Enjoy this message from Pastor Tyler Schoenberger called "Privileged" on Sunday, October 18, 2026 at Reach Church in Bear, Delaware! Most of us carry a complicated relationship with money. We want more of it, worry about losing it, and rarely feel like we have enough. But Scripture challenges this mindset directly. Ecclesiastes 5 warns that those who love money will never be satisfied with it, and that the relentless pursuit of wealth brings more obligations, more anxiety, and ultimately more loss. Paul reinforces this in 1 Timothy 6, describing the love of money as a root of all kinds of evil, capable of pulling people away from their faith entirely. The deeper danger is not money itself, which Scripture often calls a blessing, but what wealth tempts us to believe about ourselves. Like a high wall in our imagination, as Proverbs 18 describes it, wealth creates the illusion that we are in control of our own lives and futures. Jesus addressed this directly in Luke 12 with the parable of the rich fool, a man who worked hard, saved diligently, and then built bigger barns to store it all for himself. God called him a fool, not because he saved, but because his entire focus was on accumulating for himself with no thought of being rich toward God. Everything we hold onto for ourselves alone is ultimately a total loss. But what we invest in something eternal outlasts us. The churches of Macedonia, described in 2 Corinthians 8, understood this deeply. Living in extreme poverty and severe trials, they gave beyond what they could afford and actually begged for the privilege of doing so. That posture was rooted in something profound: the recognition that Jesus, who had everything, became poor so that we could be made rich in the ways that truly matter. Generosity, rightly understood, is not an obligation or a guilt-driven response. It is a natural overflow of grace. When you truly believe that you are already rich because of what Christ has done, giving stops feeling like a loss and starts feeling like participation in something eternal. The early church grew not through programs or polished presentations, but through a contagious culture of generosity rooted in that conviction. True privilege is not defined by what you have or what you can accumulate. It is defined by what you are free to give. And because of Jesus, you are already rich enough to be the most generous person in the room.
