When faced with the choice to give up our wealth or follow Christ, most of us choose our wealth and walk away from God. Until we are willing to separate ourselves from money and wealth we cannot have eternal life. This is impossible without God’s help.
My brothers and sisters, this morning’s Gospel is, if you’ll excuse the expression, a hard pill to swallow. This is the fourth week in our Stewardship Series and how convenient that every Sunday this month, God has given us a Gospel reading that is about our stewardship and our relationship with God and money. Today’s Gospel lesson is a hard pill to swallow. This rich man, this leader of the community, comes to Jesus and says, “What do I have to do to have eternal life?” And Christ begins with reciting a few of the commandments as if to say, “You know what to do? The scripture has laid out for you everything you need to do to be perfect, everything you need to do to have life.”
And the man thinking that he was smart, “I’ve done all that.” And Jesus says, “Okay, then, fine. If you’ve done,” which he knew he didn’t, “if you’ve done everything there is to do in the law,” he says, “there’s one thing still you lack, sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come follow me. We’ve got places to go.” And he walked away from Christ because he couldn’t stand the idea of getting rid of his wealth. It had a grasp on his heart. He couldn’t live with the idea of not being a wealthy man. And so instead of selling everything, he asked God what he had to do. You know what the saying is? Be careful what you ask for. He couldn’t live with the answer because his heart was not with God. His heart was with his wealth.
And so Christ says, “Look how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom.” And he goes on to talk about the camel going through the eye of the needle. And we know by interpretation that this is not the camel animal, but the rope. My brothers and sisters, the only way for us to live eternally with God is through God’s strength be willing to give it all up. He says, “With man, it is impossible, but with God, nothing is impossible.” And he’s not talking about whether or not I can be an airline pilot or whether I can be a successful politician. Too many Christians today say, “With God, everything is possible, Father.” God is talking about our salvation. It is impossible for us to give it all up for God without God’s help. We need God. We can’t do it on our own.
But that doesn’t take away the pill that we have to swallow. If we want to grow closer to God, if we want to live with him forever, in addition to the Commandments, we have to be willing to give it all up. And for some of us, that means money. The more money we have, the harder it is to give it up. Don’t ask me, ask God. He’s the one who says that it is difficult for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. Not because being rich is sinful, not because wealth is evil, but because God knows that our heart is wrapped around our bank accounts. And so if we want our heart to be with God, then we give him our money, our time, our life.
So to close out our Stewardship Series this month, I have laid down a challenge in your bulletin today, a challenge for us as a community to be known as a tithing community within 10 years, a community that loves God more than anything on the face of the earth, loves God enough that we’re willing to part with our money. And it’s not for the church budget, it’s for our soul. Because we don’t want to walk away from God just to keep a few extra dollars in our pocket. As we’ve been hearing for the past few weeks, when we die, what good is the dollar going to give us? As the old saying says, “You can’t take it with you.” So let’s learn to give it up in our stewardship by giving 10% to God.
That’s just following the Commandments. That’s the first part of the question. God says, “You know the Commandments, do them.” Okay, well, one of the Commandments is to give a 10%. But you can’t do it alone. You can only do it with God. If you think you can do your stewardship without God, it will be impossible. But with God, it is possible to be able to separate ourselves. And then I promise you, God has amazing blessings in store for our community. We’ve experienced so many blessings in the more than 100 years we’ve been here. Imagine how much more we can receive from God, how much we can do for God by loving Him enough to separate ourselves from the thing that twists around our heart. God says, “Where your heart is, there is your treasure.” Now, he actually says, if you’re paying attention, “Where your treasure is, your heart will be.” So if you want your heart to be with God, bring your treasure to God and your heart will follow. And then you’ll enjoy eternal life with Him. Loving Him enough. Honoring Him. Glory to God for all things.
