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Pastor Mike Fabarez: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. The problem with money is you can't trust it. Right? 1 Timothy chapter 6 says money is uncertain. It says so don't put your hope there, put your hope in God.

Not only in the span of your life will you take nothing with you, as it says in 1 Timothy 6, but within the journey of our life, it's here and then it's gone. It doesn't mean the material issues of the world can't engross you. They can, but don't let it happen.

Dave Drew: We all need money to pay the bills, and according to the Bible, it's important to remember that money is not the root of all sorts of evil, but the love of money certainly is. That's why today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez delves into the subject of money and the need for a biblical perspective.

We're continuing a series in Hebrews about counter-cultural Christians, which you can always catch up on by going to focalpointradio.org. Well, now here's Pastor Mike with today's relevant message, Contentment Instead of Materialism.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: We have, don't we, a lot to be thankful for. While I think most of us would readily admit that, we unfortunately aren't left after doing all that thanksgiving with the kind of heart attitude that you might think would be left behind after all this giving of thanks.

Maybe it's the odd and bizarre cultural juxtaposition of Thanksgiving and the most sacred shopping day of the year. Maybe that's part of the problem. Because on Thanksgiving, you wake up, get the paper, and of course it's chuck full of ads for stuff you don't have. Get to bed early because it starts at 4:00 in the morning and get out there and get all this other stuff.

While the world can join Thanksgiving with this bizarre marketing assault, it's not the way it is in Scripture. As a matter of fact, the giving of thanks in the Bible is conjoined with an elusive Christian virtue that God expects us to have when we give thanks. It's the elusive Christian virtue called contentment.

That really you would expect would go hand in hand with Thanksgiving, but often it doesn't. We say, "God, thank you for everything you've given me. Now I've got a few more things I just got to have." That doesn't seem to make sense, at least from a biblical perspective.

If you have your Bibles, I want you to open up to Hebrews chapter 13. While the world's busy assaulting us and telling us we need new cell phones, different clothes, perhaps this could be the most important kind of virtue to focus on. It's a good thing for us to make the ambition of our hearts as Christians.

Before we look at this passage and you think, "Well, this is some religious platitude that just can't be fully practiced in our day, not in the real world because you can't live this way in our world," just recognize that all these commands are given for people, and God assumes we're going to be living in the real world.

He recognizes that your cell phone is going to die and you'll need a new one. He knows that your mode of transportation at some point will wear out and you're going to have to go get another one. He's all about the real world. God is not checked out to the realities of the world that we live in. It's not much different from the world that the first-century church lived in. They needed stuff to live, and we need stuff to live.

So just know that the principle and the Christian virtue of contentment, it doesn't necessarily lead to a life in a monastery or a vow of poverty. As a matter of fact, that's a bit of an abuse of this principle. You can fully practice and apply this principle and live in the real world because the issue of contentment or its antithetical problem of sin that we often call materialism really doesn't have anything to do with the amount of your paycheck.

It's really not necessarily tied to the size of your home. You may not believe it, but it's not necessarily connected to the kind of car you drive. Because materialism or contentedness in our hearts, it's really a matter of our hearts. It's what goes on inside.

You're either content in your heart, which may or may not be reflected by an amount of money that you have, or you're involved in something in your heart that the Old Testament called coveting and the New Testament liked to call the love of money. That's going on, and it's all something here.

You can make minimum wage and have the problem or not have the problem. You can make a lot of money and either be contented or you could be covetous. There's no real necessary connection. So don't think that as we enter into this discussion.

Also, let me correct another problem when we talk about contentment. A lot of people think that God somehow just wants to keep us needy and poor, and that's not the point either. You do recognize that commands about not loving money and being content really not only do they bring honor to God, not only does it keep our priorities straight, it'll keep your heart out of trouble.

Because the road, as 1 Timothy 6 says, of loving stuff is going to lead to all kinds of problems in your life. You want to avoid this because it's an addiction. You realize that. It's an addiction that you and I need to avoid. It's not external; it's internal.

So we'll do some looking in the heart here as we read these passages. We're going to do some diagnostics as it relates to what's going on in our spirit. The Scripture says this as it relates to our hearts in verse number 5. Hebrews 13:5 says, "Keep yourselves free from the love of money."

We've got a great play on words going here in this text. We talked about in verses 1 through 3, we talked about loving our brothers. We talked about even loving outsiders, phileo, connected with these other words. Here we have another use of phileo as a compound.

Don't love, literally the word is silver, which for them was what their coins were made of. The problem even with reading that is it creates a caricature in our mind of somebody on a pile of silver coins kind of tossing them in the air, getting your paycheck in ones and bringing it on your bed and laying on it.

That's not the point, you realize. And yet it's a caricature which kind of frees us with impunity from the problem. recognize it's not about loving a gold bullion bar or hugging hoards of cash. It is an issue of the heart, something in my heart.

He says the inverted virtue, that's the sin. Here's the virtue, verse number 5, "And be content with what you have." Now, that even sounds good. There's something good and peaceful and serene about contentment, the concept, the word.

Now, here are some of the solutions, here are some of the keys to doing it because God has said here's something that overrides all of this attraction to the material stuff that becomes an addiction. He says, "I'm going to never leave you." This is a quote of Deuteronomy 31, "And I'll never forsake you."

A repeated, oft-repeated principle in Scripture. Jesus echoed these words, "And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." I'm going to be with you. I will spiritually walk with you through this life.

Then he says in verse number 6, the writer of Hebrews says that ought to lead to confidence in our hearts. So we can say with confidence, and now he quotes Psalm 118, and we can repeat the Psalmist's lyrics and say, "The Lord is my helper. I won't be afraid. What can man do to me?" Rhetorical question: nothing. I'm going to be okay.

That is a kind of lifestyle characterized by peace as it relates to material things. It's called contentment. The sin is the love of money, covetousness, materialism as we often call it, and we got to avoid it.

Number one on your outline, before I fill this in, let's look at Jesus's parallel passage. Turn with me to Matthew 6. Before I give you this word, I want to show you where we're getting it. Matthew chapter 6, Jesus in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, and he's talking about materialism as we often call it.

But he doesn't use the word coveting. He doesn't use the word greed. He doesn't use the word materialism. He uses a different word, which is the indicative feeling that goes with the problem. It is what your heart will feel like if you have the problem of loving money, which won't be characterized by laying on beds of cash. It's a heart problem, and it feels like this.

Are you ready? Matthew chapter 6. Look at verse 25. Matthew 6:25. "Therefore," Jesus says, "I tell you, do not," what's the word? "Worry about your life." Circle that word. That's what materialism, the love of money, feels like. It inevitably leads to a concern, a worry about the things of this life.

Now for that agrarian society, he goes right to the issues that are basic for sustenance in their life. He says, "Don't worry about what you're going to eat," bottom of verse 25. "Don't worry about what you're going to drink. Don't worry about your body and what you're going to wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Isn't there just more than that?"

Now for us in our day, I mean the 21st century, you could replace some of those things that we worry about that are related to material things. We worry about our housing. We worry about our retirement plans. We worry about our investments. We worry about the markets and all that. What are you doing?

Isn't life different, more than that? Isn't it distinct from that? Your life does not consist of these things. Oh, I know you have to interface with them. But when you're worrying about them, it shows an undue interest in them. That reveals a problem, and that is in Scripture what we call materialism. It's the love of money. This is the indicative feeling we have.

So number one on your outline, just to be diagnostic about it, you and I today to define what we're fighting here, let's put it this way: we need to fight the anxiety of materialism because that's what it feels like. You're always worrying about stuff.

Are my investments going to make it? Are we going to make it next month? Are we going to be able to retire when we want? Is this going to work out? Is this investment going to be profitable? It's an undue concern for those things that takes my mind.

Here's the word that is translated worry. It's often translated anxiety. I've given you this word study many times, but it comes from the root word merizomai. Merizomai is the Greek word to divide, and your mind is divided.

It's like you can't concentrate on life over here because you're worried about what I'm going to wear, what I'm going to eat, what I'm going to put on, what my 401(k)'s doing, what my investments are doing, if we're going to be able to make that new client work out, if we're going to be able to get that summer home, what about vacation next summer. Our minds are everywhere; they're scattered. Merizomai: worry, anxiety. It feels like that. Our minds are pulled in different directions.

God doesn't want us to live that way. He gives an illustration. Don't misunderstand it in verse 26, but the illustration is about brainless birds. Bird brains. Birds that fly around in the sky and they have no investments, they have no retirement plans, they don't even have a refrigerator.

Jesus says this: "Look at the birds of the air. They're not very bright. They don't sow, they don't reap, they don't store away in barns." Now here's the principle: "Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them." At the end of the day, their bellies are full. God takes care of them.

He says here's the rhetorical question: "You are much more valuable than they are. I mean, aren't you? Come on, think about this." God cares more about you than the sparrows hopping around at McDonald's waiting to get a dropped french fry. He cares more about you. And yet he makes sure they get their fill.

Now, again, don't take this principle the wrong way. It's not about being irresponsible. "Great! I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to live." It's not a license to irresponsibility, as we'll see. But it is a principle that if God loves the birds enough to take care of them, won't he take care of you?

Why are you worried about it? And Jesus is trying to free us from this problem. He says worrying, by the way, doesn't do much. Verse 27, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Worry is stupid. I mean, that's basically what the Bible is teaching. It doesn't do anything.

Now, action may do something, and it may be helpful and prudent to do some things, but worrying doesn't. Most of our problem as it relates to the love of material things is that it causes our hearts to be worried. And we worry about getting all these things buttoned up. The Bible says it just doesn't make any sense.

Verse 28, "Why worry about clothes?" He gives another illustration. "Look at the lilies of the field. They're growing, they don't labor, they don't spin, they don't worry about what they're going to wear. And yet Solomon in all of his splendor wasn't even coming close to being dressed like one of these." And he was trying real hard.

If God knows how to clothe the grass of the field, which is here today, gone tomorrow, thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you? Now here's the real root problem. Underscore this phrase: "Oh you of little," what? "Faith." That's the problem. You don't trust me, God is saying through his Son. You don't trust me.

You don't have faith. You don't have confidence in God who, what's the context, cares about you. And you're worried about stuff? Why are you worried about stuff? Isn't that the flavor and feel we just read it in Hebrews 13? God's never going to leave you, never forsake you. Why are you so concerned about all this?

The concern of Scripture for us, pardon the pun there, is that we are people that don't have this concern. The issue and the objective for your life is that we're free from that burden of concern. And so we should take this command seriously and recognize that if we let our hearts be consumed with these issues of "what about this" and "what if that" and "what if that doesn't work out," we will by necessity grab because we don't have faith in God.

We grab these things, pull them close as our life preservers. We will put our faith in them. When we do, here's a passage for you to jot down: Ecclesiastes 5:10. You will never be secure enough in those. In other words, you will learn to love money and you'll have to have more of it to feel secure.

The more you love it, the more you'll have to love it. That's where we get to this concept of addiction. You will be addicted and having more. If you love money, here's how Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes 5, "You'll never have enough, and whoever loves wealth will never be satisfied." Some of you know what that's like. We certainly know people like that. If we're not having that problem now, you'll never be satisfied.

So the issue is to change the trust in our hearts, to cast out and fight this fearful anxiety. Because the problem with money is you can't trust it. Right? Some of us can stand up and testify to that, come to the microphone and tell your story.

How many of us know the riches-to-rags stories of people that had it made and then it got unmade? Does that happen? I just heard one in the back here, somebody telling me about another story. I've known people that have lived with everything going their way and all the money to spare and throwing $100 tips around. They couldn't rub two nickels together in a matter of time.

Why? 1 Timothy chapter 6 says money is uncertain. That's the great principle. I'm quoting verse number 17. 1 Timothy 6:17, it says, "So don't put your hope there, put your hope in God." That's the whole point of this passage. You want to free yourself from this obsession, this engrossment in material things? You just got to learn you can't trust it. It's not trustworthy. It's here today and gone tomorrow.

Not only in the span of your life will you take nothing with you, as it says in 1 Timothy 6, but within the journey of our life, it's here and then it's gone. Right? We think we're doing great, oh this was wonderful, look at the investment of our home and it's going through the roof and now, well, not so good. Actually, I'm upside down, got the repo man around the corner. What's with this money thing? You can't trust it. It's not a constant.

How do we know we have this problem? Well, I've gotten rid of the caricature of throwing money around and getting my checks cashed in ones and rolling on it in my bed. You don't have that problem. I don't know. Do I really trust money? I don't. I trust God more.

Well, here's a symptom of knowing that you're trusting stuff. Are you ready? Jot this reference down. We won't take time to turn there, but you know the Sunday School story. It's found in 2 Samuel chapter 24. 2 Samuel chapter 24, and the first time you read this, I'm sure like me, you scratched your head and you said, "I don't get it."

You read it five or six times and you still think, "I don't get it." You've got to take the broad view of David's life in 2 Samuel 24 to start to understand the problem with this last and dark and unfortunate chapter in David's life.

David at the end of his life, when he's ready to hand his kingdom over to his son, sends out the command to his commanders. Of course, he's the king, he's got an army, a standing army waiting to respond to any problems, and he makes his commander go out and number the troops. Do you remember the story now? Go number the troops.

You remember the Bible says God got angry at this whole thing. For counting? The sin of counting? I don't understand that. You read that ten times and go, "I don't understand. Why is God so upset with David counting his fighting men? Why?"

Until you get a big view of David's life and you start to see that the sin was not counting. There's no sin of counting what you've got. The sin was it was indicative of a sinful heart that no longer trusted in God the way it did in earlier days.

Was he trusting in his armor when he went out and stood in the shadow of Goliath to try and kill him that day? Oh, he didn't even wear armor. Why? Well, it didn't really fit. And he knew that "I come to you in the name of the Lord and the battle, it's God's."

Didn't he write songs with those lyrics in the Psalms? The battle is the Lord's. He says a horse and a chariot, it's a vain hope. It's a vain hope because the battle is the Lord's. Remember that? He says, and here's Goliath saying, "You come against me with sticks and stones," and David said, "No I don't, I come against you in the name of Yahweh." Remember that?

He came with trust in God, implicit trust in God. If he was going to win a battle, he said, "God, you're going to have to be with me, I'm trusting you." At the end of his life though, he's ready to turn the kingdom over and now he's saying, "Well, how many men do we have? If Egypt comes against my son, what's going to happen? Is he going to be able to... how many men do we have? What's the army look like?"

What? What are you doing? He used to tell Jonathan, his best friend, remember this? This is from 1 Samuel 14:6. What a great statement. He says to Jonathan, "Don't you know that Yahweh can save whether it's with many or a few?" He's like slapping Jonathan. "Come on! What are you talking about? God can do it. Let me tell you a story about the time I killed the big guy."

Of course, he knew that. At the end of his life, though, he starts going, "Accountants, accountants, how much do we have? Are we going to be safe?" Now, again, I know this is a military example, but it slides right over into the financial world for you and me, doesn't it?

The question is, and I know Christian accountants aren't going to like this, but the question is: how often are you accounting for what you have? How often do you assess and reassess your provisions? Put it that way. How often are you just pouring over how's it doing? What's going on here?

If you are obsessed with the accounting of your stuff, you don't even have to be obsessed, because I don't think David was obsessed with it. But if it is indicative of the fact that you're trusting more in your retirement fund than the God who will walk you into retirement, then you've got a problem and you probably love money.

The Bible says that's the problem. You've shifted your faith from God to your 401(k). Do you get that? And the Bible says, that's not good. The symptom is how often we assess and reassess what we have.

Be careful. I know Christian accountants will email me this week: "You put us out of a job." But you know what? We go overboard in this regard, and it reflects our trust in the wrong thing.

How do we fix it? If we're supposed to fight the anxiety of materialism, how do we fix it? This one's a bit wordy and a bit philosophical, but I think you'll catch the principle here. Let me give you a passage that you can do your homework on later: 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 31. 1 Corinthians 7:31.

It is a statement, again, a restatement of the fact we're going to live in the real world. You're going to have to buy a present, you're going to have to buy a new phone, you have to buy a new car. You're going to have to deal with the things of this world.

But Paul makes this distinction in 1 Corinthians 7. He says if you buy stuff, it's as though it's not yours to keep. If you use the things of this world, he says as though not engrossed in them, which is a good English word for that word. It's an interesting word. But don't be engrossed in them.

That's the principle. Now, here's what I want to say. Because the better stuff is better than the not-so-good stuff. How's that for a sense? Homiletical award for that one, right? The better stuff is better than the not-so-good stuff.

I mean, I'd rather have the iPhone than that crummy little Ericsson flip phone, right? That would be better. So that's good stuff. And here's the problem: the better the stuff is, the more attractive it is to us, right?

I'd rather drive that midnight blue Porsche Carrera than my Tahoe, my used Tahoe. I would rather do that. There's more appeal to that. It's a more attractive car. It's a sexy car, right? I mean, think about the analogies we use there.

Because those things, the better things in life, the 7,000 square foot house on an acre overlooking the Pacific Ocean is a better house than the condo. It's better, it's more attractive, there's more appeal to that.

So here's a principle: if you want to guard your heart against the anxiety of materialism, you have to admit that the material things of this world are attractive in increasing measure and you have to, here's the protection, you have to create a dispassionate buffer around your heart.

You have to create some kind of dispassionate buffer around your heart against to guard you against the attraction of material things. There are attractive things in this world that you can't be engrossed in. Are you catching the analogy now?

You have to put a dispassionate buffer. It doesn't mean that the things of the world aren't attractive. It doesn't mean that the material issues of the world can't engross you. They can, but don't let it happen. Put a dispassionate buffer.

It's kind of like, "Okay, whatever. Yeah, that's better." I'm not going to be a fool and I'm not going to deny reality. I'm just going to have that dispassionate buffer around my heart. I'm going to protect my heart. "Yeah, that's great but, you know, whatever." You know? It is great, it's better, but I'm not going to be engrossed in that. It's a layer of self-protection, that dispassionate layer of self-protection.

Dave Drew: Well, that's Pastor Mike giving us God's perspective to set us free from the love of money. You're listening to Pastor Mike Fabarez on Focal Point and a message titled Contentment Instead of Materialism. To go back and listen again, just visit focalpointradio.org or download the free Focal Point app and get access to these teachings and more content anywhere, anytime.

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I'm Dave Drew. We'll see you tomorrow for part two of Pastor Mike's lesson titled Contentment Instead of Materialism. That's Thursday, here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hi, Pastor Mike here. God's Word promises it'll never return void. So I wonder, how is God's Word moving in your heart right now? Drop us a line, let us know. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to be praying for you here. Just go to focalpointradio.org. Then be sure to join us again tomorrow right here as we continue to explore the depths of Scripture. We'll see you then.

Dave Drew: Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.