Sermon Transcript
Well, back in 1964, you’re going to remember that the musical Fiddler on the Roof hit Broadway. And in this musical, there was a song entitled If I Were a Rich Man. Remember that song? In the song, Tevye, the lead character, dreams of what he would do if he were rich, if he were a person of material comfort and great wealth, what he would do, what would change. And he’s saying of how, well, it would make it possible for him to buy an enormous house, which he would add a 3rd staircase in that would basically lead to nowhere, but he would do that just because he could, and he can enjoy luxuries like that.
And he said, I would buy fancy clothes, and I would buy mountains of food. And he also expressed in this song his sorrow to God. He said, you know, the Lord, I’m I’m just so sorry for the long hours of work that have kept me from spending as much time in the synagogue as I would have liked to have spent. And he said to the Lord, you know, that could change if I were a rich man. Because then he said he would spend less time working and he would spend more time praying and studying the Torah.
So in light of that possibility, he prayed, Lord, Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man? Great question. You kind of wonder how many times God-seeking people have thought or prayed the same kind of thing. I think probably most of us would say, yeah, I’ve been there. I’ve wanted more than the more I already have.
That desire shows up in so many different ways and different places. It even shows up not just with the less, but it shows up among the rich. The rich like John D. Rockefeller, the first-ever American billionaire, who when asked how much is enough responded, just a little bit more. And we thought the same thing even though we’re not John D. Rockefeller, but we are, all of us, among the rich. Now you may not want to think of it that way, but I think it’s true.
When compared to the rest of the world, we are among the rich. Did you know that if you have money in savings, a hobby that requires equipment or supplies, a variety of clothes in your closet, 2 cars in any condition, and you live in your own home, you are a rich man or a wealthy woman? You are among, listen, the top 5% of the wealthiest people in the world. Studies also tell us that if you have an earned income of more than $50,000 annually, you’re among the top 1% of the wealthiest in the world. The top 1%.
Now, that’s not something to flaunt. It’s not something to brag about. It’s not something to gloat over. But it is something to make the most of, even to the point of enjoyment. Because as the Scriptures teach us, it’s a high privilege and it’s also a huge responsibility to have riches.
And God wants us to take those riches and to invest them in the best way possible. He doesn’t want us to squander our riches. He doesn’t want us to waste the riches that we have. They are a valuable commodity that he wants us to put to good use. Now, how to best do that is what we’re gonna talk about today.
We’re in the final studies of our study through the book of 1 Timothy, and we’re in chapter 6 today, and we’re in a little section just near the end of this book, 3 verses that focus on this whole matter of riches. It’s a fascinating little passage because it is one of the few passages that you’re going to find in the Bible that specifically speaks to the rich, to the rich, to the rich people in the world. If you’ve been with us, we’ve had an amazing time studying through this book. The letter is helpful not only to the church people, but it’s also helpful to unchurched people. It was written by the Apostle Paul to his protégé Timothy, who was pastoring the first church at Ephesus.
He talked about a number of matters, but along with those matters, he gave Timothy some much-needed counsel about money. So, that’s where we are this morning. We’re going to focus on the matter of money. We’ve already talked about acquiring money. We’ve talked about using money.
Well, today the passage talks about investing. Investing money, high-yield investments we might call it, these instructions that are given here. So this is what it says, 1 Timothy 6:17-19. I hope you’ll follow along. If you didn’t bring your Bible, the message notes has the scripture passage on it.
You can follow along there. But this is what it says, command those who are rich, command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth. Which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
If you’re among the rich or the wealthy in In this present world, you notice those words found in verse 17. What Paul relays here, and I say relay because he got it from God, and God wanted him to pass this along, so what is given here can be very helpful to all of us. And basically, you got 3 verses that give us a high-yield investment strategy that could be to the best investment returns that you could ever imagine in this life and in the life to come. What should a rich person do with their riches? So that’s essentially the question this answers.
What should a person who is rich do with their treasure? Specifically, then, we’re going to talk about 2 commodities: money and time, 2 of the most valuable commodities that we possess. And so what should a rich person do with those commodities? The answer: draw the future into the present. That’s simply his advice in this passage.
Draw the future into the present, or said differently, live now in light of the future. Another simple way to summarize this passage, live now in light of the future, in light of the, verse 19, in light of the coming age. Now, that’s kind of paramount of importance when you’re thinking about investing, isn’t it? You think about present yield and you think about future yield. Present yield with regard to present rate of return, that’s something that comes into matters of investment, hopefully.
And with regard to this passage, there’s present yield here to be found in hoping in something, in being rich in something, in taking hold of something, all those words he used in those 3 verses. But this passage also focuses not only on present yield but also future yield And here you got long-term profits or long-term benefits. And so you see in verse 19, so lay up for yourselves, and then we’re talking about future yield or future profit. So if you can make investments that yield present and future growth, you’re on track to making the best investments possible with your money and your time. Wouldn’t you agree?
If you can make investments that yield present and future growth, I’ll say it again, you’re on track for making the best use of the money and time that you have been given. And I would say that God has given to us, because God has given to each of us, verse 19, treasures. And these treasures come in varying amounts. Jesus actually, to help people understand that, likened those treasures to talents. Some of you have read the New Testament, the Gospel accounts where he talks about different talents.
Or it could be translated wages, and how God has given us wages or talents or wealth in varying proportions. And He in a parable speaks about some of those proportions come in 5 talents, and some come in 2 talents, and some come in 1 talent. But what He wanted to get across was the fact that regardless of however many talents you have, you want to use those talents wisely. You want to invest with them and you want to multiply them. What you don’t want to do, especially in this parable as he taught, is that you don’t want to waste those talents.
You want to put them to good use. You don’t want to misuse God’s given talents. You want to make the most of those talents. And I say God-given because that’s what we see in the Scriptures. Deuteronomy 8:18, the first part says, remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to become rich.
This isn’t something that we did. This is power that God has given to us. 1 Samuel 2:7, the Lord sends poverty and wealth. He exalts, or he humbles and he exalts. And so essentially what Jesus was teaching and what the scriptures teach us is like the owner of the talents in the story that Jesus told had these treasures that he gave to some others to invest wisely.
God wants us to do the same thing with the treasures or the talents that he gives to us, that he entrusts to us, that he entrusts to people who are perhaps wealthy or can become wealthy. So basically what you have here is some instruction regarding high-yield investments, regarding taking hold— and I love this phrase in the last part of verse 19— of taking hold of that life which is life indeed. So we could take hold of perhaps a life, but it’s not the life indeed, the greatest life that there is. And this life that we can take hold of is a life that concerns our future life and our heavenly life, an abundant life and coming life. In fact, this is a life that can come down before we even get to heaven.
We can experience it now so that on earth it happens even as it is happening in heaven, as Jesus prayed. Pray that way that we might live in the future now. By building on verse 19, a firm foundation, a firm foundation that undergirds the promised life that will increase and never end. So, have I said enough, hopefully, to make you interested in this 3G high-yield investment strategy that is found here? A 3G high-yield investment strategy.
What kind of investment should we be seeking to make? To make the most of our lives, to experience the life indeed? Well, the first investment is God-centric, a God-centric investment. High-yield investments, Paul tells Timothy, are God-centric investments. In other words, they aren’t money-centric, but they are God-centric.
So he says in verse 17, command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God. He’s saying God must be at the very center of our financial investment strategy. Boy, what a place to begin on that foundation, on that principle, that God must be at the center of our financial investment strategy, that our hope must not be in our money but that our hope must be in God. In fact, we say it this way, in God we trust.
But oftentimes we live as if, in money we trust. And he’s saying here that there is a firm foundation on which to build a rich investment plan, a high-yield investment plan, and it’s a commitment that a person makes first and foremost to God to not leave God out of our investment plan. One of the signs, by the way, that God is out of center in terms of our investment plan, that God is— we’ll say it this way— that he is peripheral, one of the signs of that is arrogance, as you can see in the passage in verse 17, or conceit or pride. It’s the attitude of, well, I did this. I made this fortune.
That’s an absolute trap to fall into, to maintain a God centric perspective on riches will keep you out of that trap. It will keep you from an arrogant spirit. We kind of need counsel like the Jewish people needed counsel before they moved from bondage back to the Promised Land. You remember that story? It’s told in the book of Exodus.
But after years of hardship, blessing was on the horizon for God’s chosen people. And in light of the gifts that God was about to give them, Moses said this to them in Deuteronomy 8:11-12, 14, and 17. He said, be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees that I’m giving you this day. Otherwise, if you forget him, otherwise when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine homes or fine houses and settle down, Then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Verse 17, you may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.
If they were to start thinking that or believing that, it would ultimately be— Moses is saying to them— it would be to their undoing, but especially to their undoing and their relationship with God, and they would miss out on the high-yield investments that would ultimately bring that life which is truly life. And you say, well, what is truly life? It’s a life that’s holding on to a sure hope. It’s a life that experiences true security. It’s a life that experiences peace.
It’s a life that lives with the absence of despair. It’s a life that lives with the absence of worry, especially when money is concerned. Where’s that life found? Is it found in money? Is it found in hoping in money?
In money I trust? No. He’s saying, verse 17, don’t put your hope in wealth because wealth is what? Verse 17. Because wealth is so uncertain.
It’s so transient. It’s so shortsighted. It’s so dangerous. We know this. I mean, we’ve experienced this.
If you’re in the stock market, you know what I’m talking about right now. Your emotions can just fluctuate as the stock market fluctuates. When I lived in Southern California, I played golf a few times over at Calabasas Country Club, really nice golf course in an area where a bunch of movie stars live and all the rest of that stuff. I didn’t have a membership there. I was just invited to play there a few times.
But located in the middle of the course, right after the 9th hole, and if you know golf, it has 18 holes, and this is kind of the where they, you know, they finish the first 9, get ready for the back 9. So between the first 9 and the back 9, there was this room that the members often would stop off at between 9s before they jumped onto the back 9, played the back 9. And this room had a TV in it, and this TV was tuned to a live feed of the stock market. Do you know where I’m going with this? So many of them, before they played the back 9, the last 9 holes, they’d stop off and they would check out the tape that was running across the TV there to see how their stocks had done during their first 9.
That would either elevate their back 9 game or it would destroy it. Seriously. They would walk out of that room with a little bit more hope or a little less hope before they got to the back 9. And what this passage is saying, you know what, there’s a better way to live than that. Instead of trusting in your stocks, instead of trusting in your money, instead of trusting in your savings, it’s to trust in God.
It’s to hope in God because he more than money can give you sure hope. He can give you certain hope and stable hope and lasting hope and increasing hope that no matter what’s going on with your worldly investments, high-yield investments grounded in God is such a better way to live. You’ll be better for it. So the first thing you gotta think about when we think about a high-yield investment strategy is whether or not my financial strategy is God-centric? Is God at the very center of my strategy?
Is God at the very center of my life? Because that’s the best investment that we can make. By the way, this is not in sort of a peripheral way again. This is in an intentional union way where you are united with God through Jesus Christ. One of the phrases that you’ve got to love that you read in the New Testament is how a person who comes to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, they reach out and ask God to save them through their Son who died on the cross, through his Son who died on the cross, they are in union.
We’re told that that person who’s received this gift of life, that they are in union, in union with God. They’re in union, or they are in Christ. They’re in Christ. So, it’s not distance, but it’s very personal. It is a central relationship component in their life.
And in that kind of relationship, we can always, regardless of what’s going on with the economy, regardless of, you know, what’s happening with our stocks or whatever it is, we can always live with hope. With hope. A certain hope. He can richly provide us with that hope. But that’s not all.
Do you notice this? This is fascinating. He can also richly provide us everything for our enjoyment. God can provide us everything for our enjoyment. You see that in verse 17?
I mean, how does that sound to you? That’s probably the opposite of what some of us have heard about God, that God, you know, well, He’s just a killjoy, and He’s looking for people who are having fun, and what He’s going to do then is He’s going to rain on their parade. Well, that’s not the picture you’re getting right here in this verse, is it? That our God, as we make investments in Him, He’s not going to be against wealth. He’s not going to be against riches.
This is not a passage that says, hey, if you’re rich, you shouldn’t be. It’s not that passage. It’s not saying that. It’s not saying wealth is a bad thing. He’s not saying it’s sinful to be wealthy.
It could be a gift from God, and it could be a way by which you could receive some enjoyment. You see that in verse 17? Enjoyment. That enjoyment can come from a person’s riches. Now, wouldn’t you agree with me that you’ve received a lot of enjoyment from the financial gifts that God has given to you?
I hope so. Scripture says it’s okay. Today, if you watch the Super Bowl, while you’re watching the Super Bowl, have some enjoyment. You say, well, the wrong teams are Regardless, get some snacks and have some enjoyment. And you say, why can I get some snacks?
Because God’s given you some money to get some snacks. So get some snacks, hang out with a few other people, have a good time. If nothing else, watch the commercials. That’s what we do now, right? Many of us watch the Super Bowl to watch the commercials, don’t we?
Now some of you are like, well, I’m not interested in either. Well, great, then use the 4-hour period of time that others are watching that stuff to just go enjoy yourself and be alone. See, God is not against enjoyment. You got the TV. He made it possible for you to get the TV.
Enjoy that. Enjoy these things that God brings into your life. In fact, one of the ways that Bernice and I have enjoyed a lot is oftentimes from people that have extended to us some of the riches that they have, not necessarily in monetary or money form, but just by, hey Dave, would you go use our home? Or whatever it’s been. This summer we’re going to go back to a friend’s home up in Montana again.
We’ve done that for years now. A very wealthy family that God has richly blessed, but do you know what they’ve been doing with their riches? Is that they have made it possible for other people to enjoy the blessings that God has poured out on them. Enjoyment. And when you recognize that, when you recognize that, you know, this all comes from God, that these are riches that have come from God, certainly that all the more should lead to the opposite of an arrogant spirit, but a thankful spirit and a spirit that praises God and glorifies God.
And we’re grateful for the opportunity we have right now to make the best use of that which he’s given to us. High-yield investments are God-centric. Secondly, high-yield investments include good works. I want you to notice in verse 18, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds. Paul is saying that God is making it possible through what he has given you to be rich in good deeds toward others.
So as he has richly blessed you, Why don’t you in turn take how he has blessed you and use that to bless others? Do the same for others that God has done for you. Has God done anything good in your life? Oh my goodness, absolutely. Well, can’t you also in turn take the blessings that God has poured out on you and bless others through those blessings, respond in similar ways through your life by doing good deeds?
In fact, it says, notice, Be rich in good deeds. It doesn’t say to be stingy in good deeds. It says be rich in good deeds. The word rich here actually means abounding. So abound in good deeds for others.
Be abundantly giving toward others. Use the riches that God has given you to fund good works on behalf of others. Now, when you think about that, One of the challenges, I think, for people that are blessed is in turn blessing others. I really do. I think we can hoard it.
I think that we could get stuck on ourselves. I think that we could spend it all on ourselves so that we have nothing left to give when the opportunities around us are there to give and to pour blessing out on others. One of the problems that we have perhaps is that in The work that we have, we could let that work consume us to such a degree that we don’t have any time to do good works for others. Or we don’t have any, you know, energy because our energy has been spent earning all of this money and we have nothing left to give to others. Or our money could cause us to be lazy so that, you know, the way I do this is I pay somebody else to do it.
Now, I think one of the best things we could do is to actually be involved in these good deeds. That’s what he’s suggesting here. Doing good deeds or doing good for others is a high-yield investment. It’s a high-yield investment for what it’s going to do in the life of the person that you are doing good for, but it’s also going to do some good in you. Some of you may remember Jesus saying this, Mark 9:41.
He said, I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name.
You giving somebody a cup of water in Jesus’ name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward. Well, that sounds to me like Jesus is connecting reward outcome to an investment. And this particular investment is just the simple investment of giving somebody something that they need. In this case, a cup of cold water because they’re thirsty. And you see that, you have the opportunity to do something about that, and you might think, ah, it really doesn’t matter.
Well, to Jesus, even that little thing, even that little thing like giving somebody a cup of cold water can matter. In fact, you in giving somebody a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name serves Jesus. And as you serve Jesus, it’s literally you’re serving Jesus. As you’re serving Jesus, you’re serving Jesus by serving others. And so, as we serve others, we serve Jesus, and that’s an investment in a heavenly return, he says.
And it could be something that impacts another person’s thinking about you, but more importantly, it could be something that impacts their thinking about Jesus, or it could be something that impacts their thinking about God now and maybe for years to come. We have some very dear friends that we’ve had the privilege of knowing for over 30 years. Our lives have crossed paths because we lived in the same community in Southern California where I pastored a church there for 20-plus years. Our families were in this church. We grew close to them in part because our children grew up together in the church and in the community.
We had all kinds of fun together. We did all kinds of things in the church, in the community. We vacationed together. The husband and I served on leadership boards together in the church, and as you can imagine, this family heard me preach probably hundreds of times in various places and occasions. Well, one summer these friends of ours asked if, while they were away on vacation for a couple of weeks, they asked if I would mind, you know, just watching over their home.
And of course, I agreed to do that, not thinking that I would do much more than just drop by their house, you know, every few days, check things out, make sure everything was okay. And so I did that several times over the period of 2 weeks that they were away. And as it was coming to the point where I knew they were going to be back home soon, I noticed that the grass had gotten long. And so I decided, you know, I knew that Rod, the owner, the friend, he did not have a gardener. For his home.
And so I decided that I would pull out their lawnmower and I would mow their lawn. So that was— I did it, no big deal, right? Just mowed the lawn, that was it. I didn’t think much of it until 20 years later. As often is the case, you know, when friends move, and we moved out of that community after having lived in that community for 25 years, and so we didn’t get to see these friends very often after we moved out of the community.
A couple years ago, we had the opportunity to get back together with them for a few days. We stayed at their home and had some great times. And one of the things that we did was we reminisced. You do this, don’t you? You reminisce with friends about old times and things that you used to do and the kids growing up and carpool and all the rest of that.
And we were reminiscing, and Rod said— this husband, this father— he said, Dave, you know, I think the thing that probably impacted me the most In all of the years that we were together, the thing that I remember the most about you and I appreciate the most about you was the time when you mowed my lawn. That’s what he said. Now, I would have thought that he would have been talking about my preaching, you know, all the messages, the hundreds, the hundreds of messages that he heard me preach. Or the times that we got together intentionally, we were prayer partners, that we prayed together. I thought that would have been it.
I mean, you know, when he said, the thing that I appreciated the most about you, those are the things that are going through my mind. You know, oh yeah, he’s going to say my preaching. He’s going to say those times that we got together and we prayed. Or he’s going to talk about those vacations that we had together. All this stuff that we did together.
But that wasn’t what he said. He said, the thing I appreciated the most was when you mowed my yard. One time, one time, one high-yield good deed investment, one time.
That’s enough to get you thinking, isn’t it? Now, if one good deed investment can make that kind of an impression on somebody, what do you think it would mean if that was a common practice in our lives toward others. Taking the blessings that God has given to us and investing them in good deeds in the lives toward other people. And I so love it, the last couple years as I’ve watched this congregation, even being told in an email that something was needed the next day, to see how willing you have been to respond to opportunities to do good deeds for others. May that increase.
Isn’t it great that when he talks here about high-yield investments, he doesn’t leave out good deeds? It’s a wonderful thing for God’s people to care for others in that way. So high-yield investments are God-centric. High-yield investments include good works. And then he says in verse 18, after having said, command them to do good and be rich in good deeds, and he says, and be generous and willing to share.
High-yield investments are generous. They’re generous. That’s what he says. Generous, obviously, is the opposite of stingy. Generosity begins with a willing heart, a heart that’s willing to share.
What God has shared with us. Say it this way, a greedy Christian is an oxymoron. It’s an oxymoron. Generosity begins with a willing heart, a heart that’s willing to share what God has shared with us. And that’s what we’re talking about.
God has shared with us riches, and now he’s expecting us in turn to share others— share with others those riches. He expects for us to be unselfish instead of selfish, we might say it. Now, I think that all of us struggle with sharing. I really do. I think we’ve struggled with this ever since we were kids, ever since our parents, you know, said to us, hey, honey, okay, listen, I’m going to buy you— I’m going to buy you the cotton candy, but you’re going to have to share this with your 2 brothers and sister.
You’re going to have to share. So they buy you the cotton candy. What happens?
You don’t want to share. Or if you share, you’re like, share this little, little, little, little bitty, bitty bite. It’s just so hard for us. Yes, Mom, I’ll do it. I’ll share.
Yes, yes, I’ll do it. Oh yeah, I’ll share. And then you go hide in the corner and cover yourself up with a blanket, you know, so that nobody you think can see you, and you selfishly alone satisfy your sweet tooth while everybody else is going, can I have some? Notice 3 words that are in this passage: generous, willing, and share. Just underline them, circle them, just mark them out, notice them.
Generous. Generous so that others are blessed generously. Generous. Can you say that? Can I say that about my giving?
Can I say that? Can we say that, that we’re generous, that we’re richly generous? Willing. What’s the willing part of this? This is the part right now, you know, that perhaps could be a mental struggle for us right now.
Willing. What we don’t want to be is coerced by a pastor, you know, I’m going to get you to do this. No, the idea here is it’s not forced. It’s not because somebody twisted your arm. It’s at a place in our lives where we are eager, we are willing.
Oh, I can hardly wait. To give. And the word share, that is to bless others with what you’ve been blessed with. So it’s not asking us to give out of nothing. Do you see that?
Share, the concept of share means you’ve got something. So it’s taking the riches that God has already entrusted to us and giving from those riches so that others might be blessed. And what’s fascinating here, the word share is actually the word that we get koinonia from. And what is koinonia? Well, koinonia speaks about fellowship.
It speaks about deep fellowship. It speaks about deep fellowship with other members of God’s family. And this is suggesting that when we share with others, when we share with others, there’s a wonderful thing that happens in God’s family or even outside of God’s family. God’s family should be a place where people are sharing willingly and generously with each other. I recently read the book Giving Wisely by Jonathan Martin.
I just found this book very helpful because he gives some excellent advice into giving to people and opportunities that, that come your way and are presented through various needs that come your way. Well, early into the book, Jonathan shares an experience that he had while growing up that had a lasting impact on his life. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to read you a story this morning. Here it is. Jonathan writes, I grew up on a farm in Nebraska.
As a young boy, I dreamed of going to Disneyland. It had opened in 1956 when I was just 4 years old. But California was a long way off from Nebraska, and getting there would cost more than our family could afford. On my 9th birthday, I asked my dad, like I did on every birthday, Dad, Can we please go to Disneyland this year? And he answered like he did every time, if the rain comes down just right and if we get a crop that’s just right, okay.
So I prayed that God would give us a harvest like never before. Some good friends of ours, the Eastmans, owned the farm right next to us with a small creek on the border between us. The plan was for both of our families to go to Disneyland together when the perfect crop finally came. As the year went by, my dad said it had been a perfect winter and a perfect spring to prepare the ground for a great crop. So we planted and the seeds began to grow, and Dad told us that they had never come up so plentiful on both farms on both sides of the creek.
But as summer brought hotter weather, we needed rain to keep this perfect crop growing. A week and a half went by with no rain, and Dad was worried. So I prayed like mad because I was in danger of losing Disneyland.
Right when I finished praying, I heard thunder, and it soon started to rain. It poured for about 15 minutes, soaking everything. It was perfect. But when we looked across the creek at the Eastmans’ fields, we could see that their land was completely dry. For some reason, the rain had poured on our land but not on theirs.
And over the next few days, the sunshine after the rain, we saw crops jump— our crops jump way ahead of the Eastmans’. 5 days later, however, it rained again. But strangely, once again, our crops received all of the water that they needed— perfect rain— while the Eastmans’ fields remained dry. We all knew that if they didn’t get rain within the next few days, their crops would be gone. 3 days later, it rained again, but once again, the Eastmans’ land was dry.
While our crops were the best they’d ever been, I had to watch our neighbors’ crops wither and die, on the other side of the creek. When the harvest time came, it truly was perfect for us. It was the dream harvest we had always longed for. It was literally double our usual. It was everything I dreamed and prayed except for one obvious thing.
When I looked across the creek, I saw a nightmare, not a dream. I wanted to be happy about our own success and congratulate our family, but I realized we actually had nothing to do with it. It was the rain. My dad then called a family meeting and he said, kids, we’ve had the harvest of a lifetime. We need to decide what to do with it.
I’ve promised you all that we’ll go to Disneyland. So come winter break, we’re off to Disneyland. The words I’d been living to one day hear, there they were. Words which should have been met by the screams of kids so excited they couldn’t contain themselves. But his words instead were met with dead silence.
I finally said, but Dad, what about the Eastmans? They have nothing. Why would God do this? Why give us twice what we need and give them barely anything at all? In the silence, we all realized my question had answered itself.
Twice what we need. Twice what we need. He gave us twice so we could give them half. And that’s what we did. We didn’t make it to Disneyland that year, yet it was the perfect harvest.
I finally understood. If it had rained on both sides of the creek, we would have never known the great joy of giving to those who truly were in need. And they would have never known the joy of seeing God meet their needs through their neighbors on the other side of the creek. Truly, such inequities bring out the most beautiful and valuable thing that this life has to offer, and it’s not Disneyland. It’s a simple thing called love.
Love. What the Martin family did for the Eastmans is exactly what God wants us to do. He wants us to be generous. And to be willing to share from what God has shared with us. So, we have an incredible 3G high-yield investment strategy here.
We’re told that if we will lay up in treasure in heaven, verse 19, we will realize later in heaven, and even now on earth, we’ll take hold of that life which is truly life.
And so really, it’s a question for all of us. Am I laying up treasures? I like the idea of lay up there. Lay up means to amass. It means to amass treasure.
It means to amass a fortune. But notice where this treasure is amassed. It’s amassed in heaven. It’s amassed in matters that concern heaven. It’s amassed in people.
It’s taking hold of heaven even before we get there. And when we share, when we exchange the temporal for the eternal, a little bit of heaven comes to earth so that you and I take hold of that which is truly life. Life indeed. Let’s pray.
Father, all that we have and all that we own, we owe it all to thee. To you be the glory. Help us take what it is that we’ve looked at this morning and all the more invest that in ways that multiply your work around us, through us. Thank you for what you’ve entrusted to us. Help us make the best investments possible with that which you’ve entrusted by financially living God-centric lives, by doing good works, and by living with generosity for your glory and for others’ good.
May those investments bring Life indeed to all who are impacted by them. For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
