Freedom Series

Can we read the first ten verses of chapter six.

Paul here describes someone who longs to be rich, chases after it and falls into temptation. In fact he describes the temptation of chasing after money for its own sake as being like drowning. The word he uses here for getting caught in this is like a man who is stuck in quicksand, and getting sucked under. It’s a very string word. Its almost like he is saying that the pursuit of wealth for its own sake is like some sort of monster, that we chase after trying to grab hold of it, only to discover that it is actually dragging us down its big black hole.

Speaking about his new movie,, Star Wars creator George Lucas described how the young Anakin Skywalker becomes the evil Darth Vader: I don’t wont to ruin the movie for anyone who has not seen it, but we all know he turns into Darth Vader right? If you didn’t know that, sorry, he does, and I am about to tell you why, okay, just a little bit about why. George Lucas says this,

He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need. Solomon in the book of Proverbs 28.25 tells us that a greedy person stirs up trouble. James tells us in 3.16 that when you have envy and selfish ambition there you will find disorder and evil practice. That is because of what Paul says next, that well known verse money is the root of all evil, is that what he says, money is the root of all evil? No, but that is how we have it quoted to us so often, and we will get to that in a moment. In fact what he says is that the love of money is the root of all evil, the desire to chase that monster down the deep dark cave, that is the root of all evil. You see there is nothing evil about money, it is in fact amoral. Your attitude towards it, what you do with it, well that has moral, social, family consequences, but money itself can be used for very good purposes.

I hesitate to use this next analogy, but hopefully we are all mature enough to handle it. How the media portray sex is a little like how they portray money, and certainly how they portray the Churches attitude towards it. Our media, our society propagate the idea that the church is full of wowsers, people who are puritans, who dislike sex and all that. In fact God was the One who invented sex, and He said go forth and multiply! Sounds good to me!

It’s the same with money. How often have you heard this verse quoted, money is the root of all evil. How can that be true? It is a serious misquote. Were the millions of dollars that Australians sent to the victims of the Tsunami tradgedy evil? NO. Where the hundreds of dollars you have given to starving orphans, evil? No.

It is the love of money that is evil, the grabbing hold of something material and putting it above God and above people that is evil. That’s my first big point this morning.