At the end of your life, it will not matter whether or not you went to Mawi. What will matter is whether or not you served and shared with somebody the goodness of what God had given you. And so, consequently, at the end of your life, you may do some good in the world because everyone does good in the world, but you will not have been rich in good deeds. If you just spend it all on yourself, you’ll have missed what life was really about. Ephesians 2:10 says, This is what you were made for, for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. We started a series about three weeks ago called Rich, and here’s a quick review of where we’ve been so far, if this is your first week. The first week, we learned this, that God has blessed us with more than we need, that in definition, if that’s the definition, then we know we are in fact rich. That if we make more than $40,000 a year household income, that we’re in the top 4%. If we make more than $100,000 a year, we are in household income, we are in the 1% of all of the world that the majority of the world lives on $10 or less.
What we learned is that we don’t feel rich because the rich line just keeps on moving. So many of us have, in fact, crossed the line from not rich to rich many years ago, and we didn’t even know that we crossed it. And so whether it dawns on us or not, the point is that we need to take some time to listen what God has to say to the rich, to lean into his words, to to train us to break the cultural norms, to begin to swim upstream, and to learn how to really live fulfilled lives, as the apostle Paul says, Life that is truly life. That was week one. Last week, we learned that we should not trust in wealth, that wealth is a liar, that wealth promises things that only God can provide, that wealth promises love and security that only can come by way of the fruits of God’s spirit. That’s our last two weeks. Now you’re fully caught up. Here we go. We’re using 1 Peter 6:17, 18, and 19. So if you have a Bible and you want to turn there, you can join me there. Where Paul, this is in first Timothy, Paul is writing letters to a young minister named Timothy.
And some of the things that he says, he says to talk to people who are specifically rich and tell them these things. So here’s the line, first Timothy 6:17. Command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, we talked about that, not to put their hope in wealth, we looked at that last week, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. That’s a quick summary of lesson one and two. What did we learn? Understand that you’re rich. Number two, don’t put your trust in your riches. Now, here’s the third part, verse 18. Command them. That’s pretty strong. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and willing to share. What I have the task to do over the next 30 minutes or so is to command you. Command you to be rich in good deeds, to be generous, and to be willing to share. I’m going to command you as God instructs the young evangelist to do, to be generous and to be willing to share. The apostle Paul instructs Timothy to command his congregation of two very specific things, to do good and to be generous, to use their status and their position and their resources for the benefit not of just themselves, but for the benefit of others.
Since once we know that we are rich, Rich. The pursuit to try to get ever increasingly rich should go away and should be replaced with the pursuit of doing good in God’s world. What’s good, what’s helpful for others should be the greatest goal of our lives once we’ve realized that we have more than we need, that we are, in fact, rich. Because there’s a great trap in constantly trying to get more and more and more. Thomas Fuller says this, If your desires be endless, your cares and fears will be so too. If all you want is more, all you’ll have is more problems. Notorius B. I. G. Said it. I’m not going to say the song. This is the way it works, right? The more you pursue, the more trouble and problems you have that you get as you get your more wealth. See, we are commanded to those who have more than anyone else in the whole world, those who have more than they need, we are commanded to change our longing for more into a longing to make the world a better place, to do good for the world, to stop trying to just accumulate and start trying to use the resources God has given us to actually make the world into a place that looks a little bit more like heaven, to help build on this amazing world that God has given us.
We’re supposed to use those resources to make the world better. To continue this conviction, to help you build conviction in this, I’d like to send you to a parable in Luke 12. You could join me there if you’d like, otherwise it’ll be up on the screen. Luke 12, Jesus is teaching the multitudes. He’s speaking to a mass of people, probably 10,000 people in a field or on a mountainside. And he’s teaching them about faith and about persecution, about heaven and about hell, how to deal with religious leaders. He’s teaching them the wonders of the Kingdom of God. And as he’s talking, randomly, some person starts shouting out to get Jesus’ attention. And I want you to hear what they shout out. This is what they say. Remember, Jesus is talking about heaven and hell, about the greatness of God’s Kingdom. And here’s what the guy says in verse 13 of Luke 12, Someone in the crowd said to him, they scream out, ‘Teacher, Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. He’s thinking to himself, Hey, great. All that Kingdom of God stuff, awesome. But there’s this problem I have, which is that my brother won’t give me half of my money.
He won’t give me half of my money. And Jesus, always willing to be interrupted, responds, Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you? This man is like, Come on, man, that’s what that man’s like. ‘ Then he said to them, ‘Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. ‘ Why is he saying this? Well, because the man is interrupting a conversation about heavenly things instead to have a conversation about worldly possessions. Life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions. This man, on account of his His own selfishness, his own greed, he wants his inheritance to be clarified. He needs a lawyer. He needs someone to do wills and trusts. By the way, Lil Bailey does this. I think Rafa Dias does this as well. There you go, if you need wills and trusts. He says, Hey, would you help me deal with this serious matter? And Jesus is saying, There’s a serious matter that’s above this serious matter, and you’re thinking about your temporary possessions. You’re caught up in materialism. Life about things. And so he uses this to roll into a story. And he gives this parable.
This is Luke 12:16. He’s like, Okay, fine. The grounds of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, what should I do I have no place to store my crop. Abundant here means more than normal. You could think of it like this. He has 100 units of crop per year. This year, for whatever reason, he got 200 units of crops. In essence, he had a raise. He has enough now. Rather, he had enough last year. He was rich, and now he’s feeling he got a little raise. You know this feeling, right? Wow, all of a sudden, you get an inheritance. You get a little extra money. You get a raise. And so in the story, the man has more than he needs, and so he has this question. The question is simply this, what should I do with the extra? That’s the question. Jesus setting up this story. Hey, tell my brother to divide the inheritance. Don’t worry about the abundance of your possessions. That’s not what life is about. So let me tell you a story. A man has a field. It’s yielded double the number of crops it had last year.
And so he’s asking the question to himself, what do I do with the extra? Here’s a question for you. What would you do if you had a little extra? If I said to you, hey, I have a thousand dollars for you. Here it is. What would you do with a little bit more? And interestingly enough, this guy, this rich guy, does what a lot of us would do. Then he said, this is what I’ll do. I’ll I’ll carry down my barn and build bigger ones. And there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy. Eat, drink, and be merry. And all of are like, yes. That’s our retirement plan. Who doesn’t want to eat, take life easy, to eat, drink, and to be married? That’s what some of us are shooting for. That’s the destination of our lives. That’s the American dream. I get a little extra. I’m going to put it away. You weren’t expecting that tax return. It came bigger than you thought. Whoa. You weren’t expecting that inheritance. I’m going to eat, drink, and be married.
I got a new car in my future. I got a new computer. I’m going to take a trip around the world. What should I do? This guy doesn’t even do any of those things. He doesn’t blow it. He saves it. That’s wisdom. That seems responsible. Save it up. Put it away. Don’t even buy anything new. Just store it away for another day. This man is a hero. And then things take a morbid turn. But God said to him, You fool. This very night, your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? Suddenly the guy dies, and what’s the lesson? Well, life doesn’t consist in the abundance of your possessions. So he thought that he would find real happiness when he accumulated a lot. But he, on reaching the climax of his acquisitions, was unexpectedly snatched away by death. His life was snatched from him. And then God simply says, You are foolish. Then he says this, This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God. Now, before you start thinking to yourself, if I have a 401k, does that mean I’m in danger of death?
I want to encourage you that that is not the point. That’s not the point here. It’s that you are rich, and you start thinking to yourself, if I have more, I should use it on myself. And what Jesus is saying is that this is the destiny of the greedy. This is the destiny of the selfish. This is the destiny of all who are rich towards themselves, but not rich towards God. And it’s not that God will kill them. That’s not what Jesus is saying. It’s that there will be a time when we discover the foolishness of selfishness. That’s what it’s saying. He’s saying, there will be a time when you start up so much and you’ll look back and you’ll say, oh, no. What did I do? I spent it all on myself and I was not rich towards God, and I wasted everything God had given me. See, Jesus is ushering a brand new paradigm that any time we find ourselves with more than we need, we will be tempted, like everyone in the world, to use it for our own consumption. But scriptures are trying to tell you there’s a better way, there’s a new way.
And if you overlay Jesus’s teachings with the apostle’s teachings, you actually come up with the potential pitfall, which is this, that the rich are tempted to store away all of their wealth for themselves. But instead, they’re actually supposed to do something else. They’re supposed to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. By the way, this is huge. In the world… There it is. The world is trying to tell you something very simple. Everything you get is for you. That’s what it’s trying to tell you again and again and again and again. And what God is trying to communicate is that everything you get, there should be a mindset where you’re thinking, how can I then be rich in good deeds, generous and willing to share. How do I leverage my extra for the sake of someone else? Tell rich people not to just store it up. You’ve hit retirement. You don’t need that much for retirement. Don’t just keep storing it away and keep storing it away and keep storing it away. Are you using it to be rich towards someone else? Because here’s the thing that rich people have that most of the world doesn’t have.
Rich people have extra. It doesn’t You don’t always feel like you have extra, but you have extra. You have extra time. You have extra time. I know you don’t feel like you have extra time, but you do. Let me tell you how I know you have extra time. Most of you get Saturdays and Sundays off. That’s unheard of in a developing world. Most of you have vacation days. Think about trying to explain vacation days to a rural farmer in Indonesia. I get paid to be here, to to visit you. Wait, what? Yeah, my company gives me three weeks, four weeks off, two weeks off. Sometimes I get summers off. And the guy would be like, Wait, you don’t work? No, no, no. That’s just part of my package. So I don’t work, and I get money for not working. Rich people have extra time. But the interesting thing is, even though you have extra time, statistically, everything I’ve ever read said that people in the developed nations and developed world use less time serving than anyone else around the world. Do you know percentage-wise who serves more? Americans or Brazilians? Americans serve half on average as much as Brazilians serve.
Isn’t that crazy? They make way less than you make, and they serve way more than you serve. And that’s because rich people have options with their time. We can always make a bigger barn, right? We can go to the ball game. We can do something else. We have all this extra time. We can go to a movie. We can go out to eat. We can take our kids for a long weekend. We can use our vacation points. We have air miles, and we can take a cruise, and we can go fishing, and we can go to a party, and we can go to a vacation home, or we can rent a vacation home on Airbnb. We’re so rich in options. We have so many things that we can do. So every time there’s a little bit extra, what we do is we think, Well, how could I spend my little bit extra on myself? Because we have so many options. How How can I joy all of the things that I’ve been given, all that extra time on myself? On a little bit of extra joy, a little bit of extra comfort. How can I use the extra on me?
I have an extra day, so I’ll watch the show, I’ll go to the beach. I’ll go on vacation. And at the end of the year, or like end of two years, or the end of your lifetime, what will end up happening is that you will have been rich towards yourself, but not rich in good deeds. You to use all your extra to build up more barns. And what will end up happening is at the end of your life, the foolishness of those decisions will be on full display. Because the only legacy that really matters is whether or not you did good to the people in this world. A year ago or so, Nina Barro, our dear Nina Barro, passed away. And we had a funeral for her right here in this building. And in that funeral, no one mentioned the car she drove. Not a single person was like, You know a car Nina drove? No one mentioned her nice house or the vacations that she went on. No one mentioned any of that. You know what they mentioned? Everyone got up on stage and said, You know what? I was a poor single mom, and she told me that I could live with her.
You know what? I had three kids, and they adopted all those kids. You know what? I took care of the poor. You know what? I saw her do care for people who were struggling every single day. At the end of your life, it will not matter whether or not you went to Maui. What will matter is whether or not you served and shared with somebody the goodness of what God I’ve given you. And so, consequently, at the end of your life, you may do some good in the world because everyone does good in the world, but you won’t have been rich in good deeds. If you just spend it all on yourself, you’ll have missed what life was really about. Ephesians verse 10 says, This is what you were made for, for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. What’s interesting to me is you go to the movies, and you go to a show, and you spend money on a concert, and afterwards you’ll think, That was okay. I went to that restaurant, it was all right. You go on vacation, you’ll think, Last time, that was a little bit better.
We all do this. We go to the hotel and we think it was okay. But you spend half a day serving somebody, or you go on a short term mission trip, or you slot a little bit of your schedule to study the Bible with somebody, or you meet someone’s need, or you help somebody move, or you clean up the city, or you serve the poor. You never come back thinking, That was a waste of time. Why? Because you were created to do good works. And it’s a lie from Satan to tell you you were created to take care of yourself. It’s a lie. It brings no fulfillment. You know what brings fulfillment? Serving someone else. You have people who come back from the trip that we go to Bolivia every year, and they describe their time. They’re like, We were in El Alto. It was 11,000 feet in the air. I couldn’t breathe. I slept on the floor. I was so tired. My back hurt. Oh, man, I had to wake up early, and we went to bed late. You should come next time. That’s the way they describe it. They’re not like, Oh, it was okay.
They’re like, I suffered, and it was amazing. I suffered, and it was awesome because I served someone else. Yesterday, we had people come out to the barn over there to do some work. They spent all day lifting things. They were sweating and gross. The whole Florida Memorial University basketball team was out there. It was awesome. Yeah, the whole team. Thank you, Coach. Yeah, for bringing them. Coach is for bringing them. The whole team was out there. And I’m grateful that the coaches taught them the value of service. And they were like, let’s come back next week or whatever. And they were exhausted. But that’s how to be rich. That’s how to be rich. You learn to do good, to be rich in good deeds. And then the second part, what does it say here? And to be generous and willing to serve. As if the first part wasn’t convincing enough, he says, Tell those people who are rich to be generous, not just with their time, but with their money as well. And you know what’s interesting? The same thing is true of our money that’s true for our time. Not only are we We are rich in options when it comes to time, but we are rich in options when it comes to how to spend the money that we have.
Without ever thinking about it, we all get up in the morning and the culture says, spend every bit of extra money you have on something else, on an upgrade to something nicer. America has built a culture that is designed around taking the money that God has given you and just spending it in a moment to upgrade into something better. This is the way buying works. Here you go. I want to show you some glasses. You ready? This is a pair of glasses from Amazon. They are $9.69. Nobody here wants those glasses. They’re trash. This is a pair of glasses from Ray band. They are the same glasses, but instead, they cost $99.99. They’re the same thing. They’re polarized. I found out they were made from the in the same factory. I’m not even kidding. We’re being duped. No, but I don’t do that. I do Marc Jacobs or better or whatever. Fine. Here’s a pair of glasses that are the same for 359 They made in the same factory. I’m not even joking. They’re the same thing. You’re duped. Okay, fine. Those glasses aren’t nice enough because I like nicer things. Fine. $4,250. I’m not even kidding.
These are made of solid gold. Why do you need glasses made of solid gold? The world will never know. Same company, $4,500. $4,000. Why are the first ones not good enough? Why not? Because we in America like finer things, which is such a stupid sentence. You realize that your like for finer things only happens when you have more money to spend? That’s the way it works. When you get a little money, like, Oh, I like nicer things. This is terrible. And this is a lie from Satan. I’m sorry, I didn’t get off this horse. I just think it’s insane. It’s insane. We upgrade and we upgrade and we upgrade and we buy nicer and nicer and nicer and nicer. And what America is trying to do is just take every dollar that God has made you a steward of and make you spend a little bit more. You know how nuts it’s gotten? People buy video game clothing. I want you to think about this sentence. People play video games. This is a billion dollar industry, and they buy clothes for their video game characters. Think of the insanity of this. If you’re trying to explain this to a person in developing world, Yeah, I’m so rich, I buy clothing for the fake version of myself on a video game.
You do what? Yeah, I use the money God has given me to buy clothing And also sometimes I buy dance moves on a video game character that is not me. I use the extra money to buy clothes and dance moves for a character I pretend to be when I have a little bit of extra money. This is insane. Rich people have so many options. I would like to cut this the Lord of the sermon and just send it to someone in Africa. They won’t even understand what we’re saying. How can you understand this? Because this is the problem is we are so materialistic, and I’m in this too, man, that there’s always something else to buy. There’s always another place to live. There’s always a new tool to purchase. There’s always another car to buy. There’s always another pair of shoes. There’s always a nicer brand. There’s always nicer clothing. There’s always another home remodel to have. And it’s always we need something. We need it, and we need it, and we need it, and we need it, and we need it. See, what happens is you start making money, and you have a little extra, and you wonder, where else could I consume the money that I made for myself?
I don’t want the $9 glasses anymore. I’m beyond that. I don’t want the $100 glasses anymore. I’m beyond that. I need the $400 glasses. I need something nicer. And what Paul is saying is simply this, that’s not how to be rich. That’s how to be selfish. That’s how to be materialistic. I want you to learn to be rich. Which means I want you to develop a lifestyle of generosity. Because you know this, and I know this, materialism doesn’t bring you joy. You felt this? I’ve been caught up in this. The only thing that really brings you joy is using what God has given you to help someone else. Jesus says, It is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and you have felt that. And every study we see, sees that people are more fulfilled when they give of their time, when they give of their money, the when we use it on themselves. You think the more you have, the more that you give, but that is just not true. The more you have, you think, God, if I just got a little raise, then I’d start giving. That’s not true, because it’s easier to give $1 out of $10,000, than it is to give $10,000 out of $100,000.
What ends up happening is along the way, you just think that it’s all for you. And by the way, I just… I mean, come on. Like, This is not a punishment. This is about freedom. Learn to give, man. Learn to out give. Extend yourself. Get creative about your giving. I mean, how many times have you sat around your house with a pen and paper trying to calculate how to afford something you can’t afford? You said that you’re like, if we just don’t go to Starbucks for the next three months, then we’ll afford it. You know what I’m saying? We’ll just cut off our air condition from 9:00 AM to 11:15. It’s not that cold anyway at that time. Hot anyway. I’ll be fine. And then I’ll afford it because that’s our peak hours. I wonder, have you ever extended that much energy to try to figure out how to give more. My assumption is that for most of us, we have not. You know why? Because we have learned to be selfish and not learned to be rich. And you’re thinking to yourself, Man, I’m so glad I came to church. It’s raining, I can’t leave, and he still gets to talk to me.
But I just want to remind you this is my biblical mandate. Command them who are rich to do good deeds and to be rich in generosity. Tell them not to ramp up their lifestyle as their income increases, but instead, ramp up their generosity as their income increases. Now, let me tell you how I think this has to work in a real way. I’m going to give you a practical. Because this is really hard. And I know it’s hard for everybody. It’s hard for me, too, because nobody feels like they have extra time, and nobody feels like they have extra money, and nobody feels like they have margin. And so this is a way to practically go about doing this. And by the way, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or make you feel full of shame. That’s not my goal here. No one has ever changed because they felt shame. No one does that. You change when you feel like freedom is ahead of you. And I’m trying to give you freedom. This is about breaking through the worldly point of view the world has to offer and trying to give you something better.
So here’s a springboard. How do we get these eternal practices in your life? We’ve shared this verse so many times in this church, but here it is again. This is from the NLT. Generous people plan to do what is generous. The word generous here is translated generous in the NLT, but it’s translated noble in the NIV. By the way, the meaning is basically the same. It’s talking about how people use resources. So what is the idea? You and I predeside to give some away. You have to plan to be generous. Because the natural tendency is to be spontaneous in your service, spontaneous in your giving. Someone needs a little help. I’ll help for an hour here. I’ll help for an hour here. Someone needs a little money. I’ll give them 50 bucks or whatever. But the idea It is if you want to be generous, you have to pre-decide to be generous. And then you live with the leftovers, the leftovers of your time and the leftovers of your money. By the way, who are the leftovers for? If we’re talking about food, who are the leftovers for? They’re for you. They’re for me. They’re not for our guests.
They’re not for people of honor. If the governor or the President came to your house and you were going to feed them dinner, would you be like, go in the fridge. There’s an extra pizza from two days ago. No, you don’t give leftovers to people that matter. Leftovers are for you. You’re like, Honey, what’s for lunch? I don’t know. Check in the fridge. Is that meat? I’m not sure what that is. Those are for you. The leftovers are for you. You give away your best. This is why they’re called the first fruits. You give away your best. And so you need to pre-decide. All right, I have this amount that I’m going to give of my time, this amount that I’m going to give of the money God has given me, and then I will live on the leftovers. I’m telling us here today, if we want to take this seriously, you have to decide. And I’m talking about this seriously. You have to decide to get to work and do some budgeting. Talk to your family. Talk to the people who live in your household. Otherwise, you’ve missed the whole point. Plan to be generous.
Look at your calendar and go, okay, when can I give up a week of my time to serve somebody? When can I give up a day to serve somebody? I highly recommend that you find an organization or two that you choose to serve. Don’t be random about your service. You can serve the church, certainly. We need people in Kingdom Kids. You can say, look, I decide every single week to walk into the back over there and to serve children. Come on, you’re a hero. Let’s go. I decide every week to stand in the rain and help people park. That’s awesome. I decide to mow the grass, whatever. I decide to serve the port. Do something, pick something and do it regularly and keep the leftovers for yourself. The reason this church works is because we have people who have pre-decided to serve. Imagine if they randomly started serving. Imagine on Sunday morning, if I didn’t know who was coming in. Who’s coming in? Oh, no one’s doing sound? They have decided for months in advance to serve because they are rich. They know what they’re doing. They’re rich. I’m talking too much about this. Let me move on.
I would encourage you to find a couple of organizations to give money to. To give money to. I think giving money to your local church is biblical, but if you don’t want to do that, that’s okay. I think you can give to Hope Worldwide, or you can give to four kids. Give some money away. It’s a freeing exercise realizing, because otherwise, you realize that the money has your heart. And if you’re not strategic, what’s going to end up happening is you’re going to look back 10 years later and you’re going to say, well, I had some great vacations. I had some medium vacations. I use my money on good investments and bad investments. And then you’ll look back and you’ll say, wow, how foolish I was to not give my time and not give my money on things that really mattered. That’s what we’re talking about today. If you’re thinking about being generous and how to do that, I want to encourage you to find a percentage to give. Pick a percentage. I’m going to start with 5 %. I’m going to start with 6 %. I’m going to start with the Old Testament baseline of tithing, giving 10 %.
I’m going to do that. I’m going to choose to give of my money, and I’m not going to change my percentage because I got a little in debt and I spent a little bit on a vacation. I’m going to give before I spend any of the money on myself. And you do it week after week and month after month and year after year, and you realize you learn to be rich because you gave it away to someone else to do good things with what God has given you. I think this, to be rich, you want to be rich in a way that honors God and his vision for the world. That’s the encouragement. You have some. So come on. You can do a little bit more. You can give a little bit more. Stop buying into the dream that America has given you. That going on buying another car is what’s going to make you really happy. It’s not. Ask someone who recently bought a car. That buying a house is going to make you happy. Buying a bigger house is not going to make you happy. Buying nicer things isn’t going to make you happy.
What’s going to make you fulfilled in life is doing what you were called to do. And that’s being rich in good deeds, being generous and willing to share. Amen? Amen.