Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to the Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us.
Charlie Loften: Hey, good morning. If you're new, I'm Charlie. I'm the lead pastor here and really glad you're worshiping with us today. And if you are new, I'd love to be able to talk to you and meet you, and I'll be there in the back after the service. Our small groups, Pastor Mark will be there as well.
We'd just love to meet you. I have a gift that we can give you. We'd love to get your information. We can keep you updated on what's going on here at the church. Either way, we would love to meet you back there.
Charlie Loften: And I also want to join
Charlie Loften: in with Ty and just thank you guys for everybody who was here yesterday, kind of helping kind of get the church cleaned up and just kind of do some repair works. As soon as I walked in, it was night and day difference. Wish I could have been here with you yesterday, but there's a nonprofit. I'm on their board, and it was an annual meeting. I was in Dallas most of the weekend.
But anyways, what you guys did yesterday was incredible, and thank you guys so much. We're in the middle now of a series called Off Ramps. So we're just kind of looking at what are some of these things that just kind of make people slowly drift away from their faith? Very rarely is it where one point somebody is like a very committed believer, and then at one point the very next day, it's like, I don't want to do that anymore. There are theological things.
There are practical things. There's all sorts of reasons why people just kind of start a slow drift away from faith and one day wake up a year, five years, ten years in the future, and their life is radically different than what they thought it was going to be. And so what we want to do is just kind of talk about some of these things, and maybe just try to cut some of this off before it gets going too far. We start off by talking about busyness, where just kind of filling our lives with all of these things, all these different sorts of things can kind of distract us and keep us from the things that are the most important. And last week, we started talking about money.
And we're going to do that again today because I think there are two different ways that money can get us. But pause that for a second. In the next two weeks after that, we're going to spend some time talking about sex. And I bring that up because one of the things we always talk about in connections is that if you come, if you invite a friend, you never have to worry that we're going to do something weird like, hey, stand up and hug a stranger or like, dude, no snakes, no weird things, we're not going to do anything weird. If But we ever do anything that might be considered slightly out of the ordinary, we will tell you.
So we're talking about sex, and so that may mean you want to get here early, or it may mean you don't want to come at all. Mean, it's totally up to you. And kind of with sex and with money, I really do feel like there's two different ways that these issues can get us. Like last week with money, we talked about how just an overwhelming fear and anxiety about it can just become a huge distraction to the point to where we just bury our head in the sand and don't pay attention and it kills us, or we become so anxious, we become a hoarder. And even though we're not trying to be greedy, we're just so consumed by fear that it still becomes an obsession.
But on the other hand, with money, not just fear of it, just I love it too much. Really, there's no other way to say it. It can become a distraction. The common word is greed. I become very possessive or obsessive around money.
And as I was thinking about this today, this story just kind of popped into my head. And this is an old story. This is back when I was in high school. And a friend of mine, he's a longtime friend. I've been known him.
I've known him my whole life, and we were headed, and this was a big deal from Eldorado. We're heading up to Little Rock to go to Wild River Country. Come on now. Come on. In the eighties, man, I mean, like, they were like the fact that Arkansas now had a water park, that was a big deal.
And his aunt was going to take us, and we're going to have a great time. And my friend here, he was the third. And so I knew his dad, and his dad was the junior, but this was I was meeting his granddad. His aunt was taking us, but we're meeting up at his granddad's house. And as he was getting ready for us to go, was like, oh, I guess you guys are going to need some money.
And he pulls out his wallet, and he opens up his wallet, and there are multiple $100 bills. And I'm like, woah, I don't know that I'd ever seen that. Maybe I had seen one $100 bill before, but to open up a wallet and have a whole bunch, I'm like, man, okay. All right, we're doing something here today. So he gave the money to his daughter, and we went.
And I remember later that evening maybe or the next day, was talking to my mom about it. I was like, man, my friend I was like, my friend is your granddad's house? And he had this wife. He had these 100 bills in there. And my mom, she got really defensive at that point.
I mean, we didn't have a lot, but she got real defensive. She got real defensive. We could do that too if we wanted to. I could go to the bank and get $100 bill, put them in. It's not in fact, he was probably doing that.
He's probably doing that to try to impress you. And pops into my head. It's like, think about that thirty plus years later. That'd be a weird thing to do. Right?
Like, Okay, I know my grandson is coming over, and he's bringing his friends. You know what I want to do? I don't need to impress this 15 year old kid, right? I I want to put some Hyundies in my wallet. I don't want to fan it out for him, right?
But on the other hand, man, you could people are capable of anything. Like, have there's nothing that surprises me anymore, right? But there's we kind of got three different people here in this story. There's me who just kind of gets wide eyed about it. You got this guy who, at a minimum, does not mind flashing hundreds at a kid he doesn't know.
And then my mom and the reaction that she has to it. And there is this power. There's this power that money has. In and of itself, it is just simply an inanimate object. It's paper.
It's metal. It's coins. It's bills. It's nothing. But our attitudes about it give it this sort of power that can just overwhelm it us.
And I know for sure that this can be a really touchy subject. We get really, really defensive,
Charlie Loften: and we're just kind of
Charlie Loften: working our way through more and more sensitive topics going from, hey, man, some of you probably spend way too much of your time doing things that aren't productive and are distracting you. Hey, some of you guys don't have a great attitude about money, and then we're transitioning from that to sex. And we're just kind of going through these topics that we can just get really defensive about. What are you saying? What are you saying about me?
I'm like, we're just I think we're just talking here. But I think there is this real sensitivity to it. And this actually came to me this morning In the era of little short videos, TikTok videos, Instagram reels, or whatever, one of the things that will hook me every time, and I promise you, will make me cry every time. Have you ever seen it where the little babies who can't see get glasses for the first time? I mean, they can't see, and then they're putting this thing, and it's got a strap on it.
And they're fighting like, nobody wants that. Nobody wants get stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And then they come on, and they're like and then they see their mom, and they get that big grin on their face, and I'm sobbing. I can't see anymore. And I think there's something to that.
It's like, man, we need to talk about your attitude about money. And you're like, ah. But I think that there's something that could break. If there's something that could break, I think there's something we if we could just see, if we could just see this a little bit differently, I think we would experience freedom at a completely different level. Now, there's a passage in one Timothy chapter six.
This will be the third week in a row that we've done this, that I've gone to the most well known stereotypical passage on this topic, and we're going to look at it. And again, and also what we've done over the last few weeks, instead of just putting statements as our main slides, we're going to ask questions, questions that I feel like that we need to be asking ourselves as we are processing whether or not these particular issues are something that we wrestle with. So we're going to be in one Timothy chapter six, and we get to the very end, you will see a verse that you are familiar with that has probably been quoted to you, but more likely has been misquoted to you. And we'll start in one Timothy chapter six, starting verse six. But godliness with contentment is great gain.
So we're starting in the middle of a thought here. So let me just tell you where we are. He's been talking about these false teachers that are causing a lot of problem for Timothy and the church. And one of the things that he says about them is one of the things that they are doing is they are going around kind of misleading people and are using their teaching platform around God and spirituality to enhance themselves financially. They're taking advantage of people.
They're supposedly teaching about godliness, but really, it's all a front for elevating themselves and making themselves wealthy. And you can imagine a different context in a pastor's conference, might be good we would start at verse one and make sure that we're talking about this. Hey, are we doing this from the right motives? And it's a great place. But we're going to start in verse six because that really doesn't apply to very many of us, but what he's saying here is he's transitioning here.
This is how these people are. They view their relationship with godliness and money like godliness is a platform by which to get rich, to gain wealth and power. But actually, godliness with contentment, that is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
For 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. There in verse 10 is a familiar is a verse probably many of you are familiar with. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. You may think, gosh, I don't think that's what that verse says.
You've probably heard it as money is the root of all evil, which is not what it says. You may have heard the love of money is the root of all evil. That is not what it says. It just says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, which is undeniably true. A greed and a focus on money and an obsession with money is a pathway to a lot of different sorts of evil things.
It is an undeniable truth. No one can disagree with it. But if I misquote it to you, money is the root of all evil. You're like, idiot, that's not true. I know that's not true.
Money's just a thing. It's like money can't be evil. That's ridiculous. Or even if I say, the love of money is the root of all evil. No, not all evil.
And so you can dismiss it. And when someone exaggerates a verse to you, I think that is part of the intention. It is so that then you can dismiss the actual core truth that is there. If I say to you an unhealthy obsession with money can cause you all sorts of problems and can lead you down a lot of dark paths, that is undeniable and something you have to deal with. But an exaggerated version of that can be dismissed.
But we are not going to dismiss it, and we are going to explore this idea. Right? How how does how does this work? And is this something that I am currently struggling with? Back to verse six, godliness with contentment is great gain.
And my first question for you is this, do you have Do you have a godly contentment? Are you experiencing this? Godliness with contentment is great gain. Do you have a godly contentment? What is it?
What is it that you would describe? Mean, we had a great year this year. We've had actually a great three years, a great five years. What makes a year for you and your family, what makes it great? How can you say we've had gains?
I know some of you, gym rats, we're talking about gains, and you're like, yeah, gains. Like that's not what we're talking about. But what makes we're doing great. We had a great year. I would you say, I am closer to God now than I was before.
I am more like his son than I used to be, and I am perfectly happy with where I am financially. It was a great year. I didn't we didn't get a promotion, didn't get a raise, weren't able to buy anything new. We we don't have more money than we did. Maybe we even have a little less than what we did.
But you know what? God is good. He's been good to me. I feel like I'm doing better. I love my family more.
I've got I've got deeper relationships with people. I'm becoming a better person, and I am completely happy with where I am financially. That's a game for me. And this is what Paul is trying to get across. You can be doing really well and advancing and getting better and getting more and more out of life if you have your focus on the right sorts of things.
My focus and my heart and life is on my relationship with God, my relationship with people, and what God is doing inside of me. Am I becoming more godly? And my stuff, whatever happens there is great. I didn't bring anything into the world. I can't take any I can't take anything out of it.
I've had I mean, I was able to I had everything that I needed this year, and that was enough. And my gain came in the parts of my life that matter. I've talked about this before where in the early two thousands, my wife and I, we went to seminary, preacher grad school in Denver. We had Lauren, our second child. We had her there.
So for a lot of it, we had a two or three, four two, three year old and a baby. And we lived in these on campus apartments. And you're going to think I'm exaggerating, but I'm pretty sure they were a two bedroom and about 400 square feet. And it barely had a kitchen. It barely had a bathroom.
It had a really tiny living room, dining room, and these really, really small bedrooms. And we were just all on top of each other. And then I could have been Okay if the apartment itself was nice, but then we were constantly dealing with all sorts of just I don't want to gross you out, let's just say issues that deal with cleanliness and health in this apartment. In fact, when we moved out, the seminary about a year or two later tried to sell the building and move someplace different, and the city came in and condemned them. All needed to condemn this building was somebody to look at it.
And this is where we lived with, again, with a toddler and a baby. And as that baby began to grow and take on a personality, the two of them in a room was a hot mess. Because she would put on a show. They would have dance parties in there. And I'm not talking about 03:00 in the afternoon.
They would have dance parties at 03:00 in the evening. And she would be dancing in the crib, and Maile's yelling, go Lauren, go Lauren. It was wild. It was wild. And it was just a lot.
It was just a lot. And so then finally, we graduate. We moved to St. Louis, and we're able to purchase a house. And everybody now has their own bedroom, maybe 1,500 square feet.
It was really nice, this nice place. And for us, it was just kind of this huge, just kind of, and one night, we'd only been there a few days, Meily comes downstairs. She's crying. Like, baby, what's wrong? No idea it was gonna come out of her mouth.
And she's like, I miss our old place. In our old place, we were always together. Now we're all spread out. She was just crying. She did not view this as an upgrade.
This was not gain to her. In fact, something that really, really mattered to her that we were just had relational and physical closeness all the time, that was what mattered to her. And this gain meant nothing to her. And somewhere along the way, we lose that sort of attitude about what we decide really describes what is advancement, what is gain. And what Paul wants to say, we need to keep our heart and our priorities on what matters most, godliness, my connection with him, my love for others, what He's doing inside of me.
And this issue, I just learned to be content with it. And I'm worried about advancing here, I'm worried about advancing here. This is where real gain happens.
Charlie Loften: Again, four, verse seven, for we
Charlie Loften: brought nothing into the world. Take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich, they fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish, harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. Again, just obvious on its face. We may not want to talk about it, but there is no denying that people who have an unhealthy relationship with money find themselves getting into traps, find themselves being unnecessarily tempted, and end up in places that lead to their own ruin.
Not just financial ruin, but ruin with their family, ruin in their life, ruin with their relationship with God. This is what happens. Doesn't have to be this way, but we have all been around long enough to have seen it happen at least once in someone's life, where their attitude about money has led them to these sorts of he's saying, pierce themselves with many grease. So my second question is this. Does my attitude about money, does it draw me closer to God or further from God?
When I think about what I have, does it draw me closer? Does it pull me away? When I think about what I wish I had, does my attitude about that, does it draw me closer to him? Does it pull me away from him? Because the reality of it is, it doesn't matter how much money you have, how little, how much.
It is your attitude that makes the difference. Money is just it's inanimate. It can't do anything to you. You can have a little bit and have a great attitude. You can have a lot and have a bad attitude, and it can be the reverse.
It is your heart that determines this. And the reality is, again, Paul says, contentment. Do I have an attitude that recognizes that everything that I have is a gift from God. Everything. I didn't create the planet I'm on.
I didn't make myself be born. I didn't allow myself to be born into the circumstances I was born in that led me to be the person that I am. The reality of it is it's not that the some of the differences between some of us aren't based on decisions that we made, but a large portion of it is things that we don't have any real control over, Comparing us to people on completely different parts of the world, born in completely different countries, we swap we swap with them. And we're born into that situation, and they're born into our situation. It wouldn't be a whole lot different.
Really, most of what we have is a result of the generosity of God. And so do I live a life of thankfulness? I didn't bring anything into this world, and everything that I have is a gift. And so when I think about it, I'm thankful. When I think about the things that I have, when I think about the things that I'm able to purchase, the things that I'm able to do, I think I am blessed.
Or do I spend my heart and mind thinking about what I have versus what I wish I had? If I spend my life here, then that is just going to pull me away. I'm not thinking about what a good God is, I'm thinking of God as someone who does less than what I wish, a God who doesn't, a God who's holding me back. He's not doing for me what He should be, what I deserve, or I can be happy with where I am and thankful for every bit of it. And then with that comes generosity.
It is a cover to cover theme of the scripture, one of the defining characteristics of someone who is living a godly life with contentment, generosity. Everything here is a gift, and I need to be someone who pays it forward. I'm going to take what I have, and I'm going to bless people who have less with me. I'm going to bless my friends who have the same as me. I can do nice things for people who have more than me.
It is not a question of that. It is I've been blessed, and I want to bless other people. And I most certainly, if God asks for me to, I'm certainly going to give back to him what he says belongs to him. Hey, I want the first part. I want you to give it to me.
Gladly. It's all yours anyway. It is an incredible gift. And and and as an act of worship, you say I should give some back. Of course, will.
Of course, I'm going to take what I have and share it with people, because I am so grateful for what I have. But if I have this mindset, then I've got to hold on to it. I got to hold on. I can't I don't have any to spare God, and I'm certainly not going to be generous with other people because I don't have all I'm entitled to. And that sort of attitude, it drifts us.
Let's just call it what it is. It's greed. It's mine, and it belongs to me. It's only for me. It is for my enjoyment.
And if and if this world were just, I would have more. Which begs the question, who can be greedy? Interesting thing, used to be something I like to rant about. If you're new, if you're new, you might find this interesting. If you've been here a while, you're gonna roll your eyes and hope he moves past this quickly.
This is one of the reasons I hate our current political discourse. Because the answer to the person who can be greedy, the answer is always them. Them. They are the ones that are greedy. They are.
And depending on what your perspective is and kind of which one of these two narratives you've bought into a little bit, the theys are the people that have too much. They have too much, and they do not pay their fair share. And they owe us what they have. And if they weren't so greedy, then we could have more, and they have a problem, and we need to do something about them so that we can have some of what they have. They are the ones that are greedy.
Or they are the ones that are greedy because they aren't willing to work, and they aren't willing to do what they need to do in order to really have resources. And because they are so lazy, and they are so greedy and they want what belongs to me, they want to steal from me and give what I rightly earned and give it to them. It's not they're not the ones that greedy. Let's just be honest. We are the ones that are greedy.
All of us are capable of this. It is not a question of political party. It is not a question of how much money you have. You can meet an incredibly greedy person who does not have much at all and one of the godliest, most content people you can who have been blessed with a tremendous amount of resources. It is really not about volume.
It really is about our hearts. And so when we buy into this political problem, the political way of viewing it, it is always going to absolve you from asking the real question, What about what about my attitude? What about my heart? One of the most heartbreaking stories around this I've ever heard was a guy that I went to high school with. He was a football star, really wish he could have gone to the next level he probably could have, but circumstances weren't great.
He wasn't born into great circumstances, and life was a struggle for him. And even though he had all this talent, he wasn't able to really escape the unfortunate thing that can be South Arkansas sometimes. But great guy, kept up with him, stayed in El Dorado, was working, and you keep in touch with a guy, and Facebook allows you to continue to be friends with somebody that you don't ever see anymore. And this is about twenty years ago, and the Arkansas Lottery posted a picture of him, tagged him in it, and it's, you know, holding one of the big giant novelty checks. $40,000 he had won.
And, you know, of course, he was he was over the moon. He was he was excited. Depending on how much money you have, some of you may think that that is not life changing money. It's not the kind of thing, it's not generational wealth, but for somebody from South Arkansas, it absolutely can be life changing. He gets you out of the hole that you're in, puts you on a level playing field that allows you to build a life, that allows you to move forward in a way that you could not have without this boost up.
It's a great moment for him. It should have been something that he would be able to celebrate two hours later, two, one, two hours later, he posts on his personal page. Guys, you need to know. I'm sorry but I I'm still the same person I always was. Please don't judge me.
It took two hours from the posting of that picture for him to be inundated with people who believe they are entitled to that. And if you're not a good person, if you don't give me this and just overwhelmed by it, where now he has been given something an a tremendous blessing but now he's gotta feel shame about it because all these people around him are pressuring him. And this is the attitude that we bring. I don't think about how I can be content with what I have. I think about how I'm entitled to a little bit of what you have and how it's not right.
And I can't be content with me. I've either got to judge people who have more or judge people who have less to keep me. And all that does is prevent me from living a content life and having great gain. My greed is overwhelming me. Last question, love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Do I love money? I just love. Love. I love it. I was talking about this with a group of guys last week.
They didn't know they were helping me prep a sermon. Issues like lust, envy, greed, someone attractive walks past you and you notice, that is an attractive person. That lustful? If you see somebody who has a nice house and you're like, that's a nice house. Is that envy?
If you think, you know, it would really be good. It would really be helpful if we had more money than what we did. That greed? Oh, these are just very natural human emotions to have, very natural human responses to the life we live in this world that we live in. I find things attractive.
I find people attractive. And sometimes I wish I had something that I don't have. And so the last thing I want to do is just kind of shame, just kind of normal desires. But there comes a point where it crosses a line. It becomes something else, It becomes an unhealthy obsession.
I don't just wish I had more money. I need more money. I'm entitled to this. And my my heart, my life begins to focus on what somebody else has that I don't. Somebody who seems to be better off than me, my heart becomes dark.
So that I began again, then I start having really, really bad ideas. I start doing the wrong sorts of things to get more money. I stop doing some good things because maybe I feel like it's holding me back from having money. I give too much time, too much attention to the acquisition of more that I'm not focused on the things that are actually going to bring me great gain. And what starts as I wish I had more money becomes an inner dialogue of complete and total unhealth that begin to lead you down a path of even worse, worse, worse decisions.
But I learned to speak back to that. Yeah, that would be nice, but I'm happy with what I have and I'm happy with who God is. Yeah, that would be a nice house. That would be a nice car. It would be good if if if we could afford that.
That would really be helpful. And God, I asked, hey, could you do that for me? I'm happy, but I'm I'm I'm content right here. It's totally normal to want a little bit more for whatever reason, But when our heart begins to drift and then worse actions follow those, we will find ourselves pierced with many grease. But let's exchange that.
Let's put the glasses on. Let's see the world that we live in that is pulling and pushing us in all sorts of wrong directions, and allow us to see something different, That God doing a work in me and being content with what I have is the greatest gain. Let me pray. God, I thank you. Thank you for your son.
I thank you for the life that he gives us. I thank you for the renewing work he's doing in our hearts and lives, for the godliness that you are building inside of us. And, God, I pray that we would pair that with contentment, that we would stop listening to all the wrong voices and give our heart and attention to what really brings life, what really brings peace. So God, free us. Free us from it.
However little or however much we have, give us generous hearts. Give us contentment. Give us peace. Give us life. Give us great gain.
And again, we're so thankful for your son who makes this possible, and it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Charlie Loften: Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast and you can learn more about us at thegrovechurch.org. If you go to thegrovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening. And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed.
However, you found this podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.