Rocket Ships

by Scott Wetzel

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV)

I was listening to Doug Bursch the other day and he said something rather profound..  It was actually rather convicting and challenging and many of you know how I hate to be convicted and challenged.  Though it’s good for me, the feeling of stretching and changing is rarely peaceful in the beginning.  He said (and I paraphrase) we sin a thousand times a day and we don’t even know it.  Sometimes we even sin and claim that we are doing what God wants, but when we really dig in, we realize that it’s cultural and not scriptural.

We have a Christian culture that’s based on politics, finance and patriotism.  All those things can be used for good, but the CULTURE has taken those things and put them above the SCRIPTURE.  I know, I know this is something that I’ve talked about before and you probably think I’m some hippie Liberal that’s out to destroy the Conservative Evangelical movement.

You probably also don’t know me very well.

These things that I write are very difficult to put down on paper (er, monitor).  They go against the very core of my nature/upbringing.  I’ve worshiped at the alter of corporate consumerism for years.  I’m afraid some of you might even get the wrong impression of who I am in Christ, since this might go against the American church culture.  However, it’s completely okay to be countercultural when that culture is contrary to the word of God.  Sometimes the American church is all about God, country, money and in no particular order.  We cross our spiritual wires and think that as long as God is in there somewhere, we’re good.  So here it goes.  We’re going to talk about finances and it probably won’t be the last time.

I’ve been asked to lead the ministry part of our Sunday morning worship service many times.  I honestly really love doing that.   I love praying with people.  I love listening to the Holy Spirit as He intercedes with words I couldn’t have said on my own.  I love hearing people put aside their pride in order to allow God to do as God will do.  The Holy Spirit has been very faithful to provide me with sermonettes that speak to at least one person in the congregation.  Ministry time is always about healing in our church.  It can be healing for physical things, relational things, spiritual things or financial things.  I always mention financial things.  I never DON’T mention financial things.  I always feel a little weird about mentioning it, though.  I don’t have issues praying that someone might have shelter or a job or provisions, but I’m always afraid that someone will ask for prayer for superficial things.  I don’t know how Jesus feels about praying about 401k’s or our overpriced home.  I don’t know if Jesus WANTS us to pray about those things.

Nice things are great to have (and I believe God loves His children enough that He’ll give us treats sometimes), but Jesus didn’t teach us to pray about stock futures.  He taught us to pray about our daily provisions.  He wasn’t concerned about where He would lay his head or whether He could retire comfortably.  He was concerned about whether or not our hearts were fully engaged in the eternity that the Father has for us.  Much of the financial teaching in the Bible isn’t really about money at all.  It’s about where we put our faith, hope and love.

Most of us in this great nation have created a cult out of spirituality and finances.  We build a broken rocket ship model; wishing that the thing WE built is real, successful and will rise above everything we can see in order to save us.  Ultimately, though, it will be an earth shaking disappointment when it won’t fly or it crashes to the ground in a fiery mess.  Then we turn around and blame God, citing the Bible and telling Him that if we follow Him, He’s supposed to make us successful.

The thing we haven’t realized is that it’s not real.  It’s something we created.  The Word of God clearly tells us that.  If it were the real thing it would have been bigger and it would have been fulfilling.   We may not have had the excitement of building it with our own hands, but we have the excitement of being a part of something eternally successful.

Maybe the problem is that we define success differently than God does.