Ep. 031 - What did Jesus say about money? Part 2

Episode Transcript

Austin
You know, Spencer, last episode, we started going down the book aisle of a Christian bookstore. We picked up some. We realized maybe we don't like this and I think that's sometimes what it feels like when we read Jesus is words about money. We read it and we say, I don't like that, but we really need to sit with it and allow his words to transform us, to come to love Jesus more than we love money.

Spencer
So first of all, we apologize again to the viewers and listeners that this is an episode borne out of failure. We couldn't get through everything last time, so our themes about what Jesus teaches about money, again, we're going to go through five different areas.
We've got so many different scriptures to really dive into. It's a little bit different episode than what we've done in the past. We talked last time about God as our provider, how that really is the foundation, and Jesus speaks about that in so many different ways, and he assumes that.
Then we talked about the relationship with Jesus being more valuable than all money and resources. So that being that priority that we have, it's the pearl of great price. It is the field that we need to go and sell everything so we can buy it because we have this treasure. Then we talked.
That third point was about our lives actually being exchanged lives. If those first two are true and if we are just stewards of everything that God has given us, then He owns it. All our lives are exchanged and Jesus talks about that as well.
In Luke 12, he talks about giving up our money and possessions. He talks in several different parables about us being given funds or a manager being given funds to steward, and the steward either does well with them or not. But the observation that we would have is they're given everything.
So is the owner still owns it, The steward just has it for a season. So today we confront even things that are maybe more dicey, challenging, you could say, and that we have to recognize that money is a direct competitor to God. It is maybe the direct competitor to God. We don't see anywhere else Jesus comparing or Jesus contrasting what money can be as an idol in such a direct fashion.
So you want to dive in there and our our first theme of the day.

Austin
Yeah, first theme of the day. Well, if we didn't lose half of our audience last week and the week before, maybe we're going to lose the other half. The other two people today. So money is a direct competitor to God. Again, we're building off of that foundation that God is our provider. He is more precious than anything and that we live this exchange life.
So we kind of continue to build this intensity with Jesus words. And that's really all that we're doing is we're just overwhelming ourselves with what Jesus says. And so in this we come back to a passage that we have sat in quite a bit. But Matthew 6:24, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. It's really clear it's either Jesus or money. We are going to serve something. And I think there's something we've talked about before. But the reality is that our lives, we are going to worship something. We are going to spend our energy being consumed by something and Jesus knows that money is going to be that competitor. You cannot serve God and money simultaneously Jesus says.
He warns about that love of money. And it's arguable that money is the single greatest competitor to authentic Christianity. And that's for the millions of people that follow Jesus. Or claim to follow Jesus, especially in the United States. Are we going to love and serve the dollar or are we going to serve the living God well?

Spencer
And we see that this isn't just at the beginning of Jesus ministry or in the middle or at the end again, in Matthew 6. This is Sermon on the Mount. So it's kind of that teaching that's right at the outset of his ministry, soon after he's tempted. But then we go to Luke 12:15 and our next passage, and this is actually after he's already set his face towards Jerusalem.
So this is on the journey to the last week of his life and Holy Week. And we see he says, And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” He's saying that we really have to guard ourselves against this because there is a pull in this direction for all of us.
It's not just for some. It is something that each one of us needs to really guard against. And he tells a parable right after that, and we reference this in the first episode that we were getting into here, but it's the parable of the rich fool building those to the bigger barns where he rebukes the guy who says, Well, I've got all that I need, and so here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to build a bigger barn. So I've got more and more security. And the reality is, in our culture, we would laud him. So many people, Christian and otherwise, would say, Oh, well, he's just saving. He's doing exactly what maybe Proverbs says and saving and saving and saving. He's the ant who is being diligent and storing away for winter.
But there is a way that you can store too much and there is a way that you can look to that material as something that is your provider or your safeguard there. So what are some of the other passages that we've got here?

Austin
Yeah, let's jump over to Matthew 19:23-24. Again, we started Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. Now we're getting towards that end of Jesus life.

Spencer
And Matthew 21 is the triumphal entry. So this is right before he enters Jerusalem.

Austin
So he says And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus is saying it's really hard for someone that has that surplus wealth that's built that bigger barn because they've said I've provided for myself.
That was the rich young ruler. As he walked away and he said, I have provided enough for myself for my lifetime, for more lifetimes than I will ever need. I can go back and do whatever I want to do. It's that focal point of myself rather than the telos of God and His kingdom treasuring Christ. That's what Jesus is speaking to you here.
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle in a rich person to enter the kingdom, because the rich person isn't focused on the kingdom, he's focused on his self and building that bigger barn, that wealth that will pass from generation to generation to generation that they don't need. And so they've built this substantial lifestyle for the glory of himself, not for the glory of the Lord.

Spencer
And so we shift over a little bit, in Jesus words here, when we even think about some of those parables that are so well known. And yet there's a component of riches in here that oftentimes we just slide right by and we both go to Old North Abbey Anglican Church and we have this this liturgy that we go through certain passages every three years in being taught on Sundays.
And so there's a there's a nice natural flow in that we do actually get to hit on a lot of passages that speak about riches, that Jesus speaks directly about them. And we get to hear, you know, our pastors priest be able to speak into that in homilies. But this one in particular struck me in reading it the last couple of weeks, because I hadn't really grappled with the deceitfulness of riches, you know, in this.
And so it's Mark 4:18-19, and Jesus is talking about the state of the heart and those that have a posture that have good soil versus not so good soil. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
And it just struck me so much. He's talking about the deceitfulness of riches right here. He's talking about the desire for other things enter in and choke the word. So we could have very, very good soil. Everything could be lined up well, but maybe we're saving too much, and maybe that accumulation starts to choke our hearts.
It starts to take away the fruitfulness of our lives. And that, of course, again, is right at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, But so much so many of the different parables. There is this component where Jesus is really attacking the riches that we can lean on because the Pharisees did that so much, and other people in his day did that so much.
It wasn't just us. It's not just us now, but it was in his day as well.

Austin
When we see this really on display with the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, and Satan essentially shows Jesus everything. And he says this can all be yours, which is kind of a fool's errand because God owns at all. It is his. But he says, I will give you everything and Jesus response is No, what I need is the Word of God.
And spiritual sustenance ultimately takes priority over Jesus. Physical needs. Satan's trying to tempt him and lure him with these physical things. And Jesus recognizes and says, No, I need the Father, I need intimacy with the Father. I don't need this world and what it provides that's fleeting it's not the end. And Christians really need to be aware of the allure of possessions and the possessions, temptation that they have to at the expense of our own spiritual destiny.

Spencer
And this can show up even in subtle ways where we think that we're doing the right thing. So we see this in Matthew 6:1 and giving to the needy. It says Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
He's saying, Even if you get it right, you can still get it wrong. Even if you make gifts over there, if your heart is in the wrong spot, if you're just trying to get power, if you're trying to have the acclaim of men. And that's oftentimes what the Pharisees were up to there is they made their gifts.
You've missed it entirely. So we've got to be careful. There's all kinds of different ways that money can lure us and tempt us. And maybe we could say, okay, well, I'll just I'll be able to save this and investors and maybe my investments will do better and I'll give it away in five years than what this other institution could do to all kinds of temptations that we have.
But we have to really, I think, come back to this again, this idea money is a direct competitor to God. It's not just morally neutral. It can be used for good. We recognize that. But on the balance, it's like storing up food in a room. It's going to go bad at some point. And the more that we have, we're never going to be able to consume it.
So we really have to see that as that accumulates and we go far beyond enough, we're putting our lives in spiritual peril.

Austin
And to finish this part off, we look at Luke 14:28 and onward. And really when we think about this passage, it's one where Jesus talks about wanting to build a tower, sit down and count the cost and all that, and then prepare and be ready for building that tower. But I think this one can often get skewed of like, Oh no, what you need to do.
But Jesus isn't saying that. He's saying you need to count the cost of following me. Are you really willing to take these steps that I deem necessary? Are you willing to lay down your life like we talked about in the last episode, The Pearl of Great Treasure? Are you willing to lay everything aside and follow me or like we talked about as well?
Are you willing to take up your cross and follow me? It's not going to be easy. It's going to be countercultural. We're going to have to swim in different waters. We're going to swim upstream. We might have family members. If we have kids that are thinking they're going to receive an inheritance from us or parents that think, I put you through college, why are you giving all of your money away?
There's going to be pressures on us that we need to say is following Jesus worth taking his word and saying this is what is good and true and beautiful, and I will choose to follow Jesus more than build a bigger barn for myself. So, Spencer, we want to finish off with maybe some of the hardest passages that Jesus talks about.
If you thought it was hard, we're just going to keep pressing in because we really we think it's important to embrace all of what Jesus says. So our fifth theme God wants us to use His money to care for the poor and share his love for others. So we've already seen building these bigger barns for ourselves is detrimental to our spiritual health.
So what does that mean we do with it? Well, it's time to give it away. It's time to give it to the people that are in the most need. And oftentimes I struggle with that because I don't like to give money away and I don't especially like to give money away to people that I think don't deserve it.
And that's what's hard. And so I think we need to wrestle with, okay, what does Jesus truly say about, okay, if we're not supposed to build bigger barns for ourselves, what do we do?

Spencer
Well, and this is this is part of how we respond in faith, because we talked about it a little bit last time. But, you know, we see Grace given to us unconditionally. But there are conditions around what Jesus expects from us. And what the early church shows is in line with the gospel. And so this ends up being one of those core parts of the early church, core parts of disciples following Jesus.
So we see that from just the first part of his teaching, you know, Matthew 5 The Beatitudes. We have Jesus tempted and Matthew 4, and then boom, he launches and here's his teaching. And he starts by showing that God cares for those poor and downcast and I think it would be an overstatement to say that it's only he's only talking about those who are in material poverty.
But it would be also an error to say that he's also not addressing that because we see this here and we also see it in the Sermon on the Plains in Luke that are kind of parallel passages here in many ways. So he cares deeply for the poor and the downcast and the countercultural lifestyles commended in the Beatitudes.
They have to be lived out in full view of the world. So we're not on the one hand, we're not trumpeting our own work as though it is something that is our own righteousness. But at the same time we do it and we need to be doing it in full view. That's what he's saying.

Austin
Yeah, well, and then we go on to Matthew 25:41-46, and Jesus says here, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
And Jesus takes this and it's really poignant. He's saying you have to care for the sick, the poor, the needy. People that are that don't have clothes are not just spiritually unclothed here. It really means taking care of the most vulnerable.
We've come back to the several times we seek the flourishing of all humanity and the most poor and the most destitute oftentimes need the most aid.

Spencer
Well, and we go to this and we say it's all the driver here is love. The driver here is care. And so, you know, when you're walking by, you know, in downtown and someone asks you for money, does it mean you give them money every time? Well, not necessarily. You know, usually if people are asking me for money, I'm going to say, well, can I get you something to eat?
Because I know if I take them over to a restaurant and get them some food, I'm actually providing something for them. There are so many folks that, you know, based on just where they're at in life, money is not going to be a solution, you know, for them. So we have to there are ways that we can care with our time and our resources while also protecting, you know, those folks.
And sometimes we need to just have the space to be able to do that. Sometimes I need to be able to say, okay, I did have other plans, but the Lord has put this gentleman, this lady, you know, right in front of me, I need to go spend 15 minutes in Subway with them, listening to where they're at in life and seeing if I can help meet some physical needs, you know, right here.
So we go to Luke 6:20-23 and this is where again, it's the sermon on the plain. So we kind of bookended Jesus life in Matthew there. First his teaching, you know, right as he was getting into ministry.
And then right at the end of his life into this ministry when he's in Holy week and Matthew 25, we can see the same thing In Luke sermon on the plane, he lifted up his disciples, his eyes on his disciples, and Luke 6:20-23, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
And so there's this teaching, even that Jesus is saying, Actually, if you're poor, there are things that you're going to be able to see spiritually that the rich can't see, that people who are content can't see. This doesn't necessarily mean he's not necessarily saying, Hey, I want you to be poor right here, but he's saying blessed are you.
If this is your circumstance, you may not see that you're blessed, but indeed you actually are, because you can see more of me than some other people can. What's that next passage in Luke that we wanted to unpack there?

Austin
The next one we want to come to the middle of Luke and it's Luke 11:5-8, and it says And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
Again, part of this is just meeting those basic needs of people that are in need, whether it's friends or relatives or the poor. We've talked about in previous episodes of what are those concentric circles of need that you can give to people. And we're really at the edge of the circle here. When we think about giving to the world, we first want to give to our church, then to people spreading gospel and then to people in need. But we have to have money to be able to do these things, to not forsake when our brothers have need.
And again, we come back to what Jesus is saying and it's the justice of God is to dispense for his people the means that they have justice means looking out for those who are vulnerable.

Spencer
And we see this in in John as well John 2:13-17 says The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
And this is again Jesus, just protecting the weak. He's saying you were supposed to make this a place that's holy, that is worshipful towards God, that is inclining our hearts towards him.
And what you're actually doing is you're just making a buck off the poor guy here. And of course, the folks who were trading there made money on all kinds of different people. But still, it's vile that they're making money chiefly on the poor here.

Austin
You know, I think at the end of the day, this takes wisdom in Matthew 5:42, Again, we're back in sermon on the Mount. Jesus says Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. And the reality here is we see in the early church how this is lived out. All of the people brought the money to the central church and the church dispensed it help.
And so there was really this movement through trusted people. And we see this in the early church that all throughout the first centuries that there would be a way to give for those short term needs, but then never wanted to be a place where it was just short term needs were met over and over. They wanted to move people from poverty into a place of stability.
And so I think in all of this, when we think about meeting the needs of the poor, it needs to be long term. I think maybe that's the most scary part of it, is that it's much easier for me to give a $20 than it is to take somebody to lunch, to hear their story, to think about how can I creatively meet the needs they really have.
Yes, there are immediate needs, but what does it mean to enter a gospel story with this person and seek their long term flourishing? And that's really what Jesus is going for. Are you willing to sacrifice for the vulnerable? Are you willing to take what you would normally spend on yourself and go move into relationship and pursue the flourishing of somebody that has a need?
And so I think when we think about giving to the poor in these words of Christ, we need to take on the reality that this is not simple, this is taxing, it is hard and I think as we finish this episode out, as we come back to these five themes that Jesus talked about, God is our provider. If he's our provider, he provides time, he provides money, He provides everything that we need.
So let's be a conduit of that. God should be our end, our telos the source of our intimacy. He needs to be more valuable than all of our resources. Then we think we live in exchange life money is a direct competitor to God, and Jesus cares a lot about the poor. So if those five things are true, what does that mean for us and how do we live?
I think it means really grappling and wrestling with God. What do you want me to do with my money? Which is really your money? Because God owns it all. So how do I be a conduit of that grace to a world around?

Spencer
But we hope that you've enjoyed the last couple of episodes. It's been challenging for us for sure, as we've grappled with these elements. You have questions or want to reach out to us. We'd love to interact with you, and with that I hope you have a great remainder of the week. Take care.