Gtcotr/ss012410
Some time back I felt it important that we revisit the basic tenants of our Christian faith and practice. It was decided to target the 5 Sundays during the month of January 2010 to accomplish that goal. In preparation, hoping to make the foundational truths of God’s Word both interesting and understandable, the church staff and I put our heads and hearts together in prayer and counsel and came up with a plan.
Thus far, in this the first month of the New Year, we have studied the doctrines of salvation, water baptism, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These three sermons were entitled:
Dead Men Walking
Buried Alive
Possessed
We took each subject and ‘busted a myth’, as it were, concerning Christianity and the Church.
In Dead Men Walking we tackled the myth that “All good men go to heaven.” We dispelled that myth through simple study of the scriptures surrounding salvation. Jesus spoke plainly to a good man named Nicodemus and related that despite personal goodness or your high profile religious position in life, “you must be born again”.
The second Sunday the sermon Buried Alive exposed us to the truth and power of water baptism. We concluded that day realizing that while salvation works for sinners, water baptism releases its power to the Believer. From Genesis to Revelation we saw that every person who benefited from water baptism already had a relationship with God prior to that baptism experience. We studied God’s Word and the ‘One Story’ He is telling, and we clearly understood that: Believers are not water baptized so that they can be saved but rather are baptized because they have been saved.
Last Sunday’s message entitled “Possessed” centered on the spiritual experience commonly called the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit”. The myth we busted last Sunday was the common belief that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which happened to Believers on the Day of Pentecost 2000 years ago as recorded in Acts chapter 2, is not a valid experience for Believers today. After last Sunday’s study of the scriptures, I don’t see how anyone could reasonably believe that the Holy Spirit or the Baptism of the Holy Spirit somehow passed away or is not for Believers in this day and time.
In fact, The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is needed more today than ever. Each Believer is endued with power to be a witness when they obey God and ask Him for the Holy Spirit. (Acts 5:32 & Luke 11:13)
Today we are continuing our review of the basics of Christianity and our Myth Buster series by first tackling a practical myth.
Our Myth for Today:
Pennies are a waste of time.
This myth is drawn from the conclusions based upon several reported facts. One report says that the United States, not wanting to be bothered with the laborious tasks of dealing with pennies, which are correctly named, “cents”, won’t even consider exportation of the coins to foreign concerns.
Another point in support of this myth is something I deal with on a continual basis. Foreign currency exchanges around the world will not accept U.S. pennies in trade nor will they give in exchange. I have always simply considered that it was just not worth their time.
As well, duty free shops in major airports outside of the U.S. won’t accept pennies for payment nor give them in change even when the customer is paying in U.S. dollars. Rather, they simply round up the owed amount and keep the difference.
As if this was not enough, we all watch people walk right past pennies lying on the ground without the slightest hesitation, not once considering that it takes less than 2 seconds to bend down and pick up that free money. Why, it is because pennies are a waste of time and effort. I have felt the temptation when cleaning out the car to throw a few pennies in the trash along with the other worthless gum wrappers and discarded trash from the ashtray.
All of these things go to say that “Pennies are a waste of time.”
So, for this morning’s practical exercise aimed at proving or disproving this myth, I am going to need my assistant for the day, some pennies, a stopwatch, a calculator, and two young, seemingly intelligent and reasonably agile volunteers.
Here I have a container of pennies. My assistant holds the stopwatch. These two volunteers are going to demonstrate how many pennies can be picked up in only 60 seconds. One volunteer is going to use the ‘bend over and pick up one penny at a time’ method, while the other is going to illustrate the ‘dropped my penny jar and am on the floor picking them up one at a time while keeping a count in my head’ method.
My assistant will start the stop watch at the precise time the volunteers, whom we will call ‘penny-pinchers’, reach for their first penny. At the end of sixty seconds she will stop the watch and yell ‘Time’, at which second the penny-pinchers will cease to pinch further pennies.
When we shall have concluded this experiment we will calculate the amount of pennies each penny-pincher has accumulated, add those together then divide that sum by two. We will accept this number as the average pennies which would normally be picked up by a penny-pincher in only one minute.
In doing this we will see if the myth claiming that “pennies are a waste of time” is truth or fable.
Penny-Pinchers … are you ready? Audience, are you ready? Assistant, are you ready? On your mark, get set, go!
(After the initial one minute, count the results, calculate the average and make the report. Take the average multiply it by 60 to get the average hourly wage of a true ‘penny-pincher’ and therefore the related value of time spent picking up a penny. Use this amount per hour to see if pennies are a waste of time.)
$____ per hour is not bad pay for just bending over or getting down on the ground to pick up a penny. The job might not last long, but the extra, part time, pay is actually pretty good for the skill required.
Some people think pennies are not worth their time when actually they are worth a whole lot more than you may think. Pennies are in fact worth almost twice what you pay for them and 25 pennies are worth just over 4 times more than a solid quarter.
Each year the U.S. Mint puts millions of new pennies into circulation, (7,401,200,000 pennies were minted in 2007 for instance). In 2005, the cost to the United States Mint to produce a penny was 0.97 cents, which was just a smidge under a cent. (“Cost” covers four components: metal, fabrication (pre-production metal processing), labor, overhead and transportation.)
Because the price of metals fluctuates, so too does the cost of producing pennies. For example, had pennies been manufactured using the component metals bought on 28 April 2006, one could fairly say that those coins cost 1.4 cents to mint. However, if you averaged out the cost over the whole of 2006, you could say that that year’s pennies each cost about 1.23 cents to manufacture. Rises in metal prices, particularly of zinc, pushed the per-unit cost up to 1.7 cents in 2007. (Each penny is made up of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper and has been since 1982.) The 2007 costs to produce and ship a nickel was 9.5 cents.
Pennies are not worthless and not a waste of time. Then why don’t foreign exchanges, foreign governments and duty free shops around the globe use pennies? Well, it’s not because they don’t want to bother with them, it is because they just can’t get them. Why, because they are worth too much on the open market and the U.S. government has placed restrictions on exporting them outside the United States. And to top that, since the penny is worth more than its face value, the government has made it illegal to melt them down for the zinc and copper and anyone found doing so faces a potential 5 years in prison.
So, are pennies a waste of time? BUSTED! In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth! They might be a hassle, but they are certainly not worthless. In fact they may be one of the more valuable investments in today’s money market, especially the pre 1982 pennies which were made of 95% copper.
Here is a statement right off EBay’s website:
Most Lincoln pennies minted before 1982 were made of 95% copper. Each penny weighing in at 3.11 grams yields 2.95 grams of pure copper. It takes approximately 151 pennies (pre 1982) to yield 1 pound of pure copper. With copper prices averaging $3.95/lb. today, most scrap yards will pay about $3.00/lb for scrap copper. You could actually get 100% more money by selling your pre-1982 pennies for scrap metal rather than cashing them in at a bank! (Posted 12/09)
With all that money laying around on the ground, free for the collecting, how could a person imagine that pennies are a waste of time?
This brings us to …
Our Christian Myth for Today:
Money is the root of all evil.
Have you ever heard the quote: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is taken from a statement made by Lord Acton, who is famous for many other quotes as well. Isn’t it amazing how people pick up a saying and modify it to their own assessments and repeat it as truth.
Of course, this statement is not true for if it were, God would be absolutely corrupt. In fact, this is not even exactly what Lord Acton said … but, we will leave that discussion for another day.
About 10 days to 2 weeks before Jesus was crucified He was walking with His disciples along the Jordan River Valley road leading from the Galilee to Jericho where they encountered a very wealthy young man. This man wanted to follow Jesus as Messiah but sadly in the end did not. Why? The Bible says that this young man decided not to follow Jesus because he was very wealthy and had great possessions.
Mark 10: 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!"
In an earlier time and another place Jesus told His disciples in:
Matthew 6: 24 "No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Jesus had much to say about money. In fact, it is reported that Jesus said more in the scriptures about money than He did about heaven and hell combined.
Money is a prominent subject in the Bible and is dealt with in a very practical manner throughout the scriptures. There are more than 1600 verses in the Bible which deal with money and over 500 scriptures that include the words money, riches, or wealth. As Believers our attitude towards money often reveals who we are and what we believe about God.
Remember, the Bible only tells one story and no one scripture tells the whole story. If we read only a scripture here and there throughout the Bible we could very easily get the wrong picture concerning money. We could believe either extreme – either the extreme which says that money is evil and Christians have no business trying to make it or get more of it, or the other extreme which says that God wants everyone to be a millionaire. Neither extreme is the picture God tells in the story of the Bible.
It is necessary to read and interpret each scripture in light of all of the other scriptures concerning that subject. When Jesus said that money wants to be your master he did not leave it there with verse 24 of Matthew 6. When Jesus said that it was hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, He did not leave it there with verse 23 of Mark 10.
Jesus went on to explain:
Mark 10:24 And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, "Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!
God does not mind you having money, in fact, God wants you to have money … He just does not want money to have you.
Psalms 49
6 ¶ Those who trust in their wealth And boast in the multitude of their riches,
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him—
For those who say that money is the root of all evil, they need to re-read the Bible. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. However, that statement is taken from a scripture in:
1 Timothy 6
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
The love of money, greed, selfishness, and unwillingness to share what God has given you, a misplaced trust in uncertain riches … these things are the root of all kinds of evil upon the face of the earth.
Remember that it is God who gives you the power to get wealth so that He may establish a partnership with you while you walk upon the earth.
