Filthy Lucre 2

FILTHY LUCRE

TITUS 1:7

PART 2

I brought in another coin from my collection this morning. I believe that I have brought this one in before. This is a silver shekel. (Describe). This was the what every Jew had to pay his temple tax with. Either a full or ½ shekel. Both of which are the same in design. Because this was the official currency of the temple, scholars believe that this was the "silver" coin which was paid to Judas to betray Jesus.

I want that to just sink in for a moment. It was the love of this coin, this silver that causes a man to betray, to turn against, the Son of God. Because of that man’s love for this money he betrayed God himself. The more I thought about that the more I was amazed. How could anyone love money more then their creator, their redeemer, their Lord.

While it amazes me that Judas would betray Jesus for 30 of these, what is just as shocking is the it still continues today. People all over the world, some we may even know, betray God, sell out God, for this stuff, for money, for gold, and for silver.

We all know people who are obsessed by money. I remember when I worked in a printing plant as a maintenance mechanic, there was a man their by the name of Ron, the name has not been changed to protect the guilty. Now Ron would sell you anything, not drugs but anything else. He had what amounted to a small store in the warehouse were he worked. He sold soda, cigarettes, videos, whatever people would buy. Ron always walked around with wads of cash. On payday he would cash your check for the change or your check. During the day he would scurry like a rat from garbage can to garbage can looking for cans. Being a short man he would just about jump in. Ron was obsessed with money, money was his god. Money was the only thing that matter to him. Money and how to get more. And that is a real sad way to live, yet many people live just like Ron.

Last week we began to talk about the love money. Please turn with me to our passages today. I just want to read over the two passages we began with last week. The first of course is Titus 1:7 which was where we started, that is page 1032 in your pew bibles; "For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money,"

In our study of Titus we came across the qualification of an elder which states "not greedy for money". Which in turn let us to our second passage which is in the form of a warning to us all;

That passage is 1 Tim. 6:10 which found on page 1029 of your pew Bibles: "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."

Now from these two verses we noted the dangers of the love of money. We saw how the love of money will cause us to forget God, cause us to place our trust in an unstable foundation, how it will cause us to be ungrateful, how it can cause us to rob God and others. In others we saw last that the love God, or the ungodly desire for money, will as Paul points out 1 Tim, bring about all kinds of evil.

I closed last weeks sermon by noting the whole issue with money is attitude. The issue is not whether you have a lot of money or a little money, it is how you feel about. What priority it has in your live.

The wrong attitude to have about money is to love it, to let it be your driving passion.

The right attitude to have is this. That all the money I possess is Gods. I am simply a steward of it, and I should strive to glorify God will all that has give to me.

Now last week spoke mostly from a negative prospective about money this week I want to speak more on the positive side.

Now I made mention last week that we all desire money, we have to. That is how we buy our food, shelter, and clothes and a whole more.

The Bible does not deny us the right to have money. Remember that our text does not say that money is evil, it is the love of money that is the "root of all kinds of evil".

Money is amoral. Money is neither good nor bad. It can be used for bad things, it can be used for good things. It is like your car. You can use it to go to work, bring your kids places, or you can use to run people over or whatever. The car is not good our bad, but how you choose to use it. That is the way money is.