1 Timothy for the life of..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Okay, so we are back in the book of 1st Timothy, so if you'd like to open your Bibles there and get ready, our Bible reading this evening will be from verses 17 through 19. From 17 through 19, now before we read that passage, I want to just let you know that, by the grace of God, we'll be having Bible studies for the next two weeks.

So this week and the next week and then after that we'll be on a break. So we'll be on a break for four weeks and then we'll resume back after four weeks. By God's grace, but if you can't remember when that will happen, that's fine. We'll let you know from the church when that resumption will take place. So this week, next week, we'll be on a break for four weeks, and then four weeks time, we will come back and resume a brand new, exciting study.

We would love for you guys, for everyone to pray for us, because both Nelson and I will be engaged in some study in a new topic, that the Lord will bless our study and enlighten our hearts so that he can prepare our hearts and our minds so that when we deliver the message, it will be true and faithful teaching to the word of God. So if we can open our Bibles to 1 Timothy, and our reading this evening is only a short one, and it's from verse 17, and we'll be reading through 19. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Amen.

This is the word of the Lord. Now we almost come to the end of our study of the book of 1 Timothy. We've been engaging for several months in this wonderful book and I think we can all agree that 1 Timothy, the letter of Paul to young Timothy, the pastor, the overseer of the church in Ephesus, has been a tremendously practical book for the life of our church. We've seen so many areas that are replicable, actually everything that we've spoken of, I believe is applicable, as applicable as it was to the church in Ephesus 2,000 years ago, or thereabouts, as it is for us. Of course, the context may be different, but the applications and the principles are the same, and this evening it's not going to be any different.

Because from verses 17 through 19, the Apostle Paul opens up a brand new topic. And that topic is really relevant to every Christian in the body of Christ. It's the topic of stewardship. That is, how in particular, we as the children of God, the body of Christ, how we steward the things that God has given us, and in particular to this passage, is how we steward money, or the possessions that money buys. You see, the heart of the matter is that every Christian must come to realise a proper understanding or a proper biblical understanding of biblical stewardship, how we should relate with money, how we ought to relate with the possessions of the world.

This is so important that we know. And if we're really honest, most Christians around the world, they don't really like to talk about this or hear these things because the topic of money can be very But it's spoken of throughout the scripture. Our Lord spoke of money. We'll find this out this evening. On several occasions, Paul speaks of this topic here.

So it would be wise for us to take the time, open our hearts and our minds, and ask that the Lord illuminate these words to our hearts so that we would know. We would know how to deal with money, with possessions, with the gifts that God's given us. But really the essence of what we're going to go through here this evening, it's not so much how much money we have or how many possessions we have. It's not really about that at all. It's more about the attitude of our hearts towards these things.

How deeply is our heart captured by the material things of the world? What is our attitude to the things that we have, to the money that we have, the resources, the possessions, the things that money buy? What is our attitude towards these things? That's really at the essence of what we have before us. Now, there's a lot of wisdom in what our Lord has said in the gospel.

And he said, where one's treasure is, that is where his heart is also. You see, where one's heart is, that's where his loyalty is also. So the topic this evening is critical for every Christian because in essence the affections and the dispositions of our hearts, your hearts and mine, is going to show whether we are loyal to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or to something else? You see, it's a lordship issue. It is in essence, we need to ask ourselves the question, who is our Lord?

Is it Christ or is it someone or something else? really that's the question we need to be asking, the overarching question, as we go through and meditate and consider these three verses before us. Now it's interesting that this is actually a new section. Paul starts a new section so close towards the end of the of the passage of the of the chapter of the book because after verse 16 where he says amen he begins this session by addressing it to a particular people in the church in Ephesus and these people are the rich in this present age That's who Paul addressed. So he's basically addressing this section to Timothy and he's addressing the people who are in the church of Ephesus, the Christians, who are rich in this present age, those who are wealthier, those who have means by the world's standards, material possessions to their name.

And these are the people Paul is referring. Now, we could quite easily read this and make an overarching assessment through maybe a superficial assessment of our lives and say, well, I've just thought about my possessions. I'm not really rich. Therefore, how relevant is this? This may not apply to me because I'm not rich by the world standards.

Beloved, I really want to challenge that thinking. Because the world we live in, and the culture, and the advertising, and the media, has cluttered our minds, even as Christians, to be able to understand what richness is, and what being poor, and what middle class is. It's just such a mess, it's a fog in our minds, because of the society we live in. Many articles we read, many magazines, many of these things that speak about the world and money have had an influence on the minds of those who have read them, even the minds of Christians. And one such article I want to bring your attention to is one that was written in 2017.

It was written by a reputable magazine, and the intent of the article was in particular to bring to light At what point does one go from being middle class to being deemed as rich? Where do you draw that line of distinction? Now it is subjective and they said that themselves because they even said in this article that in particular there is a particular number, they called it the happy number and this number is linked to one's happiness. And not only linked to one's happiness, but it's what determines if one is rich or not. That number is an amount of money that one ought to have in order to be deemed as rich in this world.

Now, to give you an indication, it is an American article. In New York City, a family who lives in New York City, they said that magic number or the happy number is $100 million. Now, one, in other words, one, a family who lives in that city would need to have $100 million as a net worth to their name in order for them to be deemed as rich. Now, you may think that's far-fetched, and so do I. They're huge astronomical numbers.

So let's bring it closer to home. Because only a few months later in another article in here, in Australia, which collected a survey, a results of a survey, they came up with a happy number also here in Australia. And that number was $5.3 million. Beloved, what that means is that unless here, unless one has $5.

3 million sitting in the bank account, and by the way, that's after paying off your home and paying off all your debts, If you have anything less than that, then you may not be deemed as rich. You'd still be middle class. Beloved, this really goes to show how greedy our society has become. Like, if you have a million, or two, or three in the bank, you're not rich. You need to have 5.

3 million and all your debt's paid off. This sort of thinking, the culture, has played with our minds even as Christians and influenced our hearts in a degree to think that riches is way up there and none of us are there. But beloved, this evening I want to appeal to you that we are living in the most wealthiest time in human history. The world has never seen such wealth as we're experiencing in the 21st century. And the truth of the matter, when we think about it, it is most likely or very likely that every single person here is deemed as rich in the first century.

Every one of us. When we consider the size of our homes, when we consider that we have cars and we have pantries full of food, When we consider that we get running water, clean running water that we can just drink out of a tap. And I don't, to the best of my knowledge, think that there are any among us who work 80 hour weeks just to put food on the table. Beloved, what Paul writes in this section when he addresses to those who are rich or the rich among the people in Ephesus, their words to us, to our hearts, because we are indeed in that rich. category.

And so we need to remember that. We need to remember that when we read about brothers and sisters in particular when we read a text of scripture and we look back at the text and speaks of those who have money or those who are well to do, we need to remember that wait a minute, we may be in that category ourselves. It's a blessing, but it carries with it a great responsibility also. So what does Paul start with? He starts with saying to those who are rich among you, Charge them.

That means command them not to be haughty. Now, that word haughty is used throughout the New and the Old Testament, and the terminology really means to look down upon. You can say it in this in another way. You can say Paul is saying, charge them not to be proud. Charge them not to be conceited.

Charge them not to think too highly of themselves. You think, I'm thinking, why does Paul start there? Well, it's because of this reason, I believe. It's the natural inclination of the heart to be self-centered. And it's the natural inclination to be that way, but how much more?

Is there a temptation to be self-centered, to be proud and to look down on others when one has received or achieved success in the world or as the world would determine success? And we see that in society. We see that, and of course, I'm not implying or broad brushing and saying that everyone is this way, but the temptation is greater. That if you have a lot of possessions, if you have a lot of money, then the temptation is that we may start to think that this is because of us. And it creates in us what's already there, the selfishness, the pride, the haughtiness, and we become even more so when we look down upon people and say, he doesn't quite have as much as me, he's not as rich as me, my house is bigger, my car is better.

All these thoughts may actually come to our mind and we may actually end up looking down upon people because this is the way that society has painted for us. what success is and unfortunately these days what the worth of man is in the possessions that he has. Even for Christians, success has a way of making its way into our hearts. We start to think that our accomplishments are something to be proud about. And it takes our hearts to unhealthy limits.

One begins to believe that if I'm richer and more successful, then it means that I'm smarter. It means that I'm wiser, I'm more diligent, I worked harder, I'm more innovative than the next person. Can you see how we begin to elevate oneself and then see others beneath us? And this is a danger because a heart that is unchecked and untamed in pride, in pride, will look down on others continually. And Paul is saying to Timothy, you charge these men not to do that.

Because just because their bank accounts are greater and their possessions are larger, it gives no one the right to think that they are more important or more significant than anyone else. That's not how you determine the value of a person. And there's no place for pride in the Church of Jesus Christ. We all know that Jesus, our Lord, had it all. yet he exemplified humility in his condescension and that humility is the humility that we ought to also exemplify by laying down our lives for others no matter what we have we ought to be stamping that as a virtue of ours laying down our lives for others seeking by the power of the Holy Spirit that he would through us through us, the power of the Holy Spirit would use us so that we can use our possessions and our resources and whatever he's given us for his own glory.

And so every member of the body of Christ needed to be thinking about these things, because these are unnatural. It's unnatural to be humble. It's more natural or it's completely natural to be proud. It's more natural for the things we have and the accomplishments that we've achieved to root in our heart, make us more proud and haughty and look down on people. That's the natural thing.

And it takes continual checking. and continual prayer and continual reading and meditation upon God's Word and continual heart searching to see whether there are any roots of pride in us. And if there are, we need to submit those before the Lord and then take action. But there is something else that we need to be careful of. Because as we know, as Christians, that we ought not to be proud.

We know that the Bible teaches us that the Lord opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. So we know that, but there is a risk of Christians having in their heart what they call false humility. That is, that we know that we ought not to be proud, but somehow we are still proud in our hearts. We're still haughty in our hearts, but we say the right thing so we don't come across that way. We do the right actions, but really in our heart we are elevating ourselves.

We need to make sure that that is not something that is found in us. We need to make sure that we understand that all good gifts, as James says in James 1, that all good gifts are from the hands of our Heavenly Father. But in reality, we ought to also give Him the credit for these things. See, it's one thing to say it and to believe it with our minds, but it's another to actually live it out. Because if we say these things, but yet in our hearts, we're still thinking.

But I worked hard for that. I made that money. It's mine. I have the right to it. I made all the right decisions.

I'm the one who made all the sacrifices to get what I have. I have what I have because I've worked really, really hard for it. If that's where he ends, then we're at risk. Because beloved, as I said earlier, you can have a good theology. You can know that God deserves all the credit.

You can know that we ought to be humble before him because all good gifts are from him. There's nothing that we own that he hasn't given us. Nothing. We can have that in our minds. But if our actions don't demonstrate these things, then it's not held in our hearts.

It's held only in our minds and it's superficial. But we need to understand that it's God who gives all good gifts. He's the one also who gives life and health and the ability to make wealth. And we, whatever we have in our possession, beloved, whatever we have, including our own bodies, we are stewards of. It belongs to Him.

And we are but given a few moments, a mist as James says, in this lifetime to steward the things that God has given us, to take care of the things that God has given us. And we ought to be faithful in doing that. and do it right. Not to have the I earned it attitude that as though I've worked hard, I deserve everything I have, but rather if you have worked hard and you ought because we ought to be hard workers. Whatever we do we should do unto the Lord and unto his glory.

Yes, we need to be diligent. Yes, we need to have a good work ethic. However, we need to give credit where credit is due. We need to give God the credit for everything. Everything.

And recognize that in our thinking as well in our heart to act upon it. See, we can't think of these things without thinking about the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. You remember that parable? Let me read you a few verses and then you'll be able to see what I'm saying. Luke 12, and I'll read from verse 16.

And he, that is Christ, told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man produced plentiful. And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store all my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones.

And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, this guy speaks to himself, so you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. God said to him. full that night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared whose will they be so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God and that leads us to Paul's second point The second point is this, don't set your hopes on the uncertainty of riches.

Firstly, tell them and charge the rich among you not to be proud, not to be haughty, not to look down on people, not to be conceited and think highly of themselves. Secondly, he says, don't put your hope, don't put your trust in the uncertainty of riches. You see, an improper understanding A proper biblical understanding of biblical stewardship or an understanding of money and work and what God has given us in the way of earthly possession will naturally cause us to place our hope in those things. That is the natural inclination that we place our hope in the gift rather than the one who gives, the giver. Did you get what the foolish man said?

Listen to what he said. He said, speaking to himself, he said, so you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry. You see the sin of presumption. This man presumed that because he's had a bumper crop, a crop that has given so much in the way of harvest, that now once he fills those barns, that he can sit back and say, because of those barns, they're all full, I have enough to get me into retirement. I have enough to eat and drink and be merry.

I rely on no one else. And then the Lord said to him that night, fool, tonight your life is going to be taken. To whom will all this be left? You see, his hope was on the things of the world. And he didn't give credit to where credit is due.

Had he have understood, had he have had a biblical understanding of stewardship, a biblical understanding of money, he would recognize that all things belong to God. The nothing he has, he has because of his own efforts purely. It is God that gives him breath. It is God that makes his heart beat. It's the God that gives all things.

And that night, that same God says, to hear and no more. I've given you breath, but now I'm taking that away. And he called him. He called him into eternity. And this man's heart was on something that was shaky, rocky, shaky ground, because his heart was set, his hope was set on the uncertainty of riches.

And in that night, just like that, all his dreams, all his hopes were shattered, just like that. You see, for you and I, We don't have barn yards or barn sheds full of wheat. So that's not where our hope lies. But we do have bank accounts. We have homes.

We have possessions. We have jobs. We have many things that we could be placing our hearts, our hope upon. But beloved, just like this man passed away just like that, and everything he ever worked for became nothing, the same can be said of us. Not only is the uncertainty of the riches uncertain, not only are they temporal in nature, they can be lost in our life just like that, or our lives could come to an end and we know that we can take nothing with us.

Nothing materially can we take with us into eternity. We've all witnessed people that we've known of or we've read about who've had a multitude of richness. We've known of multi-millionaires or billionaires who have had their hope and their trust and their ambitions and their goals all set on things, the money, the things and the possessions they can buy, the buildings, the homes, the investments, the share portfolios. We know of people like that who, in a matter of days, gone from that height to being completely bankrupt. The list is massive, beloved.

It could happen to anyone. And I really love the way that Proverbs 23 explains this point exactly. Listen to how it says, in Proverbs 23 verses 4 and 5, listen to what is written. It says, do not toil to acquire wealth. But be discerning enough to resist that temptation.

When your eyes light on it, when your eyes see this world, it's gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle towards heaven. So what he's trying to say is this, that if your heart is set on making riches, if your heart is set on just the things of this world, the material richness of the world, your eyes will be looking at that riches and you think you've attained it, then out of nowhere, it develops wings and just flies away. It gets out of your reach. It was in your reach, but now it's gone.

This is the uncertainty of riches. And then Paul goes on to say, what is the remedy? What is the remedy? So if our hearts need to be placed, our trust, our hopes need to be placed upon something, Paul says, don't put it here. Don't put it in the category of material richness.

What does he say? He'd place your hope in God. That seems obvious to us. Why would Paul repeat those words? Why would Paul write to Timothy to speak to the Christian congregation and say, look, place your hope in God, not in money.

You would think they would know that already if they're Christians. Here's the thing. Money has a tendency, more than probably anything else, to take the eyes of a person off God and place it on itself. Money has that tendency. And it's crazy, it's absurd when you think about it, that one would take their hope and their trust and their eyes and their reliance off the unshakable eternal God who created the heavens and earth, the one who was and is and is to come, the one who's given promises and fulfilled every one of those promises, the one who's ever faithful and ever reliable.

and place their hope on the short-lived fleeting pleasure of money or what money would buy. You see, money has a tendency to make slaves out of people. And this is why money is personified in the Bible. It's given a personality. Jesus says you can't worship both two masters.

You can only worship one. See, the money or the Lord. It will give you some temporary pleasure, but that pleasure is like a mist, because this whole life is like a mist, as James says, that is here today, or a breath, or a vapour. It's here today, and then you look for that vapour. When the kettle boils, you see a vapour, but then you turn the kettle off, and you look for the vapour, and it's gone.

That's the nature of money. As I said, Jesus says that money has a tendency to capture the soul. It has a tendency to bring someone into submission to it. Bring someone to say, that's not only money, that's my master. I make it my Lord.

and that person is now submitted to money, or what money can buy. It's not the notes that he speaks of, it's beyond that. It's what the money can buy, it's the riches, it's the things that we want. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

The question we need to ask ourselves, beloved, is this, in whom do I hope? You see, it is a lordship issue. The question we need to ask is, is Jesus our Lord? Or is something else? And that something else could be money, it could be a number of things.

It's a question we need to continually ask ourselves and check our hearts. Is my hope being placed? in God, trusting him with his eternal riches, with his blessings and his providence? Or am I placing my hope in the possessions of this world? Of course, we know we ought to be placing our hope in God.

And Paul recognises this, because it's God who is the giver of all gifts. As I said earlier, there's nothing that we own that is not given to us from God. and he's given us the greatest gift. Because John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave.

He gave his only begotten son. Jesus is the gift from God, which is the greatest gift. And for those who have apprehended that gift, who have trusted in him by grace, through faith, and have apprehended this greatest gift, enjoy all the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. And that is a glorious, glorious thought. But we also need to remember that God is also the giver of physical gifts, of material gifts.

Now we ought not to have our hearts set upon them. Unless we have a biblical worldview, a biblical understanding of our treatment towards money, and understand that it's all God's, He owns it all, and I'm but a steward of that money for a temporary period of time. Unless we have that understanding, then we cannot understand what Paul is saying here. That God is the one who richly gives all things. That we won't be able to understand how we treat the possessions, because it's not as though Paul is saying that things of this world are inherently evil.

It's not as though he's saying that the things of this world are evil in and of themselves. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, how is your heart's attitude towards those things? That's what we need to be asking ourselves. And then when we have the right heart attitude, that is placing our trust and hope in God alone, then we realize that the things that we have, the things that we work for, are given by Him.

for us, and we need to recognise that those things are temporal. Those physical things are temporal, but our hearts are in Him. Therefore, we allow our hearts not to be captured by those things, but recognise they are from God, because it's the same God who has clothed the lilies of the field, and they're here today, and they're burnt tomorrow. How much more will He give those who He loves? So to place our hope and our trust in the fleeting pleasures of money or the materials of this world is to say, God, I don't trust you.

I don't trust you with my provision. I don't trust you with my life. I don't trust that you'll provide for me. And God says, I've provided. Everything is from me anyway.

How can you not trust him? It's an insult to the bigness of God when we place our trust in anything other than Him. Beloved, Psalm 50 says that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and let me tell you, He owns the thousand hills also. He owns it all. There's nothing in this universe that he doesn't own.

It's all his. And beloved, this is the other thing that we need to realize. That although it is his, and he is a generous God, because Paul is saying that, he says he gives richly. He's generous in His giving. We've seen that the greatest gift He's given us is His beloved Son.

And in His Son, we enjoy all the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. There is nothing that He keeps to Himself. He's opened up all the spiritual blessings, some we enjoy now, and some we enjoy throughout eternity. But He's given them all. He's not holding back on His people in any way, shape, or form.

And He doesn't hold back on the physical and the material things He gives us. However, He gives according to his wisdom, according to his purposes. He knows your hearts and he knows mine. We may see that we want more and he may decide not to. The portion is up to him.

You see, this is the faith bit. This is the trust bit. When we trust in him for all things, we're also trusting that he'll give us what he gives us in the right amounts. Remember that. And he's promised that he will keep us He'll keep us in this world and provide for us in this world as long as He wants us to remain.

And then when it's time for us to come home, it may be, it may be that in cases people do die, Christians do die of starvation. We know that as a case, as a fact. But that's not to say that God didn't provide for them, beloved. That's to say that God did provide for them, but this was the time He was calling them home. He's faithful in all he does and we ought to recognise that he's faithful in what he gives and the amounts that he gives also.

The question though that you and I need to ask is this, do we trust him? Ultimately, do we trust Him in what He's given and what He's yet to give? Because when we pray, we are to come to the Lord and supplicate before Him. And we are to pray with the contents of our hearts. If we are in spiritual need or physical need or mental, whatever it is, we can place that before our Lord.

But if our Lord says, no, how do we take that? Do we take that from his hand and say, Lord, you know best? Or do we grumble and complain? Beloved, if we know of a brother or a sister or brothers and sisters in the world that have more than what we have or have what we want, are we envious? Is our heart on the things?

Because if we show envy in these things, then our hope is set on the material things in this world. How do we know this? Because if our hearts were in God, If our hope was placed in God, then our trust is that He knows best and whatever comes my way, even though it's less than what He may be giving others, I'm okay with that because my God knows best. And if we ever place the gift that He's given us above the giver himself, then there's a word for that, and that is idolatry. We're basically giving something.

We're giving gratitude, affection, love. We're giving parts of our soul to something that belongs to God alone. And if he was worthy of all worship, all honor, and all praise, and all thanksgiving, and we give any to something else, then what we're doing is we're bending our knee to that something else. And that's idolatry. And we need to be vigilant about this.

We need to examine our hearts and see that our hearts aren't making idols of the things of this world, but rather our worship and our affection is all placed in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. You see, Paul has already told us that those who seek the things of this world, those who seek the treasures and the richness of this world, it ends in devastation. Because a few verses earlier he says, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmless desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving, this desire, this inner lust and desire towards the things of the world that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Beloved, this is a warning for all of us. That we place our trust in God. That we don't take the gift and worship the gift, but we take it in humility, thanking him for it, but giving the praise and honor to the one in whom we trust, to the one in whom we hope. You see, if we have that biblical worldview, that biblical view of money and stewardship, what Paul says next in verse 18 just comes naturally. Because then what he says is this, he says, they are to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share.

You see, although the Apostle felt the need to add this instruction to the rich believers in Ephesus, we need to realize that although this is an imperative, although this is a command, we need to realize that it is not a command only for those who don't, or a command for those who don't want to do the things that Paul has listed for us here. You see, if someone is really and truly a believer, if someone is in Christ, then in that person is a regenerated heart. He's given a new heart with new desires. Now that heart needs to, now we need to be sanctified as people because we're still battling with the flesh and the influences of this world, but there needs to be desires in that heart to honor God, to love Him, to love His church, to provide for His brothers and sisters. You see, it ought not to be that a Christian does these things begrudgingly, but cheerfully, And willingly, this is why we're told that God loves a cheerful giver.

This is the attitude of our hearts towards giving, because the attitude of our hearts towards our God is one of complete trust and hope in Him, not in the things that He's given. And we know that if we give some of our possessions away, we're trusting that He'll provide what He needs, or what we need anyway. It's Him that's providing. Our hope is not in a bank account that grows and grows and then we think, okay, that will be okay because I can live for this many years. No, that's not where our hope is.

There are elements of wisdom that goes into that. But our hope is in the Lord and in the Lord Alive. Because when we give of our possessions, When we diminish of our possessions, the things that we have, remembering that we have them because he's given them and we have them as stewards, they're not stamped with our names, they're stamped with his. And we only have stewardship, which is care over these things. And when we give those things away and we may see our possessions depleting, it doesn't cause our hearts to to be fearful.

Why? Because we have a God who provides for us richly. Our hope is in Him. It's not in the things. And it's interesting that Paul uses the word here, the word he uses for good.

is not the common word that you use for good. It's only used twice in the New Testament and once here and the other time it's used is in Acts chapter 14. Acts chapter 14 and that's where the Apostle Paul is preaching to the people in Lystra, still in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey, and he's preaching to them, and he says these words, he says, speaking about God, he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. It's the same word that Paul uses here. And it seems to me like what Paul is saying is that the type of good that the well-to-do are to be doing is a good that is a God-like benevolent good.

It's a good that seeks others and not yourself. It's a good that is selfless and is concerned with my brothers and sisters. It's concerned with others, making them more significant than me. It's like what we have here. It's God giving rains from heaven.

Why? So he can satisfy people's hearts and give them food and gladness. The benefit is for others. It's a pure giving. It's not like, I want to give you, but I have intention.

of receiving. It's not like I've got pretense. I'm going to give on my possessions, but I need to receive some glory. I need to receive some accolades. No.

No, it is to give with the other person's best interest in mind for the sake of that person and for the glory of God. You see, that is the good work. that we ought to be engaged in. Paul tells us that this is predestined for us. If you remember in Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, he says, for we are his workmanship.

That is the believers, those who have been saved by grace through faith. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. It is which God prepared beforehand that we should do or that we should walk in them. He's good work. He's given us the heart.

He's given us the desires. He's given us the resources. He's given it all to us. And so he's given it to us as an entrustment. He's entrusted us to do the things that he has commanded us to do, which for the Christian ought to be already desires.

They may not be as big and they may not be as mature as they ought to, but the desire ought to be there for every Christian to engage in good works for the honor of God. and for the benefit of his church. This is something that needs to engage our hearts. And the measure of that goodness is not in, or the measure of our richness, the measure of how rich we are as people, is certainly not in how much we are, right? We know this.

It's not in what we have, because we very much acknowledge it's from God, but it's in our love for God and love for others. And from that love, from that love which is generated from that new heart that he's given us overflow good works. You see we can quite easily think that because I've got things Because I got material blessings that I am rich. And there's a warning in the Bible about this. Actually, it's a warning that should actually bring terror to our hearts.

And the warning in particular comes in the book of Revelation chapter 3. And it's a warning to one of the seven churches in that book. It's the church of Laodicea. Now the church of Laodicea or the city of Laodicea was of the richest and the wealthiest cities in the whole of the Roman Empire. In fact, they were the banking and the economical capital of the Roman Empire to some degree, and they were flourishing in their commercial production of clothing.

So rich, in fact, that in AD 60, a big earthquake came and devastated the city. And when Rome appealed to give assistance to rebuild, they said, no, thank you, Rome. We reject your money. We will pay for the rebuilding from our own cash reserves. This is how rich the city was.

Now, there were some Christians living there, and as Christians living, who were part of this city, who have come to know Christ as Lord and Savior, and of course, as a result, there were rich Christians, many rich Christians among them. Listen to the warnings that Jesus says to the Christians. In Revelation chapter 3, verse 16 and 17, he says these words, Because you are lukewarm, speaking to the church of Laodicea, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. But here's the point. For you say, I am rich.

I have prospered and I need nothing. I mean, they have got a lot of money. They're one of the richest cities, as I said, in the Roman Empire. Yet, not realizing that you are, hear these words, wretched, pitiable, poor, These people thought they had riches. They thought they were well-clothed.

They thought they could see. They thought they weren't poor. He says they're poor and pitiable. In other words, I pity you. They had riches.

They had money. They had possessions. However, they were poor in their good works. They'll pour towards God, towards their love for God, towards their honour and their servitude towards Him. Because their love for Him was neither hot nor cold, Jesus says, I spew out of my mouth, which means it's useless.

Their attitude towards the Lord was useless and therefore all that money All that money, in God's eyes, they are seen as poor. what is it? So what is it that God wants? How is it that God sees his people as rich? Well it tells us, and Paul makes a point of this in Galatians chapter 6 verse 10, he says, So then we have opportunity.

Let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith. So what are the good deeds that Paul speaks of? What are the good deeds that Christians need to be engaged in? What are these good works that we ought to be rich in? So don't think about the riches of the world and the material things.

Think about how you can be rich in good deeds. That's what Paul is saying. What are these things? Well, he explains them. Be generous and willing to share.

That's what he says in the next section. Be generous and willing to share. You know how unnatural this is for the human being? Because the natural inclination of our heart is not to give away what we have, it's not to see our stock, our possessions go down and down and down and down, it's more so to get more and more and more. We have an insatiable desire, a desire that's never quenched in the flesh to want more and more and more.

And Paul is saying, be generous, give of your possession, give, give, and find joy in giving. The world doesn't teach that at all, right? You don't have to go very far and you see some of the advertisement in the world. You see some of the ads that are coming through and you see the ads that remind you that it's actually self that is at the center. The self-centeredness is encouraged.

It's just do it. Treat yourself. You deserve it. These are some slogans. You need to look after number one.

Who's number one? You're number one. You see, the world is always reminding us that you ought to be at the center, but Paul is saying, no, the Christian worldview, those who are in Christ, those who are believing upon Him and have truly trusted in Him, their worldview is a different worldview. It's antithetical. It's opposite to the world.

give. Don't have yourself at the center, have others at the center. May their needs and and they be more significant in your eyes than you are. This is why Paul can say that the true godliness, true contentment and godliness have to go hand in hand. That unless one knows God, unless one is fully sold out to love Him and live for Him, then one can't be content with the little things he has.

He's always gonna want more and more and more. But the one who is willing to give acknowledges the words of our Lord Jesus Christ where he says, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Because he is far more concerned with your spiritual health. Far more concerned with the eternal riches that you'll enjoy in Christ. Far more concerned with you spending your time and effort and resources and funds and whatever you have in investing for the things of spiritual value than to see you go into a bigger home or have more money in your bank account.

That's not his main concern. That stuff ends. That stuff has an expiration date. The things that we do for the Lord of eternal value go into all eternity, both in this age and the age to come. And beloved, we can agree on a lot of what we just said.

Lots of what we said. But this is where the rubber meets the road. The rubber meets the road for the Christian at this point. We can agree in our mind that we should be trusting the Lord, that all good things are from Him. We can agree in our minds that we ought not to be proud and conceited and look down.

We can agree about all these things, but the rubber hits the road really when it comes down to us putting our hands in our pockets and giving stuff away. It's parting with what we have. Now, there are indicators. There are indicators of the condition of one's heart and how captured they are to the material world. I can tell you, for example, ask you questions.

What do you think about? What keeps you up at night? What is the worry of your heart? And we can see whether the answer to your question will indicate that your heart is on the possessions of the world. But there's no better indicator than how you deal with money.

There's no better indicator than how you are actually with the things and the resources that the Lord's giving you. How generous you are. That's what Paul says. Be generous and willing to give. Be willing to part with it because your heart is not upon it.

Your heart is in a person. Your heart is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Your heart is in God. Your heart is taken over by him. It's not in the things of this world.

And therefore, you're willing to give away even generously because you love him and you trust him. You see the world. The world has fed us the lie that the more is better and unfortunately many, much of the so-called church has bought into that lie that more is better, the more possessions, the more possessions is better, hold on. But you know what? The early church didn't buy that lie.

Because in the early church, we have in Acts chapter 4, these words, it tells us in Acts chapter 4 verse 34, we're told, there was not, and this is remember, the early church, thousands were being added, the Lord was working in a miraculous way, the Spirit was moving, regenerating hearts and bringing people into the church, and yet there was not a single needy person among them. Isn't that extraordinary? that they were willing to give and give generously and not hold to their own possessions and even to the point where the Bible tells us that there was not a needy person among them. And verse 19 really brings the point out why we ought to be doing these things. And he goes on to say it's because of the eternal richness or the eternal treasures that our hearts need to be upon.

He says, because by doing these things, they're storing up treasures for themselves as good foundations for the future so that they may take hold of what, of that which is truly life. Now to be sure, that which is truly life is eternal life. It's the life of Jesus Christ that we share as born-again Christians. It's His life in us. It's us existing in Him.

All life is found in Christ, and He is the giver of eternal life. But we need to realize, he's not saying here that by these people, by these rich giving of their possessions, that they attain eternal life. That is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot attain grace, eternal life, through the works of our own hands, through giving all our possessions. However, what he is saying is this, that the things that we do here and now in this age will make a difference to the age to come.

that the things that the Lord has given us can be used as seed. for the age to come, that the resources He's given us to look after our brothers and sisters or to use some of that resources to preach the gospel and to further the gospel of Jesus Christ, that the impact of that, it pleases God to use ordinary people with ordinary means and ordinary resources for Him to do a supernatural, extraordinary work that goes, and the impact of that work goes into all eternity. And it's for that which is the foundation of the things that we should be doing. that we should be planting towards and walking towards and living towards and nothing else brothers it's a reminder that we are sojourners we are strangers we are foreigners in this world this is a dying world that is going to be completely destroyed We ought not to have our hearts attached to the things of this world. It's all going to pass.

It's all going to go. We ought to be thinking, how do I sow treasure that gives me an eternal reward in a place where the moth don't eat and the rust doesn't corrode? Why would I build all my life and my heart and my affection upon the things that will become zero? Why would I do that? Why would I not look to God and trust Him for all that He's given, that He will provide for my every need, and then trust Him, and then use the resources that He's given me for His kingdom.

Now, we have to be careful. It is good and noble for a man to provide for his family. That is to provide for his family here and now and to a certain degree for their future. This is important. Paul says in the previous chapter, if one doesn't provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever.

So yes, God gives you health and you ought to be working diligently and providing for your family and for their needs. But beloved, there is a difference between providing for your family and their needs and hoarding everything because your trust and your hope is placed in those things. In that money, there's a difference. And really, what it comes down to is this. Only you know and only God knows the difference.

of actually being one who provides for the right reasons and being one who hoards for the wrong reasons. We ought to be living our lives sowing seed for eternity, because this pleases the Lord. This is the sacrifice that the Lord is pleased in. Hebrews 13, 16 says, do not neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Now, I want to end on this point.

When all is said and done, Only the things that we have done for Christ, for His kingdom, for eternity, will be counted. And even the smallest act of generosity towards any of His people is an act that he will consider that you've done for himself. And the time will come where we'll all give an account to the things we've done and how we've used the resources that he's given us. The money, the possessions, the resources, our time, our mind, our hands, our hearts, our legs, everything is given to us by him. And the time is going to come where we will give an account to all these things.

And in the end, in the end, only those things that we've done for Him will matter. I want to end with this little portion of scripture. I want you to listen to it and hear what it says. It's in Matthew 25, verse 34 and 40. This is what is pleasing to God.

This is how He wants us to use our resources, our money, because it does matter and He will reward us when the day comes. Listen to what He says. Jesus is speaking, he says, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. See, these are all things that require resources. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came.

Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we see you as stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? Lord, when did these things happen? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?

And the King will answer them. Isn't Jesus answers them. Truly I say to you, as you did to one of the least of my brothers, that is brothers and sisters, you did for me. Beloved. any of our resources, any of our time, any of our money, anything that we spend in the kingdom of God for our brothers and sisters in Christ and the furtherment of his kingdom, potential brothers and sisters in Christ, is done for him, for Jesus, and he is worthy, is he not?