Choosing Generosity Over Wealth: A Spiritual Journey

"No one can serve two masters either you will hate one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve both God and man that's a very interesting word Mamon as you may know uh Jesus and people in Israel in his day are are generally understood to have spoken a language called Aramaic but the gospels were written in Greek so everything that Jesus said the whole sum of the mount would be translated into Greek for the readers except this word they let this word ride why well apparently that word Mammon was a word that may well have referred to some kind of an idol but it was a way of talking about wealth or possessions or money that signify that it's more than just neutral it's not not just a piece of paper it's thought that it may well have been the name of an idol." [00:36:48]

"There's something about it it kind of wants us it wants to master me and you and Jesus says we can't serve two masters now you might wonder well why can I in our day people often have two jobs that may work out okay um I never had more than one girlfriend i' barely ever that but from everything Nancy tells me she had lots of boyfriends and that seemed to work out pretty well especially particularly for her um so why not well in Jesus day of course a master was a master of a of a slave that was part of every economy in the ancient world there was no alternative apparent to them and um that meant that you were owned and you couldn't have two those to to have a master is to have an ultimate Allegiance and um elor stump talks about how we have kind of a web of desires things that we value inside every human being a network of them but there's one that's particularly Central one that involves what she calls the desire of the heart." [00:121:08]

"There's something about Mammon there's something about money money is a good thing um it's real good if you have it or possess it um that can be a really good thing it can used can be used for really good things but there is something inside of it that calls us and that wants us um I live in California and we have a football team here which as you may know is called the 49ers now what happened in 49 of course that's not 1949 that's now 1849 175 years ago and we still have a team called the 49ers what was going it's amazing what happened in 1849 been reading a remarkable book by Elliot West called Continental Reckoning and he starts by talking about how in that moment when America had added 1.2 million acres to its land mass something remarkable happened for Millennia human beings have considered gold the very definition of wealth and Beauty every ounce of gold on earth arrives as a space traveler gold is made from dying Stars vo of a supernova the explosion of especially massive star flung into the void space dust some of which coalesces with other elements to become planets or other celestial objects by far most of the Earth's gold is in its molten core hopelessly inaccessible but there was a big chunk of it in this faulted rock in the Sierra Nevadas and it had been pushed up for a long long time and then one day a carpenter named John Marshall who was working on a mill for a guy named Sutter looked down at his boots and he saw there was some sparkling stuff there sorry James Marshall and uh and it was gold and it was massive amounts of gold in fact by the height of the production of gold in California I think it was 1852 $65 million more gold was produced in California in that one year than it had been produced in all the gold mines in all the world in the entire 18th century and people fly um before then um something like one sixth only of all men who came to the West Coast came to California after that it was 90% one six of all the adult males in Oregon came to California and everybody came with one desire I want to I want to get rich I want to get in get rich and get out and so we became the 49ers uh uh a boat that would have cost $50 right before the Gold Rush with would now cost $500 changed everything changed laws changed culture because we want to be rich very interesting there's all kinds of warnings in ancient literature about what Jesus uh who is so remarkable as a teacher in Matthew Jesus talks about the deceitfulness of wealth why the deceitfulness of wealth because it makes me think that it will make me happy and we all know it never does but we all think it will for me makes me think that I will be secure and uh I will talk with people where um the wealth might be quite amazing but then one day age hits Health hits kids something hits and then you realize no it cannot do for me what I what it promised to do it's calling my name that's Mammon it wants me um it's deceitful because uh it's so hard for me to recognize that I'm actually greedy often people will think you know if people just had the right ideology our world will be would all be good really interesting uh as a study that the New York Times pretty Progressive newspaper looked at because sometimes people will think well if everybody was just Progressive uh then the poor would be cared for in a very Progressive Community palala here in California home of the 49ers um where so many people say housing is a human right uh everybody has the right for to decent housing there was a proposal to make two acres in this wonderful Progressive Community uh very densely populated lowincome housing lowcost housing especially for seniors and uh the people in this very Progressive Community voted against it why because that might make my property values go down now I'm sure these are people that were very sincere about believing in a affordable but not if it's going to take wealth away from me and of course wherever you are on the political Spectrum don't get cocky about this CU we all left right or no known position on the Spectrum all have the same sense of you know it just gets a hold of me this little thing is not just a piece of paper this little thing uh there's a ancient story about a character by the name of Mike who is greedy and he has offered the Fulfillment of a Wish by a god back then dionis and his wishes everything that I would touch would turn to gold and it does and he's delighted until he tries to eat a grape and it turns to Gold he tries to take a drink and it turns to Gold goes to hug the daughter that he loves see interesting in our day so ironic people will talk about somebody having a mightest touch meaning you know he's just got a real knck for wealth and everything turns out really well it is not a compliment Midas died Midas was an idiot we're all going to die life is not about the Midas touch but there was another space traveler who came to Earth bringing the Breath of God the new of the spirit of God and this Jesus is now you can choose um who's going to be your servant who will Master you so the invitation today is Dethrone this when you see ads on TV telling you that more of this or more of what this can buy will make you happy or secure or safe or important or significant just laugh when you are tempted to think greed could never affect me just laugh Dethrone it and especially we do that by giving it away I have a friend goody goodlow he is a Martin Luther King Jr scholar uh he's a great athlete and he wrote to me about how his surrogate parents uh changed his life he ended up becoming a great preacher Communicator uh author but his mom and dad just got gripped by the possibility of generosity and so they invited him to be a part of their family and they talk about they heard one time gr Peter ubo used to be the commissioner of baseball said um if you really want to impact your kids' lives don't just give them money give them money to give away and so they thought well we could do that and they began to do that with their children and then their grandchildren and eventually they would give them uh money to give away in the summer and um then give them the assignment come back and tell us about where you gave it and what that did and we talk about how one of them said you realize there are children and families right here where we live and they don't have enough food to eat or how people be inspired by what they were doing and the stories they were telling and they would give money away too or chat this that uh how he had a brother that had been long uh far away from God and just by the in invation to be generous to beginning to to begin to give this away his brother's heart got touched and he started giving away all kinds of money and eventually he came back to God because our God is a God who loves to give you cannot outgive God and what God knows is generosity is never deceptive that's the real midest touch That's The God Who liberates and frees so today decide who's going to be the master of my life life what will my ultimate Allegiance be um let's deil on this just if nothing else just give one of these away to somebody today make it a golden rule day there is a kind of gold there is a kind of gold more powerful by far than what they found in 49 that's the golden R you could do it today if you like hearing John talk about The Sermon on the Mount we've got a whole series on that so be sure and subscribe so you don't miss any episodes in that series and if you're new to the channel you might want to go back and catch up on some of the episodes that you've missed in fact if you head on over to our website becom new.com we have over 700 10-minute teachings there all about the person that you're becoming my name is Tim I'm a part of the team here if you reach out to us over text or email or even write here in the YouTube comments you're probably going to be interacting with me and I love connecting ING with this community because we're all on this spiritual journey of growth to become more like the kind of people that God wants us to be and if you have a story of change of growth of spiritual progress we want to know about it and so I'd invite you to text that to us or email that to us or even just share it right here in the comments um as often as it happens as frequently as it happens whenever it happens just let us know because that's the center of the target for us to help people grow spiritually one day at a time if you've got a prayer request there's a small team of us that meet each weekday Monday through Friday to pray for viewers just like yourself you are not alone we would love to come alongside you in prayer you can send us that request at 855 888 0444 we're glad that you're here we'll catch you next." 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