Jesus' teaching in Luke chapter 16 makes it clear that we can't serve both God and money. and trusting in our possessions is a futile endeavour. Today, on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg explores the many ways God helps us let go of earthly treasures. to lay hold of eternal riches. If you think about heaven this afternoon.
And the fact that you're going to live in heaven as a believer, and you're going to fall down before the throne of God, and you are going to worship the Lamb for eternity. I suggest that that will make a difference about the way in which you view the prospect of our evening communion service. Than if you view the balance of this day simply in terms of now. Once you introduce then to the now. Then now is affected.
What prospect is there for a rich welcome in heaven? Unless first we've been confronted by his divine power. And then that we become convinced of his precious promises. And as a result of being so convinced that the promises he said are true, it changed the way in which we lived in this culture. And so, as a result of the change that was brought about in living in this culture, we began to escape from the clutches of the culture.
Not by going and living in a wardrobe, not by going and living in a cave. But by living differently in the now, because unlike the children of this world who are without God and without hope, we know that the then is actual reality.
Now, I say to you again: unless you come to this passage of Scripture and recognize this vital distinction, I don't think you're ever going to get close to it. We needn't be in any doubt about the prospect. 2 Corinthians 5:5, Paul says, God has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. He's actually put within us his spirit so that we have this sense of dissonance. We have a not yet dimension always to our lives.
We realize that there is more than this. And part of the great escape. of 2 Peter 1 is to be liberated from the idea That quotes It doesn't get any better than this. Has anyone said that to you this week? I understand why a person says it.
I'm tempted to believe it. You're standing on the fourth T? You hit your drive and it wasn't an embarrassment like the other ones on the previous teams. You looked up into the blueness of the sky. The warmth of the sun on your shoulders.
The companionship of your friends around you. You get ready to walk up the fairway, and as you set up, someone said, You know, it doesn't get any better than this. Oh yes, it does. As it does. But you see the child of the world Is without God and without hope in the world.
That's why we've got to get all this stuff. That's why we've got to be able to play all those clubs. That's why we've got to be able to take all those trips. That's why we've got to amass all those toys. Because we believe the lie.
It doesn't get any better than this. Divine power. Precious promise. Great escape. Rich welcome.
See, we want a rich welcome without the escape. Or maybe that's just me. The things that we see now. Are here today, they're gone tomorrow. The things we can't see now are going to last forever.
That's hard to get your head around, isn't it? I'm no scientist, you know that well enough, but in terms of the actual critical mass of a mountain the size of the Eiger. You could take that, or the Mont Blanc, or the Matterhorn, or something, and you could just actually reduce it. Just something you can put on your coffee table. But yet it seems so vast and so permanent.
You see, unless the Spirit of God does this in our hearts, I don't think it can be achieved. Because where is heaven? Try and tell your kids we're going to go to heaven. Say, I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go to Disney World. That's what we say.
I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go to Hawaii. I don't want to go to heaven. I want to live on a lake. I mean heaven?
Now you see, until the Spirit of God convinces us by his word about the factuality and actuality of these things, all we're doing is moving concepts around on a board. that make absolutely no impact on our lives at all. And God is so vitally concerned that his children would be seized by this perspective that he actually uses things in the events of our lives to steer us in the right direction. Many of the things that we want again to run away from and hide from are the mechanisms that God uses in order to pull back the curtain of eternity and say, There you are, let that light shine on you. For example, disappointment.
He uses the disappointments of our lives. Our unreached goals, our unfulfilled dreams, the sense of unanswered prayer. He uses that so that we would realize that this earthly pilgrimage is something of a shadow, is something of a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, you see. There is a sense in which Shakespeare gets some of this right. And we look forward to a day as we put our heads on our pillow in the evening and bury our faces in our pillow and say, you know, I never thought that I would reach forty nine or fifty two or whatever it was, and this would be my lot in life.
And he says, come on now. Don't fall asleep with your face in the pillow like that. You're gonna live forever. My presence. I'm going to wipe away every tear from your eye.
He uses disappointments. He uses departures. The first time that we said hello began our last goodbye. That's a strange thing about life, isn't it? You take your children as their gifts from God and you hold them to your arms and you love them, but the minute you look at them, you know that your whole journey in life is to let them go.
God uses departures. in order to win us from now to then? Departure. A reminder to me. of the ultimate departures of life.
When we will never see one another again in time. There will be a last kiss, there will be a last door close, there will be a last wave, and it will be gone. God uses that. to win us from now.
so that we might live And they're then And it is when the then impinges upon the now. That my disappointments and my departures, and thirdly, my disfigurements and my diseases begin to take on a whole different picture. Of course, there is disease. We live in a fallen world. Of course there is disfigurement.
Deny it if you wish. But not in front of your spouse, you can't. The other day, I discovered that those ornamental handles in the bath are not ornamental. It never occurred to me that you're supposed to pull yourself up on those things. But somehow or another, the other day, I lay in the bath, and I went to do a sit-up to get up, it just didn't happen.
It never happened. And then I found myself hanging on and pulling myself up. I said, well, that's what those things are for. Look at that. What is this?
This is disfigurement. Gerd Oliver, whose funeral service I conducted years ago now, her husband gave me her Bible in prospect of the funeral. I took it. I was going through it, looking at the notes she'd made from the sermons in her own personal devotional life. And I came to this section in 2 Corinthians 4 where it says, outwardly we are wasting away.
And she had it asterisk. And on the top of the page, she had written, so much for facelifts. Outwardly we are wasting away. See New Age nonsense. is trying desperately to say, no, we're all going to live forever.
No, we're all fine. Take this jelly, rub it on your belly. Take this, rub it on your forehead. Take this, stick it behind your ear. Take this and do this with it.
And you'll be skipping through life for the rest of your days. No, you won't. You'll be going like this with all this jelly and everything hanging off you. People saying, why are you sticking that stuff everywhere? Cause I'm gonna live forever.
I'm gonna learn how to fly. No, you're not. I got news for you. You are dying. And here's the problem: all your stuff is dying with you.
It's all going in a garage sale. Or to your dumb kids. Whom you never trusted in the first place. And now you're staying awake at night going, goodness gracious.
So they say, well, I can't spend it fast enough.
Well, if you'll let eternity dawn We can help you to get rid of it. Who's going to reach China for Christ? Who's going to underpin the translations of the Bible in languages as yet untranslated? Who's going to go to the ends of the earth to let the people know that Jesus Christ is alive and well and ready to meet them? You really planning on doing that after you're dead?
We all sit around in your attorney's office and wait and find out just what you've done. Why don't you do it now, silly person? and have the enjoyment of it. And if we doubt it. that God wants to farm this in us, then we We don't even understand the nature of death because, compared to what lies ahead, living conditions around here.
are like a stopover in an unfinished shack. That's not very nice. I just put a new deck on the back of my house, and I don't like you referring to my house as an unfinished shack. I wasn't referring to your house, I was referring to my house. Compared to where I'm going, where I live is like an unfinished shack.
You too. I don't care where you live. You couldn't even approximate to it. Still, you got to paint it, still you got to fix it, still you got to do this with it, do that with it, make sure somebody's there, somebody's here, somebody's over there. All the stuff that in the story of the sword, remember the guy was completely messed up.
Because he allowed the challenges of wealth and of possessions to squeeze the very life out of him, and he never came to maturity. Part of the reason for the immature nature of the contemporary American church is right here. Because we're living in the now 'cause and we're planning on staying in the now. We want healed now, we want heaven now, we want happiness now, we want fixed now, we want perfection now, we want everything now. And Jesus says, listen.
If you are going to play that game. You have no prospect of eternal riches. I read a manuscript this week. One of my friends sent it to me. Actually, a publisher sent it to me.
It was written by one of my friends. There was a note in there concerning his wife who had died. She was a friend of ours. She had an inoperable brain tumor. He tells a wonderful story in the course of the book of his wife.
Knowing that her time is coming close, visiting a florist shop in the small town where they live. She was a young mother. She had four young children. They were all tiny. And uh she went into the florist for just a routine um something.
As she stood waiting in the florist shop, it became apparent to her that the series of floral displays that were all around the foyer area had all been put there because they were going to be sent to a funeral. As she looked forward and looked at the greetings, she discovered that the majority of the cards were black-edged cards.
solemn expressions of condolence. Oh, she said out loud. These are far too gloomy. She goes forward to a rack and she picks out a card and having looked at it, she gets a handful of the cards and she turns to the owner of the store or the manager of the store and she says, When the people come to purchase flowers for my funeral, have them use this card. And with that she left.
And as the door closed behind her, the florist turned the card over and looked at it, and it read, Welcome to your new home.
Now what's that about? It's about the then impinging upon the now. He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Tell me how you write that and mean it at the age of twenty four unless the then has transformed your now. And what I'm saying is I have yet to see what will happen in a life Where the then breaks into my now.
And we have yet to see what will happen to a congregation when the then invades the now. In terms of the use of resources to bless others and to prepare for our eternal dwellings. But that is the principle. The shrewd manager decided, I'm getting fired, I can do this and I'll have friends now. Jesus says, use the same kind of shrewdness to ensure that when everything is gone, you are welcomed into eternal dwellings.
In other words, all of the instruction that he gives, all of the behavior he calls for. grows out of an orientation. to eternity. Verse 10 Contrary to the popular notion, Jesus says we do need to sweat the small stuff. We do need to sweat the small stuff.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. The manager was not commended for being dishonest, he was commended for being shrewd. What you and I do with the small things in our lives is an indication of what we'll do with our big things. Our character is not determined by the quantity of goods entrusted to us.
If a man is dishonest with change for a dollar, he shouldn't be trusted with larger amounts. It's an obvious principle. That's why we have to teach our children honesty in their speech and in their dealings. People say, well, you know, you don't need to interfere with your children to be down on them so hard. The child said, I saw the big dog in the front yard.
Said, honey, the big dog wasn't in the front yard, the big dog was in the back yard. You can say, I saw the big black dog in the yard, but you can't say I saw it in the front yard if you actually saw it in the backyard, because it wasn't in the backyard, and that's not true. Or what does it matter? Matters a great deal, son. Where was the dog?
In the backyard.
So why did you say it was in the front yard? I don't know.
Well, don't say that. Because this is the same kid who then comes home and says, I went to my music lesson. After school. When, in point of fact, music lesson after school is a synonym for I went with my friends to who knows where after school. But it starts with big dog.
in a front yard. The same with money. If you can't give your kid a dollar and get the right change back, Be careful. And this of course is the place where small stuff is irrelevant. There's money lying all over America.
Have you seen it?
Someday I'm just going to take, I say this to myself all the time, now I'm going to have to do it, but I'm going to take a day. And I'm going to go and see how much money I can find. Because money's everywhere in America. Lying everywhere. There are a few of us, eccentrics in Solon, that find it in the early hours of the morning.
I'm unashamed to admit that. I know where to go.
Some of it's in front of Dairy Mart, some of it's by McDonald's, and there's a significant stash down by the payphone. Because You know, I've got to reach out and put that quarter in. And oh, I fell on the ground. Goodness gracious. That's going to mean I'll have to pull forward.
I'll have to open the door. I'll have to get out. I'll have to pick the thing up. Who cares what's a quarter between friends? A quarter is just 10 cents away from a plain dealer.
That's what it is. I'll take that quarter.
So I got this great quest in life. See how much I get I get a coffee, a newspaper, and a muffin, and I never even have to reach in my pocket. And when I go in the dairy market to my Indian friend and I say, hey, it happened again, he always says, only in America. Oh. Only in America.
And the two of us aliens, we have this little thing there. We're going, isn't this a great country? Can you believe we live here? Isn't this fantastic? We go very, very good.
Only in America I get, they put money in here, they put money in here, and money everywhere, you know. And then they got it figured out because a coffee is $1.59, sounds like $1.60. But it isn't $1.60. But if you give them $1.60, you're going to have to stay and embarrass yourself waiting for a penny. Watch me.
There it is. Right there. That's this morning's. 'Cause I figured it out. 500 people a day passing through that, and that's conservative.
Who got this large coffee? For a dollar fifty nine but left a penny behind. They put five dollars In the pot. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year To the bottom line is $1,825. With 400 outlets, it's $730,000 a year to corporate earnings.
Because of a penny. which is apparently irrelevant. Jesus says, if you don't take care of the small stuff, Nobody's gonna trust you with big stuff. Can you imagine how Judas Iscariot felt when he heard that? Hey Judas.
If you can't take care of that purse that you've got hanging from your belt, do you think that you're actually going to take care of people? It's not going to happen, Judas. Do you imagine his eyes closing down as he gives his instruction? Because he's the very one who said, why did that lady go and waste all that money with that jar of perfume? That could have been sold and given to the poor.
And John says he had no interest in the poor. It was only because he couldn't stand seeing the money go through his fingers. And when he goes out from there, he goes to the Pharisees and he says, I'll betray him. And the Pharisees said, That's fine, we'll give you money for him. And that's good because he wanted money.
Then he takes his 30 pieces of silver and he throws them down on the temple courts and he goes out and he hangs himself. Because what would it profit a man if he gains the whole world? and loses his own soul.
Well Our time really has gone. You say, well, we can serve God and money. No, we can attempt to worship God and money in a haphazard, disjointed, irregular, and undevoted fashion. but to be at the absolute disposal of money. I cannot be at the absolute disposal of God.
If I make the accumulation and enjoyment of stuff the main object of my life, Then I put myself under the domination and power of stuff And so I become the slave of stuff. If I recognize that all that I possess, my talents, my privileges, my money, my stuff, if I recognize it belongs to God who lends it to me, Then that opens the door to use all that I have. To honor God. to bless my fellow creatures. and to enjoy myself.
Because he gives us all things richly to us.
So enjoy. There's not some form of economic masochism. He says, when you allow eternity to break into the now, Then you will be able to take all you have. Your house, your cars, your money, your resources, whatever it may be, and you may use it to honor God. to bless others.
To enjoy yourself. But if you worship at that shrine, You won't enjoy yourself. You won't bless others. You won't honor God. And who do you think is going to give you riches?
for eternity.
So we jump in the car. We stick in a C D It's Bob Dylan. And he says, You gotta serve somebody. He's right. Jesus just said that.
Choose you this day. whom you will serve. We cannot serve. Two. Masters.
You're listening to Alistair Begg, Un Truth for Life. Alistair returns in just a minute to close today's program.
Now, here at Truth for Life, we're passionate about introducing people everywhere to what the Bible says, what it means, why it matters. We believe that God's Word brings comfort. He directs us through the crises of life, as well as encouraging us in our daily routines through His Word. We make it a practice to offer as many free or low-cost resources as possible so we can help provide clear, relevant Bible teaching to anyone who wants to learn more without cost being a barrier. And along these lines, if you have not yet downloaded Alistair's audiobook and study guide for the book Pray Big.
I want to encourage you to do that today. This free offer is available this month only. As you listen to the audiobook and work through the study guide, you'll learn how to pray in alignment with God's will and purpose for yourself. for others, all for the glory of God. You can download the Pray Big audiobook and the Digital Study Guide for free at truthforlife.
org slash Pray Big. By the way, the audiobook is read by Alastair.
Now here is Alastair to close us in prayer. Father, out of all these words, we pray that we might hear your voice. We pray that we might become students of the Bible, that we might search it diligently, that we might be like the Berean church who, having heard Paul preach, went away and examined the scriptures to see if these things were so. I pray that this congregation will go out and do the same. That each of us will learn.
to study your word so that we might become not only its students, but also its servants. May your grace and your mercy and your peace. Be the abiding portion of each one who believes. Today And until in the then We see Jesus forevermore. And we enter into eternal riches.
Amen. Amen. We are glad you joined us today. Tomorrow we're going to examine a Parable in which Jesus challenges us to consider. Our destiny.
The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
