loyalties in life were placed and to force him to deal with who really ruled his life than to attack every area of fault.
  11. He was saddened and went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.
  12. Jesus response was, “It is hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved.
  13. What stands between you and fully following the Lord?
  14. THE LOVE OF MONEY.
  15. The root of all kinds of evil.
  16. Think of the sins in the world committed because of greed.
  17. Stealing, embezzling money, cheating people who believed in us. Greed leads to lying about all kinds of things to convince people to do things they normally wouldn’t do.
  18. All kinds of abuse of people are committed because of greed. Even kidnapping young girls and selling them as sex slaves goes on around the world, for the love of money.
  19. Love of money causes people to take risks even with their family that one wouldn’t normally take. It destroys friendships, breaks up marriages, and causes people to ignore their own children.
  20. “Some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many grief’s.”
  21. In James 5:1-6 James describes ways that our desire for wealth can lead to spiritual problems for us.
  22. Weep and howl for the miseries coming upon you.
  23. Your riches are rotted and your garments have become moth eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted; and the rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.
  24. You cheated those who work for you.
  25. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
  26. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.
  27. Jesus point to us is that we shouldn’t put our trust in uncertain riches but in the Living God and seek the kingdom before everything else. Matthew 6:33
  28. WHAT SHOULD GOD’S MAN DO?
  29. Flee these things that have to do with loving money and things and makings our possessions into our gods.
  30. What have you allowed to get between you and God?
  31. Like the rich young ruler we can easily allow our possessions to possess us instead of the other way around. See Obadiah 17
  32. Run from those things that would take your loyalty away from God.
  33. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.
  34. The idea of pursue is to press toward the goal. It is to extend all our effort toward the goal of living right, godly lives of faith and love.
  35. Extend all effort to persevere.
  36. Work at being yielded to God.
  37. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which we were called and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Cf. 2 Timothy 4:6-8
  38. Fighting over the wrong things shows selfishness and Satan’s control.
  39. But to not fight for the things that matter for God is to fail the Lord our captain. 2 Timothy 2:3-4
  40. CONCLUSION:
  41. After Jesus challenged the rich young ruler to sell all he had to give to the poor and come follow him he said it was hard for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God. He said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved.
  42. The disciples were confused by the whole idea. “Who then can be saved?” Jesus said with people it was impossible but with God all things are possible.
  43. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, we left everything and followed you. What do we get?” Jesus declared, “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the preset age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.”
  44. A hundred times over in this life in the very things we give for him.
  45. Then eternal life in the world to come.
  46. Don’t miss out on the greatest investment ever made.