[0:00] And why this is so ungodly is because it goes against the very centerpiece of the Christian faith.! And if I ask you what is life about? What is a Christian life about?
[0:12] It's the glory of God. Like, everything is centered around the glory of God. And He is the focus. And this ideology makes us the focus. We're in the center, and we deserve to be in the center.
[0:25] So, I should really just... This is kind of a long intro. Sorry, before we get into 1 John here. You might ask the question like, what is it that corrupts us, you know, as people?
[0:40] A lot of people like to blame their sin on something. Like to say, the devil made me do it. Or, you know, I'm just a victim of a bad environment.
[0:51] But people in society just push me too hard. They know how to push my buttons and make me angry and go nuts. Even some people, on a more theological level, they want to blame their sin on Adam.
[1:04] You know, as if they don't commit their own sin every day. And their own hearts are corrupted. So, but the reality is, and I'll read you this really fast out of Mark 7.
[1:15] And Jesus said, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him? And he says, a little later, right after that, all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
[1:33] We sin because we're sinners. So, he lists this long list of sins, descriptions of sins, like sexual immorality, adultery, murder, theft. And he says, they all come from within us.
[1:45] They don't, we're not corrupted by the outside, we're corrupted inside. So, when we sin, it's our deal. We, you know, he made me mad. No, he didn't.
[1:56] I chose to get mad. Like he, I can't blame it on him. You're responsible for your own sin. And so, another idea people have is if I can just remove myself from the world, I'll be a perfect Christian.
[2:12] Not true. And the reason why is because your sin will follow you wherever you go. A lot of people who go on, you know, mission trips, whatever you want to call it, like overseas, including people in history, they think that by going to some exotic place and getting involved and pointing their life out, none of their sin will follow them there.
[2:31] You know? And all of it does, they have to write, they write out the same things. Hudson Taylor, who went to China, wrote the very same thing. My sin has basically followed me here. Every insecurity I had and every problem I had is here with me right now in China.
[2:45] It didn't get better. So, has anybody ever seen the movie The Village? Anybody? Some people don't like scary movies, but that's a very interesting movie.
[2:57] If you could handle it, I would watch it. I think it's pretty clean. Here's why. It's got like some, you can learn a lot about the way humans are in that movie. They're this group of people that move out in the middle of nowhere and basically live like they did back in the 1800s or 1700s.
[3:13] And their goal is to, like, remove themselves from an evil and sinful society. That's, like, what they want to do. They think that by moving away, they can do that. But evil pops back up in the movie because humans sin against each other and great evil is committed.
[3:28] And they think, like, what happened? We tried to build this perfect world and it just fell apart. So, our sin will follow us. We can be alone in the middle of nowhere and it will be there with us.
[3:39] So, we can't blame the world for our sin is where I'm trying to go with this. We can't say it's too rough. I mean, it affects how I live. So, now getting into our text.
[3:51] We're not going to necessarily focus on verse 16 because John kind of, he explained that a few weeks ago. So, and like I said, this is going to warrant more, maybe a Q&A later.
[4:03] But I think I have three points out of this text and then we're going to spend some time on application. So, the first one is, we see in verse 15, it says, Do not love the world or the things in the world.
[4:19] If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So, the first point is, the world pushes away love for God. The world pushes away love for God.
[4:34] It reveals our identity. You are what you love. You are what you take delight in. The most, I think, one of the chief ways you can get to know somebody or say, I know that person well.
[4:49] You can't really say that unless you know what they desire and what they delight in and what they take joy in. So, you are what you love and you're controlled by what you love. And love for God and love for the world are at odds.
[5:01] They can't coexist. It would be like, it would be like saying, I love justice and innocence, but I'm glad that that serial killer or that child rapist was set free, even when they openly admitted it.
[5:15] You'd be contributing yourself. You can't say, I love freedom and liberty, but at the same time, I'm glad that I have some slaves that serve me. It's just a contradiction. So, God, you can't love him and the world at the same time.
[5:29] It doesn't work that way. You can't serve two masters, as Jesus would say. In Matthew 6, 24, I'll read this to you. He says, No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
[5:46] You cannot serve God and money. He uses money in this context. So, it reveals who we are based on what we love. And, as I said last week, the world will try to befriend you.
[5:59] It will try to bring you in and make you comfortable. And, we read in James 4, 4, You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
[6:10] Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So, it's important that you understand, like, you can't be all about the world, and where all your time and energy and money is just going into it, and, at the same time, love God.
[6:25] It just doesn't work that way. Love for the world diminishes your love for God. So, what I want to do here is, the first place I want to turn is Philippians 3, verse 6.
[6:39] I think I have five places for you to look tonight. Philippians 3, 6 through 8. Philippians 3, 6 through 8.
[6:53] And, I ask you the question, we've said this a lot here, but I think it's really, really good. It would be good to remind yourself. If you could go to heaven right now, like this very instant, and go and be in heaven, and you could have all the worldly pleasures that you enjoy here to the max, and it would be not simple, and it would be okay, not evil.
[7:16] You know, all the food, all the sex, whatever you could enjoy here, you could have there. Like, in the greatest way possible. You could go right now. Like, would you do it?
[7:27] There's just one catch to it. Christ is not going to be there. You still want to go. And, a lot of people make heaven not to be that way. I want to go and visit my dead relatives. I want to go and, you know, just play that golf course I think is going to be up there.
[7:41] It doesn't exist. Christ is heaven. And, the glory of God is what is in heaven. And, so, if you can answer that, and you say, I don't know if I really want to, then you need to take a close look at yourself, examine yourself, to see if you are a true believer.
[8:00] Because, Christ didn't save you so that you could marry the world, and marry sin again. He saved you for himself. And, true faith in him produces love for him. So, getting back to this, Philippians 3, 6 and 8.
[8:16] But, whatever gain I had, this is Paul talking, whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
[8:30] For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ. And, in this text, he's basically saying, whatever I thought was so valuable and so awesome, whatever I devoted my life to, I now consider refuge, dung, in comparison to knowing Christ.
[8:50] And, that's really the heartbeat of a Christian, if you are one. Now, we obviously have to struggle with, we definitely can get lured by the world, but we can't stay in it. We have to come out of it.
[9:01] We can't love the world like we love Christ. It's just a different kind of thing. So, we're to use all things for the glory of God and things we come in contact with and not allow us to consume us.
[9:15] So, if you identify yourself with the world, you're basically saying and identifying yourself as a God-hater, someone who is not a part of who God is at all.
[9:28] They can't coexist. And, this leads into our next point, number two, is found in verse 17. Go back to 1 John, sorry. Keep your hand there.
[9:40] I'll be flipping back. 1 John 2, verse 17, says this, And the world is passing away along with its desires. Okay?
[9:52] So, the second point is, not only will the world try to push away your love for God, but it will, the world is passing away. That's the second point. The world is passing away.
[10:02] It's fleeting. It's going away right now as we speak, even. So, from this, what do we take out? We need to have a, a believer needs to have a great concept and meditate on this daily.
[10:17] an eternal perspective that you're going to last forever. And, that, if you invest in this world, it's a waste of time.
[10:28] Because this world is passing away, no one buys stock in a company they know is going to get bankrupt. Right? You don't go and build a house on a ship that you know is going to sink.
[10:40] You don't take all your riches and your money and possessions and put them in a place that you know is going to go get robbed and broken into and all your stuff is going to be taken away. It's foolishness.
[10:51] You don't do that. So, in the same way, if this world and things in it are the most valuable things to you, you're going to lose them because the world is passing away.
[11:05] And if you hold on to it, if you hold on to the, the world so tightly, you're going to perish with it. It's like the idea. Anybody ever read Mubby Dick?
[11:16] Getting way back in our literature. This one, the captain of that ship was obsessed with killing the whale. That was his goal. And eventually, he did it.
[11:27] Or he tried to do it. And eventually, the whale destroyed him. He was obsessed with that. That was his life goal. And he perished with it. You know, so this is a picture of us if we try to hold on to the world, we'll perish with it.
[11:39] So, so basically, if anyone loves the world, love for the Father will not be in him because all that is in the world is not of God.
[11:51] That's a summation of this. And, I'll throw this out there at you. In my parents' neighborhood a few weeks ago, there was a really, really, really expensive big house that was built in their neighborhood.
[12:06] And it burnt to the ground a few weeks ago. And, my mom and dad had a chance to go over and try to minister to these people. And they, they were like, man, our whole life has been there.
[12:18] You know, like it's all gone now. And you can just see like how terrible it is for them because that was their life. You know, it would hurt a lot of people, but not, but particularly people who don't have Christ as their ultimate treasure.
[12:31] And, it's, it's devastating. And, so, I want to read this out of first, our Colossians 3, 1 through 2 to you. It says, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is.
[12:48] Seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above and not on things on the earth. So, a believer needs to have an eternal perspective that will help you battle against the things in the world.
[13:02] Third point, we're kind of moving through this, is, only love for God gives eternal life. Only love for God gives eternal life.
[13:14] This is in verse 17. Whoever does the will of God abides forever. So, loving God and obeying God and doing His will are not separate things.
[13:26] They, they coexist. They're together. You can't separate one from the other. You can't say, I love God, but I'm not going to do what He's commanded me to do. Jesus said in John 14, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
[13:42] You will. It's an evidence of someone who truly knows who God is. and it's a lie to say, I love God and I'm going to disobey every commandment He's ever made.
[13:54] 1 John says that you're a liar. It's like blatantly said, you are a liar and the truth is not in you. So a paraphrase of all this is, if you love the world, you will perish with the world.
[14:07] But if you don't love the world, but love God and you do His will, you'll live with Him forever. That's basically a summation of what we just talked about. So, now, kind of getting to the harder part.
[14:22] And this was very hard, y'all. Like, we're going to get into some application here about what a lot of this means. you know, I want to do my best to try to tread the line between law and grace will.
[14:39] And, so, this will warrant further conversation. So we can talk about it later. Maybe we can have a Q&A later. But, I actually, again, kind of, one book I've read that has helped me the most, learning on how to deal with possessions and things in the world, an old school book.
[14:59] It's a section out of John Calvin's Institutes. And, it's called The Golden Book of the True Christian Life. They just made this part of the Christian life. And, one of these last chapters is called The Right Use of the Present World.
[15:12] And, this is really, really good. I would recommend, if you've ever read anything from Calvin before, this is a great place to start. But, he kind of talks about how to deal with the things we have in this life.
[15:24] We're going to unpack it a little bit. Then, I have some scripture. Then, I have some quotes. But, I'm going to use, like, this book, just kind of as a guide to walk through some things. And, first of all, in The Right Use of the Present World, this is what we're talking about, application, he says that we must avoid two extremes.
[15:44] Okay? Two extremes. The first one is legalism. And, that means basically adding extra biblical rules to things that aren't there.
[15:57] Your rules of conduct. You're being overly rigid on this. You know, adding to the commandments of God. And, God has not said, you can't do this.
[16:08] And, he said that's the first extreme. And, this is what he wrote. In their desire to correct such a pernicious evil, they have adopted the only method which they saw fit.
[16:20] Namely, to permit earthly blessings only in so far as their absolute necessity. You ever heard anybody say that? Like, if you don't need it, you don't, if it's not a necessity, you don't need that. You've heard that extreme camp before.
[16:34] He says, this advice showed the best of intentions, but was far too rigid. For they committed the very, excuse me, I have my papers mixed up.
[16:44] They committed the very dangerous error of imposing on the conscience of others stricter rules than those already laid down for us in the word of the Lord. Okay? Then he said, according to that camp, or according to them, it would be scarcely permissible to eat and drink anything but bread and water.
[17:04] Others saw even greater extremes of being rigid, like the man from Thebes is a historical story, who had said he threw all his treasures into the sea out of fear that unless they were destroyed, he himself would be destroyed by them.
[17:21] So he's like, he just renounced all his riches because he was afraid they were just going to destroy him. So he said, that's the first camp to avoid. If you were just like, stay away from it, it's going to mess you up.
[17:32] Don't even get near it. You know? So that's the first camp, legalism. The second extreme is licentiousness. That's a big word. That's a scriptural word. And it basically means this, lacking or regarding for legal or moral restrictions.
[17:51] You know? It means like, hey, God made it for us, let's just enjoy it. You know? And you kind of go the other extreme, the other side of the pendulum. And this is what he said. On the other hand, there are many others nowadays who seek to prevent, to excuse and temperament, you know, keeping things under control in the use of external things and who desire to indulge in the lust of the flesh.
[18:14] So you've got the other camp. You've got the one Christian group that's like, don't even go near beer. Like, don't even look at it. Don't even look at it. The other camp is like, hey, God made it for us to enjoy.
[18:25] And they let go and just get totally wasted. That's like the two camps you can't be in. Neither one of those are the correct biblical view. So, that's the two extremes he says to avoid that I think are very, very wise and shrewd.
[18:41] Another point he makes, so that's the first one, the point he makes, and these are going to be guidelines for the right use of things in the world. The second one is hindered or assisted.
[18:54] Okay? Hindered or assisted. And he pulls out this from scripture. Christians are pilgrims, are travelers. That's the way scripture identifies Christians.
[19:06] Traveling through this world on the way to Mount Zion, you know, the city of God, the eternal realm of God. Pilgrim's progress is a great picture of this. So, what do you do?
[19:19] How do you view the things that you, a lot of pilgrimages were going that way and there's so many things we're surrounded with? How do we like, keep going that way and not get like, oh, get over here and get totally distracted?
[19:31] And in Pilgrim's progress, he's going towards, you know, Zion, you know, the kingdom of God, basically. And there's a place on the side of the road called Vanity Fair. and it basically has everything you can want.
[19:45] Like, all the allurements of the flesh, like it's all there. Wherever he wants, he could have it. And it says that it was placed there by, basically by Satan to distract pilgrims on their way to going to the city.
[19:59] So, this is what he says. This is what Calvin says about this. He says, the Lord prescribes to us in his word when he teaches us that his servants for the present life are pilgrims in which they are traveling towards the heavenly kingdom.
[20:16] And here's the application. We ought undoubtedly to make such use of its blessings that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey. So, if there's something that's not going to be beneficial to you to partake in, shake it loose.
[20:32] Get rid of it. You want to like have things in your life, possessions, relationships, whatever, that are going to enable you and encourage you in your journey, not like putting a weight on your leg and distracting you from your ultimate goal.
[20:45] So, that's a really important, you know, point to make. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
[20:56] verse 29.
[21:11] Verse 29. This is a really interesting verse, kind of tucked away in the New Testament. A lot of people just breeze over. Verse 29 says this, This is what I mean, brothers.
[21:25] The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have lives live as though they had none. and those who mourn as though they were not mourning.
[21:38] And those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing. And those who buy as though they had no goods. And those who deal with the world as though they had not, no dealings with it.
[21:50] For the present form of this world is passing away. So, it's this idea that we can't engage the things around us. We can, you know, we can enjoy the stuff that God has around us.
[22:02] But, God is like saying, cultivate such a eternal perspective, you know, like a right understanding of what the Christian life is. And have such a satisfaction in Christ that you can involve yourself with suffering in this world.
[22:18] And you can lose it and you're like, okay, I'll move on. That's kind of the goal. Like, you don't want to be like, man, I lost that. I lost that. You're going to be able to engage with things in such a way as though you are not engaging with them.
[22:31] You can just let them go. Like, if that was the point. And, it's a very interesting passage to look at. Something that's not going to keep you where you are and weigh you down. Next point he makes in the book is that earthly things are gifts from God.
[22:51] Earthly things are gifts from God. So, the using of temple blessings cannot be wrong. If, if, they're directed to the same purposes for which God created them.
[23:05] Okay? Because, everything that God made was good. Everything. I had a friend of mine in seminary a while back. He said he had to write a paper.
[23:16] It basically was like having to correct false teaching and that was the kind of goal of what this paper was about. It was, what he had to address was somebody who said like, well, everything God made was good and therefore like we can do you know, marijuana and drugs and like thinking about it and saying like, well, because it's good.
[23:33] And he had to basically kind of explain like that's not what's being said. Um, that's not what we're trying to deal with here. Like, God gave us things to enjoy.
[23:43] They're gifts from God and it's not wrong to use them if we use them for the purposes that God intended for us to use them in. Not taking them beyond the border, so to say, from what he intended.
[23:55] This is what Calvin said. He said, if we study, for instance, while he has created the various kinds of food, we shall find that it was his intention not only to provide for our needs but likewise for our pleasure and our delight in herbs and trees and fruit.
[24:13] Besides being useful in various ways, he planted to please us by their gracious wines and pleasant odors. So everything around us was meant to like elevate us to worship the creator.
[24:24] See that? Like, we can delight in these things but not taking them beyond what he intended, obviously. While you're in 1 Corinthians, flip back to chapter 6 real fast.
[24:36] A very, very helpful verse. Verse 12, chapter 6. Great verse.
[24:47] He says in verse 12, Paul talking, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.
[25:01] See that? There's like, there's things that are good in this world that we could enjoy and partake in. But he says, there's some things that are just not of any benefit to me to engage in.
[25:13] So I'm going to stay away from those things. At the same time, the things that I do enjoy, I cannot allow to enslave me and control me. You see that? And like, I have some buddies in here, they love to smoke cigars and pipes.
[25:26] I love the smell. I wish I could do it. But that would not be beneficial for me because I've had a lung transplant and my daughters would shoot me. See, like you can't, I can't engage in certain activities because like, it would be okay, it wouldn't be illegal for me to do that, but it would not be a benefit to me, obviously.
[25:43] And so there's, might not be the best analogy, but this is one that came to mind. So, don't be enslaved by any good thing. Don't take good things beyond what God intended them to be.
[25:57] And don't reject them either because earthly things are gifts from God. So, next point, I don't know what number we're on, I don't have numbers, is that true gratitude will restrain us from abuse.
[26:10] A true gratitude will restrain us from abuse. So, a right understanding of God and His gifts leads us to thankfulness and gratitude for them.
[26:22] And it allows us to be like, wow, He made this for me, I'm going to use it for the reason He made it. And, I'm going to give Him glory for allowing me to do this.
[26:33] Calvin said, we should praise His kindness towards us in heavenly, or earthly matters by giving Him thanks. You know, so, He's given us good things, but if we abuse them, they will backfire on us.
[26:46] There's a verse in Proverbs 25 that says, if you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you will have your fill and you will vomit. Like, some things taken too far are going to, like, backfire on you.
[26:59] So, but, a right understanding of these gifts don't hinder you from enjoying them. You can give glory to God because of what He's made, and it all goes back to Him.
[27:10] Everything is from Him, through Him, and to Him. It's that idea. So, here's the rule. I think this is like the, you know, the last one that I have from Him in this book.
[27:24] Basically, He says, let us live in moderation. Let us live in moderation. And, that means you're not going to be one extreme or the other in those camps.
[27:36] You're not going to, like, throw away the gifts and say, they'll corrupt me. I don't want to get near them. And then you're not going to, like, indulge in them to the point of sin, gluttony, and licentiousness. You're going to be kind of, like, in the middle.
[27:48] The proper balance of the right use of the things in this life. And, you're going to use, but not abuse, idea, the things in this life. And, so, the gifts that He gives us are parameters for His glory.
[28:04] So, sorry, turn to Proverbs 30, real fast. Proverbs 30. This is another really cool passage. It's kind of tucked away.
[28:14] Proverbs 30, verse 7. Proverbs 30, verse 7.
[28:25] It says, sorry, two things I ask of you, talking to the Lord. Deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lying.
[28:40] Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me. Lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord?
[28:52] Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. Pretty cool. It's this idea of, like, Lord, please help me have just enough to not make it an idol.
[29:04] But also, don't leave me in poverty and want to provide for what I need. It's a good way of looking at things. So moderation is the goal of the right use of things in this life.
[29:15] Not to abuse them and not to neglect them, but in the middle. So, I know people think about alcohol. A lot of other things are coming to mind right now. This might be a conversation for later.
[29:27] But, quickly, some more application. Two random things. I feel like I got kind of rocky here at the end. Sorry. We'll talk just briefly about wealth, money, and possessions.
[29:38] And, key text we'll look at. And we'll have, like, maybe two other places where you look at. 1 Timothy, chapter 6. This will be a good text to look at. 1 Timothy, chapter 6.
[29:51] And we're going to read this, 6 through 10. This is where it really gets picky because, you know, we're picking on certain things now.
[30:10] 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verse 6. Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment. For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it.
[30:21] But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
[30:36] For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. There's a lot in that.
[30:49] But notice his language. He's not saying that money in and of itself is evil. He's saying the love of money, the abuse of money, that one side we were talking about, that one extreme camp.
[31:00] I've got to have money. Because with money you can have anything you want. You can have any kind of pleasure. You can buy exactly what your flesh wants. So, we're talking about this specifically in the confines of a believer's life.
[31:14] Okay? There is a half-truth that I believe we live with here in the American church. And it is this.
[31:25] It sounds something like this. We glorify God with our wealth by being thankful and enjoying all the luxuries he allows us to buy. Like, thank you, Lord, forgive me this, and now I'm going to go and spend it any way I want to spend it.
[31:41] Because he gave it to me as long as I'm thankful, right? I'm going to go and spend it however I want to. The true part of that statement is that we should be thankful because God gives us every good thing, including money and possessions.
[31:54] He gives us those things, so that's the right part. The false part is that we can glorify God by every purchase we make. Not true. It's not true. And, let me read you this quote by John Piper.
[32:11] He says, God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves, no matter how thankfully, we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of the un-evangelized, un-educated, un-medicated, and unfed millions.
[32:28] We should be using our wealth for the advancement of the kingdom for the most part. That's what he's trying to say. There are so many people that need help, and I'm convinced that now, more than ever, Christians in America, particularly in the West, they're going to be held to a higher standard by God than people in the past.
[32:51] And the reason why is because we don't have to get on a boat and go months and months to somewhere and help somebody in need, we can do it by clicking and sending things and helping people in that regard.
[33:05] And so, don't say, well, because I don't see these people, I don't have to help them. We know they exist. We know they're there. We know there's misery out there. And this is the rest of it, what he said.
[33:16] This evidence that many professional Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. That's what identifies this.
[33:27] He says, God has prospered them and by almost an irresistible law of consumer culture, baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity, we have bought bigger than more houses, newer and more cars, fancier and more clothes, better and more meat, in all matter of trinkets, gadgets, containers, devices, equipment, to make life more fun.
[33:55] That's very convicting. He definitely is not saying you can't buy some possession like something you take to light in, like a fishing pole or go fishing.
[34:05] That's not what he's trying to say. He's trying to say that when we look at most Christians, particularly here in America, you look at what they own, and then you look, well, you're not really supposed to do this, but if you could see how much they give, it's like nowhere in comparison.
[34:24] Nowhere. They don't even touch it at all. We give so little to the cause of Christ. He can say this because I know that Piper lives in a very poor neighborhood in Minneapolis.
[34:37] I know pastors get paid far more than he does personally. He really wants to be clear that all the money that I earn from my books and all that is not going to me.
[34:48] It's going to expand the kingdom of God. He lives on a very low paycheck. He's not doing that to glorify himself. He's trying to show that money and possessions is not my treasure.
[34:59] Christ is and I don't need those things. That's really kind of what the point is. He wants to glorify Christ. I really think that's it. God is not pleasing us going out and making any purses.
[35:10] Thank you for that. We need to be deliberate about how we are spending our money to alleviate the unevangelized uneducated and unmedicated.
[35:22] So, here's the other side of this. Here's another right use of our money, right use. The problem is not with earning a lot of money. the problem is living a lifestyle that is maintained by that amount of money.
[35:37] So, you can go out and make $200,000 a year, but you can't be justified living a $200,000 lifestyle. There's just no way. And, God didn't enlarge your deposit or your bank account for you to go out and buy and build bigger barns like the parable Jesus gives about the rich ruler.
[36:01] The fool who built bigger barns so that he could eat, drink, and be merry. So, God increases our yield, not so that we'll indulge in it, but we'll take that yield and give it to God.
[36:14] And, in this text, in verse 6, we read that with godliness there is great contentment. So, the goal in life is not to have more. The goal in life is to have less.
[36:25] And, I read a book a long time ago by this Puritan guy named Jeremiah Burroughs. And, this is one of his texts he used, but he said this, very profound. He said, contentment comes by way of subtraction and not addition.
[36:41] The more things you think you need, the less content you are. But, the less you need, particularly if you have Christ, you realize you don't need all those things. You have everything in him. So, the verse in Luke 12, I read it to you.
[36:55] Sell your positions, Jesus says, sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys, for there your treasure is, your heart will be also.
[37:13] That's Luke 12, 33-34. I thought I would just give you some examples of this. Okay, guys, just really fast. It's hot in here, and I definitely feel some heat.
[37:24] I'm hot. I'm starting to sweat. But, it's too late to turn the air on now. It'll be too late. I was, a while back, or a year ago, I was talking to my grandmother, who lives in North Carolina, and my grandmother and my step-grandfather, they're awesome.
[37:42] People who really love the Lord, and give a lot of their life away to the kingdom, and she was saying, look, I'm kind of like semi-investigated by the IRS and I'm like, what?
[37:54] And I said, Grandma, what are you talking about? And she said, well, they couldn't really understand why 60% of our income was going to missionaries and ministries and churches.
[38:10] And I was like, Grandma, that is awesome. She was like, oh, no. I'm like, Grandma, that's awesome. You need to take that and dive in it and frame it and put it on your wall. That is amazing. And that's really, yeah, they were cool.
[38:23] They were like, all right, that's just weird. Why don't you guys do that? It was their response. But the goal, they know they're wanting to invest in eternity. It's something that matters, not just live up to high life in retirement, but to give their lives away.
[38:40] A guy that I would encourage you to look into, he was a Christian musician named Keith Green. Back in the hippie days, basically. Early Christian music pioneer guy.
[38:52] He had a huge pro and a big beer, and he played the piano and went to town. Awesome guy, though. He, pretty dramatic conversion, but eventually he rolled around this idea of like, why in the world do we charge so much for our concerts?
[39:09] Why in the world do we sell people our music? He basically said the gospel cannot be sold. You can't buy the gospel. So he rebelled against the Christian music system.
[39:24] He was like, I'm going to have offering concerts. People can come and give me whatever they want. He started his own record company called Pretty Good Records. He had a sign that said, would you like to buy Keith Green's new album?
[39:38] You can't! It's not for sale. So he would just rely on the Lord to provide. Sometimes people would send in money for one album.
[39:49] It might have been just a few dollars, but they would send him $1,000 for one album. What you're doing is awesome. We want to support you. Somebody else would say, we can't afford it at all.
[40:00] That's cool. You can have it. So what it shows is money and success was not his God. He knew there was something more important with that. So we need to be just tactful on how we spend our money and how we use it.
[40:15] And so two pastors that do this, one is John Piper, but the other one is John MacArthur. They both don't take any money from the hundreds of books that they write.
[40:27] They don't do that. They don't charge out the wazoo just to show this isn't why we're doing this. And the guy who wrote that, Randy Alcorn, wrote that book I had over here.
[40:40] A while back, someone accused him of trying to make a lot of money off the books he was selling. He was like, really? Okay. I was giving all of this. So all his money also goes to other ministries and things.
[40:53] He doesn't get one dime for his books. So those are just, we just need to be deliberate and clear about why we're spending money. And here's an analogy I had about possessions that I read from Randy Alcorn.
[41:09] Imagine that you were from another country, Rispick, England, and you came to America on a visa to work here. And you're just going to be a temporary residence, right?
[41:21] Like America is really not your homeland. And you're going to work for this company. You really don't know how long they're going to have you there. It's just a question mark. So, when I tell you, if you spend your money here, you can't take anything you bought back to England with you.
[41:39] You only can wire money to England. So, if that was true, you would be absolutely foolish to spend all your money here. Because you couldn't send any of it back to your wife and family that was there, back in England.
[41:54] You would just waste your money. But you would constantly. You would probably live in a very low-income place, just kind of just get by, you're going to live it up. Because you'd want to wire all your money back to England where it would last.
[42:08] That's a great analogy of our spiritual lives. It's stupid. We're not going to stay here. This isn't our home. It's like, let's invest in eternity. So, scripture gives us principles in which we can evaluate decisions like that.
[42:22] So, okay, that's money and possessions. And that's such a huge conversation. So you might ask, what do I do with my two homes? I've got one here and I've got one in the lake.
[42:32] What do I do? Is that evil for me to have that? And the right question is not that. It's to ask, do I really need both homes or how am I going to use that lake house for the kingdom of God?
[42:49] How can I glorify God with that house that I have? And it's funny to see how simple we really are. We can really trick ourselves. I'll invite the youth ministry once a year to swim.
[43:01] What do you think? Yeah, great job. That doesn't justify your house. I'm sorry. You need to be able to use it for the kingdom. And so that's the question you need to ask.
[43:11] How can I glorify God with this purchase or what I have? How can I do that? And if you're really being sensitive to the spirit, he'll tell you like yes or no, but someone else can come up and say that's evil for you to have that.
[43:25] I actually have a friend that a few people here know. He supports me in ministry. His name is Jason and he's a dentist from Pauwassee up in the mountains.
[43:35] He actually went here. He was in the Corps. I think he was in Sigma Chi. He actually married a KD. They both support me here. It's pretty funny. But for a while, I could tell when I first met him years ago, this guy loves the Lord, but he just has some pumped up theology on finances and wealth.
[43:54] He's more like, I'm going to build a big barn and just enjoy it and God's going to give it to me. I knew that his heart was right. So eventually he read a book by Randy Alcorn and he was like, man, this is stupid.
[44:07] I don't want to build up my kingdom here. I want to invest in eternity. He sold his lake house. He sold one or two crazy cars he had. He just wants to give to the kingdom now. He has such a giving heart.
[44:18] He even tells me, anybody you know that's living on Denise support, let me know. I want to support him. He supports a lot of people other than me, but we don't need that stuff. I don't need two houses.
[44:31] That's just the way he manifested the gospel in that reality. moving on really fast. Sorry, this end is just kind of rocky, but media, music, television.
[44:45] Let's talk about that just for a minute before we kind of close. We are surrounded with so many things that we can just pretty much amuse ourselves to death.
[45:00] C.S. Lewis argued that our capacity for real joy has been shriveled to nothing. he said this, if we see that our Lord finds our desires too strong, it is not said that, that God does not find our desires too strong, but too weak.
[45:19] And he talks about how, I mean, this is a famous quote, we are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who just goes on making mud pies in the slum because they cannot imagine what is meant by an offer at a holiday at the sea.
[45:40] We are far too easily pleased. So, we have so many little things on our phones and internet and TV that we can just pretty much amuse ourselves to death. And those are really, really puny joys, to be honest.
[45:54] They're there for a minute and they're gone. And if we didn't have this mass media around us, we would be bored to death. We would just hate life. But the thing is, there's so many new things out there, you can go from one new thing to the other.
[46:07] Pretty much for the rest of your life, probably, and just be amused. So, begin praying against this idea that I want life to be fun and cool. What you really want is for life to be meaningful and rich and purposeful in what you do in life and what you give your life to and live for those things and life changing type things.
[46:30] So, here's something that I'm not ashamed to say this I guess now, but that Mark Driscoll kind of does to kind of deal with. media and things like that and a lot of things.
[46:43] He says that you either receive, reject, or redeem things that you come in contact with. Number one, receive. There's many things in culture and around us that we can enjoy through the glory of God.
[46:56] It's clean, it's not simple, and we can delight in those things and see the beauty of God and what we use and delight in those things.
[47:07] To his glory, that's what Calvin said a minute ago. The second thing is reject things. There's many things that are blatantly simple that you cannot do to the glory of God no matter what.
[47:21] and media intended to glorify sin and the worldly way of thinking is not something you can redeem or fix. There's some of every kind of genre of music.
[47:34] There's rock, there's country, there's rap, there's some lyrics in those that some of you guys just need to throw away. There's nothing you can redeem about them. They're very blatantly sinful about sex and unmarital sex, sleeping around, drugs, partying, loose life.
[47:53] And that's what you don't need to... Music is powerful. If you listen to that stuff long enough, it'll affect your mind. I promise. It's been proven. And there's just some things that you can't watch on TV.
[48:06] I don't care what you say. You can't watch the hangover of the glory of God. It's just like that. You can't make movies like that, like a God glorifying king. Apart from just learning how lost and sinful man is, which you just got to look into yourself to see that.
[48:21] You don't need to watch a movie. So some of us need to go home and kind of cleanse some of the stuff out of our DVD and music collection. This is not glorifying to God.
[48:32] So Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do it all, even the smallest things. And, you know, when it comes to TV, it's just a choice of yours, okay?
[48:50] This is just something that we kind of do at our house, me and Josh and John. We don't have cable, we don't have satellite, because I've found in my personal life that it sucks me in.
[49:02] Like, I will spend so much time watching things, and I won't be spending my life on what really matters at all. I'll just be, you know, clearing my time away. And I'll just be obsessed, just amusing myself to the grave.
[49:17] So I've chosen not to have that. I don't ever want that. I have a DVD player, and I do watch movies, but occasionally there's something you want to watch, a game, you can go somewhere else and watch it, or you can watch it on the internet.
[49:29] But I just know that I can't handle it. I know that it's too much for me. Like Paul said, things are lawful, but not all things are going to be beneficial to me. I can't handle it. And it's proven.
[49:41] When I go home to my parents' house, like, turn on TV and watch Walker Texas Ranger or something, and I'm like, I threw this out. I thought I'd throw that out there.
[49:53] I love it when he gets surrounded by like 10 dudes, and I'm like, so we got receive, reject, or redeem.
[50:05] Okay? Redeem is the last one. So there are a lot of things in fallen culture that they have stolen and perverted that were not bad things at all.
[50:17] So believers need to take those things and show them the world and what was their intended purpose, what God created them for just the other day. Like, I like rock, you know, different kinds of rock.
[50:32] There's a lot of it I have to trash because it's not beneficial at all. But Nickelback, the rock band Nickelback, has a song called It's the Damage Your Last Day.
[50:44] I listened to it the other day and it was like solid. I couldn't believe it. These guys probably aren't believers, I'm pretty sure. And they're like singing a song that is exactly a perspective of what a believer should have.
[50:56] And so, you know, you can redeem them. That's what this really means. This is what these lyrics really mean. So, there's all kind of questions I know, but if it's controlling you and infiltrating your mind and making you think worldly and sinful and pulling you away from God, like, move away from it.
[51:15] It's really, really tricky. It takes time to learn how to do. And none of us do it perfectly. But, last thing we'll look at, look at 1 John chapter 5 real fast.
[51:26] Let's read this. It's a good summation of what we've been talking about. 1 John chapter 5 verse 3.
[51:43] This sums up all we've been talking about. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, like we just said. And His commandments are not burdensome. And why are they not burdensome?
[51:55] It's because we love Him. It's our joy to follow Him. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
[52:07] Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So, because of Christ, we can, like, walk through this world and be in it and not of it, not reject it or not become like it, but we can actually live here for the glory of God and make an impact for His kingdom here.
[52:29] And if we are born of God, we will overcome. There's a promise there. So, let it be said that we went through this life and weren't lured and we don't become like the water around us, but we impact it for the glory of God.
[52:45] I know it's kind of late, guys. We'll kind of, I think we should respond in song. We started late tonight, but this definitely warrants more conversation on now, so we just kind of pop the lid and kind of give it to you tonight.
[52:58] But talk to John, talk to me, Dan, anybody else that's here, but let's just kind of close in prayer and then we'll have Alex come up and lead us in song.
[53:09] Father, I'm overwhelmed at this topic and I know there's so many things in my life that I need to make war on and take out of my life.
[53:22] Lord, may I never be so comfortable to think that everything that I have or ways that I spend my money that I'm beyond reproach.
[53:32] I want to live a life that does reflect that my treasure is in you and not in things I have or things that I delight in every day but in you and everything is a springboard to worship and leads me to thanksgiving for what you've done and, Lord, may Christ be our ultimate treasure.
[53:57] He's the only thing worth living for. He's completely worthy. He can satisfy our soul and He's the one thing that can't be taken away from us. Everything else that we live for will be taken away from us, but Christ cannot be and I pray that we would live for Him and die for Him.
[54:18] We would be satisfied in Him and He would allow us to navigate this world and not be pulled into its sinful ideologies and ways of thinking, that we would be strangers and pilgrims and travelers here heading towards eternity and glorify you in our decisions and what we do.
[54:42] Lord, I pray that this has been a honoring to you and if I've erred, I pray that you would show me. I'm pretty convinced of what your word says. Lord, we love you to help us to apply to this.
[54:57] If we leave here and don't take anything, we are in sin. We're to be not just hearers of the word, but doers and to be obedient.
[55:09] May we help each other in this process, Lord. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.