The Problem of Materialism
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Welcome to Gospel in Life. Many today have elevated skepticism to such an extent that belief in God can seem almost unimaginable. But many of the human longings that characterized the ancient world are still the same today. We all still desire meaning, happiness, and a strong identity. Today, Tim Keller is speaking on how the Christian faith can address the problems and satisfy the longings of the modern heart. Every year, we...

Make a beeline around this time to some place in the scripture that talks about what God says our attitude toward our money and our possessions ought to be. That's really very easy because the Bible is as filled with information and teaching about that subject as it is about anything. The Bible says considerable, a considerable number of things about money. Now what we're going to do today is we're going to look at what Jesus teaches about it in Luke 11.

And Luke 11, verses 37 to 42 is printed in your bulletin. When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him. So he went and reclined at the table. The Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Then the Lord said to him, Now then, you Pharisees, clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.

This is God's word. Now...

Jesus' teaching in this passage is triggered by an event. And that event is the fact that the Pharisee, where he was eating, was upset about the fact he didn't wash his hands before he ate his food. Now, I know a lot of you say, what's so upsetting about that or strange about that? My mother was always that way as well. But you see, the Pharisee is not thinking about hygiene. In the Old Testament...

People were told that when you approach God in the temple in worship, you should wash your hands. You should ceremoniously and ceremonially wash with water. And the ceremonial washings of the Old Testament were visual aids through which God got across to people

The idea that you need to approach God with a clean heart. So the ceremonial washings on the external of the body just represented a way to visualize the fact that God wants a clean heart when you go before God. However, the religious leaders of the day had taken the ceremonial washings and had begun to apply them to every part of life. The Pharisees washed their hands clean.

Whenever they came in, they washed their hands before every meal. They washed their hands before going to bed. And the reason was, the word Pharisee means the separate ones. And the Pharisees had taken the idea of Old Testament ceremonial washings and had applied them to the externalities of their lives. The reason they were always washing was because it's possible that if you were out walking in the marketplace, you might touch a Gentile. Or you might touch something that was touched by a Gentile.

or by somebody who didn't worship God, or by a sinner, or by someone who was impure in some way. And so the Pharisees had learned to turn religion into a matter of externalities.

And that was the reason behind the washing. And the reason that the Pharisee looked at Jesus and was shocked. Here's a man that says he's religious. Here's a man that says he's someone who takes God seriously, and yet he is not washing before he eats. How does he know he didn't touch someone or something that was ceremonially unclean? Now, Jesus Christ takes a moment, takes this opportunity to slam into the whole idea of Phariseeism.

Now, we don't have time to look at everything he says in this passage, but what he actually says is something really quite amazing. He says, look at you, look at the cup. The outside of the cup is clean, but the inside of the cup is dirty. Now, what he means is, imagine putting a cup into your dishwasher, let's say, and after you get it out, you find that on the inside of the cup, though the outside is clean, the inside still has got food crud in it.

Well, you don't want to pour something in there and drink out of it. If anything, the outside of the cup is less important than the inside when it comes to cleanliness. It's only food crud on the inside that could get you sick, perhaps, if it's not cleaned out. On the other hand, it's almost impossible to wash the inside of the cup without washing the outside.

And so what Jesus is saying in this passage, that we're going to apply in one minute to the area of possession, is something very important. On the one hand, Jesus refuses to emphasize the externals of behavior over the inside of the heart, because that's what legalists do. But he also refuses to pit the external behavior against the internal heart.

See, he says, you clean the outside, but you don't clean the inside. He says, clean both. So, you see, on the one hand, he refuses to emphasize the externals over the internals, as legalistic religion does, but he also refuses to pit the external against the internal the way maybe what we could call liberal religion does. You know, there's a kind of religion, on the one hand, that says, oh, it doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter how you practice, as long as you do it out of love.

the external against the internal. But on the other hand, Jesus refuses to say that the external is enough, that obeying the laws and the regulations and the moral codes is enough. Jesus is neither, what you might call, into legalistic religion or into what you might call liberal religion. He refuses to put one over the other or pit one against the other. Instead, he says,

Religion, true religion, is living externally out of an inner reality. What you do on the outside should flow from and be consonant with what's on the inside. That's biblical religion, and that's either legalistic or liberal in a sense.

Now, we could go into that in greater detail, but Jesus, and Jesus does, if you read the rest of the passage, all the way to the end of this chapter, he applies this principle to a number of areas, but we're not going to talk about all the areas. We're going to just talk about one. He takes this principle and applies it to the issue of tithing.

He applies it to the issue of financial giving. Giving of your income, giving a percentage of your income to what we might call charity, to God's work, and so on.

And it's extremely interesting to see how he applies this wonderful balance, this balance between the external and the internal. Putting the internal first, but keeping the external there. It's interesting to see how he applies it into the area of giving. And what he teaches us here about our attitude to our possessions and to our giving is three things. There are external guidelines for Christian giving, first. And secondly...

There's also an inner compulsion that's necessary for Christian giving. And then thirdly, there's a spiritual dynamic, which is actually the motor and the motive for both. There's an external aspect, there's an internal aspect, and there's a spiritual motor that actually energizes and drives both. Let's look at those three things. First of all, he points out that there is an external guideline involved.

For Christian generosity. You see, people realize that the word generous is good. It's a good word. We should be generous. We like being generous. But how do you define generous? Jesus gives us a definition. He says there really is a rule of thumb. He says there really is a way to decide, a way for you to judge whether or not you are generous in biblical proportions.

And so here's what he says. You give God a tenth of your mint and rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, yet you neglect justice and the love of God. You should practice the latter without leaving the former undone. What's he say here? This is great. First of all, he points out that the Pharisees are tithers. The word tithe means a tenth. And all through the Old Testament, the people of God are told to give one-tenth of their annual income...

So, for example, Leviticus chapter 27, it reads, A tithe of everything you take from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord. It is holy to the Lord. Okay? A tithe of everything you take from the land. Now, the whole idea here was that you gave that tithe to the priest, and the priest did two basic things with it.

First of all, they supported all of the sacrifice and the ceremonies of the temple. And secondly, they gave it to the poor. They distributed it to the poor. Because the money that went to the Lord always went to two basic things. Connecting people to God and connecting the people of God to the needs of the world. Connecting people to God, that's the temple, and connecting the people of God to the needs of the world, that was helping the poor. And that's where the tithe went.

Now, in the Old Testament, you see, if you listen carefully, when God gives the rationale behind the tithe, you begin to see how tremendously reasonable it is. How tremendously reasonable, not only in its conception, but even in its proportion. He says, whenever you take anything from the land, give me 10%. Why does he say that? It's very simple.

You must not take land that doesn't belong to you and farm it and get income out of it without giving anything to the person who owns it. If you would do that, that would be stealing. That would be embezzling. That would be pillaging. And so God says, your income comes out of the land, but the land is mine. It's not yours. I created the land. I own the land. I'm only leasing you the land. And all I ask for is 10%.

Now you know something, I've been doing a little bit of study and I talked to a few people and I know that there's, you're talking about centuries between then and now. There's all sorts of economic systems. There's all sorts of cultures. And yet the idea that someone would give you a piece of land and only in you for the right to use that land and to make your income, you only have to give the owner 10% by almost anybody's standards, that's a heck of a deal.

Nobody in the Old Testament ever, ever questioned that deal. Everybody said, wonderful, incredible, how great. I can't find a king who does it that way. I can't find a rich man or a rich woman who does it that way. Absolutely not. God is so generous, only 10% to use it. Now maybe if the Bible was being written today, God would say,

If you take your income out of farming your mind, if you take your income out of farming your athletic abilities, if you take your income out of farming your artistic abilities, just remember this. That mind, those abilities are from me. You didn't earn them. I loaned them to you. And for you to farm that land, you see, farm that mind, farm those abilities without giving me anything is to steal, is to embezzle, and is to pillage.

He says, I don't ask for much. I only ask for 10%. And that is what the Old Testament said. Now, here's what's so intriguing. That was the Old Testament guideline. How does Jesus regard it? And that's what's so fascinating. People for years have debated what is the relationship of the Old Testament to us now. Here we are, Christian people, and we believe the Bible. And yet when you go back to the Old Testament, you know that there's a lot of odd things in there.

You find the laws where it says don't mix two kinds of material in the same garment. Don't put flax and wool together in the same garment. Then you have another place where it says don't eat medium-rare meat. And then in the same chapter it says love your neighbor as yourself. So you look at it and you say, some of this I can tell probably doesn't apply to me, and some of it obviously does. How do I know what does and what doesn't? It's pretty clear that there needs to be some selectivity involved.

And I'm not going to get in at all to that. I'm not going to give you any of my ideas about that. Not right here. But I can tell you one thing that everybody's always agreed on. If Jesus pulls something out of the Old Testament and tells us we have to do it, we always know there's no doubt that's for us. And you know, if there was any place that Jesus would loosen or denounce the obligation of the tithe, it would be here. He points out that the tithe is done by the Pharisees. The Pharisees.

You know, the Pharisees are about the only people that Jesus really yells at in the Bible. Have you noticed that he doesn't yell at prostitutes? He doesn't yell at pimps. He doesn't yell at tax collectors. Some of you do. He doesn't yell at anybody but Pharisees. Because the fact that they turned the law into a bunch of regulations, and the fact that they believed that you could be saved by obeying those regulations, that's spiritual death to believe that. They were spreading poison around.

Jesus continually denounces them. He calls them vipers. He calls them terrible things. You brood of vipers, who told you to flee from the wrath that is to come? So if there would be one place where Jesus would have a great opportunity to loosen the tie that would be here, these men were so legalistic that if they had a garden in their backyard where they had mint leaves that they would pull off in order to put into their drinks,

They would pull one mint leaf off out of every ten and send it to the temple. I mean, these are legalistic people. You tithe mint and you tithe rue and every herb from your garden. This would be the place, but what does Jesus do? Does Jesus say, ah, you know, you're legalist. Ah, this whole idea of a tithe. It belongs to an abrogated body of regulations. It's oppressive. No, what does he say? He says, it's not enough.

He says, you tithe. Great. Do not leave that undone. You see that? He says, you tithe, but you neglect the love and justice of God. You must do the latter and don't neglect the former. You know, if there's one place where you expect God to knock down the whole idea, Jesus to knock the idea of tithing down, surely here. Surely here with these men who have twisted the whole idea of tithing around. But instead he says, oh no, you're absolutely right. You must not leave that undone.

And so you see what Jesus has done is he first of all gives us an external guideline. How do you know you're generous? A lot of people like to think they're generous. You know how you know you're generous? There's a guideline. Jesus says, test yourself. Do you give your money away in these proportions? Do you give at least 10% of your money away? You know something, if Jesus hadn't said this...

Common sense would tell you we are more blessed than the people in the Old Testament. We owe God more than the people in the Old Testament do. It would be common sense, even without this incident, that would tell us that as Christians we would know that a minimum of 10% of our income given away would be a biblical proportion and a biblical definition of generosity. But if there's anybody staggering here,

Anybody feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this person believes this. I can't believe I'm being taught this. How unreasonable. Jesus has got you on the ropes, but he's not done with you yet. You've only got his left. Where do you get his right? He says that the Pharisees who tithe are not doing enough. He says, you should tithe. It's good that you tithe. I'm glad you tithe. He says, and yet, if all you do is tithe without doing the other thing that I demand, then

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Obviously.

Tithing isn't enough. He demands not less than tithing. He demands more. What does he demand? Secondly, he gives us the, you see, the first way to understand whether you are giving in biblical proportions is look at the tithe. Secondly, Jesus says that's not enough. There also has to be an inner compulsion to give. There has to be a joy in giving. Your inner self has to be involved in it. That's why he says down here in verse 42, you neglect justice and the love of God.

He says, you hypocrites, give what's on the inside of the cup as well. Put your whole inner self into it. Now, when he talks about neglecting the justice and the love of God, he's probably thinking of passages like Zechariah. In Zechariah chapter 7, verse 8, 9, and 10, this is what the Lord Almighty says. Administer justice.

Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the immigrant, or the poor. In your hearts, do not think evil of one another. Now, do you see what Jesus is saying? Pretty simple, but it's pretty devastating. He says, for you to tithe, and yet on the inside, not the people who have this inner compulsion to give. To tithe on the outside without having a radically generous heart is anathema. Here's what he's saying.

He's saying, do you have a heart of compassion? Put it this way. If you tithe, but you're not generous with your home and your things. If you tithe, but you don't pay your employees well. If you tithe, but you're so private, you're not open to letting hurting people come to see you. If you tithe, but you're not approachable and compassionate. You see what's going on here? If you tithe, and in fact, you don't make yourself vulnerable to hurting and broken people.

If you tithe and you do it strictly out of a sense of duty, woe to you. It's a curse. He says, you hypocrites, give the poor. That's what's interesting. They gave to the poor. They gave to the poor. They tithe. He says, give the poor what's on the inside of the cup. And then it will all be clean to you. You see what he's saying? He says, you give and you don't care about people. You give and your heart's not involved with people. You just say, where should I send my check?

and your lives aren't involved with hurting people, and your hearts aren't open, and your homes aren't open, and your schedule's not open, and you don't have this inner joy and inner gladness to give your money as part of giving your life to people. Instead, you spend all of your time playing games, doing recreation, thinking about how you can trade up to a bigger apartment.

thinking about how you're going to feather your own nest. And you give money because you know it's your job, because you want to think of yourself as a generous person. No, he says, give the poor what's on the inside as well as what's on the outside. It's a pretty astonishing statement, and it's a compelling statement. You see, let me give you three kind of real easy ways to tell whether or not you are giving the inside of the cup as well.

The way you can tell you give the inside of the cup is when you think of a tithe, it doesn't seem too much. That's one. You look at it and you say, well, fine, of course. That's not so much. Another way you can tell whether you're giving the inside of the cup is that you give with joy. You don't want to be like Flippy Goldberg. Remember in Ghosts?

Remember that? Where she has to write out that check for $4 million and Patrick Swayze, the ghost, makes her give it to the nuns, remember? And she gives it to the nuns and she can't let go of it. Remember that? No. There's a joy. You find that as you give, there's a joy. So here's another test. You give creatively. You don't just say, where's the check?

You put your heart and your mind into the things that you're giving to. You get involved yourself in the ministries that you're giving to. You pray for the people that you're giving to. You volunteer. You get on the boards of the things that you're giving to. Don't you see? Get the inside of the cup. You put yourself out. You let yourself be taken advantage of. Of course.

Because you don't belong to yourself anymore. You give with joy. You give with creativity. And you can't wait to give more. When you think about making more money, you immediately look at your money with a ministry mindset. You say, oh, I wish I could make more money because then we could help this. Then we could get this started. Then we could invest in this. And you know what's so interesting? If you go on further in the passage, which wasn't printed, Jesus goes on to continue to give woes and curses.

And he says, woe to you Pharisees because you give God a tenth of your mint and yet you neglect justice and the love of God. You hypocrites, give the inside of the cup as well. But then he goes on and he says, woe to you Pharisees because you love the important seats in the synagogue.

Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify, you approve of what their forefathers did. Because of this, God says, I will send them prophets and apostles. Therefore, this generation will be held responsible for the blood of the prophets and the apostles. You will be buried in unmarked graves. Now, what Jesus tries to say is, when you put your money into yourself, ironically,

You become less and less of a significant person. When you put your money into people, when you put money into God's cause, you find instead of dying in an unmarked grave, you become a more significant person. You see yourself making a difference. It's a strange irony. What Jesus is saying, put your money in the houses, houses will burn up.

Put your money into cars, cars will burn up. It doesn't matter what you believe. If you believe in God, it'll burn up in the last judgment. If you don't believe in God, it'll burn up when the sun finally dies, you see, and all of this civilization is burned up. It doesn't matter. You put money into houses, you put money into cars, you put money into clothes, you put money into things, they burn up. You put money into people and into the word of God and into the kingdom of God and into the cause of God.

And things get created through that that will never end. The more you put your money into yourself, the more shriveled and insignificant you become. The more you put your money into God's things and into people, the greater you become. And you see a person who has that inner compulsion knows that. He or she knows what really lasts. He or she knows what really counts. And therefore, you give not just the external, but you give what's inside the cup too.

You give with joy, you give with creativity, you give with that inner compulsion. All right, now lastly, we see that Jesus Christ has taught us, number one, that there really is an external guideline to tell whether or not you're a generous person. The tithe. But number two, he says there's also, it's absolutely necessary, and he curses people that don't have this as well. There needs to be an inner compulsion, a gladness in giving, a personal investment in giving,

The inner self involved in giving. A joy and an ease in giving. Now, where do those... You can ask yourself right now, is that true of you? Do you give a 10% of your income? And then secondly, on the other hand, do you give with that kind of gladness? Do you give with that kind of ease? Well, somebody's got to be sitting out there saying, no to either.

In fact, somebody's out there probably thinking, even if I did just decide kind of mechanically to give 10% this year, I would consider it burdensome. I would do it begrudgingly. And, of course, Jesus doesn't want you to do that. He just said so. He doesn't want that. He wants you to give both the outside and the inside of the cup. Well, how can we do that? And the answer is, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.

You tithe mint and every garden herb, and you neglect the justice and the love of God. The love of God. Some people have interpreted that as meaning Jesus is saying, don't give me your money, just love God. Don't give money, love God. That's not what it's saying, obviously. Because, you see, what it's saying is, don't just give money, give the love of God. As you receive the love of God...

So you'll be able to give. You don't give, Pharisees, out of the love of God. Or put it this way, Jesus is saying, you can keep your tithe if you have not experienced the love of God in such a way that giving in these proportions and with this kind of gladness doesn't come naturally to you. Hey, there's a place where Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, he says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich,

He became poor so that by his poverty you might become rich. He's talking about Jesus on the cross. And then he turns around and says, I would like money from you, Corinthian Christians, for the poor believers in Macedonia. But I am not commanding you. Now think of this for a second. I'm not commanding you to give. You know the grace of Christ. Listen carefully.

If you give out of obedience, you're disobeying. If you give only out of obedience, you're disobeying. God commands a generosity that cannot be commanded. God commands a generosity that cannot be commanded. Paul says, I'm asking you to give, but I refuse to command you. You know what Paul's saying? He says, you know the grace of Christ. You don't command a lover to kiss her lover or his lover. You don't command someone who's in love to kiss. You don't say, now listen,

If you want this relationship to continue to increase, you probably need to show some physical affection. If they're in love, you don't have to tell them that. And Paul says, I refuse to command you. Well, somebody says, I think the idea of the tithe is onerous. I think it's oppressive. And I don't feel that gladness. But I know that Jesus died for me. And Paul says, no, then you don't. Until you think about the extravagance of what Jesus Christ did, you will not become extravagant. Think about it.

You see, if you think about what Jesus has done, that cuts the umbilical cord to money that we've all got. We all have an umbilical cord. The Bible says we all love money too much. We love it too much.

Amongst the poor, the love of money creates crime. Amongst the middle class, the love of money creates workaholism and worry. And amongst the rich, the love of money creates superficiality because you're just so absorbed in your homes and so absorbed in your games that you can play that nobody else can afford to play that you're not serving anybody. But it's the same thing. It's materialism. It's greed. He says on the outside you're tithing, but on the inside you're full of greed. And any class of people can have it.

If you're poor, the greed leads you to crime. If you're middle class, the greed leads you to worry. And if you're rich, the greed leads you to superficiality. And therefore, the money is controlling you. It's controlling you. Is there anybody here who thinks that giving away 10% of your income to God's work, to charity, to whatever, is too much? The money's controlling you. It's got you under its thumb. You're not controlling it. It's got you. There's an inordinate love there.

And the only way to break it, the only way for you to grow up and cut the umbilical cord and get out from under the thumb of it is to look at Jesus Christ being robbed for you on the cross, being stripped for you on the cross, losing his shirt on the cross, becoming poor for you on the cross. Okay, let's conclude this way. Some of you think that the whole idea of tithing is too much. I say to you, your money has you by the throat. Grow up.

It's got you. Have dominion over it. Don't let it continue to have dominion over you. Think about the grace of Jesus Christ and what it's done for you until that happens. Imagine you're a person and all the money you have in the world is stuck in a cookie jar in your apartment.

You know what? When you think of that cookie jar, it gives you comfort. But on the other hand, when you think of that cookie jar, it makes you worried. Maybe somebody will find it. But if somebody would put a billion dollars in a Swiss account for you, suddenly the cookie jar no longer can either comfort you or worry you. If you know what Jesus Christ has done for you, if you see the riches you have in him, you're adopted into his family, you're justified freely by his grace, you have his holy power living in your life.

If you see how rich you are, then even a billion dollars in a Swiss bank account is just a cookie jar to you. It no longer comforts you, nor no longer worries you. You're free. Finally free. You middle class people who worry, you poor people who scheme, you rich people who play. Be free. The only way to be free...

is to give both the inside and the outside of the cup. Oh, there's a few people here. I better comfort you. And you say, you know what I don't like? Is I hate these kinds of things. I'm unemployed. I'm underemployed. I can barely pay my rent. I wish I had the money to give. I'd love to give it. Then this passage should encourage you tremendously because Jesus says the most important thing is the inside of the cup. Be comforted.

Do you want to give? Are you giving of your time? Is your attitude toward money the right thing? Are you just rich in Jesus? Do you celebrate his grace? Don't you see Jesus is saying, it's the inside of the cup that counts. When you get the money, then you can give the outside too. This is a great comfort. God says in Malachi, he says, put me to the test. Bring in the tithe and wait until you see what I pour into your life.

It's astonishing that he would say such a thing. It's so rare. God almost never says, put me to the test. Usually, God says, don't put me to the test. But when it comes to tithing, when it comes to finances, he says, put me to the test. Nobody's going to know whether you handle that test, but me. But, you know, not me, because I'm a pastor, and you're not going to give all your tithes to the Redeemer. Even if you're a member of Redeemer, I don't expect you to give it all here.

Nobody's going to be able to know what you do with your money. Don't you see? Some of you shouldn't be giving here at all. This isn't your church. But I tell you, if you would put God to the test, if we would start doing this, our lives would overflow, our churches would overflow, our communities would overflow. Put him to the test. Change your life. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that your Son has given us such clear teaching. Give us now the strength and the ability to put you to the test.

And it doesn't take, Father, so much discipline as it takes a willingness to look at the extravagance of your Son on the cross. Help us all to do that. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you found today's teaching helpful and something you'd like more people to hear, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Just visit gospelinlife.com slash partner to learn more.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.