Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Yeah, I heard a statistic the other day that the red states, are those the Bush states? Used to be the red, the Democrats, they didn’t like the communist inference, but I think the red states are Bush states. They’re having population growth. Their population growth is 12% higher than the blue states. So there’s a demographic reality that the Democrats and the liberals are having to contend with. That’s just the result of people, you know, doing the normal things of life faithfully.

So, let’s turn to Hebrews. We just recited responsibly the section we’ve dealt with and then the verse we’ll talk about today. We’re going to continue with verses 5 and 6, our second sermon on this. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 13:5 and 6. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.” So we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this warning not to be a lover of what shines, but instead to be content with the things, the created things that you’ve given to us, recognizing that you will never leave us or forsake us. Help us, Father, today to meditate some more on putting away covetousness and a love of money, and thanks and help us, Lord God, to be content with you, our exceedingly great reward.

And to that end, we pray your Holy Spirit be amongst us. Take the word of Jesus and write it on our hearts, Lord God, and transform our lives by it. In Jesus name we ask it. And for the sake of his kingdom and its growth to fill the earth. Amen. Please be seated.

Okay, we began last week with this section of scripture dealing with the putting off of covetousness, which I mispronounced probably the whole sermon. Probably have mispronounced this for 20 years in my life or more. I’ve said covetousness, but it’s not. One of you corrected me this last week. Thank you so much. It is very important that we correct each other. I don’t want to stand up here and make a fool of myself week by week. One of you had the courage to tell me that I was saying it wrong so that I don’t want to teach these little children to say it wrong.

Covetousness, not covetous. Covetousness, love of silver, love of bling, love of shiny things. We’re not supposed to do that. Instead, we’re going to deal today with the rest of the verse and deal with contentment as we think more and more about money and the role it and the things that it purchases plays in the context of our lives.

Now, last week I blathered on for a while at the communion table about Proverbs rather the first 10 of the 30 sayings of the wise at the very heart of the book in terms of the literary structure of Proverbs. This is the heart, at the heart of the matter of Proverbs are these 30 sayings. They’re easy—you should be able to remember them pretty easily. There’s only 30—it should be on your lips. The rest of Proverbs is good to memorize if you can, but these are the most important ones. It says they sort of sum up the whole book.

The first 10 talk about work and diligence and setting your vocation in place. The second 10 talk about establishing your household. And the last set of 10 talk about ruling in the culture. So we go from young men, you know, if you’re 13, 14, 15, young women, vocation first, get ready for your vocation, then marriage, and then if you’re faithful in that as you get older, civil rule. You see, that’s the way Proverbs tracks over all. That’s the track of Proverbs and the center is the same thing. It moves that way.

So it starts with what we’re talking about—work and diligence and why you work. On the third page of the handout, I’ve given you a little structure to talk to, to see how these first 10 are structured. You’ll notice if you’ve got these, great. If you don’t, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up an outline coming in, but you can pick it up going out. If we’re out, just let us know and we’ll make more.

So, the first 10 of the 30 sayings of the wise are found in Proverbs 22:22 through 23:11. And I’ve numbered them for you. The one-1 means the first set of 10 and the first saying of the first set of 10. And there’s three. And then you’ll see number four. And with number four, I give you this little structure that I think is there in the text.

Number four says, don’t move an ancient boundary. Number 10, it’s bold italic to show that it matches up with number four. Do not move an ancient boundary. That’s not hard to see that those two connect up, right? They’re little bookends of a little section, the fourth section of these first set of ten sayings. When things are in the fourth slot in the sequence, God expects us to know the ten commandments really well. He expects us to understand that’s how life works. And the fourth slot is the Sabbath. Sabbath command has two parts to it: work six days, rest on the seventh.

So this fourth slot here begins and ends with admonitions not to steal. You see, you don’t increase possessions by stealing. Then numbers—you can see most obviously numbers 6 and 7. I said 1-6 rather, 1-8. Saying six and 1-8 also match up right. When you sit to dine at the ruler, note well what’s before you. Talk about eating. And then number 1-8: Do not—they’re both italicized, not bolded. Don’t eat the food of a stingy man.

So, we got food references here. And I’m not going to get into it all. I could talk about this all day, but my point is to bring you to the center, the center saying of that fourth slot as these first 10 prepare us in terms of vocation. And what you need to know as a young man, this is very important. This is in the middle of the book of wisdom. This is in that first set of 10 to tell you about work. And it certainly says don’t steal and it says, as we mentioned last week, help the poor. You’re supposed to be working to help others.

But the very center of this fourth slot where all these seven sayings are held is that underlined one: Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches and they are gone. They will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

The Bible warns young men. That’s who Proverbs is written to. The Bible warns young men: Good, you’re getting to work. You’re setting up your vocation. That’s what you should be doing. That’s what you should be doing. You should be thinking about that before you think about getting married. Forget that marriage stuff until your vocation is kind of set. And to set your vocation, you got to understand that, you know, you’re getting money for the first time, but don’t work to get money. That is not the purpose of working.

Working six days a week, the very heart of that section: don’t work for money. Now, this is repeated over and over again in different portions of scripture. Ecclesiastes has several references saying, you know, money—you’re going to save up money, but who knows who’s going to get that money from you?

Psalm 39:6: Surely every man walks in a vain show. Surely they are disquieted in vain. They heap up riches and know not who shall gather them. You get a whole bunch of money, but who’s going to end up with it? You don’t know because money sprouts wings, flies away. That’s what the Proverbs tell us.

Ecclesiastes 5:13: There’s a sore evil which I have seen under the sun. This is a bad thing he’s saying. Namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail, and he begets a son, and there is nothing in his hand. So you save up a bunch of money. You’re thinking that’s what I’ll give to my son, and forget it—because you’ve made it your god. It’s taken wings. It’s flown away in different ways and your son has nothing. You have no inheritance to give him. You’re supposed to have an inheritance. But if you make the building up of that wealth the purpose of your work, you’re just all wrong.

The Bible says, so we’re not to be a lover of silver. And the wisdom literature tells us that in spades here in Proverbs, the Psalms, and Ecclesiastes.

Now, this text in Hebrews 13 says that. And then goes on to say, you know, don’t rather—the positive command is be content with such things as you have. And then there’s a reason given, and it’s kind of odd because people aren’t exactly sure where this first citation comes from. He himself has said—so God himself, and it’s emphasis, right? He himself. And there’s that emphasis in the Greek. This is important. God is really—this is what God has said: I’ll never leave you. I will never forsake you. So we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Now, that last verse 6 is a direct citation from a psalm. We’ll look at that in a bit. The first citation though—where did God say this? Well, we’re not sure where he said it. We know that at the time of the writing of this sermon, it was commonly ascribed to God, this saying. This exact same Greek phrase is cited by Philo, for instance. And there’s some places in the Old Testament that say this same thing.

Let me give you a couple. In Genesis 28:15, remember Jacob at Bethel, Jacob’s ladder and all that. He listens—God tells Jacob, “Behold, I am with thee. Will keep thee in all places wheresoever thou goest and will bring thee again to this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” Now, that’s not a direct word-for-word citation. Remember, they’re using the Septuagint. But it seems like this is one reference that commentators have said maybe this is the basis for describing God saying, “I’ll never leave you or forsake you.”

Because he tells Jacob, “I’ll not leave you.” Again, in Joshua 1:5, “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee. This is God talking to Joshua. They’re going to go into the promised land, right? All the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I’ll be with you. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” Not exact, but sounds pretty much like I, you know, I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you. God says, I will not fail you. I will not forsake you.

And then there’s also Deuteronomy 31. God says—Moses speaking to Joshua again—”Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” So, that sounds pretty close as well.

So, there’s several references here that people say may be the basis for the ascription to God of verse 8 of Deuteronomy 31: “And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee. He will be with thee. He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee. Fear not, neither be dismayed.” So these are some of the places. David says the same thing to Solomon on his deathbed: God will not leave you or forsake you. So it’s a big deal.

Now, here’s the thing I want you to understand about this. In Hebrews 13, this is cited primarily for the reason that fear causes us to love money because we think it’s going to produce security for us. So, you know, partly what’s going on here is the writer of this sermon is telling them, “You avoid the love of silver, the love of bling, the love of shiny things, which is what the literal Greek here is. You avoid that by not being too fearful, because God will take care of you.”

But there’s—if you look at these citations I just read—there’s something else going on. Remember, God hums a little bit of the tune when he cites the Old Testament in the New Testament. We’re supposed to be able to fill in the rest. Okay? He hums a couple of notes and we’re supposed to name that tune.

Well, the tune here that he’s humming is conquest. It’s conquest because the citations I just read to you, God is calling Jacob to do something, to go ahead, and God is calling Joshua to do something to do, to take over that land. And the citation actually explicitly refers to this in Joshua 1, verse 5. We read that I’ll not fail thee or forsake thee. And that’s where we stop typically. But look, he says, “Be strong and of a good courage.” In verse 6, “For unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto your fathers. I won’t leave you or forsake you to the end that you will go in and do something for me, right?”

When Doug H. read the call to confession from Isaiah, you know, “Isaiah, I’m undone. I—this is it.” And God says no. He takes the work of Jesus, the coal from the altar fire, and applies it to our confession, our lip. Says, “You’re healed.” And then Isaiah says, then God says, “Who will go for me?” “I will.” We’re forgiven to the end of going and conquering in the name of Jesus.

The promise in Hebrews to help us avoid covetousness is by keeping us busy with the presence of God to conquer the land that he’s calling us to go into. They’re on the edge of the promised land. They’re just a couple of years from AD 70 when God is going to judge the rebellious church. So the promise of God’s presence isn’t just, you know, so we can be happy and content and it’s nice. Oh, we got a great life and, you know, eventually we’ll end up in heaven.

No, it’s to a particular purpose: that we actively press the claims of Jesus Christ. In Genesis when God told Jacob, “I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to you of.” So there’s a job for Jacob to move ahead on. There’s a job for Joshua. There’s a job for Solomon. And that task—that vocation of extending the visible manifestation of Christ’s reign—that’s what the promise of his presence to us is attached to.

We avoid covetousness by being content not just to sit on our hands but content with the presence of God as our reward to the end that we would be empowered to do his work moving forward.

Now this same idea—remembering the context of what this sermon has said. Not just taking these, you know, Jay Adams the problem we have as Christians is aphasia. You know, we take this verse: “I will never leave the earth or forsake you” and we pull it out of its context and we just say well, that’s nice. I don’t have to do anything and God is with me. And you know, I carry around Jesus in my coat pocket and ever I feel a little bad I start talking to him. And you know, we—I mean, I hate to make fun, but you know, that’s what we tend to do. And so Jay Adams said what we ought to do is somebody ought to go into a business of making context plaques and sell the rest of the verses around these things to remember what the verse is actually about.

Well, the next verse in this—in this verse in Hebrews is verse 6. “We may boldly say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” Now, if you got one of those Bibles with cross references, you know this is a cross reference to Psalm 118. Or maybe if you just know your Bible well enough, you know this is Psalm 118.

Now, you may or may not remember what Psalm 118 is. One way to remember it is it’s at the end. It’s just before Psalm 119. Psalm 118 is the last of what’s referred to by the church as the Egyptian Hallel or praise God. Because all these psalms here leading up to 119 start with praising God and they’re Exodus psalms. They’re psalms of Exodus. They’re psalms of being brought out by God to go into blessing.

Remember, that’s what Hebrews has said earlier, right? We’ve, you know, he that we’ve saw earlier—one of the big themes of Hebrews is Psalm 95. You know, “Hey, go in to conquer. Don’t be like that generation. If you fall back now,” he says, “you’re going to fall back to perdition.” So, we’ve seen this over and over again. The reference earlier in this sermon in Hebrews to going in to conquer the promised land. And so it shouldn’t—when we read a citation from 118, we should recognize the same thing I’ve been saying about the citation from Genesis and Joshua.

God is reminding his people, through citing Psalm 118, of the forward-moving purpose that he has given to them, and that’s talked about in Psalm 118.

Now Psalm 118 begins with four statements to praise God: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good because his mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say that his mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endures forever. Let them now that fear the Lord say that his mercy endures forever.” It’s the climax of these set of psalms, the Egyptian Hallel or praise God. And then verses 5 and following have to do with the citation in Hebrews 13.

Verse 5 says, “I called upon the Lord in distress, the Lord answered me, set me in a large place.” Now, that’s a direct reference to the Passover in the first instance. Okay? They called on God, he delivered them, put him in a large place. So, there’s a past action: “He said, ‘Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God.’ Here’s why. In the past, he delivered you.”

And verse 6: “The Lord is on my side. So, now it’s present. I will not fear. What can man do unto me?” So, now, we’re moving from a call to praise based upon God’s past actions. We look back at the greater Passover, the work of Jesus Christ, which again tells us that the purpose of the work of Christ is to conquer the world, to move ahead and take over the land from the pagans, right? That’s the purpose. It’s a Passover.

So, we look at past actions for present security and confidence: “I will not fear what man can do to me. The Lord’s on my side.” And then again, if we were to continue in this psalm, we see in verse 7, “The Lord takes my part, takes my part with them that help me. Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.” It didn’t just stand and fast in the present. The next verse moves to the future. The psalmist says, “I’ll see my desire on them that hate me. The Egyptians are going to be drowned in the sea, right? The Canaanites that hate me as I enter into that land, they’re going to die. They’re going to convert or die. And if they convert, then they can sing this psalm, too. But if not, they’re going to die.”

It’s a forward-looking movement that Psalm 118 has in mind. And so when the writer of Hebrews 13 cites this in relationship to covetousness, it’s to the end that we would keep busy and diligent moving ahead with the knowledge that God is with us.

Now, it’s actually verse 6 of Psalm 118: “God is on my side. I will not fear what command do to me.” This is what’s actually cited again in Hebrews 13. But you see, if you bring in from those few notes the rest of the psalm, then you’ll know that we look at the past work in Jesus Christ, which he’s alluded to, for present confidence—not to the end that we just, you know, sit you know comfortably on some soft chair, but to the end that we might move forward into the present and see God’s action in destroying those who are misusing his resources, right? Canaan—they’re covetous in Canaan.

They’re, you know, using all these wonderful blessings of God not to bless him or thank him. So, we’re being called to go in and take people who at their root are improper stewards of the earth and the blessing God gives them. And we’re called, you know, to preach the gospel—either convert them or God brings judgment, they get out of the way. We’re called to use the resources correctly. The whole point of the conquest was stewardship. It was to get rid of covetousness on the part of the people that possessed it and replace them with people who were not, you know, lovers of silver, shiny things.

I mean, we like them a lot. They’re nice things, but we know that behind them stands the person of God, and that’s who we’re in love with. So, so he’s calling all these things up.

Now, verse 6 itself can be broken down a little bit. It’s cited here in Hebrews 13:6. So, it’s both verse 6 of Psalm 118 and verse 6 of Hebrews 13, but it says, “The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” So now it begins with a confession. The Lord is on my side. See, it starts with a confession based on our faith in the scriptures, in God. But it doesn’t stop with the confession. It moves on then to say, what’s the application in my life? I will not fear. And then it says specifically in terms of opponents or oppressors: What can the oppressor do to me?

So, you know, it’s a little triad here. It begins with God in me. So the one we’re confessing in, God, and it ends with having confidence. The confessor has confidence over an oppressor. So, we move from the confessor’s relationship to God to our understanding of our relationship to the oppressor. We don’t fear him. And at the very middle is solitary “I.” I will not fear.

So the way we move in the present from fearfulness and sin is to remember God on our side. What God has done in the past. We make confession of faith that God is with us in the present. And that’s what gives us the courage, the ability, and the strength to face the oppressor. I will not fear in myself because I’ve made confession that God is on my side. And I know that the oppressor will not be able to hurt me.

So again, this is an Exodus psalm and it tells us that the context for this discussion in Hebrews is not just some abstract concept about how we handle wealth or money. It has to do with how we conquer. It has to do with being confident and content to the purpose of moving forward into the new age that God is bringing to pass.

Okay. So, I want to talk now. I want to go back. We talked briefly last week about Hebrews 12, and now, back to the first page of your outlines. I’ve got an outline there of Hebrews chapter 12. And we’ll go through this. It’s one of those places in scripture where this lesson that’s written in very small form in Hebrews, you know, “don’t be covetous, don’t be a lover of silver,” and instead be content with what things you have—where it’s talked about. And what we have in Luke 12 is a command in verse 15.

We’re told specifically to beware of covetousness. So, and remember we said yesterday that the leadup to this is Jesus saying earlier in chapter 12 that God cares for us a lot more than sparrows. And yet, you know, the sparrows are overseen by God as well. They’re five or sold for a penny or whatever it is. They’re cheap things. And yet, Lord God, not a hair falls off—not one of them dies without God’s providence. So his eye is upon us.

And then in verses 13 and 14, the man comes—like they do when people die. You know, you got relatives wanting the goods and they try to use Jesus to that end. He rebukes them. But then he says that in verse 15, “Take heed, beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.”

Take heed. Beware—be on your guard. This is a besetting sin of mankind. And we, you know, if you think about it a little bit, we can think of all kinds of historical instances where men didn’t take heed, fell into a love of material objects to their hurt. So beware, be on your guard.

Augustine said that the eagerness of the heart to have earthly things is talked about here. It’s not restricted to money or property. It can extend to all created things and attributes such as glory, knowledge, prestige, children. So beware of covetousness, which can cover a lot more things than just money. So beware of this. It’s part of the human heart to be trapped into covetousness.

Now that’s a single command that he gives. But then he gives a little parable to drive home the lesson, right? He gives an illustration. And the illustration, as we talked about last week, is the guy whose ground brings forth lots of plentiful fruit. He says to himself, “What shall I do? I have no room to store all this stuff.” And so he builds bigger barns. God says to him in verse 20, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided?”

So, and as we said last week, it isn’t wrong to work hard. It’s not wrong to build bigger barns. He apparently was diligent, all that stuff. What did he do wrong? Well, our savior tells us explicitly. He explains the parable in verse 21 in Luke 12:21. Here’s what he says. Got your ears open?

“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

So what did he do wrong? Well, he didn’t do anything wrong, but he had a hard attitude of accumulating goods and things for himself and not for God. That was his sin. You see, his attitude of covetousness—liking these things that represent God—and sinning by seeking to have them as opposed to doing these things for the purposes of God.

Now, he then teaches about this illustration. So, single commandment: beware of covetousness. Then a little parable, the rich guy who dies. And then the explanation: his problem isn’t that he’s rich. The problem isn’t that he had more big barns. That’s not a sin. You’re supposed to want to do that. His problem was he was gathering riches for himself—for himself—as opposed to for God’s purposes. And then he teaches about this in verses 22 to 34.

And it, you know, it’s 14 verses. We won’t read 13 verses. We won’t read them all, but the sum of the verses is don’t worry, be happy. Almost.

Don’t worry, be happy. Yeah. So, I’ve got a little fish on our outbuilding. Some of you have seen it. Levi knows about it. Push the button, the fish sings, “Don’t worry, be happy.” I think that’s what he sings. Oh, no. That fish sings, “Take me to the river,” is what a fish would say. Anyway, this is what Jesus says.

He says, “Don’t—to warn them about covetousness,” he says the same thing Hebrews says. “Now, don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. God will take care of you. We cling to things because we think they’re going to take care of us. And he says, ‘Look, God loves you so much.’ He says, ‘Take no thought to your life, what you shall eat, neither for the body you shall put on. Life is more than meat. Body is more than raiment.

Consider the ravens.’ So he gives the example of the ravens, the birds. And he says, ‘And which one of you with taking thought can add to the stature of his life or to his physical height rather, one cubit? You can’t do it. If you then not be able to do that which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies. He says, think about the lilies. They, you know, they spring up. They die away. And yet Solomon in all his glory wasn’t arrayed as beautifully as lilies. And if you don’t stop to look at flowers, you won’t know what he’s saying. But they are beautiful. They are gorgeous. God has taken care of them.

Raiment, food, raiment. If then God so clothe the grass, which is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, oh ye of little faith? So don’t worry, he says, don’t be anxious. God loves you more than you can understand or believe. Understand it though to this much. Remove worry. Seek ye not that which you shall eat or what you shall drink, neither be you of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your father knows you have need of them.

So he says, don’t worry. The basic teaching is in verse 22: don’t be anxious. And then he says, have a proper sense of priorities. God has cares for lesser value things. So, he’s certainly going to feed you. And then he reminds them also in verses 25 and 26 that worry is ineffectual. It’s not just stupid ’cause it’s based on a lack of trust that God will take care of you. It’s ineffectual. It won’t work either. What good does it do to worry?

He says, “So, don’t worry. God takes care of you. He clothe things with lesser values. He’ll take care of your clothing. Don’t seek about and worry and you know get all worked up about this. God knows your needs. God knows your needs and he’ll provide for you. So he says don’t worry. And then he follows it up with a call to be holy. Rather seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.”

So if you seek God’s kingdom, that was the rich man’s problem, right? He wanted things to be added to him for the sake of the things. He wanted things for himself. And God says, “Don’t worry. Be holy. Be holy. You’ll be happy. You’ll be blessed by God if you’re holy. If you consecrate your vocation, your house, the things that God grants you stewardship over, all those things, if you consecrate them for the purposes of God’s kingdom, you seek God’s kingdom first, and all these things will be added unto you.”

Another little scripture chorus that we used to learn back in the Bible church we attended and in evangelical churches, and unfortunately, maybe a lot of our kids, our young kids now grown up, don’t even know it: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” You know, we should teach our kids that. Parents, if you know it, don’t expect that it’s going to be taught here. Probably won’t be. So, you do it. You teach him this verse because it’s so important.

Jesus says it’s the key to avoiding covetousness and fearful anxiety. “God is pleased to give you the kingdom.” Verse 32. Same message as the Passover. Psalm 118. Same message as, you know, Jacob and Joshua: “Don’t worry. God’s going to give you the kingdom. These things are yours. Seek that kingdom first, and God will add all these things unto it.”

“Where your treasure is, verse 34, there your heart will be also. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break in and steal.” He knew the Proverbs. He wrote them. “Don’t lay up your treasure with riches because they’ll take wings and go away either through rotting or theft or you’ll spend them wrong. Forget that stuff. He says, ‘You seek the kingdom of God, he’ll add prosperity.’”

You know, in Hebrews it says, “Be content with the things that you have.” Things aren’t bad. Things aren’t bad. God adds them to you. Your contentment is tied to the things that God provides for you. So, we’re not, you know, gnostic, stoic people that think the material world is bad. That’s not what’s going on here. God says they’re good things, but only in relationship to him and his kingdom purposes.

So they’ll fly away. Have a correct sense of priorities. He says the kingdom is that correct priority. God will give us the kingdom. And he then, you know, so we’re warned here again against covetousness. God says it’s insatiable. You can’t get enough stuff to settle your heart if your treasure is your riches.

Proverbs 27:20: “Hell and destruction are never full. So the eyes of men are never satisfied.” Can’t get enough. If your riches are your things, you know, it’s an insatiable sin, covetousness, greed. You’ll never get enough of it.

Okay. Ecclesiastes 5:10: “He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loves abundance with increase. This is also vanity. When goods increase, they increase that eat them. What good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes.”

So he says the same thing as Hebrews and these other texts say: he that loves silver—that’s what the specific word is in Hebrews for, you know, don’t be covetous, don’t be a lover of silver—will never be satisfied by that love. So not only is it stupid and wrongheaded, it’s can’t get you what you’re seeking to have, which is contentment.

Proverbs 15:27 says that “he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house. He that hateth gifts shall live.” If not only is it useless—wings will sprout on your riches and fly away—but it’s worse than that. Greed will ruin your own house. I know men. I’ve got dealings right now with a particular man. And among his various problems is a misunderstanding of the importance of stewardship of physical resources. And he’s ruining his house. He’s tearing it down brick by brick just as this proverb tells us he will: “He that is greedy of gain troubles his own house.”

It’s destructive to you. Not only is it wrong and doesn’t affect kingdom purposes and all that stuff and it can’t satisfy. Worse than that, it will actually rip your house down. It’s part of God’s eye for eye, tooth for tooth judgment. You make an idol out of riches, he’s going to use that god to exercise dominion and smash your house. And if a culture is characterized by greed, that culture is going to be affected negatively by it as well.

“Love of money is the root of all evil.” R.J. Rushdoony, I can’t say it here. His paraphrase of this verse, but I’ll give you a little in the Greek. The word for evil here is like the root word for a common slang phrase, and it refers to excrement. It means nothingness. It’s actually in the Greek. So, isn’t you know, I mean, excellent. There’s no there’s no—you’ve gotten whatever nourishment you’re going to have out of that stuff. I’m sorry for talking about this, but this is what the Bible talks about. This would be a better translation: “Love of money is the root of all kinds of social excrement.”

And you know, if you look at the history of Israel, Achan’s love of money was the source of tremendous problems for all of Israel. Not only does it ruin your own house, but greed produces social destruction as well. And it’s the root of all kinds of—probably a better translation—social excrement in the context of the culture. And we’re well aware, with you know, the illustrations are on every front page of nearly every paper we read these days. So, you know, it brings horrible difficult times to us, this greed does.

So, we’re to avoid it. It’s a horrible sin that’ll eat you up. It’s a source of problems. It comes in many different forms. It’s a sin of idolatry. We mentioned that last week: that covetousness is idolatry. Colossians 3:5 just says, like everybody knows that, right? Covetousness, which is idolatry. That’s what it is. And that’s why it brings all these horrible things to pass.

So, we’re supposed to be assured of God’s good care and love for sparrows, ravens, lilies, and for you. And if you’re assured of that, it will help not to be covetous. Secondly, we’re to let kingdom work prioritize our lives and we’re to recognize that God himself is our treasure, our exceeding great reward, as we cited from Genesis last week.

So, that’s our savior’s teaching in Luke. And I want to look at one last text before we finish today. That text is found in Timothy. The outline of it is the second page of your handouts today: 1 Timothy 6. And we’ll briefly go through this now and talk a little bit more. This is another text that kind of is given over to this discussion of this particular problem.

Now the context is false teachers in 1 Timothy 6. Turn there in your scriptures. So you got this guy who’s a false teacher and he talks about how bad these fellas are in verse 5: “Useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth who suppose that godliness is gain. From such withdraw yourself. Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world. It’s certain we can carry nothing out. Having food and clothing with these we shall be content.”

There’s that same word: content. That actually is the same word in Hebrews 13. It’s only used, I don’t know, half a dozen, a dozen times at most in its various forms. And here’s one of them. So here’s contentment, which Hebrews 13 says is the opposite of this loving of silver. And the same thing’s asserted here. To avoid this idea that gain in itself is great, then we want to be content with food and raiment.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown them in destruction and perdition. 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. You, oh man of God, flee these things. Beware covetousness. Covetousness—be on guard. Run away from it if it starts to affect your life.”

Let’s look at some of the lessons from this, using the handout, the outline on, as I say, the second page. First, we have true gain is contrasted with false gain in verses 5 and 6. And the people that he’s addressing think that material gain itself is godliness.

Okay? So, these people suppose that gain is godliness. Now, if you’ve got a New American Standard Bible, the translation’s a little different. It says that godliness is a means of gain. But either way, you see, whatever way you translate it, the point of this is that false teachers, guys that get it all wrong, their objective is material gain. They either are rich and they think, well, see, I’ve got all this stuff and so it shows that I’m a godly guy, or they’re engaging in godliness supposed for the purpose of gain.

And either way, the translation is accurately done. The problem is these guys have a misplaced sense of priorities. That’s what the verse tells us. And then that’s what the rest of the text tells us as all about these guys. So material gain is not godliness.

Now we should say here in passing that, you know, we want to be careful of falling into the other ditch. Neither is material loss godliness. Most of us don’t get a lot of material gain. So we think we’re more godly because we’re not rich. See, that’s how perverted our hearts are. We’ll do it one way or the other. If we’re rich, ah, it’s ’cause we’re godly. If we don’t have money, well, it’s because, you know, rich are bad and material loss is what we think is gain.

No, neither one is true. God loves money. He created money. He created nice shiny things. He doesn’t dislike bling in and of itself. It reflects his glory and beauty. That’s not the problem. So either attaining it or losing it is not directly equable with godliness. Money is not evil in and of itself.

God—I mean, if you look at the tabernacle, the temple, you know, God had beauty there, right? God likes beauty. He likes shiny things. Shiny things were in the tabernacle, in the temple. He delights in them. They’re—as you draw near to God in the temple, you’re coming through beautiful stuff, silver and gold and fine gold. It’s all glimmering and shining. It’s a beautiful deal, right? Because it emanates from the throne. It represents his beauty, his glory, his weightiness.

No, God likes beauty. God likes money. That’s not the problem. The problem is when we like these things more than or in place of the God who created them.

Now, I’m going to read a couple of quotes here, and I know it’s kind of hard listening to quotes. And remember as I read these that we’re told in Colossians 3:5 and in Ephesians 5:5 that covetousness is idolatry.

Now, the first quote is from R.J. Rushdoony. By What Standard? For the Christian, you listening? I know it’s hard, but you can work at it here, right? Pay attention. Move yourself in your seat if you have to a little bit here. I know I’m going a little long. Move around a little bit. Wake yourself up. Okay. Now listen.

Rushdoony says, “For the Christian the physical universe is explicable, understandable, explainable also in terms of the spiritual because both have a common origin and unity in God. So the spiritual and the physical have their common origin and unity in the person of God.”

Cornelius Van Til said this. Van Til—and then he quotes Van Til in this section: “It follows from this that the spiritual can be truly though symbolically expressed by the images borrowed from the physical. It’s the conception that underlies Jesus’s use of parabolic teaching. The vine and the branches give metaphysical but truthful expression to the spiritual union between Jesus and his own because the physical is created for the purpose of giving expression to the spiritual. The physical is created for the purpose of giving expression to the spiritual, and both things are there for God to give expression to himself and his attributes.”

“We find then,” Van Til said, “that one must first presuppose the anti-theistic conception that nature is independent of God before one can urge the argument that symbolic language is necessarily to an extent untruthful.”

So you know the point of this is, and I would add to this that we must first presuppose the same thing—the anti-theistic conception that nature is independent of God. We have to presuppose that same thing in order to engage in covetousness and the love of shiny things. That’s the root problem: we do not see the physical reality as connected to God. We see it as independent of God.

In fact, it would appear that as long as man has cut the tether between the two—the created reality and the God who created it—he must of necessity become either a hoarder or a waster or both. Those were the two sides, by the way, of the church fathers when they discussed greed or covetousness. You think there would just be people that gather everything. No, they said either a hoarder or a waster are both idolators.

That’s why the prodigal son is on the order of worship today, the front cover of it. He wasn’t a hoarder, which is what we always think of the greedy as or covetous as. But his delight was in spending the money. You see, but still his purpose, his existence was to use those riches, not to use them in stewardship for God. So we sin either way, right?

I mean, you know, I mean these days, you know, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping or the malcontents go shopping. We find in shopping and spending money some people do the kind of comfort that we should find only in God.

Now, if you approach economic transactions at the right with your head screwed on straight and your mind intact and your soul good and right with God, it’s a good thing to do. But too often in this country it’s the opposite.

So the early church said that whether you were hoarding money or whether you were spending a lot of money, your root problem was the same. It was covetous. It was idolatry. And idolatry exists because you’ve cut the tether between the created universe and the God who created it.

Now, why do we have such a covetous age? How are we going to take care of all these greed problems? Going to pass more laws in Washington DC, control those lobbyists? That’ll do it. No, it won’t. It won’t fix the root problem. One way to fix the root problem is to reduce the power that Washington has, right? I mean, power attracts lobbyists or people that are going to use power properly like a—like one of those you know wasp things that traps wasps. You cut the power that the government shouldn’t have to begin with. That’s one way to reduce lobbyists.

But the real way to deal with the root problem of covetousness in America is to get rid of the public school system because the public school system explicitly, from the times a little person is this old and they go off to school, cuts the tether. They teach us to treat this physical universe in isolation from the created God. And so mathematics, science, the whole thing—you see, economics—whatever they teach, they cut the tether explicitly.

The secular public school system cuts the tether. And what they’ve done then, this has only been going on 100 years or so. And what they’ve done here is they produced a whole nation of idolators who are covetous and who aren’t engaged in doing the work of the kingdom, which is what Hebrews says we should be doing, right? Right, moving forward with the assurance of God’s presence to the end that we do something right? No, it doesn’t produce it. It cuts the tether and it produces practical idolatry.

You got to feel sorry for folks, you know. In Judges 18:23 they cried unto the children of Dan and they turned their faces and said unto Micah, “What aileth thee that thou comest with such a company?” and Micah says, “You’ve taken away my gods which I made and the priest and you are gone away and what have I more? What is this that you say unto me? What aileth thee?” He’s crying and weeping. What are you crying for? You took my gods.

You got to feel sorry for the poor guy. The gods that he made, the text tells us. Well, that’s the kind of situation we’re in this country. People are crying and weeping because they’ve created gods. The public school creates Micahs. This is not the good Micah, it’s the bad Micah, but it creates this situation where the creature or murder is seen as ultimate and God is some kind of thing tacked on the top story of all of this but not directly related to it.

So contentment—that this text tells us to engage in—contentment exists when we reconnect the tether between the created universe and God. And then when we look at Amber’s beautiful shiny diamond ring, that’s great. Ain’t nothing wrong with shiny diamond rings and prosperity. But we see it in relationship to God and his brilliance and his shining forth, right?

And when we look at the physical universe around us, this is what we connect it to—the person of God—and for the purposes of his kingdom. We can see, you know, the shiny brilliance of people who are defending the sanctity of marriage because they’re getting married. They’re obeying that other verse we read responsively from Hebrews 13: “Let marriage be honorable.” And Kelly honors that marriage to the bright shiny ring. Nothing wrong with that. It’s good and proper to remind us of the inestimable value that the Lord God has given to marriage as a basic building block of a godly society.

So you see, when we reconnect the tether, this is the answer. This is the basis for contentment with the things that God has given to us. Contentment is necessary. Now it’s not a contentment without godliness, right? Contentment with godliness is great gain. What’s really gain in life. It’s contentment with godliness.

We’re not supposed to teach our kids some kind of gnostic neoplatonic contentment with whatever they have in life. They’re not supposed to sit there and meditate on content with whatever happens. No. Contentment has no value in and of itself. If we teach our children contentment without godliness, we’ve taught them moralism and we’ve engaged them in practical idolatry.

Again, the contentment has to be tethered to godliness. And it is over and over again in the scripture. We can’t take the time to look at it. But contentment without godliness is no gain at all. But earthly contentment with heavenly-minded godliness is great gain. And that’s what Paul is telling Timothy here.

Contentment isn’t any good by itself. The contentment is supposed to be tied to godliness.

Lenski in his commentary on this text says that contentment always goes together with the true godliness. “Paul is not arguing anyone into contentment. He is telling the godly who are content what a blessed source of gain they possess. I mean he’s not saying now be content with godliness. He’s saying well, you know, riches aren’t great gain, but contentment with godliness, which you have as Christians, if you’re a Christian and you see the connection, you got a wonderful thing. This is great gain. Value that simple stuff of life again—contentment with godliness about what God has provided you. And you don’t understand the value of it.

Paul is telling Timothy and tell this to the people. He’s telling people with this Christian attribute of the tremendous blessing it is having arrived naked because we are going to have to leave that way and cannot possibly leave any other way. The few things we really need for our short stay are not going to disturb our minds as godly people. We are simply going to be content with them, with the goods that God gives us.

So contentment with godliness is the true source of gain. Love for the symbols of gain is great loss.”

I’m going a little long. You can follow the outlines out yourself in your private time. I might pick this back up again next week, but the rest of it flows rather obviously. He then warns them again about the tremendous snaring temptation that covetousness and thinking that riches are godly produces to people.

If you go ahead and read the text, you know, that’s what it says. This is really bad. You’ll be tempted. You’ll be snared. Stay away from it. You know, you don’t want to get near that bear trap. That thing pops. It’s got in its grasp now. You can’t get out of it, right?

It’s like I mowed that lawn years ago. And some of you heard this story. You know, I had this lawn riding lawnmower and the thing is jammed up with grass, the exit chute. And I know enough not to put my hand into the blade when it’s running. But stupid me, I did grab. I left the motor running. Blades are going around. I’m on this riding lawnmower and I try to pull the grass out the chute. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a good foot away from the blade.

Well, unbeknownst to me, there was this piece of bailing wire that was somewhat wrapped around the blade and was sticking out. God’s little loop to trap me, right, in that grass chute. And I went in there and grabbed that grass and that bailing wire wrapped around this little finger of mine. And as I pulled, that engaged the other end of it in the blade. So, it started to pull my hand, which originally was a foot away from that blade. Now it’s going toward the—what am I going to do?

And I had the sense of mind to turn the thing off. But now I have a bailing wire right down to the bone on this little finger. And you know, God sent me to the hospital that way. I looked like the idiot that I was. Walked in with a piece of twine, a piece of bailing wire. Did something wrong here.

Well, that’s what he’s saying. Covetousness is a snare. It’s a deadly snare. If you get near to this stuff. So, we want to always remind ourselves of this connection between the created order and the God who created it.

Flee the love for false gain. That’s why he tells Timothy, “Thou man, flee these things.” Timothy’s a godly guy, but he warns Timothy about it. Says, “Flee away from it. Follow true gain.”

Now, I’ve got some illustrations there at the end. Steps to godliness and contentment:

Practice and teach biblical corporate worship. We engage in the Sursum Corda. We acknowledge the heavenly. We get a heavenly perspective on these earthly things. That’s the whole point when we go up—it’s that we can have a heavenly perspective on silver and diamond rings and good stuff. So we do that. We teach our kids that the Lord’s day has taken our hands off of commerce so that when we re-engage it tomorrow we do it with a subconscious purpose of serving the kingdom. It re-orients, you know, it straightens away our priorities.

Same thing with the tithe. We give money to God. You kids, we’re going to pay off this building debt. Praise God. We want to do it in seven years. We’ll have it done before 7 years is up. It’s going to happen in the next few weeks. If you haven’t given money to pay off the debt in the church, you should do that. You should save up your pennies, whatever it is, in the next couple weeks, put it in the offering box for the church fund. And when you do that, you’ll do a couple of things.

One, you’ll remind yourself that great gain is in the God who give us this stuff and his word flows out of the church. So, it’s important. It should be a priority to us to pay off this debt. So, it’ll help you to reorient, reconsecrate the rest of your money for the kingdom purposes that you’re given that portion to. And then secondly, every time you come into this church, once you pay it off, you can say to yourself, whether it was a nickel, a dime, a buck, whatever it was, I had a part in buying this church and giving the Lord God an outpost here, a beachhead, you know, a place on the beach from which conquest of Oregon City is going to happen.

So the tithe, the Eucharist—we’ll talk about it when we get to the Lord’s table. Contentment with food and raiment. Almsgiving as it’s connected to the Eucharist. You see, we use our purposes for God’s purposes. The rejoicing feast downstairs. We’re not gnostics. We like good food and we set the context of enjoying and drinking wine and good food and tasty stuff for kingdom purposes again. So it kind of orients us.

The benediction: God is with you. That’s the point of Hebrews 13:5 and 6 is God is with you to conquer. And as you remember that, you’ll avoid the fearfulness that would lead to covetousness. And you’ll also remember that you’re empowered to go out and do diligent work. And that’ll keep you from being too focused on your wealth.

Practice and teach biblical family worship. The Lord’s Prayer. Give us this day our Sunday bread. No, it doesn’t say that. Give us this day our daily bread. If the only time we think about the Lord’s Prayer is in church on Sunday, we’ve messed up. And how does it start? You don’t get to that until you, you know, go, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread.”

You see, we set the priorities straight before we petition God for the more money or the food, whatever it is that we want. We set it up with those first few phrases of the Lord’s Prayer: the hallowedness of God, that we want money, we want our bread to the end that we can be empowered to go forward and bring his kingdom, manifest Christ’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

The Lord’s prayer teaches us every time we eat food. You see, it teaches us: don’t be covetous. Use these things for the purposes of serving the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

Family worship: a great time to remind your kids about all this stuff. The evening prayer at the end of the day, a prayer of evaluation, thanking God for what happened that day so that the whole day was consecrated at the beginning and evaluate it at the end for the purposes of God’s kingdom, which is the way to avoid covetousness.

Preach and practice and teach biblical stewardship. Proper use of money, proper value of money, proper use of discipline. I have to talk about this next week, but we will. We’ll talk about gold and silver, the value of money, and what we’re doing in our culture and is it a good thing or a bad thing. May not be able to come up with with definitive statements on that stuff, but our kids should know that in the Bible, at least during that period of history, God wanted gold and silver, shiny things to represent value, to remind us of the tether and connection between the created world, the one who created it, to give spiritual and physical expression to the attributes and glory of God.

Money was a reminder, the diamond ring, gold ring, and we got gold. It’s a reminder of the glory of God. It connects us. It keeps that tether, you know, between the created order and the heavenly reality of who God is. And that’s what produces biblical contentment with godliness, which is great gain.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the great opportunity that you accept our money now. You don’t think it’s bad stuff. You think it’s the good stuff representing our labor for the kingdom work we did this last week. Help us, Lord God, as we come forward to rejoice in the things that you’ve given to us, to be content with godliness, to have kingdom sense of priorities, and to reconsecrate ourselves afresh to doing our labors and our vocational activities for the purposes of the kingdom of Jesus Christ to take this world and bring it to you as worship to you.

And we thank you that you accept it through the work of our savior. Help us, Lord God, in our homes to build contentment with godliness, which is the true source of great gain in this life. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.