A Biblical Priority
We are to love God's Word and His will
more than any of our earthly possessions.
Here now is Gene to explain:
In this particular psalm, we see the last
two verses really underscoring the
biblical statements that give us
this particular Principle.
It's the psalmist's priorities.
And he says:
Since I love Your commandments
more than gold, even the purest gold,
I carefully follow all Your precepts
and hate very false way.
When you look at that little descriptive statement,
"even the purest gold."
This is something that in most cultures
of the world, people will identify
because this concept of gold is used
to illustrate integrity, compassion,
generosity, goodness, excellence, the best.
In fact if you think about our culture today,
we have a lot of little phrases like
"going for the gold."
Where does that come from?
Well because gold is very significant.
I struck gold.
And people who say "I struck gold" are
talking about something great.
I struck gold.
That person has a golden voice.
Everything he touches turns to gold.
And there of course, it's really focusing
in on material things.
And I found this particular quote,
which I think really helps us to
summarize the significance of
this concept of gold
as being compared with Scripture.
And it reads this way:
Gold has a symbolic value and a
psychological appeal that stretches
across the cultures of history.
Gold is a common metaphor in many
of the world's languages.
As a metaphor, it points to what
is superlative in all things human.
Indeed, gold symbolizes what is purest,
most excellent, most noble, most enduring,
most sought after, most ideal,
and most valued in terms of human aspirations,
human behaviour [behavior],
and human relationships.
So when the psalmist talks about
the Word of God
and compares it with the purest of gold.
You have an incredible metaphor
to describe the wonder of God's revelation.
So when we look at this verse once again:
Since I love Your commandments more than gold,
even the purest gold, I carefully follow all
Your precepts and hate every false way.
Which is the opposite, of course, of what
God says in His Word.
So as you back off of this,
you could paraphrase,
I think in an interesting way.
In other words, we could put it this way:
If I loved gold more than God's commands,
I would follow the way of materialism
and resent God's precepts.
In other words, the two are incompatible
as far as the Word of God is concerned.
Now the Bible says a lot about material things.
I mean, there's just no question about it.
In fact on one occasion, when I was still
a full time pastor,
I met with a group of my men--elders.
And we were challenged just because of what
was happening in the culture generally
to take a look at what the Bible says
about material possessions.
So we began in the book of Acts.
Worked all the way through the book of Acts.
Looking at every reference on material possessions.
We went into the letters that
were written to the churches
as a result of the activity in the book of Acts.
Including what Paul also wrote, let's say
to Titus and to Timothy--
who were founding these churches and
establishing these churches.
And then we went back and went
all the way through the gospels.
In the light of what we see in the book of Acts
and the epistles through church-planting.
To see how Jesus dealt with this subject
before the church was born.
And then to top it off, we went all the way
back to the book of Genesis.
Went all the way through the book of Malachi
looking at every reference in the Bible
to material possessions.
Now in this study, we've been looking
at Principles to Live By.
Well the fact is that we found what we
felt were at least--even more than
a hundred principles in the Scriptures that deal
with our material possessions.
So the conclusion that we came to is
that God says more about material possessions
than any other subject than Himself.
Now that says this is a very important concept.
And of course, it correlates here with
what the psalmist says when
he compares purest gold
in relationship to the Scriptures.
And obviously the focus in this passage
really zeroes in on material things.
The concept of purest gold applies to
many, many different things in life
as that metaphor is used.
But more than any one thing, it relates
back to what we call the gold standard.
Or to what everything is measured by
in relationship to material possessions.
And so it's a powerful metaphor.
And Jesus actually spoke to this issue
because the question is:
As Christians, how can we live as God
wants us to live in relationship to our
material possessions, which are
very important in this life?
Well this is what Jesus said:
No one can be a slave of two maters,
since either he will hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot be slaves of God and of money.
Now what He does is He really
presents a dichotomy here.
But the key to the dichotomy
and to balance is realizing, on the one hand
He's saying we cannot be a slave
to material things and put God first.
The two are incompatible.
And once we really put God first,
and we're servants of God.
Then we cannot be servants of money
or material things.
And obviously if we put God first, a lot
is going to happen
in relationship to how we deal with money.
And that works out in a very unique way
when we take those verses seriously.
Now here's a Reflection and Response question
and it relates to what we've just
been talking about here.
And what the psalmist has stated:
How can we meet our physical needs
and even accumulate material things
while not violating God's will?
The Scriptures do not teach us that
it's wrong to accumulate material things.
In fact the Scriptures are filled with
illustrations of people who accumulated
a lot of wealth.
We see it in the Old Testament.
We see it even in the New Testament
with men like Barnabas--
a very wealthy businessman.
We see it in the life of Philemon.
I think we see it in Aquila and Priscilla
who definitely were a couple that were
very successful in their material things.
And there are many other illustrations of that.
So how can we balance that out and still
be obedient to what God says?
What Jesus said
in terms of our priorities?
And it is a matter of priorities.
Because Jesus went on to say
in Matthew 6:33:
But seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things
will be provided for you.
In other words, there you have
the concept of priority.
It's the priority in our life.
It's who we really serve.
And if we're serving God then the
material things that God gives us will fall
into a natural place in those priorities.
If we are serving material possessions
then God goes off from the center.
Who knows where He ends up in terms
of our thinking.
So it's a matter of priorities.
And that's a very important concept
and Principle to Live By.
There's a very interesting sequel
to what I just shared
about the study that we did as a group of men.
In fact, I have a copy of that book that
I wrote as a result of that study.
And it's called "A Biblical Theology
of Material Possessions."
And of course, it's pretty thick
because there's an awful lot in the
Bible about material possessions.
Now I called it a biblical theology
because a biblical theology means you
follow the unfolding story of Scripture
to get at basic truths that are absolute--
that should guide our thinking.
Systematic theology is a result of that process.
Where you go through the process then
you systematize what God says.
This basically follows the unfolding of
the story and the Principles that emerge.
Well the sequel to the story basically
relates to a fire
that was set by an arsonist in our offices.
And in reconstructing that fire,
it began in my office
and spread to four other offices.
That is the arsonist put accelerants
in four other locations.
And took out our whole office complex--
about 50 offices for our church.
Which was called Fellowship Bible Church North.
And we lost about 17 pastors' libraries
as a result of that fire.
I lost my total library as well.
In fact, on one occasion after the fire,
my wife and I were able to go in to the building.
Several days had passed.
And everything had settled down
in terms of the fire.
And the ashes had cooled.
And we were able to put on hard hats
and go up and take a look at what had happened.
And I remember, Elaine and I walked
into what was my office.
And there was nothing left but huge beams.
I mean huge beams
that had gotten so hot that they were
actually waving down this way--
were bent.
And the metal partitions were
just hanging there.
Nothing was left.
I had a beautiful desk.
It was a pile of ashes.
I had a credenza,
a wooden credenza--it was gone.
All of the books in my library were gone.
And as I looked at that I was kind of curious.
Because on my credenza
I had a gift that was given to me
when I was ministering in Brazil.
It was a metal sculpture of Moses.
It was a beautiful sculpture.
And actually was done by one of the
most significant and accomplished
metal sculpturists in all of Brazil.
And it was given to me as a gift.
And I told Elaine, I said: I wonder,
just wonder, if maybe that could have survived.
And so I took a big old scoop shovel.
And I took that scoop shovel
and I just dug in to where all of the
books would have come down in ashes.
And it's very interesting what I discovered.
Now before I tell you what I discovered,
there were three books that survived.
And these two books,
actually the fire was so strong
and the winds blowing through,
that these two books were taken off the shelves
and out the windows.
Because the windows broke in the
heat of the fire.
And one of them that survived was Elijah.
A book I wrote called
"Remaining Steadfast through Uncertainty."
Kind of funny now, huh?
You look back.
And yet I thought: You know, that's
an interesting message--
remaining steadfast through uncertainty.
In fact it reminds me of when I was
actually standing outside the fire,
looking up at the building.
And one of the reporters from one of
the major news networks was there.
And put a mic in front of me and said:
Pastor Getz, what do you do at a time like this?
As I watched the building on fire,
and my office,
and all I could do was quote
Romans 8:28: You know--
all things work together for good
to those who love the Lord.
But then interestingly, there was
another book that blew out the window
called "The Grace of Giving" by Stephen Olford.
A wonderful, godly man who's now with Jesus.
But as I took that scoop shovel.
Remembering there's nothing there except ashes.
I turned it over and there was a copy of this book.
Here's what it looked like.
A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions.
The only book that survived right
there in that fire.
And I remember saying to Elaine:
God has a sense of humor.
It was like God saying:
Gene, do you really believe what you wrote?
So here's the Principle.
Let me state it:
We are to love God's Word and His will
more than any of our earthly possessions.