The Gospel and Materialism

Second, materialism is dangerous. It leads people into many senseless and harmful desires. The love of money and things will send you down a path that is fraught with danger. Here are some of its deadly fruits: selfishness, cheating, fraud, perjury, robbery, envy, quarreling, hatred, violence, and murder. Or think of some other effects of materialism, which may immediately come to mind: pornography, blackmail, exploitation of the weak, oppression of the poor, immorality, and injustice. In short, materialism is a breeding ground for thousands of other115 sins. Are you, Christian, foolish enough to think you are immune to these things?

Consider some warnings from Scripture: Achan and his family were put to death because of Achan's desire for a few forbidden possessions (Josh 7). Solomon, despite his great wisdom, was tempted by the love of money and possessions (1 Kgs 4:26; 6:38-7:1; 10:26-11:1). The New Testament is also full of such warnings. Jesus says to His disciples, "I assure you: It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven!" (Matt 19:23). Or consider Luke 6:24-25: "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort. Woe to you who are now full, for you will be hungry." James writes something similar:

The Bible is full of these exhortations. Needless to say, then, materialism is dangerous.

Third, materialism is damning. If that sounds too extreme, then consider what Paul says in this passage. According to verse 9, materialistic desires "plunge people into ruin and destruction." That word "plunge" has the idea of sinking, and it's the same word used by Luke to describe the fishing boats that were sinking due to an abundance of fish. A love for money and possessions will drown you eternally. Paul is clearly warning us of eternal ruin and the final judgment here, and not just a loss of reward, for a number of reasons. For example, in verse 7 the apostle talks about what cannot be taken out of this world, which is clearly a reference to eternal realities. Similarly, verse 12 talks about fighting the good fight of faith in order to lay hold on eternal life. Finally, in verse 19 Paul addresses storing up treasure "for the age to come." The point is clear: heaven and hell are at stake in how we view our possessions. When this life is over, it won't matter how much stuff you have owned. The late Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, even with all his billions, was not able to take a penny of it to eternity. Possessions will always let you down at the most important point of your life—when death is at hand.

We've seen so far that materialism is deceptive, dangerous, and damning. Based on that, I want to call you to run—run from the love of money and run to the love of God! This is the exhortation from Paul as116 he tells us to be content in God. As opposed to the false teachers who were trying to use godliness as a way to get material gain, Paul said in verse 6, "Godliness with contentment is a great gain." Notice Paul didn't say, "Stop living for gain." Instead, he said to live for great gain, that is, eternal, infinite gain. There's Someone who is better than money. Don't settle for the love of money; be satisfied in the love of God. That's what it means to have "godliness with contentment." When you have God, you don't have to crave more stuff in this world. Paul says something similar in Philippians 4:12-13:

Whether he had much or little, it didn't matter to Paul. He had Christ, and that was enough.

So how do we fight against the constant desire for more in this culture? We fight an increasing desire for things with an increasing delight in Christ. As Paul goes on to say a few verses later in Philippians 4, "And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (v. 19). If you are in Christ, why do you need to live for riches here and now, when you have riches in glory?

When you realize that God is gain, then you will begin to live differently from the world. We'll consider several ways in which this plays out. First, you will live simply, which is what Paul said in verse 8: "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these." Did you catch that? Food and clothing. That's all Paul needed. Christians can and should be content with the simple necessities of life. In a culture of accumulation that is built on having more and more, always consuming, always looking for the next deal, we as believers need to have a counter-cultural perspective. Quite simply, we don't need more. Does God love you? Does He desire your good? Then hear Him saying, "You don't need more stuff. Live simply. And in the process, trust Me to satisfy you far better than more stuff ever will."

Let's believe God in this area of our lives. Let's go against the grain. Let's live simply. Believing in the authority of God's Word, we should live differently from our materialistic culture by being content with the necessities of life and forsaking luxuries. And we do all this because we are content in God. One of the best statements on this issue is from the117 Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle produced by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization over 30 years ago:

A second way in which contentment in God should play out in our lives is that we should give sacrificially. This point will come out more clearly toward the end of the chapter, where Paul told Timothy to exhort the rich believers "to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good reserve for the age to come, so that they may take hold of life that is real" (vv. 18-19). The rich, which includes most Americans, should live simply and then take everything else and leverage it all for the glory of Christ in a world of urgent physical and spiritual need. This is a practical takeaway from 1 Timothy 6, both for individuals and for churches. Let's limit our budgets and grow in contentment in order to free up as much of our resources as possible for the purpose of making disciples in all nations. Just to be clear, lest we fall into the trap of legalism, there's not one set figure we can establish for every family or every individual. Rather, we want to resolve to be content with a certain lifestyle and then fight against the desire to live above that lifestyle. Whatever else God entrusts to us, we give away freely to Him. There is deep joy in this kind of living and giving.

As believers we live simply, give sacrificially, and finally, we thrive eternally. As we saw earlier in verses 18-19, by being generous and sharing our resources, we are storing up treasures for the future and laying hold of true, eternal life. This principle is illustrated in the life of John Wesley, the Methodist pastor and missionary who lived from 1703 to118 1791. In 1731 Wesley began to limit his expenses so he would have more money to give to the poor. One year his income was 30 pounds, and his living expenses were 28 pounds, thus leaving him with two pounds to give away. The next year his income doubled, but he still lived on 28 pounds, which allowed him to give away the remaining 32 pounds. For the next two years his income continued to increase so that in the fourth year he was able to give away 92 pounds to the poor. To put this into present-day figures, Wesley was making about $160,000 a year, but he lived like he was making $20,000 a year.

Wesley believed a Christian's increase in income should result not in an increased standard of living but in an increased standard of giving. He taught that Christians should not merely tithe but give away all extra income after the family and creditors were taken care of. Wesley continued this practice throughout his life, and even when his income rose slightly over 1,400 pounds, he gave away all but 30 pounds. He was afraid of laying up treasure on earth, so money went out to charity as quickly as it came in. When he died in 1791, the only money mentioned in his will was the miscellaneous coins found in his pockets and dresser drawers. Most of the 30,000 pounds he had earned in his lifetime had been given away.

If we took this same attitude toward money today, the kind of attitude Paul exhorts us to take in 1 Timothy 6:3-10, then we would see Christians and churches breaking free from the deadly danger of possessions. Instead, they would be using their resources to inundate the lost and the poor for the glory of Christ. Some people might call this extreme, or even being irresponsible toward our own families, but I don't think many Christians in our culture are in any danger of giving away too much. In all seriousness, do we really believe we're going to stand before Christ one day and hear Him say, "I have this against you—you gave too much away"? Jesus never called someone a fool for giving too much and keeping too little; He did just the opposite (see Luke 12:13-34). Not being rich toward God is the foolish option. May we be those who give lavishly and willingly because we treasure God above our money.

Give Your Lives

When we prize God above our possessions, we will naturally be proclaiming the gospel as good. The gospel is, after all, good news. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ:119 Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich." The Bible describes the incarnation in the language of riches and poverty. Christ became poor, taking our sin upon Himself, so that we might have His righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). We can tell every person and every people group on the planet that God has become poor so that they might become rich if they will repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ. That's infinitely good news!

A materialistic world will not be won by a materialistic church for two reasons. First, we will not show the world that Christ is all satisfying as long as we are on the path of materialism. How will we lead people to abandon the things of this world if we in the church are attached to the same things? We will be communicating that Christ plus our stuff equals satisfaction, but that is not the gospel. Even our church services can evidence a lack of satisfaction in Christ. Brothers and sisters in Christ who live in difficult places around the world gather together not because they like the worship band or the sound system or smooth transitions in the service; they gather because they want to hear the Word of God. Is that enough for us?

The second reason a materialistic world will not be reached by a materialistic church is that the resources needed to win the world to Christ will be kept in our second homes and in our nicer possessions. We'll continue to give our pennies to the Great Commission. Ralph Winter has said, "Obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else." Those who love their money do not give it away.

Finally, we not only proclaim the gospel, but we must be living like God is gain. Let's live simply and give sacrificially, knowing that this will be for our eternal good. It will also be good for brothers and sisters around the world who are struggling to survive and for the lost around the world who need to know that God is better than everything this world offers.