Where Does My Stuff Fit Into The Gospel?

Good morning, Harmony!

The weather this weekend has been absolutely gorgeous if you like a lot of sunshine and warmth.

Really quickly, I wanted to give a quick update on our church planter, Colby - today at 1 The King’s Church is having their first preview service.

Now, that doesn’t mean they have launched, it just means they are having a preview service to demonstrate for everyone involved locally to sort of get an idea of what it will look like.

I am excited for the King’s Church and for what this begins for the Columbia area, but please continue to pray for Colby and all those involved in that work there.

Today we are going to be in chapter 6 again of 1 Timothy, and we are going to look at what the Bible says about materialism and how our stuff fits into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard about if we do this, then God will do this.

If we tithe faithfully, God will give us prosperity. If I give generously, I will be blessed generously.

And, while that can sometimes happen, we should always be careful when that becomes a solidified belief.

Among Americans with evangelical beliefs who attend a Protestant church once per month or more:

75% agree that “God wants me to prosper financially.” 41% agree that their church “teaches that if I give more money to my church and charities, God will bless me in return.” 26% agree that “to receive material blessings from God, I have to do something for God.”

That means that 3 out of four people in the church believe that God wants you to prosper financially.

4 in ten would say that their church teaches this principle that if you give more, you will receive more.

And 1 in four believe that in order to receive material blessing, we must be doing something for God.

So this thought that God will materially bless me, or God wants me to be materially blessed, it has become a thing that we need to examine and see just what the Bible actually says.

And this should lead us to three questions when it comes to where our stuff fits into the gospel. Three questions:

What is my motive for giving?

How does my stuff fit into the gospel?

What does it cost to be a follower of Christ, and is it worth it?

Today, we are going to be in verses 3 through ten of 1 Timothy 6 and my hope at the end of the day is that we walk away from here with biblical answers to these questions.

Our main point for today is:

Main Point: For the sake of urgent physical and spiritual need around the world, and for the sake of your own soul, be satisfied in God instead of material things.

For the sake of physical and spiritual needs and for our own sake we must be satisfied in God instead of stuff.

Remember that the book of 1 Timothy is considered one of those pastoral epistles, and it is written in the context of the church living lives that are centered in the gospel of Christ and what that looks like. Beginning here in chapter 6 and verse 3 Paul returns to talking about those false teachers.

Beginning in verse 3 Paul says:

1 Timothy 6:3–10 CSB

If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Prayer.

We read that passage, and it is a loaded passage with all kinds of things going on. There’s false doctrine. There’s division. There’s contentment and godliness mentioned. But notice, at the center of it all, is materialism and money.

Paul is telling Timothy, watch out so that you don’t fall into this trap of chasing the material as the blessing. Don’t start chasing the stuff this world considers blessing, and instead chase or pursue God and His Kingdom and have contentment knowing Christ and knowing His salvation and His grace.

From our passage we are going to look at three actions we need to take in order to be satisfied in God.

1. We must open our EYES to see the needs of others.

Throughout our passage Timothy is reminded that we need to be aware of false teachers in the world. We need to be careful what it is that we take in and hear, as many are captivated by a false gospel.

What is the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ? What is that teaching that promotes godliness?

We covered it a little bit last week when we were going over slaves, but we have two commandments and a great commission that simplify what this looks like in the life of the believer.

First we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

That means I am placing His desires above my desires. I desire what He desires, and that gets me centered up on His gospel, and His gospel is not a prosperity gospel, it is a love gospel.

God loves us, it’s His gospel, meant to restore us to a right relationship with Him that leads to godliness.

But then notice the second commandment, to love others as ourselves.

And that loving others is talking about God’s love, sharing that love, and that doesn’t mean that I get richer or I get more things because I loved someone, it means that I love them as God loves me. I love because He first loved me.

When we look at others through that perspective lens of how God want us to see them, we begin to see people differently.

And we really, really, need to see people differently than many of us do.

Brandon Heath wrote the song “Give Me Your Eyes” and the lyrics do a really good job of defining both where we are and where we should be as believers in Christ when it comes to seeing others. One of the lines from the song that hits home for a lot of us is the one at the end of each verse:

All those people goin' somewhere, why have I never cared?

We go about our business trying to look out for number one, trying to do what we have to do, and we miss out on opportunities to see the needs of others. We miss out on loving them the way Christ tells us to love, and we instead oftentimes will seek to satisfy our own desires. How do we change that perspective?

The song continues with:

Give me Your eyes for just one second Give me Your eyes so I can see Everything that I keep missin' Give me Your love for humanity Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted The ones that are far beyond my reach Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten Give me Your eyes so I can see

The premise of the Gospel is love - God’s perfect, holy love, that’s the only reason we can know Love is because He first loved us, and that should cause us to love others and should cause us to open our eyes to the needs of others.

We need to open our eyes to the spiritual needs of others - they need the love of Christ, so that they can be spiritually restored and spiritually made new! The gospel of Christ is meant for every person to hear! People are in urgent despair spiritually because that’s what sin does to us, it drains the hope right out of us.

We need to open our eyes to the physical needs of others - people need clothes and food and shelter, and while we should be compelling others to go and work for their food and for their needs we also need to recognize that those physical needs are as much a barrier as the spiritual needs are - until those barriers are removed it’s going to be hard to believe.

But the gospel includes loving and caring for others the way that God has commanded you to love - love God, love others.

And that’s where the gospel comes in - the gospel is not just about presenting others with a gospel tract, some are going to need spiritual barriers removed, some are going to need physical barriers removed, and there is enormous Kingdom opportunity for the church that is able to care for the needs and present the gospel, for the church that is able to open their eyes and see the needs of others.

And Paul says that if anyone teaches something that is contrary to this teaching, the teaching of promoting godliness and promoting the love of God and the great commission to go and make disciples of that love, then they are conceited and would choose to argue rather than be the hands and feet of Jesus.

So what should be the motive for our giving of our time and finances and our resources? It should not be so that I can gain but rather so that He can gain. It should be so that the Kingdom prospers. It should be because the motivation for your giving is not so that you can get more in return but so that you can place your faith and your obedience to the gospel above your own desires.

It should be so that you can promote godliness and see what God sees when it comes to the people around us and their ultimate need for the gospel to remove both physical and spiritual barriers to belief in Christ.

The second action we must take to be satisfied in God is that:

2. We must watch our HEARTS to guard from division.

We must guard our hearts. There are all sorts of people out there that would choose to divide rather than to encourage being content in the gospel of Christ.

Most of us have heard about that church or those Christians who fostered an environment of division.

The first thing we saw from this passage is that a false teacher is going to be conceited and is going to pursue arguments and disputes that lead to envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement verses 4 and 5 say.

There is a spiritual division present as these false teachers are going to promote this disagreement because they themselves have taken the gospel and twisted it’s very purpose and meaning Paul says.

They’re arguing about worthless things to the gospel of Christ.

Things that are outside of the Gospel of Christ.

In today’s world it’d be like they are choosing to argue that this one translation of the Bible is the only one we should be using, or arguing that we should all be wearing dress clothes for church. There are lots of examples of this, and maybe that has been your church experience at someplace before.

And Paul talks a lot about divisiveness in the church, especially when it comes to making things into gospel-level arguments.

But does a Bible translation have to be a gospel level argument? Most of the time, no, as long as that translation is an accurate translation of the original languages, which most mainstream Bibles are - I caveat that with you probably should avoid Bibles that are cult based, so make sure it’s an accurate translation, but most Bibles would be ok.

Does what I wear have to be a gospel level argument? Again, most of the time no, you should dress in clothes that demonstrate appropriate modesty, that is Biblical, but you don’t have to come to church prepared for the ball.

And the other division that we can notice is that one of the material things, the money and the stuff.

These false teachers are teaching and creating divisiveness over material things, because when we look at verse 5 it talks about how these teachers see this arguing and this division that they are creating, these things that take away from the gospel, as a way to twist the image of godliness into one of material gain.

And the next verse if I was going to identify a key verse to this passage it would be that verse. Verse 6 spells out how we should be guarding our hearts beautifully.

1 Timothy 6:6 CSB

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Paul is saying don’t crave material possession, instead be content in God.

As believers in Christ Paul tells us that we don’t need to be pursuing wealth, we need to be pursuing godliness and contentment.

Our world today makes this thought of not pursuing wealth extremely difficult.

And we are going to get there in a moment, but don’t walk away from here today thinking that having wealth is always bad.

What Paul is addressing here is false teachers who are promoting that the gospel can be used for financial or material gain, and that is an abuse of the gospel, it’s a twisting of what the gospel says.

Unfortunately we see it all the time, where there is this person who is seeking to make a buck and somehow they settle on using an ability to speak to preach something in a church so that they can get rich.

Those that are called to the ministry of the true gospel of Jesus Christ are not in it to make money. I could be doing a lot of other things out of disobedience to God to make a lot more money than I do as a pastor.

Paul says the gospel is not meant for financial gain, the gospel is meant to save sinners, that is the purpose of the gospel.

And so, as believers in Christ, we cannot twist the gospel or be partakers of this false gospel narrative to believe that God’s purpose for the gospel is for our financial or material increase.

If you are barely making ends meet, Paul says for you to be content and to pursue godliness. If you are well enough off to have money left over for savings and for giving, be content and pursue godliness.

If you already are well off, then be content and pursue godliness.

Paul isn’t saying don’t work hard or don’t take advantages of opportunities that come, all Paul is saying is that we should be seeking to guard our hearts by pursuing godliness and contentment and those alone are great gain.

Be content with your needs being met, and be content with the gospel.

In verses 9 and 10 Paul says that those who are pursuing to be rich, those who have the wrong motive for giving and for the gospel who are seeking wealth above the salvation of the gospel, they are going to find that the pursuit of that is going to lead them away from the faith and it is going to lead to a lot of problems.

If you are in the church today and claim to be a believer in Christ, then Paul says don’t fall into the trap of chasing money as your ultimate goal.

Jesus talks of this same thing as Paul is eluding to here. Matthew 6:24

Matthew 6:24 CSB

24 “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Paul says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and he says that because if you choose to pursue money over the gospel, it is going to change the way you see the gospel. It’s going to change the way you serve God and ultimately it is going to remove your contentment and your godliness as you begin to chase and follow money over God.

You cannot serve both God and money, doing so leads you away from the faith no matter how hard we try.

We must open our eyes to the needs of others and we must watch our hearts to guard for division both as a church and as believers.

The third action we must take to be satisfied with God is:

3. We must give our LIVES for the gospel!

We must give our lives for the gospel of Christ. That is the gist of what Paul is writing to Timothy.

If anyone is teaching or falling for the false gospel that is chasing after material things, that person has given their life over to that which goes against the sound teaching of Christ, that goes against promoting godliness, and has chosen something that is not profitable in the long run.

Paul says the gospel is worth living for, but all of this material stuff is not worth anything when all is said and done. look at verse 7 - we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out; verse 9, those who want to be rich fall into temptation and that leads to the end of verse 9, ruin and destruction.

The gospel on the other hand is sound teaching and it promotes godliness and again, verse 6 that godliness and being content or satisfied in God and Christ and the gospel, it is great gain.

So I can be over here buying all sorts of lottery tickets or over here chasing the corporate ladder or chasing this love of money, the things that ultimately will bring me to ruin and destruction, Paul says, OR I can be pursuing sound teaching and godliness that only leads to great gain.

How does this lead to great gain - it’s simple. When I am chasing and pursuing godliness, I don’t have the time to love money, and I learn to be content in what it is that He has entrusted to me.

If I’m chasing after material things or after money, I will never be satisfied, I will never be done, I will never be happy, because I’m never going to be happy with what I have replaced God with.

And whether you know it or not, you are giving your life to something. Paul is telling us here that if you give your life to money and material things, at the end of this earthly life you aren’t taking it with you. You can’t. You’ve given your life to obtain stuff that is going to amount to nothing when it comes to eternity.

But Paul says if you give your life to Christ, if you give your life for the gospel, you will have obtained sound teaching and godliness, and contentment, happiness, in this life and in eternity.

When we live our lives like the gospel is good and truly profitable, we will experience true gain.

So, what is my motive for giving of my time, money, and resources? To have the gospel as my vision as I look at others, to see Christ glorified in my life.

Where does my stuff fit into the gospel? Stuff is just stuff, but that stuff can blind us to the reality that we need to focus on the teaching that leads to real gain. If my stuff is beginning to take over my life, then it’s time to do some house cleaning.

Finally, what does it cost to be a follower of Christ, and is it worth it?

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain Paul writes in Philippians 1:21. It costs a lot from the viewpoint of this world. When we give up our worldly desires, to become this rich or this famous person, or to obtain a bunch of stuff, when we give all of that up, is it worth it? Is it worth it to put to death the desires of this life, in exchange for the gain of the gospel?

Eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal forgiveness, the things of the gospel, the godliness and the teaching of the gospel, it’s all eternal. Without hesitation I will tell you yes, it’s worth it! I don’t have eternal security or peace or wealth in anything that this world offers, but in Christ alone I have found satisfaction in the God I love!

Would you stand and praise Him with me today.

Prayer.

In christ alone