Sample of Deadly Sin / Life Giving Grace

Deadly Sin / Life-Giving Grace

Sermons for Midweek Lenten Devotions by Rev. Ken Behnken as

Pastor of Peace, Mill Valley, CA

5. The Deadly Sin of Avarice – Romans 6:23

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You've heard it said: "Money can't buy happiness – but at least it helps a person enjoy his misery." Thus we try to laugh away avarice or greed – our preoccupation with money and the accumulation of things.

Laughing at something may help you overlook it, but it doesn't remove its danger. And avarice is dangerous – so dangerous that it is included in the listing of The Seven Deadly Sins. St. Paul was writing about avarice when he said, "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

The Bible sounds out warning after warning about the deadliness of avarice, or greed. Paul wrote, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction." Jesus clearly wants us to know that if our goal in life is simply to get rich we are pursuing the wrong thing. He said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

The warning is needed because avarice appears to be as much a part of sinful humanity as breathing. From cradle to grave the phases of self-love and self-interest motivate our thoughts and shape our behavior: the tiny baby cries to get what it wants; the child begs, "Daddy, what did you get me?"; the teenager asks, "What's in it for me?"; the adult is certain to look out for "number one". Jeremiah's words cross all class lines as we hear him say, "From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain."

Both the Old and the New Testaments have classic examples of avarice and its deadly results. In the Old Testament it is King Ahab, whose desire for Naboth's beautiful vineyard ate at him obsessively until, at his wife Jezebel's urging, he had false accusation brought against Naboth in such a way that Naboth was executed and his property became the king's. However, the prophet Elijah was sent to him to say, "This is what the Lord says, 'Have you not murdered a man and seized his property? In the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood – yes, yours!" In the New Testament it is Judas Iscariot, the disciple of Jesus whose love of money led to his betraying Jesus and Jesus' execution on the cross. When what he had done sank in, Judas took his own life. And so the wealthy king who was greedy for more in spite of all that he had shows us that great wealth does not eliminate greed, and the poor disciple who just wanted more spending money shows us that also poverty can be a breeding ground for avarice. The problem is not a result of how much you have or how little you have. The problem is found in the sinful human heart.

As much as any other sin, and maybe more, avarice gets in the way of a person's knowing and worshiping God. The only thing avarice produces is the wages of sin, death. It has a deadening effect also on a Christian's fully living a life of faith and discipleship. Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and money." Paul echoed that when he called greed idolatry. A simple illustration effectively shows how greed can shut out God. A silver dollar, when held out at arm's length, is just part of the scene, illustrative of the fact that money is a necessary part of life, to be used as one of God's blessings. But as the silver dollar gets closer and closer to your eye it blocks out more and more of what you can see until you can't see anything but the dollar. You and I need to be aware of the danger that is confronting us when our own sinful hearts get to be greedy for money and the things and pleasures it provides us. Greed, serving money, is idolatry.

Our Lord Jesus, to whom we look for God's gift of eternal life, was confronted by the temptation to focus on things – and was determined, instead, that he would focus on his Father and his Father's Will and Way. When the devil tested him in the wilderness following his baptism and the beginning of his ministry, the devil knew full well that as the Son of God Jesus enjoyed divine power to supply himself with anything his heart desired, so he said, "Make these stones bread.". But Jesus wouldn't use his power just to satisfy his hunger. He chose to be hungry rather than to use his power in any self-serving way – especially when it was at the devil's suggestion.

When Jesus worked as a carpenter, after father Joseph was gone, he earned a living and no doubt helped to provide for his mother and his brothers and sisters. But when his ministry began, that kind of work ended. Then, as he proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom, his needs were supplied by his heavenly Father – when and where and in the measure his followers would provide for him. Jesus said of his situation, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head" – and he said it without complaint. There was no avarice, no greed, to be found in his heart. Think of it. When he died on the cross for our sins his only worldly possessions, his headdress, his sandals, his belt, his tunic-like undergarment, were claimed by lot by the soldiers, and then they gambled for the one item that was worth any real money, his outer garment, which had been finely woven without a seam, and, no doubt, was a gift to him from a more well-to-do follower.

Greed did precipitate his crucifixion – not greed on his part, but the greed of the Jews' religious leaders. On coming to Jerusalem to keep his appointment with his destiny as the world's Redeemer, we remember, Jesus went into the temple, was distressed by the commotion caused by the money-changers and those who sold sacrificial animals, and, in zeal for his Father's house, overturned their tables and drove out the sellers and their animals. This raised a commotion among the chief priests, for they had sanctioned this activity in the form of concessions – not just to be a convenience to the people, but as a profitable arrangement that put money into the temple treasury and had made them rich and powerful. It was not long before these avaricious men conspired with greedy Judas and saw to the execution of the one who had exposed their avarice.

When avarice makes its deadly approach to our hearts and minds it's often there before we are even aware of it. What can we do about it? The first and primary thing we can do, of course, is to acknowledge it and turn it over to our Lord Jesus, so he can assure us again that his selfless offering for our sins on the cross includes our human tendency to greed – and includes also the times when we give in to its temptations. How good to know that "the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from all our sins."

Then, with sins forgiven and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we may set ourselves to walk his Way. It begins with our looking at what we have – our Father's gifts to us – instead of focusing on what we wish we had and want to have. Then the Spirit of Jesus helps us learn to cultivate an outlook of thanksgiving and an inlook of contentment.

When you busy yourself with thanking and praising God for his gifts to you, and are dedicating your enjoyment of all of them again to the glory of God, you have gone a long way toward the practice of Christian contentment, the most effective antidote to greed. Let's listen to learn from Paul the Apostle. While in prison in Rome he wrote to his friends in Philippi, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

I’m sure Paul would say that the first secret of contentment is to put relationships, not things, at the center of your life – especially your personal relationship of faith and love with the Lord Jesus. That's what sustained Paul, just as Jesus' relationship with his Father in heaven sustained Jesus. Then expand that to include your family, and expand that to include your larger family, your brothers and sisters in Christ. That's what Paul did, and the love and concern of the Philippian Christians supported him in his time of testing. In our interaction with Christian friends it usually does not involve helping each other financially as the Philippians did for Paul – though at times also that is needed and given. Usually, however, it's a matter of our just “being there” for each other. In the mathematics of Christian fellowship and friendship, our being there for each other multiplies joys and divides sorrows. It adds to Christian contentment and subtracts from temptations to greed.

The second secret of contentment is seen in Paul’s confident trust in the Lord. He was waiting for his trial before Caesar. He didn’t know whether he would end up a free man or a martyr. But he was not depressed and defeated. Instead he wrote his “Epistle of Joy.” His secret of contentment was his assurance that whatever came into his life he could handle it – because he and the Lord always constituted a majority. He boldly wrote, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Well, with the Lord at our side and his strength available to us, we can say the same thing – and work at overcoming the deadly sin of avarice.

The third secret of contentment empowers us to deal with that aspect of life which, more than any other, is the source of tension and difficulty. As the practical, everyday antidote to avarice, we need to understand the importance of ordering our financial priorities and goals.

Concern about having enough money to meet our needs and those of our families is an ongoing reality. Inability or unwillingness to manage finances in a disciplined way is a major cause of the break-up of marriages. Even when financially we seem to have the future well in hand, we know that things can change dramatically and drastically in a hurry. The Bible doesn't explicitly instruct us to sit down and carefully make up a budget that will help us make our income do everything it needs to do – but that surely is a good idea. It's a good Christian stewardship practice, an important starting point in our money management and in our battle with avarice. A budget helps you tell your money where to go instead of your having to ask, "Where did it go?"

This secret of contentment is essentially spiritual. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money.” As Christians we will not find the antidote to greed, the secret of contentment, until Jesus becomes the Lord also of our money. Even if we adopt and follow a most careful budget, if we don't use it to order our priorities and put first things first we still find avarice waiting at life's door. But when we see that we as Christians need to bring appropriate offerings to the Lord and we need to meet him in the needy as we contribute to their needs, then our Spirit-driven response to his love for us will become a deadbolt to help keep this deadly sin out of our lives. He is the Giver of every good and perfect gift. It's when we are determined to receive and use his gifts to serve his purposes in our everyday lives that we are on the way to learning this secret of Christian contentment.

No joking will remove the danger of the deadly sin of avarice. But life-giving grace can and will replace this deadly sin with joy and contentment. So rejoice this day that Jesus died also for sinful greed. Happily give thanks and praise to him for all that he has given you. And praise him especially for the blessed fact that the Holy Spirit is moving you forward along the path that leads to finding and experiencing the secrets of Christian contentment.

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