Greed

So, it is good to be here. It felt so good this morning. 60 degrees for the high. Oh, that feels so good when you're down in Florida, and it's 60 for the low in your winter time. So, it is nice to be back up here.

So, we were able to spend our Thanksgiving with Mary's family. They actually came down to St. Petersburg. So, we only had to drive three hours to meet them, and then we came on up here. So, with that said, I look at my watch.

I can't believe that's the quietest I've ever heard you on a sermon or a Sabbath day, Gary. Is he sick? No. Okay, I just had to know, because I've never known Gary to be short of. It's good to see the Morgans that I haven't seen in a while, and the Earls who came up here. They didn't have anything else better to do than to come there. So, well, let's start this sermon.

The title of my sermon today is Greed. Greed. I'd like you to consider today the depth of that word, and not just perhaps what you think it means or your perception of it, because I want to go and look at the word greed, the definition of the word greed, and maybe take you down a road you hadn't thought about before, because I had never looked at it that way as I went into study this.

So, I would like to ask you the question first off, what are you greedy with? What are you greedy with? So, in case you have any English teachers out there, my syntax is what I want it to be, because I hear that occasionally. You ever get that, Gary, where somebody goes, did you know you ended this sentence with a preposition? You do get that. I don't feel so bad now. So, what are you greedy with? And this isn't a sermon on the 10th commandment about coveting, but I would like to, as a beginning, look at what most of us perceive as the definition of greed and how that ties so much to that 10th commandment.

But think about it, that 10th commandment, as Jesus Christ talked about some of the commandments on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. What is the spirit of the law of the 10th commandment? Have you thought about it? Because he talked about murder, and then he brings the angle of anger in and touches on that. Well, what is the purpose? Let me put it another way. What was the intent, or what is the intent for us on the 10th commandment?

Why did God give that 10th commandment and want us to not only keep the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law? And what would that spirit of the law be? The intent that I believe God had, and most of you, I think, will agree to that, is the intent is to make us more like him and his Son. And that comes through the spirit of the law. So if the intent is to make us more like God, and God is not greedy, hope I prove that point today, what is the opposite of greed?

To give. And can you think of any greater giver, as Gary even talked about, thanksgiving and the blessings we enjoy? God doesn't covet, he doesn't need to. He wants us not to. We all do. Some way, shape, or form. We have to look at it. It may be the 10th, but we also need to visit that, don't we? But the opposite of greed is to give, and our God and our Savior are the greatest givers. And I believe that is the intent of that commandment.

What comes to mind when you think of the word greedy? I flash back. Some of you, thankfully, are as old or even older than I am. Hardly anybody's old as Gary Beam. But I flash back to television growing up in the 60s, and there was Beverly Hillbillies. Did anybody ever see that show besides myself? Okay, most of you have. And there was this banker. You can barely see him there. Remember the banker? His name was Milburn Drysdale, and he was greedy. He loved money. And of course, the Beverly Hillbillies.

Well, there he is. And you can see he's loving his money right there in that picture. But I flash back to a show I saw one time, and Milburn Drysdale comes into the bank, and he had Mrs. Jane, his assistant, or whatever. He walks in, and his head's down, and he said, I'm very depressed. I've got this, you know, I've got this problems, and these things come up, and everything. And she says, okay, I've got everything prepared for you. And so she opens this huge vault, and there is money just everywhere. And so what does he do? He walks into that vault, and he goes, and he looks around, and all of a sudden his smile comes on his face.

And he comes back, and he walks down, and he says, thanks, I needed that. His whole nature was changed because he was around what he coveted the most, money. And so it's easy to relate to that when I was younger, that TV show, but there are those who even go back longer than I go back. Even in the 50s, there was a TV show called the Jack Benny show. Anybody ever see that? Oh, I didn't know you were that old. Yes, there are people. And Jack Benny was known to be so tight as a character.

I mean, he was greedy. He just couldn't stand to let a penny get out of his hand, and that was part of his shtick for the show. And on one show, I showed him walking down the street, just not paying attention. All of a sudden, this guy walks out with a gun and says, your money or your life? And he looks at him, and he goes, did you hear me? Your money or your life?

And Jack Benny goes, I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Because he couldn't imagine his life without money. And so, those are some of the things we think about with greed. In the 80s, there was a character who became known for his greed. And it was Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street, and he played the character Gordon Gekko. Did anybody ever see Wall Street? There are a few there. Gordon Gekko. And Gordon Gekko had this saying of what? Greed is good. Greed is good. And it showed all the stuff that he would do, legally and mostly illegally, to have money or to have wealth. And so, we related that to greed. Matter of fact, there was even song by Pink Floyd. And if you remember it, money.

Well, that wasn't much money. We may not go through, Matt. But most of you remember. There we go, Matt. Yep.

Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today. The lines of the song. We know they took that from 1 Timothy 6. Then they changed the word because the Scripture says the love of money is the root of evil. The Bare Naked Ladies group had a song, If I Had a Million Dollars. It became very popular in the United States in the 90s. If I Had a Million Dollars, it tells what they would do if they had a million dollars. And then today, many of you, have any of you heard of Mr. Beast? Mr. Beast, there's a few. Yes, Mr. Beast is about money. He gives a lot of money away. He gets a lot of money. And so every generation has had a picture or sounds of the love of money, whether it comes from Wall Street. There was a survey of young people. They were in the sixth grade, and they asked them what they wanted to be. And half the class said, I want to be a billionaire. Not a millionaire, but a billionaire, because millionaires don't mean that much anymore. But they want to be billionaires. So what is our thought about it? You know, the Bible talks a lot about greed, doesn't it? It gives us example of greedy people. So who comes to your mind or in your opinion is a greediest person in the verses in the Bible. Anybody have someone that comes to mind? Well, you're a quiet group here. Solomon? Well, he gave him money. He didn't ask for it, but it also ruined him, didn't it?

Judas! Yes, where's my money? He sold at the Messiah. Judas, those the only two? Anybody who? Satan? Yes, his merchandising, trading, whatever he did when those scriptures, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Who? Balaam! Ah, very good! Balaam! He's going to do whatever he had to do, keep his money. How could I do this and do this? And you talk about somebody that was sly when it came to trying to do what God wants to do, but also get rich by it. Anybody else? Say that too. Oh, Simon the Sorcerer, the magician, very good, Simon Magus. He didn't want money, did he? He wanted what? By the Holy Spirit. He's power. He wanted power. He'd never seen such a thing. Oh, was he ever greedy for that? Yes. Anybody else? That's Simon. Balaam.

Ah, you listened to my brother-in-law's sermon last week. I'll tell him someone wasn't asleep, that's what I can tell him. Yes, Nabal, who wasn't about to give David anything, thankfully his wife saved his life for just for a little while. Anybody else? The only ones? Ah, Gahazi. Very good. Elisha's servant, that the general came and took a bath and was healed of leprosy and wanted to pay. Elisha goes, hmm, don't want your money. And then his servant follows him out. Ah, yeah, why don't you give me this? Yeah, I'll take this. Achan, remember him? Moses remembered him well. So, we've covered quite a few greedy examples in the Bible. So, I'd like to look at, if you will go with me, I'll be using the New Living Translation. Like you go with me to Proverbs, because as the one brought up about Solomon, as Matt did, Solomon tried to write some words to his sons, sons, and try to keep them on the straight and narrow. And I think this lays it out pretty well. Let's go Proverbs 1 verse 10. It said, My child, if sinners entice you, turn your back on them. They may say, Come and join us. Let's hide and kill someone. Hmm. Just for fun, let's ambush the innocent. Let's swallow them alive like the grave. Let's swallow them whole, like those who go down to the pit of death. Think of the great things we'll get. We'll fill our houses with all the stuff we take. Come, throw in your lot with us, and we'll share all the loot. My child, don't go along with them. Stay away from their path. They rush to commit evil deeds. They hurry to commit murder. If a bird sees a trap being set in, it knows to stay away. But these people set an ambush for themselves. They are trying to get themselves killed. Such is the fate of all who are greedy for cha-ching money. It robs them of life. I go back to where I grew up in Tennessee. The only thing we had to do when I was a teenager out in the country was haul hay. See, the only way we got any money, I remember, is a dollar-quarter an hour. Being the hot sun throwing up bales of hay. We would go around to different farmers and try to get a job. I remember these two boys, they got a job after me. I got a job and another guy got a job there. These two boys wanted to haul hay, but he said, no, I've got plenty. Don't need them. He was an older guy. He had this real nice house back then and a lot of farmland. Probably had a few hundred acres and, hey, I was there for a couple weeks. I liked him, but when he paid me, it was like he just reached his park and rolled out this big wad of cash. Thousands of dollars. He kept in his old bibbed overalls. About six weeks later, two of those boys that wanted to haul hay joined just a few-year-old uncle and they went to rob him of his money.

They got to the house and couldn't find it. Then the man comes up and his wife and he wouldn't give him the money. They ended up killing both of them. The two boys, along with the one who pulled the trigger, got sent to prison for many years. I think about this because I knew them. They were not just evil young guys, but you can throw yourself in with the wrong light. I'm sure the guy told them how much money because everybody knew the guy was pulling out a lot of money. I remember them getting sentenced to prison. I think they got the death penalty and they put him to death. The one who pulled the trigger. The other two spent a good part of their life in prison. If they've read this book, they might have seen this was their story right here in Proverbs 1 because they were enticed by it. The school of Ecclesiastes 5. Ecclesiastes 5, verse 10 and 11 said, those who love money will never have enough. When is enough enough? If you're rich, you want to be a millionaire. If you're a millionaire, you want to be a billionaire. Now they're talking about in this country who's going to be the first trillion. Be musk, bezos.

How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness. The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. Boy, just imagine that. Ron, somebody hands you 100 million dollars and it gets out. I might even come knocking on your door. But you would. You'd have every uncle, every cousin. You'd have cousins you never even knew. Come knocking on the door. Why? Because they, oh, you're rich now. That's what everybody wants. The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth except, perhaps, to watch it slip through your fingers? This man knew, as Matt said, there's never been a man as rich as Solomon.

So he knew what he was speaking from. How about Christ? He even talks about it on the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6 verse 24 says, you cannot serve what?

God and money.

Because one needs to be your master. If you find out Gary Beam starts offering plates in every week because he wants either a new swimming pool for that house, or he may even say, you know, if I could have, if I got a helicopter, I could fly and be at all services, all three services in a day. That's right. See, he's already thinking, I need to... I'm meeting with Rick Shaby this week. Maybe we need to talk.

But 1 Timothy 3 and verse 3 says, a bishop, which is a shepherd, pastor, a leader in the church, does not or cannot be greedy for money. Otherwise, you're not fit for the job. So it's important. It was important to God. So we looked at these examples of various things concerning money. But I'd like to, in the time we have left, let us take money and wealth out of the picture of greed. I'd like you to think outside. Think outside of your wallets, your checking accounts, your savings accounts. Because this is so important, that's why I have this sermon, because it's so important to me, because it's tied to my eternal life and it's tied to yours. I can prove it. Go with me to Ephesians 5 and verse 5. Ephesians 5 and verse 5. Read this from the New Living Translation also. If you have a New King James, it would be similar. Ephesians 5 and verse 5 says, you can be sure that no immoral, impure, or... What's the word? Greedy. Greedy person will inherit the kingdom of God. This is big stuff. This is important stuff we're talking about. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

Eternal life is on the line.

That makes you kind of capitalize greed.

As the letters are put up about greed, they should be capitalized to us. Because it's a big deal when you can lose your eternal life.

Well, I'm just a little tight. Remember the old saying, yeah, he's so tight he squeaks. You know, when I grew up, that's how it was. Oh, I just, you know, I squeeze that nickel.

Well, it just isn't about money. I'd like you to go with me over a few pages to Colossians 3. Colossians 3 and verse 5. Colossians 3 and verse 5 says, so put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you, and they all do. We all have them. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality and purity, lust and evil desires. And then it says, don't be greedy. Don't be greedy. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Similar to what Paul told the Ephesians. And it rings true. Even 1 Corinthians 6 said, the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Well, they can't possibly be talking about me, could they? Not me. I'm not greedy. I'm a giver. Every time we kind of try to justify ourselves, we probably need to dig a little deeper. Because the Oxford dictionary defines greed as intense and selfish desire for something. Intense and selfish desire for something. Notice it didn't say money, but that's what we all think.

So I will ask some questions here.

Not just rhetorical, because hopefully this will make you think as much as I have thought about this. Because I was keeping the Feast of Tabernacles in St. Lucia this year. And I got up early mornings and would take a walk on the beach and do my prayer. And there were not very many people on the beach at that time. Just the ones who were trying to do a little fishing. Others were trying to get their day together to hit up on tourists. And I came across two guys and as I was walking, one of them told the other one, give me that. Give me my share. He said, you didn't work for it. And he said, you're just greedy. And you know what happens to greedy people.

And so that was the beginning of the sermon. Because as I walked up to the mountain where I would pray, I started talking to God about being greedy. And I feel like he opened my mind to delve a little deeper into the word greed and me and Mary in our lives. So I asked the question now, are you greedy with your time? Are you greedy with your time?

We all have the same amount, don't we? We all have the same amount of time. 1440 minutes every day. 24 hours in a day.

Are you greedy with it? Raise my hand. I've been greedy with it. Man, I have worked all day. And somebody's calling and I've got to run over here and do this and this. Haven't I done enough?

I don't remember Christ saying, get those kids off my lap. I'm tired. Don't remember Christ said, I'm sorry, too tired to heal you.

Our time. Someone asked you, well, could you, would you mind helping me? Don't have the time. Could you spare just a few minutes? Nope.

How do I know it? Because I've said every one of those.

We're talking about the kingdom of God, eternal life. I think it's a little bit, it's very good I met those guys on the beach because they made me examine it. Examine myself. Another question. Are you greedy with your resources? Greedy with your resources.

Most people, and I've seen it in the Church of God, very generous. Potlucks. There's more than enough.

Matter of fact, I sometimes think you're just tempting your pastors to be gluttons. Want to see if they are because they usually smell so good.

But food. Come across that every time I'm on the road in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Because somebody's standing out on the road wanting something.

And I eat well. How do you measure it?

It's from the Holy Spirit. How about clothes? You know, I ask our churches, our two churches down in South Florida because we were sending a shipment over to Haiti. And Haiti, our brethren there. My brothers and my sisters there.

They don't have anything to be greedy with.

But I wanted to send some shoes, especially for some of the women. We have more women than men there. And I loved it because our Congress just started bringing in shoes. And I should have known, just looking at my wife's closet, that women have more shoes than they will ever wear. And so what did they do? They brought in all this stuff and I just sent them. I just got, as a matter of fact, on Thanksgiving Day, I got the picture where the boxes had finally made it. My shoes and clothes.

How about your car? Could you drive me down? Could you give me a lift?

Just got my car cleaned. Just washed it.

I don't hear that very often. And there are reasons, excuses. It has to do with time.

Are we greedy with gratefulness?

Stan Martin talked about being thankful last week at this very podium. Are we grateful for what we got? We just spent, as Gary said here, we spent Thanksgiving Day. We are blessed.

Blessed. Our table, we had two or three tables of food and just a table almost that size for just desserts. Of course, most of her family is from Alabama.

But I was thinking, wow, look at this, and then look at that, and then look at this. And then I got my text and I got my photo sent from our leader in Haiti, showing these 10 boxes, eight big boxes, and two little ones beat up. But he was just so grateful and thankful that we had sent him something. And I had to quietly just say there, thank you, God, for not having me grow up in Haiti. But that doesn't negate me from trying to make a difference for their life.

Two more. Greed areas I'd like us to consider today. I'm speaking because talking about me. Me.

Are we greedy with our love? Are we greedy with our love? They've got to earn it. Have I heard that? Got to earn it.

Can we love the unlovable? Are we too greedy? There are some people who just, they're hard to love. David Dobson and I talked about that 12, 14 years ago. Had an issue with someone and he said, Chuck, there's some people you just have to love at a distance.

And he was right. But there are people we deal with all the time that we have to show godly love. Remember, for God so loved the United Church of God.

For God so loved the world. So God calls upon Chuck to love the world. Even when I don't want to. Mary's, well, ours, but Mary uses it all the time. A dryer went out just a day before we were leaving for the feast. And so I said, well, I'll come back and I'll see if I can go replace a part and see if we can do that rather than buy a brand new one. And so I got back after the feast and we had this shop, Fort Lauderdale, Marconi, and they have every part for just about anything electrical. Just an incredible place. I'd been there before. So I was excited about, okay, they'll give me the part or they'll check this. So I walk in and this guy meets me and he goes, what do you need? Well, I'd like to see about a part. I want to see if I can get a part so I can do this. Hey, guys, well, I just tell you, first thing off, we don't take parts back. Okay, so if you buy it here, you're gonna, you know, you try it and it doesn't work, you can't bring it back. Okay, would you have my part? What's the brand name? I says, G. He said, let me set up the model number. So I handed him them up. He said, I don't think, now we don't have this. We don't have any, oh, I can order it for you. It'd be six, eight weeks. I said, oh, well, no, that's not gonna work. And I wanted to say, go look! I know I did! Go look!

I'd never seen the gal before, and I'd been in there a couple of times. And, you know, I was, I just turned around and walk out, and this young lady walks over from behind the counter, and she goes, can I help you? And I said, I think he's helped me all I need. And she goes, are you looking starter or this starter button or one of these others? She said, I believe we have those. Let me go back and check. And she came back, and she got me this little starter button. And I said, what about, there's only two other parts that could possibly, she goes, yeah, but the ones, it's not worth it if I get that part, because you could buy, that's half the cost of a machine, and you can't be guaranteed of anything. She said, why don't you take this one and try it? She said, you can't take it back, but it's only like, you know, twelve dollars. It's worth it. I said, well, thank you. And I paid it. I wanted to look over at that guy so bad. I did. It was just like, and I was going to go. You know, there are people who make it difficult to love. But that's why we're here. That's why we're called to make a difference in the world today. It's not just about preaching the gospel. It's being a light. It's being salt. It's like this is what God wants us to do.

So think about loving the unlovable, because there's plenty of them out there. Now, maybe in Alabama, you may not have as many as we have in Florida. For the Alabama fans, that means loving Auburn fans. Auburn fans mean loving Alabama, even if they destroy you today.

Are you greedy with forgiveness? Are you greedy with forgiveness? Hmm. Because it's easy for us to say they don't deserve it. That person doesn't deserve my forgiveness. They've never asked for my forgiveness.

They're just a pain. And worse than that.

1991 years ago, our elder brother hung on a piece of wood and said, forgive them, Father. They don't know what they are doing.

What an example to us. What an incredible example to us. Forgiveness is very hard for most of us. Because are we greedy with it? Or can we be like God? See, Christ was not greedy.

No, we can't be either, because we're to live like Him.

And that's difficult.

He wasn't greedy with one single solitary thing.

Matter of fact, He says, I have the power to take it up. I have the power laid down. He had the power to walk away from being tortured to death.

He wasn't that greedy. Our God, Father God, He's not greedy. To make the case, He gave His only begotten Son, as it says. The one thing He loved the most, He gave away.

But there's one thing I have to think about every day. Every day in my prayers. I am so thankful that God is not greedy with His mercy. I need His mercy. We all need His mercy every day. And so, matter of fact, that's one of the descriptions of Him. That's one of His names, is His merciful God. Can we be like that? I hope so. I'm working on it. I've just got a long way to go. Because I look at that example. I need to be as merciful to other people as God is to me.

Otherwise, I don't know that I'm fit for the kingdom of God.

God gave us agape, godly love, the greatest love of all.

That's a giving God, not a greedy God. There's nothing that the Holy Spirit can't accomplish.

Last but not least, are we greedy with God and the time we give Him? Are we? Because that's easy to do. God set my alarm because I got to be up at work, so, uh, God, God, I don't have time to say amen. I'm out of here.

Bible study of God, I can only give you about 10 minutes today. Cars got a flat tire.

See, we have the opportunity to show God. We have the opportunity for God to see, are we becoming more like Him or less like Him?

He could see how much we really do love Him with our time, our study, our prayer, serving other people. I had a woman, just what, a couple weeks ago? Two weeks ago, maybe, maybe? I got a call from someone in West Virginia, some member of the church, and she said that a woman that, which, probably 68, 70 years old now, no, 70 something, wasn't she Mary? 76, 78, something like that. She went to school with, and she had cancer, and she just found out she had cancer. And she had been talking to her, and she didn't really have any real religion, but wondered if she had talked to her and said, we have a minister down there in our church. Would you mind if he came over and anointed you? And the woman said, fine. And she said, would you mind going by? And anointed her. She said, I don't. My religion is probably not. She said, do you guys do that? I said, would Christ do it? And she goes, I think He would. I said, then that's what we do. I said, it doesn't matter how many healed more people that were not in the church or followed than followed. I said, yes, I'd love to meet her. Mary and I drove up before services, because it was three hours away, wasn't it? It was three hours from home. I went in and just incredibly nice lady who had no idea she didn't have a Bible.

And I felt good after leaving her house that I anointed her, told her, I didn't know if God would heal her, eventually would, whether it's in the kingdom or whether it's now, it's His. But I want you to know you have hope, because you turned to the right source. You came to the own resource.

She was so thankful, very touchy.

I don't say that because of me. It's just some, Gary's done the same thing. But what if you called to do something like that? Would you drive two hours to pray with somebody? Because the more this world progresses on a downward spiral, more people in your lives are going to need help. And you have the source. Are you willing to share it?

Do you examine for idols in your midst? Do you love something so much you cannot share or give it away? That's for you to examine, because only you and God know that. What are you greedy with? It may not be about money. So let us become like our Abba Father, who is the opposite of greedy. Nothing, nothing can be said about God. And His Son, and our destiny, other than let us become givers.