Confessions of a Church: Wealth
The Psalm writer wrote: Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your law. As we come before a Holy God and hear his word, may we have eyes open to the wonderful and fearful things from his law. May it move us to repent and seek forgiveness, fear disobedience, and live in light of the grace we have received. This is the word of God. It is eternally true and applicable for all of life.
Ecclesiastes 7:1-14 A good name is better than a good ointment, And the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning Than to go to a house of feasting, Because that is the end of every man, And the living takes it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, For when a face is sad a heart may be happy. The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure. It is better to listen to the rebuke of a wise man Than for one to listen to the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorn bushes under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool; And this too is futility. For oppression makes a wise man mad, And a bribe corrupts the heart. The end of a matter is better than its beginning; Patience of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit. Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools. Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this. Wisdom along with an inheritance is good And an advantage to those who see the sun. For wisdom is protection just as money is protection, But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors. Consider the work of God, For who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, But in the day of adversity consider— God has made the one as well as the other So that man will not discover anything that will be after him.
This is the word of the Lord.
The Apostle Paul, writing in his letter to Timothy, says this:
But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (I Timothy 6:9,10)
Jesus says this in Matthew 19:23 & 24 “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
One cannot read passages of scripture such as these and walk away from them with the notion that God hates wealth, money, or material prosperity. We can look at Solomon himself and his vast material wealth and know this to be true.
Simultaneously, we can look at passages such as these and infer from them that God does in fact caution us against the accumulation of vast stores of wealth and treasure for accumulations sake, telling us that where our treasure is, is where our heart will be also. Since man cannot serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
As this passage in Ecclesiastes tells us today, money does serve as protection of sorts in a temporal sense. For wisdom is protection just as money is protection.
When hungry, cash lets you purchase food. You can use money to purchase shelter, household goods, and protection to defend those things from the thieves who may break in and steal.
Money can afford you access to healthcare, allow you to purchase medicine, and even grant you the luxury of being able to exercise at the gym and keep your body in top shape.
Proverbs 10:15 says “The rich man’s wealth is his fortress”.
Therein lies the problem with wealth: in the accumulation of it, one tends to forget where those blessings came from, and rather than glorifying God and using wealth as a tool for God’s Kingdom, they seek to build their own little kingdom, and wind up serving as the tool of wealth.
Superior to wealth in every way, is the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, which the writer of Ecclesiastes says “preserves the lives of its possessors”.
Contrasted with wealth, which cannot preserve your life, true wisdom, that which comes down from Heaven, is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy, truly preserving the life of the one who possesses it. Why? Because wisdom is a gift of God found only in the One in which all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found: Christ Jesus. Wealth, a temporary shelter, “certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.” However, true riches, the wisdom of God stemming from a fear of the Lord, is a firm foundation upon which to build that never wavers, never falters, never crumbles, and is given to all who ask for it, generously (James 1:5).
To which refuge do you flee when life's trials come your way? Do you seek shelter in your wealth? Surely, that refuge is built upon a foundation of sinking sand which will be washed away.
When pressure from the world mounts, where do you look for relief? Do you turn to money and the things which it can provide to ease your burden? These false gods, worthless idols, will not protect you from the wrath of God on the day of judgement. When the time of calamity comes and you cry out to your wealth to save you, there will be no help from your riches, only a snare which gives you a false sense of hope.
How are you using the wealth God has blessed you with, for His glory, or yours?
Do you use the wealth God has blessed you with as a tool for His Kingdom, or are you the tool?
Do you delight in true treasures, the wisdom and knowledge found in the Lord Jesus, and pursue that, or are all of your delights and pursuits centered around the perishable things of this world?
Let us repent of trading the glory of God, His excellent wisdom, and the refuge of His Son, for vain pursuits after wealth which will grow wings and fly away.
At this time, if you are able, please kneel as we confess our sins to God and seek His forgiveness through the blood of His Son Jesus.
HOLY LORD,
We have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find thy mind in thy Word, of neglect to seek thee in our daily lives. Our transgressions and short-comings present us with a list of accusations, But we bless thee that they will not stand against us, for all have been laid on Christ;
Go on to subdue our corruptions, and grant us grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring our spirits into subjection, but do thou rule over us in liberty and power. We thank thee that many of our prayers have been refused — We have asked amiss and do not have, We have prayed from lusts and been rejected, We have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Go on with thy patient work, answering ‘no’ to our wrongful prayers, and fitting us to accept it. Purge us from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to thy rule.
We thank thee for thy wisdom and thy love, for all the acts of discipline to which we are subject, for sometimes putting us into the furnace to refine our gold and remove our dross. No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If thou shouldst give us a choice to live in pleasure and keep our sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give us sanctified affliction.
Deliver us from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of thy grace in us, everything that prevents us from taking delight in thee. Then we shall bless thee, God of Jeshurun, for helping us to be upright.
Prayer adapted from the Valley of Vision prayer titled "Confession and Petition".
Please stand and listen to the comforting assurance of the grace of God, promised in the gospel to his church
1 John 5:1-5 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
To all those who thus repent and seek Jesus Christ for their salvation, your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lift up your hearts!