Second Message in the Series The Seven Deadly Sins
Luke 12:13-21
Lessons from the Mummy's Tomb
As someone wryly commented, one of things that the ancient Egyptians figured out a long time ago is that we are going to spend a whole lot more time dead than alive! But that doesn't mean that you make the afterlife a four star resort.
Take the fabulous discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen-King Tut (As immortalized in song by Steve Martin: "Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.") He died before his 20th birthday, but this Pharaoh had no intention of entering the afterlife in anyway except in style. In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter found his undisturbed tomb near Luxor. It was the greatest single archaeological discovery in Egypt in the 20th century. The burial chambers were filled with goods and luxuries for the King's use in the afterlife-everything from wheat to gold combs.
Tut's mummified body was encased in no less than three quartz and granite coffins. His head was covered in the now world-famous golden mask (really, more like a helmet, fitting over his entire mummified head).
One of the most interesting things in his tomb-found as well in many Egyptian tombs-were the shawbati figures. These were small, rough-hewn figures for each day of the year, representing the servants who were believed to accompany Tut as he entered the afterlife. He was to have at least one butler per day for all eternity!
But-and it's a big but-all that's a mirage. Tut is dead and all the gold of Egypt won't change that. Not one once of gold, not one servant, accompanied him into the next life. As Jim Dobson puts it, there are no U-Hauls in the valley of the shadow of death.
Who is this Mammon guy?
The summer after I became a Christian, I read anxiously through much of the Bible-and I distinctly recall reading Matthew 6:24, where Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and Mammon." I wondered who on earth this Mammon guy was! (That was the old NAS; the NIV has Money [capitalized]; the NASR now says wealth. Here's a case where the translators should have left it alone!) Mammon was an Aramaic word for wealth-even though the New Testament was written in Greek. That tells me that "Mammon" was a special, distinct concept well understood and discussed by the early Christians as "stuff" (that is, money and possessions) personified. Personified, Mammon is one powerful entity-a false god that has the power to rival God's own pull on our hearts.
The lure of Mammon is an old one. Right in the Big Ten-the Ten Commandments, that is-we are told of the danger of coveting.
Back to Basics-why is coveting in the Ten Commandments?
Exodus 20:17 says, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
You know what's really distinctive about this commandment?
What is coveting anyway? It's wanting what belongs to someone else. More broadly, it's a desire to accumulate wealth and possessions without end. Coveting is a lack of contentment with things accumulated-no matter how little or much that might be. You can be rich or poor and be filled with covetousness. You can be Imelda Marcos with all your shoes, or you can be a poor man who is enraged that Bill Gates dares to live, and it's all the same to God. It is a disposition of the heart to things-an idolatrous attachment to "stuff." That's coveting-Mammon worship.
Remember the Seven
Remember two weeks ago when we began this exploration of the Seven Deadly Sins. We said that not only are these God-denying sins to be avoided-they are also, when you turn them around, God-honoring virtues to be pursued.
So two weeks ago we turned…
1. Pride around and got humility
Now what's the mirror image of coveting? Is it poverty? Other-worldliness? No it's
2. Covetousness vs. Simplicity
And just to be complete, here's the next five…
3. Lust vs. Chastity (that's next week)
4. Envy vs. Love
5. Gluttony vs. Self-control
6. Anger vs. Gentleness
7. Sloth vs. Faithfulness
Coveting and Envy…and the Opposite: Simplicity
Coveting and envy have some similarities, but with this big difference: coveting desires something that somebody else has while envy desires some characteristic or achievement that somebody else has.
The opposite of coveting is to adopt a radically different perspective about material goods-namely, an attitude of simplicity. Simplicity is not shallow leftover hippie anti-materialism. Simplicity does not mean that you live in a converted VW van, eat granola and bathe in a mountain stream.
Simplicity simply (no pun intended) means contentment. Listen to some wisdom from the past, from the past, from the Baptist Catechism of 1689:
Question 86: What is required in the tenth commandment? (That's the one about coveting, remember?)
Answer: The tenth commandment requires contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit towards our neighbor, and all that is his.
Paul expresses this attitude in Philippians 4:10-13:
10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
The "secret of being content." That's a phrase that's often haunted me. God wants all His people to know this secret. But it's an open secret. Basically, it boils down to this: is God enough for you, or do you require other "stuff" to be content?
That is not to suggest that there's anything wrong with a healthy ambition. Or to suggest that a poor and shiftless man is somehow more virtuous that others. It comes down to contentment in Christ-whether we are well fed or hungry, flat-busted broke or with a bulging bank account, living in a trailer or in a Beverly Hills mansion.
The "I Want It" Sickness: A Story from the Master
Jesus, the master, and the master story-teller, gives us a classic story about coveting in Luke 12:13-21-the story of the Rich Fool:
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
Comment: this act of apparent greed is the spark of the story, so everything
else has to be read with the man's complaint in mind. We can only guess that
there was something amiss in his complaint by the way Jesus answered him-that
he was not just seeking justice, but some kind of advantage.
14 Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed Me a judge
or an arbiter between you?" 15 Then he said
to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's
life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
16 And he told them this parable: "The ground
of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He
thought to himself, `What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
18 "Then he said, `This is what I'll do. I
will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my
grain and my goods. 19 And I'll say to myself,
"You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy;
eat, drink and be merry." '
20 "But God said to him, `You fool! This
very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have
prepared for yourself?'
21 "This is how it will be with anyone who
stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
What was the man's sin? Was it his wealth? No. Was it his planning for the future? No. Was it that he retired? (Beware! This is the only example of retirement in the Bible-and it doesn't come off good!) Maybe it was his ambition: bigger this, bigger that! No, not quite. Jesus makes it clear:
1. His sin was mistaking things for real life! He says in vs. 15 that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. It's the old, "He who dies with the most toys wins" thing. But that's a lie, and Jesus spears that lie, and we who count ourselves as Jesus-followers have to deny that lie as well. Stuff is just, well, stuff.
I mentioned James Dobson earlier. I recall him comparing life to playing Monopoly. Buy everything from Broadwalk to St. Charles Place, it doesn't matter. Eventually the games is over and all the little pieces, the little houses and hotels, even the little top hat, have to go back into the box. Congratulations, Donald Trump. You have won-absolutely nothing.
2. Second, the sin of the rich fool was that of hoarding for self. In vs. 21, Jesus says that the man stored up things for himself.
There's nothing wrong with making money. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said about wealth, "Make all you can, live on as little as possible, give away as much as possible."
The man had the attitude that It's mine, all mine! In the Bible, the only value of accumulated wealth is that enables you to provide for your family, supply the needs of the poor and give to the work of the kingdom of God. That's all, period. To accumulate wealth and do nothing with it is just sin-a greedy attitude that screams out a lack of trust in God, the one who gave you what you have to begin with. (You really have to read what Jesus says in all of Matthew 6 to get this.)
3. Poverty toward God (vs. 21)
Conversely, the man's sin as well was poverty toward God. It's God or Mammon; not both.
The Alternative: Simplicity
q The Church of the Savior's "baseline"
The Church of the Savior began in Washington, DC, in 1947. God raised up the church to be a dynamic witness in a poor part of what was already one of the nation's most crime-ridden cities. In the church's "Discipline" (what Baptists generally call the Membership Covenant), the members committed themselves to tithing. Before finalizing the document, they asked a prominent theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, to review it. He made only one suggestion: instead of committing to tithing, he said the members should commit to "proportional giving." He explained, "Tithing should be floor or a baseline that you never go beneath without compelling reasons." His suggestion was one that both freed them from legalism and challenged them to a higher level of giving-and freedom from the power of Mammon in their lives.
Three attitudes to treat the disease
If coveting is the "I want it" disease, what's the cure? Let me give you three attitudes and four actions to cultivate simplicity in your life.
1. What we have is a gift from God
We don't have anything-nothing! We are only the most temporary of stewards of the things, wealth, property-even the children-God gives us. All is a gift from God. We reinforce that attitude every time we ask a blessing before a meal.
2. It is God's business, not ours, to oversee what He's given
A steward needs to be faithful with what he's given, but that always remains the property of the Master. If He says, give it away-use it for this or that purpose-our job is to do as we have been told. It's not ours.
How many Christian parents have sinned in their stewardship of their children when their child-say a 13-year-old boy-says that he wants to go to Zaire or Thailand as a missionary? "Oh, no-you'd be so far away! And it's dangerous! You might get sick-you might die! And if you have a family, we'd never see our grandchildren! No!"
But that child is not your child. He is God's. Don't get in the way of the Spirit of God speaking to His heart.
3. What God has given me, He's given me to share
And that's the only reason! Those are the three attitudes-now here's four actions:
Four actions to treat the disease
1. Buy what you need, not what you want or can afford
Just because you can buy something doesn't give you the right to. "Do I need this?" is a great question to ask. Maybe put it this way" "What would Jesus buy?"
Art Gish said, "We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like." What a thought!
Do I need a new car? Do I need a boat? Do I need a new computer? Do I need a soda? I dare you to try it for a month and see how this changes you.
This week, I went with Colin to a bookstore. Bad place for a pastor. All pastors
have a disease called bibliophilia-the unnatural love of books. Colin got a
couple of books he needed for a class. I got one just because I was there. Oops.
This sermon series is hitting way too close to home.
2. Develop a habit of giving things away
Give stuff away. Here's a challenge: most of us have full closets. Every time you get a shirt, give away a shirt. Or two. A lot of us could do it. Give things away. It's a spiritual discipline that shapes the heart and loosens the grip of things on your life. So give all that stuff to Mike Hertz for that yard sale for the LA Pregnancy Center. And they need lots of clothes down at the Drug Rehab that our sister church in Tijuana ministers to. Do it. Give things away.
3. Be afraid-be very afraid-of debt! (Romans 13:8)
Romans 13:8 says, "Owe no man anything except to love one another." Good advice. Learn to hate debt. Use credit cards ONLY if you pay them off in full each month. Personally, I don't think ANYBODY under age 25 should have a credit card. Those little plastic devils are a horrible snare to people who haven't yet learned fiscal discipline-be afraid-very afraid-of debt!
4. Engage in Kingdom Giving-with the tithe as the guide
I regard giving for the work of the Kingdom as a need as far as the church goes-but it is also a spiritual discipline-a habit we engage in for the sake of our spiritual growth.
I mentioned the Church of the Savior a few moments ago. Gordon Cosby, the founding pastor said this: "To give money away is to win a victory over the dark powers that oppress us." I am absolutely convinced he is right. We shape our hearts in a Godward way when we give money to godly pursuits.
And Jesus said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
Amen?
Amen!
© Copyright 2002, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org