Four Spiritual Flaws: Flaw #1

From time to time, we all make mistakes.

We all do things that probably are not awesome, and then later on we think, ah, it would have been better if I'd gone a different direction.

One of the places that some of us will make mistakes is in the area of fashion.

And the way that you kind of come upon this sometimes is that somebody you live with, maybe a roommate, maybe a brother, a sister, a child, a spouse, will say to you when you're about to leave, really?

And you've probably experienced this, at least at some point, when you were ready to go somewhere and somebody said, I wouldn't have put those two things together.

Or are you, are you like trying to be, and then they'll they'll fill in some kind of a of a phrase.

I get this from time to time.

My wife will usually just do the, huh, what were you trying to do with your hair?

Or one of my boys will say something like, That's a really dad-looking thing to wear, which is like, ouch, you know, that that I didn't love that comment.

And so I asked the tech team to put together just a few fashion mistakes that are made.

So here are a few that you can see.

So here's here's uh here's another, and then uh I oh, whoa, whoa, okay, and let's uh go to the next one.

All right, so there's a few, and then I think they put together a few uh female fashion mistakes also.

Go ahead.

Alright, alright.

So, you know, whoa, um now I could have, and I thought about actually taking much more directed fashion mistakes, but I thought those were so outrageous that no one would feel picked on.

And the reason that that I just talk about fashion mistakes is when you make a fashion mistake, at first you think, ah, you know, it's not that big a deal.

And a fashion mistake probably isn't, other than just not feeling like you're as fashionable as you could be.

But over the next few weeks, we're going to talk about four spiritual flaws.

Mistakes that you and I can make when it comes to our spiritual lives, to how we approach God.

Whether we're longtime church people or we've really just kind of started kicking the tires around faith and spiritual things, these are things that, if they're true in our lives, can set us on a course that we don't really want to be on, but we may not even realize that we're on that course.

See, that's what happens with the fashion mistake.

After a while, it's just like that's just my favorite shirt.

I've been wearing it for years, and you don't realize that it's been years.

And so you end up making a mistake, and that's what happens spiritually.

But but before we get into this, let me also just say this: this is a season of Lent.

And if you didn't grow up in a liturgical kind of background or a Catholic background, Lent may be foreign to you, but for many people, Lent is a season where they say, let us reflect on and prepare for Easter and for Good Friday and for the Passion of Jesus Christ.

And for many people, what they do is they decide to give something up for Lent.

You've probably heard this.

People give up eating chocolate, drinking wine, having a soda, or other things that they'll say, I'm giving this up as a way to, every time that I want or crave that thing, to think about what Jesus gave up for me.

Now, I didn't grow up in a liturgical setting, so for me, my kind of initial experience with Lent was when I was a kid in school, they would serve those nasty fish sticks on Fridays as a way.

Anyone else remember that?

Like those little things?

I think I developed a distaste for fish because of those things.

But wouldn't it be interesting if maybe instead of just saying I'm going to give up chocolate or soda or wine for Lent, if we said maybe I could reorient my heart around some of these flaws.

Maybe this year, maybe even beyond this year, I could say, instead of being all about what I'm normally about, if I could address these flaws, it could help change the trajectory of my spiritual life.

So what we're going to do over the next several weeks is we're going to look at Exodus 32.

You heard a portion of this story read, and the way that the book of Exodus works is the beginning of the book is about the Exodus, hence the name.

The children of Israel had gone to Egypt, they were enslaved, and now they're leaving Exodus in order to go back to the promised land or to the promised land.

And so they're leaving.

And so it's the account of the miraculous deliverance, the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea.

In other words, these people have seen God at work in incredible ways.

And now they come to Mount Sinai.

And Exodus 20, kind of on.

So the last half of the book is about the people at Mount Sinai.

And all of the action of the second half of the book basically takes place at Mount Sinai, and it's God giving the law.

So this is where we get our Ten Commandments.

Moses is on the mountain.

He comes down with Ten Commandments.

If you are old enough to remember this, 15 commandments, he drops five, and all of a sudden he says, No, there's ten commandments here.

And some of you are like, What?

Okay, forget it.

So he's here, he has Ten Commandments, and when he has Ten Commandments, he says, These are the law that God has given us, this is the law God has given us, and in the chapters that come after this, God gives more kind of standards or stipulations for the community.

What will be the definition of how the community will live?

And now we come to Exodus 32.

And I believe if we understand Exodus 32, we actually understand the whole second half of the book of Exodus, because now the people have been camping here, and Moses has gone back up on Mount Sinai where God gives a supernatural revelation to Moses of the law, and again, Moses is interacting with them, but they're camping, and we're told that he was up there for 40 days and 40 nights.

In other words, about six weeks.

Have you ever camped for six weeks?

Have you ever camped with two million people for six weeks?

This was not a comfortable thing for these people.

And here they are, and Moses is up there, and they're probably thinking, Well, what's happened to Moses?

And here's what we read in Exodus 32:1.

Exodus 32:1

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, Come, make us gods who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses, who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't even know what's happened to him.

So the people very quickly say, Here's what we want.

We want you to make us a god, make us gods, so that we have something to go before us because Moses is gone.

We don't see Moses, we're not experiencing this.

And here's the flaw or the mistake that we can make.

And I'm just going to say, whenever we have a consumer mindset with God, it's a spiritual flaw.

Now, here's how I want to approach this today.

I want to ask and answer three questions.

What is this flaw?

Why is it a flaw?

And then how do we address it?

So, first, what is this flaw?

Well, consumerism is the idea that we get products, but the way I'm going to use this is really more in the base way in which we live it, and that is, I will give you something, consume something, as long as you give me something at an acceptable price.

This is natural.

We all do this all the time.

It's good.

It's how the economy is driven in our world.

Because we make decisions all the time to say, at an acceptable price, then I will do something, I'll give you something.

But if I don't get something at an acceptable price, then I'm not so sure I'll do it.

You see this all the time.

I don't know where you shop, but chances are many of you go to kind of the big box stores at some point.

Sam's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, those kinds of stores.

Well, you have a relationship with that store.

It's a consumer relationship.

You go, you spend money, and then you bring products home.

But here's what is true of most of us.

And that is if another store opens up closer to our house that's cheaper than that store, we'll go to the news store.

And we'll gladly go to the news store because we'll say, oh, that this is a better deal for me.

I don't have to drive as far and it's cheaper.

Very few of us would say, I'm gonna drive farther and pay more for the same product.

That's what it means to be a consumer.

That as soon as something isn't given to us at an acceptable price, an acceptable kind of output from us, we say, I'm gonna search for something new.

And so what we do is we say, if you do blank, I'll do blank, basically.

I know when Amazon first came out, I would find myself often in bookstores.

And I like books, and so I'd be looking at books.

This is when they were mostly known for books before they sold everything.

And and I they probably did, but I just didn't know it.

And I would stand there and I'd look at books, like I'd look at them, and then I'd scroll on my phone and I'd say, Oh, I'm can save two dollars.

I'm gonna buy the book standing here in the store on my phone because I can buy it cheaper and it'll be sent to my house, and I save two dollars.

I help put bookstores out of business.

Now I can't go to bookstores and look at books very often because there aren't as many of them.

But chances are you do the same thing.

You'll stand in a store, look at a product, and then you'll go on your phone and you'll say, Can I get it cheaper somewhere else?

Is there a more acceptable price for me?

That is the essence of consumerism.

So here's how this works with God.

And that is what happens is we all of a sudden come to God and we say, God, if you do for me what I think you should do for me, then I'll worship and serve you.

But if you don't do for me what I think you should do for me, then I won't worship and serve you, at least not with passion.

So this is the kind of thing where you can say, God, if you don't give me a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a spouse, then I'm just going to not worship you and I'm going to go with whoever, hook up with whoever because that makes me feel good.

Or you could say, you know what, if my spouse doesn't attend to me the way that I think they should, then I'm going to indulge in fantasy.

Or you could say, you know what, if if God hasn't hasn't blessed me with the kind of opportunities and success that I've wanted, then if I worship at all, I'm going to be lukewarm and hold back.

Or God, if you haven't given me the kind of resources that I think I should have, then I'm not going to tithe because you aren't coming through for me.

Do you hear the consumerism in that?

It says, God, if you do for me, then I'll do for you, but if you don't do for me, then I won't do for you.

And the reason that this is so compelling is it's so normal in every other area of our lives, where we basically go from one thing to another thing to another thing, saying, How can I get the best deal for me?

And when we bring this into our spiritual life, what we do is we in essence say, God, I'll only be subject to you if you do things that are according to my liking.

And so that's the flaw.

So why is this a flaw?

Well, I would say this is a flaw because ultimately this does not move us to a place of joy.

Clearly, in Exodus 32, the people worshiped another God, so it led to idolatry, and we'll see this in the coming weeks.

That they chose a behavior that went against the very law and standard of God, and then they enjoyed things that weren't meant to be enjoyed.

And what they ultimately did is they replaced the worship of God with a sense of saying, I am the center.

Now I mentioned earlier that all of us have consumer relationships.

But consumer relationships don't ultimately satisfy us.

And all of our relationships have an element of consumerism to them, and here's what I mean: you have a job somewhere, or you have employees somewhere.

What you do is you say, as long as the compensation is the best deal I can get given everything that I consider, then I'll show up.

But if somebody stops paying you, you say, I'm not sure so sure this is worth it.

You have friendships.

And even in your best friendships, there's an element of consumerism because if a friend isn't around at certain key times, you start to say, Maybe they're not my friend.

We tend to think that maybe marriage is different.

But even marriage has an element of consumerism to it, where we say, as long as you do these things, often unstated, then I'll do these things, but if you stop, then I stop.

Now, maybe we think when we have kids that it's the most pure thing, but but kids was certainly when they get older, even that has an element of it.

Because when your kids don't do certain things at a certain age, you start saying, you know what, I'm not gonna do these things either.

And so we have that this mindset, but but here's what my point is, and that is none of that brings us joy.

Where we find joy is when we're in relationships that even briefly transcend that kind of relationship to something that's that's much bigger.

And what I mean is that every time we experience somebody who says, I love you, even when you blow it, even when you don't deliver, then what we do is we experience the reality of being loved, and and when we are part of giving love in that way, we experience joy in a deeper way.

So so just take this.

I mentioned Costco earlier.

If you go to Costco and you buy a load of goods, now you have a moment when you're coming home where other than saying, I can't believe I spent that much money, it feels kind of good.

Like I'm stocked, I have everything I need, I got what I wanted.

But what happens?

A week later, you have to go back to Costco and buy stuff again in order to be satisfied for any length of time.

It doesn't last.

But when you're in a situation where you are not consuming but you're giving or where you're being given to, what you experience is something that's much deeper.

And here's one of the greatest ways to explain this.

And that is, it happens for those of us who have kids.

Like if you were to think about it from a what do I get out of it standpoint, you would never choose to have a child.

Because what happens is you have a child and they demand your time, they they they they mess with your schedule, they cost you more than they ever bring in, especially when you have a baby.

I mean, that baby doesn't bring any economic well-being to your house.

All they do is cost money, take away your sleep.

And yet, what most parents would say is, I wouldn't change a thing.

Why?

Because when they have a baby and they're giving, they they say, I'm part of something that's greater than simply saying, what do I get?

How do I get to be satisfied?

And the problem with consumerism in general is that it always makes us the object and never makes us about something bigger than ourselves.

And the problem with spiritual consumerism is what it does is it moves us to a point where we start to say, God, you should give me everything I want, and if you don't, then I'm not really going to worship you, serve you, align with you.

And by the way, this is why some people stay away from faith altogether.

Their perception of how God should do things, what God should do, doesn't square with how their life is working, and so they say, you know what, I don't want a God who would let that kind of evil happen.

I don't want a God who would.

And they enter their own kind of complaints.

And so what we need to do here is we need to understand why that doesn't work.

By the way, in the New Testament, we see indication of how God designed things to work.

Luke chapter 9, verse 23 says this whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Luke 9:23

So Jesus says, if you really want to be a follower of mine, he says, you've got to deny yourself daily.

You've got to take up your cross.

Now, to take up your cross is not just figurative language.

I mean, it's figurative, but but it's pointing to a reality of saying, you need to sacrifice, you need to not just be a taker, but but commit to being somebody who says, I am not in this just for what I get.

And then he says this, verse 24 of Luke 9, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

What good is it for you to gain the whole world and yet forfeit your very self?

You see what Jesus says?

He says, the more you try to keep your life, the less of it you'll have, but the more you give it away, the more you'll experience real life.

And so many times, what we do when we're spiritual consumers is we say, as long as you give to me, then I'll feel okay.

Philippians chapter 2 is another place where we see this.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Here's what we read, verse 1, it says, Therefore, if any if there you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort in his love, if any consolation of sharing his spirit, if any tenderness or compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and one in mind.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

And then we read in the verses that follow where it says He's the one who didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but instead gave up his life for others.

And so Luke and Philippians are basically saying, the more that you say, I'll give my life away, the more joy you'll experience.

But the more you say, I'm going to make everything about what I need, what I want, what I can get, the less joy you'll experience.

So, how do we address this flaw?

Well, it'd be easy at this point just to say, well, stop it.

And try harder not to live with that kind of a mindset.

And sometimes that's actually helpful.

Sometimes it's helpful just to say, you know what, I I can do better.

If my wife says to me, You've been being selfish lately at home, sometimes it's really good just to hear that and go, huh, I guess I have been.

I'm going to try to change it.

But spiritually, if we simply do that, what will happen a lot of times is then we say, if I can do something better, then maybe I'll get more from God.

And it actually plays into the consumer mindset.

And what we actually need to do is take a step back and see all the ways that God has already showered us with incredible blessings.

This is why we often hear, keep coming back to the idea of what we call the gospel, what's been called the gospel, saying that what we want to do when we gather here is not give you marching instructions to say, here, go do this, but instead we come to celebrate what's been done on our behalf by Jesus Christ.

Because what that does for us is that it gives us the power to say, I can do what God has called me to do.

And the way this really works is not to say, okay, if God does these things for me, then I'll be faithful to him, but to say, God has already done for me what could never be done on my own strength.

You see, in the context of Exodus 32, what you see is that God was giving laws.

He was giving the Ten Commandments and then an expansive list of laws.

And part of the narrative here is before Exodus 32, all these laws are given.

Then the people break the law in Exodus 32, and then they try very meticulously to keep the law again after Exodus 32.

And I believe what's happening in the whole sweep of this narrative is God is saying, you can try to keep the law, but what you ultimately need is somebody else to make an atonement for you.

And we'll look at this in the weeks ahead because the verses here talk about the need for a sacrifice.

But where we live today, God has provided that sacrifice in Jesus Christ.

And when we understand that and embrace that, then what we can say is God's already done for me.

More than I ever have deserved.

And as a result, any worship that I offer to God is not something that I need to trump up out of a consumer mindset, but it's something that instead I can simply say, God, I see nothing else that I would rather do.

Now here at Orchard Hill, we've defined some ways that we can orient our lives not to be consumeristic spiritually speaking.

And we've rooted these in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And if you've been around for some time, you've probably heard us talk about this.

And this may sound like now I'm saying here, go do these things, but we do these things as discipline so that we live in the reality of what God has done.

And the three things are we show up, we grow up, and we step up.

When we say show up, what we're talking about is this uh Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23 and 24.

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold uh hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.

But encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching.

And what we say when we're talking about showing up is we're saying that one of the ways that we put ourselves out of the mindset of a consumer is simply saying that I gather with other people for corporate worship on a consistent basis that I'm not in the habit of giving up meeting together somewhere in the habit of doing.

You see what a consumer mindset does is it says, if I have a better option, then I'll take that, but but I'll worship when there's nothing better going on.

And then when we come to worship, what we do is we come with a mindset that says, Oh, I hope that he's singing or she's singing, or I hope that that person's speaking, or I hope that they do this or don't do that, and we fill in all of our own preferences rather than saying, I'm coming and offering myself to the God of the universe as an act of worship.

Instead, what we do is we come with a mindset that says, I'm here to get, and this all better work out well for me today in 62 minutes, or I don't like it.

Now, I get it.

There are times when you're going to come and you're gonna say, Ah, the music didn't move me, the message was average.

I know when I'm talking, I'm talking about you'll say the message was average, below average.

But my point is this if you come as a consumer, you're going to evaluate and you're always going to say, What are my other options?

But if you come saying, I'm not a consumer, I'm a worshiper, then what you'll do is you'll come and say, I'm just offering myself to God.

And even if you're a person who says, I'm not sure about kind of where God fits in my life, just simply saying, I'm going to investigate by showing up for a season to see how God will work in my heart and life, is a discipline and a way to say, I'm not going to just be a person who says, I'll only worship if God does for me what I think he should do.

Then we talk about showing, not just showing up, but growing up.

This is found in the verse 22 of Hebrews 10.

And what we see here is we see this.

It says, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.

And so we talk here often about being part of a group or a study or somewhere where we have a chance to sit with other people and cultivate a growing, maturing faith, and we realize that the way that this happens is in part with public worship, but also with being in community, rich community with others.

That's why we emphasize life groups so consistently.

And then we see this, and that is the idea of stepping up, verse 24 again, and let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds.

You see, when you and I make a decision to say, I'm not just going to come and take, but I'm going to participate, what we're doing is we're saying, I'm not a consumer, but I'm a contributor.

I'm somebody who participates in what God is doing.

I know when I drive on the campus in Wexford, when I visit Butler or the Strip District, and I see people serving in so many ways, it always encourages me because I realize that there's people who show up early to set up, people who park cars, who serve with kids, who make food, who show up to greet and to welcome and to connect people.

On Wednesday nights in our Wexford campus, I'm always amazed at how full the building is with student ministries and watching these kids come, but then seeing people who've worked all day, all week come and invest in the next generation.

I say, this is a beautiful thing because there are people who are saying, I am part of what makes this place work.

And you see, when I choose that, when you choose that, then what we're doing is we're saying, I'm not going to be a consumer.

I'm not only going to be around or be part of it when it's good for me, but I'm part of it all the time.

And where that leaves us is in that same place of joy that we experience when we experience it in real relationships.

See, when you give, you experience the joy.

But when you experience being loved in spite of your shortcomings, then you also experience that.

But there's a sense in which sometimes we just need to be around to experience it, to feel it.

Because my guess is when we talk about where you have felt most loved in your life, it isn't when you say, I did everything just right, it's when you said I did everything wrong and somebody loved me anyway.

You see, that's the gospel.

And the reason that we gather, the reason we worship, the reason that we have life groups and everything that we have is to remind ourselves of that truth so consistently because everything in us wants to go back to saying, if I do the right things, then God will do them for me.

God will do for me.

But we need to constantly come back and say, even when I do it wrong, God's love for me is strong.

And that's what you long for.

It's being loved when you're not perfect.

Because that's when you really know how deeply loved you are.

Now it's clear to me that simply saying, do these three things does not stop consumerism because you can approach them as a checklist.

I showed up, I was in a group, I served, and still be a person who says, God, just give to me, take care of me, give me, and if you do, then I'll, then I'll.

But the way that we get free from that is by continually coming back and saying, Jesus has done what I could never do.

And because of that, because of his goodness, then I'm not going to worship as a consumer.

Or know God or treat God as a consumer, but I'm going to treat God like God.

Father, we pray today that you would help each one of us to not approach you as a consumer, but instead to approach you as if you are the God that you are.

Worthy of our worship, worthy of our allegiance, worthy of everything that we have.

And God, we do know because your word has declared it, that when we give our lives away, that you give it back, but when we hold it, then we just keep it for ourselves.

Lord, for those who who are uncertain about faith or whether or not this is the path they want to go, Lord, I pray that even in this moment you would just be bringing light and clarity that would show the truth of what Luke 9 says about giving our lives away.

And God, that that we would know that it's much bigger than caring for a child or being loved by somebody in this world.

But when we come to you, it is our truest and deepest hope.

And that it's been given to us in the beauty of Jesus Christ.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.