Idol - Greed, Part 1

Money is the leading counterfeit God of our culture. There's only room for one king on the throne of your life, and Dr. Tony Evans says it's time to choose who that will be. Once it turns into greed, which means it's flipped your spiritual priority, you and I have put ourselves in a damaging, devilish scenario. This is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of The Urban Alternative. If someone asks you to choose between God and money, it isn't hard to come up with the right answer.

But possession obsession is a real problem, and today Dr. Evans explains why it's so important to loosen your grip on the stuff that can easily take over your life. Let's turn to Colossians chapter 3 as we join him. Or to get you to investigate something under the hood that needs to be repaired or fixed. The light is only calling your attention to it because without the light you may not know that an adjustment or a repair is needed. When God wanted to shine the lights on our hearts and our spiritual priorities, he would regularly use an indicator light. Jesus used it all the time throughout the Gospels. He would bring up money. He would bring up money because he knew that that would be a light to our souls because of how important it is, how valuable it is, how needed it is, but also how idolatrous it can become. And so he would turn on the light. In fact, Jesus talked more about money than he did about heaven or hell. He would regularly shine it, not because there's a problem with money, but because the light would indicate a deeper issue that needed to be examined and, if necessary, repaired. And so today I want to talk to you about an idol that money can lead to. Money is just the light.

Nothing wrong with the light, but it can point to something that does need to be addressed. And you see it here in verse 5. He says, greed, which is idolatry. So, there is an idol called greed, and it is a big deal, as you will see.

Now, let me define my term so that we are talking about the same thing. When we talk about greed or being greedy, greed is the illegitimate and unauthorized desire, pursuit, or acquisition of material gain. So catastrophic is greed as an idol that in Romans 1, verses 29 and 30, it's put alongside of murder. It is identified as an idol because it is loved, trusted, and served. Now, I know some people say, well, I don't love money.

Yeah, but you fantasize about it and date it. Money seeks to become a master, and it does it through a motivation. And the motivation emanates from this thing called greed. Now, I know that mentally, I may be being challenged right now because greed is not something we necessarily attribute to ourselves. So, I'm going to give you a test, and then you can decide if you're greedy. You are greedy. I am greedy if we use illegal or immoral means to acquire things.

Illegal or immoral means of acquisition means that you're driven by greed. We are greedy when we complain more than we give thanks. We are greedy when we're more concerned about our cash than our character. We are greedy when your financial life is going up, but your spiritual life is going down. We are driven by greed when we treat people with money better than we treat people without it. We are greedy when we crave and plot to possess what legitimately belongs to somebody else. It's called covetousness. Or we are greedy when we hurt others in order to get something for ourselves. All of those are expressions of greed. So, are there any greedy people in the house? Oh, no?

Okay, well, let me keep going. Money is the leading counterfeit God of our culture. It is the leading counterfeit God of our culture. Not because money is wrong or bad.

It's not. But because when the wrong motivation sets in, people hurt each other, people damage themselves, as you'll see in a moment. So, this is a big deal, and God called it an idol, something to be worshipped instead of Him. I'm reminded of the story of the man who came depressed to his pastor. He said, Pastor, I'm so depressed. He said, well, what's wrong? He said, well, three weeks ago, my father died and left me $50,000. He said, okay. Two weeks ago, my aunt died and left me $20,000.

He said, okay. One week ago, my cousin died and left me $10,000, and I'm so depressed. He said, you're depressed because these people died? He said, no, I'm depressed because this week nobody died.

We can become so driven by greed that the things that ought to matter don't matter in the right proportion that they ought to. In Luke chapter 12, there's a story that Jesus tells. Jesus has been teaching in Luke 12 spiritual truths. In the middle of His instruction, a man comes to Him in verse 13.

Someone in the crowd said to Him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. But Jesus said to him, man who appointed me judge or arbitrator over you? Then He said to them, beware and be on guard against every form of greed.

For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. So Jesus is teaching spiritual truth. He's trying to get people to think Godward. This guy breaks into the teaching and says, Jesus, my brother is holding money out on me from our family inheritance. Would you please tell my brother to show me the money?

Jesus looks at him and says, you better watch out. For every form, every shape, every size, in other words, all greed is not the same. In whatever way greed comes, I'm trying to teach spiritual principle and you want to jump to money.

You better beware. Now, notice, this is not the guy who has the money, this is the guy who wants the money. So you can be poor and greedy. Because he doesn't have it yet, but he wants it so bad, he's willing to skip the spiritual, interrupt the master for him to solve this financial dilemma. So that leads Jesus to tell his story in Luke 12.

I'll summarize it real quick. There's a rich man in verse 16. He's got this big piece of property. So he starts talking to himself. He says to himself, his outer man is talking to his inner man. And he says, verse 19, soul, watch it when you start talking to yourself. Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years to come.

Take your ease, eat, drink, and be married. But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you and now who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Here we have a man who's got a booming agricultural business. I mean, he's got to build more storage to handle how great his business in agriculture has become.

I mean, he's blowing and going. So he builds these storages and he starts talking to himself. He says, self, you got it going on. You are the bomb.

You are a beast. And so, self, since you're all that and a bag of chips, we're going to party, party. We're going to eat, drink, and be married. We're going to retire early.

I have my 401k. I mean, we got it going on because you are a success. If you read the story, you'll read this word over and over again. I, I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, himself, himself, himself.

It was all about him and he's bragging. God enters into his self-talk. And while he's talking to himself, God from heaven says, you fool. So that means you can be productive and be a fool at the same time, successful and be a fool at the same time.

Think you got it going on and be a fool at the same time. Why? Because this man had economic plans that were about to be interrupted that night. Because he says, your soul is required of you. Now tell me how rich you said you are? In other words, if you are poor toward God, it doesn't matter how rich you are toward man or toward yourself. He's not condemning the man for being productive.

He's condemning the man for being spiritually impoverished, although he was financially successful. And he says, I'm coming to get you. When I come to get you, and it will be tonight, even though you don't know it yet, it's going to be tonight. And now you won't get to enjoy anything you've planned. Most of us have plans. We've got retirements. We've got things we're looking forward to.

We've got the time when we don't have to do a nine to five. Nothing wrong with that, but don't be a fool with it. He says, beware of every form of greed when you get so into stuff that you become spiritually impoverished. And there's nothing Godward, even though there's everything that's earthbound. And what interrupts this man is an unexpected end of life. I mean, he expected to live a long time.

He'd drink and be married. You know, that's the thing about the end of life. It can be so unexpected.

Dr. Evans will share one such unexpected incident when he continues our lesson in just a moment. Stay with us. Why is America falling morally, culturally, economically, and politically? What is at the core of these issues, and how can we recover as a nation? Dr. Tony Evans' brand new message series called American Idols, and his book America, Turning a Nation to God, will help you find answers. Now is the time to stand together, give hope in the name of Christ to those desperately seeking peace. Visit tonyevans.org and be a part of the greatest revival in history. And if we hear from you right away, both the book and the message series can be yours as our thank-you gift, an appreciation for your contribution to make this listener-supported ministry possible. Tony's current American Idol series contains eight full-length messages, and you'll get them to review on both CD and digital download, along with his popular book, America, Turning a Nation to God. Just visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make the arrangements. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222 and speak with one of our friendly resource team members. They're ready to help you around the clock, so call 1-800-800-3222.

I'll have that contact information for you again after part two of today's message. One of our staff members, his dad is sitting in front of the television enjoying a TV program. He wants to change the channel. He asks his wife to give him the remote. His wife goes to give him the remote, walks into the kitchen.

She hears the remote drop to the floor. She comes in, and he's passed away. What God wants you to say is, look, while you live this life, don't be so in the stuff that you miss me, because when push comes to shove, that can go to somebody else and you may not be here to enjoy it.

So don't wait too late to build up your spiritual bank account while you are focusing on your earthly bank account, because you don't know whether it will be interrupted supernaturally. Reminds me of the story, the man who heard death was tracking him down. Death was tracking him down, and he heard about it. He said, I got to get out of town before death comes here. And so death is due here today, so I better get out of town. So he runs to the next town. On the next day, when he comes out of his hotel room in the next town, he runs into death. Death is there to get him. He said, but you were coming to the other town yesterday. That's why I ran here.

Death said, yeah, but my appointment was with you today. No matter how hard you run or how fast you go, it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. Don't let greed make you a fool. Don't let money make you a fool by turning it into greed.

Nothing wrong with the indicator light, with money itself. But once it turns into greed, which means it's flipped your spiritual priority, you and I have put ourselves in a damaging, devilish scenario. Now here we have a man and Jesus says in verse 21, so is the man or woman or whoever they are, so is the person who stores of treasure for himself and not rich toward God. So the question on the floor is how spiritually rich are you?

How spiritually rich are you? Now, this issue with greed is not merely a individual problem, it's a family problem. The amount of couples who fight over money, who break up over money, who get divorced over money, who have to sneak and hide money from each other because of money has gotten the wrong foothold in the home and nothing manifests greed more than the growth of family debt. People using money they don't have to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't know.

I'm not talking about catastrophic things that you can't control. I'm talking about choices that are made when you know you do not have the resources to cover it just because you want it. Debt has become the song of families today.

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Where your liabilities are greater than your assets due to irresponsibility, due to disobedience to God and not being spiritually rich, you live day in and day out as what the Bible calls a slave for the scripture says the borrower becomes a slave to the lender. We name visa to voluntary institutional servitude always because debt has dominated our lives because the culture keeps inviting us to get in debt and we accept the invitation even when God tells us not to because we're poor toward God. But it's not only an individual problem and a family problem, it can be a church problem. There's a theology running around for years, prosperity theology, where you speak wealth into existence, where God becomes your slot machine and you come for your blessing. Never mind I'm not growing spiritually, I want my blessing.

God becomes used in the name of God. And many pulpits have put gold before God, money before the master, and then try to spiritualize it while God wants you to prosper. It's not that God doesn't want you to prosper, He just doesn't want you to prosper without Him. He doesn't want you to grow high economically without Him.

He does not want you to miss Him. And to use the pulpit to trick people out of their money or to use the pulpit to guarantee something God didn't guarantee Him, making God look like He doesn't keep His word, thus giving God a bad name is the misuse of church. So even church can be greedy. We have ungodly people today doing business and calling themselves Christians. That is a form of corporate greed in the name of profit. Don't get me wrong, God is not against profit, He's against greed. And then there is America being built on greed. The birth defect of our great republic was using economics to empower the evil institution of slavery. Is economic development legitimate? Absolutely. But not when you force people against their will into a system that traps them and doesn't give them an out and does so generationally. That's a form of greed.

And with all the great things that our country has to offer, when greed takes over our individual lives, personal lives, family lives, governmental or corporate lives, then we have set ourselves up an idol that is against the true and living God. Dr. Evans will come back with a powerful personal example about that in just a moment, so stay with us. But first, a reminder that today's lesson is part of Tony's brand-new series, American Idols. For a limited time, you can get all eight messages in this powerful collection as our gift, along with his popular book, America Turning a Nation to God, all in appreciation for your contribution to help us keep this program coming your way each day. Call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 to make the arrangements any time, day or night. It's staffed with friendly team members ready to help you with your request.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Or visit us at TonyEvans.org, where you can make your donation and instantly download all the messages in this series. Imagine waking up one day to discover that dollars were no longer accepted. The cash in your pocket would be worthless, your bank account balance just a meaningless number. Well, tomorrow, Dr. Evans will tell us why that's pretty much the case, as he explains what makes us truly rich in God's economy.

Right now, though, he's back with a closing thought for today. When we built this building in 1995, this facility was constructed, and we were interviewing a number of construction companies. One of the interviewed companies asked to meet with me privately in my office. So I went to meet with them, and they said, look, if you will leverage your influence to get us this contract, we will set up an account in your name for $250,000. This will be your private account. Nobody will know about this, but us and you, all we want you to do is to leverage your influence to get us this account.

Now, I know y'all wondering what I did. No, obviously, they did not get the account. What they wanted to do was appeal to greed, to leverage influence for their business, and they were telling me about their Christianity. Greed can be part of the church's profile when it abuses and misuses divine resources. You want to watch out for that, that greed is not driving the ministry, but God is driving the ministry. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.