We’re looking at how following Jesus impacts our view of money. I sat in Chapters a couple weeks ago, next to some guys talking about motorcycles. They all rode one kind of bike or another, and were talking about insurance, alarms and more.
One man was about to sell his house, and wanted to use the profit, all of it, to buy his dream bike. His friend got upset, and said, this is because you’re single. I could never spend like that with a wife and kids, I have too many responsibilities.
The motorcycle buyer said, “I Know, there are a lot of better ways I could spend the money, too, but this is my dream bike, I just have to have it”.
These guys had significantly different values about money. Partly this is because of their different experiences – the guy with a family had to change his spending habits to support something more important than his dream bike.
I do have to wonder, though, if this will remain his buddy’s dream bike, or if there’ll be a new dream in five, then, twenty years while this one sits in the garage. Or what happens when he can’t ride anymore, and has to sell a depreciated bike. Will this still be his dream, or is the dream always changing?
In yesterday’s passage of scripture, Paul uses the same language Jesus is known for using – he refers to storing up treasure in heaven, instead of on earth.
In other words, we need to dream bigger dreams than motorcycles and vacations. They’re not bad in and of themselves, but when they become our dream, prioritized over all else, we’ve made them into our ultimate good, and that’s very bad for us. A few weeks ago, I defined sin in this way, as when we take something good, make it our ultimate good, and that is ultimately bad for us.
We free ourselves from slavery to false, empty and fluctuating dreams by gaining and saving in order to give generously. In our series on Becoming Like Family, we talking about three ways to give: to Christian ministries like Redeem the Commute, to other work consistent with God’s kingdom values, and to save in order to directly help friends and family in need.
Challenge: Write, sketch, or imagine God’s dream for you in his kingdom. What lasting impact has he positioned you to make on the world? What financial changes would you have to make to do it?
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Why does it matter if God uses the poor? Why does it matter to us, if we’re not poor by the world’s standards, if this is a night that changes the poor? We may not be nomadic shepherds sleeping with the sheep in a field, but this still matters to us.
We are in spiritual poverty. It’s different from material poverty, but very important to recognize.
A sign is offered to us, from the poorest among us to the wealthiest, and it’s a poor baby in a manger. This comes to us direct from God, though his heavenly messengers. God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material – by his standards rather than our own.
When we see our own spiritual poverty compared to Jesus, we realize we need to get up and get to this baby, get to Jesus’ bedside just like those shepherds. A spiritually or materially wealthier group may not have bothered – they may have considered themselves just fine – but the poor are those God started with because they are those who know they need outside help.
When we have enough, we can’t hunger for food. It’s the same with God – if we consider ourselves spiritually rich and self-reliant, we won’t bother with reliance on God.
This is why, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, or poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
In the Christmas story, all of humanity sees its poverty, its spiritual poverty, compared to this divine baby. We realize we are unable to get back to relationship with God, and yet he comes to us anyway. We realize we can’t buy our way out of this debt to God (called sin), so someone else bailed us out and paid it off.
In the Christmas story, God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material.
In so doing, we realize the world’s standards are empty – we are all poor compared to God’s standards, and all need him equally. This can motivate us to extend to others, who we now recognize as spiritually poor themselves, the same generosity God has shown to us.
Challenge: Give to the spiritually and materially poor in your life! Toy drive, food bank, direct to a friend. Tell them why – because God has been generous and loving to you.
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community - so check out today's reading here.
