True and Enduring Riches
Enduring in Ministry • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Fathers passing on the important things to their children.
This passage is set after the end of the body of the letter ended in 1 Tim. 6:16, almost like a postscript (a P.S.)
16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
Paul has already warned against the danger of loving money in 1 Tim. 6:9
9 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.
Now, this may give some the impression that there is something inherently wrong with money.
But, we know that the gospel is for both the rich and the poor, though each will have different trials in receiving it.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Father Paul will conclude his letter to Timothy with a final instruction about true treasures.
Setting Our Hopes in Eternal Treasure
Setting Our Hopes in Eternal Treasure
17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
The rich in this present age: People who are already materially wealthy in the congregation.
In God’s providence, some Christians live in more comfortable circumstances than others.
They may own homes, wear nice clothes, have full pantries and refridgerators.
This doesn’t have to do with the a person’s desire to have money, but how we should think about the money we do have when we have.
This passage reveals that it is possible to possess wealth in a God-honoring way.
Wealth is not the problem that many mistakenly label it to be.
This thinking is all too common today with those who present the wealthy as the root of all the worlds biggest problems.
Millionaires, Billionaires, now Trillionaires.
Really, it tends to be anyone who we see as having more money than we do.
This exposes the real problem with wealth, that is the sinful attitudes in our hearts which exploit and use wealth in the wrong ways.
Paul supports his warning against the misuse of wealth by providing some clear practices that use wealth well:
Recognize the source of wealth is God.
He is the creator of all things and all that we have comes from Him.
Christians who are blessed with material prosperity should not feel guilt about it; nor should they look for a way to become poor.
Recognize the goodness of wealth.
The false teachers in Ephesus taught many things, but one major thing that they taught was asceticism: the rejection of material things.
There is an insidious false idea that only by abandoning the material world will be be able to find true spirituality.
In the Christian setting, this often takes the form of Christians taking a kind of vow of poverty as a sign of holiness.
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,
3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
There is nothing inherently wrong or evil with material wealth…it is a blessing from God.
The Bible regularly celebrates the good things in life:
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills,
8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,
9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
God’s blessings often come in the form of material prosperity.
And God intends for people to enjoy his gifts.
If you have more than enough, it isn’t God testing you with some kind of temptation.
24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,
25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
The wealthy are permitted to enjoy their wealth because God has given it.
Nevertheless, having wealth is not an excuse for living for luxury.
An unhealthy relationship to wealth can result in two dangerous attitudes for the rich:
Paul warns the wealthy saints at Ephesus “not to be haughty”
Whereas puffed-up conceit is an ignorance about oneself, haughtiness is a self-conscious pride.
Exalting oneself in one’s own mind.
This attitude is put on clear display in Daniel 4:30 with King Nebuchadnezzar:
30 and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
Haughtiness breeds insolence and contempt in us.
Wealth can delude people into a false sense of superiority based on their many possessions.
The wealthy believe that their wealth is evidence of God’s particular pleasure in them, which leads to a false sense of moral superiority.
What does this look like in the church?
A subtle separation between rich and poor.
An inability to make or maintain connections with people of different classes.
This is a form of contempt which is antithetical to Christ-like love.
It can develop into an inclination to overestimate and insert our “wisdom”
Our generosity comes in the form of noblesse oblige.
He further warns them “not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches”
It is dangerous to place confidence in wealth, and to think that they will carry us through.
Its a false sense of security that says nothing can go wrong.
The Bible teaches that security in riches is illusory (it’s not real).
11 A rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination.
4 Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.
5 When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.
The financial crisis of 2007-2008 showed, amongst other things, the foolishness of believing in speculative investments. And how quickly things can fall apart.
$16-19 Trillion in household wealth was lost.
$11 Trillion in value was lost on Wall Street (56% collapse in S&P 500)
$7 Trillion in lost property values.
$3.4 Trillion in retirement account value losses. (Most important)
8.7 Million jobs lost.
The only safe place to put our trust is in God Himself.
You may have heard it said: “Don’t enjoy the gift more than you enjoy the Giver.”
All that we have comes from Him.
Prosperity comes from Him.
Our daily bread comes from Him.
The constant temptation for us is always going to be to focus on the present material things. But the more we focus on the things of the world, the more we will be distracted from the things that are eternal.
Recognize where true wealth resides, and with it our hope…
Possessions do not ultimately make us happy.
True and lasting joy is found only in God who is the giver of all good gifts.
Christians today, especially in the west have a great deal of riches.
The comfort of this passage is that it encourages us not to feel guilty for it, but grateful.
The greatest gift that we have from God is Jesus Christ, and if we have Him, we have all we need.
forgiveness, belonging, inheritance
Adopting the proper attitude about wealth and where our hopes lie will enable us to focus on more important matters.
Setting Our Hands on Eternal Works
Setting Our Hands on Eternal Works
Hoping in God alone frees us to be generous with others.
18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
A practical way of trusting God is learning how to use the resources He gives.
We are to put our wealth to good use by using it to be good and generous people.
Do good: substantive action that has its root in the good action of God.
17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
Paul instructs the rich to be rich…in good works.
The true measure of one’s wealth is in good deeds; from giving and not from having.
Goodness is an expression of our love for God and consequently for others.
God doesn’t want our money, he wants us to do good and be rich in good works.
Neither costs a dime.
Everyone can do good and be rich in good deeds.
God wants our heart more than He wants our money.
The Scripture commands us to be rich toward God.
We see this is the case in Jesus’s interaction with the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully,
17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’
18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’
20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Now, while there is a place for charitable giving, this is not strictly what Paul is angling for.
No matter how charitable we are with our money, we can never buy our way into heaven.
There is a difference between paying for someone to feed the poor and feeding them yourself.
What God is commanding us is to be active and personally involved in the ministry of mercy.
Some acts of charity do require money though, and in these cases, we come to see the opportunities that God has provided to the rich to use their wealth wisely.
They can do good and be rich in good deeds by embracing a lifestyle of giving.
Paul warned against the idea that godliness is a means of great gain in 1 Tim 6:5
5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
It is the case that we can use our gain as a means of pursuing godliness.
In the early days of the church, Christian generosity set them apart from the Pagan world.
Pagan thinking always looks to get a return on investment.
They are not incentivized to give to the poor because they cannot give anything in return.
Instead, they built a system of Patronage which made the poor and needy clients of the wealthy.
Christians contrasted this system by their radical generosity.
34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold
35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
They cared for the Pagan poor as well, which prepared fertile ground for the spread of the gospel.
The same opportunity for such generosity exists today.
We live, by God’s grace, in the wealthiest nation in the world.
Yet many good and helpful ministries lack for funds and, more importantly, hands to do the work of charity.
Too often, it is not a lack of Christians, but a lack of Christlikeness in our giving and working, that hinders the spread of gospel.
Unwillingness to be generous with others reveals that there may be an idolatry in our heart.
A desire to keep back for ourselves indicates a lack of trust in God as a provider.
Training in generosity.
Making little sacrifices in daily life makes it easier when the opportunities for big generosity come our way.
Adopt generosity as a way of life.
Take the smaller piece.
Yield the parking spot.
Go the extra mile.
Why are we to be generous and why are we able to be so generous? Because we have a generous God.
He richly provides everything for us to enjoy. God is abundant in His giving as an example for us.
This is most clearly demonstrated in our Savior.
9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
Why is it so hard to be generous?
21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.
Our possessions tend to captivate us.
But the generosity we have towards others is not wasted; it is a deposit in eternal life.
There are two kinds of wealthy.
The rich in this present world are warned “you cannot take it with you.”
The rich in the life to come understand “you can send it on ahead of you.”
The treasure we invest in by our good works in this life are not salvation, but the joy of eternal life that we experience as we look forward to His return.
Jesus often taught about saving up treasures in heaven.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Anyone who is good and generous out of gratitude to God for salvation in Jesus Christ has already begun to enter the joy of eternal life.
Again, this is not salvation by works because eternal life is a free gift of God.
But we take hold of the gift of eternal life in the present through the ministry of the Holy Spirit by our generosity and goodness.
Making investments that are sure to bear fruit.
God reconciles us to Himself by the free gift of grace.
His generosity moves us to serve him.
And He graciously accepts our service, as flawed and halting as they are.
Finally he bestows rewards for our services that we do not merit.
This amazing truth should overflow in thanksgiving, in praise, and in renewed zeal.
Setting Our Hearts on Eternal Words
Setting Our Hearts on Eternal Words
In order to help Timothy in his work, Paul reminds him of a precious possession that he entrusted to his son.
20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,”
21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.
Deposit: A property that is entrusted to another person.
When we deposit money with a bank, it is still ours, but we entrust it to the bank to safeguard it and use it wisely.
The deposit here is the Christian faith itself.
Not the belief, but the content of what is believed (the gospel and the apostolic teaching).
Paul was entrusted with this deposit (1 Tim. 1:11)
11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
And he entrusted it to Timothy (2 Tim 1:14)
14 By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
And Timothy was to entrust the same deposit to other faithful men (2 Tim. 2:2)
2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
Paul charges Timothy to “guard” the deposit.
Faithful ministers are trustees of the gospel.
To pass it along to others unharmed and unchanged.
Don’t add or subtract from it because it doesn’t belong to you. It is the gospel of (belonging to) Jesus Christ
Protecting the message from threats.
A faithful pastor will at all times preach the word faithfully and defend it from falsehood.
9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
The same source is used for both activities: The inspired, inerrant Scripture. I don’t preach or defend according to what seems prudent to me. That is the way of compromise and conceit.
We are never at liberty to make up our theology as we go along.
Our business is preservation and not innovation.
The faithful pastor will yield to no other false authorities, but keep God’s word as the chief authority for life and godliness.
What would be the result of our adding to or editing the gospel?
It would be to our ruin.
We would begin to trust in our own works to justify us, or else we would come to overestimate our worthiness.
Leo the Great on what is meant by guard the deposit:
That which is committed to you, not which is invented by you; that which you have recieved, not that which you have devised; a thing not of wit, but of learning; not of private assumption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to you, not brought forth of you; wherein you must not be an author, but a keeper; not a leader but a follower, keep the deposit.
God’s word is a sacred trust placed in the Church, in which God has placed his precious gospel truths.
15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
These truths are ever under the assault of false teachers who misunderstand and misuse it.
6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion,
7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;
Now Paul adds, “Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge”
John Calvin: “the high-sounding talk and bombastic verbosity of those ho are not content with the simplicity of the Gospel but turn it into profane philosophy.”
When it comes to holding firm to the Scripture there must be no room kept for the invented traditions of men, or the academic jargon of scholars, or the speculations of cult-minded leaders.
Why? Because ultimately it leads to the denial of the faith that will save.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Grace be with you
Remember grace
The most enduring treasure that we have is not something we earn, but one that has been given to us by God; the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is precious and we should cherish it because it reveals our salvation.
Our sure hope.
The riches of the gospel are not for us to hoard, but to give away, so share it with others in meaningful ways.
Clement of Alexandria: “In the end, it is not the one who keeps, but the one who gives away, who is rich; and it is giving away, not possession, which renders a man happy.”
As God has given richly to us, let us make sure we are rich with others.
Hold fast to the grace he has given in His revealed Word.
It will keep you enduring to the end.
