Sermon notes, Tim Keller, Redeemer Church, NYC, free iTunes podcast

Big idea: These verses in Matthew 6 show us how to flesh-out what it means to live holy from the sermon on the mount, particularly in this case, what it means to live free from the slavery of greed and materialism.

Passage: Matt 6:19-34

I. How does money have power?
One of the only sins we don’t know we have. Five percent of the world controls 70% of the wealth. If you are an executive, you are in the top 40% of that 5%. We know when adultery is committed but not necessarily greed and materialism. That is why we need 1-3 close friends to help us see if money controls us. How much do we spend relative to what we mke? Maybe saving too much to think we can control the future? Are we giving radically and has our lifestyle changed? This is why there are those verses in there that talk about the eye of the heart being dim.

II. Why it has power?
Treasure – what is our main thing? Money can reveal quickly the source of our identity through either money’s security, prestige, or power. Identity is what makes life worth it. What makes me worth it. After the fall, we are trying to get an identity from anything and everything but in God.

III. How can we be freed from money’s power?
Move our treasure to heaven. How do you know when Christ is your treasure? Answer: how do you respond to rich (and poor) people?
A. Are we envious of the rich or fearful / intimidated by them: not see the riches of the gospel as ours.
B. Prideful and superior to the poor: not see our utter sinfulness of sin and how truly bankrupt we are. The gospel says that we are more sinful than we know and at the same time more loved than we could dare to hope! C. Do we give so that our lifestyle is odd and changed by it?

Freedom from the love of riches is through seeing Christ who had all wealth, power and security, leave heaven to be poor then ultimately stripped naked on the cross of all things and then made spiritually bankrupt for me so that I could be truly rich in him, knowing and having God!