sammy,
Your question to me was a good one....I think part of me does have an unhealthy spirit about wanting America to suffer more to recognize its own vulnerability and need for God...
Anyway, here is last weeks message on the Secret of Contentment....
What disease are you most concerned about these days? Anthrax, small pox? Cancer? The one killer disease that I think we should be most concerned about these days is called Discontentment Disease. It strikes not just the super rich, but everyday joes like you and me. You read the statistics of people who spend money buying lottery tickets or the ones who gamble in the casinos or load up on a half a dozen credit cards with unnecessary consumer debt. Lower income and middle income people catch the disease of discontentedness just as easily as those in upper brackets.
It’s a deadly, deadly disease. When this disease strikes, a fine running three year old car becomes an embarrassment that must be replaced by something with style. When this disease strikes a subdivision home becomes substandard, utterly unacceptable. Its time to call the custom contractors. When this disease strikes, I have absolutely nothing to wear, even though my closet is stuffed full of clothing.
Can you relate to what I am saying? Most of us can. Most of us wrestle almost every day with the Monster of More-that insatiable appetite for one more acquisition, one more purchase, one more upgrade, one more decimal point in our salary figure. The apostle Paul says, “I know how to slay the Monster of More. I know the cure for the disease of discontentedness. I know how to have contentment when I’m living with a lot or when I’m living with a little. Feast or famine, it doesn’t matter, Paul says, because contentment is a matter of focus rather than finances. It’s where you focus. It’s what you look at. It’s what you fix your gaze on. My friends, you want contentment. “Focus Your Life on Eternal Riches!”
Our gospel lesson today begins with a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luzury every day. Translated in our language. This guy not only wore custom suits, but he wore the best undergarments every day, translation, silk boxers. Not just on his anniversary or on Halloween, he wore them every single day. And then Jesus says, But at the doorway of this mansion was another guy, and he was a poor man, and he was poor, hungry, malnourished and sickly. There were sores all over his body. This man’s dreams, the poor man’s dreams had been narrowed to a singular dream. Do you know what it was? He just dreamed that some day the rich man would take the lunch crumbs from one of his gourmet lunches and slide them into a little doggie bag and deliver them to the doorway.
That was his only remaining dream in life, to get a few scraps of crumbs off the rich man’s table. Do you know the first point Jesus is making in this story? Do you know what happens when you start orienting your life around the acquisition and enjoyment of earthly treasures? You start getting desensitized to people who have less than you. First you try to remove yourself from them geographically and pretty soon you remove yourself from them emotionally, pretty soon you don’t give a rip about their plight, because your living in daily splendor with silk boxers, eating fine foods, going to fine places, you don’t care a bit about the poor anymore. That kind of thing tends to happen when you get all caught up in the acquisition and enjoyment of earthly stuff, so be careful.
Secondly, when your focus is on earthly things, you tend to think you are more secure than you really are. You start feeling prideful and independent. As the people that Amos spoke to in our Old Testament lesson, you become spiritually complacent. In other words, you really don’t see the pressing need of a close relationship with God in your life. You tend to think that you are one of the good people in the world. You are not like the people who pillage the welfare system, who murder, who rape helpless people. Surely, if there is a life after death, God will take you to heaven. The rich man in our gospel lesson was one of these types of people. What he hadn’t focused on in his life, was his need for the lasting riches that God alone could give him. You see, the Bible says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet offends in one point, he is guilty of all.” God tells us that if we break just one of his commandments, we face his punishment, the punishment of hell.
And there is only one person who can rescue us, and that person has the name Jesus. He paid the price on the cross of Calvary. He made us right with God. He gives us peace, joy, hope, and eternal life in heaven. Our eyes need to stay focused on him. He alone can provide us lasting contentment.
So, you think you are invincible, secure. Well says Jesus, you’re not. There is no eternal security in earthly treasure. Ok, all millionaires, middle class, and lower class whose focus is on getting earthly things. Remember you are one germ away from a rapid demise. You are one drunk driver away from a shattered future. You are one stray bullet away from standing on Judgment day. And what will all of your stored up goods do for you then? So you’ve been rich on earth, now you’re standing on the day of reckoning, what’s your net worth on the other side?” Being rich toward God is far more important than earthly riches.
Jesus says, it’s not that having some earthly stuff is wrong or bad, in fact a lot of our earthly goods come from a gracious Father who wants us to enjoy them, but when those earthly goods get their tentacles around us, when we start to orient our affections, our emotions, our time, energies, talents and our money toward acquisition and enjoyment of more and more…Then he says, when you do that, you’re going to get puffed up, desensitized to the poor…you’re going to think you’re more secure than you really are and someday you’re going to find out that you weren’t secure at all…Be careful..
Thirdly, if you are an intelligent person, why would you want to focus your life on things that deteriorate and depreciate? In Matthew 6:19 Jesus says, “Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth because moths will corrupt and rust will destroy.” Jesus says, it doesn’t make good economic sense to store up earthly treasures. You need an example. Ok. go out and spend a half day at a new car dealership, haggle for half a day, get the car you want for the least amount that you could possibly talk the salesman into giving it to you for, drive it around the block, come back and see if he’ll buy it back from you at that price…he won’t do it, will he? You drive out of that car lot and that car depreciates several thousand dollars.
Fourth, why would you want to pierce yourself with the many griefs that go along with a focus on earthly treasures? In our text today from I Timothy it says, “Some people, eager for money have wandered from the faith, and pierced themselves with many griefs.” You know when you buy something very expensive in the eyes of the world, you have to protect it, insure it, worry about it, and get stressed out about it. You want to do life that way? Suppose that I told you that right now the ushers were going out into the parking lot with knives and were going to put a six inch scratch on the driver’s door of every car here…at the mere thought of that some of you might get a nosebleed. Others of you just start laughing and say, No big deal, I’ll put a matching one on the other side. And the difference would be how you treasure that car or the value of that car, right? Or suppose I said, “Right now someone’s breaking into your home and they’re going to carry off the most expensive thing you own. Some of you say, The Jewelry or something like that. Others of you say, Good luck buddy, go in and take anything you want…The fish tank…I’ll get another fish tank. The point Paul is making here is that when your treasures on earth get increasingly expensive, all it does is raise your stress level because you’ve got to protect it and worry about it.
Or how about that friend of yours that just bought that super expensive automobile. The other day he asks you , “Do you want a ride in it? You say, Sure. As you are driving along, you say, why don’t we stop here and get a cup of coffee or something. He says, Oh no, I don’t leave this car in any parking lot. You say, Well what do you do with the thing? If you can’t drive it to church, can’t drive it to work, can’t drive it to a restaurant..what do you do with the thing? He says, I just tool around with it, I put it in a locked garage with a cover over it and pay a lot of insurance premiums on it. You say, Boy, sign me up for one of those! How much stress do you want in this life.
Our text today says, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” WE have heard the expression, You can’t take it with you. How true. We come into this world with no earthly possession in our hand, and we leave the same way. In fact in II Peter 3:10 it says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.”
One day soon every possession we own is going to be burned up. I have a suggestion for all of us. Maybe we should put a little red tag on everything we buy of value that says, “Soon to be burned.” That takes some zip out of our buying habits doesn’t it? About to be incinerated. Put those little red tags on everything that you’re buying and working so hard to get. We came into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing.
You know if I was to ask you people to think of your most memorable or impactful experience in the last 12 months. What would you say? You wouldn’t mention the bonus at work, a new car, or new clothes, would you? Rather, you would mention a memory that deals with a relationship. The birth of a child, the saying goodbye to a parent in death, a special time you spent with a friend. You see friends, the most important things in life deal with relationships. Our relationship with our God and with each other. Not material goods.
And I can think of no better investment of our money than in seeing this congregation share the precious gospel message with its membership and the world. We are offering stuff here that has lasting value. We have the privilege of educating our children in the way they should go. We reach out to the lost in our community. Our mission offerings reach out to so many who have not found the secret of lasting contentment in Jesus. By the power of God’s word, we are making friends here for an eternity. Content, you’d better believe it. Joy, knowing God sent his Son to be my Savior. Joy, knowing He is with me every step of the way. Joy, knowing I am surrounded by people who really love me and care about me. It can’t get much better than that. So, having food and clothing, let’s learn to be content. Amen… |
