Psalm 49 The Folly of Trusting in Riches

Speaker 4: If you're listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast, I'm Krisan Marotta. And today, my husband, David John Garata, will be speaking on Psalm 49. You can follow along with the lecture notes at wednesdayintheword.com slash psalm49. Thanks for joining us. Speaker: Okay, if you have your Bibles, turn to Psalm 49. The title of this Psalm, the subtitle that the New American Standard puts in trying to summarize what the Psalm is about is The Folly of Trusting in Riches. So I don't know how many of you know I used to teach computer science and then be a computer programmer. More recently, for the past several years, I've been a fee only financial planner and money manager. So I always thought it would be a good title for a money firm, folly money management, or something like that. Speaker 5: Be a great title. That's right. Speaker: Folly money management. It'd be great. So let me read the psalm and then we'll talk about it. Hear this, all peoples. Give ear all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb, I will express my riddle on the harp. Why should I fear in the days of adversity, when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me, even those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches? No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly, that he should cease trying forever, that he should live on eternally, that he should not see the pit. For he sees that even wise men die, the stupid and senseless alike perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses are for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They have called their lands after their own names, but man in his pomp will not endure. He is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish, and of those after them who approve their words. Selah. As sheep, they are appointed for Sheol, death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume, so that they have no habitation. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah. Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased, for when he dies he will carry away nothing, his glory will not descend after him. Though while he lives he congratulates himself, and though men praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generations of his fathers. They shall never see the light. Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish. Okay. Um this psalm, let me pass out an outline. This psalm is um on the one hand, it's sort of painfully obvious, having read it, what the point is. So we're going to try to go over a little bit the kinds of things that you might go through when you're looking at observation, and then get on to more of the application portion of this morning. The first thing is just to look at the structure of the psalm and to notice that verses 1 through 4 is sort of an introduction. Then you have sort of a middle section that goes through 13, and then the last section either divides 14 and 15 to the end, or you could put the whole thing together. The reason why you divide 14 and 15 separately is, of course, because you have the sela in there that's sort of breaking up the psalm. That usually is an indication that this is where the psalmist decided to break it, and so who are we to argue with him? But let's just take a look to begin with at the first four verses. The psalm is written by the sons of Korah, who wrote a lot of the psalms in the book. They were, I don't know how to put it, a singing team, if you will, who would lead music. So think about scripture being written by our choir, and they're out there, and they're not just singing songs, they're actually writing the songs, and they're putting them together in order to sing them, and this is sort of their ministry, and it's also God's word at the same time. And they wrote 42 through 49, and then 84, 85, and then 87 and 88. So they wrote a number of the books of the chapters in Psalms. The first section is really just trying to say, look, listen up. This is important. This is for everyone. I want all of you to pay attention. It's for you, it's for you, it's for you. And so it's trying to get our attention and say, if you think you're exempt from this psalm, you're wrong. And I think that that, there's actually a lot of wisdom that's contained in that. You'll notice he says in verse 2, both low and high together. So it's it's both those who are powerful and influential and those who lack power and influence. And then he says, it's for the rich and poor together. Now, you wouldn't think necessarily that a psalm that's about trusting in wealth would be, and the folly of trusting in wealth would be one that you would have to direct at the poor. You'd think you'd just one that's primarily directed at the sin, at the sins of the rich. The rich are the ones who would be tempted to trust in their wealth, the ri richer the ones. And yet, um, having dealt with people on sort of all ends of the financial spectrum, um, I can tell you that people always criticize those who have more money and feel sorry for those who have less money, and it's it wherever they are, that's their vantage point for looking at the world. And the same kinds of things that you can, the same kinds of mistakes that you can make if you're rich, you can make even if you're poor. Let me give you an example. Um, some uh some pastors that I know went over and they were doing work in Africa and they were looking at how little Africans had in terms of financial wealth, and feeling like they were underprivileged, if you will, and yet they were perfectly happy, they had food, they had clothing, they had everything that they needed, and just looking at that and thinking that there's something missing there is um is a sort of a financial mistake. It's a it's a it's a it's a folly. God has promised his people food, clothing, shelter, that's it. That's what he's promised his people. He hasn't promised his people anything more than that, and if they have that, they have everything that they need, all the blessings that they need from God. It's also very easy to take pride in the fact that you're poor as much as it is to take pride in the fact that you're rich. And I think within the financial or within within the finances of Christians, we feel very uncomfortable talking about money. We feel very uncomfortable talking about having a lot of money, having too little money, how we spend our money. It's a very uncomfortable topic. That's true even outside the church. Most kids don't know what their parents made. Most parents don't talk with their kids about finances. It's it's it's certainly a more taboo subject in today's society than sexuality is in talking about things with your kids. So, what do we teach in the schools? We have these huge sex ed programs, we teach them all the intimate details of sexuality down to technique and plumbing and everything else. And then what do we teach them about finances? What do we teach them about just the way in which you should think about the world financially? And the answer is almost zero. Now, I was very fortunate. I grew up in a family in which my parents talked about sexuality and finance and everything else at the dinner table as a matter of course. And so I remember at age four, I knew how much mortgage we had on our home, what the interest rate was at. I knew what my dad made as a civil servant in the government. I knew I knew what everything cost. I was uh an expert at the prices right. I could nail every single, every single value. It was one of my favorite shows when I was young. I don't know why, but it was. It says something strange about me. Um But I I've learned since then that that was an aberration. Most kids, most parents hide what they make from their kids, they hide the kinds of financial decisions, they hide um when they're giving money away, they hide when they're generous, they hide when they're stingy, they hide when they're they're wasting money. They just sort of hide all of that, and they and they don't have those kinds of interactions. And so you can have bad attitudes about money from almost any place you are. The other interesting thing is the fact that all of you are in this room in the United States of America means, according to the world's population, you're in the top 5% of the rich of the rich of the rich. So if you think this is only toward rich people, well, welcome to the club. We're all rich in this room, because we all have a lot more than just um just food and clothing. So this first section is really trying to get our attention, and then it's going on to talk about both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding. Um this is um the the words here for my mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding, I will incline my ear to a proverb and express my riddle on the harp. These are all words that you find a lot in the book of Proverbs as wisdom literature, and this is saying that this is universal truths, you you you uh there's a sense in which you didn't need God's revelation to know about this. So this psalm is going to give you God's perspective, but you didn't need God's perspective. You didn't need some special revelation. You could just look around you in life, and you could learn everything there is to know about this psalm, and you could write it. And that's why I think it's very clear that the sons of Korah didn't need a special message from God. If you just take God's, any bit of God's truth, that God exists and that he cares about the way you live, and you look at the world, you could come up with this psalm. You could have written this psalm. This isn't a, this isn't special revelation, this is general revelation. Which means this is also something that you can interact with your non-Christian friends. This is a touching point which makes for good evangelism because it has traction. Non-Christians recognize this as much as Christians recognize this. You can't take it with you when you die. It's just sort of an obvious thing. In the end, none of that is going to help you. There's a problem, there's problems that are looming in your life that money won't solve. Money, by the way, solves all kinds of problems. It's just the most important ones in life it doesn't solve. So, so I mean, I Sophie Tucker was one of the people. I love her quote, I've been poor and I've been rich, rich is better. So, yeah, that's the sort of attitude that you can have toward money. It doesn't solve, however, the most important issues of life, which are meaning of life questions, what are you going to do? Can you be the kind can you live as the kind of person that you need to live? What happens to you when you die? You know, all the most important issues. Then he goes on, um, why should I fear in the days of adversity, when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me, even those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches? No man can by any means redeem his brother or give God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly, that he should cease trying forever, that he should live on eternally, and he should not see the pit. One of the attitudes that we have toward money is that we fear those who have money and power. We fear what they will do with it. We defer to them, we're afraid to annoy them, we're afraid to speak unkindly of them. We know that they have things that we want, so we service them better. And if you look at um if you look at the book of James, when James talks about when a rich man comes into your assembly, do you give him the seat of honor? You know, those are the attitudes that we have toward people who have money. We're somehow a little bit impressed by money in a way that we shouldn't be. Um And in the back of our minds, in the back of our minds, we don't think that someone who is not powerful and influential is as important as someone who is. So is the janitor who works in the building as important as the CEO? You know, we sort of look at that and we say, no, he's not. We really we really don't believe that as Christians and we should. Um I mean you've you've probably uh heard, you know, in Charlottesville, we're in where an academic community, instead of wealth, substitute degrees after your name, or any kind of power or influence or status, all of those things we're somehow impressed by in a way that we shouldn't. People are people, and we should treat people as being in the image of God, and who isn't in the image of God? No one. So the first sort of principle that you get out of this psalm is one that you shouldn't be impressed by those who have money. You shouldn't treat them differently, you shouldn't revere them differently, and you shouldn't, it's the same thing about yourself, you shouldn't take pride in yourself because you do have money. So I'm gonna sort of give you three ways to think about money that are that I think are touchstones. And if every time you're dealing with money or power of or influence, you have those three in mind, they have positive aspects and they have negative aspects, positive ways of saying it. If every every time you deal with money or influence or power, if you have those three in mind, they will help triangulate where God wants you to be. And so sometimes if you were just one way, it would push you one way, but with three principles in mind, it will help keep you balanced between those three to figure out where you need to be. Um this is what are the three principles then? Uh I'm gonna get to them at the bottom. The first one, it's basically avoiding greed, fear, and pride. Or stated more positively, it's gonna be practice stewardship, be generous, and respect calling. Um the the one and the first one is just the idea of pride that you shouldn't treat someone who has money and power and influence differently. I love verse 7. No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly. He should cease trying forever. You know, in the New Testament, we understand that there's only one thing that will redeem someone's life, and that is the shed blood of Jesus. And that is what gives us all worth and power, or power and influence as sons and daughters of the king, and that's really where we have power and influence. Um another sort of aspect, if we were to be assigning some task to be, let's say that we were preparing for a big banquet in here, and we were assigning what people were going to bring, and you were required to bring the toothpicks, and you were required to bring the main course. Okay, who have I burdened the most? I've burdened the one who's required to bring the main course uh main course to the banquet. Now, think about in that in terms of the money. I've made you poor and I've made you rich. And in service of the king, in preparing for his banquet, he has more responsibilities to use things wisely, to make sure that everything's prepared properly. We often don't view wealth as a burden, but I believe that if we had spiritual eyes, we would see that the more things that you've been given to be a steward over, the more work you have to do to make sure that those things are used for the king's service. And so, if you don't have very much, well then you don't have as much of a burden on handling those material things. You're maybe freer to do other things with your time and service and efforts. And so if you start thinking about wealth as being given to you for stewardship rather than being given to you for your own pleasure, then the only thing that you have to do with your money is you don't have to be, I'll put it this way, you don't have to be a great financial manager and be investing it all in the right places and be worried about doing things right according to the world's eyes. You really just have to be asking the question, what does God want you to do with the money and resources that you've been given? And I will I will tell you that, I mean, I I met one person who we were advising, and this wasn't, it's not a it's not a client, it was just someone we were talking to, and they had this massive amount of wealth, and they were talking about where to invest it and stuff like that. They had no purpose for it. It was just wealth, and they just were managing it. They had no kids, or if they did, they weren't going to leave it to their kids. Um they didn't really care about the charity they were, they were, that they they would they decide to leave, that they were deciding to leave it to. They were so frugal in their spending that they didn't need any of this. They had pensions and income coming in. They were actually adding to these investments. There was no purpose for their investment whatsoever. And so it was it was very difficult to advise someone because the very first thing in sort of financial planning is what are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish with it? And I will tell you, too, that that's very different for Christians than it is for non-Christians. For non-Christians, there's there's a very sort of set of goals, and they and they don't take their eyes up off those goals, and that's that's the purpose of their money, is to fulfill their goals. And for Christians, it's just very different. It's like they've got their eyes up on the horizon and they're they're looking at what will further the kingdom. Now, some of those things are the same things for non-Christians. I want to make sure that my kids get a good education, I want to make sure that I'm taking care of in retirement, but the tone of things is very different. And financial planning is really more about life planning than it is about finances. The finances part is easy. Save, invest, you'll be fine. You sort of got the summary of financial planning. Save, invest, you'll be fine. The hard part is, the hard part is figuring out what your life goals are. And so figuring out what kinds of plan, what does God have for your life, where are you headed, you know, what's the purpose of your life, where should you be spending your time, let alone your money, on those kinds of things. And trying to have that picture of stewardship, I think, will help with the other two, that if you if you can avoid, um, you will avoid fear and greed and pride if you have in mind what's going on with life. And then finances sort of fall out from that. Speaker 2: Dave, you know what the scripture verse is that says about the the more you're given, the more you're expected. There's a specific scripture verse in that I can't think of words. Speaker: There is. And Kristan's going to look it up for me. I see her over there with her Palm Pilot. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the idea with everything that we've been given. And this this psalm talks about wealth and influence, but it's really anything of value would fit in into this context and this theology. I love I love verse 10. For he sees that even wise men die, the stupid and senseless alike perish. So those who are foolish and and those who um Matthew 13. Speaker 4: But he's talking more about knowledge of the internet. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you. Speaker: Their inner thought is that the houses are forever and their dwelling places to all generations. They've called lands after their own names. But he's talking about, you know, the people who are famous enough to have cities named after them, and you have, you know, Herodium and all these cities that he's sort of looking at in the, you know, in the in the in the biblical times, naming a city after you because you built it up and lavished it, was, you know, sort of very common. You name the city after you, but um but then later on um it's your it's your grave that's your final resting place. It's it's the it's your grave, which is your eternal home, not these cities that you've tried to name after yourself to get some kind of a perpetual legacy. And so you see you see people trying to have some kind of a legacy, either by endowing things, or naming chairs, or uh creating corporations or foundations or um or having books that they've written or movies they've done, or they people desperately want. Something that 50 years from now people will remember their name. Fifty years after they die, people will remember their name. They want some kind of a legacy like that that will last. And as Christians, we know there's really only a few things that will last. And it's only those things that are done in love that really last. It's the acts of goodness and kindness and righteousness that last. Everything else gets burned up. And so all the things that the world thinks will give them an eternal perspective don't last. All the things that really do give an eternal perspective are the things that the world really doesn't value that much. Unless you can be known for it. You know, if you can be really generous with your money and everyone knows you're really generous with your money, well, there you go. If you can, you know, do acts of kindness and everyone knows you do acts of kindness and you win the Nobel Peace Prize for it, well, there you go. And most people who are really concerned about the acts of kindness are embarrassed if people know about their acts of kindness. They sort of feel like, well, that ruined that. You know? I didn't want people to know if I was generous. And much of the process, when God mean it, there's two ways, let me just back up, there's two ways to look at this. And sermons quite often say, and yes, you should be generous and give lots away, and you should do all these acts of kindness. And as you're listening to it, your head starts going down like this, and you think to yourself, I am not going to make eye contact with that person because he's just making me feel so bad. And I feel awful. So let me just tell you the perspective that I have when I hear a sermon like that, because it completely changes my attitude, and that is, I will tell you that all of us are tight, white-knuckled, fisted with our money and our time and our resources. All of us are like that. The amazing thing, the real amazing thing is that God very gently relaxes our hand and very gently starts pulling the fingers up one by one and saying, it's okay, you don't need to hold on to it that much. I'll take care of you. And to the point at which he actually takes us white-fisted people and makes us people who actually want to give our money away. I mean, that's the gospel is God is in the process of making you that kind of a generous person, that kind of a person who's not worried about life, who isn't fearful, that kind of a person who isn't all concerned about what's going to go on, yet at the same time you're wise, you're good. And trying to combine those together. So when I hear a sermon on this topic, I always try to think, and that's the kind of person that God has promised to make me. This isn't up to me to do, this isn't up to me to engineer. God will help bring about that revolution in my mind. Why? Because I'm hearing his word, it's sinking deep. That's why he starts the first four verses the way he starts them, is because he says, this is deep wisdom that has to sink in, and you have to recognize that this wisdom is for you and has something to say to you, and this is God speaking to you directly, and then you start listening, and you start, and you start softening that heart a little bit, and it's up to God to do that work in our lives. And sermons like these are just some of the things that help show us our lack, show us a vision for what God's serving in God's kingdom could look like, and then brings about change in our lives. But it's not up to us to do that kind of change. Speaker 2: Yeah. You were just talking about verses 10 and 11. Yeah, notice that the NIV translates to verse 11 differently. It says that tombs will remain their houses forever. And as you read, it said their inner thoughts are that their houses will remain forever. Speaker: Yeah, uh in verse, in verse 11, yeah, the the enumeric standard has their inner thought is that their houses are forever. Um I think the the NIV is right. It should read, their tombs will remain their houses forever. So I think that's a better translation. unknown: Okay. Speaker: So there's some ambiguity in the Hebrew text. So even the Hebrew scholars don't know. But it makes more sense to think about they've named lands after themselves, but their tomb is really their dwelling place forever. So yeah, I was trying to find that in my text, and it's over on my side because I've got the NIV in one and the NASV in the other. And that's that's sort of an interesting, I mean I think that makes sense, and that's sort of an interesting way of s of seeing it. If you trust in material things, you know, that's your legacy, is your coffin, and that's where you'll that's where you'll be for eternity, because that's all there is materially. Um there has to be a God who resurrects in order to look at that. Speaker 3: Well, it seems like your whole person who's maybe not a believer and focused very much on their legacy leading things that have their name on it, but it seems like they focus on that to give their life meaning in the present. Right. Because it seems obvious that at the point at which they die, obviously they're no longer caring about what ha you know, they cared about what their name was on while they were alive, but when you're dead, you don't care about what your name I mean, obviously, you don't care about what your name is on. Speaker: Yeah. I've I've I've heard it said that all of us, that all of us have two idols in life. And the the near idol is how do we how do we live our lives, how do we function in life, how do we decide what to do, get up in the morning, what are we going to accomplish? The far idol is the one though that gives meaning to your life. And the far idol is what are you looking for so that your life in the grand scope of things actually has meaning. Now, for Christians, the challenge is for God, the God, to be both our near idol and our far idol, to worship Him in both aspects. But money can substitute for either one of those. Money can be how you handle life. There's a problem. Throw money at it, solved. Here's a problem. Money at it, solved. And there's lots of problems you can solve with money, and with enough money, you can solve even some big ones. And then money can also help buy you that far idol of what gives meaning to my life. I'm gonna endow this, I'm going to name this after me, I'm going to set up generation skipping dynasty trusts for my legacy of my family. You know, there's there's all kinds of things you can do in financial planning and places to spend your money for goals like that. So, yeah. Speaker 2: Oh, I was going to say, you know, do it this Woody Allen quote, he says, uh, I don't want immortality through my work, I want immortality through not dying. Speaker: Yes, exactly. Speaker 2: Nothing like the better one. Speaker: Yeah. That was Woody Allen in a Time magazine, in which he really talked, he really talked about the legacy he wanted to leave and and going on, and and he he recognized it didn't solve the biggest problem in life. I want that immortality by not dying. That's that's the real that's the real goal. So I think it's good for us to think through what are our temptations to look for near and far idols that way. How do we manipulate life and how do we live for having eternal value and try to keep those in line and in check. Um this whole psalm, by the way, is one of the very, very clear. There's like three or four clear psalms that um talk about a resurrection, and talk about, and sometimes people will say, you know, the Psalms really don't have that in mind. I think it's in mind in almost every Psalm, and there's three or four like this that are very clear that there is a resurrection, and that God intends to uh to judge the world, and that we have to live in light of the fact that God is going to judge the world, and he cares about right and wrong, he cares about good and evil. That's the only thing that really matters. And you sort of add to that, and we can't be good, therefore we need Christ's goodness and the Holy Spirit in our lives changing us, and you really get to a very reformed view of saving faith. This is the way of those who are foolish and those who after them who approve their words. This is sort of a summary verse of the entire section. There's going to be another summary verse in 20, but in 13, he's just summarizing the entire thing, saying, you know, if if you have this view, or you approve of having this view, or you support people who have this view, you're a fool. This is, you know, because this is the this is the end of your life, it's not going to matter in the slightest. Then in 14, we really start talking about the two destinies. So if this is what the best riches can get you, this is this is how riches are limited, this is how wealth and power is limited, then what does that mean in light of the fact that there's a judgment? And there's coming two destinies, those who've put their faith in God and those who've not put their faith in God, and what will be the outcome for each one. And again, just from back from Drew in the very first one, in a lot of the Psalms, there's always in this mind this there's two destinies. There's you're either in or you're out. There's not a middle ground. You're either with God or you're against God. You're either trusting in him or you're not trusting in him completely. And so there really isn't a choice of, well, I'll trust him a little bit, and then the other things I'll trust in, and somehow try to mix two religions together. And that's the other thing that I sort of take from this is that at least in America, we're very good at mixing Christianity with other stuff. So we're very good at taking our Christian religion and taking our secular religion in whatever the aspect and wisdom that it has, and somehow trying to find a balance of the two that merged together feels comfortable. And we use God as sort of this far idol, and we use the world as our near idol and how to manipulate things, because that's easier to get along in American culture as we do that. And so you just kind of throw it open and you say, what would it look like if? And you ask those kinds of questions, and if you have the courage enough, you can craft a more biblical view of the way you as a couple want to approach your family and your life and the way you think about things. And you know that that that can get very creative. So part of this is it's very difficult to look at other people and say, oh, they're not following God because they're not doing it the way I'm doing it. God may have very different callings for each of us. And for some of us, he may want us to be handling the main course, and for some of us, he may want us to not be handling the main course, and God in his calling is very unique in the way that he works through people. So thirteen to the end. This is the way of those who are foolish, and of those who after them who approve their words. Then the end. As sheep they are appointed for Sheol, death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Their form shall be for Sheol to consume, so that they know have no habitation. Um this is talking about death being their shepherd, um and their form shall be for Sheol to consume. So it's talking about how that end has has nothing that's with it. That end is uh is completely ephemeral, and therefore don't be you know don't don't be sucked into thinking that this is gonna this is gonna be any kind of a trust. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich when the glory of his house is increased, for when he dies he will carry away nothing. His glory will not descend after him. Though while he congrat though while he lives, he congratulates himself, and though men praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generations of his fathers. They shall never see the light. Okay. Again, a lot of this seems sort of obvious as you read it. It's it's it's very clear. Let me see if I can give you those three principles that are pulled from this psalm. You can see it in Jesus' words, you can see it in James' words. The first one is yeah, go ahead. Speaker 3: Um, you say it seems obvious, but it didn't to Pharaoh. Speaker: No. Yeah. And you're right, somehow when we're living our life, it doesn't seem obvious. And that's why I think this is a reminder psalm. This is actually a psalm I come back to a lot when I'm thinking about wealth and power and influence and what people really need and what I really need to think about, and the way I need to be handling it. Because no matter almost no matter how you handle your time and your money, you're not quite sure if you're doing it right. You're not quite sure if you're doing what God wants. Um, because it gets complex and because you don't trust your own heart, and because, you know, there's just so many things involved in that. And you know it's one of the things that um couples fight about quite a lot. Um I've heard that 80% of marital breakups have money as a primary factor in them. Because money and time is really what you value, and most people, most couples break up over what they value, and so it comes out in spending and and and how they spend their time and what they value. So let me go through those three principles. The first one is to avoid greed. Greed is um greed is wanting more of this thing just for the sake of wanting it. So greed is is trying too hard to do too many things you shouldn't be doing to get something of value. And fear, fear is the is the fear that God is not going to take care of me unless I can take care of myself. And so fear will keep you from doing things, and greed will make you do things you shouldn't. It's the balance back and forth. So, I mean, there's a common stock market thing, you know, avoid greed and fear. Fear is the kind of thing that will keep you out of investing anything, and greed will put you all in the one thing that's the most volatile. And if you have a more balanced view of the markets, then you'll do better in the markets, so have a more even keel. Well, the same thing is true in living life. If you're greedy for something, you'll be doing things that you shouldn't do. They'll be doing immoral things. And if you're fearful, you won't necessarily be taking even the risks that God wants you to take. And so the real thing is to do the right thing, not to be a and avoiding greed and fear will help keep you from two of the sins that are very common when you have something that the world values in the way you're handling it. And pride, pride just wants to beat your neighbor. Pride just says, I don't care what my investments did, just as long as they were better than yours. Because then I can, or better than some measurement. However, we're gonna keep score, I'm better than you, is sort of the way it says it. Jesus does the same thing when he's talking to the Pharisees, and now I'm not gonna be able to find it. He says, um, in fact, he's talking about finances, and he says, you've tithed the mint and the cumin, you've even tithed a tenth of your herb garden. You're supposed to tithe a tenth of everything in the land. They have this little herb garden, they're tithing a tenth of that, and they're saying, see how good I am, I'm doing exactly what God wants me to do. Um And he says, You have um you've done that, but you've avoided the more weightier things in the law, which are um Justice, mercy, justice, twenty three. Matthew twenty-three, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Okay, so if you think about it, justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the three positive components of greed, fear, and pride. Um, justice would say you need to treat people equally. So it's the opposite of pride, which would say, hey, if you've got more of the good stuff, then you're more important than the people you don't. Justice, mercy and faithfulness. Faithfulness is the one that would say, you need to be only having faith in God. You need to be trusting only in God. That's the opposite of greed, which really is trusting in the thing. You have to get a lot of that thing in order to be handling it. And mercy is the thing that would say, I need to be generous and giving away to other people. I need to be following that kind of a lifestyle. Well, what keeps me from doing that? It's usually fear. I'm afraid if I give it away, I'm not going to have enough of the good stuff for myself. And so justice, mercy, and faithfulness are the three positive aspects of greed, fear, and pride. Does that make sense? Again, that's it's it's sort of two sides. You can help hedge yourself by looking at the things you shouldn't be doing, and you can look at the positive things you should be doing, treating everyone equally as valuable in the sight of God, um, and being generous and trusting only in God. I heard another good quote. We should trust in God and use things. Too often we use God and trust in things. So it's kind of that it's kind of that reverse. God becomes just something that we use to get through our lives and to provide that kind of meaning. So again, practice stewardship, be generous, and respect calling, that people's callings are different. Other questions or comments? Yeah. Speaker 1: It seems like Satan can use any of those things where you can take pride in whatever it is. Like I'm proud of being so generous, like you said. Speaker: Exactly. Speaker 1: And it's that's so hard. Speaker: Exactly. Yeah, you can be proudful of what of of of how much you've given or anything else like that. And it's very har it's very hard to know where your heart's at. Actually, I know where my heart's at. My heart's evil. You know, if I'm generous, I want everyone to know about it, and and that's just evil. So the total depravity of man doesn't mean we're totally depraved. It means we're depraved in everything we do, and everything we do, our motives are not pure. We're not quite the people we should be. The good news is, though, I I know what I've been like, and I know areas where I look at myself and think, I wouldn't have done that before. God is softening my heart. And it's encouraging sometimes to see the direction of your life, because it's very discouraging to see the missing, how far you've missed the bar, but to see the general direction where God is making you more humble, more willing to be generous, less wanting to be known for it. You know, again, we still want to be known for it, but just to see it, him dampening down that a little bit is very helpful. So, yeah, I kind of hate those sermons, be perfect. Yeah, just it's like, okay, that was really not a helpful sermon. You know, that just you know that didn't I knew how far I fell already, so just you know, to make me realize I'm just grimy into the dust. That's not that's that's not encouraging. But to turn it around and say, when you hear a sermon, so when you hear a sermon, be perfect, I always sort of translate it in my head, God has promised you will be perfect. And then I think, oh gosh, that's such a beautiful vision. I'm I'm encouraged. That's where God's that's where God's taking me. Um it's kind of nice to know where the final destination is because we're not because we're so far from it, and that the coming land. Yeah, other questions, comments, yeah. Speaker 6: That's one thing I'm thinking about here, and you touched on it that you know, time and money are the things that you know you sort of try to hoard. And so we've been talking a lot on the financial side on this, on the money side, but how does this apply to the time side in in your life too? Because I know you know a struggle that we've talked about is you know, is it a lot easier to write a check for something instead of giving three hours a week to do that? And so does that make me an awful person, or is that just everybody has a role, so that happens to be my disposition? Speaker: Yeah, and and and that's and that's a great comment. And also, just you know, to take it back to personally in town here. In town here, it's a badge of honor to say I'm I'm just so busy. That's just, oh, you're so busy. Well, that makes mean you're an important person. It's just, and and quite often, you know, that's we say that to each other at Trinity a lot. I'm just so busy. And that's okay. I've tried not to say that as much just because I, you know, in my heart it's sort of a cop out, and I and as I say it a lot. You will still hear me say that a lot. But I've I've tried not to say that as much, and I've tried to make better decisions with my time. Um sometimes I'm busy because I'm greedy. I just want more of the good stuff. And trying to figure out what your life should look like, you know, is is a really difficult and how you spend your time is really difficult. Um and I have teenage kids, and you know, if they have a problem, it's an hour and a half later, and we're still talking, and and it's good. I'm glad my kids will talk to me about the things that are going on in their life. Um, but it's clear your schedule and and what's more important. And too often I'm I'm busy. I know I've got stuff here I need to do, I'm working on, and and I'm putting the less important things to get more good stuff in front of the really important things that it's clear anyone could do the tasks that I'm doing, but there's only one man who can be the father of my children. And if they need a father, well, I'm I'm it. You know, if if they can't come to me, there's there there's nothing there left. You know, and it's good they have two parents, but it but it's still, you know, but it's still, it's those kinds of decisions that you sort of face into and you think, okay, how much is my view of how I should be spending my time really influenced by the corporate sort of frenetic race and how much of it is building a lifestyle that you want to build. And you know, sometimes you have control over that, and sometimes you don't think you have control, but you really have control. It has to do with the house you've bought and the job you've decided to take, and you can get trapped in things like that. I heard Ken Elzinger on a talk recently, and he said, you know, he a few of his top students are now off making um you know huge salaries with huge houses and they hate their life. And you look at that and you think, golly, you know, but that's the the path I was supposed to take to be successful, and I've I'm now I'm Now a great success and I'm financially well off and I don't have two minutes to rub together and I hate my life. You know, it's just and you stop thinking, well, what's really important? What's really important is is feeling the pleasure you have when you know that you're doing what God has called you to do. You know, I always go back to um, you know, to the to the movie of Eric Little and uh and Chariots of Fire. Do you feel God's pleasure when you're doing what you're doing? Well, maybe you're not doing the right thing if you don't. And maybe you need to rethink about what God's calling is. And, you know, I'm I'm like that. I'm I remember I was trying to change my major in college, and I felt like a failure just to change my major in college because I was on this path and I was going to complete this path, even though I didn't think I should be completing that path. I thought I should just be moving a little bit. And for me, it was moving from physics to mechan physics to mechanical engineering was was was the one I was, you know, and you were all going, you know, what's the difference? You know. But but my but my dad was really proud of the fact I was in sciences, and I really wanted to please him, and he was really proud of the fact I was in this, you know, physics program and stuff like that. I finally went to my dad and I said, Dad, you know, I'm thinking about changing majors, but I I'm afraid I'm gonna disappoint you. And that was his response was, and what's the difference? Okay. And at that point I realized how stupid I am. You know, I just I just didn't realize that. So then when I changed from mechanical to electrical engineering, I was like, okay, he's not gonna know what this difference is either. So but you know, we get caught we get caught in that. We get caught in thinking we've got to do one thing and uh and not another. Yeah. Speaker 1: And then I know we didn't have time to go into this, but we need each other to have any of this thing happen. We all have idle, or all our hearts are idle factories and without each other. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, and and I will tell you that that my Odyssey has been incredibly influenced by strong Christians I know and admire at Trinity. You know, and some of them I have never talked to about this, but I watch them, and I just watch their example. So, you know, Ken Elsing is one of them. I watch Ken Elsing, and I just look at his life, and and in that regard, I'm really glad that every now and then he lets slip some of the things he does just because he is such a neat example, and I've sort of tried to emulate him on several things. I really like that about the Christian community. So I see other people and they're generous in opening their homes and and they're you know they're they're you know providing opportunities for people to to fellowship and and stuff like that, and I think, God, that's really good, you know. And so yeah, it you know, the things that we're stingy in, God very gradually loosens us up and and changes our hearts. So I I didn't I didn't want this to be a, you know, and you should be perfect type of a talk. And I think the gospel is really different than that. This is what we will be like, this is what God is is changing us and influencing us on. Great. Let me pray. God, we thank you so much that you are the kind of a God who takes us and makes us people of such um of such beauty that we impact and influence the people around us, and that you have promised us that you will make us perfect, that you will make us the kind of people who handle the things that you've given us well, that um that practice that kind of stewardship, that are generous, and that um that know our calling from you, and have the confidence and courage to live it. We pray uh in the coming few weeks that as things come up, you would remind us uh of this message and help us to navigate the things you've thrown at us in life in a way that's pleasing to you. And we pray that you would soften our hearts, allow these words to sink deep and to be at work in our spirits. In Jesus' name, amen.