What Are You Doing With God’s Gifts?

Okay, I want you to be honest with me. Always am. I've been told I talk about this topic too much.

Football. Yep. You already know, so that confirms I must talk about it too much. Do I?

Eh. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app.

This is Family Life Today. I know that you love football. I just have heard all the stories, and so I don't know. You'll have to ask somebody else. Well, I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, if you love something, it could be football, it could be the Beatles, it could be music, it could be food. You talk about it. Yeah.

In some ways you think, should I not enjoy those things and talk about them? And we started a conversation yesterday with Joe Rigney, who's back in the studio with us, about this very topic. So Joe, welcome back to Family Life Today. Always good to be here. Now, Joe, you know, many of our listeners know you're a pastor.

I didn't even mention that before. What's the name of your church? Cities Church in St. Paul. St. Paul.

So you're up there in Minnesota where it's nice and cold. Yep. And you're the president, new president actually, it's recent, of Bethlehem College and Seminary. Correct. You don't like talking about that at all, do you?

I love talking about that. Do you need people to come? Do you need some students? Do any high school students listen to this radio program? Do their parents?

Because if they do, we've got a school for them. All right. So are you, here we go, Minnesota Vikings fan or Minnesota Twins fan?

What are you? Well, I've got layered loyalties. We are Vikings fans. We've assimilated. I'm from Texas, so I grew up a Cowboys fan. We've assimilated and we are now Vikings fan. Baseball-wise, we actually are bigger Astros fans. My wife's from Houston.

Her dad grew up. Isn't that that team that cheats? That is, so they say. Oh, so they say.

There's evidence. I'm sure they're the only one. We have stuck through it. That was a teaching opportunity for our family to say, boys, there are more important things than winning. And you have boys.

I do have boys. We love baseball. So we're Astros fans will be the first, Twins will be second.

Okay. And you've got a sort of a baseball ancestry in your family. That's exactly right. My granddad, Bill Rigney, played in the majors for the New York Giants, then managed the New York Giants. And then when they moved to San Francisco, he was the manager there, managed the LA Angels, first manager for that team, managed the Twins.

There's actually this really cool deal. Like for one year, he was the manager of the Minneapolis Millers, which was before there were the Twins, there were the Millers. It was a AAA club. And so my dad lived in Minnesota. Now my boys play travel baseball for the Minneapolis Millers. And so that's kind of a fun little thing for our team. Do you talk about baseball too much?

I talk about baseball all the time. You do? How do you know when something's an idol? This is a really good question.

Well, you better know because you wrote a book about it. Let me tell our listeners, I love your title, Strangely Bright. Can you love God and enjoy this world? Sort of from the song, you know, how much we love Jesus.

And if we love him so much, the things of this world become strangely dim. You're saying, no, they can become strangely bright, including baseball. So do you love baseball too much? It's possible to love baseball too much. That actually is, it is possible. But not for you? No, totally for me.

You have to check yourself. It's a real danger because God designed the world to reveal himself, what he is like, his invisible attributes, his character, his love, his mercy, his power. Everything that's made is designed to reveal him and therefore is an invitation to know him. So everything is a display of God and an invitation to know him. That's what it's for. But that means they're potent, they're powerful. And therefore it means they can become competitors. And so this is where when we think about in that Romans 1 passage, you know, the invisible attributes are made known through the things of this world and then human beings, the two fundamental sins, they neither honored God as God nor gave thanks.

So there's two fundamental sins, idolatry and ingratitude. So one of the ways that was a helpful clarifier for me is that God intends me to enjoy everything in God and God in everything. So the pumpkin crunch cake that we had, it was so great. Still on my lips.

Still on my lips. Exactly right. I was wondering, like, so I also like steaks.

Is that gonna, you guys gonna bring one of those in next? You didn't put a recipe for steak in your book. I didn't put a recipe for steak in the book. But these things are good things and I want to enjoy God in everything. He's revealing himself, what he's like through them and everything in God. But it's also possible for us to separate them. And when you do that, the Bible does this for us.

It asks us questions. Like, you put God on one side of the scales and you put the good thing on the other side of the scales, whatever the good thing is, and you say, which is more precious to you? The only faithful answer to that question is God is. He's the fountain of all goodness.

He's the joy of every joy. Like, if you separate and have to choose, it's him or nothing. This is what Paul does when he says, I count everything as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. That's comparative.

You hear that? So compare. The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life. So if you have life on the one hand and you have the love of God on the other, which one do you want?

Those are in the Bible and that's meant to orient us. It's meant to kind of, is God supreme in your affections? Do you love him most of all? Love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? No other gods before him?

That's that question. Idolatry is when you answer that question the wrong way. When you separate the gifts from the giver and you prefer the gifts over the giver. So what Paul says is the greatest evil in reality is when we say, I would rather have these gifts, these things of earth, more than God. And it's insanity. This is, the Bible talks about this as insanity. My people have committed two great evils.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. And this is a great thing for, this is a sports one. I do this all the time with doing a youth camp or something like that. Why are you looking at me when you say sports? Because I've heard that maybe you like sports. That's what she told me.

Okay. That is, you know, you're out there on the football field and you're talking to the kids and you're saying, look, you know when you're running around out here and you're getting tired, it's hot, and you come off the field and then you come over and there's the big Gatorade. You know, the cooler of Gatorade and you go over there. What if you went over there with your cup and you walked up and you looked right at that Gatorade and instead of filling your cup with that, you started digging in the dirt and shoveling that into your mouth. And when you tell that to any kid, they go, what? That would be crazy.

That would be insane. And it's like, the Bible says that's evil. That's the greatest evil. And that's what sin is. It's when we forsake the fountain of living water for broken cisterns, for dirt. So that's idolatry is when we separate the gifts from the giver and prefer the gifts over the giver. And you know, it's interesting as you're using the Jeremiah passage, Jeremiah 2, when Jeremiah is saying that, who's he saying that to?

People who have tasted the Gatorade. God is the living water. They know better.

That's why he says, this is unthinkable that you do this. Now, pagan, I get it. They've never tasted. But if you've tasted it and then we find ourselves that here's the question, though. How do we know when it's an idol? Because usually when we're worshiping idol, we're the last to know.

Yeah. I mean, there's a whole bunch of tests. I call them comparative tests. The Bible sets these up for us, I think. So one of them is singing songs like, the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life. Jesus is better. Jesus is better.

You should sing songs like that in order to orient yourself. One of the ones, maybe we can talk about this at some point, is suffering. Because suffering is when the gifts get taken away. And do you curse God? Do you shake your fist at him?

Or do you say like, Job, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. That's faithfulness. It wasn't an idol.

It was painful. That's important. But it wasn't something, Job didn't curse God over his loss. Generosity.

Let's talk more about that. Generosity as a way of overflowing. I received all these good things from God and how I'm going to spread them and share them with as many people as I possibly can.

So those are ways that you can sort of determine, is it something that I must have in order to be happy? Because the truth is, the one thing that you must have in order to be happy is Jesus. He's the treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and in his joy, went and sold everything he had, including football and baseball and pumpkin crunch cake, in order to buy that field. Jesus is the treasure. But this is the sort of treasure that brings all the gifts back and says, now you can enjoy them rightly. Now they can be oriented to them rightly as gifts, not as giver.

Gifts, not as gods. So part of the way I test my enjoyment of, you know, is this getting too much? I try not to think about too much in some sort of absolute sense.

It's always relative. It's does my joy in the gift increase my love for God? So this is where that, again, that Romans 1 passage is helpful. Idolatry and ingratitude. So the flip side of idolatry and ingratitude is worship and thanksgiving.

And in my experience, thanksgiving is an on-ramp to worship. So it's, here's the gift. God's been kind to me. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. He gives you the gift. What should you do when someone gives you a gift? You should say thank you. From the low down bottom of your heart, you should say thank you. You receive it. You enjoy it.

Thank you. And then that thanksgiving then becomes an on-ramp to adoration and worship. And you can see why. You're chasing every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. It's like a sunbeam. And you're supposed to follow the sunbeam where?

Back to the sun. Right? This is just an echo. This is just a little mini revelation of what God is like. What must he be like? If this thing is this good, what must he be like? So that's turning all of your enjoyment of things of earth into first gratitude on the way to worship of God himself for who he is. Not for his gifts, ultimately, but for who he is. That's one of the ways that you just cut the root of idolatry because you're not separating them and preferring the gifts over the giver.

You're using the gifts, chasing them back to the giver. My thought is, this might sound crazy to you guys, but I've talked to so many wives that when it comes to going to church, you know, you've got these wives that are taking their kids and their family. And so often I've had women come up to me and say, my husband, he says that he connects with God more on the golf course, more hunting, more golfing, more watching sports because he says church is boring.

As you're talking about all these things, what would you say to that wife or even the guy? You want to say two things. One is it may be that you are able to meet with God wherever because God is everywhere.

Right? So like that's true. So when you're out in the deer stand or you're at the fishing hole and you feel like there's just something is right in the world and you can you have a sense of God, thank you for this wonderful thing. I'm here with my son and whatever. That's a good thing.

You should say thank you for it. But if all it is is that and it never leads you to the word of God, which is sweeter than honey, and it never leads you to the worship of God, the praise of God. If church is dull but the fishing hole is alive, there's a disconnect in your soul. Something is not right.

And what you need is you need to bring them together because otherwise they become competitors. And the competition is the thing that the Bible teaches is so deadly is it's the essence of sin is when God's gifts compete with him for our affections. But if they become rightly ordered, right, subordinated to him, then it's good and it's right. So I would say if I'm dealing with a guy who says I meet God on the golf course or I meet God, whatever, I would say, is it really the living God that you're meeting with?

Because the living God did give you that as a gift, but not as a replacement, not as a substitute. And coming here, gathering with the people of God, one of the regular things we do on Saturdays and then on the way to church on Sunday is, boys, where are we going? What are we going to do? We're going to worship God. We're going to worship God with his people. And I was glad when they said let's go to the house of God because we want to meet God with his people. That's something that I look forward to every week and I want my kids and my wife to follow me in that.

Which, if we're honest, like you said, every week that's not the case. We feel dry. But he's a fountain of living water. So come empty.

Come to drink. Joe, when you're talking earlier, like one of the signs that it isn't an idol is we receive it with thankfulness and then we're generous. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I know you pastor. I pastored for 30 years. You know, we know as we lead a church that most of the people in our congregation are giving a little bit, but not very sacrificially.

And I'm not saying I went and looked at numbers, but we just know. And that's generally true across America. Do we love money too much? I mean, and we, you know, family life is a ministry that's supported by people saying I want to sacrificially give this ministry. And thank God so many do. But I think it's a struggle for us. It's a struggle for me. I'm not saying it's just people sitting in my church. We all struggle with this.

It could be close to an idol. So one of the things I love the Bible is how it speaks directly to us in these kind of ways. So in the book of First Timothy, Paul says, as for the rich in this present age, I just pause there and you go, that's us. As Americans, Westerners, we live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world. We are the wealthiest people who have ever lived.

And we read that, don't we? We think, oh, that's for the rich people. I'm not one of them. That's right. I'm not one of the rich people.

And we think that's not us. And it's like, you have an iPhone, right? You have a car. You have indoor plumbing.

You have air conditioning. Solomon, the richest man ever or whatever, you know, would be amazed at the things that you have access to, the things that you can just snap your fingers and get now. So that's us. What does Paul say to them? He says, well, charge them not to be haughty. Don't be proud because it's easy to trust in wealth. You say, I can do all things through wealth, which gives me strength.

You can say that. So don't be haughty. Nor set your hope on the uncertainty of riches.

There's a hope setting. I think one of the things when I think about the way that riches for me is a temptation, is a snare, it's a security. It's a hedge against risk. You would say that, Dave.

Oh, yeah. It's not luxury as much as it is like a hedge against risk. I feel safe. Safe. A number in your bank account. A number in my bank account makes me feel safe. Paul says that's setting your hope on something that's uncertain.

Moth can break in. Thieves can steal. The stock market can tank. Like that happens to your wealth. Don't set your hope there, but set your hope on God.

So that's the third. So don't be proud. Don't set your hope on riches.

Set your hope on God because he's not uncertain and he will humble you. But then what's interesting is how he describes God. Who is this God that we're supposed to set our hope on? He richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Now, that's a really strange thing to say to rich people, I think. As for the rich, set your hope on God who richly provides you with everything to enjoy. So this is the theme of the book.

Enjoy the things that God gives. But he doesn't stop there. And I think if he did stop there, I think we are into worldliness.

I think we are into idolatry territory. But he says there's four purposes why God gives you those things. He richly provides you with everything first to enjoy, but then to do good. To be rich in good works. To be eager and generous and ready to share so that you store up for yourself treasures as a good foundation for the future so that you can take hold of that which is truly life. So it's these other three purposes, this generosity. Be as rich in good works as you are in wealth, rich person. Where's your true wealth? It's in your generosity. And so it's God, my hope is set on him. He provides me with family and friends and food and money for my enjoyment. But not just for that.

If it stops there, it's gone wrong. And instead it's meant to be a tidal wave of generosity so that you fund Family Life Radio and that you fund Bethlehem College and Seminary. You know, like in other words, you fund missions to the unreached peoples of the world that you give sacrificially in order to show that your treasure is not in your wealth, but is in God. And it is interesting that when you think about even the money thing, and I don't want to camp here too long, but it is a big idol for probably all of us. But when you think about that, when people hear a pastor or a ministry like ours say, hey, we encourage you to give to our ministry, often we hear, oh, look, here they go.

The 10 percent tithe, whether they want our money. And the truth is, when we give, we break an idol. It's like when I'm generous, it's like it's a move that says, you know, I have a tendency to put my hope in this. When I give some of this away, it breaks that.

And again, I have to keep doing that because it tends to come back. I remember a pastor preaching on that passage. I'll never forget.

He used the theme much like what you just said, Joe. He said, here's your motto. Go home and say this over and over. I will not put my hope in riches. And he said riches like that to remind us that that's nowhere to put your hope.

It's almost like laughable. I will not put my hope in riches, but in him who richly provides. I've never forgotten that motto because I'm like, I have a tendency to do this. I'm going to put my hope in him who richly provides. And one of the ways I'll do that is everything you just said. I'll be thankful. I'll be generous.

I'll model this. But if I'm going to live this out in front of my kids, if I'm going to live this out with my spouse, it could easily become an idol because I know you spend Saturdays on a baseball field with your boys. That's awesome. Everything in me, even as a pastor, wants to say, go do it. But I know some are going to say, no, no, no, no.

That's a waste of time rather than no, no, no. That's enjoying what God's given me, the things of this world. It's a beautiful thing, right?

Yes. So there's layers there. But one is we don't just spend money. We talk this way, too. We spend time. So when we think about generosity, it's easy to think about money first.

And we should because it's a very concrete way. And mammon is a temptation and a snare. And, you know, the parable Jesus tells about the soils and that third soil where they choke the life out. It's the cares of this world and desire for riches. That's the thing that chokes the life of the word.

And that really happens to people. So we want to give until it hurts. I love C.S. Lewis, Mama Heroes, says, how much do you give? It needs to pinch.

It needs to hurt. Like, in other words, there needs to be things that you say, I can't do that because I am sacrificially giving to others. There's things that I can't do for myself. And I think when you think about your kids, I think this is a principle. On the one hand, I want to be generous to my kids. Jesus says, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, like even evil people know how to give good gifts to their children.

That's the baseline. And so I want to give good gifts to my kids in order to be a model, be the smile of God to my children. That's how God is. He's generous with me as a father to his son. I want to be generous as a father to my son. But then I also want to invite my kids into, hey, we're not going to do this thing because we're going to be generous to others.

We're not going to get to go to that because we're going to get to go do this. And then I want to spend more than just money. I want to give myself, my time, my talents, my treasure. So my wife, she is unbelievably generous with everything she has. And it's not that she's just writing a check all the time. The main thing is she is unbelievably skilled and competent. She comes up with amazing recipes. And the number of times that she's been like, hey, I'm going to make you a pumpkin crunch cake, and then she makes two and gives it to somebody else.

Hey, I'm going to make it for you. And she's just she makes all of these things and she pours herself into it. And then she just wants to give it away. I want to bless other people with these things that I have. And it's like, that's not going to show up on a balance sheet. That's not what that was. It's just she loves to see other people happy.

And if this will help make them happy, I want them to be happy, ultimately so that they can be happy in God. And so it's an amazing and beautiful thing to think beyond don't just think money narrowly. I remember when I was a college student, I was like, I don't have any money. And it's like, do you have time? Do you have talents? Can you give those? Can you sacrifice those? Can you use those to be a blessing to others? You do have something. And whatever you have, God has given it to you both for your enjoyment and for his mission. You know, I was thinking, I'm sure you have stories as well of moments, seeing the face of God, experience the pleasure of God moments in my life that had nothing to do with sitting or standing in a sanctuary, opening the Word of God. You think that's the only place, but being on a football field or being on a baseball down with my kids or being at a concert where you're so moved, not just intellectually, but even emotionally at the very presence and beauty of Christ, a sunset, a boat on the water.

Being in South Africa at a safari, there's so many different things. And it reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote, we may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito. What a great quote.

Yeah. Wherever you go, he's there. This is the point of Psalm 139. So this knowledge is too lofty for me. What's the knowledge that he's too much for him? It's like he's in front of me. He's behind me. He's surrounding me.

He hems me in behind him before. If I go up to heaven, he's there. If I go down to the depths, he's there. If I get in a boat and I go as far as I can across the sea, if I get in a spaceship and go across the galaxy, wherever you go, God is there and he's holding you. Even there, your hand will lead me.

Your right hand will hold me fast. So wherever you go, God is present and God is active and he's revealing himself and he's pursuing you and he wants you. He doesn't want just your stuff. Your stuff is an expression of you. I've given you this.

Do you know why? And it's because I want to make you happy in me and I want you to then help others be happy in God. That's why you have all the things that you have. And with the sports thing, I think about there are things that my boys I don't think could have learned, except on that field. Because what's happening is in both victory and defeat. So, you know, the passions are awakened, the desire, the competition that I want to win, and then the disappointment sinks in. And it's like, I want that roller coaster. I want them to experience the loss and then to be able to be there with them and say, this is practice.

This is training for life. There will be hard things where you will be crushed by reality. And I want you to feel God's here for you in this. Or elation because you won the thing. And then I want you to say in the highest point of your joy, God is better than this. My son's Little League travel team won their state championship last summer.

My son hit a grand slam in the championship game on a 3-2 count. I told him, it's only downhill from here, bud. Your baseball career can't get any better. You just hit the high point.

But it was like, and there's this swell of emotion afterward. And after, I'm thinking, and that's just the taste of what God is like. He's better. He's better. And I want that to be my flavor. I want to give that to other people.

He's better. Well, I think too, as I'm listening to something as we've talked about, even Psalm 139, like God is shouting in his word, in his creation and things that we love. I love you and you matter. You matter to me.

The question is, will we see it? That was Dave and Anne Wilson talking with Joe Rigney on Family Life Today. If you'd like a copy of Joe's book, Strangely Bright, you can grab it at familylifetoday.com, or you could give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY.

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You know, treasuring God sounds like such a nice phrase, but how do you treasure God when life isn't going great? Joe Rigney will join Dave and Anne Wilson again tomorrow to talk about just that. We'll see you then. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.