Yesterday, the one point in my sermon ran counter to the understanding most people bring to church and bring to money. I told the church to “Love your money MORE.”
Of course, this seemed to go against what even casual observers of Christianity know that the bible says in I Timothy 6:10: “for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil . . . “ So right from the start, I had people’s attention. “Is he going to contradict the bible?!”
Well, no. I simply said that when we like our money, we spend it on things that are trivial and temporary. When we love our money and recognize its power, we invest it in things of eternity and substance. Love your money enough to sow it into God’s work.
The message was inspired by James Howell, who is the senior pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church here in Charlotte. James is both interesting and articulate, and his sermons are seamless and provocative. I heard through the preacher grapevine that he’d given a talk in which he said the problem with Christians isn’t that they love their money too much, it’s that they don’t love it enough to do something significant with it. I thought, “that will preach!” and then crafted my own sense of what that thought means and gave the message yesterday. You can listen to it here.
We supported the sermon with a video testimony from Spencer & Karla Stubbs, a couple who have been around this church even longer than I have. Here it is:
So do you just like your money? Or do you love it enough to do something eternal with it?