There is a book titled The Equation of Money written by a man named Moen Gun Haijel in the United States. When you hear that title, you might easily misunderstand it as a practical book that teaches how to make money or some kind of technique. However, this book is not a practical guide to making money; it is about wisdom. What kind of wisdom should we have regarding money? The content has been very helpful to me in various ways. In this book, the author presents a very interesting formula. The formula is: Wealth = Happiness = What You Have - What You Want. This formula emphasizes that while most people try to become rich by increasing their possessions, that is not the only factor. The denominator, what I want, is crucial. If we do not reduce our uncontrolled desires, no matter how much we have, we will always feel a sense of poverty, emptiness, and dissatisfaction. This is the essence of the formula. Therefore, the issue of wealth is not just about increasing possessions but about the freedom not to be dominated by desires.
There was a similar expression in the table of contents of this book. Their lives are simple because they dominate money rather than being dominated by it. Originally, money is a tool that is beneficial for human life, but it is a material that poses the risk of reversing the subject and object. We often see this reversal with money, don’t we? It’s not that I use money; rather, money moves me. The master has changed. I cannot help but feel anxious because of money, I cannot rest because of money, I am exhausted because of money, and I am compared because of money. I cannot control these feelings, but because of them, I feel small and inadequate. This is the dangerous tool that money can be.
If I were to summarize the question posed by this book in one sentence, it would be: Will you be dominated by money, or will you use it as a tool to gain true freedom and enjoyment? As I prepared for the Sunday worship series, I came across this book, and this question resonated with me: Will you be dominated by money, or will you use it as a tool to gain true freedom and enjoyment? This overlaps with Jesus’ words regarding the Sabbath. Mark 2:27 states, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Will you be dominated by money, or will you use it as a tool to gain true freedom and enjoyment? Isn’t this a similar structure? So, if we interpret Jesus’ statement “man was made for the Sabbath” in light of the question from the book The Equation of Money, it leads us to consider: Do we see Sunday worship as a burden, or do we receive true freedom and enjoyment from God through it? This is the core point I want to address today.