Text – 1 Timothy 6:3-10, 17-19

Which of the following is the odd one out?  Faith, doctrine, Scripture, gospel, salvation, money.  None of them!

Money is a spiritual issue

Martin Luther observed that “there are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, of the mind and of the purse.”

Consider the story of Zacchaeus, Luke 19.  As a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus would have been very wealthy.  When he encounters Jesus, his response is, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus’ reply? – “Today salvation has come to this household.”

Whole swathes of Scripture are devoted to the subject of money.  Proverbs, Acts, James, Paul’s 2^nd Letter to the Corinthians and his 1^st Letter to Timothy.  Something like 20% of the teaching of Jesus is about some aspect of money.

Our Bible passage urges two attitudes with regards to money: contentment and generosity.

1. Be contented, 3-10

Some people are never contented.  Ask such a person, rich or poor, how much money they need, and the answer will always be the same: ‘Just a little more’.

But Paul says, v8 – ‘If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.’

Paul himself was no stranger to this attitude. Phil 4:11 – ‘I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation’.

What does biblical contentment look like?

(a) Rejoicing in God’s good gifts

We are not joyless ascetics, but take pleasure in all the good things that flow from God, who ‘richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.’ (6:17)

The things that give us the most pleasure are often not the things that cost the most money.  Who has not seen the child opening an expensive gift at Christmas, then spending untold hours playing with the box it came in?

(b) Being satisfied with enough

Bishop John Taylor put it like this: ‘Our enemy is not possessions but excess.  Out battle-cry is not “nothing” but “enough”!’  Epicurus said: “To whom little is not enough nothing is enough. Give me a barley cake and a glass of water and I am ready to rival Zeus for happiness.” And when someone asked him for the secret of happiness, his answer was: “Add not to a man’s possessions but take away from his desires.”

(c) Learning to live simply

Contentment frees us up to travel lightly.  Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle (1980):- ‘We resolve to renounce waste and oppose extravagance in personal living, clothing and housing, travel and church buildings. We also accept the distinction between necessities and luxuries, creative hobbies and empty status symbols, modesty and vanity, occasional celebrations and normal routine, and between the service of God and slavery to fashion.’

To live simply means to be free of distractions, in order to love and serve God and others.

What will our prayer be?  ‘Lord, change my circumstances, give me more?’, or, ‘Lord, change me, make me content with less.’

The first principle arising from our passage, then, is that of contentment.  And this leads to the second, the principle of generosity.

2. Be generous, 17-19

Paul’s teaching on contentment was directed in the first place towards those who have enough.  His teaching on generosity, on the other hand, addresses those who have more than enough.  And that includes most of us.

The rich are not commanded to become poor, but, curiously enough, to become even richer: to add to their present wealth another kind of wealth.  ‘Command those who are rich in the present world…to be rich in good deeds…command them to be generous and willing to share.’ 17f.

What does biblical generosity look like?

(a) Keeping a loose hold on possessions

Contrast: Get all you can…can all you get…and sit on the lid.

The apostle alludes to the fleeting nature of wealth when he says, v7, ‘we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.’

As someone put it: They say that money talks; but the only thing it ever said to me was, “Goodbye”!’

But that doesn’t stop people wanting more.  So Paul issues a stern warning in 6:9f: ‘The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.’

Jesus famously warned in Mt 6:24 that ‘you cannot serve God and Money’.  Money can all too usurp the place of God in our lives.  It has been said that money is some people’s trinity: money is their creator – ‘my money made me what I am today’.  Money is their saviour: ‘if I get into trouble then I’ll hire the best lawyer that money can buy’.  Money is their comforter – ‘tired?  stressed-out? – nothing that a bit of retail therapy can’t put right’.

Either we master money, or money will master us.

Do we see ourselves as owners, or stewards?

If we think of ourselves as owners, we ask: ‘How much of my money can I spare for God?

But if we understand ourselves to be stewards, the question becomes: ‘How much of God’s money do I need to keep for myself?’

(b) Giving proportionately

1 Cor 16:2 ‘Each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income’.

I am not convinced that the OT law of tithing is binding on Christians. If you think differently, then God bless you.  But you ought to know that the OT actually laid down a triple tithe: 10% to temple, priests, Levites; 10% for annual festivals; 3.3% for the poor. As far as I can see, the NT does not express giving in terms of an exact percentage. It expresses it rather in terms of gratitude and generosity. And this is not less, but more, demanding, because it reaches deeply into our hearts, testing our attitudes and motives.

We cannot be equals in the amount of money we give to God’s work.  But, whether we are children, young people, singles, married with children, or retired, we can be equals in this matter of proportionate giving.  More than equals, in fact, as from hearts overflowing with gratitude we seek to ‘excel in this grace of giving’ (2 Cor 8:7).

(c) Giving joyfully

‘God loves a cheerful giver’, 2 Cor 9:7.  I might point out that the Greek word for ‘cheerful’ is the source of our word ‘hilarious’.  But if I did so, you would rightly accuse me of committing an exegetical fallacy.  But I’m not cheating when I tell you that ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’, for Jesus himself said so (Acts 20:35).

The person who gives joyfully gives more than money.  Of the unbounding generosity of the Macedonian church, Paul says in 2 Cor 8:5, ‘first they gave themselves’.

When ambushed by the love of Jesus, the demand can never be other than, ‘your money and your life.’

There are people this congregation who give from the heart, joyfully, out of love.

Conclusion

I began with an odd-one-out question.  Let me finish with an arithmetic question.  What do you get if you add godliness and contentment together?  V6 – great gain.

If this seems upside down to you, don’t be surprised.  In so many ways, when we follow Jesus the values and expectations of the world are turned on their head.  Didn’t our Lord himself teach that by losing our life we find it; by dying we live, by denying ourselves we discover ourselves, by taking up our cross daily we find resurrection life, and by giving we receive?

And in this way we discover the truth of what the apostle says in v19, that we are laying up ‘treasure for ourselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that we may take hold of the life that is truly life.’

‘O Lord, giver of life and source of freedom, we know that all we have received is from your hand. Gracious and loving God, you call us to be stewards of your abundance, caretakers of all you have entrusted to us. May we always use your gifts wisely and share them generously.  Amen.’