beautiful segue into what we're about to talk about. So let's go to the Lord and ask for his blessing. Our Father, we do set our hearts before you, hearts that frankly do not want to deal with the subtle and invasive effects of living in a culture of affluence, a culture that prizes the beauty of things. And we pray that you would, in a very important way, Lord, reach through to us and show us that even in this area, it is the gospel that can liberate us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. There's a movie, not a couple years ago, called A Simple Plan with built-in and Billy Bob's Court, that has a very powerful picture of the things that we need to talk about. And I'll say right after beginning here for the record that Ellen did not think that I should use this movie. She said, hey, there's terrible violence and foul language on that movie, so I'm not commending it to you, okay? In theory, I'm not commending it to you, but there is nevertheless a powerful picture in this movie of the problem of affluence. It begins by showing you this very ordinary, middle-class man named Hank that Bill Paxton plays and he's a very moral person evidently who runs into the powerful influences of affluence. He narrates the beginning of the movie and says I remember my father telling me what he thought it took for a man's simple things, a wife he loves, a job he likes, and so on. And for a while there, without realizing it, I had all that. I was a happy man. Happy until one day when he was out with his derelict brother and his friends walking through the woods, they stumbled across a private plane that had crashed and was partly buried in snow. They went into the plane to explore what had happened, found the pilot was dead and there beside him was a giant bag full of money. Over $4 million worth of cash. And immediately Hank, Bill Paxton's character, said you know we've got to return this. Anything less would be stealing, but his brother and his friend began to work on his conscience a little bit and chip away at his reasoning, saying you know this is probably drug money and no one's going to really miss it. And he said you know we're thinking about it. Do you really want to go on for the rest of your life in this middle-class existence, scraping by, only being able to go out for dinner when you absolutely are able to, and even been watching what you eat, not letting your wife buy a nice dress when she'd like to. And the reasoning began to get to him and so they said well let's just hold onto it for a while and make sure that no one's missing it and then we'll divide it up amongst the three of us. Seems like a simple plan, no giant problems. Until they tried to return a small portion of it thinking that would be wise and someone saw them in this process and they took drastic measures and killed that individual. Well that becomes just the beginning of a downward spiral where there is murder after murder, deceit following, deceit until finally the brother, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who really is a dimwit, looks at the seemingly wise other brother Bill Paxton and says did you ever feel evil? I feel evil. The movie is a powerful picture of Proverbs 11, 28 that I want to focus on with you this morning. Proverbs 11, 28 says whoever trusts in his riches will fall. But the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. Whoever trusts in riches will fall. That is the picture of a simple plan. And really the picture of so much of our culture isn't it? As we have seen in the last year, the stock market collapse compared to where it was a couple of years ago, we've seen dot com company after dot com company, file for chapter 11 and we've seen even this week, corporate giant in Houston have to be taken over. There's all sorts of pictures in our culture that things are not as they once were and yet I think that there is a temptation for us to assume that in an economy that is in recess that we're not struggling anymore with the problem of affluence. I think really it's just a temporary setback and that the subtle effects of money, of materialism, of affluence are still there, very powerfully there, wanting to lure us away, but all the while it's a trap, a trap that leads to our falling. And the parallel passage that Roy read for us earlier from first Timothy is a beautiful expose of this. And I want to focus on that as well. If you kind of look at the proverbs, the whole book of proverbs really as different doorways that you can enter into tremendous areas of wisdom and truth and understanding for human beings. So proverbs 11, 28 is just one doorway that we enter into this morning as we look at modern problems and ancient solutions and we see more of the amplification of it in first Timothy six. If you have a Bible turn to first Timothy six, I want to read a few more verses that I should have included in the order of worship. You had read for you first Timothy chapter six, verses 17 through 19. I want to read verses six through 10 as well, a first Timothy six. So keep these words in mind as you think through what proverbs 11, 28 is trying to teach us. But godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and attract and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So I want to look at this with you. First of all kind of analyzing a little bit, what is the problem with affluence? And then trying to glean something from this passage in the way of a solution, a remedy that we can approach. First of all the problem, what is the problem with affluence? Well, this passage would tell us, as well as the one from Proverbs, that one of the problems with affluence is that it's very dangerous. It's exceedingly dangerous. Now, it's important to note at the outset that the Bible does not condemn money. The Bible is not against money. It's a very misquoted verse from first Timothy where it says that money is the root of all sorts of evil. As now the Bible is saying, it is the love of money, it's the root of all sorts of evil. That's what a simple plan illustrates. That's what the Bible is illustrating over and over again. It's the love of money that becomes a trap that ensnairs people.
It says in that first Timothy passage that many people eager for money have wandered from the faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs. Now, you see an extreme example of that in a movie that I've told you about. But you move back, you move back to that a little bit, and you can think about many more subtle ways in which it becomes a trap in which we pierce ourselves with many snares. You think of the father who would never admit it overtly, but frankly, he is so dedicated to his career, so investing himself in time and energy into his career that he has marginalized the potential for his influence and his children's life. Or five. So that one day he wakes up and recognizes what's happened and he struck with that grief internally. You think of the different ways in which we value our own money. How much do you value giving to the work of God's kingdom? Is it simply sort of like a do that you pay at a club? Or do we recognize the extraordinary importance, the highest priority that God places upon extending his kingdom? That in fact, all of the resources that we have are gods. The cattle on a thousand hills is the Lord. Every penny that you and I have is really not our own. It's the resources of the Lord that he has entrusted to us to be stewards of all that he's given, so that there's a sense in which we need to figure out what we need to live on and to enjoy life for his given money for our enjoyment. But then unleashing the rest, the bounty that he's entrusted to us in this affluent culture for use to extend his kingdom. When we fail to do that, to the degree to which we fail to do that, we marginalize the effectiveness of the local church and of other ministries in being intimate to powerfully extend God's kingdom. And as a result, the unseen effects of grief throughout culture, the poor that fail to receive the opportunity that the church has to reach out to them. So so much of this is unseen, and yet it boils down to, it comes back to, how do we use the resources that the Lord has entrusted to us? That's one of the problems of affluence. Another problem is that it tends to distance us from hurting people. In the first Timothy passage, verse 18, it says Paul is telling Timothy to command his people. Timothy is a pastor in the first century, commanding to do good to be rich in good deeds. To play on word that's meant to be very obvious, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. That is again that all the resources we have are intended to be used for God's kingdom. It's not a communism that's promoted in the Bible because he also says in this passage, as I've mentioned, that he's given us all of these things for our enjoyment. It's not a stoic approach to things. It's not that money's bad, and you've got to take a vow of poverty. But there is that careful balance between what I need to make it in life, to enjoy God's creation, and all that he's entrusted to me, but not to hoard it, to unleash it, for God's purposes. One little picture is how in most cities the affluent tend to live where. They tend to live in the suburbs. Houston's a little bit of a different arrangement because you find, frankly, the suburbs in the midst of the city as well as being outside the city. Yet it's still true the affluent tend to live in neighborhoods where they have insulated themselves from the poor. This is just one little picture of the fact that what we tend to do in an affluent culture is to distance ourselves from hurting people. I'm not saying it is wrong to live in a particular neighborhood. I'm saying that with it in a subtle way, we tend to distance ourselves from the very people that need us, individually, and as a church. Another problem of affluent is that it tends to distance us from the world, and this really is the primary problem. It's getting at the issue of trust. Those who trust in their riches, in their wealth, in the possibility of that comes from a culture of affluence, when we place our confidence, our security in all that can be provided for us, what that tends to do is it distances us from the Lord. Instead of physically moving into the suburbs, what we have done is we have spiritually moved Jesus out into the suburbs of our own heart, so that he doesn't become too convicting. He doesn't pierce through and challenge maybe the most personal thing in my world. How I use my money. Studies show year in year out that number one costs for marital conflict. It's not sexuality. It's money. Money is not the real issue. It's the heart and the propensity of the human heart to clean, to all that money can bring, to make me happy. Isn't that really what I'm saying? I may be content now, but in order to really maximize the concept of being content, I need to have this level of income. I need to be in this kind of home or in this neighborhood or driving this kind of car. I need to have this kind of dress, well not for me. It's those kind of things that money can buy to bring happiness to me. It's nothing different from the grass's greener concept that we thought we had learned, but in also subtle ways, our culture continues to breed it. John Roseman is a funny national syndicated columnist. One of the things he likes to do when he travels abroad is to take informal polls of people. One of the things he does in the last parents do your kids complain about boredom in your country. He says they'll just invariably look at him like what? He's not even a category for most people in most countries. He doesn't without exception, he's been told to know outside of this country. And it's as if they're saying boredom and kids just do not go together. He also likes the question parents who've raised their kids in the 40s and 50s in this country to say when you were raising your kids back then, did you hear them complain about boredom? And invariably almost without exception, the answer is no. So it's an escalating problem in our culture. In another of his surveys, he asked middle-aged parents, how many toys did you have growing up? And a lot of times they'll say four or five, maybe a dozen toys. A lot of times they'll say something like, well, I would take an old shoe box and I would cut it up and paste it and make a toy boat out of it. In other words, very simple-minded approaches to entertaining children. Yet in contrast, a study done in our day has shown that by the age of five the average child has accumulated 250 toys. A five-year-old, if I've done my math right, has lived 260 weeks. That's about a toy a week if they've accumulated. Is this culture where boredom is really symptomatic of the fact that we have bought into one of the lies of an affluent culture. That if I just have one more toy, I'll be happy. If I go to one more movie, if I go out to eat one more time, if I have one more new car or change of clothes or vacation or whatever it is. Again, none of these things are evil. It's the accumulated effect of what they can do, which is to tug at our heart and pull us away from the singular love of Jesus Christ for which we were created. I think if each of us is honest, we would admit that percolating just beneath the surface of our hearts is an inordinate love for things. What thing or things is there that insulates you from the beauty, from the riches of the glory of Jesus Christ or from reaching out to those in need around you. From giving two to three times what you would ordinarily give to the church and the greater work of God's kingdom. Now, I know that as we talk about these things, many of you are feeling very guilty right now. Maybe some of you are a little upset. You're thinking, okay, this is the Sunday I chose to bring my friend to church and you're talking about money. But see, money, our church is doing fine, praise the Lord. Many churches are having to scale way back on budgets. And by God's grace, He has protected us. And I give thanks to Him and thanks to you as a congregation. But don't you see even there there's a temptation for us to rest and sort of pat ourselves in the back. The real issue is not let's feel guilty about money. But as we have bought in to the problem of affluence in our culture, how has that diluted the possibilities for my heart to be unleashed for Jesus Christ? Let's think about the solution. And that's the second half of Proverbs 11, 28 because though when we trust in riches, when we place our confidence in all that can be afforded us by an affluent culture, we're bound to fall. Those who place their trust in God, increasingly thrive. The word thrive is a word that speaks of a tree that is in full bloom and providing the abundance of fruit that it was intended to provide. And as human beings, you and I were designed when we're connected to God singularly to thrive, to flourish, to be at maximum capacity. What do we need to get there? Three things briefly. Repentance, sacrifice, and worship. First repentance. The first century church was given an instruction by the Lord Jesus. The passage that I have read with some frequency in this church, because I think frankly there's a great similarity between our culture in Houston, Texas, in 2001, and the church at Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3, verses 14 through 19. Let me read to you Jesus' words. He said, these are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know you're deep, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to stitch you out of my mouth. You say, I'm rich, I've acquired wealth and do not need a thing, but you don't realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold or find in the fire so you can become rich and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness and staff to put on your eyes so you can see. He said, those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline, so be earnest and repent. The motive for which God may be touching some of us right now is love, because we are depriving ourselves of all that God has created us to enjoy, primarily his love. And so he says, recognize that while we tend to think of life as secure and comfortable, the true spiritual reality when we think that is that we are actually just in the opposite scenario, we are poor, we're blind, we're without clothes. And what we need is to admit that spiritually, that spiritually I am poor, I am without any resources to commend myself before God and other human beings. And what I need once again is to turn from my self-centered ways to recognize that when I give myself to riches, that I do pierce myself with many griefs and I neglect to be all that God has caused me to be. But then, to turn and place my faith squarely in Jesus Christ. Secondly, the trust that is spoken of in the Proverbs' passage is not just repentance, but it's sacrifice. It's recognizing that the great barometer of giving in the Bible is not giving 10%. You can give 10% in an affluent culture, and it do nothing, really, to your standard of living, to your sense of having to sacrifice for the kingdom of God. And yet the Apostle Paul commended to Macedonians, as he said, they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege, ushing in this service. I'm going to just talk to the church at Leia to see, he said, I know your deeds, they're either hot and are cold, and so my question to myself, and to each one of you, is as you consider your stewardship of all that God has entrusted to you, are you hot? Are you cold? Are you in that an indiable position spiritually of being simply lukewarm, of paying dues to God rather than pushing the envelope in your heart to sacrifice, to stretch, that God may be honored in His kingdom, powerfully extended? It's a hard issue, and it gets back to asking the question, what is the condition of my heart? Because affluence and money have the propensity to blind us and to bind themselves to us, take a picture of a fly, flies into fly paper, and the fly is saying, I have caught the paper, but the paper is saying, I've caught the fly. Do you think you have affluence on a leash? Do you think you're in control the greatest indicator of whether, indeed, we have mastered affluence or it has mastered us, is our ability to give beyond what we think we can give. Sacrifice is the second aspect of trust and thirdly, worship. Let me say it again for the third or fourth time. God is not against our enjoyment of life. He's actually saying just the opposite. He's saying, don't settle. Don't settle for second best when you give of your heart back to me. When you push your resources out into the suburb of your heart, so that Christ can come and set up once again His Lordship, and this is a daily thing, not a one-time event. When that happens in our life, there is this liberty, there is this joy. It's what the Apostle Paul called a hilarious giver. Literally, one who is full of joy as they give because they're no longer mastered by the resources or lack of resources in their life. You don't have to be abundant to be caught in the web of affluence. You can actually be really suffering. And God says, the pill to freedom, the pathway to release and enjoyment is not having more resources. But recognizing that the Lord Christ, affections for Him, unique worship for Him, is what will bring the joy to your heart. The one verse that I did not quote from the Revelation 3 passage is one that I'd like to read now as we think about going to the Lord's table. It's one that we hear so frequently in the context of evangelism, but really, it's given to a church of professing believers in Jesus Christ who have become lukewarm because of the trappings of a culture of affluence. And he says, repent, don't settle for second best, give yourself trust in Christ and His riches and watch yourself thrive. And so he says in verse 20, here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with Him and He with me. The great message of the gospel that puts a smile back on our face is indeed that he who was rich, emptied himself of the riches of his glory, for you that as you turn and place your faith in Him, maybe today for the very first time, spiritually, though you were poor, now in God's sight you are rich because of the riches of Christ, credited to you. As you come to God's table, if you're a true believer in Jesus Christ, you can experience that in a fresh way, pasting of His riches and kindness in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Father, I do ask that as we contemplate this very personal subject that you would give to us the ability afforded only by your Holy Spirit, to be honest with you, to turn and be nourished in a new and delightful way by the power of the gospel, that we might once again see that you are the true object of our affections. Amen.