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Let’s Not Go Haywire!
1 Timothy 6:6-19

Picture
     I loved going on walks with my dad as I grew up.   We lived by wide-open fields and nearby woods.  We put on our sturdy footwear but didn’t go on a hike, although that’s a fine thing to do in the upper Adirondacks.   Instead, we carried tools and wire along with us and walked the fence lines.  We made sure the posts were stable and secured any broken sections of the barbed wire.  If one of our horses, cows, or bulls broke through it, several others would follow. 
      Since my dad was a livestock dealer, he always had animals moving in and out of our pastures, waiting for an auction or a request from a farmer.  Usually, the animals were content to graze and sleep, but sometimes one or more got agitated.          
       I’m not sure how often my dad, and his father before him, was called in the middle of the night by a concerned neighbor reporting that our livestock got loose and were in their yard or out by the road.  Any sort of roundup takes multiple people; being in the dark makes things harder.  It was usually Holstein cows that got loose.  Do you know what a mature female Holstein weighs in at?  1500 pounds.  Now imagine several of them nervously huddled together, ready to bolt.  Rounding them up and getting them safely into a new pasture is a sight to see and just one more reason why I respect my dad, and livestock farmers everywhere. 
     I’ve told you this story about using haywire to patch fences, and I’ve shared why that’s necessary: some livestock just get out of control.  When something or someone is out of control, do you know that’s called “going haywire”?  If someone says their computer has gone haywire, it means it’s messed up, or not working well.  If a person goes haywire, it means their words or actions are seen as unpredictable.    
     In today’s Scripture we heard from the Apostle Paul, who knows a great deal about things and people getting out of control.  He’s written to Timothy, a younger Christian leader he’s mentored, who is ministering in the large, very wealthy city of Ephesus. He urges him to teach wealthy Christians not to be prideful or trust in their uncertain riches – instead to put their trust in the living God.
     While this advice is valuable and no doubt necessary for the uber-rich living long ago, isn’t there a helpful word for us today?   When we see something lovely that doesn’t belong to us, but we wish it did, we can shrug and walk on by.  Or we might feel tempted, imagining what it would be like if we could have that same material possession.  There is a line, though, and when we cross it, we’ve gone from interest in something to a definite plan to own it.  If our need or greed are great, we won’t even care how long it takes us to work or pay for it.  We may even go so far as to neglect people we love.  
      Has anyone watched the opening scene from the movie “Sense and Sensibility,” starring Emma Thompson?  As the movie opens a dying father leaves his inheritance to his son after making the son promise that he will be very generous to his sisters. On the way home from his father's death bed, the son’s hard-hearted wife gradually convinces her newly rich husband to keep the majority of the inheritance for himself and give his sisters only a token.  It’s heartbreaking to watch his good intentions by undermined by greed.
      I looked up some statistics this week about which cities in America have the richest people, some who have earned their wealth and others who have inherited it.  Does the Silicon Valley in California ring a bell with you?  If you wanted to live in the city of Atherton, which sits between San Jose and San Francisco, your neighbors would be tech billionaires, retired CEO’s, celebrity actors, Hall of Famers, etc.  The average annual income is $525,000 and the median home value is $7,795,000.  I heard recently that in Lake Tahoe, where the rich love to ski and vacation, the billionaires are moving in and pushing out the millionaires!  This boggles my mind.    
     I believe that many of the richest people in the world have accumulated their wealth with integrity; their talent and hard work, combined with the right opportunities and some good advisors, can make people wealthy.  They’ve also learned to be responsible in wisely managing their resources.  God never says it’s wrong to be wealthy, but He does warn us that coveting and possessing money will never satisfy us.  Let me ask you an important question: are you satisfied with what you have in life? 
      I like the story that author Philip Yancey told about a spiritual seeker who interrupted his busy life to spend a few quiet days in a monastery.  “I hope your stay will be a blessed one,” said the monk who showed the visitor to his tiny room.    “If you need anything, let us know, and we’ll teach you how to live without it.” (Christianity Today, March 2006)  
      How many things could you or I be taught to live without?  How many things could Jesus teach us to live without?  For me, the key verse from this passage of Scripture is this:  Godliness with contentment is great gain.  Another modern translation puts it this way:  True faith, with peace of mind, is ideal.  If you and I have our basic needs taken care of and we can say with honesty, “I have enough in my life”, that brings peace of mind. God also says that that is what truly makes us rich.      
     None of us came into this world with anything, we were bare-naked.  Your family may even have photos to prove it! And the day we leave this world it will be the same; our net worth will be worthless.  What truly matters is what happens in the years we’re given in between.  Think back over the years of your life; are there people you know who loved the right things in life?  Do you think that you are loving the right things in life?  When we are, God will give us contentment, and in the words of Paul to Timothy, “we’ll then take hold of the life that is really life”.  Thanks be to God!


Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel.
 
Money can buy a house, but not a home
 
A bed, but not rest
 
Food, but not an appetite
 
Days of fun, but not joy
 
Medicine, but not health
 
Knowledge, but not wisdom
 
Again, the shell of all things we can get for money, but not the kernel.
 
That cannot be had for any amount of money.   

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