399: Failed Strategy #4: Wealth | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. We will be continuing our look at the book of Ecclesiastes today, but before we jump into our text, I wanted to just share. I think most of you probably know this, but I began my career in ministry on Young Life staff, which is fantastic ministry. I see so many faces in this crowd that have been impacted by Young Life. In fact, I see many faces of staff who are still pouring their lives into this ministry. There's so many just in this room. There's Landon, Ellie, I don't know if the Fetzers are here, but they're still on Young Life staff. We have, who else, Zira, we got a new staff. The Derma, I said Landon, didn't I? Okay. Anyway, Ty, Ellie, so many. We have a wonderful staff.

The Mission of Young Life and our Connection to Ecclesiastes

But the target of Young Life Ministry is to the disinterested kid, to the kid that doesn't think they have any interest in God. I mean, we would kind of cut our teeth going to kids that weren't coming to church. We were going out to the high schools. One of my favorite quotes from our founder, Jim Rayburn, is this: Young Life is the outgrowth of the conviction that Jesus Christ is everything kids want most, if they only knew. Here's his belief. They just don't know. If they could have an authentic encounter with the one that created them, they would fall hopelessly in love with him.

And so we spend our efforts going to where kids are on their turf, but also learning to communicate with kids in a language that they can understand. We begin, when we're proclaiming the gospel, by talking about where kids come from, their origin. They're created by God in his image. We go on to tell them about the ultimate revelation of God, which is himself in the person of Jesus Christ. We talk about Jesus, the person of Christ, who he is. If you want to know what God is like, look at him.

But then, we would get to a talk that became my favorite talk. We called it the need talk. Because here's the reality: you and I are created with a vacuum. It's what Blaise Pascal would call a God-shaped vacuum. And what kids, who might have thought the first two talks were irrelevant to them—maybe they're not spiritually tuned—if they were, they'd be at church, but they're not. And so they might think, you know, that's great about God. Religion is for you, but not for me.

But the moment you start talking about desire and how it never quite satisfies—this idea that CS Lewis talks about: that if you have a desire that you can't seem to find something that would fulfill it in this world, the most likely reason is because you were made for something beyond this world. Kids, instinctively, I watched over two decades of doing this ministry. Kids connect with that. It's almost like the best comedians: what do they do? The best comedians, they say out loud what everyone experiences, but no one's ever communicated. And this is what I think the best evangelists do too—that they communicate something that a lost person knows intuitively but they've never heard anyone say.

This is the beauty of the Gospel. And in a sense, this is what the entire book of Ecclesiastes is about. And you know what I just discovered, too? That as a Young Life staff person, this is my favorite talk. Especially when I'm talking to skeptics, it also has become, as a pastor, my favorite talk to give to Christians. Why? Because you and I, we forget. We forget the one for whom we were made. Jeremiah 2:13 would put it this way: God says, My people—talking to his people—have committed two great sins: Forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and they've done something else. Do you remember what it is? They dug cisterns for themselves, cisterns that are broken, and they don't hold water.

And this is what Solomon is doing throughout Ecclesiastes. He's been going from one thing to the next, trying to find something that won't leak, something that will last, but everything ends up being a broken cistern. And this week, we get to his fourth and final failed strategy: money. So if you have your Bible, let's turn to Ecclesiastes chapter five, beginning in verse 10, and listen to what Solomon says.

And by the way, before I jump into this, there is no one more qualified than Solomon to talk to us about money. Do you know that in 2 Chronicles 9, it says he was the wealthiest king in the world? He made 25 tons of gold per annum. Do you know how much that is in today's dollars? 1.6 billion dollars per year. That was his salary. Now, he had some expenses, okay? That was top line. But it also wasn't all of his income. He had more income. Other kings gave him, he had other business ventures. He collected taxes from the people. He was one of the wealthiest people to ever live. Quig actually corrected me from the first service. I think there were some other people that were a little more wealthy, Mansa Musa, maybe. But Solomon is known as one of the wealthiest people to ever live, one of the first and one of the only trillionaires. He's going to talk to us about what money produces in your life. Okay? Listen up.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-17 and the Warning About Wealth

Whoever loves money never has money enough.
Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
This too is meaningless.

Solomon here is talking about money in two ways. The first word in the Hebrew is "silver." It's what you use to go buy goods and services, the things that you want now. And his wealth, that other word that's used, is the accumulation of money stowed away for the future. It's your checking and your savings, or it's your wallet and your retirement account.

And here's what he says: you will never, listen, have enough. Is this true? What did Howard Hughes, the famous billionaire, say? How much money, they asked him, does it take to make somebody happy? Remember what he said? Just a little bit more. Just a little bit more. Because you see, you will never have enough. You never will.

Why is it that money is so enticing, especially in this day and age in the West? Do you know that you and I don't actually want money? That may sound counterintuitive. But what you and I actually want is what we think money will buy for us. That's what we're after.

I heard Tim Henderson say this once: that no matter who you are, what you are looking for in money is one of these five things. You are looking for power, pleasure, identity, security, or rest. I don't have time to go into how money purchases all of those things, but here's the deal: it does. Money will buy you those things, but here's the problem. Each one of those things is an appetite that is never satisfied. It is a bottomless pit. You will never get filled up because the more you have, the more you want.

And let me give you an example of this—and you know this to be true. You may have some quiet, invisible list. It might not be written down anywhere, but there are some things you want. In the moment that your income or your accumulated wealth is able to accommodate that list, do you know what happens? New list. New list appears. You don't have to go sit down at Starbucks and think about it either. It just bubbles to the surface. There's some new things that you want, some new shiny toys, a bigger house—and it will never satisfy.

I'll give you another example. You know Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, billionaires? You know what else they have in common? They have a list, and you know what it is? It's buying up all the real estate in Hawaii. They're just buying it up. Do you know why? Because they can, and it's on their list. And they've decided that their hundreds of acres of estate are not private enough. They're buying it from the locals. They're making it impossible for anyone else to build. They'll never be satisfied. If they bought every square inch of Hawaii, they would still be hungry for more. And you know what? So would you. And so would I. We're no better. We just don't have enough money to see how much we would actually reach for. You will never have enough. You will never have enough.

Does that mean money is bad? It doesn't. Because listen to what he actually says: "whoever loves money." It's the love of money that is the root of all evil. Whoever loves it. And when you look at this word in Hebrew, sometimes you can learn what a word means by looking at its Hebrew definition. Other times, you can learn more about what it means when you see how it's used repetitively in the scriptures.

And quickly, I want to tell you how this word is used over and over in Genesis. The very first time it's used, it is God speaking to Abraham, and he says, I want you to take the son that you love. Remember, Abraham had two sons. He had Isaac and Ishmael. Take the one you love—your favored son. Isaac and Rebecca had a couple of sons. Do you remember? Isaac favored who? He liked Esau. And it says, Isaac loved Esau. Rebecca loved Jacob. Jacob had two wives. Do you know that? Jacob loved Rachel. And it says that Rachel longed for Jacob. Sorry, Leah longed for Jacob to love her.

Israel—Jacob, later he was named Israel. He had a favorite son. Do you remember? It was Joseph. What you see over and over and over again is this: this is preferential love. It is what you love most. And do you know what? Exodus 20, the first time God uses this word for himself—the very first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." And then, as he's kind of expounding upon what this means, he says, don't bow down to other gods. He says, I'm a jealous god, and I will extend mercy to a thousand generations for he that, here's the same word, loves me. For he who prefers, for he who loves me the most.

Saint Augustine called this disordered loves. He would say, what determines who we are becoming more than anything else is not so much what we think, what we believe, or even what we do, but what we love—particularly what we love the most. And what he's telling us here is that if you love money most, it's going to produce something.

Here in verse 11, he says it's going to disappoint you. He says, "as goods increase, so do those who consume them." This is another way of saying, as your goods, as your wealth expands, so do your expenses. Bigger house, bigger mortgage, more utilities, bigger car, bigger gas bill. You get to the point where you have such a large estate, you need yard people, you need someone to come and clean the house and maybe cook. You don't have time for that. See, the more you get, the more your life costs, and the more you have to work and earn to sustain that.

Here's the second thing that he says, the second part of verse 11. He says, "and what benefit are they to the owner except to feast their eyes on them?" His point here is this: this is the picture of somebody just watching their wealth grow. He's not using it to enrich his life or the lives of others. What he's doing is he's just watching that number get bigger in the bank account, on Fidelity, on his portfolio. He's watching his wealth grow.

You know, this is a phenomenon we have in the American West, where people don't use their wealth. They accumulate and grow, and they grow, and they grow, and then they pass it down to their kids when they die. And do you know when the average age that people get the inheritance is? It's in their sixties, when they no longer need it. And then they accumulate, and they wait, and wait, and wait, and pass it down to their kids when they don't need it either. And this wealth—doesn't really affect it. All we're doing is just looking at it. It's not enriching your life or anyone else's. It's meaningless, he says.

Then, in verse 12, he says this: the sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much. But the abundance of the rich man permits him no sleep. This is a picture of contentment. The guy, whether he has much or little—and by the way, you can love money whether you have a lot of it or a little. You can be loving the money you wish you had. See, this love of money can control you whether or not you have it.

Okay? But this person is someone who's content. Whether he has little or much, he sleeps like a baby. He works hard. He's focused on his task and his job, and he sleeps. But the full stomach or the abundance of the rich man—that's actually the thing that does not permit the wealthy man to sleep.

Can I give you an example of this from my own life? In 2007, I was married right at the end, and we went on our honeymoon to Mexico. I was there with my favorite wife, Melissa. And do you know what was happening at the end of 2007, at the beginning of 2008? The global financial crisis—an economic meltdown of the whole system. We realized just how leveraged everybody was, and there was this cascading bank failure. Bailouts started. The government had to step in and print insane amounts of money to save the system.

Do you know what I was thinking at the time? I didn't care because I didn't have anything. Okay? It was in 2008. I actually spent all my savings on a honeymoon to Mexico and on Melissa's big fat ring—and it was worth it. And I slept like a baby on that honeymoon while the rest of the world was in a panic because I didn't have anything to lose.

Fast forward to 2021, November. I was on a vacation with that same wife, Melissa. We were in Mexico—same, not the same resort, but we were in Mexico. And there was a complete meltdown of financial markets. Particularly, I had made an investment, and I was watching the bottom drop out. I was glued to my phone. I was in an all-inclusive resort, and I was watching my retirement shrink. I couldn't sleep on vacation. You see the problem? Money had gotten too big. It had commanded too large a place in my mind and in my heart.

Next, Solomon gives us a parable. Okay? An example of the points he's already made about wealth. He's going to show you in the life of a person—whether this is an imaginary person or a real person—but listen to what he says. He says, "I've seen a grievous evil." That word is actually sickening. "I've seen a sickening evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner." That word for hoarded is a Hebrew word meaning to guard, to hedge about as with thorns, to build a barrier around something because you don't want anybody to touch it.

You know where else this word shows up? In Jonah 2:8: Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. By the way, do you know what that word for worthless is? It's heaven—those who guard or cling to worthless (empty) promises. Which, by the way, is what an idol is: an empty promise. It offers you something it can never give, and here we are building a little fortress around it so that no one can touch it—especially God. In the moment that we do that, we are forsaking our own mercy. We are preventing ourselves from receiving the grace God wants to give. Why? Because I'm looking to this thing to deliver me, to save me, and God can't get in to set me free from the thing that is actually killing me—that vain idol.

Here's the principle: we are harmed by what we hoard. We will grow into what we guard. We will conform to the thing that we cling to. Can I give you some examples? Have you heard of Smeagol? That ring is precious. He loved it. What did Smeagol turn into? Gollum—an evil, greedy, disgusting monster.

Here's another example: Ebenezer Scrooge. He loved his wealth so much that it turned him into something. In fact, I don't know this for sure, but I think Dickens used and was very creative about this name. Ebenezer—that is a stone of remembrance—a memorial to God's goodness. Scrooge is a play off words: gouge and scrounge, which mean to press, squeeze, and swindle. Dickens is saying, here is an Ebenezer—a memorial to what greed will do in your life. This is who you will become if money is your god: an evil, awful person.

He continues: So wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner or wealth lost through some misfortune. Here's a man who had wealth but lost it—so that when he has a son, there's nothing left for him. The point here is, even if you hoard it to your harm, there's no guarantee you'll keep it in this life. Sometimes, you may make a bad venture, a bad business decision—kinda like how the ESV says it. But other times, it might just be the great financial crisis. The GFC of 2007-2008. It might be completely out of your hands. You didn't do anything wrong. You just dollar-cost averaged in the S&P 500, and suddenly, you get cut 25% overnight.

He's saying there's no guarantee that you will keep it in this life. But then he continues: when he dies, he departs, and he takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. This too is a grievous evil. As a man comes, so he departs. And what does he gain since he toils for the wind? What's he saying here? It's not just that there's no guarantee you'll keep it in this life. He's saying there is a guarantee you won't take it with you to the next.

Why are you toiling for something that you cannot keep? He says this is a grievous evil—a sickening evil. And he closes in verse 17: all his days he eats in darkness with great frustration, affliction, and anger. It's a sad ending. Matthew Henry, in his commentary on this last verse, says: they that have much, if they set their heart upon it, will not only have uncomfortable deaths, they will have uncomfortable lives too.

What about you? What do you love the most? Does money have too much of a share in your heart?

The Connection Between Money, Darkness, and Spiritual Blinding

There's an interesting phrase that he uses here at the end in verse 17: that man spends all his days in darkness. What is the connection between a love of money and darkness? Do you remember what Solomon calls himself? He refers to himself in the third person as Koheleth, the teacher, the preacher. And he had a lot to say about money.

In fact, a hundred and thirty Proverbs talked about money. Do you know there was another teacher who came along later, and he talked a lot about money too? Do you know that Jesus of Nazareth, in the Gospel of Luke, talked about money more than anything else? More than heaven and hell combined. Why? Why was money so important to Jesus? Not only did he just talk about money, he talked about the connection between a love of money and darkness.

In Matthew 6, his famous Sermon on the Mount, he's talking about storing up treasure on earth versus storing up treasure in heaven. He said, "Be very careful because your heart, where your treasure is, there your heart will be." Your heart is going to follow your treasure. But then he says this in the very next verse: The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, then your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your body will be full of darkness. Then he says, If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

What does that mean? He's using a physical illustration to make a spiritual point. He is teaching us that a love of money will have a blinding effect on you and me, spiritually. Your spiritual eye will be darkened. Here's what he means: if you have a good eye, and there's light in here, you can see. You move around—you won't trip over the pews or each other. But if you have a bad eye, a darkened eye, even if the lights are on, you won't be able to see because you're blind. And he adds, if the light that is in you is darkness, then how great is that darkness?

He is talking about someone who is blind but thinks they can see. That is a very dangerous place to be. He says greed has a darkening effect on your spiritual life. You don't realize it's happening. This is why Jesus in Luke 12 says, "Watch out for greed." He doesn't say that about other sins. No one, when committing adultery, says, "You're not my wife." It doesn't happen. You know when you're committing adultery. But greed is sneaky. It hides itself. It makes itself small, and you don't know.

In fact, Jesus talked so much about money for two reasons, I think. One, because I don't think there's anything in our lives that will choke the love and the life of God out more than a love of money. And second, because most people don't think they have a problem with it, but everybody does.

And here's the test to know if you are spiritually blind when it comes to money: if I sat down with you and just looked at your finances—just to be a friend—I want to know how you're doing. How much are you spending on yourself? How much are you giving away? Not just to the church, but to charity? What's happening inside? Just be honest with me. What's happening inside you right now?

How dare you, Sloop? That's none of your business. It's my money. Okay? If that is your visceral reaction, it's revealing that there's something hedged about, as with thorns, around the topic of money.

How to Break the Power of Money and Greed

Listen, I have this problem too. So how do you break the power of money and greed over your life? I'm going to give you two quick practical applications.

First: be radically generous. One of my closest friends shared with me how he had a great year financially. He's an entrepreneur. Every year is different. He had a killer year. And he said, as soon as he started to feel that greed bubble to the surface of his life, he just started writing checks and giving it away. Because he's like, I will not let this control me. I will not let this be the thing that I love most, because I know where that leads. And he just wrote a big fat check to the rescue mission and a big fat check to his church.

That's the first practical tip: if you sense that greed is starting to get a hold on you, give it away. See, the man at the end of his life, it says he had nothing in his hand to take with him. Can I give you a tip? You cannot take your material possessions with you, but there is a way to send your money forward. In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's dad had something on the wall—a picture. Do you remember the picture on the wall in the bank? The only thing you can keep is that which you give away. Everything else will burn. We're not going to take it with us. But there's some stuff that can make it to the other side: the souls of men and women, the kingdom of God.

You want your money to make it there? Put it there. I'm not trying to increase your generosity to this church—though if it happens, fine. But that's not my main point. Because if you give more money away, it doesn't make God love you more. But here's what it does: it makes you love him more. Jesus is not after your money; he's after your heart. And he knows that what's got your heart more than anything else is your money. And you're probably blind to it, just like I am.

Second: let go. Let go. Give it away. But also: focus on his radical generosity towards you. The man at the end of this story lost his wealth. He lost it all through some bad venture, and he had a son. Nothing to give him. Do you know what the gospel is? You have a God in heaven. And what in the Old Testament is called his portion, his inheritance? It's his people. And through some bad venture, God lost his inheritance. He lost his people. But he had a son. The only thing he cherished more was his son. Do you know what God did? He sent his son. He lost that too. He lost him too. He lost his son so he could get you back.

2 Corinthians 8:9 —

For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty, you might become rich.

See, the moment you see Jesus trading in his treasure—he had it all—trading his treasure to get you as his treasure, that makes you want to get rid of your treasure. Trade it in for him. Is he your precious? Is he what you love most? I promise you, money won't give you that. Only he can. Let go and grab hold of him by focusing on his radical generosity towards you.

Conclusion

Let's pray. Father, we need you. We need to let go. We need to let go of the stuff that does not satisfy, and we need to lay hold of you— the only one who does. Would you forgive us? Forgive us for digging our own cisterns—they just leak. Teach us to love you most.

If you're here today and you want to connect with God, we have these rails down here for you to pray by yourself. Or if you're someone who would love for someone to pray with you, we have a special place for that. It's in the back of the room, behind this corridor, where it's a little more private. And we would love—encourage you—to take advantage. Go have someone pray with you and see what God might do.

Thanks for this time. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.