Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Most of us have too much stuff. In our greed, we look at our neighbors, note their stuff, and say, I need the stuff they have. Greed is insidious. Unless it's put to death, it will choke the life out of a Christian.
Today, more about the first of seven snares of the enemy. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, the culture almost demands that we want more and better stuff. And capitalism is based on the assumption that all of us will always want more. Well, Dave, you know, the Bible doesn't lay out various theories of how a government should run its finances. But I will say this, capitalism, despite its faults, has generated a great deal of wealth that Christians have been able to send around the world.
And even as we begin to think about our own finances, it is so important that we learn to be generous. Now, of course, at the beginning of this year, as I've mentioned in previous broadcasts, we here at Running to Win are looking for 15 new endurance partners. We're so thankful for other ministries that also share the good news of the gospel. But if God has laid this ministry on your heart, I hope that you will participate.
At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info so that you can understand what I'm speaking about when I emphasize endurance partners. But for now, let us listen to God's word. Let us allow the Spirit to search our hearts. Jesus tells a story.
It's a parable. The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. Then he thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.
Then he said, ah, he's having a little news conference with himself here. This is what I'm going to do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, you fool. You fool. This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? And then Jesus adds, this is how it will be for anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. This man made some major, major mistakes.
Let me give you three of them. First of all, he mistook his body for his soul. He mistook his body for his soul. The New American Standard translates suke, which means from which we get psyche, which is the word that is used here. I will say to my soul, I will say to my psyche or to myself, as this translation says, I have much good stored up for many years.
Take your easy, drink, and be merry. He acted as if only his body mattered. His body was well fed.
He was eating all of the health foods. He was into all the things that make one very, what shall we say, pleasurable in this life. But his soul was being starved. He was paying more attention to his body than to his soul.
No attention to his soul. Come with me to Wall Street or LaSalle Street and see all the bankers, see all the people making the money. Go to the stock market where you have all these people shouting around in a ways that only God can understand and he's not telling.
You go there and you see the greed, you see the money, you see the market going up, and you see the anxiety, and then you see the horror if somebody loses something. You see it all and you say, oh, wait a moment, time out. How is it with your soul and your relationship with God? You'd be laughed out. God doesn't fit in this scheme.
The soul is not important. You go to those health fad places and you see people working out, pumping this and riding this. I look at that. You know, have you ever noticed none of those people are smiling?
I mean, none of them. And they're doing all these things. It's as if only their body matters. You go up to somebody and say, now, are you paying as much attention to your soul as you are your body? And then you think of all the people who are into nutrition. And here I'm going to tread very carefully because I live with a nutritionist.
So I hope this is going to come out okay. Help me, Lord. It's fine, of course, to look after your body, to do exercise.
I play tennis and nutrition is good and right. But what a terrible thing to emphasize the body and to ignore the soul. This man said, I've got enough to feed me and I'm going to look good and I'm going to be able to act good because I have all that I need.
And he was not rich toward God, only rich toward himself. What a major mistake. Let me give you a third mistake or second, actually. We do get to number two before we get to number three.
It's that logic again. Secondly, he mistook himself for God. He mistook his body for his soul. He mistook himself for God.
Now we have to look at the text again because something will jump out at you. Six times he uses that little word I. And if you add the times when he uses the pronoun my or myself, I think you get a 11. I counted it at one time that it was 11, another time it was 12. This is a man who is narcissistic.
I mean, he's got it all revolving around him. Let me read it to you. Emphasizing that verse 17, he thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build greater ones. There I will store all my grain, my goods. And I will say to my self, you, you, I'm talking about me here.
You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Oh my, take life easy, eat, drink and be merry. He mistook himself for God.
Listen to me. What's all this business of my crops? Was he the one who created those little kernels of grain and then programmed them so that if they were put into soil, they would grow? Is he honestly the one who gave the sunshine? Is he the one who, who gave himself life and, and whose heart to, is it he who kept his heart going so that he could harvest it?
What about this business of me, my I? Didn't he understand that this was only loan to him? Didn't he understand that it was God who gave the rain?
Didn't he understand that God programmed these little seeds to grow in ways that we cannot even today understand? What's this business of me? He's God, he thinks. And so I say to you, what's this business of saying my retirement account, my mutual funds, my bonds, my stocks.
Wait a moment. Who gave you life? Who gave you a mind so that you could even understand anything? Who is it that blessed you and, and abundantly and mercifully gave you more than you deserve?
Who is that? That's God. That's God. So here he is. He's taken the place of God and he, and he does what God really hates.
Now we're getting to it. What God really hates is he takes and he transfers his affection to the money, to the, to the grain and to the, to the barns and he, and he transfers his dependence too because you see, he thinks he's got a long future. I have many years stored up, he says. So he in effect becomes his own God. Let me give you a third mistake. He mistook his body for his soul. He mistook himself for God and he mistook time for eternity. He said, I have much goods laid up for many years. Who is he to say that? You see, he's acting as if his future is in his hands and it isn't.
He thought that if he got his retirement program all worked out and that the barn was, was very plentiful. He thought that, that he would be in control, but he wasn't because that very night, you know what the text says? God says, your soul is demanded from you.
Most translation, you know what the Greek word is? It's actually like when you demand a note or a loan and it has matured and so you demand it. God says, I gave all of this to you. It was supposed to be used to bless me so that you would give to others and so that you would be generous and here you hoarded it for yourself and I'm demanding now it all back and I am demanding that you pay up and give me an account for the way in which you spent it.
Tonight is the night that it's demanded. Wow. Could you imagine the funeral? Can't you just imagine how they gathered together and they say, oh, he was such a wise farmer. He figured out all of these new ways that might be necessary to grow a good crop and he was such a wonder.
He never harmed anybody, never did any harm. Where was he? He was in Hades. That's where Jesus said the other rich man went, whose name was Lazarus, you remember? Not to be confused with a Lazarus who was raised from the dead. He went into Hades, the rich man, and there he is and he's in torment and everybody gathering at the funeral saying all of these nice platitudes and everybody talking about this wonderful rich farmer who thought that greed was good. As Boesky said many years ago when preaching to a graduation service you can be greedy and still feel good about yourself he said. Now folks, where is Wall Street ending anyway? Let me give you a description. Your hope is in money.
Listen to this. The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargos anymore. Cargos of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls, fine linen, purple silk, scarlet cloth, every sort of cordian wood and articles of every kind, made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cargos of cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, of all fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, houses, carriages and bodies and souls of men. And they will say the fruit of you longed for is gone from you. All your riches and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered. The merchants whose sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand afar off, terrified at her torment and they will weep and mourn and cry and say whoa, whoa to the great city dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet and glittering with gold and precious stones and pearls. In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin. And this night your soul is demanded from you and you stand before God.
It's awesome. What do we do with the greed that lives within our hearts, within my heart, within your heart, within all of our hearts? First of all, we have to admit it's there, okay? Would you just admit it? Would you just say yeah, I'm greedy? Willing to say that, yeah, I'm greedy?
Not many takers. You see, we don't think we are because we've rationalized it so much. We say well you know those stories of the miser.
I remember as a young preacher I loved a story like that. You know the guy who dies of starvation though he's surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and it's a lovely story and everybody and it made me feel so good because I knew I wasn't like that. And so what we do is we say well it's the truly wealthy. You see, they're greedy. It's the boskies of this world.
Or we read the verse that says the love of money is the root of all evil or a root of all evil. So you know it's only the love of it. I don't love it. I date it. I cuddle it.
We smooch a little bit. But I don't love it. I really do believe folks I cannot make you see the greed in your heart. I can't.
Only God can. Only God can do that for me because it is so it is so deeply entwined with who we are. Our basic love of money and things and the security that we derive from it. But that's number one. That's number one.
We have to admit that it is there. Secondly, and by the way in Mark 4 Jesus said an interesting thing. He said you know the grain that was sown. He says some of it fell among the thorns and then he says the thorns grew up and choked it and in interpreting the parable he says the thorns that choke it he says are the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches. Why the deceitfulness of riches? Because you need money in order to live you see. So there's a legitimate use of money and so but it's deceitful because we think that everything we do is legitimate.
And the love of other things he says chokes the word and it becomes unfruitful. And we don't understand that when we think of the stock market more often than we think of the scriptures we are indeed greedy. Greedy. Alright number one we have to admit it.
Number two we have to exchange gods. You know why God is so upset about covetousness? You know what bothers him so much about greed? You know why it is that Jesus said watch out?
I'll tell you why. Because both greed and God promise the same thing. You see greed says look if you get enough money you're going to be happy. God says you follow me and you're going to have life more abundantly.
Same promise. Money says I'm going to be with you until you die. If you get enough of it it'll always be there no matter how many health problems you have no matter what happens to the economy you can be absolutely certain that I will be with you to the end. That's exactly what God promises that he's with us through the hard times but money makes the very same promise. So you see what happens is we begin to transfer our trust from God to money and therefore in that transfer of trust we are really figuratively slapping God across the face. And you see greed then becomes a part of all that we are.
Of course there's a legitimate use for money. There's purchasing houses and there's places to live and there's groceries and all of those things but all how all of that attaches so easily to our hearts. We have to come back and simply say God I want to be satisfied with you.
You know in my short life and it is getting longer but I still call it short. In my short life I've met some people with great poverty but they are content and you remember what Paul says godliness with contentment is great gain. Great gain.
Michael Douglas was wrong. Let me say also then what we need to do is we just need to give. We just need to give. You give it away every time you write out a check every Sunday like all of you do right. You you give greed away. You simply say that God has given me the privilege of giving and you give and you give and you give because that's the only way that you can really extract this from your heart is to give.
We did a survey recently and discovered that actually the giving at Moody Church per member is not that high at all. And you know what the tragedy is it's not just that we could have more money to do things and support our missionaries and we may be on the verge of a large capital fund campaign so that we can expand. That's a possibility that's being talked about and and the real the real goal though is not to get more money. That would be a mistake to say what we need is more money and therefore we want people to give. No no no no what we want is more character. What we want is more generosity. What we want is more Christ-likeness. More giving of ourselves away you see because that's really where it's at. One day Jesus was talking to a young ruler who came to him and he said how may I inherit eternal life.
It's an awesome question. If he ran into some of our evangelism explosion people they would say well I want you to sit down because I want to explain some good news to you and that would be the proper thing to do. But Jesus handled it differently. He said first of all the young man said you know good master what shall I do and Jesus said why are you calling me good only God is good.
There's a lot of irony there because what he was trying to do is to test this guy to see whether or not that he realized that Jesus was in fact God. But Jesus said you know you do have the commandments don't you how do you read them and he says well he says you know don't commit adultery you don't steal you don't lie you honor your father and mother and I've been doing all these since my youth. And Jesus turned to him and said oh well that's wonderful that's wonderful you know what you need to do really is to sell everything then and follow me. If you're following the commandments the bible says thou shall not covet so just give it all away and follow me. And then the guy began to realize that's not the answer that I wanted.
It's not where it's at. He felt a little bit like the teenager who thinks he's got a ton of money until he has to buy car insurance. He's not nearly as rich as he thought he was. And he realized that he had broken the law but the bible says he turned around and he went away because he had many possessions. Don't misunderstand Jesus wasn't saying the way to heaven is to give your way to heaven.
We can't do that. Salvation is a gift of God's grace but what Jesus wanted to do is to show this young man that he had a serious problem with sin this little self-righteous man who entrapes him around saying I've kept all the commandments look at how good I am. Jesus was proving to him I want you to know today you've got a sin problem that's really really deep. And today God is saying two things to us. First of all for those of you who do not know Christ as savior what he's saying is look Jesus died that you might be forgiven and his death was a substitute for us. That's what he's saying to those of you who don't know Christ but to those of us who know him Christ is saying look how deep a commitment does greed have in your life? Are you willing to be generous?
Are you willing to follow me? Are you willing to give it away like the missionaries do and how we thank God for them? Are you willing to to simply say God here it is because the scripture says very clearly that that which is admired and loved among men as I read earlier is detestable to God. It's in all of our hearts folks it's there it's in my heart it's in your heart the question is how do we deal with it that we might honor God with what he's given? Let's pray. Our father we do want to thank you today for your word and father we humbly acknowledge our own sinfulness our own love of things our love of money which worms its way into our hearts. Father today we ask that you will help us not to substitute that for our love for God and we pray that those who really do need deliverance might experience the deliverance of Christ from that which captivates and binds and demeans. Set your people free today we ask and now before I close this prayer I want you to pray and you tell God whatever you have to tell him. Father today with a hymn writer we say take the world but give me Jesus all its joys are but a name but his love abideth ever through eternal years the same. Lord we can't do it you do it in us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well my friend this is Pastor Lutzer of course realistically we have to admit that money is a great part of our lives we need it in order to live it's fine to save money but greed is a sin the seeds of which exist in all of our hearts and as I like to emphasize one way that we can overcome greed is to become a very generous people. I hope that you're a generous person who contributes to various ministries but I'm inviting you to consider becoming an endurance partner for the ministry of running to win. You say well Pastor Lutzer what does that involve I'm so glad that you asked that question hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because this is the info go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com and when you're there you click on the endurance partner button or you call us at 1-888-218-9337 this marks the end of our endurance partner challenge we hope that you will pray about participating once again because we have emphasized it during this week I'll give you that contact info again go to rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337 let us all be known as a generous people spreading the gospel around the world you can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 from bingo to casinos gambling spells big trouble taking money from those who can least afford it those hoping for a big break most states flaunt their lotteries as government sanctioned get rich quick schemes you say I'd never gamble yet the lure of fast cash leads all too many Christians into serious trouble on our next running to win gambling don't bet on it thanks for listening this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church
