Different Standard of Wealth

2 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Timothy 6:7

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Our reading for today is taken from 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and then verse 9, Saint Paul says

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

A number of years ago, I was in Ukraine and attended a funeral procession, and as we came into the cemetery, there were two sides to the cemetery. The one was for the rich and the other for the very poor. On the side of the rich, there were some very large stones and monuments and on the side for the poor people, many of them just had small wooden crosses. In fact, some of the graves you could tell were homemade and had nothing really on them. It was quite a stark contrast between the rich and the poor.

When we think about the word poverty, probably most of us Americans don’t really think of ourselves living in poverty. Even our standards for poverty here in the United States are different than around the world. Poverty, however, is a word that God uses to describe our condition, and our situation in this world regardless of how much money we may have. Job put it this way,

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. (1 Timothy 6:7)

That describes the poverty that we have because of the reality of death that all of us have to face. But God didn’t want to leave us in that condition. And so he decided out of love for us to take action.

Many years ago, there was a king in England by the name of Edward VIII from the House of Windsor, and he had been installed in 1936 to be king. But he abdicated the throne and gave it up in order to marry a woman that they would not allow to be queen. And many people were so shocked by this that he would be willing to give up so much and such power in that kingdom in order to simply be with his bride.

It’s hard for us to comprehend the great sacrifice that our Lord Jesus had to make in order to come into this world to rescue us. The text says, for your sakes, he became poor. Think of that. The most exalted Son of God who rules all things and has all power at his fingertips chooses instead to lower himself down because of his great love for us and because of wanting to get us out of this situation of poverty that we face because of the reality of sin and death in our world.

Imagine a group of children playing the game monopoly, and suddenly a billionaire sits in at the table with them and starts to play with them, and instead of using the pretend money that’s there around the table, he starts taking out real money and starts using real millions of dollars on the table with them. When we think about the wealth of this world, it’s absolutely nothing compared to what God could have and what God does have. God’s way of measuring what wealth is is a completely different standard from what we live by in this world. And when we finally enter heaven by faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will find out just how different God’s standards are of wealth.

Listen to our text again

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

May God preserve us in this faith in this Savior, so that someday we can find out what true wealth and riches are in the Kingdom of God. Amen.