Greentree Community Church

If there’s one way our culture views Jesus, it’s as a killjoy.  Jesus gets a rap as the big guy in the sky who’s always watching to make sure nobody is having fun, the one who makes sure that the even the smallest pleasure comes with the greatest guilt.  Now, I am the first to admit that Christians have certainly often represented Jesus this way (I grew up in a context like that myself), but the Bible will have none of that.  Consider Psalm 16.11—“In your presence [God’s] is the fullness of joy.  At your right hand are pleasures forever more.”  Or the command in Psalm 37.4:  “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  In fact, when Jesus describes the New Heaven, he often describes it in terms of a party with the best wine, food, and friends (Isaiah 25, Luke 15, John 2).  Now, I could give you a hundred of those but I’ll stop there and hope you’ll trust that I’m not fibbing here. 

So, how does all this relate to our money?  Well, the assumption is that Jesus is a money killjoy because wants us to give away all our money so we can be as miserable as possible.  But this is false.  As I said last time, Jesus wants us to be free from a love of money so that we can have what is better.  Let’s try to illustrate this:  Let’s say you are a singer who enjoys nothing more than singing and performing your music before adoring audiences.  Let’s also say that you like to drink diet colas.  The problem is, as any vocalist can tell you, is that carbonated and caffeinated drinks will ruin your singing voice.  Now would it or would it not make sense to give up what is smaller, your love of coke, to enjoy the pleasure of what is greater, your singing?  This is what God says about money—would it not be foolish for you to ruin what I would give you as your greatest pleasure to have the smaller, lesser, diminishing, fleeting pleasures of money? 

Notice how Jesus tells us this in Luke 12.32 as he talks about a love of money.  “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.  Therefore, sell your possessions and give to the needy.”  Have you ever thought about what makes God glad, what gives Him pleasure?  Well, here’s one thing that He thoroughly enjoys—giving to you.  According to that verse, it’s not just His pleasure but His good pleasure.  He is not like an employer paying wages because by law he has to (well, you’ve earned it).  Instead, he actually delights in giving gifts to you, in sustaining you in Him. 

If you want to be liberated from the enslaving greed and fear that come with money, then spend some time thinking about this verse.  You are able to “sell your possessions and give to the needy” because you’re not afraid that God will hang you out to dry; you can be confident that He will joyfully sustain you—it is His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.  To use an analogy from C.S. Lewis, don’t be so easily pleased.  Don’t settle for making mudpies in a slum when an all inclusive beach vacation is on offer.  What if the money, for which you’re rejecting God right now, is just a mudpie in comparison to the beach vacation that God would give you if you trusted Him?