Thank you for taking the time to read the Weekend Sermon this week. I hope that all of you are having a good week. I am thankful to the Lord for the opportunity that He has given me to post these messages each week.
I just wanted to report that my town did not have any storm damage the other night. I thank you for your prayers in this matter. There was a tornado warning, but the tornado did not damage any homes in my particular area.
I really need your prayers in a particular matter. Writing has been going very well, but I still need a little more income to be able to get everything fully paid off from the financial disaster I suffered a few years ago. I am looking for a part-time job that I can do without having to be on my feet for too long. I am having a lot of pain in my legs. Please pray that I will find just the right thing for me. I want to get all the financial mess in my life cleared up once and for all and get everything behind me. Thank you for your prayers. I just want to get what I need. I've cut my expenses way down, I just have some lingering items that need to get paid off. After that is done, I hope to save to go on a missions trip.
In other prayer requests, please continue to pray for those in Puerto Rico who are needing help. Please continue to pray for those in Papua New Guinea.
Please continue to pray that Syria might have peace. Pray for peace in Yemen, Libya, South Sudan and Afghanistan.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let us all pray for those in the nations of Iran and Japan. Pray that many will hear about the love of Jesus in these two nations.
For today's message, we are continuing our series of messages on verses that are taken out of context or are misinterpreted. The verse that we are going to consider today is probably one of the most misstated verses in the entire Bible.
I am sure that you have heard people make the statement that, "Money is the root of all evil." People are positive that this is from the Bible. They are close, but this isn't quite what the Bible says.
Let us look at the Scripture in context, I Timothy 6:6-10 states, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we bought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. For those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many harmful and foolish desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
There is a lot for us to discuss in this passage. First of all. we can clearly see that the Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil.
In the beginning of this passage, the Apostle Paul makes an important point. We didn't bring anything into this world, and we an take nothing out. This should be a wake up call to those whose life is built around the accumulation of wealth and possessions. It doesn't matter who you are or how rich you are, when you die, it will all belong to someone else.
Paul warns against trying to become rich. In his view, people should be satisfied with having the necessities of life. Paul advises his readers to be satisfied with food and clothing.
He will tell us that working to accumulate riches most often leads to destruction and evil. By destruction, I believe that Paul has spiritual destruction most in mind.
Paul will tell us that the pursuit of money and riches has even led some people who once believed in Jesus to abandon their faith and forfeit their eternal soul.
Money in and of itself is not bad. It is how it is obtained and what people often do to get it that is the problem.
Many people's only concern is how they can make more money or have more money. I'm not talking about having enough to cover what is needed. So many just want more and more and more. And often, they don't care how they get the money.
There are so many corporate leaders that don't care how many of their workers that they pay very low wages to as long as they make a big profit. Many corporations and their leaders give no thought to the environmental degradation that they are inflicting on the planet as long as they make more money so that they can have more things along with their shareholders. They don't realize that one day, everyone will have to give an account to God for what they did with their lives.
I believe that one thing that Paul is most trying to get across in this passage is that people should not invest their life in the pursuit of wealth. In the end it is meaningless. Money above and beyond what we need is only useful in the spiritual sense if we use it to help others to have what they need in life or if it is used to advance the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Try not to make the focus of your life the accumulation of things. As Paul says, when we focus on making money, it often causes us to compromise the commandments and teachings of Jesus for more personal gain.
Now we have seen a little of what Paul had to say on the matter. What does Jesus say about money and the the pursuit of wealth. I always want to look most at what Jesus says.
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are not to lay up treasures on earth. We are to lay up treasures in Heaven. Jesus would go on to say that it is not possible for a person to serve both God and money.
Jesus said that a person's life does not consist in the abundance of things that are possessed. Jesus asks, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his own soul."
Jesus told a parable about a rich man who had an abundant crop. He had more than his old barns could handle. Instead of giving his abundance to the poor and needy. The man tore down the barns and built bigger ones to store more crops. Jesus called this man a fool.
Jesus also told a parable about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had no concern for the homeless man who was at his gate. The rich man lifted up his eyes in torment after he died. He had no more money. Lazarus, the homeless man, was in heaven, because his desire was toward the things of God.
Is is wrong to be rich. Not necessarily. It depends on how the riches were obtained. One thing is important to keep in mind. How much is enough? When you have enough, I think the Bible is clear that that is the time to be giving to others. Each individual has to consult with the Lord Jesus to determine what enough is, and what the Lord Jesus would have them do with the resources that He has provided to them.
One last thing that I would like to say. The society that I live in is money obsessed. A person's worth is seen by what kind of job he has, how many cars, what size home and the size of one's bank account. I truly believe that if that is all that one's life is about that it is a wasted life.
The focus of each of our lives is to be on doing the will of the Lord Jesus and serving Him. It is about following the values of the Kingdom that Jesus established in the Sermon on the Mount.
Next week, we will have another message in our current series. I have at most two more messages in this series. After this series, Lord willing, I am going to be posting for several weeks a series of messages on who is Jesus. It will deal with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This Monday, I will post the verses. There will be a review or a poem on Wednesday May God bless you all. Amen.
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