CHristian Attitude on Wealth

It bridges the first and second section of the book, and you’ll remember that I’ve told you that the first three chapters of this Ephesian letter described the resources of the believer, and the last three describe how the believer is to live. So you have all of these resources, all of the potential, all of the power, all of the riches, all of the energy, all that is ours in Jesus Christ in the first three chapters. Then in 4 to 6, how that is to be applied to the matter of living, and the bridge in between is this little passage 3, 14 to 21, which I call the ignition.

Now the first three chapters describe the power plant of the Christian, the last three describe the race the Christian drives in, and this is how you get the power turned on. And before the race begins in chapter 4, you’ve got to get the ignition on at the end of chapter 3. We have been looking at Ephesians in our devotional series in Christians Turning On, or the Christians Ignition. This is where you really get the energy that God has already given you in Christ, fired up for the matter of living, for the matter of operating, for the matter of being to the glory of God.

Now there’s a kind of a key thought here. As I was examining again our study from last time, I noted that Paul begins in verse 14 by a prayer, and we’ve already talked about that in our last study at length. And he bows his knee, and he prays, and he is praying that Christians would really turn on, that Christians would really begin to see the power flow, and the resource for his prayer is in verse 16. It is the riches of God’s glory. See it there in the middle? In other words, he is saying, God, on the basis of the riches of your glory, I want you to release this power in the believer.

And that little word riches reminded me that Paul has used that a multiple of times in the first three chapters. Christians are rich. We are so rich that we don’t even comprehend how rich we are. In fact, in chapter 1 in verse 18, Paul prays his first prayer in Ephesians, and he prays that we would know the riches of the glory of our inheritance. In other words, it is an inconceivable, incomprehensible richness that we have. And having prayed that we would understand it in chapter 1, in chapter 3 in our text, he prays that we would use it.

I think you are all aware that somebody once said that the average person uses one tenth of one percent of his brain. And I would venture to say that the average Christian probably uses one tenth or less of the percentage of the power of God that is available at his disposal. We limp along. We chug along on one misfiring piston instead of going on all eight as the Spirit of God has designed. We are rich, he says in chapter 1, verse 7. We have the riches of his grace. Verse 11, we have an inheritance.

Verse 14, again, we have an inheritance. Incredible riches. Chapter 2, he tells us, verse 4, God is rich. And then in verse 7, he wants to show us the exceeding riches of his grace. So in chapter 1, he says we’re rich. In chapter 2, he says we’re rich. In chapter 3, verse 8, look at it that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Once in each chapter, at least, he says that we are rich, unsearchably rich, incredibly rich, inestimably rich. And so in chapter 1, he prays that we would understand it.

And in chapter 3, he prays that God would enable in us, that God would enable us to use it. It doesn’t do any good to be rich unless you use it. Now, just how rich are we? Well, I don’t know how to illustrate it other than to say this. We are so rich, now get this, that we own everything God owns, that we possess everything he possesses. In case you question that, you need to read again Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, now listen to this, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.

We are as rich as heaven is. In fact, we have been made, according to Romans 8, heirs and joint heirs with Christ. We are as rich as heaven. God is going to, in the ages to come, pour out the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness on us. There’s no limit to our riches in Christ. We might illustrate it in this manner. I wanted to find out this week who the richest people were in the world. I found out that the DuPont family is the richest family in the world, and then I got a little information on the richest women.

Thought you might be interested in that. A Mrs. Charles Joseph Walker is a black lady, millionaire, self-made, started with nothing, and invented a hair straightener. She’s one of the wealthiest women in the world. Shirley Temple, who is another of the wealthiest women of the world, made her first one million dollars before she was 10 years old. Anna Dodge, who died in 1970, left 96 million dollars. And then there is Princess Wilhelmina, Helena Pauline Maria of Orange, not Orange County, Orange in the Netherlands. Princess Wilhelmina died in 1962 and left a mere 550 million dollars.

Well, now when you come to the richest men, you’re up into the billions, and you really can’t count it. You know, J. Paul Getty, John Davis, Andrew Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Andrew Mullan, John MacArthur. Not this John MacArthur. Often I thought, if the Lord could have just mixed up a little bit on that, might have unloaded it on me, you know? But these people have billions of dollars. And, you know, when we talk about somebody having millions or billions, we understand that that’s really rich. We can imagine the cars and the houses and the yachts and the planes and the buildings and the factories and the plants and the investments and the securities and the safes full of money.

And we can visualize all of that economic stuff. We can see all of that kind of riches. And we understand a little about what it means to be rich. But when we talk about being spiritually rich, we’re kind of at a loss to understand that. We don’t know what to look at. We don’t know how to visualize it. So I thought maybe you could visualize it this way. These people are rich. They’re the richest people in the world, but if you compare them against everything in the universe, they’re not very rich at all, are they? If God, for example, owns every single commodity in the universe, he’s rich.

Now these people have a billion dollars. Compared to that, they are really nothing. See? Nothing. God owns everything on the planet earth to begin with. God owns every planet in our solar system. God owns every planet in every solar system and every star in the entire endless universe, and they own one little area of the earth. That’s quite a difference. So compared to God, they’re paupers. But listen to this. Spiritually speaking, God owns everything, and as a Christian, so do you. You see the difference? You are really rich in the spiritual dimension, inconceivably rich.

Unfortunately, we function only on one-tenth of one percent, if that, of those riches. The power of God is amassed in our behalf. Unsearchable riches are ours. Now, on the basis of this, Paul prays his prayer. He says, because the believer is so rich, because, as I pointed out last time, he’s rich in mercy and grace and kindness and all things we found all over the New Testament that we’re rich in, because we have all of these things, he says, oh, Father, I pray that you would grant them, according to their riches, that they would move out and know your power.

That’s his prayer. Boy, to have it all, and not to use it, is pretty sad. God has been so generous in making us rich, we ought to be able to use those riches. We ought to be able to function on those riches. We ought to be able to daily use them in the living, the process of living. I remember a man in, I told you about him some years ago, in the city of Downey, named Mr Stamps. He owned the city of Downey. For all intents and purposes, the whole city had to buy all of their land from him.

As the city expanded, they kept buying more of his land. He was an extremely wealthy man. He owned the country club, but he used to dress so tacky. And he used to look so scuzzy all the time, unshaven and everything. You didn’t know that word? It’s a Greek word for ragged. Anyway, he was a terrible-looking old guy. And one day, while he was out on his own country club golf course, the police arrested him for vagrancy. They didn’t know who he was, and they heard about it, believe me. I think they put in a new police chief after that.

But anyway, he ran the show. But he didn’t look like he didn’t seem to appropriate his riches. I read about a man named Julian Ellis Morris. Julian Ellis Morris was a very, very wealthy man. He, however, used to love to dress like a tramp. In fact, that was the style of life that he chose. He dressed like a tramp, sold razor blades, shampoo and soap on the west coast of England in the English resort city of Blackpool. And he sold it door to door, dressed in an old tattered, beaten-up army coat and some tattered and ragged canvas shoes.

He went from house to house, selling razor blades, soap and shampoo. When he was done at night, he would return to his mansion, where he had three television sets, two cars, and he would have his chauffeur-driven Daimler limousine with his chauffeur take him to dinner. Or else he would catch a flight to Paris, where he would lavish gifts on the two girls that he kept there. He died at 75 and left a fortune. Well, it’s hard to imagine somebody with all that stuff not living it up, right? I mean, it seems a little ridiculous to have that on and get on a pair of old beat-up tennis shoes and sell soap door to door.

But it’s not unlike some Christians who spend most of their time running around in the tattered rags of their own inadequacy when the resources of God’s power are available. They just don’t ever bother to apply them. It doesn’t make any more sense. It makes less sense. Now, Paul here is praying that incredibly wealthy Christians who have immeasurable spiritual resources will use them in the matter of living, will apply them to life. You know, Paul sees what everybody in the ministry sees, what every perceptive Christian sees, and that is, Christians who never really use the resources that they have.

It’s sad, and so Paul’s prayer is based on that. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of Christian attitude on wealth. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].