Sep
28
Do you want God to be rich?
Filed Under Christian Living
I don’t do a lot of re-thinking about sermons I have recently preached. The upcoming deadline for the next one tends to crowd out such thoughts. However, I have thought more about Theft at Its Worst, my second sermon on the 8th Commandment, You shall not steal [Listen or download here.] The question on my mind has been the same one raised on the cover of a recent issue of Time: “Does God want you to be rich?”
The Lord promises abundant blessing on those who ‘bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,’ according to the Malachi 3 passage. Certain teachers, such as Joel Osteen (whose views are the focus of the Time article), are claiming that being rich is a sign of God’s blessing and thus a worthy goal of a child of God. Click here for a review of Osteen’s book Your Best Life Now.
I’ll cut to the chase. We want to be rich, but I don’t think our Heavenly Father cares about our net worth any more than I care about whether my son wears a green shirt or a gray shirt to school tomorrow. What I care about is what my son does when he is at school. In other words, asking the question ‘Does God want me to be rich?’ says a lot more about you than it says about the ever-blessed God our Father. Here is a better path:
Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
-Proverbs 30:7-9
The question is not Does God want you to be rich? The real question is Do you want God to be rich? Is he your greatest treasure? Is he the strength of your life and your portion forever (Psalm 73:26)? You and the entire universe were made to show the riches of God. You were made to see and savor the glory of God. The world is so messed up because we have exchanged the glory of God for a thousand other things (Romans 1:23).
What does Jesus ask the Father to give us: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me” (John 17:24).
P.S. For my money (pun intended), I’ll take ‘Reverend Ike’ over Joel Osteen any day! (If you need me to tell you which one is which, well…never mind.)
P.P.S. A minister at FPC was recently praised by a visitor for his resemblance to Joel Osteen: a free peppermint for you if you can guess the identity of that minister…
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