New Thoughts (01/16/10)
This message continues to build on what was taught in the parable of the barn, and in the matters which preceded that parable. Don’t chase after earthly treasures. They’re not worth it. They will fail you. It’s not a question of possible failure, it’s a certainty. Paul writes to Timothy about the uncertainty of wealth (1Ti 6:17-19), but there is a terrible certainty in that wealth, when it becomes our focus and our confidence: It will fail you. The grave will come, and in the grave that wealth will be of no use whatsoever.
To focus on wealth is to take one’s eyes off of the kingdom, and therein lies the terrible issue. The clear, unchanging truth of man is, “apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). The clear, unchanging truth of man is a total, absolute dependence upon God for everything pertaining to life. This is particularly true, of course, in matters of spirit and soul. But, it is equally true in the mundane, physical aspect. If there is food for you, it is because God has provided. If there is shelter, it is because God has provided. Were He to truly turn away from you for just one moment, you would cease to be. End of story. Whatever pride may tell us to the contrary, however much we may crow about our achievements, they are nothing without Him.
The truth is, as Jesus observed, that we cannot so much as preserve one hair on our own heads for all our anxious concern for self and pride of accomplishment. As much as we like to think it otherwise, particularly in this day and age, we still cannot add even the briefest moment to the length of our own lives, however great the care we take for our health and exercise (Mt 6:27). This is a theme we shall be exploring in greater detail in subsequent studies under this heading of, “Against Anxiety”. But, the groundwork is here. Eyes up! Look to your God, for it is in Him that you have your provision. It is in Him and Him alone that you live.
This remains so whether you acknowledge the fact or not. That rich man whose whole focus is on this side of the grave, who prides himself in his bank accounts and fine houses and in the trust fund he has established for his progeny is just as utterly dependent upon God for his continued existence as the one who is most wholly devoted to the service of God’s kingdom. Priest, pirate or pauper, it really doesn’t bear on that fact. Every man and woman living, past, present or future, lives at His will, for the span of years purposed to him. That life will last not one moment longer nor one moment less than He has decreed for the case. He reigns supreme. That is significant. The Supreme Being is not to be denied. Oh, He allows us the range of our free will within the parameters He has determined. We are surely responsible for every choice we make in the course of our days. But, He continues to rule and to rule perfectly.
As with us, so with the devil. The devil is assuredly responsible for every evil he inflicts throughout the ages, whether in person or by proxy through his underlings. Yet, he is never allowed to inflict more than God decrees. He is never allowed to act except under orders. This bothers us no end, and we have the greatest of difficulty in reconciling this Truth with a God who is irrevocably Good at all times and in all events. Indeed, looking at things like the earthquake that has so devastated Haiti this week, as with the hurricane that all but destroyed New Orleans a few years back, many will look at the disaster and find it inconceivable that a God who would allow such things can be a good God. But, He is.
Oh! That we might develop a kingdom focus when it comes to such things! Oh! That we might see ourselves as we truly are apart from Him! That we would recognize the true depth of our sins and the magnitude of our crimes before a holy God. Then, we must see mercy in that any one of us is alive at all. Then, we must see the infinite generosity in that He does not make the destruction of these ‘acts of nature’ complete. There were survivors in New Orleans! God be praised! It need not have been so. There will be survivors in Haiti. God be praised! It need not have been so.
Indeed, these things have a great tendency to refocus the priorities of mankind. We remember compassion. We put our own troubles and concerns in perspective. A government off the rails? True enough. But, I’m not lying in the street with both legs broken and no medical help in reach. Economic concerns? These are surely valid, and we have every reason for concern. But, then we are forced to look at a nation with what amounts to no economy whatsoever. We may wail all we like about our reduced means in this nation, but when we measure our supposed poverty with the scenes coming out of this disaster? Our worst poverty is an embarrassment of riches!
God forgive us for this self-centered mewling. God move upon us that we might once more know compassion such as Your own! God, even as we appreciate the benefits that remain in this republic and its capitalist ways, let us beware of bowing down to either idol: republic or capitalism. Let us remain faithful and true to You, taking these blessings as You provide them, and molding them to Your purposes in having done so.
Listen! The message of this parable is all about compassion: Active mercy! Look at the beginning of the passage from Luke: Give to charity. Use your goods to benefit those who are without. Be the vessels of God’s own Mercy, for it is the only mercy there is. Active mercy is the coin of God’s kingdom. And, here again, His kingdom absolutely tumbles the earthly economy. You see, as He speaks to us of fattening our heavenly bank accounts, He does not tell us to take up a collection. He does not tell us to invest in this property or that business. He says, “Spend the coin of My kingdom!” That is the way we increase our accounts in His bank, by spending as much of His coin as ever we can! The only way to fatten your accounts is to give. The only way to lead is to serve. The only way to reign is to submit. This is the Way in which Jesus has called us to walk.
Now, as we attend to the business of spending that heavenly coinage of active mercy, an amazing thing transpires. Our accountant in His kingdom informs us that not only are our accounts increasing in worth, but that we have, “a treasure unfailing in the heavens!” That’s the way Young’s Literal Translation has provided Luke 12:33 for us. What a great picture! In our accounts there is infinite supply. Whatever compassion calls us to do and to give, our accounts in heaven are good for it. Whatever our needs in this life, as we pursue the course of compassion, our accounts are exceedingly and abundantly more than enough to cover those expenses as well. It is truly said that you can’t out-give God. Truly, you can’t give at all except He puts the means in your hands to do so. Everything else is just prideful show.
Two points remain for me to make in regards to these verses. As Jesus is focused on storing up treasure in the right place, it is worth noting that whatever we choose to be about, we are storing up some sort of treasure for ourselves. We might say there are two storehouses in heaven. On the one hand, there is that storehouse in which the provision and profit of all our compassion is stored away. This is what Jesus is pointing us to. On the other hand, though, there is the storehouse of all our self-centered, prideful and greedy sins. This is where James is looking when he speaks of those who have stored up a different ‘treasure’ for themselves in the last days (Jas 5:3). This is no positive, beneficial treasure he is speaking of. It is an abundance of sins, and it is from that abundance that the unrepentant sinner will find himself repaid.
This must give us pause, even we who are confident of our election. Listen! I know will all certainty that my Jesus has, by His Atonement, emptied my accounts in that second storehouse. I am not nearly as certain that I have stored up any great treasure in the account He points me to. I pray that I have, but I rarely feel as compassionate as I suppose I ought to be. My point, however, is that as certain as I am of what Jesus has accomplished on my behalf, I dread the thought of discovering that I have simply refilled that account after He saw it drained. I want no ‘treasure’ such as that when I stand before Him. What shame! What sorrow to stand before that One who has done so much on my behalf and see that I have repaid Him with a roomful of such trash as that.
I recall my old prayer partner in my former church, who kept in mind the point that he did not wish to cause Jesus any more agony and sorrow upon the cross by his continuing in sin. That is truly a powerful image, if we can keep hold of it. Jesus, on the cross, paid the penalty for each and every one of my sins, not only those committed before I came to Him, but also for those I have committed since, and they are numerous. He paid for those I shall doubtless commit today, and tomorrow, and in years to come. I know this and understand this, and I can only marvel that He would do such a thing. For, He knew it to. What inexpressible agony He must have endured! Not merely the physical agony of a form of death that was designed to maximize that agony, but the much greater agony of finding Himself separated, for the only time in all of eternity, from the fellowship of the Trinity. He Who was even in that moment fully God was severed from the Godhead. I cannot even fully comprehend the thought, and praise God, I surely cannot fathom the depth of anguish it must have been for Him. That He sweat blood at just the contemplation of that brief time gives me some idea of the power of His pain, but it is, thankfully, not a pain I shall ever endure in myself.
He has paid it! He has finished it! Yet, here am I, and as I say, it is as good as a certainty that I shall sin many a time even today. It is not that I am happy at the prospect, nor even sanguine about the inevitability of it. It is solely that I understand what He has taught me. I continue to be in the process. I continue to be trained. But, I continue to rebel against the process in my weakness. The flesh still wishes to dominate, and the spirit remains weak. But, He is at work in me. He is abiding in me, willing me willing, willing me to join battle once again with the fleshly desires. He is, as my friend loves to say, relentless. He does not give up. Why should He? It is finished! He has already done everything needful to see me brought into His kingdom perfected and victorious. But, he has also ensured that I shall never lose sight of the Truth that I remain ever and always wholly dependent upon Him for any good in me. Until I arrive at that place, though, I pray that He will keep me mindful of the two treasures, so that I can do as best I can to keep any of that dark treasure that James writes of from stacking up.
How shall I fight it? There are at least two fronts in that battle. The first is to strive, and yes, we are called to strive with all that is in us to shake off the habits of sin. Work out your salvation with all fear and trembling (Php 2:12)! But, ever and always with the knowledge that it is God working in me to get the job done (Php 2:13). The two cannot be separated. The second front, is the front of repentance. Confess those sins as they happen, turn away from them as best as I am able so soon as I am aware of them again, and turn and return to my God, asking His forgiveness, confident in the great and marvelous Truth that He is faithful and just to forgive me (1Jn 1:9). This is what empties that storehouse of wrongs, and frees me to spend the coin of compassion to the gain of the storehouse of righteousness.
The final point I would look at is the absolute security of that storehouse of righteousness. No work of the enemy can touch it. That’s what He’s telling us in this passage. The thief cannot come in, let alone take out. What is stored there, is stored in conditions under which it shall not tarnish, rust, rot away or in any other fashion decrease in worth. What is entrusted to Him is perfectly and eternally preserved. That’s the whole point, here. In a life that shall be eternal, for good or for ill, it is best that we do our financial planning on the eternal scale.
We have allowed our attention to be shifted to the present, to living in the moment. We can blame the devil, but the reality is that we have allowed it. We know better. God has made certain of it, providing us with as many reminders as ever we could need. But, we still allow our attention to get dragged into the present, focused on the present, with no thought beyond tomorrow. Oh, we may have our estate planned and our will all legally written out, but it’s still no farther than tomorrow. Inasmuch as it involves the things of this life, it is no farther than tomorrow. The whole span of our days on this earth, even were we to attain to the lifespan of Methuselah, are but a moment in the scope of eternity. 900 years? What fraction of infinity is that? It’s miniscule. It’s nothing.
Listen, whatever we may store up here in this life, it will pass from us. What rust and rot don’t destroy, the thieves will take, and what the thieves don’t take will belong to somebody else after we have passed on. “It’s all chaff! It’s all going to burn!” Those are favorite words of another good friend of mine. It’s a hard perspective to hold, particularly when one is paying off mortgages and dealing with other financial issues as life goes on. But, it’s the truth. It’s all chaff. None of this stuff that we get so focused in on is of any worth whatsoever. None! Oh, we don’t need to go the ascetic route and denounce all earthly comfort. That’s not the point. If God has given, how rude is it of us not to enjoy? How thankless to spurn the gifts He so generously gives to us? But, to fall into the trap of thinking that these goods and trinkets are what it’s all about? We are like the Indians selling Manhattan to the Dutch for a pile of glass beads. We are like Esau selling out his birthright for a bowl of stew. Ingrates, unworthy of the generosity of our Lord and King.
I want to return one more time to the point that the thief cannot come to that place. It is true of our heavenly riches and it is true of our heavenly citizenship. The thief cannot steal. Nobody can snatch us out of my Father’s hands! Nobody! Not even we! This is security. Understand that! Whom God has saved and set in His household is established therein. He didn’t go to prepare a room for you or me in vain. God doesn’t do futility.
In like fashion, the things that we re doing that are truly of worth, the expressions of compassion, the service to His purposes, even the funds we give into His coffers: These are things that are untouchable except by Him. They are holy unto the Lord. They are devoted to Him, sanctified, for His use only. The thief, the devil, cannot lay hold on them, cannot take them from Him, cannot intercept that which we have sent heavenward.
How pernicious that lie which was told to certain in the church, suggesting that we must tell God what treasures it is we are seeking as we give to Him! How pernicious the teaching that seeks to convince God’s children that their giving is at risk, that the devil will steal from their heavenly accounts unless they are ever so careful to follow this protocol or that, unless they endorse their tithes just so, and write in what they would have from God in return. What is there to want in return, but what God has already promised and decreed? What else is there to seek in the life of the Christian except, “Thy will be done”? There is nothing. There is no need of mine that He has not already seen to. There is nothing I want that He is unaware of, and He is a far, far better judge of whether my wants are truly in my best interest or not.
Holy God, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, my being, my every moment. Array and deploy me as Thou will. Even though I am fully aware that You have called me son, that You have adopted me into Your eternal household, even so, I say, I am Your servant. Speak, for your servant listens. Point, and so work in me, that I indeed go. As it is in heaven, so make it in me: Thy will done without question and without hesitation.
