"One Great Hour of Sharing": Greed and Generosity (7DS 5/7)

The fifth in a series on the Seven Deadly Sins

March 18, 2007
Fourth Sunday of Lent
from Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

"And Jesus said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” – Luke 12:15


My sermon outline:

• Recap of series intro: Lenten series on 7 deadly sins. “sin breeds sin”, and that’s why these are deadly, cuz they lead to more sins. Fortunately for us, life breeds life.

• We started last month with gluttony, the sin of overindulgence, countered by faith and by self-control. then we talked about sloth, identifying the mantra of the sloth as “I’ll get around to it later,” lifting up attitude plus action, enthusiasm partnered with discipline and accountability as counters to sloth. we looked at envy, (“It’s not fair”), pointing out that envy is osteoporosis to the body, and that its counter virtue is love as pictured in 1 Cor 13. Last week we spent some time with lust, talking about the snare of pornography and how to escape from it.

• Today’s deadly sin of focus is greed. Scripture was Prodigal Son (lectionary; "prodigal" = wasteful. If there were a poster for greed, PS could be on there, though he’d perhaps better be on lust, for his desire to satisfy the flesh) but there are many other scriptures that address greed, especially monetary greed. Nearly 1000 bible verses on money.

• Rich man with many possessions – went away sad.

• Man who tore down storehouses to build bigger ones – store treasure in heaven, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also

• George Carlin on a place for my stuff. Cycle of working harder so you can get more stuff then so you can get a bigger house to hold your stuff.

• Katrina relocatee who couldn’t go back because of the stuff she accumulated

• We’re greedy, we surround ourselves with stuff, we have made of $ a god

• can’t serve God and $$

• Don Miller interview: way he continually and intentionally focuses on God is tithe, specifically give enough away to make himself a little uncomfortable cuz if you’re comfortable you stop thinking. Says its important to live “in withdraw” as a way of forcing yourself not to rely on your own salt, lest you deceive yourself into thinking that you don’t need God’s grace.

• One Great Hour of Sharing, help for the world.

• When the Poor Ones (434)



- Pastor Kerry
This Sunday: 75 in worship. Another snowstorm this weekend: neighbor church was closed, so we had some of their faithful.