PH 5-minute Bible teaching
Blinded by the greed
Jesus tells us to be “on guard” against greed, implying that we often won’t know when we’ve fallen into it. It’s not like other sins that are obvious to us even as we commit them. Greed is inherently deceptive and therefore we need accountability.
No one likes to talk about money in church. But that’s precisely why we likely need to. It’s why Jesus spent so much of His teaching time (SO much) talking about money. If you want to just listen to the audio version of this clip, just click here.
If you want to see the full sermon associated with this clip, you can find it here.
Transcript: Blinded by the greed
Wed, Oct 4, 2023 : Peter Heck
(Begin transcript)
Greed is very deadly. And it's one of the seven deadly sins. But it's very deceptive. You don't realize that you're greedy, it blinds you.
In Luke chapter 11, Jesus talks about how the eye is the window to the soul. And if your eye lets in light, you can see everything. And then and he says, you need to do that. And then in Luke chapter 12, he warns us be on guard against greed. Why? Why are those two together? Because greed blinds us, we don't know that we're greedy.
Why? Because we know greedy people, and we're not like them. And since we can point to people who are far greedier than us, we say, well, that's the standard, and therefore I don't have a problem. Listen to me very carefully. The greedy people in your life that you're thinking of right now, what they do has nothing to do with whether or not you are being obedient with your resources. You can have, you can have very little in your bank account, but be an extraordinarily greedy person. That's why we have to pay attention to this.
Everything I've read from ministers says that whenever a topic of greed comes along, church attendance drops. Now, there could be a few reasons for that. But I think there's an obvious one, and I don't think it's because people are mad, and they don't want to hear about greed. It's because they don't think they need it. “We're not greedy. That's not a problem for me. So I don't really feel the need.”
Several of you were not attending here at the time. But several summers ago, I did a series on the 10 commandments, okay. And during the 10 commandments series, there was one Sunday that the attendance was a lot lower than all of the other Sundays. Now, it could be coincidence, I think it's one of three things. One, it was a really nice day, and people have a summer and they went to the lake or something. They didn't come to church. The other two options are people saw it was, it was the week about murder, that attendance just cratered that week. People saw that in our church has a real problem with murder. And so therefore, we didn't want to be under conviction. And I'm not going to show up. I don't want to hear about that. I don't think that's the case here.
So that tells me the third option is probably why, because you saw it was going to be about murder. And you say, “Well, if I'm going to miss any of the 10 commandments. I don't really struggle in the whole murder department. So I'm not going to go that Sunday.” Right? That's the point. That's what happens. We don't think we're greedy. We don't think this message is for us. I'm going to tell you, I would be shocked if this message isn't for 99% of us this morning. I think we all struggle. I know I struggle with this. So at least it's for me, and I've got a strong feeling, it's for a lot of you as well.
Jesus wants us to be on guard. That's what he says, “Be on guard against greed,” meaning you should look out for it. It's not going to be obvious that you are greedy. Be on guard for greed. I want to point out, why does he do that? He doesn't do that with adultery. In no place does he say, “Be on guard for adultery.” Well, obviously, because if you're committing adultery, you know you're committing adultery. Nobody's committing adultery and says, “Wait a minute, you aren't my wife.” Nobody has that reaction. “Oh, how did you get in here?” Nobody does that. So you don't have to be on guard against adultery, but greed. You don't know that. You don't know when you're being greedy.
We've got a lot of former preachers who attend here. And I would be curious to ask them, I'm not going to put them on the spot now. But I'd be curious to ask them. How many times in your profession, in your career, did you sit in your office and someone come in and say, did you ever have someone say, “Man, I'm really struggling with lust, and I don't know how to overcome it and pornography.” I've had that I've only been preaching five years. People come in and say “I am really struggling with bitterness and anger and resentment towards somebody in my life, and I need to overcome it.” People come in and say that they want help with those things. “I'm struggling to forgive.” I wonder how many times, I've never heard somebody come in and say, “I'm materialistic. I'm greedy. And I don't know how to overcome it.”
I don't know. But I don't think that's a common thing that we talk about it. We don't think about it. We don't even consider it. Why? Because we all have a family member, we all have a friend who is way more extravagant. And so we look at them and that's all it takes. We just say “well, that's the greedy one. I'm not like that. So therefore it's not a problem for me,” and never consider the fact that it's a problem for all of us. This is something that we all need to address.
(End transcript)