Well, as Mitch mentioned this morning, as he began his remarks, I too wish you a Happy Father's Day for those of you who are fathers. It is a special privilege, I think, to be a father, and it is a grave responsibility. I've said on many occasions, being a parent's the hardest job any of us have. And I would agree with that, and I would always say that that is the case, but we're thankful. I'm thankful for my father. I'm thankful that he's still alive and that I can talk with him still. Others of you probably don't have your fathers around, and that probably is not something that you're glad about. You wish that you could talk to them, but the memory that you have of them and the things that you remember can be something that you cherish as well. But we are thankful for fathers and appreciate what our father, our heavenly Father, has done for us. Certainly. I want to remind you of the singing this afternoon, at 4:30 we're going to come together, and we're going to learn at least one song and maybe be reminded of some songs that we have sung before. So let me encourage you to go ahead and make sure you come if you can at 4:30 and because that's something, that's not something we normally do, it might be good for you to set some sort of timer or something, just to help you remember that we're going to meet a little earlier tonight. Certainly we'll gather at five for our regular period of study. But if you can come and be with us at 4:30 today, we would certainly appreciate that. A lot of things going on over the next several weeks. We have, still have a lot of folks who are out and about because it is the summertime, but we hope that all of us will make our plans to be here, certainly for lectures in a week, and that will begin next Sunday with our singing next Sunday afternoon, at three o'clock.
I want to talk to you today about a subject that I know you're thrilled about hearing about when I talk about money. Money, I think, for most of us, is a painful thing. I think it creates problems for most of us in terms of what we think about it. That's my judgment. I think Jesus talks about it some. I think his apostles talk about it some, and we're going to look at it today, just from a generosity versus greed standpoint. And the question we want to try to answer is pretty simple, am I generous or am I greedy? I think that's a biblical question. I think it's a biblical question that we need to answer, and in a moment, we're going to go back to this story that Samuel just read from Mark 12. It is a powerful, powerful story, and I think it goes a long way toward answering the question that we're going to ask this morning. But I will tell you, folks that it doesn't matter this morning, whether you have a lot or whether you have a little. The issue of greed and the issue of generosity plays for all of us. It is a question that all of us, I think, must answer. I'm going to tell you partly why I'm preaching on it this morning. This coming Wednesday night I'm preaching in the summer series at WestView over in Athens, and they have assigned me this topic. And when Tony Andrews, one of the elders over there, called me several months ago and asked me if I would come, and he gave me a list of the topics that I could choose from, and I chose this topic. I chose this topic because this question, these ideas, have been questions that I've been asked here among you. You have asked me about, you know, how do, how should we deal with money? How should, how should a Christian deal with what he or she has, whether it's abundance or whether it's a little. How should a person deal with that? And so I thought this would be not only something good for me to preach there, but I think this would be something good for me to talk about here. So you're getting a taste of that this morning. So if it doesn't go well, just tell me, Kenny, you need to scratch it and start over. You've got three days, so get busy.
Greed: the inordinate insatiable desire to accumulate money to such a degree that it supersedes moral integrity and even spiritual integrity. That's about the best definition, in my judgment, that I've been able to come up with. It's the inordinate insatiable desire to accumulate money. It's not money. Greed is not money. Greed's all of these things that we talk about that money affects and how it affects us. Greed is not a desire for money. We all desire money. We need money, but greed is the mismanagement of desire for money. It's just mismanagement. And I want to illustrate it by mentioning a passage that probably that we wouldn't recognize, as it relates to money, but I think it makes the good illustration. This is a passage from First John two, where John says, "For all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, it's not of the Father, but it's of the world." See, the issue in first John 2:16 is not flesh and eyes and life. That's not the issue. Flesh and eyes and life are all good. All of us have those three things that are a part of our lives. Those are all good. It's the mismanagement of those things that's not good. It's the lust of the flesh that's not good. It's the lust of the eyes that's not good. It's the pride of life that's not good. You see the difference in that? It's always about managing the good things. And the mismanagement of the good things go bad, and that's when the problems come, and that's what I think greed is. It's the mismanagement of something that naturally is good, but it's the mismanagement of those things. Greed's end result is clearly seen in a passage that you've heard probably, if not, dozens of times in your lifetime. My guess is you've heard it a couple of 100 times. I'm going to share it with you this morning. Paul would say in First Timothy six, "Now godliness with contentment is great gain, For we brought nothing into this world, and is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts which draw men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." This language, I want to underline some words, and I want you to see how strong this language is. Tthis is not simply about greed. This is about what it does. This is about what mismanagement of something that is good does. Just look at the words fall, temptation, snare, foolish, harmful, drown, destruction, perdition, all kinds of evil, strayed, greediness, pierced, many sorrows. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's there. It's just there. And in my judgment, it cries out to say understand what happens when mismanagement of money is a part of your life. Understand what that means.
I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen to me, but I've seen it happen in the lives of others, and oftentimes it happens in the lives of others who have a lot of it. And I see these words played out in the lives of people, and it reminds me that Paul knew what he was talking about. And it reminds me how destructive greed can actually be. Paul uses words to the best advantage. Do you see the seriousness of this? Don't just leave here this morning. Think you know what I probably need to think about that? No, it's not probably. It's not probably. Do you see the seriousness of this? Verse nine, "those who desire to be rich." That's the problem. I know people who decide what they want to do for a living because they want to be rich, that's a problem. Those who desire to be rich, that's a problem. That's what Paul says. I'm going to leave that for now, I'm going to come back to that in just a minute.
The antonym of greed is generosity. Generosity is a readiness and a liberality in giving. Now it's hard. It's hard for me to get my mind and as I've thought about this lesson, prepared this lesson now for weeks, it's been hard for me to get my mind around a lot of things. I go here and I want to go here, and I just don't have the time to do that. I just don't so I'm trying to really just answer a question this morning, and that is to try to answer the question, am I greedy or am I generous? That's the question I'm trying to answer. So keep that in your minds this morning. So generosity is a readiness and liberality in giving. And readiness and liberality is giving is, like greed, it's subjective. There's no formula that you put. There's no x and y and you put in all the numbers in. You can't. You cannot formulate greed or generosity by putting in numbers and fulfilling an equation and answer it. You can't do that. So it's going to be harder for us, I think, at least objectively figure out whether or not we're this. But I think we can do that.
Let me take a side for just a minute. I want to give you a little perspective. And again, whether you have a lot or whether you have a little, what we're talking about this morning is applicable, okay? But I want to give you a little perspective. If you earn $34,000 a year, you're in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world. That's most everybody here. That's most everybody here. I don't know what everybody makes, but that's most everybody here, and most all of us are in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world. And if you earn about double that 70,000 you're in the top 0.1% of the wealthiest people in the world. And I would tend to think that a lot of us make that and more. So I just want to give you that perspective. I just want to give that to you this morning. Okay, I'm not going to make, I'm not going to make any application about that, because I don't think there's any application to be made. I don't think what you make is the issue at all. I just want to give you some perspective about that. This statistics that I've gotten, and there may be some fluctuation a little bit in there, but these are about a year old from what I can tell. I got them off the internet. What does that tell you? But you got to get them somewhere, right? The average annual US income is $60,000. Right at it. The annual US income is about $60,000. Perspective. The annual income in Zimbabwe is $1,700. Perspective. This particular slide has nothing to do with my lesson, other than just to give you some perspective.
Okay, now let's go back to Mark 12. I just want you to keep that in mind. Let's go back to Mark 12. This is the story that Sam just read for us a few moments ago before I got up. Mark 12, beginning verse 41 now, "Jesus sat opposite the Treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury, and many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So he called his disciples to himself and said to them, Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the Treasury. For they all put in out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had, her whole livelihood." Verse 40, I don't have it on the screen, but verse 40 gives us a context of this story. The scribes were devouring the widow's livelihood. They were they were taking it. They were taking the livelihood of the widows, and they were using that, and really they were abusing the widows and others because they were taking their substance. And so to that issue, verse 41 Is the key, "Jesus sat opposite the Treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury." I want you to think about that. Jesus sat opposite the Treasury. The, where the Treasury was collected was in the colonnade. There were rows of columns that supported the roof of the wall of the temple, and in front of the columns were trumpet shaped receptacles. And when people would come, they would drop what it was they were giving into one of those 13 receptacles. And as Jesus sat opposite those receptacles, he watched as people came and they dropped their money into those receptacles.
And the text says that he sat there and he observed. Jesus observed intently with a purpose. His observation was this, He said he observed that the rich cast in a lot, but they cast in out of their abundance and the poor, this one woman, she cast in certainly less, but it was all she had. But you think about that. He could have determined how much. Now Jesus, as he sat across, he could have determined how much. He may have seen how much, I don't know if he saw how much they actually gave. I don't know if his eyesight was so good that he could observe and say, you know, they've given this much, and they've given this much. I don't know that, but that's not what the text says. The text doesn't say that he saw, he observed, how much. He could have. He could have done that naturally, probably, but he, for sure, could have done it supernaturally, right? It doesn't say that he observed how much it says that he observed how. It says that he observed how they did that. Verse 42, the poor widow was evidently very destitute. She was distinctly indigent. She was she gave two mites. A mite was the smallest copper coin minted by the Greeks that amounted to what would have been 1/64 of a day's wage. The quadrans was a Roman bronze coin. So in our day, if the going rate for a day of work, let's say, was $100 a dollars. She would make $1.50. That's what she would make, compared for a day's work, she would make that much money. That's not much. And now look at verse 43, "so he called his disciples to himself and said to them, Assuredly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the Treasury." Verse 44 says, "For they all cast in of their abundance, but she, of her want." Her want is what she had. Listen carefully, her want was what she had for her necessities. You see that she's given of her want. They've given of their abundance. She's given of her want, even all her living. My takeaway is that she gave all she had. Do you see that differently? My takeaway, at least on this occasion, is she gave all she had. All of it. And she apparently recognized that God would take care of her. That's my assessment of why she gave what she had.
Let's go to another story. Let's go to this story. It's found in Luke 12. "Then one from the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. And He said to him, man who made me a judge or an arbiter over you, and He said to them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." Man comes to Jesus and says, I'd like for you to tell my brother, who was probably the older brother, I'd like for you to tell him that he needs to divide what is mine, give it to me, so that I can manage my own affairs. That's, I think, that's pretty easily deducible, that that's what he was asking. And often times a rabbi would be asked to interject himself into that kind of business, to make a decision so as to arbitrate what ought to happen. In verse 14, Jesus says, I don't want, I don't want to have anything to do with that. Who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you. So he says, I'm not going to deal with that. But he did make a statement. Verse 15. He says, "Take heed and beware of covetousness." He obviously could read this man's heart. We don't know everything about the story, but the request and his denial to answer the request led Jesus to say, you need to take heed, and you need to be aware of covetousness, because a man's life does not consist in the abundance, you see, in the abundance of things he possesses, not owns, but possesses. We don't own anything really. We possess things. And a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. May I kindly, may I as kindly as I know how, say this to me and to all of you. Most of us live in abundance. Abundance. And we don't own any of it. None of it's ours, not in the not in the fullest sense. It's all something that we have been given. I think we have been truly blessed in terms of the abundance that we all have, and with that abundance comes Paul's statement for Timothy to preach in First Timothy six, that says, be very careful, because if you're not, it will destroy you and it will destroy me. How we use it is not about, my good friends, it is not about how much. I can't see anywhere in scripture that talks about how much is good and how much is bad. There were, there were very wealthy people in Scripture. Job was extremely wealthy, and it just it got more and more. Abraham was wealthy. David and Solomon were wealthy people. But the instruction from Scripture is not how much, it's how. The instructions from Scripture is, beware of covetousness. Covetousness in Scripture is the excessive, inordinate and immoderate desire to selfishly possess for oneself. That sounds a little bit like greed to me. Matter of fact, that sounds a lot a bit like greed to me. It is greedily wanting something in ways that contradict righteousness and forget other godly principles of good judgment before God. Here we go. Here we go. If you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of what we're talking about this morning, it is something that contradicts righteousness and forgets other godly principles of good. Now you make that application. I'll make my application about that, you make your application about that. But that's what we're talking about this morning, and behind the request of this man is a distorted definition of life. Why did he want that? I want what's mine. I want it so I can use it the way I want to use it. That was the problem, it seems to me, with the man's request, and that's why Jesus said, Wait a minute. I want to tell you something about what you're asking me about. I'm not going to I'm not going to make that decision. It's not for me to make that decision. Maybe he could have but he said, I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to tell you you need to be aware of covetousness, because your life, sir, does not consist in the things that you possess, in the abundance of the things that you possess. He didn't say, it doesn't consist of things. There, to all of us, there's a degree that it consists of things, but not in the abundance of things. And most of us live in abundance, and that's where the problem can occur if we're not careful.
Now, we're getting to the heart of the question. Jesus' answer then, and Jesus' answer now is, a man's life does not consist in the things he possesses. So practically, what does that mean? Well, here we go. Buckle up. Just put on your seat belt. Let's read the rest of this. Okay? "He spoke a parable to them, saying, the ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully." That could be, that could be us. "And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Since I have no room to store my crops? So he said, I'll, do this. I'll pull down my barns, and I'll build greater and there I will store all my crops and my goods, and I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years, take your easy, drink and be merry. God said to him, fool, this night, your soul will be required of you then whose will all these things be which you have provided. So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." How do you know? Here we go, here's where you need to buckle up. How do you know if your life consists of the things you possess? Isn't that, practically a great question? How do you know if your life consists of the things you possess? Verse 17, I hate. "He thought within himself", don't you hate stuff like that? Don't you hate to do that? Don't you hate, when you know deep down, that what you gotta do is you gotta think about it. You gotta ask yourself some hard questions, and you may end up with some hard answers. Don't you hate it when that happens. This man doesn't say he hated it, but when this man did what he did, look at the conclusion he reached, "I need to tear down and build bigger." I need to tear down and build bigger. Here we go. Here is a man thinking about possessing more and more because he can. He would tear down, and he would build bigger. And then verse 19 says, "say to my soul," that word soul, there is the psyche. It's the human mind. He's saying to his human mind. He's saying to somebody, eat, drink and be merry. That's what he's saying to himself. That's what he says. And then verse 20, God says to him, "You fool," meaning you don't have the right perspective. You don't have the right perspective. And may I say, kindly as I know how, that can be our problem. Not having the right perspective of what we all have. I think probably, I could say, looking at that perspective chart that I put up, probably all of us could say, Wow, we are rich, just in terms of money. We're not just talking about money this morning, but yes, we really are. That's really my focal point about this but there are other things that we can have abundance of in life that creates problems for us. But I'm not so sure if money's not at the top of that chart far and wide, far superior to everything else. It can be power, it can be other things, and I understand that that can affect us, but I'm not sure any of it affects us like money does.
So verse 21 he says, You need to be rich toward God. When you're rich toward God, you'll be generous. You'll have this liberality in giving. And again, I'm not here to talk about, okay, let's talk about giving. I'm not doing that. That's not the point of the lesson. The point of the lesson is just for you and me to decide, am I greedy, or am I generous? And so he gets, a little further, he gets to this. Okay? Later in this same chapter, in verse 33 here's a conclusion that he says, and I think he's talking about, he's just talked about, don't worry about things and put God first and all. He just talked about all those kind of things. And then he comes back to practically again by verse 33 saying, sell what you have and give alms. Just sell what you have and give alms. "Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." Now, is he saying, everybody, go sell what you have. Sell it all. Give it away. Sell what you have and give alms. Is that what he's saying? Is he saying that to us? I don't think that's what he's saying to us. I think what he's saying is you need to have an unselfish spirit that says your heart is in the right place. And if Acts two happens again, where you had to give everything you had, if you had to sell everything you have and give it to people who needed it, I think he's saying, do it. Make sure that that's where Your heart is, because you understand the value of that, as opposed to keeping it and growing it and accumulating it just for your selfish pleasure. Jesus' concluding statement here in context, is about purpose in life. There's your answer, there's the answer to the question. There's the answer to the question, and he seems to focus on money. I think that's why, in verse 33 he says, sell what you have that has to do with money. That doesn't have to do with power or any other thing that we have amongst us. That's just money. Sell what you have. That has to do with selling it, making money and then doing something else with it. Jesus is promoting an unselfish spirit, not commanding that we sell all we have. If we if everybody sold all we have, we'd all be poor. We'd all be looking for help from somebody.
But I think these passages are given to us to help us just decide. Are we greedy? Does our life consist in abundance? I don't know that I could preach this lesson in a place among a group of people, that that question might have more of an application here. Might. I don't know how you take that. Take it how it's given. Take it how it's given. But the answer to the question, my good brethren, is not what's in your wallet or what's in your bank account or what's in your portfolio. That is not the question. The question is, where's your heart? That's the question. That's what Jesus said, because where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be.
Now I want to say this about all that from my vantage point. From my vantage point, I'm not God. I'm not trying to play God. I'm not trying to be God. You know that I don't have to say that, but I'm saying that just to make the point. I think the heart of people here, from my vantage point, is a heart for God, and I'm grateful for that. And because it is a heart for God, it allows us, collectively and individually, it allows us, all of us, it allows us to do some things that otherwise we might not be able to do. And certainly others in other places might possibly not be able to do. I'm certainly not saying we're the only abundant church among abundant churches, because that's not the case. There's just a lot out there. There's just the Lord has blessed Christians, and part of that's because Christians, I think, have tried to live their lives in a godly way, and God knows that, and God has blessed us, and God knows that we're willing to provide for others who may not have and those are principles, again, that we're not talking about this one that we could talk about. I'm just simply bringing it up this morning so that we'll think about it. That's all. That's all because I think it's something we need to think about. Because if Jesus and others said these things to people in the first century, wouldn't he, if he were here this morning, wouldn't he stand in this pulpit and say some of the things that I've said to you this morning? Certainly in a much better way he would. But I think he would want us to reevaluate and constantly evaluate why we do what we do with what we have. May God help us always to do that.
If you're in this assembly this morning and you have never given yourself to Jesus Christ, it's just like what we talked about this morning. It all starts with your heart. It all starts with whether or not you're willing to do that. If you know what you ought to do and your heart is willing then do that this morning. We can help you with whatever your need is. Let it be known by coming forward as we stand and as we sing.
