Should Rich Christians Downgrade Their Lifestyle?
00:00:00.000 | Are rich Christians commanded to downgrade their living standards?
00:00:09.200 | It's a question from Kevin, a listener to the podcast in South Dakota.
00:00:13.240 | Pastor John, thank you for this podcast and for your ministry, and thank you for preaching
00:00:16.800 | against the prosperity gospel and for your personal model of contentment and generosity.
00:00:22.400 | All of this is prophetically needed in our age.
00:00:25.480 | But I also have a remaining question on wealth, specifically about 1 Timothy 6, verses 17
00:00:29.960 | and 19.
00:00:30.960 | I am a middle class American, not fabulously wealthy according to the cultural standards
00:00:35.680 | of my day, but in the global perspective and historically, I am wealthy.
00:00:40.600 | Whenever I hear you teach on Paul's text, I hear you imply that the Christian wealthy
00:00:44.560 | are called to intentionally downgrade their lifestyles.
00:00:48.800 | They should live in smaller homes than they could manageably afford and enjoy the simpler
00:00:52.880 | pleasures of life.
00:00:54.680 | There's a wonderful warning here about trusting in wealth that we should all be aware of.
00:00:58.280 | However, Paul does not seem to say in this text that the wealthy should downgrade their
00:01:02.640 | personal lifestyles.
00:01:04.560 | I read Paul and presume that a wealthy Christian today could live in an 8,000 square foot,
00:01:09.960 | 2 million dollar mansion, drive a new BMW, and still also have their hope set on God,
00:01:16.280 | the giver of all these gifts, as they magnify Christ in their honest business dealings.
00:01:22.280 | But in that situation of abundance, Paul would tell them, don't be proud, die to self-sufficiency,
00:01:26.640 | enjoy it all as a gift, and never set your hope on riches.
00:01:30.160 | Instead, be rich in good works and be generous and ready to share.
00:01:34.320 | Verse 18.
00:01:35.400 | I can see him discouraging the rich from seeking greater wealth accumulation or barn building,
00:01:40.000 | as Jesus called it.
00:01:41.640 | But Paul also does not seem to be too concerned with calling the wealthy to purposefully downgrade
00:01:46.960 | their own living conditions either.
00:01:49.920 | Am I missing something here?
00:01:51.840 | Well, let's start by saying something controversial.
00:01:58.760 | Not only does Paul not seem too concerned with calling the wealthy to purposefully downgrade
00:02:08.440 | their own living conditions, neither does he seem too concerned with calling slave owners
00:02:15.000 | to account for holding slaves.
00:02:17.480 | Yeah, that's controversial.
00:02:18.760 | So there you go.
00:02:20.240 | Now that ought to get everybody feeling defensive.
00:02:23.920 | No, I'm not equating wealth holding with slave holding.
00:02:31.080 | The point of that comparison is this.
00:02:34.360 | If Paul chose to explode slave holding, not with direct indictment, but with theological
00:02:43.680 | dynamite like 1 Corinthians 7.23, "You were bought with a price.
00:02:50.680 | Do not become slaves of men," could it be that he might take the same theological explosive
00:02:59.280 | approach to weaning people away from luxury?
00:03:03.600 | Now, before I illustrate what I mean by that, let me clarify something that I'm very aware
00:03:10.280 | of.
00:03:11.280 | I am aware that any warnings or admonitions that I might give to someone who lives a life
00:03:19.440 | 10 times more lavish than my own, someone could give to me, whose life is one-tenth
00:03:29.640 | as lavish as my own.
00:03:32.440 | And I am aware, as an American, that this latter group globally who live lives that
00:03:41.160 | are less than one-tenth as lavish as mine are 99% of the world.
00:03:49.160 | Now here's the implication of that awareness.
00:03:52.840 | Whether I am a first-class hypocrite, which is possible, or I am a culturally conditioned
00:04:03.040 | voice trying to let the Word of God call Western affluence to account, including my own, in
00:04:13.760 | the light of Scripture, without specifying precisely what degree of affluence is destructive
00:04:23.200 | to spiritual life and witness.
00:04:25.920 | So then, how does the New Testament address the issue of luxury and opulence and lavishness
00:04:34.360 | and riches?
00:04:35.360 | Kevin, of course, is right that Paul does not speak to the wealthy in his churches with
00:04:42.800 | condemnation or to the slaveholder either, by the way, with condemnation.
00:04:50.800 | The text, Kevin, first, who is this, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them
00:04:57.880 | not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertainty of riches, but on God, who
00:05:06.320 | richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
00:05:09.640 | They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing
00:05:15.640 | up treasure for themselves as good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold
00:05:22.120 | of that which is truly life."
00:05:25.200 | That's 1 Timothy 6, 17 and 18 and 19.
00:05:30.380 | So here's the question.
00:05:32.920 | When these wealthy Christians have reckoned with the uncertainty of riches, set their
00:05:40.240 | hope in God, have done good, have been rich in good works, have been generous, have been
00:05:49.960 | ready to share, have taken hold of life that doesn't consist in possessions, what do
00:05:55.680 | you think is left for them to live on?
00:05:58.520 | Well, right, it doesn't say, which is why I have never precisely specified what degree
00:06:07.640 | of luxury is destructive to spiritual life and witness.
00:06:13.520 | On the other hand, as I read the New Testament, I think it is my job as a biblical voice trying
00:06:22.400 | to be faithful to what's there to disturb the wealthy, including John Piper, especially
00:06:29.560 | him, by drawing attention to the ways that the New Testament relentlessly pushes us toward
00:06:39.320 | simplicity and economy for the sake of gospel advance and away from luxury and affluence
00:06:45.920 | and finery.
00:06:48.080 | So let me push in the other direction from Kevin when he says this, "I presume that
00:06:55.440 | a wealthy Christian could live in an 8,000 square foot, $2 million mansion, drive a new
00:07:02.560 | BMW, and still have their hopes set on God, the giver of all things, as they magnify Christ
00:07:10.640 | in their honest business dealings."
00:07:14.200 | Now my response to this is to push in the opposite direction, knowing that there are
00:07:21.800 | far more powerful ways to magnify Christ than through honest business dealings, as good
00:07:30.460 | as that is, and knowing that there are many other passages of Scripture that ought to
00:07:38.600 | get under the skin of those of us who want to surround ourselves with vastly more than
00:07:44.760 | we need.
00:07:46.600 | So here's one way to show what I mean.
00:07:49.720 | Jesus said in Luke 18.24 how hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the
00:07:54.800 | kingdom of heaven.
00:07:56.220 | He did not say how hard it will be for those who love riches to get into the kingdom of
00:08:01.680 | heaven.
00:08:02.680 | In other words, it's a warning about the danger of being rich, not just wanting to
00:08:07.520 | be rich.
00:08:09.240 | Now why would that be?
00:08:10.240 | Why would Jesus say that?
00:08:12.960 | Why does wealth make it hard to get into heaven?
00:08:17.440 | Why is being wealthy dangerous?
00:08:20.800 | And let me mention four biblical pointers to why that would be.
00:08:25.600 | Number one, the parable of the soils says, or Jesus warns in Luke 8.14 in the parable,
00:08:33.760 | "People are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures are not neutral."
00:08:40.880 | They have a tendency to choke the vitality of radical Christian living.
00:08:46.600 | So the word to the rich, like me, should never be merely, "Oh, you're okay if you're
00:08:54.080 | honest."
00:08:55.080 | Well, actually, you're not necessarily okay.
00:08:59.080 | You're in danger.
00:09:00.840 | Number two, Jesus said in Luke 14.33, "Whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be
00:09:08.260 | my disciple."
00:09:09.260 | Now, of course, from all the other texts, we know this doesn't mean that Christians
00:09:14.720 | don't own anything.
00:09:17.400 | It means they are radically free from the control of possessions and always ready to
00:09:23.960 | do the most life-threatening acts of obedience.
00:09:27.840 | But the more accustomed we become to the lap of luxury, the more difficult this is, and
00:09:36.360 | the less it looks to outsiders as if we are, in fact, that free from things.
00:09:44.120 | And that ought to matter to us.
00:09:45.960 | It ought to matter to us what inferences people might be drawing.
00:09:51.800 | Number three, in Philippians 1.20, Paul said that his goal in life was that Christ would
00:09:57.680 | be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.
00:10:01.640 | In other words, he wanted to live and die in a way that would appear to the world that
00:10:09.200 | Christ was magnificent to him, more satisfying than possessions or life.
00:10:17.840 | And to that end, he said in chapter 3, he counts everything as lost rubbish because
00:10:25.600 | of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus.
00:10:29.840 | In other words, we don't just magnify Christ by being honest in our business dealings.
00:10:36.160 | We magnify Christ by living in such a way that communicates to the world that Christ
00:10:44.500 | is more valuable to us than houses and cars and lands and life itself.
00:10:51.960 | Which brings us finally to the fourth pointer to why it's hard for the rich to enter heaven,
00:10:58.840 | namely that the motives for pursuing symbols of wealth, whether we think of them that way
00:11:08.240 | or not they are, whether those motives are pure.
00:11:15.720 | It is difficult to keep them pure, very difficult.
00:11:20.540 | So back to the $2 million mansion or a house here in Lake Minnetonka that yesterday went
00:11:28.280 | on sale in my area for $15 million, why would a Christian whose treasure is in heaven and
00:11:38.540 | whose life is devoted to doing as much good as he can and whose desire is to show the
00:11:45.160 | world that Christ is more precious than things, why would a Christian want to look like riches
00:11:53.200 | are his treasure?
00:11:55.700 | What would be the motive for buying such a mansion and surrounding yourself with more
00:12:01.360 | and more and more than you need?
00:12:05.520 | Maybe I should end with just one more question for the mansion owner.
00:12:10.400 | Who are you going to leave it to when you die?
00:12:13.740 | I mean, if you have experienced the miracle of treasuring Christ above all things and
00:12:21.880 | of living for the good of others, do you think that handing off all this wealth to others
00:12:30.080 | will help them experience that miracle?
00:12:34.120 | Do you think it will do your children good to make them wealthy or to put a palace in
00:12:40.640 | the hands of some ministry?
00:12:43.840 | My position is this.
00:12:46.800 | Without specifying what measure of wealth is destructive to the soul or to our witness,
00:12:55.060 | the New Testament relentlessly pushes us toward simplicity and economy for the sake of the
00:13:02.720 | gospel and away from luxury and affluence.
00:13:07.720 | Thanks, Pastor John, I appreciate it.
00:13:10.080 | And Kevin, thank you for the honest question.
00:13:12.740 | Those are really helpful to us in the podcast that they make it possible, right?
00:13:16.580 | And thank you all for joining us today.
00:13:17.940 | You can ask a question of your own.
00:13:19.120 | You can search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast, all that at deservinggod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:27.760 | Well we are hardwired to root our happiness in our circumstances.
00:13:32.480 | We are happiest when things are going well.
00:13:34.960 | We are saddest when things are going badly.
00:13:37.240 | Our mood is determined by our circumstances.
00:13:40.720 | It shouldn't be that way.
00:13:41.720 | So how can we escape from this emotional rollercoaster of circumstances?
00:13:46.480 | I'm your host Tony Reinhke.
00:13:47.480 | We'll see you back here on Monday for that.
00:13:50.160 | See you then.
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