Bazaar United Methodist Church

Bazaar, Kansas

Matthew 6:19-34

Abundant Living

19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, [a] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, [b] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 "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.
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life [c]?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you-you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:19-34 TNIV

Footnotes:
a. Matthew 6:22 The Greek for healthy here implies generous.
b. Matthew 6:23 The Greek for unhealthy here implies stingy.
c. Matthew 6:27 Or single cubit to your height

We have a problem in our church, in our community, in our county, state and nation. It seems to be a problem that is world-wide at the moment and the news reports perpetuate the problem. The problem is lack thinking. We don't have enough. Oh my goodness, the markets are crumbling. And people are hoarding. And everyone is worried. It is causing horrible problems worldwide.

It is a fairy tale, told by those who don't have eyes to see and ears to hear. Oh, yes, I know about the stock market and my investments have lost as much as anyone else's. None the less, it is, as Shakespeare says, "a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Have you looked out at the Flint Hills this spring? They are as lush and green and as beautiful as I have ever seen them. The ponds are full, the birds sing, the cattle graze, the wheat looks good.

God has given us this amazing and abundant world. This glorious place. We do not have an abundance problem. What we have is a distribution problem and an attitude, an ingratitude. Too many people don't have enough while some have way more than they need. And we seem to have forgotten the difference between wants and needs.

Consider these thoughts about some of the things we tend to hold dear:
1. How do you feel about your car? Just how important is it to you? God won't ask what kind of car your drove, but God might ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation. I have a new car now, but I didn't until the one I had been driving had over 230 thousand miles on it and my husband worried too much about me.
2. What about your house? God won't ask the square footage of your house, but God might ask how many people you welcomed into your home.
3. God won't ask in what kind of neighborhood you lived, but God will ask how your treated your neighbors.
4. If you love clothes, remember God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but God will ask how many you helped to clothe.
5. Consider your job. God won't ask what your highest salary was, but God will ask if your compromised your character to obtain it.
6. In addition to that God won't ask what your job title was, but God will ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability. Did you work hard, or were you a slacker?
Some people treasure their golf clubs, their boat, their RV, their big screen TV the list goes on and on. . .

But consider these worldwide statistics:
--If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep. . .you are richer than 75% of the people in the world.
--If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
It sort of puts a different perspective on what we have, doesn't it?

Where are your treasures, really? Is it really all this stuff that you can't take with you or is your treasure in the relationships you build with people, with God, and in knowing your spiritual self?

Do you have a roof over your head? Is there food in the fridge for lunch today and enough for tomorrow too? Will you be so poverty stricken overnight that you can't give some of what you have to others? Do you have a coat hanging in the closet that is perfectly good but you haven't worn for several years? Do you think you could part with some of your good stuff for someone who has nothing? Simplicity is a spiritual discipline that few of us think about. But many of us might be happier if we had less stuff. After all, stuff takes time and time is a valuable commodity.

How many of us here have more vehicles than we have drivers? How many here only have one pair of shoes to wear? OK. How many have more than 2 pairs of shoes? 5 pairs of shoes? 8 pairs of shoes? 10 pairs of shoes? Do we or do we not live in God's great abundance? It is time for us to give up the illusion of lack and start paying attention to the massive amount of abundance which surrounds us at every turn in our lives. We have much. There is much we can do to help those who have little.

It seems there are two things that hold us back in our giving. The first is fear. Fear of the future. But the scripture tells us that love casts out fear. So the practice of giving out of a loving heart will restrain our fear and grant us great joy. I have observed it over and over in those who go on mission trips. They often go with great trepidation on the first one. Then they can't wait to go back to the next one. They do things they never expected to do, eat food they have never eaten before, sleep in less than perfect lodgings, work harder than they ever work at home and come back exhausted and exhilarated and ready to do it all over again. Why? Because they have seen the face of God in the faces of those they have helped. Because the work was satisfying; it did so much good for someone they saw as worthy of assistance and love and support. When we step out in faith and give of ourselves and our finances, fear crumbles.

The second reason we don't give is because of our perceived need. I say "perceived need" because, in this country, we are so hounded by advertising that we have created needs where none exists. We need or think we need what others have. Adults have become as bad as teenagers about wanting what their neighbors have and Christians are as guilty as others. And we have lost our understanding of delayed gratification. People are so accustomed to buying on credit that millions of Americans are thousands of dollars in debt on their credit cards and can hardly pay the balance every month.

Everyone wants a Wii on which to play games, get exercise, etc. Everybody has one! You must have a Bowflex body! It's imperative that you get on the Now Network. You've seen the commercials. You've heard the hype. You've been tempted, some of you are drooling. Do you really need any of these things? The answer is "no." The answer is "no" to a lot of the things that we want. They are wants and not needs. We need to learn to ask ourselves two questions before any purchase. Do I really need this? Why do I need it? If we can answer "Yes" to the first question and have a reasonable answer to the second question then we may really need it. But the questions will stop us from impulse buying that we are likely to regret later; or with money which would be better used by giving it away to those who have nothing.

Giving, you know, has its own reward. It feels good to give. If it doesn't feel good to give then you are not giving enough. If it hurts to give then you are in the wrong state of mind. Giving should feel good. It should feel good because you know that your money is doing a world of good in the world. Money that comes into this church doesn't just pay your current pastor and pay the bills, it puts bread on the table for retired pastors and their widows, it pays for medicine for sick children, it covers other medical expenses, it helps provide for growth and teaching in other small churches. You should give until it feels good.

Our old friend and mentor Oswald Chambers reminds us that we are to practice the habit of wealth because, after all, we are partakers of the divine nature. He says there is "no sin worse than the sin of self-pity because it obliterates God and puts self-interest on the throne." We are not, he says, to be craving sponges but our lives should be lovely and generous and fresh springs should flow freely from us, regardless of our circumstances, because we recognize that we are made rich in Christ Jesus.

In other words we are to live in the abundance of God's kingdom all the time, loving life and loving others, giving in joy as well as obedience. We should have eyes to see God's splendor and abundance which should help us see our own abundance and give from that abundance rather than hoarding like a fearful old Ebenezer Scrooge.

Back in November I preached a sermon titled "A Theology of Risk" based on the Parable of the Talents. One of the things I said then, bears repeating:
"If only" is a dangerous game because it so easily gets us off the hook. It is an easy excuse for our failure to step out in faith. "Maybe God is saying something like that to us. Maybe when we complain that we wish that we had more, if only we were like someone other than ourselves, if only. . . [God] says to us: Use the gifts I have given you. Stop crying about what you do not have and start concentrating on what you do have.

"We could measurably strengthen this church if we simply reactivated some of our inactive members, start using some of our unused gifts, start giving some of our one talent sums of money. If we simply stirred up what we already have and stopped complaining about what we do not have." If we went after the 90% of the people in Chase County who are not in any church on Sunday morning instead of expecting our church to die because there are not many of us here now, we could do immeasurably more than we imagine. If we chose to live in faith rather than in fear and if we moved outside our doors in imaginative ways we could yet set Chase County on fire for Jesus Christ.

Do you remember that? Just six short months ago we had this challenge to go out on a limb, to risk loving life, loving others and living in abundance because that is what God calls us to do in the here and now. What have you done to change your habits and thought patterns in the last six months? Will you do something to change them in the next six? Now I won't be here to see the answer to that. Will you be praying more diligently for your new pastor than you have been praying for me? I certainly hope so. Will you be praying for the church more diligently? Will you increase your giving to the church? Have you increased your giving to the level of a tithe? If you increase 1% per year it won't be all that much and it will get you to a tithe in a minimum of ten years. For most people it will get them there in eight years.

We live in this wonderful world of God's great abundance and we act as if God has cut us off without a penny. It is an absurdity. God has given us everything we have and many things we don't possess but which are ours none the less-things like a beautiful sunrise or sunset over the Flint Hills, the ability to get a sense of what the psalmist meant when he spoke of God owning the cattle on a thousand hillsides (Psalm 50:10), and a sky clear enough to enjoy the full flavor of the milky way. God in all God's fullness has given us great bounty and we are in the perfect place to be able to look around and know the truth of it in the natural world.

God has not cut us off and left us destitute. We are the ones who have an attitude problem-ignoring what is before our eyes because of one of the enemy's greatest tools-envy. We have refused the gift of simplicity, fallen into the trap of consumerism and it is eating us alive and making us unhappy.

When we turn off the "I want" button, and turn instead to loving God, loving others, and loving life we will find that we live in amazing abundance without a need to hoard and with a great ability to give and share and grow that only fills us with increasing happiness and joy. Amen.