Intro: Three boys in the schoolyard were bragging about who had the better father. The first boy says, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, and they give him $100." The second boy says, "That’s nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, and they give him $1000." The third boy says, "My Dad is even better than that. He scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, calls it a sermon, and it takes six men just to collect all the money!"
Matt 16:26
26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matt 6:19-21
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
We can’t take it with us but we can send it on ahead.
Where are you building your net worth? How much are you worth? Look at the person next to you and chances are your setting next to a person who is loaded. Have you ever seen one of those golf cart people moving things at the air port that beep as they make their way through the airport? They don’t stop and allow you to walk down the middle of the concourse, you either have to move to the right or the left and get out of its way. That is kind of like God’s message for us today. I hope today you will hear the beeping of God’s message bidding your heart to either move to the right or the left.
Where are you building your net worth? Could it be that you are worried about your worth on the wrong side of life? Could it be that you’re putting too much stock, in your stock? Warning the content of this message could be hazardous to your worldly wealth.
People are worth a lot of money these days. A real-estate broker on T.V. the other day was saying that the billionaires are crowding out the millionaires in Aspen. The billionaires are buying up all the real estate in Aspen now.
Timothy was in the church at Ephesus and some of the people in Ephesus had a lot of money. Paul tells Timothy here what to say to people about their true net worth. Words we need to understand in today’s culture.
(v. 6-7) First of all Paul speaks to Timothy about Industrial Strength Contentment.
Contentment is not measured by what you have, but by what you have in your heart. If you have made the decision to receive Christ into your life, then from Christ being in your heart should flow contentment. Nothing is what we brought into this world and when we leave this world we will take nothing with us. Two minutes after you die it isn’t going to matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, or much money you made in your lifetime. The only thing that will really matter is what you did with regards to your relationship with God. Whatever worldly stuff you acquire here will mean absolutely nothing in eternity.
Illustration: I heard about a rich man who was determined to take his wealth with him (Russell 88). He told his wife to get all his money together, put it in a sack, and then hang the sack from the rafters in the attic. He said, "When my spirit is caught up to heaven, I’ll grab the sack on my way." Well he eventually died, and the woman raced to the attic, only to find the money still there. She said, "I knew I should’ve put the sack in the basement."
(v. 9) The desire to acquire that’s gone haywire. Many people today equate being rich, or the accumulation of stuff with being happy. Then we get overtaken by the MORE MONSTER. He makes us believe we are always one house away, one car away, one dress away, one deal away or one piece of jewelry away from happiness, but we never get that one thing because when we do get it, there is always one more thing looming ahead. So we never feel the satisfaction of contentment because we always feel we need more. We can relate to what Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes about chasing after the wind.
Eccl 1:14
14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Many people today have an all-consuming overwhelming desire to get rich. Money and material things that we stack up for ourselves as floatation devises to keep us afloat in this world are going to be proven to be useless at some point and time. It’s like the saying that “money can buy you a bed but it can’t buy you 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--[money will buy you] a passport to anywhere in the world except to heaven." There are certain issues and circumstances in our life that material wealth can’t help us with. If we totally depend on money and worldly stuff to keep us afloat sooner or later we’re going to go under.
Now honestly, 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. 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).
(v. 10) This verse doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil, it says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The Bible does not teach anti-ownership, or anti-money, it’s understood that we will have and manage some things while here on earth. Some will have a large pile, some a medium sized pile, and some will have a small sized pile that’s understood. But it’s when that desire to acquire that’s gone haywire overtakes us and the MORE MONSTER dominates our thought, that’s when we set our selves up for failure.
If you love your possessions they will posses you.
FINANCIAL AROBICS
(v. 11) 1. The first point in financial aerobics is to flee. This is a continuous action, it’s not a one-time thing you don’t just escape the MORE MONSTER one time and he never bothers you again. This doesn’t mean your running scared or going soft, the Christian life isn’t a passive life style it’s an aggressive way of living. With every struggle we face as believers we must take it one step at a time, one day at a time. Not looking too far ahead, which causes anxiety, nor looking too far behind, which fills us with remorse and regret, but focusing on right now, today and the opportunity God has laid before at this very moment in your life. To flee is to literally separate yourself from the people, places and things that reeve up those envy engines.
If your going to flee something then you have to go somewhere and pursue something in order for your life to be productive. If you’re just aimlessly running, then you’re not going anywhere or accomplishing anything productive. Verse 11 gives us a list of things for us to pursue when fleeing the god of materialism.
2. So when we flee the MORE MONSTER Paul tells us what we need to follow.
1.Righteousness - integrity; wholeness – too many of us give out fractions of ourselves.
2.Godliness - that’s our conduct
3.Faith – dependability
4.Love – agape, self-sacrificing love
5.Endurance – crashing through quitting points
6.Gentleness – that’s power under control. Like a light when it’s made into a laser light it can cut objects.
(v. 12) 3. The third point in financial aerobics is to fight. The word fight means to strain. This is the picture of an athlete staining for the mark or straining for the prize. This also is a continual action; we are to be fighting the good fight of the faith.
Illustration: The Christian life is an adventure, a struggle that takes effort and work for us enjoy. In this aspect it’s like exercise, at first it’s painful and hard to get motivated and sometimes it’s not a lot of fun. But once your body starts getting in shape as you exercise your brain releases a type of hormone called endorphins that has been proven to directly affect your emotions. When this happens you begin to enjoy the benefits of exercise of being stronger and happier.
4. When we fight the good fight of the faith we take hold of the future (eternal life). It’s as if when we fight the good fight that we move all our assets out of this world and into heaven. That’s what is meant by “taking hold of eternal life”. We are actually moving our assets and investments into heaven. Then our treasure truly will be in heaven. If you were to die right now what would you leave, everything, or would you leave some things with a serious net worth in heaven? Wealth has a way of lying to people and making them believe they are invincible. But we are all one germ away from death, one drunk driver away from death, one stray bullet away from death.
Heb 9:27
27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
If the Lord tarries His coming we all here this morning will face death. Our only hope of avoiding death is the rapture of the church. But even so all of us will face our own mortality some day.
When we get too attached to the temporal stuff we miss the eternal.
Now Paul tells Timothy how to really build a real net worth, how to be wealthy.
(v. 17) When we are blessed in a material or financial way we should be humbled and have a desire to glorify God.
1.To build a true net worth we must have hope.
Only when we put our hope and trust in Jesus Christ can we have any hope of heaven. We can’t work or earn our way into heaven or do anything from our own power that will get us into heaven. You open an account on the other side by accepting Jesus Christ as your savior. You don’t just open an account and by saying a prayer and getting baptized, then you turn around and never go to church, read your Bible, pray, and go out live a life of sin. That’s like going down to the bank and opening up a checking account without putting any money in your new account. Then you turn around and start writing checks left and right with the mentality of as long as you’ve got checks you’ve got money. That may work for a little while but it wont be long until your bank will come calling. Just by going through the motions of saying a prayer and being baptized doesn’t save you. The prayer and baptism or merely acts of your faith and hope, if you don’t place your faith in Christ truly believing He is the son of God who will forgive your sin debt then you are still lost.
2.To build a true net worth we must live out our faith (v.18).
James 2:26
26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Good works don’t save us but good works should be a result of our salvation. We must realize this morning that everything we do here on this earth for the glory of God will have an affect on our eternal life.
2 Cor 5:10
10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Every time you choose honesty over dishonesty you build your net worth on the other side.
Every time you choose purity over impurity you build your net worth in heaven.
Every time you exhibit a controlled temper, you’ve increased your net – worth on the other side.
Every character test you pass, every time we glorify God, every time we do acts of worship we are increasing our net worth on the other side.
3.We must generously share with others (v. 18-19).
We can’t take it with us but we can send it ahead. We do that by investing our funds in helping to get people to heaven. We do this by giving to our church. We must be willing to give of our talent and treasure to be unselfish with what God has blessed me with. Maybe you need to pray this prayer; “Lord I’m not willing, but make me willing.” We need to only look around us at the awesome things God is doing here at our church to realize the opportunity we have laid before us to give to God’s work.
God has driven a golf cart right through the middle of our church this morning and asked us this question; “where is your real net worth”.
