Idol - Greed, Part 2

True riches is what God gives that money can't buy. Dr. Tony Evans says putting your trust in anything that isn't 100% dependable is a bad move. Let's don't have money as a God, because we're going to need God when money can't do it for us.

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. Imagine waking up one day to discover that dollars were no longer accepted. The cash in your pocket would be worthless, your bank balance just a meaningless number. Well today, Dr. Evans will tell us why that's pretty much the case as he explains what makes us rich in God's economy.

Let's join him. There is an idol called greed, and it is a big deal as you will see. 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. Money 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. 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 God 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 this 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 merry. 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. 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 up 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 an 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. 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 as corporate greed.

Where for the sake of corporate profits, you abuse workers or as James says in James 5, you don't pay them their fair wages or you rip them off or you rip customers off in order to make more money. I told y'all, you know, my favorite potato chip is Zapp's. Now, the last time I said that, there's a whole bunch of members who bought me Zapp's potato chips, okay? No, don't need no more Zapp's. But my favorite potato chip is Zapp's. But I'm not eating too many Zapp's anymore.

And the reason I'm not eating too many Zapp's anymore is I noticed something. The chips are thinner, the bag is now only half full, but the price stayed the same. So they went down and thinned out the chips, almost cut the amount of chips in half, but they ain't changed the price. Look, if you're going to give me half chips, give me half price.

Don't be cutting down the chips and keep the price the same. But there is a corporate greed today in the name of business. This is business. Well, if you are here today and you are a businessman or a businesswoman, you have a right to make a profit. You ought to make a profit, but not at the expense of being righteous in the dealing of your business and being godly in the relationship to your workers and your customers.

We have ungodly people today doing business and calling themselves Christians. That is a form of corporate greed. There is predatory lending. There are places in our community where people who have no other option have to pay 300% and 400% interest to get by. That's greed, to take advantage of people's desperation in order to trap them into giving you money and to bring them into bondage in the name of profit.

Don't get me wrong. God is not against profit. He's against greed.

He's against greed. And then there is America being built on greed. Slavery existed in America due to greed. In order to get enough people to service the industry, to maintain King Cotton, to keep this bolstering economy going, we will trap people in perpetual generational slavery based on skin color as the driving means of economic development in America. 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. When Simon in Acts chapter 8 verses 9 to 24, he wanted to buy the Holy Ghost. He said, I want to buy the Holy Ghost. He saw the miracles Peter and them were doing and he said, man, look, give me some of that power. How much are you charging for the Holy Ghost?

That's what he said. I want to buy the Holy Ghost. Peter said, your money perish with you. Your money perish with you. You want to buy God.

And that's what too many people today are trying to do. They're trying to buy God as though God is for sale. When we become greedy, and remember, greed is not the having of money.

Greed is the illegitimate and unauthorized desire, pursuit and acquisition of material things. Then we have set up an idol. And when we have set up that idol, God will attack an idol. So what do we do about this idol?

How do we handle it? 1 Timothy 6 helps us with this. Paul tells this pastor to teach his congregation. Verse 6, but godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and clothing with these, we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Verse 17, instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited, stuck up, or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

Dr. Evans will share the secret of managing money without giving into greed when he continues today's lesson in a moment. Stay with us. The only constant in life is change, and currently we live in a nation where change is shifting for the worse, morally, culturally, economically, and politically. So how do you find balance and peace through all the chaos? Dr. Tony Evans' brand new message series called American Idols and his book America, Turning a Nation to God, will give you solid answers to what is really happening to our nation. God is calling you to return to Him.

How will you respond? Get both resources at tonyevans.org. America, Turning a Nation to God, is a blueprint for coast-to-coast revival that happens one life at a time, starting with yours.

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I'll have that contact information for you once again after part two of today's message. Now, let me give you the secret of handling your money and not being greedy. First, verse 6 says, Godliness with contentment is great gain.

You didn't hear that. Let me say it again. Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Or let me flip it. Ungodliness with discontentment is great loss. Godliness is a life that seeks to pursue pleasing God. Contentment is to be at ease and grateful for what you have until God gives you more. He says there must be a marriage.

You can't have one without the other. Godliness with contentment. So He doesn't want you to be godly and discontent, and He doesn't want you to be content and ungodly. He says, I need these two.

I need these two to get married and have a baby. And when godliness marries contentment, out of that will come great gain. When the necessities of life have been provided, food, clothes, shelter. Those are necessities of life.

When you have those, thanksgiving should be driving your life, not complaining. One of the sins the Bible mentions in Idolatry Romans 1 is they were not thankful. Godliness with contentment will give you, He says, not just gain.

This baby is going to be fit. Great gain. Conversely, if you are ungrateful, that needs have been met, and if you're not seeking to live to please God, you have set yourself up for great loss.

Not just loss, great loss. He explains this even further. He says, like medicine, money has side effects. You listen to this medicine that's designed to help you, that they warn you, will kill you?

You see that on there? Take this for this problem. Warning, you might die. You might die.

They give you a list of things, and they end it with, you might die. It could kill you, but take it so it can help you, although it might hurt you. Greed has side effects. Oh yeah, it's good coming in on the front end, but when it's done its damage, you're going to wind up with great loss and be a damaged person, not because you have money, but because it's turned into greed, which is the illegitimate use and presence of money. It's not a sin to be rich. If it's legitimate, it's not a sin.

If you've been productive, you saved your money, you stayed out of debt, your business is doing well, that's not a sin. All through the Bible, you find God making folk rich. In fact, you find God making some folk filthy rich. For example, Solomon prayed and he asked God for wisdom. He asked God, show me how to lead these people. And God says, because you asked me for wisdom and you didn't ask me for money, I'm going to give you more money than you ever dreamt of.

I'm going to make you rich. But when Solomon walked away from God and got ungodly and discontent, that's the book of Ecclesiastes. Vanity of vanity, saith the preacher, everything is vanity because he had the money, but he lost the life. In Luke 16, Jesus tells a story and he says this in verse 10. He says, he who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.

And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you what is your own? No servant, watch this, can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Watch this, you cannot serve God and wealth. He says, when you bring your money and make it equal to me, when you bring your profits and make it equal to me, when you bring your business and make it equal to me rather than recognizing me as the source, you have created a competing God.

And the passage says, don't miss this, if I can't trust you with money not to turn it into a God, then what makes you think I will give you true riches? Oh, oh, don't miss this. Let me say this again.

I don't want you to miss this. It all comes down to this. If you're going to put your money and get greedy with it, you can't serve anybody else, you can't put me first, you can't be grateful, and it's all about the dollar, and I'm just an afterthought along the way, if I can't trust you there, what makes you think when you need true riches that you can get it? So that raises the question, what are true riches? Or as 1 Corinthians 6 calls it, life indeed, true riches.

He calls it a treasure. When you have a lot of money, you can buy a lot of stuff. You can build a rich house, drive rich cars, take rich vacations, wear rich clothes. Nothing wrong with that in itself if the money was gotten legitimately, but he says that's not true riches. That's riches, but that's not the real deal. True, authentic riches. Let me tell you what true riches are. True riches is what God gives that money can't buy. That's true riches. True riches, when money runs out, in other words, it loses its power, then you better have something working for you in your storage bin that you can go get because you need some real stuff working for you. When the doctor says we can't help you, you better have some true riches.

Just because you bought that house won't make it a home. You better have some true riches. You see, there are things in life you can't pay for. There are things in life, when your peace erodes you and you need calm in the midst of your storm, you better have some true riches.

When your emotions have gone crazy and you're about to lose your mind, you better have some true riches because you can't find a counselor that you can pay enough to to give you back a right state of mind. You better have some true riches. And a lot of folks want to get true riches at the last second. That's not how you store stuff. You build it up over time. Isn't that what you do with your investments?

You don't wait for true riches. Dr. Tony Evans will have some quick cautionary advice and important guidance to wrap up our time today when he returns in a moment. Stay with us. We have people with different backgrounds, different heritages. What will bring things together so that chaos doesn't rule? Dr. Tony Evans' book, Oneness Embraced, provides the biblical prescription for racial reconciliation. God's goal is the advancement of his kingdom, and in order to advance it properly, he has black Christians and white Christians, and they all should be shooting toward the same goal. A proven pathway toward lasting unity.

Oneness Embraced. Available now at TonyEvans.org. And TonyEvans.org is also the place to go to check out that new package of resources I mentioned earlier. It starts with Tony's timely and important book, America Turning a Nation to God, and includes CDs and instant downloads of all eight full-length messages in his brand-new teaching series, American Idols. They're yours with our thanks when you make a donation to keep this listener-supported program on the air. But this special offer won't last, so don't wait. Visit TonyEvans.org today, or reach out to our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are always on hand to help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. God gave us clear boundaries in life, but people keep moving the lines and smudging the edges. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans will explore the importance of taking our cues from God and not from culture.

Right now, though, he's back with a vital thought to consider. My challenge to you and I is yes, you maximize whatever potential God has given you in life. But as Psalm 62, 10 says, if you get rich, don't set your heart on it. Don't say, this is my life. I'm the man.

I'm the beast now. Hebrews 13, 5, and 6 says, because if you will keep your character free from greed, if you will keep your character free from money, guess what he says? The Lord will be with you.

Ah, let me reverse it. If you want money to be your life, take it. But you'll miss the Lord. You'll miss His presence, His power, His provision.

You won't have Him. You'll have a great checking account. You'll have a great 401. You'll have a great 403. You'll have great stocks and bonds, but you won't have God when you need Him most. So the question is, how rich do you want to be? Let's don't have money as a God, because we're going to need God when money can't do it for us. 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.