Chasing Wealth Or Choosing Prosperity Series

1 Timothy 6:3-8

Finally we come to the wealth part of the lesson. Some of you were worried we wouldn’t make it to this part!

But here is where we struggle the most when it comes to discontentment.

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as wealthy. Surveys have found that people tend to look at those who make exactly double of whatever they make as rich, regardless of their income level.

So someone who makes $30,000 a year thinks of someone who makes $60,000 as rich. And those who make $50,000 think of the wealthy as those who make $100,000, and those who make $100,000 as those who make $200,000.

It’s all Relative…

"It’s all relative. I sit down and say, ’I’ve got $10 billion, but Bill Gates has $100 billion; I feel like a complete failure in life"

Ted Turner, People Magazine, 6/12/00

Even billionaire Ted Turner struggles with dissatisfaction with his income. He said recently, "It’s all relative. I sit down and say, ’I’ve got $10 billion, but Bill Gates has $100 billion; I feel like a complete failure in life" (People 6/12/00 p. 62).

People will do incredibly immoral and bizarre things for money. They’ll go on Fear Factor and eat unspeakable stuff for a chance to win $50,000.00. Just a chance – mind you!

We hear about teenagers robbing liquor stores to buy an expensive pair of tennis shoes. And business people sacrificing their health, their family, and their dignity to get that six figure income.

And it’s never enough.

Prosperity is being satisfied…

6 Serving God does make us very rich, if we are satisfied with what we have.

SATISFIED: AV translates as “sufficiency” once, and “contentment” once.

1 a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed.

2 sufficiency of the necessities of life.

3 a mind contented with its lot, contentment.

To Choose Prosperity… Choose Service

“Money will buy you a bed but not sleep. It will buy you books but not intelligence, food but not an appetite, a house but not a home, medicine but not health, amusement but not happiness, religion but not salvation—"

Look what the Bible says about dissatisfaction with our income. Godliness holds great advantage in our lives if it’s accompanied by true contentment. The Greek word "contentment" refers to feeling satisfied with what you have in life.

Contentment isn’t simply giving up and saying, "Well I guess this is my lot in life." Contentment goes much deeper, and its much more positive than mere surrender to fate. Contentment is not obsessing about having more, but being secure in what you have today, even if it’s not everything you want. Contentment is able to distinguish between what we really need--like food and shelter--and what we want, like motorcycles and recreational vehicles.

The implication of v. 6 is that a God-centered life brings true contentment into our lives. A God centered life fills that empty place in our soul that that advertisers exploit. Only a God centered life can fill that empty place.

Paul reminds us that all of us have an appointment with death. And when death does come, we can’t take our money or our possessions with us. We enter into the world broke, completely dependant on the generosity of our parents. In our lives we accumulate lots of stuff, make some money, and have a family, but when we leave, we leave alone. None of our possessions go with us.