Audio transcription
Immediately we’re speaking about private wealth. It’s fairly fascinating that at the start of the ebook of Job, Job is a wealthy man. On the finish of the ebook of Job, Job is a person twice as wealthy. So is it proper to count on that God intends to double the wealth of all his youngsters? That's the query that was raised by Job and despatched to us by a listener.
“Pastor John, hiya! My title is Genesis. I’m 23 years outdated and I stay within the Philippines. I don't consider the prosperity preachers who declare that God desires all Christians to be very wealthy. However is it a sin to wish that God will give me sufficient cash to get pleasure from a cushty life? Or are we Christians to simply accept and welcome solely loss and struggling? Is there anywhere for prayer and searching for a better diploma of fabric consolation? Is it simply harmful? Is there a secure strategy to pray that our modest web price will double over time? As I learn the scriptures, I see that God supposed to ultimately double Job's wealth (Job 42:10-17). Was it only for Job, or does God welcome Christians at the moment to wish for it?
I hear mainly three questions: (1) Is it proper to wish that I find the money for to get pleasure from a cushty life? (2) Is the Christian to simply accept solely loss and struggling? (3) Does God intend the doubling of Job's assets to be a mannequin for us to wish for? I’ll attempt to shed biblical gentle on every of those questions in reverse order.
Double your cash?
First query: Does God intend for the doubling of Job's assets to be a sample to which we are able to pray? If God did it for Job, does He need to do it for us?
That's the form of query that we are able to't reply in the identical means for everybody. For instance, I'm fairly certain it might be a sin to wish for my assets to double now, as a result of as an American dwelling a cushty middle-class life-style, I'm a lot richer by world requirements than the billions of poor folks round me. world.
“The brand new legislation pushes us relentlessly towards simplicity and financial system for the development of the dominion.”
The burden on me in prayer shouldn’t be that I acquire and lay up extra treasures on earth, however that I give, give and provides away increasingly more and make investments increasingly more in different folks, laying up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19– 20) and that I take advantage of what I’ve for the best good of others, and that I’m cautious, cautious, cautious, as a result of it’s troublesome for the wealthy to get to heaven, stated Jesus (Luke 18:24) .
Nevertheless, if somebody earns $1 a day and works as exhausting as he can to help his household, doubling $1 could be $2 and he would nonetheless be poor—simply much less poor. Who may blame him for wanting and praying to higher present for his household by doubling his assets from $1 a day to $2 a day? So that you see that the query can’t be answered in the identical means for everybody.
'Come and see'
However right here is an important precept to bear in mind when utilizing Previous Testomony texts to justify the pursuit of wealth. Job was already wealthy. God doubled the wealthy man's wealth. So why not take it upon your self, Piper?
And right here's why: God wished the faith of the Previous Testomony to be a “come and see” faith general, emphasizing prosperity as a sworn statement to the world of God's faithfulness to Israel. The Queen of Sheba got here from the ends of the earth and her breath was blown by Solomon's wealth and knowledge (1 Kings 10:1-13). That’s “come and see” faith.
'go and inform'
However God intends the faith of the New Testomony to be one in every of “go inform”—not “come see,” “go inform”—a faith that emphasizes simplicity, sacrifice, and generosity to meet the mission of reaching all of the nations of the world. and to point out that our treasure just isn’t on this world, however in Christ in heaven. He’s our “unsearchable riches” (Ephesians 3:8). As we learn the New Testomony, it relentlessly pushes us towards simplicity and financial system for the development of the dominion, away from luxurious, affluence, and pageantry.
Proper now I’ve 24 passages of Scripture in entrance of me that push us in that course. I can't learn all of them. Let me title just some.
- Luke 6:20: “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the dominion of God.”
- Luke 6:24: “Woe to you who’re wealthy, for you have got acquired your consolation.”
- Luke 8:14: Individuals are “choked by cares and riches and the pleasures of life.”
- Matthew 6:19: “Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.”
- Luke 12:33: Promote your possessions and provides to the needy. Get a cash bag. . . within the heavens.”
- Luke 14:33: “Whoever doesn’t resign all that he has can’t be my disciple.”
- Luke 18:24: “How exhausting it’s for individuals who have possessions to enter the dominion of God!”
- 2 Corinthians 6:10: We apostles are “just like the poor, however we will make many wealthy; like having nothing and but possessing every little thing.”
“The aim of a Christian is to not endure, however to like and settle for no matter struggling it wants.”
And on and on and on. Such texts solely push and push American and world Christians to maneuver towards want, not consolation. Reside merely. Reside a warrior life-style.
So my reply is not any. No, Job shouldn’t be used as justification for all of us to ask for our assets to be doubled. It could be completely proper for a poor particular person to need his assets to be doubled and to wish for it. I’m not criticizing that in any respect, however that may not be primarily based on Job. In any case. This will likely be primarily based on different texts.
Destined to lose?
Second query: Ought to a Christian settle for solely loss and struggling? No.
- We’re to wish for therapeutic if we’re sick (James 5:16).
- We’re to wish for pleasure if we’re discouraged (Romans 15:13).
- We’re to wish for fruitfulness and effectiveness if our lives are barren (Philippians 1:11; Colossians 1:10).
- We’re to wish for peace in relationships if our life is conflicted in ache (Philippians 4:6-7).
- We’re to wish for victory over life-destroying sins resembling drunkenness, medicine, or fornication (Romans 6:12-14).
They’re all prayers, they’re all needs to beat sure sorts of loss and struggling. In different phrases, loss and struggling aren’t in themselves one thing that God finds fascinating. They might truly be what God calls us to do as a method to one thing else, like spreading the gospel. However they aren’t to be requested for or sought in themselves.
In 1 Timothy, Paul warns towards those that have taught Christians that the pleasures of meals and marriage are evil. Right here is his reply: “They forbid marriage and require abstinence from the meals which God has created to be acquired with thanksgiving by those that consider and know the reality” (1 Timothy 4:3).
Struggling and loss are God's devices for our sanctification. We don't decide up the physician's scalpel and begin chopping ourselves. We simply take heed to the physician and do what he says. And if down the street we want surgical procedure and even amputation, we belief our physician and have a good time his knowledge and mercy in our struggling. The Christian's aim is to not endure, however to like and settle for no matter struggling he wants.
What does your coronary heart say?
And eventually, the third query: Is it proper to wish that I find the money for to get pleasure from a cushty life?
Once more, this query can’t be answered in the identical means for everybody. Some rich folks—I do know them—need increasingly more and increasingly more issues as a result of they suppose they will't be comfy except they’ve two vehicles or two homes or ten shirts, whereas there are tens of millions of individuals. world for whom comfy would imply, “May I’ve only one shirt, sufficient meals for my household, a roof over my head, some schooling for my youngsters, some fundamental well being care?”
The apostle Paul stated: “We introduced nothing into the world, and we are able to take nothing from the world.” But when we’ve meals and clothes, we’re content material with these” (1 Tim 6:7-8). I believe this was Paul's means of claiming that it isn’t unsuitable to need to have the fundamentals of life as a way to pursue significant work and fruitfulness in your life. It’s not unsuitable to need; it isn’t unsuitable to wish for it.
All this, it appears to me, is a matter of the guts. Does your coronary heart say with the apostle Paul, “Christ is so expensive to me that I’ve realized the key of going through abundance and starvation, abundance and want” (see Philippians 4:11-13)? Or does your coronary heart say, “I’ve to have increasingly more and extra to be glad”? Solely God is aware of the true state of your coronary heart. That's the place the true battle is fought.
So might God make it clear to us how way more of our assets we are able to use for the aim of spreading his gospel and the way a lot we are able to rightfully use for ourselves.
