Mammon, Materialism and the Messiah:

Exterminating Materialism

Luke 12:22-34

 

Sermon Introduction

 

Some jokes.

  • What do snowmen eat for breakfast?        Snowflakes.
  • What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus?   Claustrophobic.
  •  
  • Why was Santa's little helper depressed?             Because he had low elf esteem.

 

  • What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?     Frostbite.

 

  • How come you never hear anything about the 10th reindeer 'Olive'? Olive? Yeah, you know, "Olive the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names..."

 

 

Text

 

Luke 12:22-34 (ESV)

 

We are called and commanded by God to exalt the messiah and exterminate materialism.  We do this by turning from materialism, trusting in God and turning our treasures over to God.

 

 

 

1.      We must exalt the messiah and exterminate materialism by turning from this sin.

Luke 12:13-34 (ESV)

’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

 

  • God is not neutral towards materialism.
  • The man is called a fool.
  • It is implied he was bankrupt now.
  • Scripture is clear that God hates idolatry!

 

Exodus 20:1-17 (ESV)

1.       2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

2.       4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

3.       7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

4.       8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

5.       12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

6.       13 “You shall not murder.

7.       14 “You shall not commit adultery.

8.       15 “You shall not steal.

9.       16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10.   17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

 

    • The sin of idolatry and covetousness.

Romans 1:29 (ESV)
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

Romans 2:22 (ESV)
22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

2 Timothy 3:2 (ESV)
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

    • Setting up something else as God.
    • Something else, called stuff, as God.
    • Something else as your sufficiency, as your help in times of trouble, as your comforter, as the center of your life, as your Savior and Lord.
    • Reality of everyone having a Savior and Lord.
    • Question is “what is it?
    • For many, it is materialism.
    • This is not a gracious master. 
    • It dirties, deceived and destroys.
    • The sin condemned.

 

Revelation 18:2-7 (ESV)
2 And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. 3 For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.” 4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; 5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. 7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’

 

The love of God

The holiness of God

The glory of God

The wisdom of God

The majesty of God.

The eternality of God

The worth of God.

Look at Jesus!

The gospel of John movie – what a Savior!

Phil 2

Colossians 1:15-20 (ESV)
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

 

  • Are you in love with Christ?  Is he your treasure?
  • Or is there another God that has your affections?
  • Turn.

 

The responsibility of one who by the grace of God has become a citizen of heaven and, therefore, an alien and sojourner in this world, is to bring all his being, energies, efforts, and desires to the untiring, uncompromising, unabated service of the King and His kingdom. The worrier exhibits a 18 possessiveness and protectiveness of his own kingdom, which is in opposition to God’s (Matthew 6:34). Worry reveals where his heart is and, therefore, where his treasure is (Matthew 6:21).

 

Stanley D. Gale*, Worry Unmasked, JBC

 

2.      We must exalt the messiah and exterminate materialism by trusting in the goodness of God

Luke 12:22-34 (ESV)
22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 

  • Provision for the lesser.
  • The ravens, the flowers.
  • Why not me!
  • His faithfulness
  • Commentary on his character.
  • His desire to give the kingdom
  • His generosity
  • His call to heavenly priority.

George Meuller- daily dependence – orphanage.

One morning the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder, and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal, when Mueller said, "Children, you know we must be in time for school." Lifting his hand he said, "Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat." There was a knock on the door. The baker stood there, and said, "Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it." Mueller thanked the man. No sooner had this transpired when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the Orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it. No wonder, years later, when Mueller was to travel the world as an evangelist, he would be heralded as "the man who gets things from God!"

 

  • Fear not! The Father’s pleasure!
  • The Father’s pleasure!
  • The Fathers pleasure to bruise the son!

Isaiah 53:4-6 (ESV)
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.


10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

 

 

Romans 8:32 (ESV)
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

 

  • Not sparing His son so he could spare us!
  • He spared you and me
  • But he didn’t spare his Son
  • One bit!
  • Amazed!

 

The U-Haul – driving up with the moving crew on the way! – An illustration of Rom . 8:32

 

“Jesus says that the root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father’s future grace. As unbelief gets the upper hand in our hearts, one of the effects is anxiety. The root cause of anxiety is a failure to trust all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus

John Piper, Future Grace (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah, 1995), p.54.

 

 

My severance pay. Meeting all our rental needs than being paid back in our new home.

 

? Look at His heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind! Look at His inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all, look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while He pleads, can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If He remembers even sparrows, will He forget one of the least of His poor children? "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved."

 

My soul, rest happy in thy low estate, Nor hope nor wish to be esteem'd or great; To take the impress of the Will Divine, Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, ME, Dec 19, AM

 

3.      We must exalt the messiah and exterminate materialism by turning over our treasures to God.

Luke 12:22-34 (ESV)
22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 

3.1.                    Seeking His kingdom.

  • Seek His reign in your life.
  • Privately, family, church, community, job,
  • Christmas.
  • If Christmas is about the kingdom it is celebrated rightly.
  • Seeking first involves our material.
  • The context here is how to handle material possessions.
  • The flow of the passage is to seek the kingdom first and all these will be added to you.
  • Sell your possessions and give to the poor
  • Provide treasures in heaven.
  • How we spend our money now has everything to do with seeking his kingdom.

34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

  • If we are not seeking the kingdom with the way we spend our money we are not following the mandate of this passage.
  • Jesus is calling them to sell possessions and give to the needy.
  • One of the ways we can seek first the kingdom is to take our surplus money, money beyond food, clothing and shelter, and give it to the poor.
  • Before we talk about that and how we can do this, especially at Christmas time, lets cover some important background.

Turning, trusting, turning over

  •  

3.2.                    Tithing

  • Jesus is calling his disciples to a measure of faith giving beyond what was already being done.
  • They are good Jews.
  • As Jews they faithfully tithes – that is give 10% of the first fruits of what they receive.
  • Actually more like 25% when you count everything.
  • This money was given for the support of the worship at the temple.
  • He is not talking about that here.
  • This is a call above and beyond the tithe.

 

3.2.1.The tithe in the NC community.

  • The context of tithing expected in NT teaching on finances.
  • Some teach that the tithe is not a NT principle.
  • They say it was OT only.
  • Actually, tithing preceded the law – Abraham tithed.
  • Besides, the NT always fulfills/enhances what is given in the OT.
  • Others say that we are under grace and therefore not under the same
  • But grace is never an excuse for inaction but a proper motivation for fuller, more sincere action in response to God’s love, freely giving because of freely receiving.
  • I don’t believe the NT believers neglected to tithe and support the church.

 

3.2.1.1       Scripture bears this out

  • Survey of OT as mentioned.
  • NT – the call to support the local church in
  • Gal 6:6, 1 Cor. 9:3-12,14

Galatians 6:6 (ESV)
6 One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.

 

1 Corinthians 9:3-12 (ESV)
3 This is my defense to those who would examine me. 4 Do we not have the right to eat and drink? 5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? 6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? 8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? 10 Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. 11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? 12 If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

 

1 Timothy 5:17-18 (ESV)
17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

 

  • 2 Cor 8 & 9 is above and beyond the tithe.
  • It is a free will offering for the poor.
  • We often hear messages on tithing taken from this passage.
  • Better to have a message on special of freewill of faith offerings and faith giving taken from this text!

 

3.2.1.2       Church history bears this out

 

Tithes are required as a matter of debt, and he who has been unwilling to give them hs been guilty of robbery.  Whosoever, therefore, desires to secure a reward himself.. let him render tithes,aand out of the nine parts let him seek to give alms.

Augustine.

 

If anyone shall not do this [pay tithes] he is convicted of defrauding and supplanting God.

Jerome.

 

  • Tithing still holds today for God’s people.

Navigator leaders on struggling with walk with God while withholding the tithe. The difference it made in my life.

  • The blessing we have enjoyed in enthusiasm for the local church.
  • Want zeal?

Malachi 3:6-12 (ESV)
6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

  • We have found much blessing with this.
  • Where your treasure is there is your heart also.
  • We are called to begin putting materialism to death by faithful giving of our tithes to our local churches.
  • Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse – the Temple.
  • Not the parachurch, not the orphans fund but the storehouse.
  • Nothing wrong with giving in these other areas.
  • But that is above and beyond the tithe.
  • I MUST PREACH THIS AS PREPARING FOR ANOTHER PASTOR TO TAKE OVER.
  • After this message that may be a reality! But I will do this for HIM.

 

Money, Possessions and Eternity Randy Alcorn – page 215.

  • State of the church in NE.
  • Average giving about 2%
  • Need about 150 people to be self-sustaining.
  • Versus. 30 if people tithed!

 

Haggai 1:3-11 (ESV)
3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”

 

Turning, trusting, turning over

 

3.3.                    Freewill offerings

 

  • Jesus is calling his disciples above and beyond the tithe.

33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 

  • Sell your possessions.
  • Not all necessarily.
  • But beyond the basics.
  • Beyond food, clothing and shelter.
  • Counsel of scripture – caring for one’s family, wise investing.
  • Yet not blunt the drama of the statement!
  • Stretching your faith.
  • Expressing your worship, your trust – where it counts.
  • Put your money where your mouth is!
  •  

3.3.1.Faith giving

  • Call to generous giving
  • Sacrificial giving.
  • Giving the stretches your faith.
  • We should not think that this is merely tithing.
  • Jesus  says sell your possessions.

What does it mean to give beyond our ability?  IT means to push our giving past the point where the figures add up.  It means to give when the bottom line says we shouldn’t.  It means to give away not just luxuries, but some of the necessities.  It means living with the faith of the poor widow.  For most of us, giving according to our means would really stretch us.  Giving beyond our means would appear to break us.  But it won’t – because we know God is faithful.

Randy Alcorn, MP&E, p. 238

 

Giving sacrificially means giving the best.  If we have two blankets and someone needs one of them, sacrificial giving hands over the best of the two.  Much of our giving in the Western world is not giving – it is merely discarding.  Donating secondhand goods to church rummage sales and benevolence organizations and missions is certainly better than throwing them away.  But giving away something we didn’t want in the first place is not giving, but selective disposal.  King David said, “ I will not sacrifice to the Lrod my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. (2 Sam. 24:24).

Randy Alcorn, MP&E, p. 238

 

The farmer who owned two calves, one brown, one white.  Determined to give one to the Lord but didn’t say which.  One attacked and eaten by wolves, he shook his head and said. “too bad the Lords’’ cow died.”

 

A $2000 donation that changed everything in our lives – and is worth about $ 1 million.

 

Give in faith.

Turning, trusting, turning over

 

3.3.2.Giving to the poor.

  • He says to give to the poor.
  • This is important.
  • Giving to the poor in Christ.

3.3.2.1       The poor here at KGC!

  • Benevovlence fund.
  • Christmas benevolence.

3.3.2.2       Giving to poor churches.

  • Call to give to SGM mission fund.
  • Funding Pastors in Cuba! $30/ month! Or $50/ month!
  •  
  • VOM.
  • China, North Korea, Vietnam, Philippines,

 

3.3.2.3       Giving to worthy parachurch groups that care for the poor, work with churches and preach the gospel.

  • Covenant Mercies – adoption, aids victims in Uganda,
  • Compassion Int’l.

Turning, trusting, turning over

 

Jesus knows that this message strikes fear into the hearts of his disciples. When I say these things there is fear in many of you that God's will for you might be a life-style very different than the one you are striving for or living in. Jesus knows that it is a fearful message.

And so he says, "Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The pathway to the kingdom is the path of falling in love with King Jesus, trusting our heavenly Father, falling out of love with things, and taking on a wartime lifestyle that maximizes all income for the cause of the kingdom. And since this is the pathway that leads to the kingdom, and since Jesus says our Father will give us the kingdom, then we can be assured of God's help to stay on this path

John Piper, 5/16/93

4.      Conclusion

 

4.1.                    Restatement

  • Exalt the Messiah and Exterminate Materialism
  • Turn, Trust and Turn Over
  • Will you?
  •  

4.2.                    Applications

 

Questions:

  1. What does my budget reveal about who I worship?  10%, beyond 10%?
  2. What does my Christmas budget reveal about who I worship?  Give to the poor at Christmas?  Larger than any offering I have given?
  3. Is my discretionary spending always given to extras or the kingdom?
  4. Am I giving last fruits or first fruits – guilty of saying – too bad the Lord’s cow died – too bad I had to pay that bill this month and have nothing left over to tithe or offer.
  5. Do I believe God will take care of me?
  6. Does my giving express that faith?  Does it stretch it?
  7. Is this message getting you upset?

 

4.3.                    Dismissal/Closing

 

Worship

Prayer