A Good Prosperity Theology

Well, prosperity theology, which is often sometimes called the prosperity gospel or the health and wealth gospel or the success gospel, is sometimes defined this way. It is the belief among some Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God. That faith, positive speech and donations to certain religious groups will increase one's material wealth. I'm here to tell you this morning that is false theology, that is false teaching. It is a representative of the kind of false teaching that Paul's been warning us about in First Timothy. That prosperity gospel or prosperity theology is based on a misapplication of some old testament promises to the nation of Israel, where God promised them economic, financial prosperity if their crops would come in and so forth, if they were obedient to the covenant God made with Israel through Moses. It is a failure to distinguish between God's relationship with his nation Israel and God's relationship with the church today. It is a problem of misapplication and misinterpretation of some of those key passages of the Old Testament. So it is not right theology, but there is a good prosperity theology. There is a theology in the Bible of wealth and riches and how we are to handle those that is good and biblical and sound and appropriate for us. Part of that teaching, at least a representative sample of that teaching, is found in First Timothy chapter 6. We are just about to finish our journey through First Timothy and then we are going to buckle up and head into Second Timothy. But as we close First Timothy, I was looking this week, I really intended to finish the book this week. And as I was looking at it, there are really two separate charges at the end of this book. One charge is a final robust charge to Timothy. Paul is charging this young preacher in a final, very direct and powerful way. That is in verses 11 through 16 and then he breaks, picks it back up in verses 20 and 21. But in those middle verses, verses 17 to 19, it is a totally separate charge. For those who are rich in this world is good, for those who are rich in this present world. So it is a totally different charge for those who have wealth or riches in verses 17 to 19. So what we are going to do is we are going to pick that one out today and then Lord willing next week will finish the book of First Timothy with the charge to Timothy himself. Paul has already warned us about greed in the passage we saw last week in verses 9 and 10. He warned us about the desire to get rich and the devotion to money in verse 10 and the drive to have more and more of this world's possessions. He warned us about that last time in the passage we saw. Now he comes back to that subject of riches in verses 17 to 19 but not to condemn riches or to condemn those who have riches. What he does in these verses is to speak to us about some of the dangers involved and the attitudes we need to have toward the material wealth that God has given us. So what he does is to say, let's stop by saying this, command those who are rich in this present world. Let's stop right there and identify who he is talking to. Because when we read that our tendency is to think that doesn't include me obviously. So I can slide by this one. That's for somebody else. They are not just those who have the most expensive possessions. Remember he just told us back in verse 8 that the necessities of life are food, shelter and clothing, those three things. Anything beyond that is abundance. And so anything beyond meeting the necessities of life really makes us rich in this world's goods. And so those who are rich in the context following up on what he's just said about that, I believe what he's talking about is anyone who has more than enough to meet the essential needs of life. If you have some discretionary dollars left after the bills are paid, then you fall into this category that Paul's addressing, you are rich in this present world. All you have to do is travel internationally and you see that we are rich in this present world in the United States. Most of us would compare as being rich people to most people in the world, not all, but most people in the world. So most of us here today would fall into this category and qualify as being those for whom these verses are intended. And this teaching then is for all of us, not just for the super wealthy as defined by American standards, but in this context in the Bible, probably all of us, most of us at least in this room, would fall into the category. And what Paul does, interestingly enough, he does not command us to divest of all of our possessions, but to have the right perspective on them. That's what this passage is all about. Paul's not asking any of you here today to take a vow of poverty. That's not what he's getting at, but he is saying we need to address our attitudes and then our actions, what we will do with what God gives us. Now we'll see that that is going to be a pretty stiff challenge compared to how we normally view our possessions. It's going to sound like a call to poverty. It's going to sound like that a vow of poverty, but it's really not. It's Paul's addressing our attitudes and then how we will address the use of our resources. So let's begin in verse 17 with our attitude toward our possessions. He says, command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant. Okay, there's attitude number one. So let's stop right there and deal with that first, not to be arrogant. Now Paul addresses it in the negative fashion. Don't be arrogant. Let's put a positive spin on it. And the attitude we're being commanded to have is humility. We're not to be arrogant, but we are to be humble in regard to our possessions. The word arrogant literally is a compound word in the language that Paul wrote in. He took two words and put them together. One was the word to think and the other was the word exalted thoughts. So put them together. And what he's talking about is to think exalted thoughts. And obviously it's to think those thoughts about yourself. It has to do with pride, with being haughty. You know, the nose raised up looking down on other people. It does include the idea of contempt. Maybe a subtle contempt. Maybe an unspoken contempt on those who have less. He's talking about a sense of self importance that is fueled by thinking if I have more stuff than I'm of superior value, then people who don't have the same amount of stuff. It's the idea that houses and cars and boats and designer labels make me more important than someone who doesn't have those things. You know what? Rolex and TimeX both end in X. And both of them tell time. Just because you have a timeX doesn't make you any more important to person than a person has a timeX. It means you got something that ends in X on your wrist and you can tell time with it. That's all it means in God's view of things. But our culture elevates the rich and famous. Have you ever noticed that when people are interviewed typically to give their views on things, it is the rich and famous who are viewed as the moral authorities in our nation. And others are the lower class of people who do the work to provide for the rich and famous to speak their mind on national television. God's word has something to say about that. Proverbs 18, 13 for instance, 23 says this. Proverbs 18, 23. The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly. Notice the difference in attitude. The rich answer harshly. There's that arrogant attitude that I'm better than you because I have more than you. But Proverbs 28, 11 sees right through that. Proverbs 28, 11 says the rich are wise in their own eyes. One who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are. One translation I checked this week says sees right through them. So those who are poor but discerning really have more wisdom than those who are wise in their own eyes because they think having riches makes them better than other people. You say, well, certainly I don't believe that. Maybe not, but this kind of thinking can happen in the church as well. It really can. It can invade the thinking of believers' minds, this attitude of distance between us and the poor so that we don't connect with the poor. We don't even want to connect with the poor. And sometimes there arises in our hearts a subtle contempt for the poor that is insensitive and judgmental. The attitude that says if you're living like that, it's probably your own fault. Now admittedly with some folks it may be, but not everyone. What about the wealthy who have obtained their wealth through illegal or unethical means? Not everybody does that either on that side of the equation, but some do. But sometimes this attitude of contempt, insensitivity, judgmental spirit, that is not the spirit of Christ at all. In fact, the Bible warns us specifically as a church about that very thing. James in his short very practical epistle says this. Listen as I read James 2. My brothers and sisters believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Me gives an example. He says, suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, here's a good seat for you, but say to the poor man, you stand there or sit on the floor by my feet. Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters has not got chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom. He promised those who love him, but you have dishonored the poor. And then a few verses later he says, but if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. It's pretty serious stuff. James is addressing the same thing that Paul is addressing in our verse in 1 Timothy 6. And that is that none of us who have any of this world's possessions can afford to look on those who do not have as much with any sense of self importance or a sense of contempt for them. That is unbidlicable, ungodly, unchristlike. The proper attitude toward what God's given us about whatever possessions is humility. And that looks like this, nothing that we own belongs to us. It is all made possible by the grace and goodness of God. We are only stewards, managers of what really belongs to him. None of it really belongs to us. And so that should humble us and should fill us with gratitude and a generous spirit toward others. Nobody has the right to think they're better than anyone else because they have more of what this world offers. I have a, for that reason, intrigued to read part of a graduation speech offered by No Less Than Denzel Washington at Billard University in 2015. This is not what you normally hear coming out of Hollywood. This is not the normal spirit of a person who comes out of Hollywood. I don't know whether Denzel Washington is a follower of Christ. I've heard some things concerning that. I don't know that for sure. But I like what he said to those graduates. Listen to what he said. I quote part of it. He urged them to put God first and to think and to thank him constantly. This is what he said. He said, put God first and everything you do. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. I understand that. It's a gift. I've not always been faithful to him. But he's always been faithful to me. And then he talks about later in his speech, being grateful. Graduates graduating from a university going out into their careers. He says, be grateful. He said this. While you're on your knees, thanking God. Say thank you to him. Thank you for grace. Thank you for mercy. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you for wisdom. Thank you for parents. Thank you for love. Thank you for kindness. Thank you for humility. Thank you for peace. Thank you for prosperity. Say thank you in advance for what is already yours. When you get it, then reach back and pull someone else up. That's not the normal thing you'd hear from a Hollywood star. And I applaud him for that. Whether or not he's a believer, he's got a pretty good perspective on our gratitude and humility as regards possessions. Paul's telling us, if you have more than enough to meet your basic needs, you are rich in this world. And you should be humble about it. Recognizing that it does not come to you because you're superior to anyone else. It comes to you by the goodness and the grace of God. Be humble about that. Be thankful for it. So humility is the first attitude he enjoys upon us. The second attitude is distrust. Distrust. Look at how he says it there in verse 17. Command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant. Now here it is. Nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God that stop right there and take this little piece of the verse out, which deals with what do we put our hope in? We put our trust and confidence in. He says, don't put your hope or your trust in wealth. Don't rely on your possessions to insulate you from life's difficulties because they will not. Don't put your confidence or trust in your possessions to carry you through life. The only certain thing about our possessions is their uncertainty. They can be gone so quickly. Jesus warned us about this. Didn't he? In Matthew chapter 6 and verse 19, he said, do not store up for yourself treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Now by warning us about storing up treasures, he's not saying that you shouldn't have anything or you shouldn't save for the future. He's not saying that by storing up treasures for yourselves, it's the idea of a selfish greedy hoarding and unwillingness to share be generous, but to continue just to grasp whatever we have because he says it can be taken away by moths and vermin and thieves. Now it's very easy for us to think, well, this is not the first century and we've got mothballs to take care of the moths and we've got the pesticides to take care of the vermin and we've got all kinds of security measures to take care of thieves. We don't have to worry about that anymore. Well, Jesus was speaking to the people in his day about the threats in their time, the threats in our time may include fire, inflation, depreciation, stock market slumps. It's the same thing. The idea is that our wealth, our possessions are uncertain. We don't know how long we will keep them. We have no guarantee we will keep them at all. Oh, and I might add also termites. I just read a report this week from the Associated Press on a termite invasion in a bank in India. An army of termites munched through 10 million rupees. That's equivalent of 222,000 dollars. But 10 million rupees currency notes stored in a steel chest in a bank in northern India. The bank manager discovered the damage when he opened the reinforced room in an old bank building. The police officer who was investigating the situation told the Associated Press it's a matter of investigation how termites attack bundles of currency notes stacked in a steel chest. The money was first put in that steel chest in January 2011 and they thought it would be safe. I mean, they had termites trouble in the past. They damaged bank furniture and documents in the office and so forth. But a steel chest guarding the money. The termites got in anyway. So maybe the old first century threats are still present today. Whatever the case, the point is you cannot put confidence in your possessions because they are so easily taken away from us. They can so easily fly away and an additional thought to this that the Paul is saying, don't put your hope in your wealth because it's uncertain is that no matter what you have, it cannot satisfy you. Your possessions cannot satisfy you. So don't put your confidence in that to make you happy. To fill that annoying void and emptiness in your soul. So easy to think. If I just had a little bit more, I read a statement this week. A survey was done. Most Americans think if they only made 10% more than they make now, they'd be happy. Not a million dollars more, just 10% more than what I make now. I'd be happy. That's what most Americans believe. Listen, you know what happened? You get that 10% then you want 10% more and then pretend to represent more and 10% more. Christina Onassis is a glaring sad example of this, the eras daughter of the Greek shipping magnet, Aristotle Onassis, inherited an annual income of one million dollars a week. Once when she was just a given idea of the kind of lifestyle she lived, once when she was out of Diet Coke, she dispatched her private jet on a $30,000 round trip to the United States to get her some cases of Diet Coke. I mean, whatever happened to go down to the 7-Eleven or the corner grocery store, you know. She once left a David Bowie CD in Switzerland and sent her private helicopter to go retrieve it. People didn't want to spend time with her so she paid people 20 to $30,000 a month to come visit her. But you know what? None of that satisfied. Christina Onassis died at age 37 from a combination of heart failure, from a combination of extreme dieting and drugs, trying to feel the emptiness in her soul. That's why Jesus says, and he knows what he's talking about, don't put your hope in what you possess because it is so uncertain and Paul ends the verse by saying, but put your hope in God. The only, the only, unchanging, dependable person in the universe is God Himself. Totally unchanging will always be there for you. He will never change his commitment and loyalty to you and so don't place your hope and trust in possessions but in the living God. Jesus told a story about this. You remember the parable he told about the rich fool? He said the certain, the ground of a certain rich man, yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. Then he said, this is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store my surplus grain. I'm going to launch into a huge business expansion. I will say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years, take that ease, take life easy, eat, drink and be merry. Now there's hope in your possessions. There's confidence and trust in your financial portfolio and all of your possessions. But the next verse is absolutely chilling. But God said to him, you fools. This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? The things you were storing up for yourself and you thought you'd have for many, many more years. If you die tonight, what's going to happen to those things? And here's the point, Jesus made. This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God. Those who have confidence and trust in their possessions rather than trust and hope in God. My friend, let me say this to you this morning, if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, if you don't really understand what we're talking about today by having trust in God, what we're talking about is that God, the creator of the universe loves you. And he loves you so much he wants to have a relationship with you and welcome you to his home to live forever with him in heaven. In order to provide for that, he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross, not for anything he had done but to take our place to be our substitute as the perfect son of God, to be our substitute, to pay the penalty we owed God for our sins. And all God says you need to do is to place your faith in Christ as your Savior, not join a church, not get baptized, not try to turn your life around, not try to do better, not none of those things will get you to heaven. He loves you so much, he's made the way possible for you to get to heaven. And the only way possible is through Jesus Christ, your Savior, and so rather than trusting the stuff of this world to bring you any measure of happiness and fulfillment and contentment, you'll never have the whole in your soul filled until you come to Christ. And you trust Him as your Savior and you know personally you have a relationship with God. That's what Paul's talking about. Put your hope, your trust, your confidence in God, not your possessions. So what's our attitude to be toward our possessions? Humility. It all comes from God, doesn't mean I'm anything special, it all comes from God, doesn't make me better than anybody else. It's all an act of His grace and I'm thankful, I'm humbled by it. And then distrust, I'm not going to put any confidence in it, I'll put my trust in confidence in the Lord, but there's a third attitude Paul commands and that is, and this one's going to catch you by surprise, enjoyment. Now after what we've said, this may sound a little out of place, but notice, he says, command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God. Now here it is, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Now that may surprise you a little bit after what we've said and what Paul has said here, but Paul does not advocating, get rid of everything you own. He's not advocating some kind of extreme self denial, he's already warned against that in this book in chapter four. Remember when we talked about asceticism and that is denying yourself any physical or earthly pleasures in the hopes that will somehow make you more spiritual, Paul's not saying that he's already warned against that. What he is saying is recognize it's not yours, it's all a gift of God and we're going to see some things he wants us to do with it here in just a moment, but have a humble attitude toward it. Don't trust in your possessions at all, but whatever God has given you, enjoy his good gifts. He wants you to enjoy them, not judge them as wrong in themselves. Material things are not wrong in themselves, they only become wrong when we either hoard them greedily and selfishly or we misuse them as unwise stewards for God. But he wants us to enjoy whatever he's given to us. That's the message of the book of ecclesiastes. We've seen it before, we went through the book of ecclesiastes a few years ago, so I'm sure all of you remember every message from the book of ecclesiastes. But just as a little reminder, there's this one of those gripping thoughts from the book in ecclesiastes whose Solomon says a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil. He's talking about the simple everyday things of life to find enjoyment in those. Why? He says this too, I see is from the hand of God for without him who can eat or find enjoyment. If you remember our study of ecclesiastes, there are about six or seven summary statements like this in the book and they all summarize different sections of the book. This one comes at the end of the first section of the book, first two chapters, where he has warned his readers that you will not find life's purpose, meaning or fulfillment in any other thing. You can get all the education you want, amass all the knowledge you want, you can get all the riches you want, have all the stuff you want, you can immerse yourself in work, where you become a workaholic and all of those things, and you will come out saying it's all empty, it's all vanity. And this is how he concludes by saying it is only with a relationship with God that you can even enjoy whatever you have in this life. It will only bring you meaning and fulfillment as your life is centered in him. If you have a personal relationship with Christ and you know God, he also says in chapter five in verse 19, another one of those summary statements, he says moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, how do you think that you are going to be a good man? So, you can get all the possessions and the ability to enjoy them in the context of the book. That's from a relationship with him, the ability to enjoy them to accept their lot and be happy in their toil, this is a gift of God. It is a way to be content and to enjoy the possessions God has given you, but only in the context of a relationship with him. If you are looking for things to satisfy, they never, never will. Only relationship with God will. But in the context of a relationship with God, whatever he gives us, whether it's little or much, can bring deep satisfaction and enjoyment as a good gift from God. That's to be our attitude toward our possessions. So, nailing that down, commanding Timothy to teach and preach this in the church that we should have this attitude toward our possessions, then he moves on to the subject of our actions with our possessions. Having this attitude, then what should our actions be? He mentions three. The first one is, do something. Do something. Look at verse 18. He says, command them. These who have more than just the necessities of life, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds. A word that he uses for good, there are two words that Paul could have chosen from. The word that he uses for the word good is a word which means good in quality. It means to do noble, excellent, the best things with what God has given you. And then he augments that by saying he expands it by saying, be rich in good deeds. So, what he's saying is don't greedily hoard what God has given you, employ your resources for kingdom purposes to help others to expand God's work to be used to help and bless others. We have become a nation of hoarders. Seriously, we have Allison Stewart, a former reporter and news anchor, spent three years investigating America's unhealthy obsession with stuff. Last year, 2016, she culminated that research in a book. The book is entitled, junk, digging through America's love affair with stuff. And she examines both the private lives and the profitable businesses associated with what she calls our craving for consumer goods. She explains that junk businesses, big business and I quote from her book. She says this, self storage has its own association and lobbying group because it is big business generating more than $24 billion in revenue in 2014. The United States is home to reportedly $48,500 to $52,000 self storage units. That's about $2.3 billion square feet of storage. It is a business, now listen to this, she says it is a business that has been called by the Wall Street Journal recession resistant. In other words, the recession can knock down everything else but the storage business is going to still fly high. Now, I'm not critical of storage business. I've used storage facilities myself at times. My parents had things, Jan and I remember this. They had some things that as they began to decrease in health and their needs became less that we engaged a place to store some things. I'm not a get storage buildings. That's not my point. But in her books, she goes on to say we have become a nation obsessed with keeping everything and hoarding all of our possessions, not willing to give any of it. Then she focuses in her book on reality TV shows that focus on junk. She says they took off in the early 2000s. She put together a list of such shows that were broadcast between 2003 and 2015. And here's what she writes. The real tension that exists between the desire to buy and own position against the stress created by acquisitions makes perfect sense for non scripted television. What she's saying is we feed on watching what other people do with their junk and the stress it causes. She goes on to give a partial list of stuff based what she calls stuff based reality TV shows American pickers auction hunters auction kings buried treasure flea market flip quarters junk gypsies junkyard wars pawnstars pickers sisters storage wars and even a spin off storage war Texas. You got to be kidding. You know, I love history and I used to love the history channel. But there's no history on there anymore. It's all reality shows like how much I can get or I've got and where I'm storing it. Come on, the on the history channel. You got to be kidding. But why is that on there because that's what Americans want to see? That's what we want to see. We want to glory and other people's junk so we can figure out how to hoard more of our own junk. How to get a little more value out of grandma's sewing machine or whatever. And what Paul is saying is do something be rich in good works make an impact for the kingdom reinvest in ploy those resources in the church in the growth of God's work in missions in our go fund in the work of God across the world. Don't hoard invest in ploy what God's given you for the kingdom. I've been a little tough on rich people this morning on the wealthy and famous in our culture. So let me back up and balance that out just a little bit. I don't know if you've heard about the giving pledge where a few years ago, Bill and Melinda Gates who forbs lists as the most wealthy people in the world and war and buff it the second most wealthy man in the world. Both challenged billionaires to give at least 50% of their net wealth to good causes in the world. And they get to choose their own cause and some of them are very worthwhile like funding clean water in third world countries or dealing with third world countries and poverty levels and dealing with education issues and dealing with research for health crises. There's some really good things being done and I commend them for that at least at least they're willing to let go of some other resources to try to do something in the world. But can you imagine what would happen if believers would be challenged with that same kind of pledge to take the resources God has given us and you don't have to be a billionaire to invest in the kingdom of God and his work. But can you imagine the impact the gospel could have across the world if we retargeted our focus to rather than our storage buildings and our junk to the world. And the impact we could make with employing our resources for the kingdom. Do something. Do something. That's what Paul say. Be rich and good deeds. The second action he says is be generous. He says in verse 18 notice the end of the verse to be generous and willing to share. The word generous literally means bountiful or abundant. That's the literal meaning of the word that Paul used to be bountiful or abundant. It means to go above the minimum. In other words, don't hold back. Don't stop when the minimum need is met. Be like God who gives generously. Who gives so generously to us. Romans 8.32 who having given us his own son after having done that. Willing not also with him freely give us all things. I mean he's already given us the greatest possible gift anybody could give his own son to die for us. So willing not also freely with him give us all things. God is a generous giver. And the needs are so great. There's so much more that could be done. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it. Wow. Because it's in the bulletin today. You know, we used to have a big board up here at the front that told how much our offerings were each week and our attendance and so forth. And when we renovated some of our auditorium, we took that down. We decided to put in the bulletin kind of an update every week. And every month we kind of put for your information where we're tracking with our giving whether it's we're behind for the year or ahead for the year. I wanted to take a moment to explain that that that's just information when we're in the red. It's not a whip to say, come on do better. You're not doing enough. It's not that. And when we're doing well like we are right now, you see today we're almost $10,000 in the black. It's not the purpose of communicating that is not to say, okay, let's take our get put off the gas for a little bit. We can slow that. We don't have to give as much. That's not the purpose for that information in the bulletin. It's simply for information. What Paul is challenging us to do is don't stop at the minimum. Don't say, well, okay, just as long as we need our budget, we're able to pay our bills and we're able to send what we're currently sending to our missionaries. We don't really want to do anything other than that. Let's just stop right there. That's totally against what Paul say. Paul saying, lift up your eyes. Get a vision for what could be done. If we had more resources to pour into kingdom efforts. So he says, be willing to give, be willing to be generous with that. And then he says willing to share. I love that because the word for share is the word for fellowship. We have a Bible fellowship that uses this word for its name. Coenania. That's the root word here to share is to is to have not a cold and detached giving drop my offering in the plate. I do it every week or every other week or whatever. But this is to have a mutual care and concern. The heart that wants to give for the work of God so that God's work will grow to increase and more people will be saved and meet us in heaven someday. I read a story this week about a group that was visiting China. It was a particular theologian that had taken a group from his church with him on a mission trip to China. And they were visiting some house churches or some underground churches, I should say. He and a couple of other people in their group went across a river to a very poor section of where they were and they visited an underground church that had about 900 people in attendance that Sunday. But they were all poor farmers. I mean, really just poor dirt farmers. Hardly had anything. And so they wanted the Americans to tell a little bit about themselves and all and this one lady who was from Los Angeles got up and talked about how God was blessing her church in Los Angeles, one of the richest cities in our country. And how God was blessing and people were church was growing and they were adding this huge multi million dollar building to handle their growth. And did she set some things about the church there and thanking them for their faithfulness and so forth and sat down at the end of the service. Chinese pastor got up and said our hearts have been so moved by your testimony. We want to give our whole offering today to your building program in Los Angeles. It was a total of the equivalent of $140 American money that 900 people gave. But their heart, their heart. All you have to do is travel a little bit internationally and you like any of us who have done that will be put to shame over the generosity of national believers in other place. It puts us to shame as Americans. I don't mean to impune anybody here today, but I don't think many of us understand what it means to be generous and to really be willing to out of a heart of mutual care and concern for others say I will invest my resources in God's work. Paul says do something and be generous when you do it. And then the third attitude is invest eternally, verse 19, make an eternal investment. He says in this way, if you're doing what he said in verse 18 and 17, he says in this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age. The eternal state is heaven. And don't misunderstand what he's saying here. He's not saying I'm putting up a really neat little nest egg in heaven that I'm going to live high on the hog of with when I get the heaven. He's not saying that. And he's certainly not saying that we're buying shares of heaven. You know, I get to buy a little piece of property up there. If I give more of my mansion is going to be bigger up there. I mean, that's the same, that's the same prosperity gospel just transferred to heaven. That's not at all what Paul is saying. And it's not what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 620, the follow up verse to the one we saw earlier where he says in Matthew 620, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not the story where these do not break in and steal what are the treasures in heaven. Are they anyway what Paul's talking about what Jesus is talking about is when we give to the Lord to his people to the needs of others when we give to advance the work of God around the world, both here at home and in other nations when we do that, it's an investment, any eternal investment that will bring heavenly returns, not earthly returns, not interest that will pad your bank account here, but it will bring heavenly returns. It brings first of all spiritual blessing to your soul. It will bring rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, but the most important eternal return is the souls of people who will be brought to the Savior because we reached out bearingly in faith, the souls of people who will meet us there and welcome us into heaven. I believe that's what Jesus meant when he said in Luke 16 and verse 9, let's skip that verse, sorry, let's move on to the next one. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves. He's not talking about establish a political action committee or join a lobby to gain friends for yourself, this networking, use your money to get buddies. Notice what he says, so that when it is gone, when your wealth is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. There will be people in heaven who will welcome you into heaven because of how you won people to Christ. You made eternal friends by investing in the work of God. And Paul says in verse 19, if you do that, then you take hold of the life that is truly life. That's a wonderful saying. It means that you grasp that which is lasting, you grasp that which is eternal. And now that becomes the center of your life, that's real life. That's real life. I mentioned earlier the first and second most wealthy people in the world according to Forbes magazine, you know the third is, man by the name of Larry Ellison, who founded Oracle Business Software Company. He's just retired from Oracle, his net worth is $50 billion. He by the way has signed that giving pledge and I commend him for that. But he's got a lot of money to do whatever he wants. You know what he enjoys? He likes collecting homes and estates. He has 15 of them scattered around the world. He also likes yachts. He has two expensive big yachts, each more than half a football field in length. And he also enjoys playing basketball on his yachts. So I know what you're thinking. What happens if the ball goes so, he has a powerboat that follows his yacht continuously for the only purpose of picking up basketballs that go overboard into the water. I'm not being critical of his ability to live however he wants to live. That's not my point. My point is this, whether you're a billionaire or not, how you spend your money will always reveal what you value. It will always reveal where your heart is. Did Jesus say that? Where your treasure is? There will your heart be also. If we'd read on in Matthew 6, verse 21, that's what he said. Where your treasure is? There will your heart be also. What we spend our money on shows what we really treasure. And so Paul is challenging us. If we have more than enough to meet the necessities of life, then please he says do something. Do something and do it generously and invest it eternally for the work of God. Here's Paul's point to the Ephesian church. Paul was concerned that the Ephesian church reach its full potential. You see, this was a church where Paul had spent over a year and a half of his ministry. He realized the significance of the city of Ephesus. That's where Timothy is now. That's where he's writing to Timothy at. And so he realizes the significance of that town, that big city. And from that city numerous churches, the book of Acts says the gospel spread to all of Asia from the God from the church in Ephesus. Churches like Laodicea, Colossae, other churches were a step pergum. Other churches were established by the church. In Ephesus, Paul realized it was an evangelistic missionary lighthouse, a strategic opportunity was there in the church at Ephesus to affect the whole region of the world. That's why Paul said don't be proud of your wealth. Don't trust in it. Enjoy what God gives you. But do something with it. Be generous with it. Invest it eternally because you have a strategic opportunity there in Ephesus. And I would say to us this morning we are such a church. God has blessed us abundantly. I believe this place not the only place. We're not the only place. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But I believe God has called us to be a lighthouse through this region and to send that beam of the gospel throughout the world. I believe we're in a strategic place like Ephesus. I believe God wants us to be faithful stewards. Listen folks, we have an opportunity to reach a younger generation. We said that 15 years ago when we started our contemporary service. We've got to reach the next generation that wasn't here in 2002 or 2000. We're behind in doing that. Our facilities, our technology, our lighting, our platform. We need some serious upgrades to be able to reach the next generation. We need a serious upgrade in our contemporary service. You know that we all know that we need to upgrade those things. But that's going to require funds that we don't have in our current budget. No way we could do it with our current budget. So we've got an opportunity to reach the next generation here. But it's going to require that we understand what Paul's saying to us. Listen, we've got an opportunity to reach our community. We've got a great opportunity. We have a tremendous ministry reaching out to our community now. Several, but one that's been especially blessed by God in recent years celebrate recovery. When that ministry was initiated, that ministry was given by people who had vision for that, a significant amount of funds to be able to really get that off the ground well. And that was wonderful. Such a blessing. Those funds will be used up before too long, probably by the end of this year or close. So how are we going to fund celebrate recovery? How are we going to fund reaching out to our community? There are so many things we could do in our community that are still in the minds and the vision of some of our leaders. We haven't even told you about yet. We would love to do greater outreach to our community, but we can't do it with our current budget. We can't do it where we are now. We've got to expand and grow to invest more in the kingdom of God. We have an opportunity to do that, but it will require funds. We have an opportunity to reach our world. We really do. And I'm so excited about what I see happening here, the mission strategy that so many of our leaders were involved in developing and presenting to the church and you've embraced it. And we're seeing the fruit of it already. One of our young people, these two's, they just spend weeks in Mongolia. Mongolia. We've got three, four, maybe five people training to go to the mission field. We've committed to significantly helping them. We cannot possibly do that with our current budget. We've developed a GoFund to pool significant resources, but that's going to require that people who have means say, hey, as a part of my estate, I'm going to give money to the GoFunds so that they can get the money. And so that people can go out from this church and reach the world with the gospel. It's going to take some real visionary giving to do that. We will not be able to do that without the kind of attitude and actions that Paul is commanding here. God has blessed us abundantly. And this, this is an amazing church. It really is. I understand where we are. We're in southern West Virginia. Hey, I grew up here. I know what's difficult in this area.