Delight Yourself in the Lord
The Ultimate Wealth in Life
1 Timothy 6:6–19
The psalmist said, "Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." So far, we've explored what that means primarily at a spiritual level. It speaks to what we give and receive in worship, and it is descriptive of our evaluation of our salvation.
The ultimate pleasure in life is found in the presence of God, therefore we worship Him and in return we find grace, goodness and every good gift, and that relationship with God made possible through Jesus Christ is the most valuable treasure we could ever obtain.
in fact, we are so overwhelmed with the pleasure of God and the treasure of Jesus, the joy He brings just spills out of us in love to meet the needs of others.
But what about at a physical level? How would this kind of relationship and worship and love express itself in relation to, let's say, our money and finance?
Let me make a statement and let's see whether or not you agree with it:
What you do with your money, or what you would do with it if you had it, can make or break your happiness forever.
If you question whether or not that is true, listen to what we read in
1 Timothy 6:6–19
In particular, notice, verse 9 which makes it very clear that what you do with money can destroy you. On the other hand, verse 19 indicates our use of it can secure your eternal life (verse 19). It seems to me that what this passage teaches us is to use our money in a way that will bring us the greatest and longest gain.
Therefore, this text is teaching us that even how we use or misuse our financial resources has a profound impact on our pleasure in this life and the life to come. In fact, Paul says to young Timothy that the root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God (verse 10).
Think about that: The ultimate wealth in life is not money. There is something that Christians live for that has greater value than worldly wealth.
And what Paul writes to Timothy is a warning about those who are trying to find some financial advantage by claiming to be religious. Notice,
1 Timothy 6:5
Here are people who are so consumed with their love of money that they would fake a relationship with God to acquire it. They are not delighting themselves in the Lord; their delight is in a full bank account. They don’t rejoice in the truth. They rejoice in evading taxes! They are willing to use any new popular interest to make a few bucks, even if it is a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing is sacred.
If godliness is in, then let’s sell godliness. Sex always sells. But godliness comes and goes. You have to catch the crest of the wave before its gone. These are good days for profits in godliness. The godliness market is hot for booksellers, and music-makers, and dispensers of silver crosses, and fish buckles, and olive-wood letter openers, and bumper stickers, and lucky prayer clothes that are guaranteed to make you win at Bingo or down at the local casino!
These are good days for gain in godliness. It's a great time to be a Christian in America if you want to make a buck!
Now, Paul could have responded to this effort to turn godliness into gain by saying, “Timothy, don’t follow them, because Christians don’t live for gain. Christians do what’s right for its own sake. Christians aren’t motivated by profit.”
But that’s not what Paul did in verse 6. Instead, notice what he says:
verse 6
He said, “There is great gain in godliness with contentment.” Instead of saying Christians don’t live for gain, he says, in so many words, you can live for the gain of the world or you can live for the gain of a relationship with Christ.
And his expectation is that people who delight themselves in the Lord, who have discovered the greatest treasure in the world who live for something better than the slick money the world is grabbing.
And the only way to get this great gain is through godliness.
And the only way to arrive at this kind of godliness is if we are content with simplicity, rather that greedy for riches.
If your godliness has freed you from the desire to be rich, and has helped you be content with what you have, then your godliness is tremendously profitable. Godliness that overcomes the craving for material wealth produces the ultimate wealth which is spiritual wealth.
So what verse 6 is saying is that it is very profitable not to pursue wealth, or become consumed with wealth to the point that you ignore spiritual wealth.
Then, what follows in verses 7–10 are three reasons why we should not pursue riches. And before we look at those, let me insert a clarification.
We live in a society in which many legitimate businesses are dependent on large concentrations of capital. You can’t build a new manufacturing plant without millions of dollars in equity. Therefore, financial officers in big businesses often have the responsibility to build reserves, for example, by selling shares in the company.
When the Bible condemns the desire to get rich, it is not necessarily condemning a business which aims to expand and therefore seeks larger capital reserves. The officers of the business may be greedy for more personal wealth, or they may have larger, nobler motives of how their expanded productivity will benefit people.
And even when a person in business is offered a higher paying job and accepts it, that is not enough to condemn him for the desire to be rich. He may have accepted the job because he craves the power, and status, and luxuries the money could bring, or he may be very content with what he has and may intend to use the extra money for building an orphanage, or giving a scholarship, or sending a missionary, or funding an inner city ministry.
Working to earn money to use for the cause of Christ is not the same as desiring to be rich. What Paul is warning against is not the desire to earn money in order to meet our needs and the needs of others. What he's warning us about is the desire to have more and more money, and the material luxuries it can provide, while at the same time, we ignore the spiritual side of life.
Three Reasons to Not Seek Earthly Gains
Now let’s look at three reasons Paul gives in straight from the text in verses 7–10 for why we should not aspire to be rich.
1. You Can’t Take Your Riches with You
verse 7
In other words, “There are no U-Hauls behind hearses.” Suppose someone passes empty-handed through the turnstiles at a big city art museum and begins to take the pictures off the wall and carry them importantly under his arm. You come up to him and say, “What are you doing?” He answers, “I’m becoming an art collector.”
“But they’re not really yours,” you say, “and besides they won’t let you out with those. You’ll have to go out just like you came in.” But he answers again, “Sure they’re mine. I’ve got them under my arm. People look at me as an important dealer in the halls. And I don’t bother myself with thoughts about leaving. Don’t be a kill joy.”
We would call this man a fool — out of touch with reality. So is the person who spends himself to get rich in this life. We will go out just the way we came in.
Or picture 269 people entering eternity in a plane crash. Before the crash, there is a noted politician, a millionaire corporate executive, a playboy and his playmate, a missionary kid on the way back from visiting grandparents. Then after the crash, they all stand before God utterly stripped of every MasterCard, checkbook, credit-line, clothes, success, books, and Hilton reservations.
The politician, the executive, the playboy, and the missionary kid on level ground with nothing, absolutely nothing in their hands, but only what they brought in their heart.
Oh how absurd and tragic the lover of money will seem on that day, like a man who spends his whole life collecting train tickets and in the end is so weighed down by the collection he misses the last train.
Don’t try to get rich, “for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.”
Second.
2. There is No Contentment in Riches
verse 8
Christians can be, and ought to be, content with the simple necessities of life. I’ll mention three reasons why simplicity is possible and good.
1. When you have God near you, and for you, you don’t need extra money or extra things to give you peace and security.
Hebrews 13:5–6 says,
Keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. For he has said, “I will never fail you nor forsake you.” Hence we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid; what can man do to me?”
No matter which way the market is moving, God is always better than gold. Therefore, by God’s help, we can be content with the simple necessities of life.
2. We can be content with the necessities of life because the deepest, most satisfying delights God gives us through creation are free gifts from nature and loving relationships with people.
After your basic needs are met, money begins to diminish your capacity for these pleasures, rather than increase them. Buying things contributes absolutely nothing to the heart’s capacity for joy.
There is a deep difference between the temporary thrill of a new toy and a homecoming hug from a devoted friend. Who do you think has the deepest, most satisfying joy in life, the man who pays $1000 for a fortieth floor suite downtown, and spends his evening in the half-lit, smoke-filled lounge impressing strange women with ten-dollar cocktails, or the man who chooses the Motel 6 by a vacant lot of sunflowers, and spends his evening watching the sunset and writing a love letter to his wife?
3. We should be content with the simple necessities of life, because we could invest the extra that we make for what really counts.
Three billion people today are outside Jesus Christ. Two-thirds of those do not have a viable Christian witness in their culture. If they are to hear — and Christ commands that they hear — cross-cultural missionaries will have to be sent and paid for.
All the wealth needed to send this new army of good news ambassadors is in the American church. If we, like Paul, are content with the simple necessities of life, thousands of dollars at Trinity, and millions of dollars in the Southern Baptist Convention, and hundreds of millions of dollars in the Protestant church would be released to take the gospel to the frontiers.
And the revolution of joy and freedom it would cause at home would be the best local witness imaginable. The biblical call is that you can and ought to be content with the simple necessities of life. Therefore, don’t try to get rich.
Third, another reason to not pursue wealth is that
3. The Pursuit Ends in the Destruction of Your Life
verses 9-10
There is not an honest, authentic Christian alive who wants to experience what that verse predicts. Therefore, it ought not be the desire of our heart to be rich at any cost.
Unfortunately, most of us take our queues about wealth and riches, not from the Bible, but from the advertising world.
For example in the September 1983 UNITED a full page ad for LA-Z-BOY chairs shows a man in a plush office with these words at the top: “His suits are custom tailored. His watch is solid gold. His office chair is LA-Z-Boy.” Below the quote,
I’ve worked hard and had my share of luck: My business is a success. I wanted my office to reflect this and I think it does. For my chair I chose a LA-Z-Boy Executive Recliner. It fits the image I wanted. . . . If you can’t say this about your office chair, isn’t it about time you sat in a LA-Z- BOY? After all, haven’t you been without one long enough?
For those who have ears to hear there is a philosophy of wealth in those lines which goes like this: If you’ve earned it, only a fool would deny himself the images of wealth. If verse 9 is true, and the desire to be rich brings us into the trap of Satan and the destruction of hell, then this advertisement which exploits and promotes that desire is demonic, and is just as destructive to a biblical lifestyle as anything you might read in the sex ads of the Minnesota Daily.
Are you awake and free from the clean economic wickedness of American merchandising? Or has the omnipresent, economic lie deceived you so that the only sin you can imagine in relation to money is stealing?
I believe in free speech and free enterprise because I have no faith whatsoever in the moral capacity of sinful civil governments to improve upon the institutions created by sinful citizens.
But, for God’s sake, let us use our freedom as Christians to say no to the desire for riches and yes to the truth:
There is great gain in godliness when we are content with the simple necessities of life.
Now, those are words addressed in 1 Timothy 6:6–10, to people who are not rich, but who may be tempted to want to be rich.
Then, in verses 17-19, Paul addresses a group in the church who are already rich. What should a rich person do with his money if he becomes a Christian?
The answer of verse 19 is simply a paraphrase of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus said not to lay up treasure on earth, but in heaven (Matthew 6:19, 20). He said we should use our money to provide purses that do not grow old and a heavenly treasure that does not fail (Luke 12:33).
He said we should use our money to secure for ourselves a welcome into eternal habitation (Luke 16:9).
Paul says in verse 19 that rich people should use their money in a way that “lays up for themselves a good foundation for the future, and takes hold on eternal life which is life indeed.”
In other words, there is a way to use your money that forfeits eternal life — not because eternal life can be bought, but because the use of your money shows where your hope is.
And just as he gives three warnings to those who would desire to be rich, Paul then gives three directions to the rich about how to use their money to secure their eternal future.
1. Don’t let your money produce pride
verse 17
Oh, how deceptive this is! Every one of us has felt the smug sense of superiority that creeps in after a clever investment, or new purchase, or a big deposit. Money’s chief attraction is the power it gives and the pride it feeds. Paul says don’t let it happen.
Second, he says to rich people,
2. Hope in God more than Your Riches
verse 17
This is not easy for the rich to do. That’s why Jesus said it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom (Mark 10:23). It is hard to look at all the hope that riches offer, and turn away from that to God and rest all your hope on him. It is hard not to love the gift and forget the Giver. But this is the only hope for the rich. If they can’t do it, they are lost. They must hope in God more than they hope in his gifts. And whatever they enjoy on earth they must enjoy for his sake.
3. Use Your Money for Good
Once they are liberated from the magnet of pride, and once their hope is set on God, not money, there is only one thing that can happen: their money will flow freely to multiply the manifold ministries of Christ. Hungry will be fed, sick will be healed, ignorant will be taught, and people will be evangelized.
It seems to me that our final summary emphasis should be that, in both these texts, Paul really wants us to lay hold on eternal life and not lose it. Paul never dabbles in non-essentials. He lives on the brink of eternity. That’s why he sees things so clearly.
He stands there like God’s gatekeeper and causes us to face the truth. in verse 19, he says, "You do want life that is life indeed, don’t you?"
Then he follows up with another question in verses 9-10: "You don’t want ruin, destruction, and pangs of heart, do you?"
You do want all the gain that godliness can bring, don’t you? Then delight yourself in the Lord and not in your money. Don't desire to be rich, but be content with the simple necessities of life. Set your hope fully on God, guard yourself from pride, and let your joy in God overflow in a wealth of liberality to a lost and needy world.
Let's pray.
