Sermonette: Investing in Eternal Life
#287As
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 28-Apr-97; 23 minutes
description: The Protestant notion that "a person's works are of no avail" is a faith-killing prescription because faith without works is dead. Protestants also feel that any thought of reward taints the whole process of salvation. When all of the scripture are not brought into the equation, one comes up with a distorted picture of the place for works. Works done right now are important for right now and for the future as well, beyond the resurrection. God is not beyond offering incentives as is seen in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. There is a blessing attending overcoming. What we do now is an investment that will pay dividends beyond the grave. Paul cautions people who have wealth not to put their trust in wealth because it erodes their trust in God, making them stingy, haughty, and arrogant. If they generously share their wealth (not as a part of a coercive commune) with others, God promises they will accrue abundant spiritual rewards- a win-win proposition, applied to eternal life worth living. We are commissioned to be generous in good works, whether it consists of money, time, or talent. Conduct now lays up treasure in Heaven. Paul instructs people to invest in the Kingdom of God. Generous giving is an investment in the Kingdom of God. Nobody out-gives God. We need to get the right set in our character, making the best of our resources, emulating Him.
transcript:
We are eventually going to work our way to I Timothy 6. So if you want to turn there, while I lay a little bit of groundwork for this offering sermonette.
There is a notion that is generally held in the world of Christianity that a person's works are of no avail. And if you have ever talked to people with this concept they will usually quote Galatians 2:16, which says, “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified;” or maybe by Romans 11:6, which says, “And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” From this and other verses a case is built that I feel literally keeps people's faith from growing. If faith does not grow, it is virtually certain little else is going to grow in their Christian life, because faith without works is dead (James 2:20)! Salvation is by grace through faith. But again, faith without works is dead. And a dead faith that does not work, combined with grace, will not provide a person with salvation. It is that simple. So somewhere in this equation there has to be room for works.
Now arising from this notion is that any thought of rewards by a Christian and what he does taints the person's motivation. In other words, people begin to think that there must be something wrong with this person if they feel that they are working, as it were, for God. And it is almost as if God expects us to do everything for nothing. And yet the same God, in I Corinthians 15:58 says that He is not unrighteous to forget our work and labor of love which we have showed toward His name.
I think what we have here is a classic illustration of not considering all the scriptures that are given on a subject. Thus, a person comes up with a distorted picture of what the truth is. This sermonette is not going to solve the problem. But I do want us to see from these verses in I Timothy 6 that works done now are important, both for right now, and in the future. When I say future, I mean beyond the resurrection.
God is most certainly not averse to providing incentives and offering rewards. You have read what it says in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 that “If you keep My commandments, I will bless you.” Well, keeping God's commandments requires some work. And so He is offering us an incentive: “If you will conduct your life in this way, if you will work to overcome, then you are going to be blessed for it.” That is a reward!
Considering His faithfulness in regard to His promises, there are definitely rewards for making ourselves do things according to His will. In other words, there is clearly another side of this story, that what we do now, the emphasis is on what we do now, is like an investment that will pay dividends beyond the grave.
Now let us read these verses in I Timothy 6. This involves the broader subject of Paul's instructions to Timothy regarding the use of wealth.
I Timothy 6:17-19 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I know that is not quite as understandable as it is going to be when I read to you from a modern translation. But I want you to shift your minds back to Acts 2. You do not have to turn there; just shift your mind back there. In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit was given and the church began. And so here a new community was forming. Apparently, the apostles and others thought that the best thing to do was to form themselves into their own separate commune, because that is what it was. It was not just a community; it was a commune. And it says very clearly, it is around verse 47 or 48 that they had all things in common. Everybody was sharing what they had with everybody else.
Now that notion [of a commune] must have been dropped not too long after this, because the last indication you get of any kind of a communal situation is in Acts 6 when the deacons were appointed to take care of the widows that were part of that commune. And so you never again read of it after Acts 2, and only at that little brief glimpse.
Now you know Communism and Socialism are supposed to be where people have all things in common and everybody shares. All wealth is equally distributed, and those who have a lot give to those who have little. Well, I think the reason it was dropped was that God got it across to them by their own experiences that this was not going to work. It was not going to work because He did not want it to work. And the reason He did not want it to work is because He wanted his people to spread out like so much salt all over the place, and not to be gathered together in communes.
Now believe it or not, some well-intentioned people have gotten the idea (I am talking about in the past) that communism or socialism is a more Christian form of government and economics because of its seeming sharing aspects. However, it is a matter of historical record—witness Russia, Albania, China, and all other countries that have experimented with communism and socialism—communism and socialism is not the answer. It appeals to a broad spectrum of base carnal traits, one of which I call the welfare mentality, and this has produced nothing rewarding except for a very, very few. It seems that those at the very top refuse to share equally what they have with the others below them.
By the time Paul wrote I Timothy, there were even rich men in the church. “Command those who are rich in this present age.” Paul's major concern is stated in verses 17 and 18, that their attitude toward wealth would trap them into trusting their wealth rather than trusting God. He had the book of Proverbs to go by, as well as undoubtedly some experience as well. And it says in Proverbs that a rich man's wealth is his strong city. In other words, wealth is what he puts his trust in. And if he puts his trust and faith in his wealth, it is sure that he was not going to have much faith toward God. If he did not have much faith toward God, he was not going to have very many works. And, if he did not have works that God approved of, he was not going to be rewarded. We will see a little bit more of the story in just a bit.
So he warns them in verse 17, it says, “haughty.” But as we are going to see a modern translation translates that as “arrogant,” which has a hard edge to it. So he warns them not to be arrogant about their wealth. And the reason he warns them that way is because that is what they would be if they did not use, that is, if they did not work with their wealth in a way that pleases God.
Now the way that pleases God is shown in verse 18, “Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.”
I think that even though it is evident that God did not want the people to gather together in communes, He nonetheless wanted them to continue to follow the practice that brought that commune together and kept it going for a while. And that is that the people generously shared what they had with others. But they did not have to draw together into a commune in order to do that. So they were to give; that is, distribute their excess; that is, to share it generously; that means communicate. That is where the word communicate comes in.
Now notice verse 19. “storing up for themselves. . .” In other words, if they give the money away, it is actually accruing something to them. That is an interesting concept! To generously give something away, we generally feel that we are losing something. We are sacrificing something. Paul said, if you generously give it away, you are actually laying it up for yourself! Hey, this is a win-win situation! There is no way to lose! “. . . a good foundation for the time to come [the future], that they may lay hold on eternal life.” This generously giving has something to do with eternal life. That is pretty important to us.
I am going to read these 3 verses from the New International Version:
I Timothy 6:17-19 (NIV) Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain. But that they put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
First, Paul says that the life in the future is truly life. That is a more accurate translation of what the Greek says. It does not say “eternal life,” but “that which is truly life.” So notice that the life that is coming is not merely eternal life, but rather life that is really worth living, because living eternally is good only if the living conditions, and all the circumstances and everything else, are good as well. It would not be good to live in the common picture of an ever-burning hell eternally.
Now, what we are looking at here is what Mr. Armstrong called the abundant life. And so in this context of the abundant life, it is the effect or reward of being generous in good works.
This does not apply only to those who have the riches to give generously. But it must include all those who generously work in service, regardless of how it is done. Not everybody has money to give, but they do have time, they do have energy, they do have talents, they do have intelligence. See?
What is important here is the principle, not the money. Money just happens to provide the subject that introduces the much more important principle of generously giving. So then the only one who can get a reward is not restricted to those who have money to give.
Now, an aside here to understand, but which I will not go into proving, is that the abundant life (that is, that life which is truly life) has already begun if we are applying the principles in our lives that this thing is talking about right here and now. But what I do want us to see is that conduct right here and now determines the full possession of what Paul called truly life.
Now Paul describes this in three ways. If you do any study in commentaries, you will find that they, the commentators, scratch their head about the apostle Paul, because he mixes metaphors crazily—and he used three different metaphors here, rather than using one and expounding it more fully. He used three metaphors in verse 19 alone to make his point.
First of all, “Storing up for,” literally means in modern English, “treasuring up.” What Paul said here is virtually the same as what Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount where He said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up treasures in heaven.” But you lay up a treasure in heaven by doing something here on earth in this life. In other words, conduct now lays up treasure in heaven. Are you beginning to get a picture here?
What do we call this today? In economics, we call it investing. Paul is telling these people to invest in the Kingdom of God. Now, is that not what we do? When we put our money in stocks and bonds, if we put our money in a savings account in a bank, are we not investing in the future so that we might have a retirement fund, so that we might have money for a rainy day, you know, that might occur in the future, or if we want to buy an automobile, buy a house, buy a suit, buy anything like that? You set the money aside, you treasure it up. It is an investment that you are setting aside for the future. Only this future is vague. It involves eternal life, truly life, the Kingdom of God.
And so generous giving is an investment in the Kingdom of God.
If you think American corporations sometimes pay big dividends, Mr. Armstrong said nobody out-gives God. That is why Paul said He gives us everything richly.
The second metaphor is “a good foundation.” He is saying that our actions here and now are putting in the foundation on which the true life—eternal life—shall be reared. It is a little bit different than the other metaphor. This is the foundation for the future. Now what he is referring to here is that it is right here and now, since God has called us, that our nature, our character, our personality, whatever word you want to use, is set. A carpenter builds a form, pours concrete into it, and then what happens? It sets. You can take the forms away and that foundation is still there.
What if the foundation is crooked? Well, everything else is going to be crooked. And so what Paul is urging these people to do is get the right set in your character. God is generous, and we are to emulate Him. The character is being set now. This is Paul's form of, “As a twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
I have heard eternal life described as being like two sheets of paper laid side by side, and the one has lines on it. The one that has the lines on it is the life that we are living now, and the one that is bare, if I can put it that way, is eternal life. And the description is that, as the line shows its trajectory as we live now, it is going to continue right on out into the Kingdom of God the same way. It is an interesting concept. It is like volume two of a book, providing a sequel, and the sequel depends entirely upon the first volume. So lay a good foundation.
The third metaphor has to do with our capacity to “lay hold on eternal life.” And the prize is “that which is truly life.” Remember when we were going through those three or four sermons I gave on Philippians 3, most of it built around Philippians 3:12, where Paul said that he wanted “to apprehend that for which he was apprehended”? The word apprehend means to lay hold on. It means to grasp. And so what Paul was saying in this last metaphor is, “Don’t be indifferent, go for it! Vigorously! Now! Don’t wait!”
Now all this is seen within the overall context of securing the most that we possibly can of the best that life has to offer. But this has not gotten in the world's way for the world's reasons, but for making the best use of one's resources to sacrifice in service and generously giving God's way.
So in that, Paul says there is great reward in the setting and building of the right kind of character, character that is acceptable, and will continue to be of use in the Kingdom of God. But we have got to go for it. We have got to make an effort to grab it, to apprehend it now, before life slips away in the rush of everyday experiences.
JWR/rwu/drm