Power of Simplicity
Matthew 10:9-11, 42
Shirley Fields writes, “12 years ago my husband and I were still spending most of our time running a business we had created. Financially everything was great. The store we owned and operated was in a wonderful location, and had the extra large office which meant that our children could always be there with us. To all of us, our store was like a home away from home, and the only down side was that we were spending so much time there that we never had any time or energy left for our real home or anything other than the business. As the years went by, we began to realize that we never were going to have that time as long as we had the store. Still, letting go it was almost unthinkable because we had worked so hard to get to where we were.
But life doesn’t stand still. One day we received a certified letter notifying us that the shopping center we were in had sold and the new owner intended to completely renovate all the stores….It was now early summer and our busiest time of year, and the only time we could do the renovation work was nights and weekends. We worked, like everyone else, all through the summer months. By September, most of the stores were finally back to normal. Strangely, the couple who rented the store next to us finished the same day we did, and we spent over an hour that Thursday afternoon commiserating with each other about what a terribly difficult time the last several months had been, and about how we yearned to be able to spend more time at home and have a life again outside of our workplace. I especially remember the woman’s enthusiasm and determination that this very day would be their first step towards a less harried life… they would close their store early, pick up their children at school, and have a relaxed family evening for the first time in months. That night as I was preparing our dinner with the television news on in the background, I was stunned to hear that this couple had been involved in a horrible accident less than an hour after we had talked. The woman was killed immediately and the man was critically injured. All I could think about was that just a few hours earlier I had been listening to this woman’s plans for a future that now would never happen for them. For us, the accident was a sad reminder that sometimes there is no tomorrow and became the impetus over the next year to sell off the last of our merchandise and close our store. Everyone who knew us thought we had lost our minds. We paid off our mortgage and car loans and pared down our expenses as much as we could. And then she writes, “We have no regrets. A few months after we closed the store, we started working from home, and that work has grown to provide us with a comfortable income. Our life has regained its balance, and our time is our own again. I only wish our friends could have lived to have the same opportunity.”
That is Jesus’ hope for us as well. In our Scripture today, Jesus is confronting the world’s conventional wisdom about wealth and materialism which says, “More is better.” Jesus says that for abundant life, less is more. The accumulation of things creates complexity in our lives, and that can make it hard for us to be totally free to follow Jesus and serve sacrificially. For Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must follow me and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” John 12:26 We may think we’re doing pretty well on being able to go anywhere Jesus wants us to go but too often the accumulation of things can be an anchor around our feet which keeps us from doing what Jesus wants us to do.
Jesus wants us to experience the power of simplicity. Simplicity is the intentional act of right-sizing our lifestyles as we commit ourselves to the mission of Jesus and the needs of the world. You can’t separate faith from works – that includes how we handle our money. Jesus is saying if you’re really going to be my disciples, you have to align your attitudes about money with the Word of God. The problem is that when it comes to money and things, all of us have attachments. An attachment is where the majority of your time, your money and your focus is spent. What are the attachments that you have in your life right now? Where is your time, your money and your attention going? If you wake up in the middle of the night worrying, it’s an attachment. When you spend time away from family, friends and God to gain, power, prestige or a larger house, nicer car or designer clothes, it’s an attachment. Here’s the thing, we need to watch out for attachments. When it comes to email, we have to be careful in opening certain attachments or we will download a virus. The same is true of what you think or worry about in life because they can dominate us and divert our lives from our purpose and God’s work.
Many of us have been infected by the seductive influence of marketing which says you need more money, more clothes, more house to be happy and have significance in life. And that creates the desire within us. Because of the pervasiveness of this message, we’ve all been infected to some degree. The question is” “how important are money and things to your happiness in life and what impact does that have on your service and giving to God?” We have to be careful of the attachments we have in our life. This influence of marketing can especially be seen during the Christmas season. How many of you make Christmas gift wish lists? Our culture has made Christmas about exchanging gifts. That’s what Christmas has become about. But I’ve got news for you: it’s not your birthday! It’s Jesus’ birthday. That means it’s His day and not yours and any gifts we give should be given to him and not one another.
Life is about simplicity! Jesus taught that it is difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God because too many of them are consumed with pursuing wealth. It’s the pursuit of money, not money itself, which is bad. Now God gives us the ability to earn more money and that wealth comes from the hand of God. But it’s the love of money and the pursuit of money that is the problem. You can’t serve both God and money, but you can serve God with your money. The problem is when we get money, we want to spend it on us! We earned it. We deserve it.
We’re conditioned by our culture to be consumers but we have been created to be contributors. If we use our God-given talents and resources only to pursue money, material things and comfort in life, what does that benefit us? When we get to the end of our lives, what do we have to give God? Nothing! “For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.” 1 Timothy 6:7 There is no return on God’s investment. See, your life is a gift from God and everything in it. What you do with it is your gift back to God. So what God has created us to be is co-creators and contributors. To do that, we have to re-define wealth and what it means. Ephesians tells us “Be renewed in your thinking” and that means putting it into action.
In Luke 3:7, John the Baptist is calling out to the crowds who were coming to him for baptism, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourself, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” Back then, the Jews would say, “Hey, we are part of the covenant, we’re children of Abraham” and so they think they were immune from God’s judgment. Christians today would say, “Hey no problem! I accepted Jesus as my Savior.” The problem is that we are to produce fruit, not just claim faith in Jesus. “For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. ‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none and anyone who has food should do the same.” Notice Jesus responds that it’s about our money that matters and it should be used for the poor. Our money matters should be tied to God’s heart for the poor. God’s priority has always been the poor. The Jews were called to provide and be concerned about two groups: widows and orphans because they could not provide for themselves and the poor. Jesus was just concerned with the poor as His Father and so we who follow Jesus should see the poor as our responsibility.
Faith is the action of being rich in good works and being generous and ready to share. Jesus instructs his disciples in Matthew 10 that accumulation of stuff creates complexity and complexity makes it difficult to follow Jesus and God’s sacrificial mission in the world. You have to rebalance your investments. Three things we need to be concerned with. First, we have to balance our spending with our giving to God. I have to ensure I’m setting aside the money that God places in my hand for giving to God and the way I do that is by making a pledge to God. The Old Testament speaks about giving the first fruits, meaning I first make my offering to God before I spend my fruit on anything else. That means before I buy my food, pay my rent or buy my clothes or my toys, I predetermine prayerfully the amount that will be dedicated completely to God’s service in the world before I do anything else or spend anything else and the way to do that is to make a pledge of your giving to God.
The second thing you need to re-balance is your spending and your saving. Currently, our country is trillions of dollars in debt. Social security is on the brink of bankruptcy. We’re on the brink of a second recession and we’re living longer than ever. Folks, you have to maximize your savings, whether that be your 401K or other retirement plan. Don’t count on Social Security. Max out your giving to your 401K or retirement plan! How do you do that? By creating a simple lifestyle. This is a time not to be thinking about what that next new thing is that we need or what we want to do. We need to be saving. Pay off that mortgage. Start saving for your next car rather than financing it. Cut back on frivolous expenses. Free up as much money as possible to save. It’s critical, you can’t afford not to save. Some of you young people think, “Well, I don’t make much money.” I am telling you to maximize what you can put in that 401. If you give just $2000 a year in an IRA staring at age 25, you’ll have a million dollars by the time you retire. Have it withheld from your paycheck and pretend like you’re not making that money.
The third thing you need to re-balance is cash spending and our consumer credit. The average credit card right now is 24 percent interest. Get rid of credit card debt. Debt is not our friend. Folks, it begins with plastic surgery. Cut those suckers up. Don’t live on them. Make a commitment now: if you can’t pay cash for it, you don’t need it. Reduce your debt.
“Faith without works is dead.” Many people have the “want to” for financial freedom but they don’t have the “work to.” You’ve got to put the want to work, and then you can have the desired results. If you balance your spending with your giving, your spending with your saving and your spending in cash with your credit, then you will have the resources to be ready to share and become a contributor rather than a consumer. Jesus said in Matthew 10:24. “even if you give a cup of cold water to a little one in my name, it is a blessing.” This is what abundant life is all about. It’s when my life becomes a blessing to others, when I become a contributor because I haven’t consumed it all. Not only will my life be a blessing to others, but it will give glory to God.
Tom Shadyac had an unprecedented run of movies from 1994-2007, including "Ace Venture:", "The Nutty Professor", "Liar Liar" and "Bruce Almighty." He delivered movies on time, under budget and with little-to-no fuss and it made him a millionaire. Yet, he now lives in a trailer park by choice. After 2007's "Evan Almighty", he sold his Pasadena mansion and most of his possessions and moved to a trailer park in north Malibu. What made him make such a drastic turn? He wanted no part of the Hollywood life and making massively popular comedies just doesn't do it for him like it used to. In an interview with the LA Times, he said, "Look, this is an experiment, I still have a lot of money that I don't feel is mine because it came from a competitive system that is helping, in its own way, to destroy the world. So the way I run the economy of my life is to take only what I need to live and funnel the rest to other people."
You were meant to be a blessing to others and that starts with your financial resources. Deuteronomy 11 says, “Love the Lord, obey his commandments and serve him.” You can’t separate faith and works. It’s not just about loving God, it’s about serving God and doing His will. This week I want to encourage you to sit down and figure out what God’s will is for your life in your giving. In other words, what you’re going to give back to God. Next week, we’ll give you an opportunity to make a commitment to what you are going to give God in 2012. Some of you are anxious about your money matters. Too often we experience anxiety with money matters because we fail to understand Jesus didn’t just come to set your soul free, He came to bring freedom into every dimension of your life including your finances. God did not create you for slavery but for freedom. It is for freedom that Jesus set us free, not to be yoked again to slavery to our finances and possessions. Amen.
