Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Colossians 3:1-3
If a believer looses his or her savings in the stock market it should not cause him or her to tremble even if the believer has been a good steward of his or her God given finances. God is not going to leave us or forsake us, Heb.13:5. By being a good steward of our finances I mean we have given God his required part first before we have stored our savings.
It is wise for us to save for the future as depicted by the Proverb of the ant storing away food for the winter, Prov.6:6-8. We are warned against laziness in this same chapter. And yet for those of us who work hard to get by and save a little we still have no guarantee our savings will hold out for us. Thus we are to rely on the faithfulness of God. The believer’s security lies in the integrity of God to sustain him or her.
We are instructed by our Lord to ask for our daily bread in Matt.6:11; not our tomorrow bread. And why you might ask? Here are two reasons why; because as Jesus Christ said in vs.34 of this same chapter. #1. Today’s woes and evils are enough for us to deal with.
#2. We must trust the same God who takes care of us today, to take care of us tomorrow.
Heb.13:5 “Let your conversation (manner of life) be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee., So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
The word covetousness is philarguros. This is a compound word made up of philos, which means personal fondness, and arguros, silver. When we begin to acquire a fondness for money and what it can do for us something happens to us that changes our goals and motives and yes, our character. Now let’s look into this unholy transformation of ones life when we serve money instead of God.
I Tim.6:6-8
Godliness with contentment is great gain, but you have to be convinced of this and if you are not you will take the path of destruction Paul describes in verses 9-10. The acquisition of material things is not necessary to make us happy, therefore the few things we do acquire in this world need not unduly disturb our minds. If you will allow yourself to become grace oriented to the plan of God you will not be distracted by the details of life. Being grace oriented means you put your trust in God and you obey his commandments. This means you learn the general will of God as you grow in his grace and knowledge; you keep your personal sins confessed; you attend your God appointed local church where you are biblically instructed by God’s under shepherd and you remain faithful above all things. Nothing else will fall into place if you do not do this. You will be living your life out of bounds. You can make a fantastic basketball shot from full or a half court and get nothing but net, but if you are shooting the ball from out of bounds it doesn’t count. II Tim.2:5 “And if a man also strive for the masteries, (spiritual crowns) yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” If we want biblical contentment we must learn to play according to God’s rules, not our own.
Now this word, godliness in I Tim.6:6 means piety or holiness. Paul is talking about respecting God. Genuine respect for God comes from knowing God and this comes only by knowing his holy word, otherwise we do not know the God we say we worship.
Paul told Timothy in I Tim.4:7-8 to exercise in the spiritual gymnasium of God’s word with a view of gaining more respect for God.
The combination of this reverence for God with the subsequent fruit of godly contentment is the believer’s great gain. We talk about our portfolio profits as if they are the source of our happiness and gain and for the believer they are not.
The world would have you believe that money and things makes you happy and it doesn’t.
Americans buying three or more of everything and buying the high end products has hurt this country, because we have been marketed and saturated for so long that health and happiness are directly linked to money and now we are seeing the folly of our waste.
The truest kind of happiness cannot be taken away from you and that kind of happiness is godly contentment. The Greek word here for contentment is autarkeia and it refers to ones sufficiency as opposed to the desire for outward things. Our sufficiency is dependant upon God and he fulfills the deficiency in our lives with his presence and his peace and understanding. Look at what you have and ask yourself, “Why isn’t it enough?” Having God in our lives is our greatest need. He is our provider and sustainer. As believers we do not need to chase the dreams of this world to find our happiness. Look at Ecc.1:3-8. The eyes and ears are two of mankind’s greatest taskmaster. We want what we see and what we hear is available and it seems that what we do not have is always better than what we do have. Something we have to upgrade to in this technological age, but some folks go broke keeping us. Just remember as you try to keep up with the Jones’s that the Bible calls this covetousness, Ex.20:17 as it is the 10th commandment; it is a form of idolatry.
v.7 “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” You certainly would have a hard time convincing a lot of people of this. Coming into this world with nothing should tell us we will leave the same way.
Job 1:21”And naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
v.8 Since it is plain to see that we will never carry anything out of this world, why bother to build our castles and make such a fuss over ourselves or over the things we can acquire? Why do we puff ourselves up over temporal things? Only we are impressed.
Instead, having food and clothing and shelter, lets us be content,[future passive indicative of arkeo]. Let us be sufficient with the basic necessities in this life. I know this goes against the grain of the financial markets today. They want you and me to extend our credit to the breaking point. They want you and I to work several jobs, to spend extra long hours at work so we can buy their products, and maybe even buy a couple more just in case the first one breaks down. As a matter of fact they want you to buy an extended warranty because they pretty much bank on the unit they sold you to break down before it’s paid off.
If this financial crisis teaches us anything it should show us the temporality of things and the need to cling to our eternal life in Jesus Christ. He may be returning soon to rapture out his bride, the church. The Antichrist will be revealed just after the rapture of the church and one of his known assets will be his ability to bring unity to an international monetary crisis, Dan.8:25; Rev.13:16-17.