Put a Lid on Your Dreams
Tom Shrader examines Paul's formula for true success in 1 Timothy 6: godliness plus contentment equals great gain. He challenges believers to put limits on their dreams and desires, arguing that contentment—being satisfied even when not every wish is gratified—is the secret to life. Shrader warns against the pursuit of wealth and status, calling Christians to find their satisfaction in God rather than in endless accumulation.
“Godliness is not just union, godliness is communion.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Standalone Teachings
Recorded: 1991
Duration: 41 min
Themes: contentment, satisfaction, dreams, wealth, ambition, godliness, desires, success, struggling with ambition, pursuing wealth, feeling dissatisfied, career focused, materialistic mindset, young professional, entrepreneur, middle aged
Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Isaiah 55:8-9, Romans 12:1-2, Philippians 4:11-13, Genesis 3, Colossians 4, Philemon 1:24, 2 Timothy 4, Luke 5
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, stewardship, biblical contentment, worldliness, materialism, spiritual maturity, divine perspective
Full Transcript
We are going to take a special one-week detour from our regular study to look at a topic that's important, I think. Before I ever got to the Bible, right after I became a Christian, I discovered that God and I thought differently. Like we try to do with everything, we finally looked for a verse to support it, and there it is, Isaiah 55, verse 8 and 9: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways aren't your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways."
God is saying to you and me that He thinks differently than you and I do. His thoughts are higher than ours. There's an advantage to being higher.
We were on a plane the other day, and there was a little girl next to us. It was the first time she'd ever been on a plane, and she was older, maybe 10 or 11, and was pretty familiar with the geography around the airport. Her house wasn't far from there, and her school. As we were taking off, she was looking out the window, as you can imagine, and she'd spot the house, and then she'd spot the school, and then she said, "I never realized how you could get to my school by going down this street." She was just enthralled with the entire process of getting up above the day-to-day horizontal vision, and getting a vertical perspective of her life.
God's Higher Perspective
God says, "Here's what you need for your life. You need my perspective, and my ways are higher than your ways." If you can begin to think like Him, you're going to get some new insights on your life. It's not just the basis for today's discussion. This is the basis, really, for everything that we do. God has a perspective on our life that is better than ours, that is different than ours.
Sometimes we'll look at a situation, God will look at the same situation, and God will come with a completely different perspective, a completely different answer to a situation. We wonder how He got there, but yet we know the comfort that He has a view that's better than ours. In the midst of living out life, we discover that there is conflict.
The Battle for Our Minds
Probably, at least early on, my two favorite verses in Scripture were Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. This is from the New American Standard. It said, "I urge you therefore, brethren." Now, the word "therefore" is there because Paul is referring back to the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans. In the first 11 chapters, Paul has gone out of his way to make the point to you and to me that there's nothing of value intrinsic in our life that will ever make us holy and acceptable to Almighty God.
Paul says, you can't go to church enough. If you try that, you'll never be acceptable. You can't give enough money. You can't be baptized. You can't be confirmed. None of those things is going to give you salvation. Paul says, you and I have a problem. The problem is sin. Sin has separated us from God, and sin has produced death. What we need is life. Paul says, there's only one solution to life, and that's the person of Jesus Christ.
So He says, "Because that's true, present your bodies. They're a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God." The only problem with living sacrifices is that they keep falling off the altar. You and I present our bodies as a living sacrifice. We want to get away, then we come back. Paul said, because this is true, there should be a response.
Paul's Pattern of Teaching
These are free little nuggets today. Here's another one. When Paul writes, he tends to write with this formula to give you doctrine and truth and then practical application. When he writes in the book of Philippians, three chapters of doctrine, then the balance of the book is practical. It's a pattern you see all the way through those, especially Paul's little epistles that he writes. He does the same thing here.
Now, here's the problem. He says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." In other words, the world there is portrayed in an active sense as trying to conform you and I to its image. The world there is not the planet, it's the world system. The value systems of the world are in opposition to God's value system, and they are aggressively trying to mold and trying to shape you and me.
Paul said, "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed, here's how, by the renewing of your mind." What you need is a new mind, a new way of thinking that comes from a new heart.
Three Translations of the Same Truth
Here's how Phillips translates that same passage. He does something interesting. He said, "I beg you to present your bodies as an act of intelligent worship." Phillips says, the only intelligent thing to do is to worship God. If you've got friends in the marketplace that think you're stupid because you believe in the Bible, and you're stupid because you believe in God, God says through the Apostle Paul, the only smart thing to do is to present yourself to Him. That's the only thing that makes any sense at all. The rest of this stuff makes no sense.
Here's how Phillips translates verse 2: "Don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold." New American Standard says, "Don't be conformed." Phillips kind of makes it even more aggressive, as though the world is trying to push you into its mold. The world's trying to mold you into its system, and you and I are products of that. Day after day after day after day as the world just pounds and pounds and pounds and chips away at us. The world seldom delivers a knockout punch, but it's just a series of body punches. He says resist that.
Here's how the Living Bible translates this verse: "Don't copy the behavior and the customs of the world." Don't be conformed. Don't let it squeeze you into its mold, and certainly don't just voluntarily pick up the gauntlet and say, "Yeah, I'm going to buy into the world system." There is opposition here, and the point that we're making, and please understand this will work perfectly for today, but this works for all of the lessons we ever
There's an undercurrent presupposition that exists on our part as we move from a position that says God's way and man's way is different. That's the whole point. We're going to look for a second today at this issue that I think affects everybody in this room. If we were to pick universal things that apply to everybody, this is going to fall into that category.
We're going to look, just very quickly, but at a little bit of a different perspective, at the secret to life. We said last week, we want to give to you today, Paul says to you and me, that there is a secret to life. Now in another section of Scripture, we'll look at both of these, Paul said, I want to give you a formula of success, and in both there's one common element, and I would suggest to you it's something that probably not five people in this room have discovered. We may know about it, but we have not subscribed to it as yet.
The Bible's Focus on Money
We're going to look a little bit at this area of money, and then into Paul's formula of success. I want you to just understand, this is an overhead we've used fairly regularly in here. The Bible is not silent on the topic of money. The Bible has a lot to say about money. Over 500 biblical references to prayer, less than 500 biblical references to faith, over 2,000 biblical references to money and possession.
Christ spoke more about money than He did heaven and hell. In the Gospels, as the gospel writers began to be moved by the Holy Spirit and began to write, one out of every ten verses that they wrote dealt with money. When Christ really wanted to drive a point home, He would tell what we would call today a word picture, or a parable. He told 38 parables in the Gospels, 16 of them had to do with money.
The Bible has a lot to say about money, and understand what we say in this class. The Bible was not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Moses. The Bible was written by God, and God knows you, and He knows me, and He knows that money is something that has a place in our life, and probably too prominent a place.
Paul's Formula for Success
If you brought your Bibles this morning, turn to 1st Timothy, chapter 6, and if some of this material sounds familiar to you, it's because we have gone back to this passage a couple of times, and we have done a little hit-and-miss and pull out a couple of truths, but today I want to really try to open this up to you and let you see that this is an important passage of Scripture.
1st Timothy, chapter 6, verse 6, and Paul is writing, and here's what he says, and I'll read out of the New American. "Godliness actually is a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang."
Look at verse 17, that Paul has basically made his point, and now he begins to expand on it in verses 11 through 16. Verse 17, he leaves us with some warnings and some exhortation. He says this, "instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited, nor to fix their hopes in the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed."
God has a formula for success, and I want to present this to you, because Paul seems to me to be making a point here that I think is crucial if you want to experience real success in your life. Paul said there's a formula for success, and I don't want you to miss it. It's true, and it's real, and it works.
The Equation for Real Success
Here it is, it's in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6. He says it's godliness plus contentment, and that equals great gain, that equals real success, that equals real wealth. Now clearly, Paul is not talking specifically in the area of finance. Paul is talking in the area of life. But so much of what we do evolves around this whole thing of finance.
So Paul says, I want to give you a formula. For sake of our discussion today, let's say Paul says, I want to give you an equation for success. Godliness, and if we were to do this like you did in the old days, you'd take two parts and get a sum total. One part is godliness, one part is contentment, and the total is great gain, real satisfaction, real success.
Understanding Godliness
The first thing that Paul says is crucial if I'm going to have real success is godliness. And here's how we define godliness. Godliness is a consistent, authentic walk with God. Godliness is a genuine walk with God.
If you go back to Genesis chapter 3, you'll see that Adam and Eve were walking with God in the cool of the day, in the garden. That's what you and I were designed to do, to be in communion and union with God. That you and I were designed to be literally one with God. That our heart was designed to be with His. That we were made to commune with Him.
Only in the person of Christ will we have union with God, but two entities can be in union and still not in communion. You can be married in union, but the communications can be so broken down that there's no communion at all. Still the union exists, but there's no communion. Godliness is not just union, godliness is communion.
Now let me be really clear on this, because we certainly, the last thing we want to do ever is offend anybody. But by the same token, the last thing I want to be is misunderstood. You cannot be a godly Buddhist. You cannot be a godly Muslim. You cannot be a godly anything but a Christian. If that offends you, I'm sorry,
But understand what I'm saying. There is one God who has one Son, His name is Jesus Christ. He came and He died on the cross. When the Buddhist worships God, he worships a God, but he doesn't worship that God. There's all sorts of ideas that all of us are worshiping the same God. We aren't. My God doesn't endorse Buddha. My God doesn't endorse the Muslims. He's a God who has today spoken in the person of Christ, and there and there alone is salvation.
Is that narrow? Yeah, it really is. Is that the truth? Yes, it really is. So I can't be godly apart from a personal relationship with Christ. But once I come into this relationship, that's not the end, that's the beginning. Now there's a consistency to it. There's a walk with it.
Life's Cycles and Godly Consistency
Life is not consistent. In fact, right now we talk in terms, the market is down, but business tends to be cyclical. In other words, it's down, but it'll come up. We know that life goes in cycles, that markets go in cycles, business, everything goes in cycles. Certainly our circumstances go like this. They start, they go up, they go down, they go up, they go down, they go up, they go down, no matter what it is, no matter what your field of endeavor.
As circumstances go like this, in the midst of this, the Christian's life perspective should look like this: solid. It's not going to look like that always. There's going to be these moves in it, but as I grow, as I develop godliness, that consistent, authentic walk, those highs are going to not be determined by the circumstances and the lows by the circumstances. My life has a symbolic picture, a very real picture though, of consistency as I walk with God.
Virtually every church, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of you in this room go to church, and virtually every church in this valley and in every church across the world takes its best shot at trying to teach you godliness, at trying to do something that will enhance your consistent, authentic, genuine walk with God.
The Equation: Godliness Plus Contentment
But remember, this baby's an equation. It's godliness plus contentment. If we were to do an equation and say 8 plus 2 equals 10, what is the greater value, numerically, the 8 or the 2? Well, the 8 does. But the 2 is just as important as the 8 if I'm to get to the end result, 10, of the equation.
So let's say, if you'll feel better, let's say that godliness is the 8. But contentment is still part of the equation, that there still has to be in your life and mine the spirit of contentment. Here's how Webster defines contentment. Contentment is to come to the point where one is not disturbed by desire, even though not every wish is gratified. Contentment is to come to the point in my life where I am satisfied.
Contentment is to come to the point in my life where I understand that I can still wish, that I can still hope, that I can still have dreams and aspirations, but I am content even if they aren't accomplished.
Contentment Is Not Complacency
Let me go back to all of you Type A overachievers who are in here, who think that somehow I just ask you to be complacent. That's not what I ask you to do. I ask you to be content. I didn't ask you to sit back and wait. I didn't ask you to go home today and just wait for the phone to ring there at home with the guy who's got the big order and he's going to just, you know, if God really wants it to happen, this guy will find me in the phone book, throw a dart at the book, find me and call me at home. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about contentment.
Paul's Secret to Life
I want to show you how important this is. We said we were going to find for you the secret to life, Philippians 4:11 through 13. Paul said this: "I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances. I've learned how to get along with a lot or how to get along with a little or get along with a lot. I have learned the secret to life. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
Paul says, here's the secret to life: contentment. I've learned to live with a lot. I've learned to live with a little. And I've learned to rejoice in the midst of all of it.
That verse says "I can do all things." I can endure all things, good times, bad times, all the circumstances because I've learned the secret to life and the secret to life is contentment. I'm content because I have everything that I can ever want in Him, Christ, who strengthens me. All of my needs, all of my desires, all of my blessings, all that I ever need, that's what Peter said, everything you need, you've got in God. So I've learned the secret to life is what Paul says. I've learned to be content.
Where Are We With Contentment?
The problem is this: if contentment is the secret to life, if contentment is part of the formula of success, where are we with the contentment in our life? I would contend that there probably aren't five men in this room that have reached a point of contentment. Some of us for a very, very basic reason. Some of us have never stopped to apply any definition to this.
The Vegas Illustration
I used to go, it may be hard for you to imagine, but I used to go to Vegas every once in a while. I'd go to Vegas a lot. I didn't go as often as Southwest Airlines, but almost. I would go a lot. As we're on the plane and we're on the way up, we're usually in the morning going up and we've got a little Bloody Mary or two and we're floating over the mountains and we're talking about the day and what it's going to be.
Everybody in the plane would essentially say some version of the same thing. "When I lose a thousand dollars, I'll stop. When I lose fifteen hundred, I'm done. When I'm out, when I'm out two and a half, that's the end." But no one would ever say, "When I'm up two grand, I'll stop." In fact, what my experience was, is when somebody's up two grand, they tend to say, "Give me the dice, I'm hot."
He will roll himself into a position of being down two grand, if you just give him enough time. We had a time, we went there one time for a week, if you can imagine...
And we were there for seven days, and all we did for seven days was eat, and we didn't do that much of that, but we did a lot of drinking and gaming. At the end of the sixth day, I went with a friend of mine from back home, and we are standing, I can remember it so clearly, we're standing in front of the MGM Grand, and we're looking up and down the strip. We're up a lot of money for us at that time, lots of money. And we're saying, "How do they keep this place open? I mean, this is kind of silly. How do they survive? Studs like us come to town and just wipe them out. How does this work?"
The problem was this: we had one more day of gaming left. And we left town hitchhiking with our bags to McCarran International Airport. Fortunately we were disciplined enough to not cash in our airline tickets, so we got home. Because we never reach that top.
There's no way, men, you'll ever be content in life if you don't put some definition to the top of this. There's no way that you'll be content. There's no way you'll ever reach this point of contentment if you don't forget the ceiling.
Establishing the Ceiling
You've got the ceiling. The bank has established the floor, I mean. The bank has established the floor. You know what the bottom is. Well, what's the top? When do you just stop? When is enough enough?
We're going to ask you to do something today that we have asked, I think, thousands, I hope, of people to do, and people through tape and everything else. We're going to ask you to do something that I know is going to make you uncomfortable. We're going to ask you to do something that no one in your life has ever asked you to do. I'm going to ask you to do it right here, right now.
The minute I say it, these hairs back here, these ones that Peter doesn't shave, these hairs back here are going to just stand up on his head because he doesn't want to hear this, and neither do you. You'll be very uncomfortable. Here it is. Here's what we're going to ask you to do in the twelve, thirteen minutes that we have left.
Put a Lid on Your Dreams
We're going to ask you to put a lid on your dream. We're going to ask you to establish that ceiling.
Now, I can't give you the formula for that. Let me just acknowledge, and I'm not trying to let you off the hook. In fact, if I could get you on the hook and slam that hook in you and give it a big jerk so you could never get away, I'd do it. I can't do that. I'm not giving you a way out, but I'm telling you that this answer is going to change from person to person. I'm going to ask you to put a lid on your dream.
How many times have you helped a young couple move? We did it. Move into a house, and I've done this with friends and had friends help me, and as we're moving in, you kind of stop, and it's time to maybe have a sandwich and a Coke and take a little break, and you're sitting around talking. There's just the, even in the midst of all the anxiety of moving, there's just a euphoria, and you hear the couple say this: "We could live in this house the rest of our lives. The rest of our life. We never need it. Look it. Jenny has her own room. Tyler has his room. Austin has his room, and there's even a spare room here." In a matter of two or three years, you again get a call saying, "Can you help me move?"
What happened? What we have a tendency to do, and myself included, is as our income increases, we feel a desire, indeed maybe a requirement, that there is a corresponding increase in our expenses. That if I make more, I'm going to spend more. That as I make more, and perhaps my sphere of influence and my friends change, that I indeed need to keep up with the Joneses.
The Joneses Keep Up with the Holmeses
That's my favorite line. All of you guys have heard it, but it's still my favorite. Larry Holmes in Easton. Remember Larry Holmes, the boxer, and he lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, a little town in Pennsylvania, and Larry's favorite saying is, "In Easton, the Joneses keep up with the Holmeses." I like that.
So, trying to keep up and trying to maintain, and I think if Christ could speak to you today, and He does through His word, I think He would say, you need to establish when enough is enough. Most of us are in a position that we literally are mortgaging the future with our kids, mortgaging the future for a little pleasure today.
I had some friends where the lady got pregnant, and her husband was making plenty of money, six figures and plenty of money, and she had decided after a lot of thought that she was going back to work. I had an opportunity to talk to her, and I said, "Let me just pose one question to you, and please don't answer it quickly. You don't need to answer it right now, just think about it." Because she had said to me, "What we want to do is make sure that our children get everything we never had."
I said, "Let me ask you this question. A two-week-old baby needs A, a Jeep, B, a swimming pool, C, a mother. Don't answer." See, that's the way we think.
What Children Really Need
In fact, I started to hear that so much that I began to wonder if there wasn't something wrong with me. So I got my kids, one at each end of the house one day, they were playing apart, and I went down to Sarah. At the time Sarah was six, and I said, "Sarah, what do you need most from mom and dad?" She said, without hesitation, "I need love, dad."
Then I went down to Haley. Haley was five. Haley's not as sophisticated as Sarah, and I said, "Haley, what do you need most from mom and dad?" And she said, "Oh dad, hugs and kisses."
Here you are beating your brains out, perhaps two of you working, to begin to accumulate things to pass on to kids when they don't want it. And I ask you to put a lid on your dreams, and that comes in a whole area of theory. We're going to stay in money and come back to money, but that also translates into the wife God has given you.
the wrong girl. And I got to admit, some of you have picked out some that I would not have picked. They were not honorable mention all Americans on my list. And they may have even been the wrong woman. But when you went down the aisle, and you said, "I do," and she said, "I do," God says in His eyes at that moment, they became the right woman. And I am there.
You know, I think I've told you this before, I'll be 40 here pretty quickly. And it's incredible, because you can't physically, you just haven't changed at all. But Susan, who is correspondingly getting old, has had some changes in her body. About a year ago or so, she came up one day, and she was feeling this, you know how women are. But she was Susan, and she said, "Oh, I feel so a little pudgy and a little hips." So I know it's a very tender moment. And I know she's looking for me to be sensitive. So I understand that my guy, that's a sensitive head on.
She said, "I just feel so fat and uncomfortable." And I said, "Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying." He said, "No, no, no, no." I said, "Look, honey, I know what you need." And I took her, and I said, "Susan." And I said, "Look at me." I said, "Look at me." Because I said, "Honey, I'm only going to say this one time to you, but don't ever forget it. I don't care, babe, if you weigh 300 pounds, I'm going to love you always. Don't test me on this. Take me to the limit on this." But see, that's it. She's mine.
The Same Principle Applies to Our Children
And the same thing translates to our children. So many of us, if we could, would go and trade in our kids that we have, which I find repulsive. Almost every study that's done says that if married couples had it to do over again, something like 75% of them said they would not have kids again. I mean, if that's the mindset, if that's true, imagine the love and the care that those kids are getting. Not good.
At the end of Sarah's first grade, she got out of first grade, graduated, was promoted in June. In July, we got some very alarming information in the mail. We got an envelope, innocent-looking enough envelope, but it was her Iowa basic skills test for the first grade. And I opened the test and I discovered, much to my dismay, that I have an average child.
So I first of all assured her that it came from her mother, that I had done everything I could in the process. And then I came to grips with the fact that she is not going to be, at least at this point, she is not going to be some combination of Mother Teresa and Leslie Stahl and some Nobel Prize winner and Elizabeth Elliot, all rolled into one. But God knows me, and God knows that that's exactly the kid that I need, and I need to be content in that.
The Timeless Warning About Wanting to Get Rich
Man, I'm convinced that the Word of God is timeless. I'm convinced that what God said 2,000 years ago, through Paul the Apostle, absolutely translates into today. And He gives us some warnings. He says, you know what? You can so want to get rich, and unfortunately that word "want" really doesn't have much oomph in the English.
In the Greek, in the original text, the word means literally to covet, to long, to salivate, to passion. If you passionately desire to get rich, you're going to fall into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish things, and you're going to fall into harmful desires that are going to plunge you. The word "plunge" there is used only one other time in the New Testament, in Luke chapter 5, to describe a ship that is sinking to the bottom of the sea. That this covetous desire to get rich is going to plunge you into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils, and some, by wanting it, have wandered away from the faith.
The Tragic Example of Demas
Imagine, you know, so many of us have a tendency to say, "If I could just somehow, if I could just maybe get with Billy Graham, maybe if I could spend a month with Billy Graham, that would really be something, just a month with Billy Graham, and that would really impact my life." In Scripture, we meet a friend of Paul's. His name is Demas.
We see him three times in Scripture. In Colossians 4, Paul's finishing the book, and he says this: "Luke the beloved physician sends you greetings, and also Demas." As Paul writes this little letter to Philemon, in verse 24, he essentially says the same thing. Paul says, "I got all these guys with these goofy names with me, and they all say hello, but so do Mark, and so does Demas."
In fact, at this point, Demas is even identified as a group here. This group, if you were to break this sentence down and structure it, Demas would fall in the same category as Mark and Luke who write Gospels. Demas is an intimate part of this inner circle. Now, if walking with Billy Graham for a month would impact your life, how about spending two or three years with the Apostle Paul, or more, eating with him, sleeping with him, watching him work, watching miracles, watching him teach, letting him teach the book of Romans and not have to go somewhere else and find out what they mean, but be able to say, "Hey wait, Paul, I haven't got a clue what you meant there in chapter 7 today." Paul goes, "Oh, here's what it means, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing." Imagine that. Imagine the depth to which your commitment would be if you were Demas.
We see Demas one other time. It's the last letter that Paul writes. It's 2 Timothy chapter 4, and Paul mentions Demas, and here's what he says, speaking to Timothy: "Every effort to come to me soon for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me."
The Pull Between This World and the Things of God
See, we made the point to you at the beginning of this that there is a pull between this world and the things of God. And Paul says it again. He said, "Look, if you want the things of this world, you need to understand that you're going to be pulled away."
In fact, Paul gives a warning in verse 17. He gives a warning to the rich, and you'll notice the asterisk, because we've had to define rich, because
The Challenge of Defining Wealth
Rich is a very difficult term, so we define rich this way: anyone who has more money than you. There's a tendency in this discussion for you to look at him and say, "Well, he's rich, so it applies to him and not to me," and he looks over here. You're all rich. By world standards, you're all rich. Even by our society standards, virtually everybody in this room is rich.
Paul said, here's the warning. Those that are rich in this present world—that means those of you that have stuff—two things: don't be conceited, and don't fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches. Don't get all excited about it. "Oh, yeah, I acknowledge that God gave me the intellect, and God gave me the insight, God gave me the power, God put me in these circumstances and all the other things, but other than that, I want you to know that essentially I'm a self-made millionaire."
Two Dangerous Tendencies of Success
He said, "Hey, wait a minute, don't get cocky. Don't get conceited. Don't think you're really hot because you've got stuff." He said this because there's a tendency to do that. There seems to be a tendency as I become more successful to become more conceited. Secondly, as I become more successful, there's a tendency to trust in this stuff, to put my hope in this stuff.
All of a sudden, my future becomes this. All of a sudden, the dominant thought on my mind is financial planning. That's all I can think about, is getting my stuff squared away. It becomes an obsession. Nothing wrong with planning for the future, but not to the point where it's an obsession, because all of a sudden, this person says, "That's where my hope is."
The Uncertainty of Riches
Paul said they're uncertain. They're a greased pig. There are probably men in this room, and there are men in all of our studies, that literally a couple of years ago had millions of dollars, who today virtually have nothing, because they're uncertain. Paul said, don't fall for that.
But Paul said, here's what I do want you to do. Conversely, fix your hope on God. He's the one who can supply all the things that you need, and do good works. Be generous. Now, again, don't misunderstand—Paul's not saying do good works so you'll have heaven. That's not what he's saying. You cannot earn heaven through your good works, but if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, there will be a change in your life, and correspondingly, you will produce good works. 1 Timothy 6:17 through 19. You will produce good works. Paul said, "I want you to understand that. I want you to live that way."
Dobson's Perspective on Life's Purpose
I couldn't summarize this nearly as eloquently as Dr. James Dobson has in one of his books, and he's repeated it in several of them. Here's what he said: "I've concluded that the accumulation of wealth, even if I could achieve it, is an insufficient reason for living. When I reach the end of my days"—and I always try to pause there to reinforce this next little phrase—"a moment or two from now," because I don't know how old you are, but it doesn't matter. We all are going to live for another moment or two.
"When I reach the end of my days, a moment or two from now, I must look backward on something more meaningful than the pursuit of houses and lands and machines and stocks and bonds, nor is fame of any lasting benefit." I was just in the bookstore yesterday. I haven't been able to get into a bookstore for a while, so I was in heaven, spent a couple hours just going through them. I hit some old book about these heroes of the Revolutionary War, and I did not know one of these guys. I had never heard of one of these guys that were instrumental in providing us the opportunity to have the country we have today. You don't think fame is a fleeting thing? Fame is of no lasting benefit.
What Makes Life Meaningful
"I will consider my earthly existence to have been wasted unless I can recall a loving family, a consistent investment in the lives of people, and an earnest attempt to serve the God who made me." Then Dobson says five words that summarize this whole thing: nothing else makes much sense.
See, men, that's the whole sum in total of life. You and I are out there trying to pursue things to accumulate, thinking it's going to bring us happiness when it's not, thinking it's going to bring us security when it won't, and there's only one thing that really lasts.
What Actually Lasts Forever
In the middle of this section, Paul gives us the formula for success: godliness plus contentment. Then he says this: you can't take anything with you. That's not exactly true. There are some things that will transcend to the other side. Two things will last forever: God's Word and people. That I can dump my life into people, and those things will transcend into the other side.
Scripture is clear that there are efforts and works that I can do that won't determine heaven, but will transcend to the other side, and I'll be rewarded for them. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that says. I don't know how that fleshes itself out. I don't know if life is like Dodger Stadium, or heaven is like Dodger Stadium, and you guys will be there out in the bleachers, and I'll be right there, right behind the third base dugout with a Dodger dog, and right in the prime spot. I don't know if that's what's going to happen, but I know this: that if I devote my time, energy, effort, and money for things, I will be disappointed.
A Call to Commitment
Let me encourage you today to reach a point where you commit yourself to God's formula for success: godliness, consistent time with Him and His Word and His people and fellowship. You need to be in church. You need to be in a Bible study. This isn't church. This is a study where we get to come together and look at some things that triggers some thoughts, but that ought to drive you to a church, to a Sunday school, to a Bible teaching church.
That needs to transcend into your life. You can't block out in your day timer 7 o'clock on Wednesday or Tuesday morning to 7:45 and say, "That's the godly time," and then all of a sudden, "It's 7:50. We're
back into free time. You can't segment your life like that. When you know Christ, He permeates all the aspects of my life. Man, that's the only thing that makes sense for life.
There's real success: godliness plus contentment, an attitude that says, "God, you know what I need better than I do, and here's where you put me, and here's the resources you've given me. God, I am NOT going to bust my pick trying to get more. I'm going to become the steward of what you've given me." That becomes the focus and the emphasis of my life.