The Almighty Dollar Series

Play Song – Enjoy Yourself by Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians

Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)

Words & Music by Carl Sigman & Herb Magidson

Recorded by Guy Lombardo, 1950

You work and work for years and years, you’re always on the go;

You never take a minute off, too busy makin’ dough.

Someday, you say, you’ll have your fun when you’re a millionaire --

Imagine all the fun you’ll have in your old rockin’ chair.

Refrain:

Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think;

Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink.

The years go by as quickly as a wink --

Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

You’re gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may;

You’ve got your reservations but you just can’t get away.

Next year, for sure, you’ll see the world, you’ll really get around --

But how far can you travel when you’re six-feet under ground?

Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette;

She’s left you and she’s now become somebody else’s pet.

Lay down that gun, don’t try, my friend, to reach the great beyond;

You’ll have more fun by reachin’ for a redhead or a blonde.

Repeat Refrain:

You never go to nightclubs and you just don’t care to dance;

You don’t have time for silly things like moonlight and romance.

You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack;

But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn’t kiss you back.

Repeat Refrain

This is week four in our Canadian Idols series. So far we’ve talked about the idols of career, family, and self. We’ve seen how none of these things are evil in and of themselves, but they become a problem for us when we start to worship them as an idol. What’s an idol? An idol is anything or anyone that takes the place of God and pushes Him out of the place of priority in our lives.

Today we’re going to talk about another idol: the idol of money. That’s what that whole song was about… people who make an idol out of money and make the accumulation of more money their top priority.

Is the idol of money really a problem here in Atlantic Canada? You bet it is. If it wasn’t, Atlantic Lotto and all its compatriots would all be money losing operations. People wouldn’t be taking trips to Halifax just to visit the casinos along the waterfront. You don’t have to look very far to see how deeply the desire for stuff has infiltrated our culture, and how strongly we desire the money to get more stuff.

Money is without a doubt an idol and perhaps THE Idol of North American culture. And we want more of it. As Woody Allen says;

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”

~ Woody Allen

So what I want to do this morning is talk about five fallacies about money, and then give you five facts about money.

Five Fallacies about Money

A. Money means achievement.

There’s a tendency to think: the more money we have the more successful we are. We even created labels to describe how financially successful we are: Upper class and lower class. Of course, those terms weren’t specific enough, so we added the terms middle class, upper middle class, and lower middle class. All to perpetuate the fallacy that the more money we have, the more successful we are and the more we’ve achieved in life.

But money does not equal achievement. A lot of people have accumulated great wealth but have accomplished very little of any significance.

Help me out. If making money isn’t really significant in life, what is? What are the things that really matter?

PARTICIPATION

B. Money means freedom.

Ever feel like all the pressures you face would disappear if only you could come into a wad of cash? You’ve got bills, taxes, babysitting, birthdays, credit cards, student loans, mortgages, car payments all demanding a piece of the pie, which leaves a pretty small slice for you. If only you were rich, these things wouldn’t be a problem.

But the recurring pattern in our culture says that money doesn’t bring you freedom from these pressures. It may change the dynamics of those pressures, but they’re still there. Your lifestyle adjusts to the excess cash, and before long you’re living above your means again and the pressures and demands of everyday life are still there.

C. Money means respect.

This is the fallacy that tells you that your value in life is directly proportional to your pile of cash. Instead of spending the time and energy to build strong, healthy relationships you count on money to make up for the lack of affection from other people. But because you associate your self-worth with your bank account, you expect others to do the same.