09/21/2025
1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19
SN: 0093
Warning labels: they’re everywhere, aren’t they? If you get a new medication, it comes with a four-page list of warnings in a font so small you need a microscope to read it. Buy a new toy for a child or grandchild, and there are warnings all over it. Sometimes I look at the warning labels on my lawnmower and wonder what had to happen for that label to be there. Money is a good gift that God gives to us, but it also comes with a warning label. The Apostle Paul tells us, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.”
Notice that Paul doesn’t say money is the root of all evil, but rather that the love of money is the root of all evil. Money is good, but it comes with a warning label because Satan loves to use it as a way to have us wander away from the faith. Unfortunately, our sinful nature doesn’t want to heed this warning. We live in a culture that is obsessed with the idea of never being content with the amount of money we have.
Paul tells us that “godliness with contentment is great gain.” But we live in a culture that bombards us with messages that we should never be content. The ads we see on television, hear on the radio, see as we drive down the road, pop up on our computers, and are well-basically everywhere all scream at us that we absolutely need this, that, or the other thing to be happy. But God tells us something completely antithetical to this worldview: if we have food and clothing, with these we will be satisfied. God wants us to be satisfied with the good gifts he gives to us for our daily welfare as he fulfills our needs for life, not necessarily our wants and desires.
God wants us to be content, not because he wants us to be poor or to have to survive on the absolute bare minimum necessary to survive. Our God is generous and wants to shower us with good gifts, including wealth, but he also knows the danger wealth and money pose to our sinful natures. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into complete destruction and utter ruin. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains. Greed and the lust for money lead to a whole host of sins. Think of the character Scrooge in the famous story by Charles Dickens. Scrooge loved money more than he loved his fellow man, and because of this, he was an angry and bitter person who never showed compassion to anyone.
The love of money and lack of contentment with the gifts God has given to us lead to envying what God has given to others. Think of how our society views the rich. Now I’m not saying that many of the rich people in our society are good examples of how we should live our lives, but I’m trying to illustrate the danger of hating and despising someone because they have what we do not. This constant envy and strife lead to deeper evils as well. Look at the hatred and violence that have permeated our culture because of envy and a love of money. People are willing to do horrible and evil things to their fellow men for the sake of money. Some, filled with greed, are willing to trample on the less fortunate to increase their wealth, and others are willing to despise, slander, and hate those who have money out of envy.
This is why Paul gives us such a strong warning about the danger of loving money. Money is a good gift from our God, but if we let it consume us, we can very quickly wander from the faith. This is why Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters. Indeed, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
As Christians, we understand the danger of money, and because of that, we sometimes veer too far in the other direction. We wrongly think that because of all the evils that money has caused, this must mean that having money must be wrong. But that’s not what God is teaching us here. Many good and godly people in the Bible were extremely wealthy. Think of Abraham, David, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Lydia. They had great wealth and used their wealth to serve the Lord. Just because something comes with a warning label doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it. We understand that we need to use it carefully and for the purpose it was intended.
This is true of money as well. Money is a good gift that God gives to us to use in his service and to use for our enjoyment. But God wants us to remember where our money comes from. It comes from him. The world wants us to believe that we need to put our trust in our own effort, but we know that everything we have comes from God. Paul says, “Instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but rather in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment.” God richly and daily blesses us with everything we need for our bodily welfare, such as food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, land, cattle, money, and goods. We trust that God will richly and daily provide for us because we know that God is faithful to his promises. This is the hope and certainty that we have as Christians. We know that God will watch over and protect us and give us everything we need.
We trust that God will keep his blessing to provide for us because he has already provided for our greatest need by sending his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for our sins. All our sins of greed and envy have been paid for in full by the blood of Christ. We are forgiven and have been reborn as new creations who no longer conform to the pattern of this world. No amount of wealth or money can buy our way into eternal life. Only faith in Jesus Christ, who shed his holy blood that is far more precious than gold or silver, can open the door into eternal life. This is why God wants us to be careful with money. He knows that Satan uses our natural, sinful desire to be lovers of money to lead us away from the only thing that can give us that which is truly life.
God has already given us everything we need for our life in this world and, more importantly, for our life in the world to come. Therefore, we do not need to waste our lives chasing after wealth as the world does. Again, think of the story of Scrooge. At the end, he discovers that happiness comes from sharing our wealth with others. God wants us to use our money and the other gifts he has given us to serve him and to serve our neighbor. Paul commands, “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share. In this way they are storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”
Our wealth and money are gifts from God for our enjoyment and for our use to serve our neighbor. We use our money to support the work of his church, to help those in need, and to care for the needs of our families. God blesses us in different ways at different times in our lives. Sometimes we have an abundance of wealth and can give generously. Other times, we are lacking, but we can be a blessing to others because they can use their gifts to help us. God does command us to give a certain amount or to give in a certain way. Instead, he wants us to use what he has given for our enjoyment and to help and serve our neighbors.
Warning labels are there to remind us of the danger of using something in the wrong way. God gives us a warning label with our money, because the world wants us to value and trust money more than God. We understand that money is simply another gift that has been given to us by our heavenly Father. We put our trust in him because we know that he will richly and daily supply us with all we need. We trust that our God is wise with the gifts he gives to us, and so we are content with the blessings he has given to us. Let us rejoice in the good gifts God has given to us and use those gifts to serve him and serve our neighbor.