[Text: Hebrews 13:5-6] “Traveling Light”

For nearly two years now I haven’t spoken about money from the pulpit, but now that we’ve come to the end of Hebrews it seems God thinks the time has come. I’m well aware of the fact that a sermon on money may automatically make some warning lights flash and warning sirens go off in your heads. Depending on your experience (and memory of the televangelist scandals of the ‘80s), the topic of money and the Gospel might bring to mind stories of manipulation, guilt-trips, embezzlement and more of the like.

Or maybe you’re thinking, “Aren’t there bigger issues facing the church, like the widening acceptance of homosexuality in our culture?” Well, that is an important issue, I agree. But consider what one writer said,

“The Bible hardly ever discusses homosexual behavior. There are perhaps half a dozen brief references to it in all of Scripture. In terms of emphasis, it is a minor concern – in contrast, for example, to economic injustice. The [small number] of texts addressing the issue is a significant fact for New Testament ethics. What the Bible does say should be heeded carefully, but any ethic that intends to be biblical will seek to get the accents in the right place, not overemphasizing peripheral issues. (Would that the passion presently being expended in the church over the question of homosexuality were devoted instead to urging the wealthy to share with the poor! Some of the most urgent champions of “biblical morality” on sexual matters become strangely equivocal when the discussion turns to the New Testament’s teachings about possessions.)”[1]

No, contrary to what we often think, the weight of Scriptures tells us that our relationship with money is at least as telling as our sexuality with regard to our relationship with God. Just consider that v. 4 (which deals with our sexuality) is followed immediately by v. 5 (which deals with our orientation toward money); this is no small thing we’re talking about this morning.

[Pray and read Hebrews 12:28-13:6 (for context)]

As we dig in to vv. 5-6, of first importance is remembering the context of the whole section. “Context is king,” my professor used to say, and it keeps us from the paths of manipulation and legalism. The context of vv. 5-6 is the same as vv. 1-4 we looked at last week; it is the context of gratitude. Before the Bible ever speaks about what we give, it speaks first of what we have already received. And in 12:28 we see that those who direct their faith toward Jesus – the final sacrifice for sin and great high priest over the house of God – have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

This is the culminating response of twelve chapters worth of deep theology and meditation on the person and work of Jesus. Far from manipulating or guilting anyone into doing anything, far from Christianity being a religion that seeks to control people through fear, the pastor means to motivate his fellow audience to worship God and love each other through the most powerful motivating force on the face of this planet; gratitude. Gratitude is what leads us into the worship of God and gratitude leads us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ (and strangers, too). And gratitude is the only thing that will transform our love affair with money into a love affair with a faithful Savior.

So, all the commands in chapter 13 are set within this context of grateful worship. They aren’t a system of rules to get you an “in” with God. The point of the first 12 chapters is that we already have an “in” by faith in the Son of God! So, life for the Christian is a life of worshipful gratitude lived out in relationship to God, others and in every sphere of life (including our finances).

It is in this context of gratitude and love that the pastor who first wrote this early Christian sermon gives two commands in v. 5. There is the command to “(k)eep your life free from love of money” and the command to “be content with what you have.” (repeat)

What does it mean to be “free from” something? It means that that thing has no power over you; no control. To be “free from” sickness means that there are no bacteria or viruses or cancers attacking your body. To be “free from” enemy occupation means they are no longer in control; liberation has come.

So, what does it mean to be “free from the love of money?” To live that way means that money would exercise no control over you; it would mean that money has lost the power to occupy your heart and mind.

So…do you feel free from the love of money?

Do you feel free from the love of money when you see the bank statement and think, “Did we really spend that much money last month?” Do you feel free from the love of money when you wonder if you’ll be able to pay all of your bills this month? When the idea of living a “lesser lifestyle” gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach?

No, far from feeling free from the love of money, I often love it more than I’d like to admit. But to be more specific, if you are like me, it is often what money gets us that we really love. To put it in the context of Hebrews, money has the capacity to show us what we actually worship. Another pastor put it like this, “It’s easy to give money to your real god.”[2]

Think about it. Why can it be so hard to part with $30/month for Compassion International (supporting a single child in poverty) and be so easy to spend $30/week eating out? Why can it be so hard to cut a check for someone else’s need and so easy to swipe the card when I want a new shirt? It’s because my functional god is often pleasure from food or the feeling of newness and the approval of others that comes with that new shirt. We love money not for money in and of itself, but because money gets us what we really love. It gets us a sense of security if our accounts are large enough. It gets us the house in which we worship our god called “comfort.” Money allows us to influence people or influence ministries as we worship power and control. Money buys the clothes that make us desirable and wanted.

It’s not as if I can blame money itself for all of this. The Scriptures only speak of money and wealth as a blessing. It’s a good thing God gives to be used well for His glory and the good of others. So, if money itself isn’t the problem, I’m left with the difficult reality that the problem is…me.

I am the problem. My heart isn’t free from the love of money. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. The love of money has the power to enslave us and occupy our minds like a hostile force. And if the love of money enslaves us, then it is foolish to believe what I often do believe – if I just get more of it, then problems will wash away in an ocean of green. My heart agrees with the man who was asked how much money was enough money. John D. Rockefeller, a man who had more money than I’ve got, answered, “Just a little bit more.”[3]

So, if my heart is the problem, if the love of money is so persistent and powerful, then we need to talk about the danger of remaining enslaved to it.

Hebrews tells us that our faith in Christ sets us on a journey to the City of God. The Christian life is a pilgrim life. We walk with our eyes fixed on Jesus, our sacrifice and faithful high priest. But the love of money diverts our eyes and our worship. The love of money actually has the power to cause our pilgrim walk to diverge away from our profession of faith because the love of money is the love of a different god; it is an expression of the very unbelief Hebrews has warned us against. The love of money sits like a weight on us as we try to walk and slows us on our journey. And left unchecked, the love of money can make a pilgrim abandon the City of God and put down roots in the quicksand of comfort or pleasure or power.

If you feel the power of the love of money at work in you like I do, if you realize the dangerous consequence of continuing in that love of a false god, if you grieve over the lingering presence of the love of money, then where is there room for hope in all of this? How to we escape the power of our own affections?

There is hope as we remember that this command to keep ourselves free from the love of money comes only at the end of Hebrews, after the pastor has told us of the God who came in the flesh to rescue weak, grasping, money-loving people like us. The Gospel is our hope because it says Jesus loves us more than money or pleasure or power and he gives us himself to satisfy our every need.

This is where we must come all the way around to where we began, because the love of money will always enslave us until gratitude begins to replace grasping, until we recognize that what we have in Christ is greater wealth than “all the treasures of Egypt” (to quote chapter 11:26). This is what we call “the expulsive power of a new affection,”[4] when love for our faithful Savior begins to drive out our love for money.

And that “driving out” is exactly what the pastor aims to do in v. 5. We’ve seen the command he gives there; “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have….” But see where he goes from there? When he says, “be content with what you have,” he elaborates and reminds his brothers and sisters what they already have. For, he adds, “he [God] has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” The reason why you and I can increasingly live free from the love of money is because God has given us something greater than money that meets our needs in a way that money never can. He has given us Himself, fully, eternally, unchangeably! He has given Himself to us in His Son, Jesus, and in him we already have everything that money promises but never delivers. In Jesus, we have security. He (not money) is the one to whom we “hold fast…as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:18-19). In Jesus we have the approval of the One whose approval counts. By faith in Christ we are commended (Hebrews 11:2) by God as pleasing to Him; He approves without the clothes or cars men need to see! In Jesus we are promised the pleasures awaiting pilgrims in the City of God. In Jesus is the assurance of a clean conscience and the hope of a restored relationship with God the Father and with one another.

And all this is guaranteed with His promise – “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” The word “leave” there also carries the meaning of “unfasten,” so that we hear God saying to us, “I will never unfasten from you nor will I leave you behind.” Can money keep that promise to us?

This promise of God means that as you seek to travel lightly on your way to the City of God – free from the love of money and strengthened by gratitude – because you have as a traveling partner the Lord Himself. This is the very promise of Christ who said “…I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). It is the promise of the Holy Spirit, who will continue to convict us when we follow other loves, including money, and lead us back to the faithful Savior who died for wandering hearts like ours.

And if we believe the Gospel, learning to hope more in the promise of God’s presence than in the promises of wealth, then we will be empowered to walk differently in this world. Not only will we be more and more freed from the love of money (for that, to be sure, is a process), but we will also be empowered to speak confidently in every situation the words in v. 6 – “So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”

This may sound to some like a simplistic statement. It might sound like an excuse to go out and spend recklessly, expecting the Lord to pick up the tab. I see this, however, as an expression of trust that puts more confidence in Christ than money (or any of the things that money can get for us). I hear in this statement the grateful embrace of the new reality won by Christ for us (and so fully explained in the first twelve chapters of Hebrews). It is the grateful heart that confidently says, “Money cannot set me free because Christ already has. He is mine and I am his.”

Think about how radical an idea that would have been in the first century of the church as Christians sought to live as followers of Christ in a Roman culture of intense competition. Money was your way up the ladder. It bought friends and power and pleasure. And think, too, about the context in which this sermon to these early Christians was written. These were Christians soon to suffer for their faith. And in the face of persecution, when these followers of Christ faced death for their faith, money could be a source of hope. It could win the sympathy of the judge; it could cause a soldier’s eye to be blind long enough for you to escape. Even back then, money promised life. It could rescue you if you only grasped for it and obtained it at any cost!

The love of money was as dangerous for our brothers and sisters back then as it is for us today. To set our hope on money and all that money gets for us it to walk away from Christ and the City of God. Jesus meant what he said in Matthew 6:24; “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

But to set our hope on Christ…to hear about what he has already done and already given us – cleansing from sin; restoration into the service of the living God; a kingdom that cannot be shaken – all that he has given begins to redirect my love of money because a greater love, fueled by gratitude, is replacing it. The Gospel redirects my love from money to Jesus, from the false god to the true God, who loves and gives himself to people like me.

We don’t have time to work through a complete theology of money here. This is just part of the foundation and only one small part of what the Bible has to say about money and generosity and how were supposed to use money to worship our God and Savior. But I hope that you’ve heard in all of this that Jesus did not come to manipulate our giving but the free it; to free us from the control of money so that we can freely give with grateful hearts.

I think this is the point where I’m supposed to tell you to give to our capital campaign or something like that. We don’t have one. But let me go back to the text point out a couple of things.

I made the point that the call to “be content with what you have” (v.5) is essentially a call to hold fast to the promise of God that He has given us Himself in Jesus, the Son. That is true. But we also need to hear in that the more general call to be content with the good things God has given to us and learn the difference between “want” and “need.”

And we need to hold all this together with vv. 2-3 of this chapter, where we are called to show hospitality to strangers and to remember those who are in prison and mistreated. The only way to do those things well is to be freed more and more from the love of money. As we recognize the reckless generosity of God toward us by giving us His Son, we’ll be more and more empowered to live out a reckless generosity toward those around us, using whatever God had given us for the good of others, rather than merely worshiping our own gods of pleasure or comfort or control.

Second, gratitude to God is supposed to be a visible gratitude. The call of 13:1 is to “let brotherly love continue,” meaning that our grateful love for God is lived out horizontally with one another as well as vertically in worship toward God. There are a number of ministries out there who seek to spread the Gospel of Jesus to the world and supporting them is a beautiful expression of brotherly love, even hospitality, as they work to turn strangers to Christ into your new brothers and sisters in Him. If you feel led to give more than you’ve given before, then see the bulletin boards and some of the ministries highlighted there.

But whether you have wealth or don’t have any at all, the call for each of us is the same. “Keep yourself free from love of money, and be content with what you have.” What we have are the promises of God in Christ. Though they may not feel as heavy in our hands as a stack of cash, they strengthen us and let us travel lightly, as pilgrims ought, all the way to the City of God where Christ is, our faithful Savior who gave everything to get the one thing he had to have – us.

[Pray – Father, You know the time in history in which you have set us. You know the power of the love of money because your Son was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. We praise him for his faithfulness to worship you and hold fast to you, shunning the temptation of comfort and pleasure and power so that he might serve as our faithful high priest and become the perfect sacrifice for us. Thank you, Father, for your word that tells us of the mercy and grace given to us by faith in Jesus. With grateful hearts we worship you and ask that you would continue redirecting our love away from money and toward your Son. We know that money can never satisfy our hearts, but Jesus is enough for us. With that gratitude growing, Father, grant that we might be content with what we have and be willing, whenever you call and lead, to give generously to those who ask. And use our time and money and our very lives, to get glory for yourself and build your kingdom, Father. We ask it in the name of Jesus, your Son whom you gave for us. Amen.]

[1] Richard B. Hayes, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 381.

[2] Rev. Greg Johnson in a sermon on 1 Timothy 6:3-19 entitled “Money and Freedom” from November 11, 2012. Available through Memorial Presbyterian Church’s website: http://www.memorialpca.org/Resources/Sermons/

[3] http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/John_D._Rockefeller

[4] A phrase coined by Thomas Chalmers in his sermon of that title, which can be found at http://www.monergism.com/Chalmers,%20Thomas%20-%20The%20Exlpulsive%20Power%20of%20a%20New%20Af.pdf