Like Jesus - Simplicity

Introduction

What is the most valuable thing in your life? Turn to your neighbor or someone around you and ask them what their most prized possession is? It’s gotta be something you own. This is the item that if your house was burning down, you’d run grab it once your family was safe.

Now I’d venture most of us value have a variety of things that we value. For some of us, we’d run into the house after family photos. But since a lot of our photos are on the cloud, many of us would run grab our phone. I’m sure some of you may have said your safe or your gun or something along those lines.

This leads me to the question. What did Jesus value? Did he place importance on the things he owned or did he place value on other things? If the goal of this sermon series is to get us to be more like Jesus, I want to spend today looking at one of the things that Jesus valued.

So what did Jesus value? I came up with a short list of three things. This is conjecture, but I feel like if you look at his life and ministry, you see recurring themes that run through it.

Time With God (Our being with God is more important than our doing for God)

Relationships (Everything God does is based on relationship / Relationship with the Father and relationship with others)

Simplicity (Godly lives are marked by margin)

Here’s what I know - Jesus didn’t value stuff. There’s no talk in the gospels of the riches that he had. There’s no talk of him owning the top-of-the-line camel or donkey. In fact, its just the opposite. He tells people that want to follow him that he doesn’t even have a bed to sleep in.

Jesus lived a simple life. He didn’t have an abundance of possessions. He owned very little. He borrowed a donkey to ride into Jerusalem on, he borrowed a room to meet in for the Last Supper.

This is a man who lived out the first two values in his life to such a degree that in resulted in a very humble and simple life. For the majority of church history, simplicity has been a goal for Christians. Christians strove to live simple lives.

In today’s society and even in the church, we do not seek this ideal anymore. This is not to say we live “complex” lives either. A complex life is not the opposite of a simple life. A superficial life is the opposite of a simple life. Instead of digging our roots down deep and living simply, we instead seek shallowness. We fill our brains and our time with things that don’t matter, we spend our money on things that offer no return, avoiding furiously the things that do.

Society and culture tells us that in order to make a difference in this world, we need to follow the path of shallowness. We need to have more and do more. We need to be famous. We need to be known. We must have an abundance of stuff. Money is the prime target and power is not far behind it.

This is how the world works, but it’s not how the church works. We don’t need to worry about money or power or the abundance of possessions. And as far as fame goes, it’s better to be known by God, than it is to be known by man.

So with this in mind, let’s look at our passage for today. We will be in Luke 12. Notes are in your app and the words will be on the screen.

Luke 12:22–34 ESV

And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

These are the words of Jesus. In context, he has just told the crowd the parable of the Rich Fool. This was the man who tore down his barns to build bigger barns to store his abundance of crops and goods. He thought he was set, but he died that very night.

Jesus was teaching on a specific subject and the key to understand our passage is actually found in verse 15. Luke 12:15

Luke 12:15 ESV

And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

In other words, when we get to the beginning of verse 22, at it says, therefore. This is the reason. Because life is more than what we own, therefore don’t be anxious. We leave in a society riddled with anxiety and a big reason as to why is that we feel compelled to not follow Jesus’ words here.

Rather than simplifying our lives, we put more and more on our plates. We want more, we strive for more, we pick up more hours, we are never satisfied. And even though some families struggle to make ends meet, most of us have more than enough and all of us have things we could cut out.

If we are going to be Like Jesus, we are going to take seriously his attitude towards life. We should be seeking to live simple lives. Let’s define that. What’s a simple life? What do I mean when I say that?

A simple life is living a life of divine purpose with margin for God and others

Here’s the idea I want to present and this ties into the one thing I’d like for you to do when you leave here today - CREATE MARGIN. Godly lives are marked by margin. Sometimes it’s hard in life to tell the truth from the lie. Spurgeon said that discernment is not so much about determining the difference right and wrong, but telling the difference between right and almost right.

We say things like, we should live within our means. And this is almost right. Most of us take this to the bank. I believe most of you are in this boat. You are not excessive spenders and your schedule isn’t as loaded as Delta airlines, where they have to kick people off the plane because they overbooked. Most of us live within our means. And this sounds really good. But it’s not really good.

What we need is a life of margin. We need space to operate. We need to have some wiggle room if you will. Not to fill with more tv shows or books to read, but to love God and to love others well.

Now, I want to be clear, I’m preaching to myself as much as I am to you. I do not have enough margin in my life, especially when I look at my schedule heading into the fall. I don’t have enough margin in my life when it comes to money, my bank account says amen.

I realized this just a couple of weeks ago when someone reached out to schedule a meeting with me (he was needing personal help), and because of camp and swim practices and everything else I had going on, I had to tell him I couldn’t meet for a couple of weeks. This broke my heart.

I realized I’m not living a simple life. My life is too full. If the greatest two commandments are love God and love others, I fail at that when I don’t have time to do those things. Anyone relate to what I’m saying here?

This is where I want to point you. This is what I want you to do today. Create margin in your life. Simplify it. Eliminate things. Reduce expenses. If someone came to you for help, would you be able to help them? That’s my concern. We are living in a world where all of us live within our means and by that we I mean, we use every ounce of time, every dollar that comes in. We don’t have any to spare for others.

That’s not how Jesus lived his life.

So what does simplicity look like practically? How can we be more like Jesus in our lives when it comes to living a simple life that has space in it? What does margin look like? Here’s three areas I want to focus on.

Simplicity of Finances

Our passage today highlights the need for a simplicity when it comes to finances. Jesus gives us practical examples. Don’t worry about what you will eat, or what kind of clothes you have. He says to consider the ravens. They don’t sow, they don’t reap, they don’t have barns or storehouses and yet God feeds them.

When it comes to our finances, we don’t need to live within our means, we need to live under our means. We need margin. Now, I realize you might be saying how do I do that? As fast as it is coming in, it’s going back out.

Here’s the secret - contentment. Contentment is not a wordly ideal. In fact, it flies in the face of modern advertising, which says you need this new thing. You need the latest gadget. You need a bigger house, a bigger car and boat! You need a jetski. You need to go out to eat. You need to have Netflix, Prime Video, Youtube TV and Disney Plus. You need these things. You need a smart phone, you need a laptop. You need more, more, more.

Contentment says the exact opposite. It says, I have enough. In fact, take it a step further, it says I have more than what I need.

Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others.

Richard Foster

Celebration of Discipline (1978)

Richard Foster

A simple life is a life built around the idea of contentment. I have more than what I need. I am content. Remember Jesus started this message with a parable to warn people to be on guard against all covetousness. Covetousness is wanting more. It’s wanting what others have.

We live in a world where this is magnified by social media. You see a friend or acquaintance post about their vacation. Oh, I need to do that. I want that life. You see them post about their new car. Oh, I need to get one of those. You see them post about moving into a bigger house and all of a sudden, your house just isn’t good enough.

Contentment is the answer. And contentment really starts with gratitude. When you are thankful for what you have, you are content with what you’ve got. Gratitude and contentment walk hand-in-hand. Ungratefulness on the other hand leads to discontentment. When you aren’t grateful for what you have, you spend more to get what you don’t need.

In order to live a simple life, you have to be willing to reduce your expenditures. You have to cut things out of your budget, not add things into it. Godly lives are marked by margin. Before you spend more money on something new, pray about it. Ask God. Don’t give in to your impulsive nature. Wait. Slow down. Question your heart, question your motives.

I don’t want you to think you can’t buy anything new. Sometimes you need to buy things, that’s not the point, but you need to be able to discern why you are wanting something. Is it for the right reasons, or have you fallen into the trap of coveting.

Simplicity of Lifestyle

The second thing I see Jesus addressing in this passage is a simplicity of lifestyle. He says to consider the lilies, they neither toil or spin. Too often many of us live a life of toil and spin. We toil away filling our calendars with things that don’t really matter.

We have no room in our lives for anything else because we are too busy. If Jesus called us and asked to come visit us, we’d have to tell him we are booked for the fall, maybe in the winter he could swing by? I say that in jest, but some of us live like that.

Here’s one of my big concerns in this area. If God were to pour out revival in Clayton, would we even have time for it? Listen, when revival hit towns years ago, they’d have meetings every night of the week, for months straight. God would move and it would be amazing.

The sad part I think is this, if God were to start a revival in Clayton, many of us would try to box him into Sunday mornings. God, I don’t have margin for you to show up right now. I’m busy. My life is too hectic.

Pastor Jon Tyson, a pastor in New York City, says that God comes where He is wanted. Judging by our priorities, we don’t really want Him. We don’t have time for him. We don’t have space for him. We don’t have any margin in our lives for the Spirit to move.

A simple life means we have to make room for Jesus in our daily lives.

A simple life means we make room for others as well. Godly lives are marked by margin.

How can we love God when we don’t have time for Him? How can we serve our neighbors when we have no space in our lives to see them? If you want a simple life, a life like Jesus, you are going to have to eliminate some things from your schedule.

Simplicity of Mission

Finally, the last area I see Jesus clearly mention in this passage is he talks about a simple mission. He says seek God’s kingdom and everything else will be added to you. In other words, let’s boil this down to the most practical thing imaginable. What does God want you to do with your life? Seek Him.

What’s your mission in life? Seek the Kingdom. What’s your divine purpose? Seek Him. What’s God asking from you? Seek Him. Don’t spend your life worrying, toiling away, filling your schedule, spending your money on things that do not matter. Spend your life, on Him.

You have a clear mission. We’ve spent the past few months talking about that mission. It’s built on relationship. It’s built on getting alone with Jesus. It’s built on being still and silent before Him. It’s built on being with God. Our doing for Him should always flow from a place of being with Him.

Too often when it comes to mission, we look for the big things in life. We think about these great exploits. I’d love to be a missionary in a foreign land, that’s what really following Jesus is like. No! I mean it could be for some of you, but really following Jesus is following Him today. In your daily life. A simple life of you and Him.

You and I are not always satisfied with the manner in which God deals with us. We would very much like to do something new, something different, something big and dramatic—but we are called back. For everything we need, we are called back to the simplicity of the faith, to the simplicity of Jesus Christ and His unchanging person.

A. W. Tozer

When it comes to satisfaction or contentment, the question is this…are you satisfied with a life of seeking His Kingdom? Are you content with the greatest goal in your life being, “to know God.” And I’m not talking about just head knowledge, but to seek him with your all your mind and all of your heart and all of your strength. That’s what love is.

This is the life that Jesus lived. He lived a simple life of seeking the Father.

John 5:19 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

Jesus fulfilled his life’s mission by simply looking for the Father, seeing what the Father was doing and joining the Father in that mission. That’s it. That’s what God is asking of you. Seek after Jesus. Look at what Jesus is doing. Join Jesus in doing it. It’s a simple mission.

Godly lives are marked by margin.

Conclusion

Some of you may be thinking, I’m not sure what my mission really is. I’m not sure where I am going or what God wants of me. The answer is found in the last verse of this passage. It says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If you want to know what your life is aimed at, what mission you are living out, look at your treasure. What are you working your life away for? What things are so important to you that you have given up margin for? What fills your schedule? These are the things that have captured your heart.

These are the things that are keeping you from a deep life with Jesus.

To end, I want to give you time to pray through that question. I’ve got some Prayer & Journaling points and I want to give you a minute to pray through these. God wants to deal with your heart.

Prayer & Journaling

Father, where do I need to create margin in my life?

Jesus, how can I better serve you with my finances?

Lord, where have I put my treasure?