Let's open our Bibles together today to the Gospel of Mark and the tenth chapter, please.
Tile of my message this morning is Where the Rubber Meets the Road.
I think you'll understand how that applies even as we look at our text today, from which
we'll quickly depart.
And as Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him and
began asking him, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good?
No one is good except God alone.
Please understand that Jesus was not saying that he was not God.
He was simply helping this man to come to an understanding that if he was calling him
good, he needed to understand that in fact he was God.
You know the commandments.
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness.
Do not defraud.
Honor your father and mother.
And he said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.
And I think he said that sincerely.
He was measuring himself, however, externally by the righteousness of the scribes and the
Pharisees.
And looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, One thing you lack, go
and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and
come and follow me.
Jesus took him from the external measurement of verse 20 to an internal measurement of
his heart.
He was not saying to this young man that by doing these things he would have eternal life.
Eternal life would come by following Jesus by faith.
But first there was an obstacle that had to be removed in his life before he could follow
the Lord.
And that obstacle was covetousness.
At these words, his face fell and he went away, grieved, for he was one who owned much
property.
And Jesus looking around said to his disciples, How hard it will be for those who are wealthy
to enter the kingdom of God.
And the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus answered again and said to them,
Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter
the kingdom of God.
They were even more astonished and said to him, Then who can be saved?
Looking upon them, Jesus said, With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all things
are possible with God.
Let's pray together.
Father, as we continue on our spiritual adventure today, my prayer is that the examination of
our hearts in the light of your word will prove profitable for us and for your sake
and your work in the world.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I was struck last Sunday by Robertson McQuilkin's remark about the all-American commandment,
Thou shalt covet, he said, using 1 Corinthians 12.31 as his tongue-in-cheek proof text.
I smiled at his humor but winced at the point of his remark.
Covetousness is a temptation every one of us faces.
Especially in the culture in which we live with its materialistic values.
We struggle daily with this green-eyed monster and often not very successfully.
You see, we are wonderfully gifted at creating rationales for our selfish accumulation of
personal wealth.
By the way, the greatest that has ever been known by any people in the history of the
world.
Yes, we give at the office.
We hand out at the door.
We pledge to charity.
We even put something in the offering plate at church.
And then we conclude that we have done our fair share for others.
Now we can lavish the remainder on our own pleasurable lifestyle or perhaps save it up
to secure for ourselves a comfortable future.
We are wonderful at these rationales.
We reason that we're not the rich ones.
After all, we can look around and see others who have much more than we have.
Why, we're only the middle class.
Beloved, I am convinced of this, that our attitude toward money and earthly possessions,
however much they may be or how little they may be, that it's there where the rubber
meets the road as far as our spiritual confession is concerned.
Have you carefully considered the stewardship of your money and your possessions?
Perhaps the ownership prayer has struck a sensitive nerve in you as you have prayed
it over the last few weeks.
I have found from my own experience that one cannot pray those words for several weeks
without having a dramatic impact in our attitude toward our things.
By the way, that prayer is one that you may want to hang on to.
We have made available to you this morning an item that is suitable for framing.
It's really a lovely printing of the ownership prayer on a card.
These are available for all of you who have chosen this as one of your disciplines during
the spiritual adventure.
You may not have prayed that every day as you had intended to at the beginning, but
if this has been a discipline that you have sought to incorporate during these 50 days,
I think you'd probably like to have a setting of that prayer that you might be able to put
in your office or your home or your bedroom, someplace where you'll see it frequently.
We have them available for you today.
There are some stacked here along the front and there are some on tables in the back.
But until we have enough to go around, we'd like to say one to a family at least to start
with and if we have a few left over, we'll make those available if you'd like to have
a couple of them, maybe one for your home and one for your office.
But feel free to take one of these today.
Have you considered the items that are mentioned specifically in that prayer, which we prayed
together a few moments ago?
It talks about these possessions, these resources, these gifts.
What do we mean by possessions?
Will has suggested that possessions include all of the material objects that we own, from
our home and land to our car and stereo, the wardrobe that we have, the adornments and
collectibles in our houses.
Even the guest room that we own, those are our possessions, at least suggestively.
What do we mean by our resources?
What do we have in mind in using that term?
What do you have in mind as you've prayed that prayer and thought about it?
Perhaps resources to you would include your bank account, that safe deposit box that you
have, your inheritance or investment, insurance.
Would it not even include the influence of your life?
That's a resource that you have.
And what do we mean by gifts as we say that we want to make those available to the Lord
for His kingdom?
Gifts would include our skills, the spiritual gifts that God has given to us, our talents,
our children, friendships, physical attributes that God may have given us, our creativity
perhaps, certainly our time.
You see by nature we tend to grasp onto all of these things.
And isn't that really the heart of the issue?
You see all of us struggle with this idea of ownership.
We have yet to realize that actually none of these things is ours at all.
They belong to our King and are entrusted to us only to manage for our lifetime.
And then we shall leave them behind.
They are not ours to use for our own selfish purposes.
We indeed are expected to make them available for the use of the Lord in the work of His
kingdom.
We've invited our Savior to come into our homes, to be the King and sovereign here for
these weeks.
As we have said, He was there before and He's not going to leave when the 50 days are up.
But now we are concentrating on the fact that He is in our homes.
And when we remember that He's here for a visit, we are reminded to see our things,
our possessions, resources, and gifts through His eyes.
You know, when you talk about a subject like this, people often have objections.
There are several of them.
One is, what right does Jesus Christ have to claim my money, possessions, and gifts?
That sounds almost a little too strong, doesn't it?
Maybe even bordering on blasphemy, but does it not perhaps accurately reflect the attitude
that all of us have from time to time?
What right does He have to my money, resources, and gifts?
Let me suggest to you several rights.
In the first place, He created all things.
And so all of these things are His by right of creation.
In Colossians 1.16 it says, by Him were all things created.
All of it.
So whatever we may name as being ours is actually His because He's the Creator.
And if He had not brought it into existence, it wouldn't be in our hands today.
It's His by right of creation.
Secondly, I'd like to suggest that He endowed each of us with these things.
Therefore they are His by right of prepossession.
You see, He possessed those before He gave them to you, to me.
Therefore they are His by right of prepossession.
As Paul says to the Corinthians, what do you have that you did not receive?
First Corinthians 4.7.
John the Baptist said in John 3.27, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given
him from heaven.
And James echoes the same thought in chapter 1 verse 17 when he writes, every good thing
bestowed and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights.
What right does Jesus Christ have?
He has the right of prepossession.
All of our things were His before they were entrusted to us.
Thirdly, I'd like to suggest that He purchased us with His own blood.
And therefore whatever we have belongs to Him by right of redemption as well.
In 1 Corinthians 6.19 the apostle reminds us, you are not your own.
You are bought with a price.
If indeed today you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and His blood
has ransomed you from your sin and lostness, then He has purchased all of you, including
these things that we've talked about.
What right does Jesus Christ have to our things?
He has the right of creation, the right of prepossession, and the right of redemption.
He has every absolute right over everything that we have and are.
I'd like you to open your Bible again to 1 Chronicles chapter 29.
The context here is a prayer, a prayer of David as he gathers together the material
for Solomon to later build the temple of God.
So much was given by David and then the leaders and then the people that it says in verse
29, the people rejoiced because they had offered so willingly for they made their offering
to the Lord.
Isn't that a great thought?
As we bring our gifts today, we're not bringing them for a man, we're not bringing them for
the church, or even for the ministry primarily.
Rather we are bringing them for the Lord.
It says that they brought these gifts to the Lord, their offerings, with a whole heart.
King David also rejoiced greatly.
So David blessed the Lord, verse 10, in the sight of all the assembly.
David said, blessed art thou, O Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever.
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.
Indeed, everything that is in the heavens and the earth, thine is the dominion, O Lord,
and thou dost exalt thyself as head over all.
Both riches and honor come from thee, and thou dost rule over all, and in thy hand
is power and might, and it lies in thy hand to make great and to strengthen every one.
Now therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise thy glorious name.
Who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this?
For all things come from thee, and from thy hand we have given thee.
Boy, David has a hold of something, doesn't he?
He says, Lord, who are we to offer so generously to you?
He says, after all, what we have given you was first placed into our hands by you.
Is that the way that we look at what we have?
Our possessions, our resources, our gifts?
Someone says, but don't I have the privilege to enjoy the things God has given me?
After all, isn't there in the Bible somewhere a verse that says God has given us richly
all things to enjoy?
Amen.
That is a Bible verse.
First Timothy 6, 17 says that.
But what does it mean to enjoy?
That's the question.
It does not mean that we are given these things to live luxuriantly, to pander our greed.
That is not the meaning of the verse.
What does it mean to enjoy these things that God has richly given to us?
Let me suggest three things.
First of all, it means to have one's own needs met.
Why does God enrich us that our needs might be met?
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things that you need, food,
clothing, etc., will be given to you.
By the way, pleasure, too, is one of the needs that we have.
God has given us a need for pleasure.
There's nothing wrong with having pleasure.
The problem is when we make pleasure our chief end.
When pleasure becomes our goal and our God, then it has become sin.
The pleasure is a need.
And God does give us our things richly to enjoy them, that our needs might be met.
But secondly, that we might be able to give to the needy.
Why has God richly given us all things?
That we might share them.
That we might distribute to those who have less than we have.
Did not Jesus Himself say it is more blessed to give than to receive?
The happiest person you will ever meet is the person who knows what it is to share.
And it doesn't make if the person is in poverty or the person is quite wealthy.
The joy of giving is there and evident in the life.
One who is covetous and greedy is one who is miserable, however much may be in the bank
account.
God gives us richly all things to enjoy in that we are able to give, blessedly give to
those who have need.
God gives us richly all things to enjoy in a third way, that one day we might rejoice
in heaven with those who are one to Jesus Christ by the wise investment of our money
in His work in this world.
That is an eternal joy.
We can use our money now for some pleasures on earth that last for a while, but how wise
it is to lavishly lay up eternal pleasures so that we can enjoy forever the investment
of our money in this world.
Join with me once more to the New Testament, to the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
We don't have time to look at the story that Jesus tells about a steward whom He calls
Shrewd.
But Jesus in verse 9 gives us the bottom line of the story and that's where we'll pick
it up.
In verse 16 verse 9, I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness.
That phrase is another phrase for money.
That when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
You remember Dr. Robert Smith preaching on this about a year and a half ago?
He sent a written message to our congregation and he pointed out what you undoubtedly knew
before he preached it and that is that Jesus here is talking about using our money in this
world, which He calls mammon of unrighteousness, so that we can gain friends who will welcome
us into heaven.
Who are these friends?
They are people that we may never meet in this world, but who are one to Jesus Christ
because we have given to the Lord's work, His word has been preached, His kingdom established
around the world, people come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they go to heaven and
one day when life fails and we are no longer living in this world, we will be welcomed
into heaven by those friends because we have been wise in the use of our money.
We have been shrewd in the best sense of that term in the use of our money in this life.
Yes, we have the privilege of enjoying all things that God has given to us, but let's
enjoy them the way that God tells us to.
What is the use of my money to do with spiritual things, someone says.
Those two things aren't even related.
Well, I think already we have seen that that is not true, but look at verses 10 and 11
in this very chapter.
Jesus says, He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.
He who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, and mammon
again is another word for money, it's Aramaic, refers to our things, who will entrust the
true riches to you.
What is Jesus saying here in these strange words?
He is simply saying to us that one's faithfulness in the use of his earthly wealth is a direct
indication of his fitness for spiritual responsibilities.
That's what He's saying.
What has money to do with spiritual things?
A whole lot, brother.
I was never taught as a young man the importance of giving.
Not that I didn't give, but I did not give very generously.
And of course I reasoned through my college years that I didn't have much to give, and
that was true.
But I never picked up the habit of regular, planned, intentional giving.
Thus it was quite a shock to me when I got to my first assignment in the Lord's work
and as an assistant pastor in Covington, Kentucky.
One of the first things Pastor Wiersbie said to me as I became his assistant there was
now of course as one of our staff we expect you to tithe to set an example for the people
of our church.
I sucked in my breath very quietly and said, sure, you bet.
And I began at that point in my life under some sense of gentle coercion to tithe.
And I want you to know from my own personal experience that I found that God blessed as
I learned to give regularly and in a planned way.
There have been times in our family when we did not know how in the world we could afford
to do that.
You know what?
God always made the remainder go further.
And I see some of you shaking your heads.
You know what I'm talking about.
When a person is faithful to give to the Lord the first fruits of his increase in a regular
planned way, not the leftovers, but in a planned way, giving God that first portion, God blesses.
The income may not increase like some people like to tell us.
I've received letters in the mail and maybe you have too.
Send us your tithe and within one month you'll have double your money back.
Well, somebody got the double money.
God doesn't promise that kind of thing.
But I'll tell you what God does promise to do.
He promises to bless and He promises to give us greater ability to give.
And I have found in my own experience that God makes the remainder cover what the whole
thing couldn't cover before.
It's a marvelous experience.
I've come to the place in my understanding of Scripture that I don't see tithing as
a legalistic rule for the church age.
There are those who disagree with that and that's fine.
But I have to say this.
How can I as a believer in this age under grace do less than what the Jews did under
law in the Old Testament considering the greater privileges that I have in this age?
While tithing is not a legalistic principle that we must do, I believe that God will bless
the person who begins at that point and then increases.
We no longer tithe as a family, but I believe that that's a beginning point.
What I'm saying here in verses 10 and 11 does not mean that a prosperous person is automatically
worthy of spiritual responsibility.
That is not what Jesus is intending to say.
The amount has nothing to do with it.
The point is that how one has handled what he does have in terms of his earthly money
indicates whether he is ready for spiritual responsibility.
Some say, why can't I have the best of both worlds?
I'll serve God, but I want to retain the rights to my own money, my own possessions.
Look at verse 13 in chapter 16.
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
Jesus is saying here that it is impossible for any of us to serve two authorities in
our lives equally.
We cannot say that we're going to have the best of both, that we're going to serve God
and retain rights.
Either the Lord is God or He is not Lord of our lives.
It is impossible to have two authorities.
One of the other must dominate.
Jesus Christ will not share the throne of our lives with mammon.
Now Jesus is not here condemning wealth.
Please understand that.
It is the Lord who gives the ability to make wealth.
He is not condemning its possession, but what He is condemning is making wealth one's God.
Jesus is condemning here serving our money instead of using it to serve God.
That is where the sin is.
This may surprise you, but I think that there's some truth in it.
At the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, when our life's work is examined for its worth
and our service for the Lord, the King, and His Kingdom, when we are examined before Him
as all true believers will be, I believe that our financial records are going to be subpoenaed
for examination.
Our heavenly guest for these weeks is gracious, lowly of heart, and yet He is no less than
our Master and our Sovereign, to whom we owe not only loyalty, but also the right of control
over everything that we have.
Let me suggest to you a project.
I want to encourage you with your family, if you're married and have a family, I want
to encourage you to go on a walk through your home with Jesus.
Visit each room in your home and ask Him what He thinks of each of your rooms.
Let Him lay upon your heart if there is something in that room that is inconsistent with your
faith in Him.
There may be materials or objects that need to be tossed.
Could be.
Examine the objects of your family room, your bedroom, your garage, and dedicate those,
each one of them, to the use of the Lord for the work of His Kingdom.
And as you are in each room, pause for just a few seconds and see if the Lord doesn't
lay something on your heart.
David Maines suggests this to us, who is the director of the Chapel of the Air.
Let me read to you a few sentences from him.
Walk through your home and say aloud to Christ, this is your living room, Your Majesty.
Are you pleased with the way it's being used on your behalf?
Is there anything you would change?
This is your kitchen.
This is your garage.
This is your guest room.
Pause and give Him opportunity to speak in the quiet, to put His thoughts in your mind.
Maybe He will speak words of affirmation regarding the way His resources are being used.
He might challenge you to explore new means of service.
Possibly He will ask you to remove certain items that do not please Him.
Walk with Him through all that belongs to Him.
Don't skip anything that He wants to see.
Tell the Lord that everything else that you want Him to see is a resource to be used for
His glory.
The All-American commandment.
You know if there is one commandment that is made to be broken, it's that one.
At least in the context in which we have talked about it today.
David Maines further writes, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked this
question, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
Even today the cause of our Master is stymied on many fronts because servants hold their
resources in tight fists.
Stewards have forgotten whose name is on the possessions they manage.
What are we saying on this sixth Sunday of our spiritual adventure?
Very simply this, don't view what you have as basically yours.
Do view it.
View all that you have through Christ's eyes, whose it is.
Let's bow together in prayer.
My friend, will you, as you are bowed in prayer, ponder what the Spirit of God may have said
to you?
Perhaps some words have come to you this morning as affirmation and encouragement.
Perhaps there are words that have been instructive.
Perhaps you have been rebuked.
What would you like to say to the Lord?
Say it to him quietly right now.
Will you open your clenched fist and say, Jesus, what is in my hand has your name on
it.
Give me the wisdom I need to make it available for the work of your kingdom, not mine.
And Lord, there are words in that prayer that all of us need to repeat.
Make us good stewards and faithful servants so that when all of the records are examined
at the judgment seat, we may then hear, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.