Love of Money

1 Timothy 6:6–11 (NKJV)

6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

Godliness must be accompanied with contentment to be profitable to you and me.

Our spiritual life, our pursuit of things that is godly must not be contaminated with the desire to be rich or the love of money.

As long as our life acompanied with contentment is going to be great gain.

what does it mean to desire to be rich, what does it mean to have the love of money.

We have needs (food and clothing etc)

To meet this need we need to have money.

Inorder to have money we need to work.

God has permitted us to work for the purpose of meeting our needs.

2 the 3:10 “10 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”

in others words let his need not be met.

However, when our pursuite of money or our working goes beyond meeting our needs and into seeking abundance. Seeking more than what we need. Then we are being driven by the desire to be rich and by the love of money.

We must see love of money and desire to be rich in this way. It is rooted and springs up out of discontentment

When you become discontent with what you have ,not because it does not meet your needs but rather because it does not meet your wants, because you wan’t more than what you need. You are under the influence of the love of money.

Sometimes we think that verse 9 applies to those who want to be millionaires, and billionares.

World Example,

Look at conduct of the world to day. The business transaction that occurs, the sales that happen. It is rooted in discontenment.

if you step back and observe. Many people are not pursuing money because of needs but rather because of discontentment of what they have.

When you look at salesmen, those who what to sell something to you. They don’t appeal to your need. They appeal to your discontentment.

they try to make you disatsified with what you don’t have so that you buy something that you don’t need.

So Paul tells us that our godliness should not be contaminated with the desire to be rich, to have abundance. The love for money.

Hebrews 13:5–6 NKJV

5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

One such evil is the neglecting or lack of pursuit of what is important because we are busy pursuing money.

To pursue rigtheousness, godliness, faith, love, paitence requires our time. Our heart.

Remember we are people living in two worlds. The kingdom of God and the world. The things of the kingdom endure forever, the things of the earth is tempral. So what endure forever should take priority and supremacy than what is temoporary.

The pursuite of the things of this world must be subjected to the pursuite of the things of the Kingdom.

Revelation 3:14–19 NKJV

14 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.

Do you think it is the will of God, for you to be so busy with work that you don’t have time to pray, to attend church service, to minister to God.

No matter what excuse you have right now in your mind. Do you think it is God’s will to neglect his Kingdom because you are so busy with work.

We are blessed in Australia, where the minimum wage is quite high, that without working quite alot you can live quite comfortably if you are wise.

Luke 3:14 “14 Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?” So he said to them, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.””

Proverbs 23:4–5 (NKJV)

4 Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease!

5 Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

sometimes we try to justify our overworking because of our own understanding. In the pursuite of something that is illusive.

Sometimes we have this false sens that if we have alittle more our porblems will go away.

This is decitful, you problem will not go away infact it will be more.

Ecclesiastes 5:11 “11 When goods increase, They increase who eat them; So what profit have the owners Except to see them with their eyes?”

The more money you have the more problem you are going to have and then you will be decieved again so a as to think that you need more money to solve it.

Money will decieve you.Mark 4:19 “19 and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

What is driving you to overwork and neglect the things of God, what is important?

Luke 12:15 “15 And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.””

Life is not about having plenty of money in the bank account.

Matthew 6:25–33 NKJV

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Despising God and dishonouring God because of love for money

Matthew 6:24 NKJV

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

this was not written for people of the world/ gentiles but forGod’s people.

Money is a master, just like God is a master.

Where is your loyalty, is it God or is it money. Your loyality will be tested.

When you have the love of money, you will be loyal to money and will despise the things of God, you will despise the commands of God.

We can see this very clearly from the life of Abraham and Lot.

These two different people who had different relationship with their wealth, with their possesions.

Genesis 13:1–18 (NKJV)

1 Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.

2 Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.

God had blessed Abram with riches.

eccle 2:26 “For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.”

Abraham did not depart haran to pursue riches or earthly possesion but to pursue the promise of God and rigtheousness.

Abraham did not seek abundance but God gave him what he did not seek after, abundance and riches,

It is not that God does not want us to live in abundance, he does not want us to seek abundance. He does not want us to set our hearts on riches.

3 And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,

4 to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.

5 Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents.

6 Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

Abraham had riches, flocks and herds but aslo had altars

Lot had flocks, herds but did not have altars.

Lot was not an immoral man, he was a moral man but he was a man that loved his wealth. He loved money.

Lot was living for his wealth and was using his wealth for himself, he did not have any altars to sacrifice unto the living God. He did not use he wealth to minister to God or to serve God.

7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land.

8 So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren.

9 Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”

10 And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar.

11 Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.

12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.

13 But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.

You can see also his choice and what it reveals about him.

It really did not bother him that the land where he was going to dwell was land full of wicked and sinful people

What he saw was how his flocks and his herd was going to multiply because of the fatness of the land.

Amasing wealth and possesion was important to him than the ungodliness of that city.

Weakth was highly esteemed and righteousness and godliness was of low value.

If you had a choice would you choose to go to sodom because of its wealth.

This type of attachment to his wealth would bring him to trouble.

14 And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward;

15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.

16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered.

17 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”

18 Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the Lord.

Abraham, wherever he went he would built altar and serve and minister to God with his wealth, with his possesion.

Genesis 14:14–20 (NKJV)

14 Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

15 He divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.

16 So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people.

17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him.

18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.

19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth;

20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all.

The first thing that Abraham did was offer 1/10 of all his possesion to God.

Again Abraham was serving God with his wealth.

Lot, on the other hand did not even offer to God any sacrifice let alone his tithes. He was not a man who gave his tithes to God because his wealth was more important to him that the command of God.

Tithes

Malachi 3:8–11 NKJV

8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” Says the Lord of hosts;

Proverbs 28:21 NKJV

21 To show partiality is not good, Because for a piece of bread a man will transgress.

Proverbs 3:9 NKJV

9 Honor the Lord with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;

Final observation about Abraham and lot

When God told Abraha to sacrifice his only son Isaac, Abraham did not even hesitate to do it. He did not despise the command of God inorder to save his son. Yet we choose to disobey God so we can save our money

Lot on the other Hand, he lingered because of his possesion when he was told to leave to save his life.

genesis 19:16 “16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.”

Atleast he was not willing to go as far as loosing his life for his wealth. However his wife was more than willing to do that, so she was made a pillar of salt.

At the end Lot lost all that he possessed and was a fool. That is what happen when you don’t jonour God with your possesion and driven by the desire to be wealthy and rich but not rich towards God.

Abraham was blesses by God in all things

Genesis 24:1 “1 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.”