Did anybody talk about money in your original moment?
No one talked about money. Oh, you must all be at such
financial peace in your life. Or maybe it's just like, no, no,
no, I don't want to go there. You know, these are two words
that do seem strange to put together.
Financial peace, Dave Ramsey perhaps is the one who's made it
most famous for the last 25 years, putting those two words
together and trying to help the church and help lots of average,
normal people find a way to really see those two words go
together. But we've added a third for this
series, Financial Peace and Purpose.
And that's because as believers and in centering in on the
church, our Sunday morning sermon isn't really about just
giving you skills. We want you to get skills, and
there's lots of great help for getting skills in regard to
money, but we also want you to be able to connect your sense of
purpose to how you think about your finances, how you think
about money. And that's really, really
important. So this week I took my van in
for a reality check, actually for a brake check, and the
reality was I needed complete new set of brakes on all four
tires. Wow.
It was a big bill, but I was so grateful for their expertise at
being able to do that. Most of us never get someone
else looking at our finances with that kind of clarity.
Some of you will someday you'll pay somebody to do that and you
hope and you wonder, are they actually being true about it?
But here are four things that are just always true about
thinking about money and your finances.
And that is, are we able to advance?
Dunk, dunk, dunk.
You're on the last one. There's not another sermons
done. There we go.
So this is always going to be true about your money.
You're going to earn some. It's going to come in from
somewhere, right? You're earning money or you're
being given money. You're also spending money.
How many of you like to spend? There's a few of you.
You like to spend. You're going to be saving money.
How many of you are savers? You love to save?
There's a few of you and there's others of you who you're really
not sure because you're like, I'm not earning any money.
So I don't know anything yet about spending or saving or even
giving. Do you know about giving?
How many of you love to give? There's a few of you.
So these are the things that are always true about money.
You're earning it, spending it, saving it, or giving it.
And you really should take a look every month that what's
coming in. You could turn this into a
little worksheet of your earning, of your spending, of
your saving, and of your giving. You can really look at that.
And there are innumerable skills to learn under each one of
those, right? And for some of us, there's
still mysteries yet because we're not earning.
But there's also another set of four questions that are really
important for really processing money in our lives.
And that is, what are our values, our goals, our dreams,
and who is shaping all of the above?
And so at some point, you have to really tune into what are the
values that I feel about money and that organize my behaviors
in regards to money. Where did that come from?
And what you may find is that over and in different periods of
your life, depending on your responsibilities, your values
will shift as they should. Your values should shift during
that time and then your goals are what you want to achieve and
how it relates to money. Sorry y'all,
who is shaping all of the above? This is a mystery question.
Who is shaping all of the above? You can go forward.
Do you know Jesus managed money? He even appointed a manager of
money among his disciples. Jesus earned money.
He was a Carpenter. He was the carpenter's son.
And so he, he knows very dearly and closely that this matters in
our lives. But Jesus also got pushed around
in regards to money and power. And This is why the question of
who matters so much about who is shaping our values, our beliefs,
our expectations, our dreams about money.
And Jesus would have seen all around him the contrasting
teachings about money and power as it related to Israel and as
it related to Rome. Israel had experienced
throughout their history those who wanted to change or exploit
their access to money and human resources, and one of the
greatest powers that had swept into their lives was called
Babylon. Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar
had swept into Israel and carted them off into exile, exploiting
their human potential. You can read about that in the
Old Testament. But Babylon became a city and a
metaphor really of the the power of empire.
Jesus knew about it. In Jesus's day, it wasn't
Babylon, it was Rome. Rome was the great power that
was exploiting human potential, power and money.
And he grew up experiencing that and the dynamics of politics as
it played out in Israel. So he's aware of it.
In fact, if you read through all the way to the end of the Bible,
you're going to find that Babylon and Rome become a symbol
for Christians encountering empire.
Who really wants to shape your understanding of money?
Babylon does, Rome does, and you're going to find that in the
Bible we're going to read in Romans chapter 18.
One of the extraordinary pictures are not Romans 18,
Revelation at 18 of God drawing back the curtain on the
situation of Christians experiencing Babylon, of
Christians experiencing Rome. So what does when we read this,
Babylon is Rome, OK, Now, how many of you get nervous when you
read Revelation? How many of you have avoided
reading it because you're like, I don't get it, I don't get it.
So we're going to read through this chapter and into chapter
19, and I want you to just think of it as a drama, OK?
It's like the curtain has opened and you're being able to look in
on a great drama that's playing out on a stage in front of you.
And then what you're going to discover is that you actually
are also on that stage. OK, so John has written to seven
churches. And in chapter 18, he says this.
After this I saw another Angel coming down from heaven.
He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by a
splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted,
Fallen. Fallen is Babylon the Great.
She has become a dwelling for demons and a hot for every
impure spirit, a hot for every unclean bird, a hot for every
unclean and detestable animal, For all the nations have drunk
the madding wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the
merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.
Just a reminder, who is Babylon? Rome.
Then I heard another voice from heaven say, Come out of her, my
people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you
will not receive any of her plagues.
For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered
her crimes give her as much torment and grief as the glory
and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, I sit
enthroned as queen. I am not a widow, I will never
mourn. Therefore, one day her plagues
will overtake her death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire. For mighty is the Lord God who
judges her. When the kings of the earth, who
committed adultery with her and shared her luxury, see the smoke
of a burning, they will weep and mourn over her.
Terrified at her torment, they will stand off and cry.
Whoa, whoa, to you great city, you mighty city of Babylon.
In one hour your doom has come. The merchants of the earth will
weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes
anymore. Cargoes of gold, silver,
precious stones and pearls, fine linen, purple silk and scarlet
cloth. Every sort of citron wood and
articles of every kind of ivory. Costly wood, bronze, iron, and
marble. Cargoes of cinnamon and spice,
incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine, of olive oil, of fine
flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and carriages, and
human beings sold as slaves. They will say the fruit you've
longed for is gone from you. All your luxury and splendor
have vanished, never to be recovered.
The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth
from her will stand off terrified at her torment.
They will weep and mourn and cry out woe.
Woe to you great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and
scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and
pearls. In one hour such great wealth
has been brought to ruin. Kings, merchants and now sea
captains, every sea captain and all who travel by ship, The
sailors and all who earn their living from the sea will stand
far off. And when they see the smoke of
her burning, they will exclaim, Was there ever such a great
city? They will throw dust on their
heads and with weeping and mourning cry out.
Whoa, how does it go? Whoa to you great city, where
all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth.
In one hour she has been brought to ruin.
Rejoice, rejoice you heavens, rejoice you people of God,
rejoice, apostles and prophets, for God has judged her with the
judgement she imposed on you. Then a mighty Angel picked up a
boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the
sea, and said, with such violence the great city of
Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.
The music of harpist and musicians, pipers and trumpets
will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you
again. The merchants were the world's
important people. By your magic spell all the
nations were led astray. In her was found the blood of
prophets and of God's holy people of all who have been
slaughtered on earth. After this I heard what sounded
like the roar of a great multitude in heaven, shouting.
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and
just are His judgments. He has condemned the great
prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries.
He has avenged on her the blood of His servants.
And again they shouted. The smoke from her goes up
forever and ever. The 24 elders and the four
living creatures fell down and worshipped God, who was seated
on the throne, and they cried. Then a voice came from the
throne saying, Praise our God, all you, his servants, you who
fear Him, both great and small. Then I heard what sounded like a
great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and the loud
peals of Thunder, shouting For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, for the wedding
of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given to her to wear.
Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God's holy
people. Then the Angel said to me, Write
this, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of
the Lamb. And he added, these are the true
words of God. At this I fell to his feet to
worship him. But he said, don't do that.
I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers and
sisters who hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Worship God, for it is the spirit of prophecy who bears
testimony to Jesus. So here's a little 3 clues for
reading Revelation. When you go and you do it this
week, you're like, OK, we just read a lot.
I'm going to read it again. This was written to churches
that had to discern how to follow Jesus in the empire.
John had been exiled to the island of Patmos because his
message of the gospel of Jesus and the way it was changing
people and relationships was seen as a threat by those in
Rome. And they said, well, we won't
kill him. We'll just send him to an island
and he will be in exile. So John is now writing to those
churches to help them discern how can I live in the power of
empire, in the shadow of the empire.
So readers today have the curtain raised on a great drama.
That's the second thing that'll always help you.
If you're like, I'm a reader today about this and I'm
actually seeing a drama unfold in front of me.
That's what the word revelation means.
It's like the curtain has opened.
This is the apocalypse, the opening, the revealing, the
unveiling. It's like sitting at a theater
and seeing the curtain open and the curtain opens and the play
begins. That's how we should read
Revelation, to say we're seeing a great drama in which we have a
part to play. And that's the third thing that
as followers of Jesus, we gain hope and insight for life in
Babylon. So Babylon did not end with
Rome. Rome and Babylon became a trope
for every experience of the people of God facing the powers
of empire, and we face them every day in differing degrees.
Scott McKnight has summarized what are some of the sort of
powers of Babylon. And it's cast under this idea
that Babylon itself is casting a spell.
Did you notice that in Revelation 1823 it says your
merchants were the world's important people?
By your magic spell, all the nations were led astray.
Babylon actually cast a spell and draws people in to its power
in its ways. In its extreme.
There are 7 big ideas about how Babylon operates.
Going to go through them really quickly here.
Just want you to get it and I want you to think of all the
great powers in the world. What are the great national
powers in the world and are they actually also demonstrating
these characteristics of Babylon One?
They are anti God. For the Jew and Gentile in Rome,
this was really an issue because Rome treated the Jew and the Jew
and Christian as if they were atheists.
They said of the Christians, You're an atheist because they
rejected all the other gods that Rome supported and ultimately
Rome would support its emperor as a God.
Our emperor shall be God. Even in the age of Jesus,
Augustus claimed to be the Son of God.
They required a certain amount of worship, adulation of
themselves and it ran from the family all the way up to the
family of the emperor. Not only they are they anti God,
but they're also pro stuff. They're pro opulence.
Like, like we got to build it out and have a show so that the
normal people realize they are nothing in regard to us.
See how we can spend, see how we can create a table.
See our big ballrooms. Not only that, they're
murderous. If you consider the history of
Rome, you have to also consider the history of murder, how they
sought to inspire terror through taking people's lives.
Thousands of people were crucified, not just Jesus.
Outside of Jerusalem, Rome used the cross as a means of showing
their power over others. The writer here in Revelation
says that the woman, Babylon Rome was drunk on the blood of
God's holy people, the blood of those who bore the testimony of
Jesus. Babylon has always found the
people of God to be a threat. And then Babylon's also image
conscious. They are always building
platforms in which you can adore them and which you can be
astonished by their great lives. Not only that, Babylon is
militaristic. Babylon always seeks to
accumulate power through its militaries, through building
military might and taking the lives of others, to always
exploit humans relentlessly. Rome sought to subjugate the
cross with Constantine in drawing together the power of
the military and the cross, and we've suffered with it ever
since. And then they're exploitive
economically. Rome, AKA Babylon, sought to
bring all the wealth to them. Why do we say all roads lead to
Rome? Why did they want such great
roads to facilitate trade? And we could say, oh, I love
those roads. I hate potholes and and it is an
extraordinary feat of engineering.
But behind it was this desire and urge to exploit others.
And then finally we come to these last two ideas.
There's just arrogance. Rome bathes in arrogance.
They had a parade of self adulation.
If you needed one word to summarize it all it would be
domination. Domination unto death is the way
of the dragon and Rome. Babylon sits on the dragon.
Just to show this complete movement in the life and history
of Rome, there was an emperor who changed the emperor's name
from from Emperor to Dominus. I will dominate, and you will
call me Dominus, the dominator. And so he changed the system of
the empire to 1 of domination, and he was very plain about it.
Now here's the situation for the church.
The churches were infiltrated by the values of Babylon and we
find it in our own lives that we too are also infiltrated today
by Babylon. And the way we think about money
is very influenced by Babylon. Just look at your Instagram.
Just look at your TikTok, always nudging you, always turning you
into the product. Anybody pay for Instagram?
What? Pay for it?
If you're not paying for it, you are the product.
You're always being nudged towards a certain way of
thinking and acting. Accepting like the frog in the
kettle, losing your life before you know it.
So here's the strange thing about Babylon is that Babylon
hollows out and takes away our life.
And so God says to Bab to his people, come out.
Did you notice that he said come out of her my people, that you
will not share in her sins, that you will not share in her
plagues, that you will not share in her judgement?
Come out. This is a very old phrase drawn
from the Old Testament that we were to come out.
It was re emphasized by Paul when he wrote come out.
It was emphasized by Jesus. The tension of it.
Remember tension, that we are in the world, but not of it, he
says. I'm not going to literally take
you out of this world, but you will sanctify yourself as I
sanctify myself. You will be in the world, but
not of it. So come out of Babylon.
But then where am I going? If I come out of Babylon?
What are my options? Here are your options.
Come to the Lamb. The Lamb says, come to me, all
you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
See, if you are living in Babylon, you will find you're
getting really tired. If you're living in Babylon,
you'll find that you have no financial peace.
If you're living in Babylon, you'll find that your purpose is
actually being diffused and lost.
And so live in this world, not in the life and way of Babylon,
but in the life and way of the lamb.
The lamb is inviting you to a wedding supper and a wedding
supper. There's there's an abundance,
there's plenty. And he's saying there's a seat
here for all of you at my table. Come to the wedding lamb, the
wedding of the lamb and the church.
And then finally, Revelation says you are being invited to
the New Jerusalem, a new city, a new way of living.
Augustine called it the city of God.
You're invited to a different way.
So who is shaping your financial peace?
You don't know that you need to come out of anything until you
begin to realize who has come into you and how you are not at
ease with it. Maybe some of the unease that
you are experiencing in finances and in your life is because your
purpose is being shaped more by Babylon than by the Lamb.
This is sort of hard, isn't it? It's a different way of thinking
about our money and our financial peace, but the
invitation is to worship differently and to raise a
Hallelujah and live for the Lamb.
We read those all together. Hallelujah.
I can't imagine. Have you ever been standing in
front of a waterfall and that waterfall just goes and goes.
It doesn't stop it just it's just going.
And he's saying that the sound of the praise of God's people
being raised up in acknowledgement of what God had
done and that God was doing was just like a waterfall that just
kept going and going and going. So realign yourselves and live
for the Lamb. Here are four ways you can do
it. One, discern the seduction.
Realize when you're being sucked into the ways of Babylon and go,
oh, that's got more to do with Babylon than it has to do with
Jesus. The way I'm thinking about my
money here, the way I'm acting without money, the way I have
been enslaved in debt, has more to do with Babylon than it has
to do with Jesus. And so I want to discern this is
what's happened to me. Then also understand that there
is suffering that comes. Sometimes our temptation is to
look around the world and see where people have have less or
people have poverty. And our immediate move is to say
it's their fault. And we fail to see that Babylon
has actually contributed to their suffering and that there
may be a way out, there may be a different way, but that
sometimes we do worry about today.
And we can't even worry about the future because we're so
worried about what are we going to eat today.
There are people who find themselves in that situation,
and we must understand their suffering.
The third thing that you can do is get dressed.
Get dressed in the fine linen that God wants to give you.
The righteous acts. I mean, they're getting dressed
as God's people. It appears in Babylon that so
that if you find yourself in Babylon, you can still get
dressed with good deeds, with good and true works.
In fact, the word righteous here is actually the word related to
justice. Do justice, walk humbly with
your God, love mercy, do justice, righteousness.
Do good things. And if you find that your values
about money are not letting you do good things, it's time to re
evaluate. If you find that your allegiance
to earning money means that you keep compromising good honesty
and integrity, then you may need a change.
If you find that your workplace has actually become toxic and
that toxic culture is shaping you, then maybe it's time to
really step up and put on the fine linen of good deeds, of
just actions. Some of you may find that you
are going to have to give up Gangnam Style, that conspicuous
consumption is not going to be the way you live your life.
And so you find I, I actually need to give that up.
I need to step back from that. But that doesn't mean that in
Christ you have to reject beauty, that you have to reject
excellence, that you have to reject quality.
It just means that you also live simpler and then finally hold to
the testimony of Jesus. That's what he says of the
people who've survived this is that they have held to the
testimony of Jesus. That this is the job of the
angels and it's the job of those brothers and sisters in Christ
is to constantly hold to the testimony of Jesus.
In fact, when it was shown that the people of Jesus could defeat
Satan himself, it was asked how? By the blood of the Lamb, by the
word of their testimony, and that they did not love their
lives so much to shrink from death.
We sang that earlier, didn't we? This is how we overcome.
This is how we overcome when we hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Now you may think this is the strangest money sermon I've ever
heard. Right on.
It was meant to be. It was meant to be because money
always resides inside a system. Most of us don't feel the pain
of breaking a $20 bill. Do you know, I used to hold $20
bills and cash in my pocket and I'd be like, I hate breaking a
20 so much that I'm just not going to buy lunch today.
But you know, that feels different when all you have to
do is sort of wave that phone up in front of it.
No pain. Oh, you've been sucked into a
system. This is a system.
It's an unseen system that's at work.
And it's beautiful, but there's also terrible agony in it as
well. Someone described this as a four
inch by two inch walking slot machine.
We know that people can start businesses from this.
You don't have to wait even for a computer.
You can start a business here. But we also have to recognize
that with every technological advancement, there are those who
would exploit it either for Babylon or leverage it for the
Kingdom of God. So you got to decide, are you
dressed up in fine linen gifted to you by the Lamb of God?
And that's why we come to the table, because it reminds us of
the wedding supper of the Lamb. So I'm going to invite you all
to stand from this weirdest money sermon you've ever heard,
and I'm going to ask you to realign your commitment to the
Lamb of God, to the ways of God who laid down his life at the
table. When we come to the table, we
remember that Jesus himself lived within a system and died
within that system. That he transformed the very
implements of cruelty into that system, into the most beautiful
picture of his grace. That He turned the cross into
something majestic, but he did it with his body, with his
blood, with his life, as he absorbed there all the sin of
the world and Babylon, so that great and small might be able to
rejoice in front of him. And so as we come to the table
today, I invite you to say, have I, Have I really come to Jesus,
the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world?
Am I willing to come out of Babylon every day and live as
this? I'm a citizen of the Kingdom of
God. Am I willing to count the cost?
That's really difficult because it doesn't seem like God gives
us the courage until we've stepped out.
But if we realign our commitments, then we'll find
that we develop courage from Him when we experience the
difficulties, even in regards to money.
Heavenly Father, you see us standing before you, and we pray
that you would meet to us and that you would let this word
settle deep into our lives, that we would consider again the
great drama that we are in that sometimes we live oblivious to.
But we need to see so that Jesus may be recognized as Lord.