Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: Simplicity

Introduction and Scripture

Matthew 6:19–24 NIV

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Pray.

Luke: I want toys!!!

We are consumed with consumption

It was not always this way. Go back 200 years and most people worked in agriculture, they had what they needed. Happiness and joy was not less, by the way. But want was not usually a luxury. Of course there has always been the 1%.

Things changed after WW2 in a major way. And in a fascinating development. During WW2 the Nazi’s began this crazy movement of advertising called propaganda. I say advertising on purpose because do not be mistaken, modern advertisement does not try to convince you to kill Jews, but it is just as manipulative. The Nazis grabbed hold of Psychotherapist Freud, belief humans were not just thinking rational beings. But we have unconscious drivers. We are far more emotionally tricked into pursuing desires.

Freud is a Jew, ironic, but the Nazis took this thinking and turned out the propaganda machine. After the war Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays....an intelligent officer for the good guys in the war....needed a job after the war and brought it to america. He thought it worked in wartime, lets do it in peace time.

He became the father of advertising. Responsible for things like making cigarettes look cool.

Propaganda:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tasks formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…In almost every act of our daily lives we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Advertisement is propaganda. And what if your consumption of stuff is greater than your consumption of God, and the grace of God, and the truth of God.

I am not telling you to never be a consumer, but to be a consumer in time and resources of the right thing.

Jesus had a favorite subject and it is not what you think

That is why we turn to Matthew 6 today

Three moves here by Jesus.

And by the way did you know he teaches more than anything else on money and possessions (and definitely more than we are comfortable with)....and yet we hate when the preacher talks about it. We run from stewardship series.

Today I will not be trying to make passages like this more palatable but hopefully more accessible.

Three major moves in this passage.

Invest in what is important

Investigate your influences

Follow THE leader

Invest in what is important

The first move Jesus makes is about priority of investment.

Look at it again...

Matthew 6:19–20 NIV

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

I talked last week about the hurricane Harvey destruction and I always come back here when I read things like this. Kingwood was full of very well off neighborhoods. All of them with their stuff on the curb in those neighborhoods. But the levels of grief and suffering was different from house to house.

One older guy had a collection 1960 chevy in his garage. and for others I saw people’s lives completely and radically changed

This section talks about moths and rust and places that can be stolen.

Outside world influences can take away most of the things we invest in.

Your retirement fund can disappear, and if tomorrow were to be your last, what value does it really have?

But if you invest in people, invest in the kingdom, sacrifice time and resources to raise your children, sacrifice months and years of vacation to invest in other people. If you take some of your luxurious retirement and help the poor, or adopt or foster....how does that investment age or compound?!?!?!

Investigate your desires

There is no doubt this passage and others contain discussion and critique of money and wealth. But Jesus does not stop at some kind of Dave Ramsey lecture on proper investment. His intention is always at the root. He makes that clear in this next section:

Matthew 6:22–23 NIV

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

What is he doing here? There is a lot here, including this linguistic and contextual application of an analogy of the good single eye and the bad evil eye. Let’s jump to the interpretation,

Jesus seems to be saying that your eye can be a lamp of light or it can be that which brings darkness.

What makes an eye good? In this context it is clear with all of the comparisons being used. The good eye is the one that is singularly focused on one master that we will talk about in a second. The good eye is the one that is focused on generosity and simplicity. That has a mind for kingdom treasures.

The bad eye on the other hand is the one that focuses on treasures of the world. And when you have your attention in all of these places it has a deep spiritual effect over your whole life.

Which leads into the final point here from Jesus....

Follow THE Leader

Jesus’ final move here is where it was headed the whole time, to the root sin. The root that causes us to invest in things that dont matter, or causes our lives to be slowly draped by a dark veil, this root is Mat 26:24

Matthew 6:24 NIV

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

He uses very strong terms here. Slave and master, denoting obedience and complete submission. The difference is of course, to allow God to be your master is not life of oppression but the other is absolutely one. To be controlled by money, or things, or consumerism, is to give your desire full reign.

So who are you following?

One of the things I want you to hear today....

I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty for having wealth or stuff, but I am imploring you to consider how much, consciously or subconsciously, your stuff is a pursuit of happiness

What if I am poor?

Now, to the person in the room that is hearing this and says, well this is not for me. I am struggling to pay bills. I am getting by on what I need. I hear you. Honestly, I believe Jesus would say....you have one less obstacle, one less massive obstacle to the Christian life.

And you do not have to be middle/upper class to be consumed by materialism. I do not think any of us in the room are free from this message....though for some it is much more challenging.

What do we do?

I want to share some of the practices Comer expressed. If you do not have the book, you may want to take a picture of this list as it comes on the screen.

Simplicity in Practice

Some suggestions

Simple:

Before you buy something, ask yourself, What is the true cost of this item?

Before you buy, ask yourself, By buying this, am I oppressing the poor or harming the earth?

Never impulse buy

When you buy, opt for fewer, better things

When you can, share

Get in the habit of giving things away

Live by a budget

Learn to enjoy things without owning them

Cultivate a deep appreciation for creation

Cultivate a deep appreciation for the simple pleasures

Recognize advertising for what it is--propaganda. Call out the lie.

Lend a cheerful, happy revolt against the spirit of materialism

Fasting:

Richard Foster: More than any other discipline, fasting reveals things that control us.

We also cover up all sorts of things with technology, food, alcohol, etc.

Closing:

This week I was in Ohio for a week long intensive for my Doctoral program. We spend time with our focus group and talk about our projects and get help from our colleagues and mentors. But the whole group of doctoral students also receive some plenary teaching that is all focused.

This week was focused on racial reconciliation.

By the way folks, we still have a long ways to go. We have work to do along those lines. If you would like to talk more about that with me then please do.

But one of the speakers gave a powerful witness/talk to the possibility of racial reconciliation by pointing to the church. He talked about the church becoming the embodiment of Christ for the world. He implored the church to be about the work of making saints again. Helping people to come alive by Christ and to have their lives transformed by his grace. In the grace of Jesus racism SHOULD fall apart.

(I promise this has connection here)

After the talk, people that have been affected by racism directly or have worked for change, lined up at the microphones during Q&A.

There was some tense moments as the speaker received attack after attack because his vision was too passive, too weak, too slow.

Afterwards our focus group debriefed what was going on and at first it was disorienting to hear such a kingdom minded talk, face such opposition from Christian leaders.

Then it occurred to us, that most do not believe in divine action. For the speaker to call us to holiness and spiritual practices like what we are talking about in this series, was not attractive because to that means you are expecting to find a God that actually interacts with us and our world.

Here is where I want to bring it back to us:

If you do not believe God is an actor in this world then you will never consider these spiritual practices.

Like you might consider making some shallow health changes by taking a day off or at least chilling on the technology consumption....but you will not likely increase your generosity to the poor, simplify your life, or set aside a whole day for God.