Scattering Gathers; Gathering Scatters 42:13

Welcome to Gospel in Life. For many of the decisions we have to make in life, moral values alone can't tell you what choices to make. You may be weighing several options in a decision, and they all could be morally allowable. So how do you choose the right one? That's where God's wisdom is critical. Today, Tim Keller is speaking about how we can grow in using God's wisdom. The scripture this morning is from the book of Proverbs. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city.

But poverty is the ruin of the poor. The wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment. The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight. Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. There's one who scatters yet increases more, and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.

People curse the man who hoards grain, but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell. Misfortune pursues the sinner, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous. A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. Give me neither poverty nor riches.

But give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, Who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God. This is God's word. We're studying the book of Proverbs, so we're studying the subject of wisdom. Each week we point out and remind ourselves of the definition in Proverbs.

1 Kings 3, when Paul, not Paul, when Saul, no, not Saul either. Who was it? Solomon. When King Solomon, great start. Yeah, great start. Three tries for each name. It could be a long day. When King Solomon asked God for wisdom and he said, I need a heart that can discern right from wrong.

The natural question is, well, he was the king of Israel. He had the law of God. Why would he need a heart to tell him what right from wrong? Why couldn't he use the law of God? And the answer is that wisdom is not less than being moral and good. It's much more. It's knowing what the right thing to do, the right course of action to take, the right choice to make is in the great majority of life situations that the moral rules don't address. Now, one of the areas...

where you will have a mess of a life if you only follow the rules and don't have wisdom is the area of money. People who only look to the rules, only what's illegal or only what's against the rules in the area of money are going to be destructively unwise in their life. Now, if you want to be wise, according to the book of Proverbs, in the area of money and finances and wealth and possessions, you need to know three things. You need to know the power of money. You need to know the reasons for the power of money.

And you need to know how to break the power and use the power of money in your life. The power of money, you need to know. The reasons for the power of money and how to break and then use the power of money elsewhere. How to break the power of money over your life and use it. Let's take a look at these three. First, what does Proverbs tell us about the power of money? It tells us an awful lot. First of all, Proverbs recognizes the power of money by talking about how good a thing it is.

If you're a reader of the book of Proverbs, you'll find over and over, surprisingly often, the book talks about wealth creation in the most positive possible terms. There's so many of these. I didn't even, these kinds of verses, I didn't even list them. I'll just read you a few. And in the very beginning of the book of Proverbs, it says, lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.

He who gathers crops in summer is wise. He who sleeps during harvest time is disgraceful. Here's a great one. The blessing of the Lord brings wealth. Proverbs 10, 22. The blessing of the Lord brings wealth. Now, what you see there is, over and over again, the book of Proverbs connects hard work, ingenuity, insight, creativity, self-control, and discipline to

With prospering, prospering materially, prospering economically. And there's lots and lots and lots of statements in that regard. Now, you say, why? In fact, you get more of an impression when you read the book of Proverbs that Proverbs is all for making money. Why would it be?

And the answer is the book of Proverbs is based on the book of Genesis. The book of Proverbs is in the Hebrew scriptures. And it assumes the understanding of the origin of the universe that we see in Genesis. So Genesis gives us a unique, in all the cultures and all the religions of the world, a unique understanding of the material world. The Greeks believed that the material world was just a shadow, kind of a corrupting shadow of the real world, which is spiritual.

The Eastern religions all believe that this material world was a complete illusion. Northern European accounts of creation or many Near Eastern accounts of creation, in all those situations and all those accounts, the world is created as an accident or as a result of a war, as a result of a struggle of some sort. Only in Genesis do we see God creating the material world to be beautiful, to be good,

to be enjoyed. And he puts us into the Garden of Eden, not just to enjoy the material world, but to care for it, to take care of it, to be responsible for it. And this is one of the reasons why the Bible explains why making money, which the more money you make, the more of the world is yours to care for, to take responsibility for. And the Bible explains why that's so humanizing.

Why it makes you feel more human, less like a cog in a machine, to make money and to own things is because the Bible says you were made for it. It's incredibly positive. But the Bible, the book of Proverbs, not only respects the power of money because of its inherent goodness, but it also respects the power of money because, as the book of Proverbs shows us, money has an incredible spiritual danger attached to it. It's an incredibly dangerous spiritual power.

How so? Well, I pulled out enough Proverbs to show us four ways. Okay, the first one, which is maybe the most easiest for people to grasp and believe in, is 11 verse 1, which is the third proverb down. The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight. Now, this first point is that Proverbs says, wealth, money has the power to corrupt your integrity.

You might be a person of great integrity and maybe a person of great honesty and character, but in the presence of a lot of money, it's amazing how many people who had integrity lose it. You know what dishonest scales was? It was pretty simple. If you were selling grain, the buyer knew how much grain by the scales. And of course, if the seller knew

falsely labeled some of the weights. You know, if it put, essentially it put a one pound weight on there, but it labeled it two pounds or something like that, a two pound weight on there labeling it one pound, excuse me, or that sort of thing. It was a way of finding out, it was a way of making sure the customer essentially paid for more grain than he or she was really getting.

And what that means is that this is deceptive business practices. And it's rather simple, but we all know it. Money has the power to corrupt our integrity. Money has the power to do that. When you are indulging in business practices that hide from either customers or investors information that they would want to have, you have been corrupted by the power of money. Your integrity, you might have once had it, but it's gone now.

It's being eroded by the power of money. Secondly, the power of money not only has the power to destroy integrity, it has the power to magnify self-absorption to the detriment of the social fabric and community. Go down to 26, which is smack in the middle of the page, chapter 11, 26, where it says, "'People curse the man who hoards grain, "'but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell.'" This is extremely interesting.

What's going on here is not this person is not being dishonest. He's being ruthless. The situation is a food scarcity. And in the time of food scarcity, this man has grain, but he's holding on to it. He's not selling it in order to drive the price up so that he can make a much greater profit, even though there's people who are hungry.

Now, this is not illegal. We said that wisdom is a matter of understanding what's right beyond the rules. No rule can tell somebody you own something and you must sell it, right? Nothing can make a man who owns this sell something he owns. And yet, even though he's not doing anything illegal, he's not doing anything illegal to hold on to it. Look, what does it say? It's cursed. In the Bible, to be cursed means

It means spiritual, emotional, moral, physical disintegration. Community is being disintegrated. Some people's bodies are being disintegrated. So what is Proverbs condemning? Now, you know, catch your breath here. Proverbs is saying it's condemning a business with only one bottom line, personal profit.

Proverbs condemns business that has only the bottom line of personal profit and not also an equally important non-negotiable bottom line, and that is the common good, the good of the community.

According to Bruce Waltke, who's a very major Old Testament and Hebrew scholar, he says if you want to understand the book of Proverbs, you need to understand something pretty radical. Every time you see in the book of Proverbs the word righteous, here's what the word righteous means. He says the righteous, according to the book of Proverbs, are those who value community as a bottom line in production as well as personal profit. The righteous are those who are willing to forego greater profit for the common good.

The righteous, therefore, you see verse 16, the wages of the righteous bring them life, the income of the wicked bring them punishment. Bruce Waltke says you have to take that just a little bit further. In the book of Proverbs, what it says is the righteous are the people who the more money they make, the more life comes from them. Because first of all, they understand their money as belonging to the community, not just to themselves.

They make their money in such a way that builds up the community, and they only consume what they have in such a way that it benefits the community. They don't spend it all on themselves. Whereas the unrighteous are the people who make it for themselves, and they spend it on themselves. Now, let me tell you what you're doing when this happens. When a business has two companies that they might want to buy, and they only ask which company is more profitable.

And they don't ask, which company gives us a product that helps the town more? Which company has a product that helps society more? Which company has a product that helps people more? If you don't ask that question, you've been corrupted by the power of money, according to the book of Proverbs. It's pretty interesting and pretty scary. And by the way, this is continuing more and more in our culture. Paul Krugman...

Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times as an economist at Princeton, said something fascinating two years ago in the New York Times. He was noticing the fact that today, of course, executive pay can be maybe 10 to 100 times more than the wages of the bottom rung of the company. Whereas back, he says, before World War II, nobody would ever do that.

Executive pay could never be more than maybe 50% more, maybe even 100% more, but nothing like that. And he asked this question. Why weren't executives paid as lavishly 30 years ago as they are today? He says, for a generation after World War II, fear of outrage kept executive salaries in check. The outrage is gone.

The explosion of executive pay represents a social change, a cultural change, rather than the purely economic forces of supply and demand. Get this. We should think of it not as a market trend like the rising value of waterfront property, but as something more like the sexual revolution of the 1960s, a relaxation of old strictures, a new permissiveness, except now the permissiveness has moved out of the sexual into the financial. By the end of the 1990s, the executive motto might as well have been, if it feels good, do it.

The individualism unleashed in the area of sex has washed into economics. So, and you see, you're saying, but Noah, you're just talking about Proverbs is condemning normal business practice in our society. Yes, it has the power to make you think that's normal. It has the power to destroy your individual integrity. It has the power to destroy community. Thirdly, it has the power to distract you from what's really important. Chapter 11 says,

verse four, it's the fourth one down, says, wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, which is judgment day. And here's what this means. It's simple, but it's quite important. You know what a judgment day question is? Here's a judgment day question. What is my life amounting to? What am I really doing with my life? What difference am I making in the world? Who am I really helping? What contribution am I making? Wealth blinds you to judgment day questions. Wealth

pulls you, sucks you into a frantic cycle, a frantic life of consumption. It goes like this. I've earned more, so I'm going to spend more. Now I have to keep earning more. I earn more to match, and that makes me spend more. But then after a while, I have to earn more because I'm spending more to keep up with my level of spending. And on and on and on it goes. And all the time you feel strapped. All the time you feel like, I just don't have enough to keep up.

All the time you feel like there's not a whole lot that I have that I could, you know, for the people around me. I mean, I'm just barely making ends meet now. It's a lie. We'll get to that in a second. The Bible says it has the power to, wealth definitely makes you busy. It makes you much busier than you should be and gives you, makes you think you have far less with which to do good in the world. So it distracts you from the big things of life. And lastly, it makes you proud. Look at the very, very bottom.

It destroys your self-knowledge. It makes you overconfident. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God. Now that term, who is the Lord, is what Pharaoh said to Moses. Pharaoh was someone who says, I don't need God. Who's the Lord? There's nothing like economic success to make you feel overconfident.

The more money you make and the more successful you are, the more you think you got it because you were so smart and so disciplined. And what that means is you become overconfident in your own instincts, in your own judgment. You don't listen to other people. If you don't realize this as part of the syndrome of the addictive power of money over you, Bernard of Clairvaux is reputed to have once said, to see a man humble...

Under prosperity is the greatest rarity in the world. Now, Proverbs' view, let's summarize this and move on. But Proverbs' view of the power of money is so great, and it's so much greater than probably any view of money I know, that Proverbs and the Bible's understanding of money does not fit into any current, worldly, conventional, economic way of thinking.

For example, just to show you this, look at 21 and 23. 13, 21, and 23. Now look at this word, misfortune, and that does mean poverty because notice it's opposed to prosperity in the verse. It says poverty pursues the sinner. See, if you're poor, you've done something wrong. Prosperity pursues the righteous. Now that's the conservative view of poverty.

If you're poor, you haven't worked hard, you know, you're not being responsible, you're not taking personal responsibility. A lack of personal initiative and personal responsibility, that's the reason for poverty. That's verse 21. But then look at verse 23. A poor man's field produces abundant food. See, that poor man, he's worked, he's been disciplined, he hasn't slept through the harvest, but injustice sweeps it away. Well, that's the liberal view of the poverty. Well, which is it?

The book of Proverbs embraces both, and this is why. One commentator said this about the book of Proverbs, in fact, the whole Bible, and says, the Bible's understanding of money is such that it does not fit into either socialism or capitalism or any view of economics in between that we've got in the world today.

On the one hand, it's way too positive about the good of wealth creation and making money and the good that riches can bring and the connection between wealth and hard work. It's way too positive about those things to fit into the socialistic system. But on the other hand, all this talk about the fact that when you make money, it is not yours, it belongs to the community, multiple bottom lines, the way in which money blinds you and makes you proud and leads to oppression and exploitation,

All that kind of stuff, especially that talk about multiple bottom lines, does not in any way fit into the capitalistic theory either. Why? Because capitalism and socialism and anything in between, human beings underestimate the actual power and might of money. They don't understand what a spiritual power it is, but the Bible does. And if you're wise, you will too. Now, secondly, we said, a little on the brief side, but secondly, what are the reasons for this power?

You know, there's the power. We know it. But why does it have this power? This ability to puff up, this ability to destroy the social fabric, this ability to destroy your integrity and your character, this ability to make you way too self-confident, destroy your self-knowledge, this ability to distract you from what's really important in life. Wow. Where does it get this power? What are the reasons? And the answer is verse 15, top of the very top. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city.

that poverty is the ruin of the poor. Now, there's a picture here, and it's important for Americans to understand this. It's not that easy to understand because of our understanding of cities. You have to scroll back several hundred years and see the cities of the ancient times surrounded by walls and all the houses inside. First of all, cities were the ultimate places of security.

Wild animals you were protected from. Invaders, to some degree, you were protected from. Vigilantes, if you did something wrong, there was a council of people who would decide out there, away from the city, they just killed you. The blood avenger came and killed you. Windstorms, you were protected from the weather. You were protected from vigilantes and blood feuds. You were protected. It was the most secure possible place to live. And as a result, cities were not just the place of security,

They were the ultimate source of significance. That is, if I could live in a city, you know, everybody wanted to live in a city, but the poor couldn't. They lived outside where they got clobbered by every windstorm and every pack of wild animals that came by. The rich lived in the city. The artisans lived in the city. The people with status lived in the city. So the cities were the sources of, the city was the source of significance and security.

But now notice, though the picture is there, what is it saying? It doesn't just say that the wealthy, the rich, live in the city. It says the wealth of the rich is their city. What's that mean? Actually, a little later in the book of Proverbs, the meaning is brought out very clearly in a couplet. In Proverbs 18, verses 10 and 11, we read this. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe.

And then verse 11, the wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it an unscalable wall. Do you see? What the book of Proverbs is saying is, and this is the great danger, wealth is their significance and security instead of God. In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life.

In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, you'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life.

This resource is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's Wisdom for Navigating Life when you give today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Wealth is your significance and security instead of God, or put it this way.

There is no better alternative to significance and security in the world through God than wealth. There's no more plausible way to feel good about yourself and to feel secure and in control than wealth.

It is the alternative to God. And it has enormous spiritual power. In other words, wealth doesn't just make you happier in some general way. It gives you your identity. It gives you your security. Now, rather than sit there and say, well, I don't know if that's true of me or not, it is. In fact, I would really like you instead to imagine which form, which way in which wealth has a power over you. In other words, some people mainly look to wealth for the significance of

And other people mainly look to wealth for their security. What do I mean? Well, see, for example, some people mainly look to wealth for their significance. That is, you feel important because of the clothes you wear, because of the places you live, because of the places you eat, because of the people you know. It's not just, you feel important. You don't just look at other people and think they're below me economically. You look at other people and you think they're below me economically.

You don't just feel, are you honest with yourselves? When you move to a bigger house, a better neighborhood, when you move up economically, you don't just feel, I have a better economic life. You feel, I'm better. You know, middle class people, oh, we pity the poor. Oh, they're so poor. When you actually find yourself on a bus with a pile of them, you just sit there and you roll your eyes and you grit your teeth and you say, how obnoxious. You know what's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. You feel better than they are. You feel like you're better.

You feel superior to them. If you started where they started, if you were born in the very same position, in the same situation, if you had the same family, if you had the same influences, if you had the same schools, if you had all this, you think you'd be better? You think you'd be living a better life? Of course not. But why do you feel that way? It's the power of money. One of the reasons why we need all this money, we need all this stuff, we kid ourselves about how much we need. We're in denial.

about how much we're spending on ourselves is because it's how we feel significant. I've made money, I'm a professional success. I can live like, will you admit it? Now, some of you are different because some of you, see people who look to their money for their significance tend to spend a lot more money. But those of you who look to money for your security are somewhat different. Some people say, I have money so I'm important. But other people deep in their heart say, I have money so I'm safe. I've got some control.

I've got money in the bank. I've got money in investments. And you feel like, you know, you're a scared person, and yet with money you're overcoming your fear. But money is worthless in the day of wrath. Do you think money can stop death? Do you think money can stop tragedy? Do you think money can stop heartache? Do you think money can stop the breaking up of relationships? It can't do that. It's not God. Only God can do that. And it doesn't make you into God. But that's the reason for the power of money.

Because money, more than anything else in this world, offers to you significance and security apart from God. And we're getting it, whether you believe in God or not, whether you say you're a Christian or not, whether you are a Christian or not. To a great degree, we're getting it, and that's the reason why money's got power over us. Okay, finally, how then do we break the power of money over us? How can we break the power of money over us and use the money then properly? Here's how. I suggest just two things. Number one,

assume you're somewhat in denial. Assume you're in denial, especially if you live in America. If you're visiting from somewhere else, maybe it's not as bad. But if you live here, assume you're in denial. Why? Well, go back to this third proverb, the Lord abhors dishonest scales. You know what that literally says? Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord.

Now that is incredibly strong language and it's meant to be shocking because the word abomination is usually used for sexual sin in the Old Testament. The word abomination is usually used for sexual sin and you know what this is saying? It's saying you could be squeaky clean sexually, absolutely moral and pure sexually, but if you love money too much, God is as offended by you and your life as by the life of someone who is cheating on his or her spouse.

And you're shocked and you say, I had no idea money had this, you know, how I deal with my money was spiritually important. Well, think again. Because if this is true, and of course it is, if this is true, that materialism is as offensive as sexual wrongdoing,

then it must be true that materialism is more spiritually dangerous than sexual wrongdoing. You say, why would that be? Well, here's the reason why. You know, Jesus was always running around constantly saying, watch out for greed, watch out for materialism, watch out for all forms of materialism, right? He says that in Luke chapter 12 and other places. Watch out for materialism. He has never said, watch out for adultery. You know why? Because when you're doing adultery, you know you're doing adultery. I mean, it never happens. You never say...

You're not my wife. I mean, it doesn't happen. If you're doing adultery, you know you're doing adultery. That's why he didn't have to say, watch out for adultery. Why does he say, watch out for greed? Because nobody, nobody who's doing materialism, nobody who's into greed, nobody who's completely given in to the power of money, and therefore, by holding on to your money, by holding on and spending it on yourself and holding on to yourself, you are creating death in the world.

And nobody who's doing that thinks they're guilty of it. Nobody. And therefore, we're in trouble. And I want you to especially, we've got to move on here. When I mentioned Americans, listen, Americans are always saying stuff like this. I hardly have enough to live. I hardly can make ends meet. I can't possibly live any more simply than I'm living. I really don't have that much money to give away. I really need all this stuff. I really need all this stuff. I really need all this stuff. The rest of the world knows better.

They look at how we live. They look at the level how we live. And they say, you're kidding. What's the mark of an addict, an addict in alcohol and anything? What's the mark of an addict when it comes to money? How do you know that you are blinded in denial because money has you in its grip? The mark of being addicted to money is that you confuse needs and wants. Everything you want, you think is a need.

What you think I need to live is so far beyond what you really need to live that you feel like all your money's tied up and you can't spread it around. You can't give it to others. You can't create life with it. We are addicts. Americans are always saying, I can't give away any more. I couldn't possibly give any more away this year. I can hardly make ends meet. I couldn't possibly live simply. The rest of the world knows.

that we're utterly in denial. Would you assume that you're in denial? Would you assume it just because you live here? They're laughing at us for what we think is a normal standard of living. They're laughing at us. Maybe they're not laughing at us. Maybe they're mad at us, and maybe they should be. Okay, so the first thing you want to do to break the power of money is assume you're somewhat in denial and at least somewhat. And the second thing you have to do is you have to grasp the scattering principle. You have to grasp the scattering. Well, what's the scattering principle? It's right here in the center.

There is one who scatters yet increases more. There is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. Now that is a paradox. It's supposed to be a paradox. By the way, this comes up often in the wisdom literature. Psalm 112 says the same thing. He who scatters, gathers. And he who gathers, scatters. That's what it's saying. It's saying the person who tries to increase, decreases. And the person who's willing to decrease, increases.

Scattering gathers. Gathering scatters. Now that makes no sense. That just makes no sense. It would seem to me that if you gather, you increase. And it would seem to me that if you scatter, what scatter means to break something up that was yours and distribute it. Break something up which is yours and just distribute it.

It seems to me that scattering decreases and gathering increases, but that's not what it says here. It says scattering gathers and increases and gathering scatters and decreases. Well, now, how could that be? Well, there's one area that if you think about it, this obvious, this paradox is obviously true. Agriculture, right? In fact, this word scatter is taken from agriculture, right?

In agriculture, you scatter your seed and the more you scatter, the more you gather. The more you sow, the more you reap. If you would hold on to your seed and say, oh no, I can't spare any seed, you'll starve. You know, sirs, you're right. But if you're willing to scatter your seed and give it all away, you'll gather. Now, by the way, when you gather, it comes back in a better form. You probably can't sit there and eat the seed. Depends on the seed, I know. But in general, it comes back in a better form.

Now, here's what the book of Proverbs is saying. You are an addict to money. You are blind unless you see that your wealth is the same thing as seed, that the only way for you to turn your wealth into real riches is by giving it away, that the more you give it away, the more you will increase in real wealth. And if you don't see that, if that makes no sense to you, or if you know it intellectually, but you just can't do it, you are an addict.

Well, you say, for example, some people will say this to me. I got to hit this before going on to the final point. People say, okay, so, okay, those who scatter increase. Okay, so the more I give my money away, the richer I'll get. There's some kind of spiritual calculus here. Okay, that's great. You have not broken the power of money over you at all. You've just spiritualized it. In other words, I'm going to scatter to gather. That's not scattering. That's gathering. I'm going to scatter, then I gather, but that's gathering, right?

You know, here's the great irony. The book of Proverbs says that if you love money too much, that leads to what? Overwork, overconfidence, ethical shortcuts, loss of community. All of those things in the long run will mean you'll be making stupider and stupider economic decisions. See, there is an irony here.

The more you can break the power of money in your life, the more likely in the long run you are to make smart economic decisions. But even that's not good enough. See, you can't say, okay, okay, great. So that means I give my money away, but I don't expect any money back right away. It's later. And guess what? You're still gathering money.

How are you going to break the power of money only like this? St. Paul quotes the Old Testament statement about gathering and scattering in 2 Corinthians 8. In 2 Corinthians 8, he's trying to get people to give to the poor. But it's extremely important to see how he motivates people to give to the poor. He doesn't go after their will. He doesn't say, you better give or God will get you. And he doesn't go after their emotions.

He doesn't say, you've got to give because, oh, these poor people, they're suffering so much and you have so much and they have so little. He doesn't go after their emotions and he doesn't go after their wills. He goes after their hearts. And this is what he says. I want you to give, but I'm not commanding you, he says. Man, if you give in response to a command, you're still gathering. You're still saying, well, if I do it, then maybe God will help me or something else will go on or I'll feel like I'm a better person and then I'll feel better. No, no, listen. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know what he's saying? Here's what he's saying. Let me show you the ultimate gathering and scattering. Jesus Christ on the cross was literally broken to pieces.

You know, when they flogged him, the 39 lashes, those lashes had little pieces of metal and bone on the end of the whip. So he was literally being torn to pieces. On the cross, he was broken. On the cross, he was broken to bits. On the cross, he was distributed. On the cross, he was scattered. Why? To gather us. Paul is saying, unless you see...

Unless you see the cross as the ultimate scattering together the ultimate act of generosity the ultimate place of wealth distribution the ultimate place of Becoming poor in order to get real riches until you see what he has done for you until you were are melted by that You will never break the power of money of your life And here's the reason why the cross the ultimate act of generosity is your ultimate security, right?

Do you believe in the cross? If you believe in the cross, then you know God cares for you. And that's a security money can't give you. But if you believe in the cross, that's a significance money can't give you. Why would Jesus Christ have given up heaven? Why would Jesus Christ have given up his glory? Why would Jesus Christ have given up all the treasure he had? Because you and I were more valuable to him than that. If Jesus Christ valued us like that, there's a significance that money can never give you. And until you were melted,

by his generosity, until that becomes your significance and security, you will not be free from the power of money. Or put it this way, if you treasure anything else in your life, if you make anything but Jesus your ultimate treasure, it will drive you, it will control you, you will feel like I've got to have it, it will demand that you die for it. But Jesus Christ is the only treasure that died for you, died to get you.

And until that happens, until you see that, to the degree that you see that, your heart will be restructured in its motivation, its identity, its approach to the world, and you will want to scatter. You will turn your money into real wealth. When you give it to the poor, you'll see their lives being repaired. When you give it to ministry, you'll see people literally changing forever.

getting joy forever, and then you'll finally have the wealth. But you don't do it in order to get wealth. You don't do it to feel better about yourself. That's non-gospel stuff. To the degree you bring the gospel into the realm of your money and your economics, to that degree you'll have the freedom we're talking about. And here's the last point, but important point. The tithe. Minister talking about money without talking about tithing?

What's going on here? Well, probably the tithe is referred to because in verse 24, it says, there is one who scatters yet increases more, and there's one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. Now, what's withholds more than is right? See, here's a stingy person who's not giving away as much as required. Now, what would be required? Well, in the Bible, 10%. Everywhere through the Bible, it says, if you're not giving away at least 10% of your income to charity, to ministry, every year,

then you are disobeying God's rule for generosity. But now I want you to listen to something. We said being wise is not less than following the rules, but it's more. The tithe is the rule, but the cross is wisdom. Jesus didn't save you by tithing his blood. Jesus didn't save you by tithing his glory, and you live by his giving of everything. Jesus' cross means sacrificial giving. Don't you dare...

think that you're being wise about money if you only tithe, if it's not making a measurable difference in the way in which you live, if it's not making a measurable, sacrificial difference in the way you do things, in the way you take your vacations, in the way in which you buy your clothes, in the way in which you live, you're obeying the rule, but you haven't brought a cross into your economic life. And that's wisdom.

Jesus Christ gave himself away and look at his harvest. Me, you, you know, why are we gathered here? Why are we together? Why do we love each other? Why do we have each other? He got scattered and we're gathered and this is just the beginning. Now you go and do likewise. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for showing us how to be wise with regard to money. And we pray that you would help us to follow the footsteps of your son, Jesus Christ.

Though he was rich, became poor so that others through his poverty might become fabulously rich. We pray that you would make us like him. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the life-changing wisdom of God's Word through this ministry. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. ♪