I Bring Back Only what God Gives Me

Finishing our Walking with God series. We’ve been discovering what it means to be a pilgrim walking with God toward God...

Let’s begin by saying the The Pilgrim’s Credo together.

I am not in control.

I am not in a hurry.

I walk in faith and hope.

I greet everyone with peace.

I bring back only what God gives me.

This morning we will look at the last line of the credo, “I bring back only what God gives me.”

It is no stretch to say that we live in a consumeristic society. We have more products available to purchase than any civilization in human history. If you can imagine it, you can buy it. Jeff Bezos and the descendents of Sam Walton have made sure everything we could possibly desire is available at our fingertips. Funny story, Sam Walton actually spit on Julie...

We have so many products available to us, but we often miss the a dire human cost to many of these possessions. We unintentionally continue the promotion of child labor. The production of palm oil, used in vast numbers of food products - including your girl scout cookies - in Malaysia alone accounts for over 30,000 child-laborers, half of which are between 5-11 years old. The porn industry is a $100 billion industry worldwide, $13 billion in the US alone, and causes appalling numbers of human trafficking and exploitation of minors. Yet, 68% of church-going men admit to looking at porn regularly.

And even we ourselves because unwitting victims of mass marketing. A recent documentary call The Social Dilemma looked at the effects of the monetization of social media and how the algorithms were designed, not simply to understand you, but to influence and control you. It uncovered the shocking truth that, if you aren’t paying for a product, you ARE the product!

There is a serious spiritual danger to becoming ensnared in our consumer-driven culture.

1 Tim 6:9-10 “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”

Those lured into the possession-driven, consumer-culture fall into a trap. You can get trapped in something not intended to be a trap. But a trap in reality is something intentionally set to lure and entrap something.

Hunters trap prey. Spiders. Ant Lion. But the most evil example of luring and trapping prey is found in the jungles of Central and South America. No, not the creature from the Predator movies. It’s the Margay cat. It’s smallish. Certainly not a danger to people. But it loves the taste of Tamarin monkeys. The problem is that, while it’s fast, it has to be close enough to a Tamarin to catch it first. Here is its evil genius: it can mimic the sound of a baby tamarin. And by doing this it draws the curious adult over to investigate - and gotcha. Isn’t that a horrible trick. The adult can’t resist the cry of the infant, and falls prey to the cat.

Let me suggest that money, and the associated consumerism, is the sound the devil uses to lure and trap people. The love of it, the pursuit of it, the spending of it, becomes both the bait and the snare to enslave people to a self-destructive lifestyle.

He doesn’t say money is evil. Money is amoral. It’s a tool, and can be a useful and good tool. But when our hearts turn to the love of money, watch out. When we prize this prize too highly, it bears a price we cannot afford.

Billy in Where the Red Fern Grows. To train Big Dan and Little Ann, he needs a raccoon pelt. His grandfather teaches him to make a trap by putting a shiny object in a hole. When the raccoon tries to pull it out, its hand gets stuck by the angled nails driven around the opening. Rather than let go of it’s object, the raccoon will stay there, which allows Billy and his grandpa to club it to death.

Money becomes the shiny object we grasp on to too tightly, and we end up getting the hell beat out of us in the process. In a consumerist culture, we become easily consumed.

All of this should cause us to stop and reflect how we participate in our consumer-driven culture. We can’t check out completely, yet I believe that God calls us to remain as unattached as possible. To live in a non-grasping sort of way. Rather than working so hard to possess, God calls us to let go so that we might possess that which is truly meaningful. I think this is what is at heart in bringing back only what God gives me.

Luke 9:1-4 & 10:4-9

Jesus invites us on a journey to leave behind

Did you notice Jesus gave more instructions about their packing list than their ministry assignment? How different is that from us when we go on a trip. We go to the beach, and on the off-chance there might be a once-in-a-million-year snow event, we pack a heavy coat. The size of our bags and the size of our car trunk often determine what we bring along.

In preparing the walk the Camino de Santiago, I was almost fanatical about taking as little as possible. I was determined that my pack would not weigh more than 15 pounds, excluding water. Why? Because I knew that trying to carry too much weight would work against me accomplishing my goal.

Notice what they weren’t to bring - all the things we think would be normal and necessary. No walking stick, no suitcase, no food, no money, no change of clothing. Literally take nothing. I’m imagining a scene from The Chosen...This seems an insane way of traveling. But I wonder how the impact of their trip would have been affected had they been loaded down with all those extras.

Their problem, and I think our problem a lot of time, is that they thought the issue would be having too little. Jesus knew their issue would be taking too much. Being overloaded with things that would prevent them from receiving what God had in store for them. How often does our own tendency toward self-sufficiency restrict the flow of God’s blessing in our life? I’ve heard Christians in the US lament why we don’t see the kinds of miracles here that are happening in Africa or South America or Asia. Maybe because we don’t need a miracle - we’ve insulated ourselves in a cocoon of self-sufficiency.

Take a moment and ask the Spirit where you are over-burdened with things. This could be physical stuff, or it could be emotional baggage...

Jesus wants to prepare us to bring back greater

Luke 10:17-20

We assume the Twelve had similar results to their first mission trip, but Luke gives us an account of the 70 that returned. Because they packed light, what did they bring back?

The joy of seeing God provide - they had this amazing joy I believe of having seen God come through for them. They brought nothing, yet their needs were totally met. Their clothes lasted, people took them in and lodged and fed them. All the things they were intent on taking would have either been dead, unnecessary weight, or it would have robbed them of seeing God’s supernatural provisions. The apostle Paul writes to Timothy, 1 Tim 5:18 “The laborer deserves to be paid.” Some translations say “the worker is worthy of his wages”. The point is that if God sends you out, you expect and trust in his provision.

There has been a fresh wind blowing among the leadership in our church to begin turning our sights outward into our community again. The back to school block party is an example of this. We will also be starting a Thursday night worship service at the pantry beginning in September. There is already talk of doing trunk or treat this fall again, and restarting our Alpha ministry in early 2024. Six months ago these discussions wouldn’t have happened. We’d have looked at our bank account and said “no way”. But the Spirit is shifting something here, and while we aren’t out of the woods yet financially, the Spirit is making money available from various sources to pursue these ministry ideas. You can trust that if God sends you on the way, he will make a way. And in this is the joy of the Lord.

The joy of participating in the kingdom of God - can you imagine the dinners they had when they all got back? Everyone would have exciting stories of seeing people healed, cured of disease, being delivered from demonic oppression. They got to be on the front edge of seeing how Jesus changes lives and communities, and saw a foretaste of the fall of Satan’s kingdom.

We are called to be kingdom people. This is the central theology of the Vineyard. We believe that all this stuff Jesus sent the 70 to do, he sends us to do as well. It’s not always dramatic, but it always spreads the good news of the kingdom. But does our grasping - at material things, at selfish indulgence, at doing our own thing - keep us from experiencing the power of the kingdom? Every week 70-100 people pile into this church on Thursdays. And I’ll confess that I’ve let a lot of things keep me from being very regularly. But the last time I was here, two people sought me out for prayer. I though one lady was going to come physically pull me out of my chair. My point in this is that here are people desperate to see the kingdom come in their life. But as Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. If you started coming to the pantry - even once a month - just to pray with people, what kind of joy do you think you’d share in?

I understand not everyone is called to the pantry, nor should they be. But we’re all called. Whatever the personal cost, I believe that what we will bring back is far greater. Where has Jesus been inviting you to engage in his kingdom mission?

Jesus wants to see us unburdened so that our hands are open to what God wants to give us. As joyful it is to see God supernaturally provide or kick Satan’s butt, the most important thing Jesus wants to give us is eternal life. Here is the wellspring of all our joy. We rejoice in God’s kingdom breaking in because we have personally experienced the joy of his salvation for ourselves and we want others to know that same joy. And having our joy centered in our eternal relationship with Jesus helps keeps all the other things in perspective.

I don’t know everyone’s story here or those listening online, but if your life is lacking joy, do you know Jesus? Jesus is here now ready to forgive your sin and to give you eternal life. If you are ready to make take that step today, would you reach out to me (next steps slide)?

We are all pilgrims in this life, whether we realize it or not. We are all walking toward a destination and a destiny. Not just the what-happens-when-I-die kind, but the what-do-make-of-my-life kind. This series has been about discovering what it means to walk with God toward God. I believe this is the only way to have a life of meaning, purpose, and joy.

Let’s close this series by reciting the Pilgrim’s Credo one last time:

I am not in control.

I am not in a hurry.

I walk in faith and hope.

I greet everyone with peace.

I bring back only what God gives me.

Amen.