“The Love of Money” (1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31)

1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

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Pastor Tom Johnson, September 25, 2022

The greatest commandment is to love God with our whole being and to love others as Christ loved us. Our Scripture today says, “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.” God calls us to love himself and people—not money. “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.” There are all kinds of bad things that come from our love-affair with money. Last week, we heard Jesus say you cannot be a slave to both God and money. You will end up hating God if you love money. You cannot serve both God and wealth. The love of money is not true love. We are infatuated. Look at all those zeros in the bank account! Look at that arrow going straight up on the stock exchange graph! What a beautiful green bill with a lovely blue ribbon woven into the legal tender! What an attractive watermark! 

God takes the layer of gold off this dazzling idol. Underneath is rotten wood. The money in our accounts are just numbers floating around our bank’s servers and the cloud. Our investments can climb one day and crash the next. The coins in our pockets no longer contain all the precious metals they originally had. In fact, even if all our currency was based on the gold standard as it was a long time ago, even gold has no real value. You cannot eat it. You cannot plant it into the ground to grow food. You cannot make clothing or a home out of it. Other than making things look pretty, a brick of gold’s best use is as a door stop. Money only has value when we all believe it has the value it represents. We have to agree, believe, and trust that a meal from a fast-food restaurant is worth $15. If Americans stopped believing in the value of the dollar it would be a disaster. Our Scripture says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil because it isn’t real. It’s a figment of our collective imagination. The desire to become rich is a trap because we are chasing after something that will never deliver. Its end is ruin and destruction because we become a slave to wanting more and more money. During the pandemic, online orders skyrocketed. Santa was coming to town not once a year but every few days. People started to feel empty if they didn’t have a package coming to their doorstep every week. And so people became addicted to tracking their orders and waiting for their delivery. Trust me. Amazon knows this.

Think of the love of money as a bad relationship. God is doing an intervention to save you and me from the heartache of a toxic relationship. Money will never be your true love. Money will make all sorts of promises. Money will future-fake. Money will never give us ultimate happiness and pleasure. Money will betray you and try to attract someone else when you don’t give money the attention and worship it demands. Putting all our hopes and dreams into money will plunge us into ruin and destruction just as our Scripture says. Money will make us burn with jealousy as we try to keep up the with proverbial Joneses. Money is the greatest stressor in relationships. The love of money will triangulate all our relationships. The love of money will cause us to neglect the people God brings across our paths—just as the rich man neglects the needs of Lazarus in our Gospel. The love of money can keep us in careers and jobs that are killing our souls, keep us from spending quality and quantity time with family and church family.

But the worst of it is when this toxic relationship with money keeps us from our first and true love—God. We love because he first loved us. God wants us to be in a healthy relationship. He calls us to pursue godliness and contentment. God doesn’t dangle godliness and contentment in front of us to taunt us or lure us into a trap. He truly delivers. When we trust God and love him above all things, we know that he will provide for all our needs—not our wants—but our needs. Faith is another gift he gives so that we can have peace that transcends our understanding. Contentment is a beautiful sign of a healthy relationship. It means that we grow in our trust of one another. We know we can count on one another when it matters most. We may not always receive what we want. But we will receive what we need.

Our Gospel reading is not about the afterlife. It’s about the rich man who fell into ruin and destruction because he loved his riches more than anything else—more than his family, more than his poor neighbor Lazarus at his doorstep. Even the dogs showed more compassion than the rich man when they licked Lazarus’ sores. The rich man loved money more than the Scriptures that came through Moses and the prophets. So he neglected the Word of God. That’s why Jesus said that even if someone rises from the dead and preaches the Gospel it still would not convince his brothers of the danger and ruin of the love of money.  But even more devastating is the rich man’s love for money that is greater than love for God himself. He is trapped beyond the great chasm of the love of money. Here is where we see Jesus’ dark sense of humor. Jesus will raise his friend (also named Lazarus) from the dead and send him back to be a witness of eternal life. Even Jesus himself will rise from the dead, go back to the living, and call them to take hold of what our Scripture calls “life that really is life.”

The eternal son of God left his heavenly throne and mansion— built with the finest stone and gems—with streets paved in gold. He left an eternal feast—of food rich in marrow, of well-aged wine well-refined. He left all his riches to rescue the poor in spirit and those held captive by the love of money and the deceptive things of this world. He was born into a poor, working class family. He scraped a living as a carpenter. He lived off the generosity of others—mostly women. He had no place to lay his head. He lived a nomadic life as a teacher and healer. He embraced his poverty because he did not love money —or the riches he left behind—more than you and me. Yet he did come here to go on a shopping spree the likes of which the world has never seen before. He gave his life on the Cross for the forgiveness of the whole world. He purchased a place for us in the same heaven he came from—not with gold or silver—but with his precious blood.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always:

Thou, and Thou only, first in my heart,

great God of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

          (“Be Thou My Vision” WOV 776, v. 3)

“Planted in the Word” (Psalm 1)

Psalm 1

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Pastor Tom Johnson, September 4, 2022

Psalm one is a wisdom psalm. It celebrates the happiness and joy that flows from being rooted in the Word of God. “Oh the happiness…oh the blessedness of those” who do not do certain things. Wisdom helps us navigate this world by avoiding its pitfalls. We cherish and preserve happiness and blessedness by not walking in evil counsel, by not lingering in sinful paths, by not sitting among mockers. It is foolish to walk, stand, or sit as the world does. It is not healthy to follow those around us without reflection. Wisdom calls us out of foolishness. Wisdom rescues us from meaninglessness. Wisdom delivers us from evil. But just like all temptation—anytime the world, our fallen nature, and evil try to seduce us, it is not enough to simply stop engaging in unhealthy behavior. We need direction away from the negative but also direction toward the positive. We need to stop being poisoned but, even more importantly, we need God’s medicine.

Wisdom calls us. But God does not just tell us about wisdom. He leads us to wisdom. He softens our hearts. He opens our minds. And he does so through his Word and his Holy Spirit. “Oh the happiness…oh the blessedness of those” who delight in the Word of God—who meditate on God’s teaching day and night. This meditation can be translated as musing. That is to say, as we reflect on God’s truth, we savor his Word. And we do so day and night. We do so while we live, we work, and rest on our beds. We let the Word of Christ dwell richly within us, as Scripture says. The Word percolates into our consciousness and unconsciousness. We joyfully reprogram our minds by “holding every thought captive to the Word of God.”

We could call this Christian mindfulness. We don’t just clear the hard drive of our brains and remove a harmful virus or malware. We upload God’s operating system and software. This is what our minds are engineered for: God’s Word. This is not just mere work—this is delight. “Oh the happiness…oh the blessedness” the psalmist says, of those who receive the Word, let it ferment and grow in our hearts and minds, and stay connected to the Word throughout the day. We do this when we hear Scripture in public worship, have daily devotions at home, sing hymns and songs in the shower, reflect on God’s Word during our commute, ponder God’s truth as we walk, go on a bike ride, run, or work out. When we relish God’s Word throughout out daily and nightly routines, we have all the time in the world. We treasure it in our hearts no matter what our activity is. We savor it in our minds—whether we are wide awake or sound asleep.  We will be “like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything we do will prosper,” our psalm says. We are God’s trees planted by streams of water. 

We are part of God’s orchard. God is the horticulturist who puts us in a place where we will be nurtured. God uproots us from fallow ground and plants us in fertile soil. The Word of God is living and active. It flows down the rock picking up minerals. The Word seeps and flows through fungi picking up sugars and other nutritious material on its way to our root system. 

Most root systems are 50% more extensive than the tree we see above ground. This subterranean network is hidden but essential. Just like the subconscious mind rooted in the Word, so this subterranean delivery of nutrients keeps us spiritually alive. God uproots us from a waterless and word-less wasteland. He plants us exactly where we will thrive and grow. Wisdom tells us to plunge our roots deep into the Word. Joy and praise cause us to spread our roots and branches deep and far. 

The first church I served was in El Paso, Texas. I remember flying into that high elevation desert for the first time. All I could see out the plane’s window was what looked like a lunar landscape—no trees—just brown peppered with dry shrubs. I was looking for the Rio Grand River. It’s not that wide of a river so it is hard to see. You find it by the green trees on it’s banks. You see the river flowing out as far as the eye can see. One of the world’s largest pecan orchards is there planted by water that flows from the Rocky Mountain heights.

As God’s trees, we bear fruit in due season. Trees that have been nourished by the Word gather up its strength and resources for a year—maybe several years. The flowers bloom to reveal their beauty. Bees, hummingbirds, and other creatures come to drink the nectar and pollinate to multiply. The flower slowly dies and, in its place, the fruit of the Word rises. This fruit of the Holy Spirit is for the feeding of the nations—all creatures great and small are blessed by this food chain that begins with the trickle of God’s Word flowing from his mountain toward the roots of his trees.

“Oh the happiness…oh the blessedness,” the psalm writer says, of those who are rooted in God’s Word—whose health and vitality do not wither nor decay—who provide encouragement, health, and joy to the world around them. This is not just God’s vision of who we are—an orchard of thriving trees. This is who we are—and whose we are: God’s trees planted by streams of living water.

We are like another Tree God planted—the eternal Word sent from his heavenly throne to become flesh—springing from the root of Jesse—the Tree of Life with the River of Life flowing from him to his garden and orchard. The fruit of this Tree is forgiveness, life, and salvation—for the healing of the nations. From the tree of the Cross we also find the death of death and the end of winter. And from deep within the roots of the earth he rises to bring eternal springtime, harvest, and to make all things new. In a few moments, we will receive the fruit of that Tree—the Body and Blood of Jesus. The fruit of the Gospel heals our souls and strengthens our spirits until that day he takes us from this fallow world and plants us in Paradise. We will enter endless joy and blessedness. We will be planted beside the River of Life that flows from his eternal throne. We will be with Jesus, the Tree of Life forever.