“Living the Good Life”
Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Imagine a young man — let’s just call him Timothy — who’s just finished his education and is headed out into the real world. He’s bright, talented and loaded with potential. Our American culture will encourage Timothy to dream several dreams.
First of all, he needs to be happy: A recent survey informs us that 84 percent of Americans describe themselves as “pretty happy” or “very happy.” If Timothy is to be happy, the findings suggest that to be merry he should marry, be a Republican, an evangelical Protestant, locate himself in the upper-middle class, live in a warm climate, be a Caucasian of course, and be a senior citizen. Well, Timothy is 22 so he’s no senior citizen, but perhaps he can be happy anyway.
And then, he needs to be healthy: Just like a herd of Darwin-driven antelope, there’s little room in our society for the sick, weak and frail. Our magazine covers, billboards and TV screens all speak to our obsession with health and beauty. So young Timothy is going to hit the gym, wax those brows, apply some of the Smile Brite tooth strips, and look to win friends and influence people who do all of the same.
Finally, he needs to be wealthy: The same happiness study reports that “happiness rises in a nearly straight line through eight levels of annual family income.” We dream of riches, not rags. The American culture encourages Timothy to dream of having enough money to buy all the flickering, fashionable, floating and four-wheeled toys he wants, plus a comfortable nest egg in the bank to support a snowbird’s two-home retirement and plenty of time for golf vacations.
Isn’t this the good life that singer Bobby McFerrin sings about: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”? Indeed, I think it’s very important that we ask ourselves this question: “Are we living the good life?” In your more reflective times, are you happy, for example, with the lifestyle that you have chosen for yourself? Down through the ages, the sophisticated and the unsophisticated alike have asked themselves this question: “What is the good life?” Is it the examined life? Is it the life of pleasure? Is it the “highlife” that some brewery company tries to promote, with its commercials reminding us of an early episode of The Simpsons, as Homer exclaimed, “And to think I turned to a cult for mindless happiness when I had beer all along”? In this passage in 1 Timothy, the apostle Paul describes the good life for us from God’s perspective.
The first description of the good life here has to do with “godliness combined with contentment” (6:6). Why? Paul tells us next that it’s because “we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it” (6:7). Or as the familiar saying goes: “No one has ever seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul!” Some of you may remember Alexander the Great of Macedon, who was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16 and, by the age of 30, had been undefeated in battle and created one of the largest empires of the ancient world. And, as legend has it, when he died at the age of 32, he requested two holes be put on the sides of his coffin, to have his hands outstretched, to show the world that even though he had gained the world, he could not take anything with him.
I believe the reason Paul admonishes us to live a godly and content life is because he is well aware of the problem that we often have with money — we always want more. And just in case you thought the love of money was a modern day problem, Horace wrote in 65 B.C. these words: “If possible, honestly; if not, somehow, make money!”
In fact, Jesus knew of our problem with money so well that he talked much about money: sixteen of the 38 parables were concerned with how to handle money and possessions; and in the gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses, and that’s 288 in all, deal directly with the subject of money. In the whole Bible, it offers some 500 verses on prayer, a little bit less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2000 verses on money and possessions!
Notice here that Paul didn’t say “Money is the root of all evil” — as most people often mistakenly presume — but “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (6:10). And so, the problem lies not in money itself, but in the love of money.
Haddon Robinson, a popular preacher and seminary professor on homiletics, writes in his sermon entitled, “A Good Lesson from a Bad Example,” these words: ”For every verse in the Bible that tells us the benefits of wealth, there are ten that tell us the danger of wealth, for money has a way of binding us to what is physical and temporal, and blinding us to what is spiritual and eternal. It’s a bit like the fly and the flypaper. The fly lands on the flypaper and says, ‘My flypaper.’ When the flypaper says, ‘My fly,” the fly is dead. It is one thing to have money, another for money to have you. And when it does, it will kill you.”
There is an old Jack Benny joke in which a mugger accosts Benny and says, “Your money or your life!” There’s a brief silence, and the mugger says, “Well?” Jack Benny says, “Don’t rush me, I’m thinking. I’m thinking!”
It’s been well said that “Money will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brains; food but not appetite; finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health; luxuries but not culture; amusements but not happiness; religion but not salvation — a passport to everywhere but heaven.”
Paul’s teaching here is quite simple, in that he believes contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have — the realization that God has already given you everything that you need for your present happiness. In other words, whatever we have, we have because God in his grace and generosity has given it to us already. When we realize this, there comes into our lives a joyful gratitude for what we do have and so we can be free from resentment and anxiety over what we don’t have.
Let me give you an example: We walk on the beach to watch the beautify sunset and as we watch it we don’t call out, “A little more orange over to the right, please,” or “Would you mind giving us less purple in the back?” No, we don’t say that. We just enjoy it. There are always-different sunsets that we watch as they are, and we are in awe with God’s creation and God’s creative power. We do well to do the same with what we have already.
Paul’s second way of thinking about the good life here has to do with what he calls “fighting the good fight of faith…by pursuing righteous, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness” (6:11-12). Why? Because he believes somehow these qualities would bring a sense of contentment far beyond what worldly wealth can bring and that we are to live the good life by focusing our energy on our spiritual progress.
The word picture here of a fight is an excellent metaphor because this spiritual progress often requires intense effort and with much opposition from many sides. It’s obvious that we have only so much energy each day and at the end of the day we are tired — drained from all the energy that we have spent. Yet, how much energy have we invested in our faith? We are fighting the fight of success. We are fighting the fight of upward mobility. We are fighting the fight of raising our kids and maybe even our grandkids. But are we fighting the good fight of our faith?
It’s a little bit like having a big bucket and several big rocks, a pile of gravel and some sand and your goal is to try to put all that into the bucket. You know that if you put the gravel and sand in first, you are not going to have any room left for the rocks. But, if you start with the big rocks, then you can pour in the gravel and then the sand, then there is room for all of it. Indeed, the rocks are the big things — the important things — in our lives, while the gravel and sand are the less important things. So we’d need to start with the rocks each day and you’ll find that you’ll have room for all the small stuff of life.
According to Paul, the big and important things here have to do not only with pursuing “righteous, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness,” but also with taking “hold of the eternal life” and making “the good confession in the presence of many witnesses and in the presence of God” (6:11-13). This is an excellent example of which had already been made for us by Jesus before Pontius Pilate: as he lost everything, even his own life, when he took “hold of the eternal life” and made “the good confession in the presence of many witnesses and in the presence of God.” Yes, we are to live the good life by following the example of Jesus, because we cannot take anything which is not eternal with us, when we leave this place.
The final way of thinking about the good life is addressed here specifically to “those who in the present age are rich,” that they’re “not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (6:17).
Some of you may remember a song a few years ago about a love relationship, and the first part of the song goes something like this: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.” Somehow I feel this sentiment is percolating underneath the surface of many Christian lives today: If loving money and loving my stuff is wrong, I really don’t want to be right. Maybe we do need to step back just a little bit and ask ourselves this question: “Who owns this stuff?” Are they God’s? Or are they mine?
The problem with the rich man in Jesus’ parable in Luke obviously was not because that he was rich, but because he was blind to the needs of the poor. To be “haughty” is to be “proud,” “arrogant,” or maybe even too “self-sufficient.” Even in Hades, while he was suffering, the rich man was still trying to throw his weight around and use Lazarus as his lackey to “dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames” (Luke 16:24); as he still tried to direct Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers to tell them to repent. But, of course, Abraham would not have any of it.
I believe the problem with most Christians is that we often equate wealth as a sign of God’s favor, and poverty a sign of God’s curse. We often say, “I’m blessed because I am rich.” And that’s the wrong attitude. Because, by saying so, we actually think God likes us better than he likes people with less. In God’s Word, we are told to be humble instead of arrogant and, instead of finding our security in what we have, we are to remember that God is the one who gives us everything that we have to begin with.
No, it is not that God wants all of us to be poor, but he does want us to be mindful of the poor and that we are to share with them our wealth. We are told here in 6:18 that “the rich is to do good” (notice do good, not do well), “to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share” (6:18).
I believe St. Augustine, who lived in the 4th century, summed it up really well when he said: “Those who wish to make room for the Lord must find pleasure not in private, but in common property. Redouble your charity. For, on account of things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possesses singly. Do we fight over the things we posses in common? We inhale this air in common with others, we all see the sun in common.” He says, “Blessed therefore are those who make room for the Lord, so as not to take pleasure in private property. Let us therefore abstain from the possessions of private property — or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession — and let us make room for the Lord.”
Isn’t that what Paul is trying to tell Timothy and in turn trying to tell us here today? As he sums up what he is trying to say, 6:19 gives us the reason why we should all listen: “Thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.” “What’s the good life?” You ask. This is it! “The life that really is life.”
On January 1, 2002, twelve European countries switched their currency over to the euro. No longer do they use the lira, the franc, the Deutsche mark and so forth; but all twelve nations now conduct their business with the euro. We are told that the German government used shredding machines to shred all their old banknotes, the Austrians turned their shillings into 56 tons of compost.
And you know what? We, too, will face a currency switch one day — when we go to heaven, our currency will need to be switched from earthy currency to heavenly currency. No, that will not be the euro or even the dollar, but the heavenly currency has to do with what we have invested in God’s work. Those who are rich in this world, who don’t begin exchanging currency now, will find themselves poor in heaven. This is not to say our giving earns us our salvation, by no means at all, but it’s to say that God calls us to live a life of giving while we live on earth, especially if we are well off — which probably includes most of us in this place!
Brothers and sisters, pursuing the good life has absolutely nothing to do with how much money one makes, but about “godliness and contentment.” It’s about “fighting the good fight of the faith.” It’s about being “generous, and ready to share” — a life that is available to all people, no matter what their net worth. Isn’t that the best way to pursue the good life?