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March 22/23, 2014
Jason Meyer | 1 Timothy 6:17-19
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. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 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.—1 Timothy 6:17–19
Introduction
When I was growing up in South Dakota, I would drive on a road to my Mom’s house that had two deep ditches. One time my car stalled on me and I drove down into one of the ditches. I started the car and drove up out of the ditch. I had a 1968 dark blue Monte Carlo. It was a beast. On another occasion, I was spun out on some ice and went down into the other ditch. I couldn’t drive my way up the ditch in the snow, but I was able to keep driving in the ditch until I got to the driveway of the next house. I was able to drive up that one. Both times going off the road and into the ditch made my heart race with adrenaline.
The way that we relate to creation also has two deep ditches. Some of you today are either trying to drive out of them or you don’t even know that you are in one and you are driving in it. They are both very hard to drive out of.
Ditch #1: Over-Indulgence
The Narrow Road: Christian Hedonism
Ditch #2: Under-Indulgence
The first one is the ditch of materialism or over-indulgence with respect to creation. Bethlehem Baptist Church has tried to stay out of that ugly ditch by stressing something called "Wartime lifestyle." Wartime living was a cultural phenomenon in our country’s past. It is not one that everyone understands today. For example, the lifestyle of the whole country did not change much when we entered the Gulf War in 1990–1991 (also called Operation Desert Storm). What was wartime living? Picture this poster I saw recently from the United States Food Commission during World War II. It said: “Little Americans do your bit. Eat oatmeal corn-meal mush and rice with milk. Save the wheat for our soldiers. Leave nothing on your plate.” The poster had a picture of a little boy looking at the oatmeal, cornmeal mush and saluting. If you put that in front of a child today, I doubt you would get any saluting. I am sure the kids back then did not do a lot of saluting either.
The government created posters to remind people to not waste food or other rationed items, to plant victory gardens to support the war effort and our allies, to buy war bonds, and to willingly make sacrifices for the nation. It was a difficult time. The stock market crashed in 1929. We entered into the Great Depression and then joined the fray of World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor. American families were struggling to put food on the table. The government imposed rationing on many goods. It would take years before the economic conditions improved. People had to get creative to help the war effort. I read that people would:
We understand that we are in a spiritual war that has been ongoing since the dawn of time. We want to live like the stakes are high and we understand that the problem is not so much having possessions, but wasting possessions. We also understand that America is one of the richest nations in history. It is easy to take all of that for granted. Materialism or over-indulgence with respect to creation is a big danger!
But it is easy to overcorrect so that as we try to drive out of the ditch of over-indulgence we drive right down into the other ditch. We could call this one the ditch of “under-indulgence” or asceticism. It is sometimes a bigger danger because the lines do not seem as clearly marked. Let me explain.
I love the song, “This Is My Father’s World.” The church has been singing that song for quite some time. My concern is that the church can sing the right message, but do we always send the right message? If this is our Father’s world, what kind of Father have we depicted for the world?
Kids, imagine that a friend is going to come home with you today after church. You show him around your home and say, “This is the house that my daddy built. We have a playroom filled with toys, a refrigerator stocked with the best snacks, and a backyard that has all kinds of swings, ziplines, and trampolines. We even have a petting zoo and a go-kart track.” Your friend would be getting wide-eyed! So are some of you kids too! Imagine your friend is just about ready to go jump on the trampoline, and you say, “No, daddy said we can’t play on that. We could twist an ankle.” He runs to the petting zoo. “No, daddy says some of those animals will get our hands too smelly. I don’t get to pet them; I just get to clean up after them.” He runs to the go-kart track. “No, daddy said those cars take too much gas and gas is expensive now days.” Okay. Let’s go play inside with your legos. You have an awesome lego collection. “No, daddy said we make too much of a mess. We have to keep the toys on the shelves so the room stays neat and tidy. I don’t get to play with them, but I do get to dust them.”
If the answer to every question were negative, how long would it take before your friend would get a negative impression of your father? No one in that scenario would say, “Wow, your dad is the happiest, most fun-loving father in the world.” Dear friends, some people have concluded that our Father in heaven is a cosmic killjoy. He creates fun stuff and then forbids us from doing anything with it. Who gave them that idea?
It does not come from God himself. God is called the “blessed God.” That is one of my favorite descriptions of God. It is found in 1 Timothy 1:11, “…In accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.” Blessed here means happy. He is the happiest being in the universe. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3). God did not reveal himself as a cosmic killjoy.
It did not come from Jesus. When Jesus came to show us the Father, no one got the impression from him that he was a killjoy. In fact, he got blasted from the Pharisees for being too fun-loving and over-indulgent in Matthew 11:19: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ” He seemed to spend way too much time celebrating and partaking of the good things of creation.
Where does this distortion come from? Listen to Paul’s answer:
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, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.—1 Timothy 4:1–4
The picture of God as some kind of cosmic killjoy is a demonic distortion of God. Demons make God look like a forbidder rather than a Creator. Demons teach that enjoyable things like marriage and certain foods should be forbidden. The demons like to look at God’s creation and say, “don’t touch, don’t taste.” It’s bad. It’s unclean. Paul says God made things to increase our thanksgiving. We should go through life enjoying created things so much that we just want to thank someone—the One who gave all of those gifts. Paul stresses that everything that God made is good. If everything is good, then nothing should be rejected.
Demons cause the false teachers to depict a false god. This false god takes pleasure in twisted things. He plays a sick trick on his creatures. He creates pleasant things and then forbids people from finding pleasure in them. That is not just lame. That is sick and wrong. No surprise there—the teaching is evil because the source is evil. That teaching comes from demons.
Here is a paragraph from our DNA document about this point. Godward enjoyment of all that God made rests on the distinction between structure and direction. All created structures are good (1 Timothy 4:4). These good things (like food, sex, and music) can be taken in Godward directions that bring glory to God and joy to people or godless directions that dishonor God and hurt people. Christians should lead the way in showing how to delight in all that God has made.
Our sermon text is deeply concerned with how God is depicted. The phrase that has captured me this week is from 1 Timothy 6:17, “God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” Why does God give material possessions? He gives them to be enjoyed! Do you hear joy? Doesn’t that make so much sense that a full-of-joy Father would want his children to be full of joy? What should we do with the material things we have from God? Four things: look out, look up, look around, look ahead.
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches ...
Stuff should make sirens go off. Those who have more of it, like rich people, should have louder sirens. So Paul says we should start with warning signs. What should we be on the lookout for? Idolatry. Instead of enjoying God in his gifts, we can make a god out of his gifts. Stuff can lead us to worship God or worship ourselves or our stuff. In other words, we can either have the true God or false pride and false hopes.
First, look out for false pride that would make ourselves an idol. False pride means stuff makes us focus on ourselves. Here we say that stuff really says something about us, not God. Stuff becomes a status symbol. We act as if we are the source of the stuff. We are not boasting in the Creator, we are acting as if we are the creator of it all. We have these things because we somehow we made it happen. Did we receive it or did we make it? We are receivers, not Creators. We act like we own it all. He owns it all, including us. It is all his.
Second, look out for false hopes. We make the stuff into an idol. We put all of our hopes for happiness in our stuff. Sin promises that the stuff will be all we need for happiness. This is going to matter later in the next verse, because Paul says we should be generous with our stuff. Sin makes false promises that say if we give our stuff away, then we would give our happiness away.
Another way to say this point is “look out for sinkholes.” One of the seminary students (Lewis Guest) in my preaching class used this illustration. Sinkholes are places that look like solid ground, but they are unstable and will soon collapse because water has eroded the solid bedrock beneath them. This erosion creates an underground cavity that causes an inward collapse. Famous sinkholes are seemingly endless pits that swallow trees, cars, and entire buildings. What are some "sinkholes" in your life (like job performance, popularity, grades, behavior of children, etc.)? How do they affect you and others around you?
If sinkholes are anything, they are uncertain. They are uncertain like riches and possessions. They could go at any time. When they all sink down, our life will sink down with it. They seem like a solid place to stand, but they are uncertain. They could fall at any time. Don’t build your life on the sinkhole of money, sex, success, and popularity. It is like building your house on the sand. I love you and do not want to see that happen to you. Let’s not do that. What should we do instead?
... But on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
When good stuff comes our way, look up. What do we do with the things that are good? Every good thing given, every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights (James 1:17). The stuff is good because he is good.
Look at what Paul says. You can set your hope on the stuff or on the source of all the stuff. Set your hope on God. Look up. “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” (1 Timothy 6:17). The contrast here is between hoping in something that is uncertain and hoping in someone who is certain. Trust in God because he is trustworthy. You can hope in him. He is not a sinkhole. "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand!"
If you are going to enjoy God in his gifts, and not make a god out of his gifts, then you need to learn how to enjoy things in the right way (a Godward way). In the sermon on Philippians 3, I talked about the horizontal and the vertical. The vertical stresses the separation between the Creator and the creation. It asks the question: What is better? What is worth more? What is more satisfying? “The surpassing value of knowing Christ my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). He has far more worth. The vertical weighs the difference in worth between God and any of his gifts. Surpassing worth and surpassing joy!
The horizontal angle does not stress separation, but source. God is the source of all of these gifts, so enjoying the gifts can be a way to enjoy him as the Giver. The vertical angle says, “Don’t enjoy the gifts over the Giver. Enjoy the Giver over the gifts.” The horizontal says, “Enjoy the Giver in his gifts.”
The church has focused on the danger of materialism or over-indulgence when it comes to creation. The church, however, has been slower to attack under-indulgence with respect to creation. Under-indulgence (sometimes called asceticism) has been something that the church has often failed to identify as an enemy of the gospel. It is. Paul said back in 1 Timothy 4 that asceticism is a “departure from the faith.”
Self-denial is a denial of the gospel when you turn denial into your gospel. It is the way that you try to achieve acceptance with God. You start trusting in their self-denial as if it is pleasing to God. The more you give up, the more impressed God is. Look how much of your stuff you are saying no to. Why would someone think that it impresses God to say “no” to gifts that God has given them?
It is a little hard to picture, so let me paint a scenario to illustrate. Kids, imagine that you go off to school. Your dad got up extra early to make you an extra special lunch. Your dad did it with joy and kept smiling as he thought about how much you would enjoy it. When your dad picks you up, he asks, “So what did you think of the special lunch I made for you?” Now imagine that you say, “Daddy, I have a surprise for you. I threw most of it away.” Your dad says, “What?” You say, “Yeah, I thought about how good it would taste, but then I thought about how pleased you would be with my willpower. Aren’t you impressed by how much of the lunch I was able to not eat? Aren’t you proud of me?!”
Dads, how would you respond? Your dad says, “How does that please me, son? I actually feel dishonored. I delighted in what I gave you. You missed the point. I didn’t give you food to waste on a feat of self-control. You want me to praise you for saying 'no' to the feast I gave you to enjoy? I just wanted you to be full and happy and thankful, not proud and boastful.”
We usually go hard against over-indulgence, but what about under-indulgence? So here is the application. Enjoy God’s enjoyable gifts. Really. I mean it. Really, really enjoy them. Get every ounce of joy out of every ounce of a dove dark chocolate ice cream bar. While you are at it, teach your kids how to enjoy God’s creation. At our house, we have something called TNT: Treats ‘n’ Talking. We have something sweet to enjoy. We enjoy every ounce without worrying about if we are going to weigh more ounces at the end of it.
We call it "Treats and Talking" because we don’t just enjoy treats; we enjoy each other. I hugged my kids and just enjoyed playing with them this week. It was great. They do not think of daddy as dour and sour. I love to have fun with my kids. Enjoy what is enjoyable in each thing.
I also take one more step so that I can enjoy the God who gives me things to enjoy. Think about how much more enjoyable the God who created these things must be. Think about the Person as the Place where all the beauty came from. He is infinite in beauty, worth, and majesty. He is infinitely happy. I learned how to do this from C. S. Lewis. Here is the quote:
It was when I was happiest that I longed most. ... The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing ... to find the place where all the beauty came from.—C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
But we do not want to pretend that this is a two-dimensional picture—God gives us things to enjoy and we enjoy them and God. We need to make the picture three-dimensional because he also gives us things to share as part of our joy.
They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.
After you look out and look up, keep looking. If a Father has five children and he gives one of his children five suckers, it could mean one of two things. It could be a sign of favoritism (he loves one of them more than the other four). Or it could be a sign that he wants that child to take one and share the rest with everyone. Let’s see which one Paul thinks it is.
They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.—1 Timothy 6:18
Verse 17 already told them not to be arrogant. They don’t have more suckers because God loves them more. God has given them a greater responsibility to share. Look around. He has given you enough to share. Be generous, do good, be rich in good works. Share!
I don’t mean to imply that there is exactly enough in the world for every person, so if everyone just had one of something then that is the goal. Paul is saying something about why God gives possessions. Think about the relationship between work and stuff. Why work? Listen to Paul’s answer:
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.—Ephesians 4:28
Let’s draw a road now with two ditches.
Ditch #1: Don’t Work/Steal
Road: Work/Share
Ditch #2: Work/Hoard
Let’s make a distinction between the work and the results of the work. First, we need to understand that the work itself matters, because we are made in God’s image. He makes things and those made in his image make things. The work pleases God because he created the work. You are working in God’s good creation. Take something that he made good and do something Godward with it. He is pleased with the work. Second, he can be pleased with what you do with the results of the work. He is not pleased with stealing or hoarding, but with sharing.
So, why share? Gospel joy! There is a responsibility to share, but we shouldn’t miss the opportunity for joy. Paul quotes Jesus when he says, “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ ” (Acts 20:35).
How do you share? Gospel grace! I don’t want to put this merely in terms of duty that appeals to the power of your will, but to the power of the gospel. If duty is not the point, then how do you call for giving in a way that makes grace and joy the point? Start by asking, what kind of Savior do I have? Tim Keller gave an excellent example of this approach. The problem with most churchgoers is not the mind, as if the problem is simply a lack of knowledge. We know that God calls us to give. The problem is also not the will. We can't conclude that we just need more guilt trips. We need to make our admonitions more pointed. Do people just need stronger, more prolonged exhortations reminding them of their responsibility? Keller says that they need to taste the sweetness of Christ’s sacrificial giving before they will ever become sacrificial givers. Paul says, “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” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
When Christ and his sacrifice take control of the heart, they take control of the command center of your life. When that happens, Christ dethrones money from the heart’s throne. Christ’s sacrifice is even more real and more valuable than money. Now money can just go back to being money and stop being a god. Now you can give it away.
Secondly, ask what kind of Father you have. Again, Paul says you have an all-sufficient giver for a Father: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
I am calling for childlike giving. This is what the rich young ruler lacked in last week's message. One of my daughters emptied all the money she had saved and declared to me that she was going to put it in the offering plate that week. I asked her why and she said, “Why do I need money? Daddy, you give me everything I need. I am just a kid.”
We could use a little more childlikeness when it comes to trusting our Father’s provision for our lives. The next point says we also need to look ahead, because giving gives a greater opportunity for joy in the next life as well.
… 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.
Paul’s warning to the rich is that they would not fall in love with the present age. Paul gives a stirring warning, “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:10). He has just warned about the dangers of the love of money. Earlier, Paul wisely says that it is not just the rich who are held in a snare, but it is also those who want to be rich.
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. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.—1 Timothy 6:9–10
Those who crave to get rich wander away from the faith. Some people are trapped by the possession of wealth (the rich young ruler), while others are trapped by the idea of wealth (the lottery ticket buyer or those attracted by other schemes).
The question comes down to what is real life? Can real life be bought in this life with money? This is the fight of faith for the wealthy. The stakes are high: laying hold of eternal life. Lay up treasures in heaven in order to lay hold of eternal life. This was Paul’s charge to Timothy seven verses earlier, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12).
In verse 19, why does Paul call it “that which is truly life” instead of just calling it “eternal life” again? I think Paul is driving home a point. Refuse to believe that this life and all that it has to offer are really life. The real life is life in Christ, not life apart from Christ with all the earthly pleasures that earthly money can buy. We cannot buy real life. Real life is bought for us with the blood of Christ. I am bought! That is why I have life. Lay hold of it, not the fake life monkey trap!
Paul says that sharing is a strategy for storing. Paul here joins Jesus in saying, “Store up treasures in heaven.” Build a good foundation for the future. What you do with your money says something about your hope. If you have a future hope, you will sow to the future so you can reap in the future. Or, as the song says, “Though riches come and riches go, don’t set your heart upon them! The fields of hope in which I sow are harvested in heaven.” If this life is all there is, then you will spend accordingly.
Conclusion
In both cases, Christian hedonism keeps you driving on the road and keeps you from veering off into the ugly ditches of over-indulgence and under-indulgence. The Christian hedonist’s quest for joy brings us to both God-centered enjoyment and wartime living. God-centered enjoyment rejoices that God made all things to be richly enjoyed (1 Timothy 6:17). A wartime lifestyle celebrates the blessedness that comes from giving our resources instead of hoarding our resources, because Jesus taught us it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
In this world, we find joy because our Father is a full-of-joy Father who wants to share his joy with us. This joy points us to himself. As C. S. Lewis said, “Our best havings are wantings” (from an unknown letter). Each longing or hunger we have corresponds to something that God made. God designed something to satisfy hunger: food. God designed something to satisfy sexual desire: sex. These things are real, but they never take us far enough. The having only stirs up more wanting! Why? “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
But we look around and see that this is also a fallen world that is filled with pain and tears. Why do we cry? We cry because everything in us screams, “Something went wrong.” Everywhere we look, we see something wrong. Something seems broken. Another song says, “Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my father’s world, the battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.”
Amazingly, Jesus uses the wrongs. He does this in a couple of ways. First, the wrong creates an appetite for the age to come. The sufferings of this present world remind us that this present world is not our home. These things will all fail you. They are uncertain and they will not last. Second, God is able to make the wrong actually produce the right. Suffering serves future glory because present sufferings are a factory for future glory. Present sufferings are producing the future glory (2 Corinthians 4:17).
But Jesus is also going to right the wrongs. Here we are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. The age to come will be, never sorrowful and always rejoicing. The first coming of Christ was a first sketch. His joy was on display. The first coming displayed on a small scale what will happen on a cosmic scale at the second coming. Jesus was not a killjoy. He came to make the wrong right. He made the mute talk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and the lame run. Jesus came in his first coming and did some of these miracles in order to heighten our longings and show us the signs of what God’s complete reign will look. What will glory look like on a full scale, friends? Is your heart yearning for the glory?
Let me speak to those who want to put their trust in over-indulgence or under-indulgence. The lie is thinking you can buy life. You can’t buy happiness with your stuff, and you can’t buy salvation by self-denial. You can’t write your own story and create life. They are trying to live their own way and call their own shots. It looks like they may get away with it. But it is more like a scene from a horror movie. Everything looks like it is going great. People are partying and doing their own thing, but it is all part of the horror movie. The fact that they are oblivious to the horror that is about to come upon them makes the horror all the more gripping. You want to shout to them: Stop it! Don’t you see the danger! Run! Hell is the great joy-murderer. Cosmic killjoy teaching comes from the pit of hell, because hell is a testimony to the death of joy. Everlasting darkness. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Smoke of torment.
Heaven is a testimony to infinite joy! Can you imagine what that will be like? What kind of Savior do we have? What do you think he will say when you stand at the gates of heaven? Go in, but don’t touch anything? No way. That is not what Jesus says. He says, “Enter the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). There are joys there that our finite minds cannot fathom and finite words cannot capture. What kind of Father do you have? Imagine what an infinite, all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving Father could prepare for us for an eternity of ever-increasing joy!
Closing Song: “The First Place”