1 Timothy 6:17-21 Storing Treasure

We are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek preaches from his series, Blueprints for a Healthy Church, following the plan from the book of 1 Timothy.

Let's listen in.

Recast Church, the Word, and the Call to Stay the Course

Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. As Ben said, I'm Don Filsek, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really grateful for all of you. I love this church. I love the opportunity that we have to share together in His Word.

How many of you are glad to gather together to hear from God, His very Word spoken to us, and we get a chance to read it? I'm glad for the community that we share together, that we have love and unity and are striving to worship God in togetherness and in community, and I'm glad for the service that's demonstrated so much here through people using their gifts to build one another up, and we've got people back there working with the kiddos, and we've got people greeting us at the door, and some people have prepared food for everybody, and we've got the cafe crew, and people, just a whole bunch of people serving one another, and I'm really, really glad for that.

I commend this church. I commend you guys for pushing through the past year and a half or so. I feel like we are stronger together. We are growing in faith. We are growing in community. We are growing in service, and although, as an individual, sometimes, how many of you would just acknowledge that there have been weak points in the last year?

There have been times where you've individually felt weak, but that's what we're all about. What we're all about here is the strength that we can gather together, gather from gathering together, and there's strength in that, and so RECAST is an acronym for our core values.

If you've been around here for a while, you probably already knew that, but you can see it on the back wall back there above the donuts as well, and that's Replication, Community, Authenticity, Simplicity, and Truth, and know the S isn't for snacks, despite what Dave Bunt usually likes to say.

It is simplicity.

But RECAST has that acronym, and with the value of truth, that is that we believe that the capital T, Truth, is what we need from God every week, so we turn our attention to study through books of the Bible, and really, the book that God has given to us by which we can know what He desires for us to hear from Him.

Am I getting a bit of an echo in this? Is this a little hot, or is it just me? Anybody?

Just me?

Thank you. Okay, I can power through that. All right, as long as it's not I just kind of have this echo in my ear, and it just sounds like maybe I'm blasting you guys out, but I don't know what that's about.

It just sounds a little bit echoey to me this morning, my ears. But we've been making our way through the book of 1 Timothy, and this morning, we're going to be wrapping up that book. So we've made it all the way through, so you can at least say, if you haven't read much of the Bible at all, and you've been with us over the summer, then you've heard the book of 1 Timothy.

And maybe if you missed a sermon here or there, you can go back and pick those up online or on the podcast or on YouTube, and you can have studied the entire book of 1 Timothy. We've done that together.

This study, for me, unintentionally, I was actually I'm going to just confess that, by the way, when I pick a book of the Bible to preach next, there are some times that I'm motivated by certain things, and sometimes it's like, that'll fit in the summer.

Sermon-wise, it breaks up, and how many of you know that I can't go wrong if I'm preaching the Bible, right? It's not like, oh no, he's preaching 1 Timothy. How in the world did he think that up? But so, I just sometimes pick a book because it fits, but it was perfect timing for me, and I hope you guys gained something from it, too.

But it's been so good that we're here now at about 12 years into planting this church, and it's been helpful to me to reflect so much on the calling to stick with the word. It is the only hope a church has to remain healthy, to remain unified, and to remain growing in our faith.

It is the word, the word, the word. I don't mean to imply, by the way, that I was considering straying away from the word in this study of 1 Timothy, called me back from the ledge as if I was just on the edge, ready to jump off into error in my own thinking, in my own plans, or something like that.

But how many of you would acknowledge that at times in your life, you need a solid reminder to stay the course? Anybody with me on that? There are times in life when we just need that refresher, that reminder of why we are doing the things that we are doing.

I remember early on, it might have been about the second year of Recast Church, I remember a gentleman who just started attending the church, and he said, I'd really like to know, Don, what is your five-year plan, and what is your 10-year plan?

And I answered that gentleman in the same way I would answer right now. I said, well, what we want to do right now is we've got this really great plan of growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

Now, five years from now, what we hope to be doing is growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service. And 10 years from now, are you ready for it? Even more faith, more community, and more service.

And here we are 12 years in, and guess what we're doing, church? Growing in more faith, more community, and more service.

And why?

Because of the Word, because of sticking to the Word. First Timothy has served as that reminder for me to stay the course. So be sure, I think that we need to be sure that we keep Christ and the Word at the center of all that we do, church.

Our text this morning serves as a final reminder that there are things that will tempt us to stray away from our mission, and I think we all know that, but this highlights some of.

Those things.

Paul is going to return again to a theme of money and riches here in our text, but he also ties that in with guarding the much better deposit that we have been given. The treasure that is worth more than gold, even the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

Christ.

And yet Paul takes a different tack on wealth in the second run at it. A couple of weeks ago, he directly said that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and lest we think, and lest he imply that having wealth or being wealthy is itself a sin, here he softens the blow intentionally for us a bit by reminding us that it is the place that we give wealth in our lives that is the problem.

It's the place of wealth. It is the love of money that is the problem, said Paul a couple of weeks ago. As Jesus said it, he said it is the service of money. You cannot serve both God and riches. You will either serve the one and hate the other, or you will serve the other and hate the one.

So you can't serve. It's the service of money that's the problem. And here in our text this morning, Paul states it in a new way, adds a new dimension to it. It is the setting of our hope on our riches, our wealth, and our possessions that is the problem.

In our text this morning, we're going to see three final movements that can be summarized by this outline, and I give this to you just so that before we read it, you can kind of get a framework and your mind thinking about it.

The first is to set your hope on God. That's our first point. The second is be rich in good works. And the third is guard the deposit, which is the truth, guard the truth. So set your hope on God, be rich in good works, and guard the truth.

So open your Bibles to see how this flows, 1 Timothy 6, verses 17 through 21, and we're going to read that together here so that we can see how these final instructions from Paul to Timothy unroll and roll towards us here at church in 2021.

So, again, 1 Timothy 6, verses 17 through 20, and recast, we have the privilege of right this moment hearing from our God through his revealed scripture. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold.

Of that which is truly life.

Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it, some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity that we've had over the last couple of months to study through the book of 1 Timothy and to just be reminded in wave after wave of the centrality of the truth, in the opposition, in the face of irreverent babble and so much controversy and so much quote-unquote, air quote, knowledge that is out there in our culture.

We swim in a culture that is proliferating quote-unquote knowledge. So Father, I pray that we would be word people. I pray that you would make us a people who would be delighted to take in your word and to know you better through the revelation, the rock solid foundational revelation that you have given to us in your word, a word we can keep going back to time and time again, a faithful word that rightly identifies our problem and your solution.

We praise you that there's a solution. Even as we recognize the depth of our problems, the depth of the way that we handle our resources and our money and the way that we can hoard or we can become haughty and arrogant about the things that we have only ever received as a gift from you.

We are corrupt, we are broken, we are jacked up and messed up to a person in this room. There's only one thing that I know for certain about everyone in this room and that's that they're messed up and they need a savior.

Thank you for sending Jesus Christ to rescue us from the consequences of our own sin and from the guilt that clings to us and would tear us down day by day. But now, in your spirit, we're being built up and strengthened through your word.

And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to raise our voices in praise to you. You are worthy. You are our only hope. So let us raise our voices this morning, Father, in your presence, acknowledging that you indeed.

Are our hope.

In Jesus' name, amen. And then, if you can do me a favor and reopen your Bible or your device to 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 17 through 21, so that you can see that the things that we're doing, I was walking through that text and I'm going to be discussing it and trying to bring some of the gold to surface there from my study this week.

If at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, it looks like there's some bags of donut holes still back there. So if you need any of that, take advantage of that.

And if you need the restrooms, they're out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand.

Side.

And you're not going to distract me if you need to get up at any time during the message. But let's jump in. Let me start off with a little bit of a statement that might be kind of confusing at the start, and that is just that it's okay to be rich.

It's okay to be rich. By earthly standards, Abraham was wealthy in his ancient context. He actually paid full price in silver for a valuable piece of property in the Promised.

Land.

The flocks and great wealth of Jacob is evident as he goes to reconcile with Esau and sends gift after gift in waves to his brother Esau. Loads and loads of livestock and wealth that he sends in advance trying to garner the favor of his brother who he had jilted.

Joseph was wealthy in the extreme, of course, as second in command in Egypt, a very wealthy individual. Job is declared to be an extremely wealthy man. And even Jesus, as radical as a statement this might be to think through, Jesus came from a family where his father had a trade.

And this placed the family of Jesus Christ here on this earth above the lower class of subsistence farmers, who a subsistence farmer is somebody who grows their own food for life. Like if the crop fails, they die, okay?

That's what most people were during that time. Jesus' father had a trade. And by the way, the subsistence farmers was way above the standard of the beggars that lined the streets of ancient Israel during this time.

It's not a sin to have money. But our first point this morning is a statement that has kind of little to do with money. Obviously, it's couched and framed in terms of money, and money does indeed feature quite a bit in this text.

But the statement that I want to make is to emphasize this point rather than the opposition to money, as our mind might naturally turn. And that is point one, set your hope on God. That's the proactive thing that we see in this text.

That is what you are to do. Set your hope on God. Paul makes sure that we know he's addressing us, recast, and he might as well just be addressing us directly when he says, as for the rich in this present age, that's us.

That's us, one percenters, the global, on the face of this globe, that's us. To the one here who has the least means is still, I would guarantee, in the top one percent of the people on the planet. As for the rich in this present age is the address here.

At the close to the book of Timothy, he wants to talk to the wealthy. It's written to Timothy, we know, and this means that there were people who were very wealthy in the Ephesian church. He's addressing Timothy to talk to the Ephesian church and set it straight.

And as an example, you might be wondering how wealthy was Ephesus, and how do we know that it was wealthy? Well, an example of how wealthy these people were can be found in Acts 19 .19. You don't need to turn over there, but I'll summarize it for you.

It tells us that many of those who entered the church in Ephesus were saved out of a life of animism and witchcraft. Now, Acts 19 is about the founding of the church in Ephesus. It's Paul moving into that area for the very first time, and a church being established.

And we find that the people there were involved in paganism, animism, witchcraft, and all kinds of sorcery and dark arts type of stuff. And so, they came to faith in Christ, and what they did initially is recorded in Acts 19 .19.

And they had a bonfire, it says, a bonfire of their magic, their books of magic spells and incantations and all of that kind of stuff. And they got rid of all their pagan materials. All of that stuff that helped them in the process of thinking that by saying these incantations throughout the day or by reading this book that they were going to garner favor with the spirits, probably, in essence, worshiping demons.

And the sum of the stuff burned amounted to, obviously, an estimate in the book of Acts, 50 ,000 pieces of silver, 50 ,000 pieces of silver. How much was it worth for Judas to betray Jesus?

30?

50 ,000 pieces of silver was the amount of the value of the materials burned there in Ephesus. This was a lot of discretionary income in the ancient world. Only the wealthiest could read, so just the fact that they had books tells us that they were wealthy, and let alone to own a book, to be able to read required some upper crust and then to own a book that you could afford to burn.

Ephesus had some money, and it's no wonder that false teachers had moved in there to help liberate the church of some of their cheddar.

They're there to help out.

Let me take some of that for you.

It looks like a heavy load to bear, church.

Let me have some. But beyond attracting false teachers, wealth has some other dangers associated with it. And the dangers, I would suggest, do not rest in the wealth. The dangers rest in the human heart.

The rich can afford to be, or think that they can afford to be, arrogant or haughty. They can look down their noses at those who are less fortunate than them. And so Paul tells Timothy to strongly urge wealthy believers to not be arrogant and to not be haughty.

And so let me just directly instruct us, church, with the very words of God here to us. Do not be haughty. Do not be arrogant.

I don't...

Let me clarify something. I don't think I'm haughty until I'm suddenly plunged into a situation where I'm around a poor person, and it doesn't smell like they wear deodorant. So let's all be honest in our own hearts.

We all think we arrived at our wealth by good choices.

Am I right?

In the depth of your heart, do you believe that? You kind of do. I'm suggesting that I believe that most of us think that we're in the position we're in because of good choices that we have made, and that on the converse of that is that those who are in poverty, those who are struggling to get by, we think that they chose poorly, that they made bad choices.

When I would suggest to you, and I believe this sincerely, somebody can come up to me afterwards and correct this if you think you're the exception. I would love to have that conversation, but I believe that all of us could point back to decisions that could have shipwrecked us financially.

I think all of us could have. I mean, in high school, she could have got pregnant. That business deal that could have gone south, that catastrophe that the insurance decided to cover. We're just one thing shy of being broke, right?

How many of you feel that? That you recognize that there's decisions that you made that if God had given you the justice you deserved in that circumstance, boom, you'd be roasted, right? So I think all of us know that we could have been shipwrecked.

So as far as our wealth goes, we ought to relate to all others with humility. All others with humility. No room for arrogance in the church. No room for haughtiness regarding the way that we have received and only received with open hands God's blessing, regardless of how callous those hands might be.

And further, we need to take an honest assessment of our hope and riches, because that's really the problem. The problem that Paul addresses here is hoping in riches. And I love the way that Paul addresses this.

He summarizes an entire teaching of Jesus in one word. He says, do not hope in the uncertainty of riches. And in a very similar passage to this one, Jesus defined that uncertainty in certain.

Terms.

Jesus taught his disciples to not lay out for yourself treasures on earth. And here's the uncertainty. Where moth and rust destroys, and where thieves break in and steal. Any of you notice the need to maintain the stuff you own?

And it still breaks and falters, and you need a new iPhone. And things break, and the screen breaks, and the car breaks down, and there's rust certainly on the salty roads here in Michigan. Things happen, right?

It breaks.

And Jesus identified that. Paul says, do not trust in the uncertainty of riches. And I would say, uncertainty of riches indeed. It slides through our fingers like so much sand that we would try to grasp, does it not?

Do you guys relate to that?

One medical incident, one major uncovered insurance claim, one major economic downturn. Tragedy is real in this life, and wealth is a very uncertain place to invest your hope. Paul says, don't do it. After serving as the chief psychiatrist and neurologist for a psychiatric hospital, Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's father, retired.

He retired in the middle of the wars, right in the time and the era between them. And with his retirement account, his entire life insurance policy that had matured, he was able to go out and buy a nice bottle of wine and some strawberries for the family to enjoy.

Full stop. That's all he was able to afford. Inflation had struck the country so severely between the wars that the money that was supposed to last him all his remaining years, are you hearing it? Are you feeling that?

The money that was supposed to last him all his remaining years bought a bottle of wine and strawberries to enjoy. And then they ate it, they drank the bottle of wine, and he said, well, I guess that's that.

And he had to go back to work. But instead of merely telling us here what not to do, don't put your hope in riches. How many of you know that when you're told not to do something, it's hard not to do that.

Thing?

You need to replace it with something good, right? We are told to proactively do something instead, and that's the point. Set your hope on God. We are to trust God and make sure that our trust for the future and for our provisions is placed only on Him in faith.

He is the one who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. God is indeed the only giver of good gifts. Rather than trust in the riches, trust in the one who gives it. The rich in this present world should enjoy, the word there, enjoy, is a strong word.

They should enjoy what God has given, but not place their hope in it. And that's where our hearts have a hard time rustling through it. The word for enjoy, by the way, moves us one step closer to the Song of Songs.

It's a word that means pleasure. It's an intense word for pleasure. And many might get the wrong view of God starting all the way back in the garden, and I've heard people think of God this way. Well, doesn't God want us to avoid pleasure?

Doesn't He want us to avoid good things? Does He really have any heart for our enjoyment? I mean, didn't He put that tree in the middle of the garden and tell us, thou shalt not eat of it? Wasn't He really kind of setting up a boundary against us to some degree?

I've heard people say that. I want to just challenge you, church. How often do we miss all the other trees in the garden? Well, there's this one. Don't eat that one. He does indeed set up a boundary. But there are a lot of trees in that garden.

A lot of things for us to enjoy. And He does indeed put parameters around things that are sin. God blessed Adam and Eve with so many good things for their enjoyment and pleasure. But their hearts craved the one thing that was not good for them.

Anybody relate to that, or is that just them? I don't think we just put it on our forebears. That's on us. All of us to a person. I don't know about you, but just to clarify, Little Debbie always looks good compared to Brussels sprouts.

You guys with me on that? But there's room for Little Debbie once in a while. He has made everything for us to enjoy within the bounds of His commands. That which is not sin is there for the purpose of our enjoyment.

We can enjoy steak. We can enjoy a nice car. We can enjoy a nice home. We can enjoy, within limits, Little Debbie. But the possession of these things... I'm going to say something radical here. There are theologians that will disagree with me on this.

There are other pastors that will disagree with me on this. But after studying it, it was really scary. This morning, I kid you not, John Piper had to talk about this passage. I'm in the shower listening to John Piper, this week, address this passage.

And I kind of disagreed with him on something. I don't think the things are dangerous. He said patently. I'm looking at my notes and I'm going, Oh gosh, I'm going to say it's not dangerous. He's saying it's dangerous.

I don't believe the things are dangerous. I don't think money is dangerous. I don't think nice cars are dangerous, except unless you're driving super fast. But I don't think the stuff itself is dangerous.

Are you hearing me? The material isn't evil. It's not like there's an evil bank account out there. Or there's evil types of coins. Or there's evil types of gold. Don't touch the evil gold. It's cursed, or something like that.

I don't believe that. But what is dangerous is the routine and significant tendency in our hearts to be haughty. To assume we accumulated these things ourselves. And that we can pat ourselves on the back for the good things in our lives.

Which leads us, obviously, away from gratitude and thankfulness. And to an arrogant saying. Look at what I have done. Look at my kingdom, in essence. And I think that's a temptation for each and every one of us.

That's dangerous. And secondly, the danger rests in our silly notions. That the possessions of bank accounts.

And 401Ks.

And money market accounts. And mutual funds. Gives us financial security. Church, that is an oxymoron. Those are two words that are opposite. They don't belong together. You never have financial security.

There is no such thing. How do I know?

Jesus says so.

Paul says so. The Holy Spirit is revealing to us in the pages of Scripture. That you will never have financial security. So give up that battle. Stop trying to obtain enough to satisfy your desires on this planet.

It's not going to happen.

So let go of that. Release that. I hope that that's freeing for somebody today. I hope that that's releasing in your heart to go, okay. It looks like my attention needs to be elsewhere. Because I've been putting my attention into financial security.

And there is no such thing. And that's why the second movement of the text comes right on the heels of the command to set our hope on God. Because if your hope is on God, then and only then will you be ready to part with your wealth for the cause of His kingdom.

You know that your heart says there's never enough. Your heart without a work of God will never be satisfied. It will always want more. The world is not enough for the one who is looking for financial security.

I've got an uncle that would say.

I say, when are you going to retire?

And he goes, next year for the last 20 years. He's doing very well for himself. I say, how much money is enough? Well, I'll know it when I get there. And it's just a little bit more. Be honest. I mean, not ironically.

He says it just like that. Does that relate to any of us? Is that the way that some of our hearts work? If I just get over this next financial goal, if I just get to this next hurdle, then I'll be okay.

It's not to say that you can't have financial goals. But be rich in good works is the next command. Hope in God. Make sure that your hope and trust is in Him. And then be rich in good works. The rich in this world, still speaking of all of us, just in case you think the direction shifted.

It's still us. The rich in this world are to do good works. If you want to be rich in something, be rich in serving God and His people. Paul clarifies this with two phrases that really fill out the meaning of the first phrase in verse 18.

If you're materially wealthy, then you have the freedom to be rich in good works. Now, how many of you are familiar with Dave Ramsey? You've gone through some of his stuff. I know that we're actually doing a Dave Ramsey, what's it called?

Financial Peace University right now. And really glad for that. That's something that has helped me personally. And then Lynn and I actually, we're old school enough to remember Larry Burkett, who was like the Christian finance guy before.

I mean, Dave Ramsey was in diapers when we were going through workbooks of Larry Burkett. But proposing some really good biblical financial principles there. But I'd like to tweak his motto a bit. Some of you maybe are aware of his very prominent motto that he says often in his radio shows and appears in his material.

I'd like to tweak it a bit. And I think he would understand this. I think he'd be okay with it. He says, live like nobody else now so that you can live like nobody else later. It's a bit mushy. It's a little bit open to how many of you know that you can love money and feel that really good?

How many of you know that you could?

So I'd prefer it to say, live like nobody else now so that you can give like nobody else later. And I know that Dave Ramsey is for being generous and all of that too. So I don't mean to pick on him, but I just think that motto is a little open to wrong interpretations.

Jesus gives three marching orders to those who are wealthy by all standards in human history. It doesn't matter what benchmark you are measuring at a quarter. Discretionary time, amount of discretionary income, amount of material possessions of the average individual.

We are the wealthy by every metric. Here are the three commands. Do not be haughty. Set your hope on God. And be rich in good works.

Be generous.

Part of what it means to be wealthy, what it means for the wealthy rather to be rich in good works is to be, he says directly, be generous and be ready to share. And it's important that we get this in the right order.

Paul did and he intentionally got it in the right order. First, be sure that your hope is in God lest you think that you can buy your way to God's kingdom by being generous and ready to give. So first, be sure that your hope is in God.

Then be generous. Don't be generous so that you can get in good with God or His people. Be sure first that you're trusting in God. Then be generous. Generosity, by the way, is an attitude. It is a heart.

But it always works itself out in action. I will find it hard for you to convince me that you are generous if you never give to anyone. Do you know what I'm saying? You can say, oh, I've got a generous heart.

Where are you giving? Where is your money going? And then we'll be able to see are you really generous or are you just blowing smoke? It's a heart ready to give that God is looking for. Looking for places to invest the good that we have been given here for His kingdom.

Ask yourself, am I ready to share? Do I wake up in the morning ready to share? Acknowledging that the things that I have been given are given to me to be a blessing to others. Well, those who place their hope in money will not be eager to share.

That's one of the ways you can tell that you're loving money, that you're serving money, that your hope is placed in money. You're not ready to share. As a matter of fact, you're looking for somebody to share with you.

They will not be ready from a heart of generosity. And I believe that there are some of us sitting here who have been given over in our hearts to a hope in money. And that has amounted to years and years and years of hoarding it.

We're not even quite sure why. Some future, some trying to protect ourselves, trying to give our kids something, a big nest egg for retirement. We don't know how many days we have left to live. We don't know any of those things.

What does it mean to hope in God? It means to trust Him. It doesn't mean you don't ever plan for anything, but it certainly means that your hope and trust for all provision is from God. And you're ready, you're generous, you're ready to give.

Jesus told us to store up treasure in heaven in the Gospel of Matthew. And here Paul reiterates it in verse 19. By acting on a heart of generosity, he's saying. Jesus said it, Paul said it. By acting on a heart of generosity and giving to His cause, we transfer our money to the bank of heaven.

Even just saying that sentence, I'm feeling a little prosperity gospel-ish up here. It's a little uncomfortable, but it's the truth. It's what God is saying here. Transfer our money to the bank of heaven.

I don't know what the exchange rate is, but I don't know what it is currently, but I know that at least when Jesus was talking about it, He gave it an exchange rate. Did you know that? He gave it an exchange rate to His disciples.

And He said, the rewards that you have as you give up and sacrifice here on earth for the kingdom of God will return 100-fold in the life to come. That's a pretty good exchange rate.

Does that sound pretty good?

100 times the investment here. Now, I don't think He was being technical, but I do believe that Jesus was being intentionally motivational. By sowing your uncertain wealth in the present age, you can store up treasure for a foundation in the future age that is to come.

And even as He has already encouraged the church to grasp the eternal life that is already ours, here in our text, He likewise declares that using our money for the cause of His kingdom here and now will indeed produce some type of beneficial foundation for the life to come.