Sunday, Aug 1, 2010
“How to Get Rich and Have Everything!”
7th in a Series
LIFE: Upside Down
Teaching Pastor Barry Wingfield
Remember how you used to define what “rich” was?
2 Cor 6:10(b) “poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”[1]
The one word, sure fire, can’t miss, 100% guaranteed, full proof way to get rich quick and have everything: POVERTY
2 Cor 8:1-9
How the poverty of Christ equals riches for you:
1. The gospel is free to you, but it was bought at the highest price.
1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; Acts 20:28; Rom 8:32
Too often we treat the grace God has poured out on us like a child who goes to a famous art museum and is handed a what he thought was a copy of an original masterpiece but which was actually the priceless original itself, who within 5 minutes goes from admiring it, to adding to it with crayons, and then to leaving it under his bed with other trash and forgotten toys.
2. You can’t buy salvation, but it will cost you everything.
Philippians 3:7-8
Matthew 13:44-46
Jesus isn’t teaching that it can be bought, but rather the new attitude toward life that is lived out by the one who recognizes its value.
Again, too many Christians tend to live like they bought the pearl on ebay at an online auction for .01 because no one else bid on it! “Hey, look! I got the deal of the century! A valuable pearl, one I know I could probably never afford to buy in a store, but I got it for a steal, and you know the best thing about it? I didn’t have to hawk all my stuff to get it!”
(If it doesn’t, then it’s cheap grace.)
Our family visited the first and longest running Nazi concentration camp from WWII this summer. It was a very sobering experience that reminds everyone who visits such a place of the depth of evil that exists in the human race. Yet one concentration camp victim would be executed, not because he was Jewish, not because he was a communist, not because he was sick or had physical malformations.
What’s so ironic about this 20th century theologian who wrote about cheap grace is that his words were published in 1937 and just 8 years later, in 1945, he would demonstrate to the world exactly what costly grace was all about when he spent his last days in a Nazi concentration camp and experienced a martyr’s death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer earned his seminary doctorate in his early 20’s and then spent the next several years travelling the world studying the church. He studied in the US in New York and then traveled through the deep south visiting mainly in black churches with some of his closest American friends who were African American themselves. He also studied the Catholic Church in Mexico and Rome (including a visit with the Pope), and took pastor positions in Spain, London, and Berlin, all of which occurred before WWII began. Before he, or anyone else, had any idea that he would die a martyr’s death for his convictions in a Nazi prison camp by hanging. As early as 1936, Bonhoeffer was distraught over what he saw Christians around him buying into. They were living lives on the basis of what he saw as “cheap grace”: (The Cost of Discipleship, pg 44-47).
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.... In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. 45-46
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. 'All for sin could not atone.' Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin....
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. 47
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and self all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
3. To die rich you have to live poor.
To one claiming to seek the eternal life found through Christ, we find a very challenging response from Jesus.
Matthew 19:16-22
Lights fade to black at the slowing of the reading – immediately play VIDEO at the end of verse 22.
The lie that the rich young man bought was that to die rich, you have to live rich! NOT TRUE Jesus says. In fact, if you are so bent on living rich in this life that you’re unwilling to live poor, then you’ll NEVER be truly rich!!
I think a valid conclusion we can draw from Paul’s teaching and example as well as from Jesus own words is that…
Living poor is a mark of a Jesus follower.
(It has nothing to do with how much money you have, but it has everything to do with what you do with your money and other blessings.)
“Ok, so how, exactly, does one ‘live poor’?”
Paul wants the church in Corinth to know what living poor looks like for them as they live for Christ.
First he challenges them in 8:10-11.
Then he tells them what is really going on with his request in 9:6-15.
Living poor means being rich in
1. Good deeds (vs. 8)
a. Everything supplied to us from God has been given by him so that we would have what we need to overflow with service to Him. Ever wonder why God has blessed you with so much? Now you know.
2. Generosity (vs. 11)
a. Thankfulness to God is directly proportionate to the generosity you exhibit. Not only will others give thanks to God for what he’s has provided through you, but I also believe that you will never be truly thankful for any blessing that you’re unwilling to generously share with others. Don’t have money to give? Do you have food, clothing, or shelter to share with a brother or sister in need? With a stranger in need? Know any Samaritans traveling your path to Jericho?
3. Giving Life (vs. 15, 6:10)
a. Paul’s whole reason for living poor wasn’t for bragging rights, but for the opportunity to be a vessel, a tool, a clay pot in the master’s hands so that the riches of heaven could be poured out on those he was sent to present God’s indescribable gift to. You and I have been given so that through us the riches of heaven might be given.
Ever hear a church described as a “rich church?” What is usually meant by this is the size of their property, how many seats in their worship center, how ornate the fixtures, the blue book value on the average car in their parking lot.
I’ll confess, and I think every honest pastor would, there are some weak moments when I desire our church to be rich in those ways.
And then God’s spirit corrects me in one way or another and reminds me that a church’s wealth has nothing to do with any of these things. He reminds me that a church of 20 that is rich in good deeds, generosity, and the giving of spiritual riches can be wealthier than a church of 20 thousand that lacks these things.
Church, if God grows us from 500 to 1000 in 2 months and quadruples our budget and building, gives us 20 teaching pastors and a staff of 100, our wealth will remain solely fixed on our daily commitment to living poor because of our wonderful, indescribable, invaluable riches we have in Christ.
The example of the gospel itself is the giving of life through the giving up of life. We have been given life through Jesus life that was given up for us.
