Sermon for 3/6/2005
4 Things for the Simple Life
Introduction:
Last week I had influenza. However, there is a virus that has affected most of us and we don’t even know it. The name of this virus is affluenza not influenza. This powerful virus affects our wallets, our friendships, our families, our communities, and our environment. Untreated, this virus can cause permanent discontent. Were you to find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition might be something like the following: Affluenza- a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
WBTU:
A. If what we have received as a gift, and if what we have is cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will be free from anxiety. This was my sermon several weeks ago. This is the key to living a simple life.
B. Simplicity is only a personal thing is false. There must be outward expression of this or it is not true. Simplicity will affect how we live.
C. A man named Agur said in (Prov 30:7 NIV) "Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die:(Prov 30:8 NIV) Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.(Prov 30:9 NIV) Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ’Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.
D. How many of us have prayed this way? This goes completely against our society. We want our cake and we want to eat it too. I want money lots and lots of money. I want my pie in the sky.
C. Now, any attempt to give rules and regulations for all cultures at all times on simplicity runs into the risk of legalism.
D. However, to refuse to discuss specifics would banish this teaching to be something ambiguous and unattainable. Richard Foster gives ten controlling principles for the expression of simplicity. Each one of these is just an attempt to define simplicity in our day and give us practical guidelines.
Thesis: This morning we are going to look at the first four principles for simplicity.
For instances:
1. Buy things for the usefulness, not for their prestige.
A. Sometimes people buy things for the pride that they bring.
B. For Christians, our pride should not be in our possessions, but in the cross of Christ. (Gal 6:14 NIV) May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
C. C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity called Pride the great sin or the original sin. “It was through pride that the devil became the devil: Pride is the complete anti-God state of mind. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. Take for instance greed. Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better vacations, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with $1,000,000 a year anxious to get $2,000,000? It is not the greed for more pleasure. $1,000,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is pride- the wish to be richer than some other rich man.
D. Cars should be bought for their usefulness, not their prestige.
E. A house should be bought for livability rather than how much it will impress others. Don’t have more living space than is reasonable.
F. Consider clothes. Most people have no need for more clothes. They buy more not because they need clothes, but because they want to keep up with the fashions. Stop trying to impress people with your clothes and impress them with your life.
G. In a Sears ad a few years ago, Maia Campbell tells girls, “You gotta believe in your dreams. You gotta stand up for yourself. You gotta be there for your friends. But hey, first you gotta have something to wear. You gotta have the clothes.” The ad shows Campbell modeling clothes collectively priced at $267.
2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
A. How do we know what an addiction is? If you cannot make it through your day without it, then it is an addiction.
B. Now there are some things that we need every day that are genuine needs like food but things like alcohol, coffee, tea, Coca-Cola, chocolate and so on are not needs of the human body.
C. Maybe your addiction is shopping.
D. Maybe your addiction is TV. Be all means sell your set or give it away.
E. Maybe it is the computer.
E. We are slaves to God as Christians and nothing else. (2 Pet 2:19 NIV) They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
F. Lord is another way of saying Master. He is the one who controls us. These addictions block his control over us.
G. An addiction by its nature is something that is beyond our control. Resolves of the will alone are useless in defeating a true addiction. We cannot decide to be free of it. We must decide to open this corner of our life to the forgiving grace and healing power of God. We need to find loving friends who will pray for us. Need to live one day at a time in quiet dependence upon God’s help. He is the Master.
H. I am becoming alarmed by the number of addictions in our children, addictions to material things. It is scary how advertisers and marketers are targeting our children to make them hyper consumers. David Walsh, author of Selling Out America’s Children, says, “Market created values of selfishness, instant gratification, perpetual discontentment, and constant consumption are diametrically opposed to the values most Americans want to teach their children.”
I. Marketers today openly refer to parents as “gatekeepers,” whose efforts to protect their children from commercial pressures must be circumvented so that those children, in the rather chilling terms used by the marketers, can be “captured, owned, and branded.” At a 1996 marketing conference called “Kid Power,” held at Disney World, the keynote address, “Softening the Parental Veto,” was presented by the marketing director of McDonald’s. Speaker after speaker revealed the strategy: Portray parents as fools and fuddy-duddies who aren’t smart enough to realize their children’s need for the products being sold.
J. Jennifer Gailus, a high school student, said, “The kids in our high school take everything for granted. They think they’ve earned it and the world owes it to them. They’ll just take, take, take, and they won’t give anything back. And our society’s going to crumble if we don’t have people that give.”
3. Develop the habit of giving things away.
A. Jesus gave a parable of a farmer who had a good crop and because of this he was unable to store all of his grain. In response to this, the farmer built bigger barns to hold all of the grain. Jesus said, “(Luke 12:20 NIV) ’You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’(Luke 12:21 NIV) "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
B. De-accumulate! Masses of things that are not needed complicate life. They must be sorted and sorted and dusted and re-sorted and on and on. Most of us could get rid of half our possessions without any serious sacrifice.
C. In our day we have Goodwill that will take our stuff and give us a tax write off.
D. I need to sell if for something. Good, get on e-bay and get rid of the stuff as fast as you can.
I preached on this and a man sold his coin collection. I was a coin collector and as he told me this, I thought to myself, "I wish he had sold it to me." The Lord tested me on this a couple of years later. I used to collect Biblical coins and I thought I would pass them around during a Bible lesson. However, I never did because I was too worried they would be stolen. Times were hard for my family. Took all of my coins and sold them. I found out something valuable. I no longer worry about them being stolen. I don’t have to worry about reporting them on my insurance. I don’t have to worry about getting a safety deposit box (they charge for those.) A lot less anxiety. By the way I still have a lot of wheat pennies. If you are robbing my house, please take all of the wheat pennies!
E. Most people have so much stuff they cannot park their cars in their own garage.
F. There are now more than 46,500 self storage facilities in the country. The self storage industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the US commercial real estate industry over the period of the last 35 years. This industry takes in over 20 billion $ annually (according to a report in 2011)
G. I want to give this stuff to my children. Good, if you are not using it, why not give it now? It will mean a lot now than later.
4. Refuse to be brainwashed by the marketers of modern gadgetry.
A. (Col 2:8 NIV) See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.
This device will save time.
1. Advances in technology, automation, cybernation, were supposed to give us more leisure time and less working time. Many years ago they predicted that by the end of the 20th century we’d have more leisure time than we’d know what to do with? In 1965, a U.S. Senate subcommittee heard testimony that estimated a workweek of 14 to 22 hours by the year 2000.
2. We got the technology, but we didn’t get the time. We have computers and instant this and that, but we have less free time than we did 30 years ago.
4. We are experiencing a time famine.
5. When it comes to our homes, they tell us this will save time. My friends, don’t swallow that hook line and sinker.
B. This device will pay for itself in 6 months.
1. Most gadgets are built to break down and wear out and so complicate our lives rather than enhance them.
2. We see this in the toy industry. Children do not need to be entertained by dolls that cry, eat, wet, sweat, and spit. An old rag doll is usually more enjoyable and more lasting for a child. Often children find more joy in playing with old pots and pans and cardboard boxes than with the newest and latest. Look for toys that are educational and durable.
C. This is new and improved so sell that old one and buy the new one.
1. This is especially true in the car business.
2. Go out and get a new car every year. Tell me the logic in this. I drive it off of the lot and it automatically goes down in value. Depreciation.
3. What is a car designed to do. Get me from point A to point B. This is what a car is for. When my vehicle no longer gets me from point A to point B then we need to look into getting something new, but as long as it gets me from point A to point B it is doing what it was designed to do.
4. I don’t care if a gasha girl comes out from the headboard and waves me with a palm branch and grapes pop up from the dashboard, if I have a vehicle that gets me from point A to point B, I am not interested.
5. Once the car is paid off (this is the goal), take the money for car payments and set up an account and then when you have to get a car, take out the money and you have a good down payment.
Conclusion:
A. Why don’t people want to volunteer for church or community things?
B. Why don’t people give more money to the church and other good organizations?
C. Why don’t people have time to spend with their families?
D. Why don’t people have time to fellowship with their brothers and sisters in Christ?
E. Why don’t people have time to won the lost?
E. Why don’t people take time for what is really important in life?
F. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
G. Right before this section Jesus says, “(Mat 6:24 NIV) "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
