I Still Haven’t Found What I’m looking For
1 Timothy 6:6-10
While your turning to our passage, I want you to listen to a few words from a song by U2.
(Play song)
I hope you caught that. Bono the lead singer of U2 is singing the words, “I have climbed the highest mountains. I have run through the fields. I run, I have crawled, I have scaled city walls. But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
I think that song more than almost any other, describes our culture today. How many people are searching, running, scaling, looking for something but not finding it. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. And unfortunately many people think they’re going to find it in the accumulation of things.
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This morning we’re talking about what the Bible has to say about the accumulation of things. And at it’s root what we’re really wanting to know is how can we discover contentment in our lives.
Now unfortunately we are not trained by our culture to be very content? Everything around us teaches us to believe in an accumulation of things.
A typical market in the United States in 1976 stocked 9,000 items; today that same market carries 30,000 different items. And why is that? Because we have an obsessive compulsion to possess more and more things, thinking they will bring satisfaction in our lives.
The old testament sums it up in the word Covet. An unquenchable desire for more. Galatians 5:20 calls it “selfish ambition.” The Greek word literally meant “to grasp for more and more.”
And that’s what were talking about this morning. That covetous drive for more and more that brings about a lack of contentment. And God takes it very seriously.
Now why is that? Why is God concerned with our drive to accumulate more and more?
One obvious reason is because it damages our priorities. When we want something more than we want anything else, including God that is a problem. Our priorities are out of whack and when our priorities get rearranged we fall into many traps. We run after the wrong things and stop pursuing God. Stuff becomes the most important things in our lives. Our priorities get rearranged.
God is also concerned because that drive for more damages our relationships.
James 4:1 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Do they not come from your own desires that battle within you? You want something, but don’t get it, so you kill and you covet. You can’t have what you want so you quarrel and fight.”
And he’s right. Homicide is now the second leading cause of death in the workplace. How many murders are committed by employees exacting revenge after being passed over for a promotion?
In 1 Kings 21 we read of a king named Ahab who wanted a piece of land adjoining his property. Here he had this huge palace but he wanted this little garden plot that belonged to his neighbor Naboth. Ahab offered to buy the land but Naboth refused and 1 Kings 21:4 says that Ahab became sullen and angry.
His wife Jezebel saw him like this and arranged for Naboth to be put to death. Once Naboth was dead, Ahab took the land he wanted.
And that’s an extreme, but the drive for more and more stuff can damage our relationships. It’s the preoccupation with other people’s things that is at the root of much of the crime in our society.
Remember the story of a Carjacking that was foiled in a Northern Virginia Shopping Mall. It seems as if an elderly grandmother had been given a gun by her son in which to protect herself. On day after she did her shopping she returned to the car where she found four white males seated inside. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at them at the top of her voice that she has a gun and knows how to use it: so get out of the car.
The four men hopped out and ran like mad, whereupon the lady proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and get into the drivers seat.
And there she discovered a small problem, her key wouldn’t fit the ignition. Upon inspection she realized that her car was identical and parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into her car and drove to the police station.
The sergeant to whom she told the story nearly doubled over in laughter and then pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale white males were reporting a carjacking by a mad elderly white woman.
But it is a preoccupation with things, a coveting of what others have that drives so many in crime or just in life. And so it damages our priorities and our relationships.
And God is also concerned with this unhealthy drive for more because it damages our finances. We buy more than we can afford because we want more than we need. I know people making $20,000-$30,000 a year who enjoy their lives and pay all their bills. I also know people whose income exceeds six figures and yet they are miserable and near bankrupt, because they can’t control their wants.
And you combine the philosophy that things can bring happiness with our societies easy access to credit and you will devastate a family budget. Someone once said that Credit cards let you start at the bottom and then dig yourself a hole.
How many got a credit card offer this week?
The average American adult receives 32 credit card offers per year, regardless of their credit history.
Average American has four major credit cards with an average total credit card debt of $9,000.00.
Now, add to that those that a sucked into the minimum payment plan scheme and you have a recipe for financial disaster. Did you know that if you have a balance of $3,900 and you pay the 3% minimum it will take you nearly 42 years to pay off the debt, and those monthly payments would total $14,530.44.
And a lot of people are in a hole because they are consumed with things.
Here’s a question for you. What do you think that the favorite pastime of female teenagers is? In a recent survey, 93% of female teenagers said that shopping was their favorite pastime. Dating was a distant second.
One Father said, “If my girls don’t go to the Mall for 3 days, the mall sends them a get well card.” This unhealthy drive for more devastates finances and in doing so, devastates families.
It also damages personal happiness. When Ahab coveted Naboth’s land he was sullen and frustrated. A constant desire for more left him unfulfilled and depressed.
Marty Seligman is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and he conducted a study of depression. He found that there has been a sharp increase in depression since World War II. People born after 1945 are 10 times more likely to suffer depression than people born earlier.
That’s strange since we today we have so many more possessions and life is more comfortable. Seligman said that on the whole you do not find much depression as we know it in non-Westernized cultures before they were modernized. Most primitive cultures do not show many cases of depression.
For example in this study one simple society – the Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania – showed depression occurring at roughly one fifth the rate it occurred among the people of Baltimore, Maryland.
And In an attempt to explain why depression is so much more common today, Seligman acknowledge that people today are caught up in the middle of almost complete self-centeredness.
They are so focused on getting what they want that it leads to unhappiness and un-fulfillment. The more we have the more we want, and the more unhappy we become! 1 Timothy 6 tells us that the pursuit of things at all costs, causes much grief.
Well that leads us to another question, and it’s the question of why? Why do we have this unhealthy drive for more.
And one reason is advertising. We are constantly bombarded with ploys to get more stuff. You turn on the television and there are commercials. You log on to the internet and its full of ads. You drive down the highway nothing but billboards. You open the mail and it’s a catalog. You answer the phone and it’s a telemarketer. Constant advertising.
The average American is exposed to 3,000 advertisements a day that promise happiness. “If you just had that new exercise machine, you’d be ripped like the guy in the commercial. If you just had those new clubs, you’d hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods. If you just had the right tan or the right makeup or the right clothes.” And slowly but surely we’re eaten by the monster of more.
Another reason is the promotion of and availability of get rich quick opportunities such as gambling. Did you know that in 1998, people gambling in this country lost $50 billion in legal wagering, a figure that has increased every year for over two decades and that today, all but two states have some form of legalized gambling from lotteries to river boats. And it’s a trend that is only getting worse and only getting people deeper in trouble.
Surveys show that about 20% of those that declare bankruptcy do so primarily because of debt incurred through gambling. It’s a desire to get that which we don’t earn.
And we read these words, written some 3000 years ago by the hands of the prophet Jeremiah who said, “Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool.” And we see it happen all the time.
Well, We are also susceptible to a lack of contentment because our self esteem is so closely tied to the accumulation of possessions. We determine a person’s worth by what they own. If someone says, “How much is he worth?” we immediately reduce the answer to dollars and cents. Our culture and its warped values have told us that we are less of a person if we don’t accumulate lots of things.
And we buy into it. We have to have this car or these clothes because everybody else does and everybody else must be happy because they have those things…well guess what, they may have those things, but it doesn’t mean their happy and content. And certainly doesn’t mean they worth more or of more intrinsic value.
Well what’s the cure? How do we become content people and put an end to this obsession for more? Or at least make an attempt to curb it. And I want to point you in three directions.
And first and foremost we need to OPEN OUR EYES.
We need to realize that stuff is not going to fulfill us. How many of us have acknowledged that in our mind but made no attempt to change our lifestyle or our drive for more.
Happiness is not found in the accumulation of things. Of bigger house, bigger cars, better stuff. In our souls, we know that things can’t bring happiness so how come we still look for fulfillment in those areas?
The most toured home in America is the white house. But does anyone know where the second most toured home in America is?
The second most toured home in America is in Memphis Tennessee.
It’s the 23 room home of the King of Rock and Roll - Elvis Presley. (thank you, thank you very much).
Graceland is toured by hundreds of people every day. It is a combination of the home, an amusement park and an historic site. 15 million dollars a year is brought in by those visiting and looking at the cars, clothes, airplanes, records.
And few people in his time made as much money as quickly as he did. Certainly no one else had so much fame and popularity. Elvis seemed to have it all. money, airplanes, cars, mansions. But what is all that stuff? It’s T H I N G S.
And if you go fifty yards from the back door of Graceland you find a tombstone. Aug. 16, 1977, 42 years old. An overdose of pills. Depression. He was so drugged in the last days of his life that he passed out while he was eating dinner alone and he nearly drown when his face fell in his bowl of soup.
THINGS did not do it for him. And though he had as much as anybody, he said at one point, "I would give a million dollars for one day of peace."
If we are caught up in coveting, in driving for the accumulation of things, at some point we have to ask ourselves the question, WHY? Why are we trying to get it all? What do we think it will bring us? Why do we work 12 hour days, all to accumulate things.
And Mark 8:36 says "What good is it, to gain the whole world, and forfeit your soul and what can a man give in exchange for his soul."
And we need to wake up to that. Wake up and realize that nothing in this world is going to fulfill our desires.
John Ortberg, a Christian author, lives in Chicago with his wife and three small children. As you might guess, when they go out to eat, there is only one place they ever want to go, "the shrine of the golden arches." He said his children seem to be convinced that they have a McDonald’s-shaped vacuum in their souls.
He said the kids always want the same thing. And you know what it is, the same thing your kids want and my kids want and It’s a combination of the food--about which they really don’t much care -- and a little prize. It’s not much of a prize, really, just some cheap little plastic thing.
But in a moment of marketing genius, the folks at McDonald’s gave it a particular name. They call it the Happy Meal.
It is "the meal of great joy." You aren’t just buying chicken McNuggets and a tiny plastic Hercules ring. You’re buying happiness.
He says that every now and then he tries to talk them out of it. He tells them to order whatever they want and he will give them a dollar so they can buy their own toy and everyone will come out ahead. But the chant goes up, "We want a Happy Meal. We want a Happy Meal." Other customers stare at the skinflint of a father who won’t buy his kids the meal of great joy.
So, he buys them the Happy Meal. And it makes them happy, he says, for about a minute and a half. The problem is that the happy wears off. He says that you never hear of a young adult coming back to his parents and saying, "Gee, Dad, remember that Happy Meal you gave me? That’s where I found lasting contentment and lifelong joy. I knew if I could just have that Happy Meal, I would be content for a lifetime, and I am. Thank you. There’ll be no need for therapy for this boy. ”
In fact, the only one that Happy Meals bring real happiness to is McDonald’s. You ever wonder why Ronald has that silly grin on his face? Twenty billion Happy Meals, that’s why.
Now, you would think, kids being fairly bright these days, that sooner or later they would catch on to this deal and say, "You know, I keep getting these Happy Meals and they don’t give me lasting happiness, so I’m not going to be a sucker any more. I’m not going to set myself up for disappointment any more." But it never happens. They keep buying Happy Meals and they keep not working.
Now here’s the question, only a child would be so foolish. Right? Only a kid would be so naive as to think that contentment could be acquired through some kind of external acquisition. Right?
But The truth about human beings is that as we grow up, we don’t get any smarter; our Happy Meals just keep getting more expensive. [And] the world around us tells us that happiness is always just one more Happy Meal away.
“I have climbed the highest mountains. I have run through the fields. I run, I have crawled, I have scaled city walls. But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
And we won’t in the accumulation of things. Luke 12:15 says, “A man’s life does not consist of the abundance of things he has.” Possessions do not make you happy. We need to wake up to that.
And not only do we need to OPEN OUR EYES, but we need to SHARE WITH OTHERS.
We are attached to our stuff and the best way to wean us away from stuff is to let go of some of it. When that rich young ruler came to Jesus, you know what Jesus told him to do, he told him to sell his possessions and give to the poor. Jesus’ advice the rich young ruler was very practical.
If we want contentment we need to learn to let go of the world’s goods.
Do you know, one of the by-products of giving some of it away? It teaches us that we can get by on less. It teaches us that we don’t need those things to be happy. By letting go of our money and some of our conveniences we find that we don’t need all that junk to be happy. We can get by on less.
I think that is why Paul told Timothy “Command those who are rich to be generous and willing to share their money. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation and they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Tim. 6:17).
Paul says if people want to find true life, they must learn let go of some their stuff. Contentment comes when you are willing to give.
Finally, we need to PRIORITIZE.
If you want to be content you need to start in the right place. You don’t have a material shaped hole on the inside, you have a God shaped hole that only he can fill.
The Apostle Paul tells us the secret to true contentment in Philippians 4:11. He writes, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.”
The Bible says the secret to contentment is to focus on Christ and to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else will take care of itself.
But I’ve got to tell you, that doesn’t happen without a decision. If you just drift along, there is enough pressure and influence from society, advertising, inner greed, that things will soon occupy our focus. We need to make a decision that I’m not buying into it anymore. I don’t need those things to make me happy, because they aren’t going to anyway.
I will not serve things, I will serve the Lord. I will focus on that which is most important. And I will rearrange my activities to match that new priority.
Have you ever done that? Have you sat down and thought about what is going to be the primary objective and focus in my life. What am I living life for? What are my goals?
Close with two thoughts – have a little book here – great resource for reexamining finances in my life.
But the second thought is to identify that which is most important in your life. There’s an old song that says, “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” Do you know him this morning? Have you found that secret to lasting happiness? Is there a decision you need to make? We invite you to come as we stand and sing.
