Thanksgiving 2014: Thanksgiving and Materialism

It's who you are.

It's who I am.

It's who I am.

It's who I am.

Every situation.

This is the word of the Lord.

All right, you may be seated.

Well, good morning.

We're going through the book of Colossians, but we're going to take a break this morning to talk about Thanksgiving in light of materialism and the tension that we feel, maybe more than any other week of the year, this dichotomy in our culture, right?

On the one side is be thankful, take a break.

Be restful, right?

Like break from all of it.

And on the other side, it's the constant screaming of buy more, buy this, buy more something else.

So a couple months ago, I bought a new belt.

I bought it from Orvis.

Anybody buying anything from Orvis?

Anybody ever buy anything from Orvis?

Okay, a couple people.

So I had had my last belt, and pretty much I wear one belt.

I'm a one belt guy, and I had this last belt for like 10 years.

I mean, unto the point that it was being held together at the buckle with electrical tape.

I mean, I wore it up here for a solid year with electrical tape and nobody noticed, but it was time, right?

I mean, I had proven to myself I I had deserved a new belt, and I figured if I went 10 years with that belt, then I could go ahead and get myself a nice belt.

And so I bought one from Orvis and I bought it and it came and I like it and I wear it pretty much every day now.

And then it began.

Catalogs.

Orvis has a whole range of catalogs, by the way.

It's not just one.

There's a whole range of Orvis catalogs.

And then all sorts of other catalogs, like other uh brands of clothing I didn't even know existed.

And I'm talking like really cool, outdoorsy men's classy stuff that I did not, I had, I had stumbled into a world I had no idea about.

And so this was this came on Monday of last week to me.

This was just Monday, okay?

Of this past week.

I just I just put them to the side.

Now this don't look at this if you have body image, body image issues, because these people are beautiful, by the way.

Everything they wear is beautiful.

Anybody, the field, anybody getting this one?

I mean, this is amazing.

I mean, the stuff in here, and I mean, these people, I mean, they're in the mountains and they're laughing and they have a hand-carved canoe that you can buy.

And I didn't even know I needed a hand-carved canoe until I saw it, and they were incredibly happy in that hand-carved canoe.

And this one, Bonab Bonabos.

Anybody?

Okay.

By the way, that's that's like my dream vehicle.

So I see this one, I'm like, oh my gosh, and I sit on the couch and I'm looking at it, and you know, and and I, you know, they had an ostrich leather belt in here.

I I didn't know I needed an ostrich leather belt, but that guy looks so happy in that belt.

I mean, I my belt all of a sudden was so inferior.

And it was just like, you know, catalog after catalog after catalog, and you're you're suddenly realizing when you look at these, right?

You had no idea that you needed that new vest or jacket or pair of boots or hand-carved canoe or ostrich leather belt or whatever it whatever it is.

And and the catalogs aren't just offering you a new vest or a new belt.

What are they?

They're really offering you a new you.

Like, that's what's going on.

When we buy into this and into materialism, and trust me, I buy into it.

I'm sitting on the couch and I'm looking through this, I'm like, Christy, look at this canoe.

Like, we haven't ever been canoeing, but this thing is beautiful.

Because you're buying into a new life, right?

I mean, and we are being screened at in our culture when it comes to consumerism and materialism, and it is so loud.

Uh, do you remember the iPhone 4?

It wasn't that long ago.

I mean, the iPhone 4 was like, it was happening.

Then the five came, oh, that was amazing.

And then the six, you wouldn't believe what they did with the six.

Because what they did was is they enlarged it a little bit and they made it thinner.

It's oh, oh my god, who would have thought of that?

That was amazing.

And now all of a sudden, if you have, if you have the five, it's like, uh, you know, and if you have the four, forget about it.

I mean, forget, don't even pull it out of your pocket if you're carrying around the four at this point.

It's just it we live in a culture of the next thing, and and you know what it does is you feel it, and I feel it creates anxiety, is what it creates.

And envy, and it's it strips our hearts of contentment and thanksgiving.

Uh, this week at our house, Christmas lists have started being formed.

Grandmas are asking for Christmas lists, and so we're starting Christmas lists, and and and Josie discovered this week that she could uh not just five items could be on the Christmas list, but even 105?

And we had to explain, well, just because they're on there, I mean you get them, but that's groundbreaking when you realize the list can sort of keep going.

Uh and I'm how many of you have Christmas lists going?

How many of you have your own Christmas list going?

Like it's in your phone?

It's on your desk?

Is anybody is anybody is it in their your prayer journal?

Does anybody have a Christmas list?

Yeah, you're not you're not gonna you're not gonna admit that.

All this tension.

Be thankful, be content, be at rest, be with your family, be with people you love, be grateful.

No, no, no, buy more, get the next thing, buy more, get the next thing.

There's tension inside of us.

And it's not it's not just a cultural problem.

It's it's a problem inside of us.

It's a heart problem.

So let's get a working definition of materialism before we we get into Matthew 6.

Uh, materialism is treasuring material things.

So in this passage, uh the word money, which we'll get to, is mammon, which means money and things, treasuring material things over intellectual or spiritual things.

So it's the day-to-day preoccupation with things and attempting to draw meaning and value from them for your life and for your identity.

And it's the illusion of the ridgeline.

You know, if you've ever been hiking, and we're not talking up Stone Mountain with uh Lee Greenwood in the background.

I mean, we're talking about like a big mountain and you're hiking up it and you have a ridgeline up above you, and you see it, and you think, well, man, we've been hiking two hours, and that's it.

And you get up there, and then you get up over it, and you see there's a whole nother section.

Or maybe you've been on the ski slope and you're on the chair and it's freezing, and you see you it's the first time on that chair, and you see the ridgeline up there, and you're cold, and you're hoping that like that that's where you're gonna get off, and you get up there, and then there's a whole nother section, and you get to the next one, there's a whole nother section, and the the mountain of materialism never ends, does it?

We all know this.

We've all experienced this.

The great philosophers, the Avit brothers, they they sing in their song, uh, ill with want, the more I have, the more I think I'm almost where I need to be, if only I could get a little more.

The more I have, the more I think I'm almost where I need to be, if only I could get a little more.

Maybe you're here, this is not your struggle.

Not right now.

I mean, maybe you don't even understand it, but maybe you're here and you know this so deeply because when you show up at your friend's house and you do a 360 in their house and you look at what they have and you look at what you don't have, and you come home and there's this feeling inside of you that you are devalued as a person.

And it feeds into all your personal ambition, it feeds into your competition and your perfectionistic issues, and it's all materialism, and it's all a ridgeline that you're gonna get to, and there's gonna be a whole nother section.

But we know this, right?

I mean, we know we should be more thankful, and we know we're materialistic.

And probably you and I, we've taken notes on how to be more thankful.

So that our question this morning is if we know why it is so hard to be thankful, if we know it is it is hard to be thankful, sorry, if we know it is hard to be thankful, and we know we're materialistic, why can't we just not be materialistic?

Why can we just not get over this?

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us the answer.

If we know this, we know we should be thankful.

Why can we just not get over materialism and be thankful?

And here's the main point.

The main point of the sermon, sort of the main point here, and maybe you know this.

It's difficult to be thankful because of the reality of our deep, misguided love of things.

And so Matthew 6 breaks this down for us, jumping in verse 19.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

So verses 19 and 20, really practical, just for logical, right?

Like you get a whole bunch of whatever, and all of that whatever just deteriorates.

It breaks down, it rusts, it rots, it tears.

I mean, it's just a very practical.

Uh a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago at this point, you might remember the floods we had in Atlanta.

Uh we were living in Atlanta at the time, and it rained a lot.

And I don't know, maybe it flooded up here some of the creeks and stuff, and it rained for like a week solid, and one day I couldn't even get home from where I was working back to our house because the connector was flooded in downtown.

I got off, and then other streets were flooded.

And the next day, we had a handful of friends where they lived on creeks, and the creeks just came up, and the creeks just went in their house.

And some friends of ours that lived on a creek in Buckhead had a very nice house filled with very nice things.

The whole first floor just sat under about five feet of water for like two days.

And they had the chance, they had a little bit of a chance to get everything upstairs, but they didn't get everything upstairs.

And so after the water came back down, uh a whole bunch of us went over there, and there's two huge dumpsters out in the driveway, and we just walked into their house and just threw everything into the dumpsters.

You know, and it started with little things, just boxes, you know, just little stuff that they just didn't have time to get upstairs, and then slowly it went to other stuff like the armoire that came from her grandmother.

You know, like the Viking range.

I mean, like really expensive, nice things.

And I can remember picking up particularly that armoire because I remember asking her, like, this is this was beautiful.

It was all warped and like, where'd this come from?

What you know, and she told me and just into the dumpster.

I can remember just thinking about Matthew 6, and it's not like don't have those things.

It's just like don't put your heart into that, because that can go.

Verse 21, Jesus says that this is a heart issue, not a behavioral issue.

So we have to talk about the heart when we talk about this.

Right?

Like questions like this.

What is driving you to think you need that?

What like why do you think you need that hand-carved canoe or that belt or that vest or that neck, the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing?

Why do you fear rejection to the point of thinking you need to have what your neighbor has?

Why do you feel fear your worth is in jeopardy if you don't have something?

Why do you fear your meaning is at risk if you don't have that one thing?

And Jesus is saying, don't treasure those things.

Don't give your heart to those things.

Don't give your heart to something that can be taken away from you.

He's saying, treasure me, the source of the joy and the peace and the love that you actually desire.

About a month ago, we watched this documentary called Happy.

Has anybody seen the documentary Happy?

I think it's on Netflix right now.

So it's a whole bunch of psychologists who basically have been studying happiness for years and years and years, and finally somebody decided to make this documentary.

And so they travel around the world, they look at the research and they travel around the world and they look at the happiest people in the world.

Who are the happiest people in the world and why are they happy?

And by the way, it's not us.

It's not like, well, the Christians are the happiest people in the world.

No, it's not us, and it's definitely not the Americans or the Westerners.

I mean, the Westerner individualistic culture is actually the unhappiest.

Good news, right?

Thanks for us, appreciate that.

But I mean, we have such challenge because we're individualistic and because we're consumeristic.

And the research over and over again, whether you hear it in this happy documentary, I can remember hearing it 10 years ago and 15 years ago as I grew up, the research is always the same.

Once your the money and material items for your just base standard of living for survival is met, an increase of those things does not increase your happiness.

Verse 22 The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are bad, 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 he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

And like I said, that word money is mammon.

So it's money and material things.

So in this verse, Jesus is talking about, he goes from talking about treasures to talking about the eye.

And when he talks about the eye in ancient culture, he's talking about because the eye is reflective of a man's character.

And so what Jesus is saying is the person who sets his heart on material things has an evil eye.

So what he's saying is, he's saying he can't see what's really important.

See, when our hearts are set on material things, we can't see what's really important.

We lose vision for what matters in life.

A few weeks ago, uh the transmission on my truck went out.

I was driving to pick up uh Josie from school, and I'm a few blocks away and just clunk and to the side of the road, and I've had this uh truck for about probably I got the truck in the belt, probably about the same time, because I've had the truck for about nine years, and that the truck, which now has been is back to life, new transmission is out at the parking lot.

We'll see how long it lasts.

Uh the truck is not just uh it's a part of me.

I don't know if anybody got a car that you just feel like you are one with your vehicle, and so uh my three-year-old and I were on the side of the road, and the tow truck is hauling it, pulling it up on top of the truck bed to haul it off, and they haul it off, and I'm not kidding you, as shallow as I am, it is as if they hauled off a part of my heart in that truck.

I mean, that like they just took it away, like a mini identity crisis.

Right?

I mean, this is a crazy thing.

This is a crazy thought that a material item would be a part of our identity.

Right?

Like a material item would speak to our personal value.

But we we all do this in some way, we all do it with something.

And really it really can't do it.

Right?

I mean, it's just really reflective of how needy our hearts are.

But this connection between material things and personal value has become such a cultural belief for us that it's just normal.

It's just normal.

That our personal value would be attached to material things.

We don't even question this.

And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no.

Personal value is in me and material things, and whether you use these things, or you have these things, or you steward these things, or you keep some and you're investing, or you're giving some away.

Like, but you don't give your heart to it.

It doesn't speak into your personal value.

Jesus is saying, just don't give your heart to these things.

Okay, so how does this passage, Matthew 6, how does this speak into, how does this tie into Thanksgiving?

Because right now, you are probably feeling pretty condemned.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty condemned.

All right, I'm materialistic, I have an evil eye, I'm a horrible person, and that's what I'm feeling at this point.

Then we'll also just sort of leave here judging each other.

I mean, did you see what she's wearing and I know where she bought that and how much that cost?

You see what he's driving, and I know how much that costs, and we're all just, but let's not be that unintelligent and that shallow, right?

Let's not go there.

Drive and wear what you want, just don't treasure it.

Don't let it define you.

Here's what I've noticed when I sit down with these catalogs, and I'm sitting on my couch, and I'm looking through the catalog, and these people are laughing, and they're in their canoe.

At the beginning of the catalog, they're in their canoe, and it's playful and it's romantic, and by the by the end of the catalog, they're in their pajamas, and they're next to the fire, and it's this huge fireplace, you know, there's beautiful fires going.

And you know what?

I look like a bum when I go to sleep.

My pajamas are like old t-shirts from high school.

Our fireplace doesn't work.

And you know what the catalog does?

It condemns me.

The materialism condemns me.

The materialism that I'm looking for to give me some measure of peace and some measure of joy and contentment.

It condemns.

Do you see this?

Do you see it?

Do you see how this works?

And it creates anxiety about what I don't have and what I want and what I could have and what they have and what I don't have again.

I think Paul speaks into this in that Philippians passage 4, 4 through 6.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

So that's where the joy is going to be.

In the Lord.

I will say again, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

So I don't think this is saying like, pray for the boots and pray for the canoe and pray for the car and pray for the belt.

I think what it's saying is pray for the joy and the peace and the love under the boots and under the belt and under the canoe and under the car.

Because that's what we're after.

That's what we're really after.

Are the things that are underneath those things.

And I think Paul's saying, pray for those, pray for those things.

Ask the Lord to give you those things.

Find those things in the Lord.

That go deeper than the catalog and go to the desires that the Lord is giving you in your heart and find them in Him.

And it says in verse 7 and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard.

Your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the end, whether by believing Jesus' words or kind of getting it with Paul's words or maybe just by experience, we know the reality of materialism.

And what we discover is materialism is an ideology that rushes into your life and my life when we are unaware of how much we are loved by God.

When we're unaware of how much we're loved by God in Jesus, materialism rushes into that vacuum.

Let me say it another way.

When you lose your awareness to how much you are loved by God in Jesus, you will try to find how much you are loved by the world in a pair of jeans or in a belt or in a canoe or in an iPhone.

It sounds silly when I say it that way, doesn't it?

It just kind of sounds silly that we would do that, but we do it.

And the key becomes, the key to this is that we become more aware of God's love for us.

We become more honest just about how shallow and bent away from Him we are and how quickly we turn to material things, and that you could say today, and you could say it tomorrow and the next day, and you could say it in the morning, and you could say it at lunch, and you could say the evening, you say, God, I did it again.

I can't believe I'm giving my heart to material items.

That I'm trying to find deliverance and saving from my inadequacy in something other than you.

That you would you would confess that and you would repent and say, God, help me.

Help me not to do that.

Help me to find my treasure in you.

And that we'd say to him, Thank you for loving me, even though I keep doing this, right?

And that's where we're thankful.

That's where we can be thankful.

We can be so thankful because even when we're not thankful, God loves us.

And that's enabled because of what Jesus did for us.

We don't have to be perfectly thankful.

We don't have to be perfect because He was perfect for us.

Even when we're trying to be perfect, we're not perfect.

This week I had all this tension in my life because I'm preparing this.

We have Christmas list going on.

Thinking about some renovations in part of our house.

So there's this back and forth, right?

Like, like I shouldn't be, shouldn't be thinking about these things.

You know, I'm I'm really I'm focusing on Matthew 6.

And then swing back.

Well, let's we got we need to talk about Christmas or let's talk about the renovation, what we might do, and then back again.

But that's life.

That's real life.

That's not like let's come to church and pretend like we never talk about a renovation to our house or we never talk about what you know Christmas or we never talk about what we're gonna buy.

Like that's life.

Most of us aren't called to be Franciscan monks.

Maybe some of you, and then those of you that are, you'll just think badly of the rest of us.

Most of us are called to be in the world but not of the world.

And to have some mammon, to use mammon, to be a steward of mammon, but not to give your heart to it.

What I love after the Sermon on the Mount, so Jesus has been up on this mount, he's preaching, he's giving these lessons, and this section we read in Matthew 6 is one of the lessons he taught while he was up there.

And Jesus finishes teaching, he walks down off the mountain, and there's a large crowd, they've been listening.

And a leper comes up to him.

So this is a guy who's been exiled.

I mean, this is a guy who's so sick, nobody comes near him, nobody touches him.

So probably when he walks, people are spreading.

And he comes up to Jesus and he just says, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

I mean, this is directly after this sermon.

This is sort of for me, this is the point of all of it.

Because you read Matthew 6 in this little section, you go, well, I can't live up to this.

Like this, this is good for me to know, and this is good for me to set my heart on to always treasure him.

But the reality is I don't always do that, and yet I get to see Jesus teach this incredible lesson about how we should be, and then I see him walk down the mountain, and I see somebody who's incredibly sick walk up to him and then say, You can heal me.

Would you have anything to do with me?

And Jesus reaches out his hand and touches him, heals them.

The crowd would have gasped.

I mean, this would have been for the crowd, would have been like, how what would Jesus be doing with him?

But maybe some, maybe some of the people there would have thought, after hearing that sermon, would have thought, if he's willing to touch that guy, like maybe he's willing to come closer to me and my life and my mess.

Because maybe this morning, when it comes to materialism, you feel anything but clean.

And the reality is that Jesus comes straight into your life and your heart.

And he wants relationship with you.

And he has no concern to get in the middle of all of that mess.

These catalogs keep coming, right?

They're gonna come tomorrow.

I'd be interested to see how many come tomorrow.

Probably more.

Like we're headed toward Christmas.

They're gonna get more and more and more.

They just keep coming, don't they?

Like, like they are seeking me out.

But he is more persistent.

God's grace is more persistent, and he takes our sin, he takes our love for shiny things and things that tear and all our ridiculous ways that we try to find value and things, and he takes all of that and he takes it on the cross.

So our sin is put on him and his righteousness is put on us, and for this we are so incredibly thankful.

Let's pray together.

God, we definitely come before you and say we are a people that can become quite distracted, even obsessed with material things.

Help us to see that you are enough for us.

And as our hearts and our minds go towards material things, would you just help us to would you draw us back?

Would you reach out your hand into our leprosy and draw us back?

Would you increase our faith in you?

That you are sufficient, that you are better, that you are enough.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We serve communion each week here at Redeemer.

If you call Redeemer your spiritual home, we welcome you to come forward to take communion, and you're welcome to leave your offering and the baskets on the table.

If Redeemer is not a place that you would call your spiritual home, we welcome you.

Please feel no obligation to give.

And in fact, if maybe you're here and you are not even sure if you want to take communion or if you should, maybe because of background or you don't understand it, we don't feel any awkwardness to stay in your seat and not to take communion.

The scriptures actually say if you're here and you have not placed faith in Christ, for you not to come and to receive communion until you have come to that place of faith.

Now we would love for that to be this morning.

For this morning for you to understand, maybe for the first time, that you have placed so much faith in yourself and in what you acquire and what you do, and we would love for you to place faith in Christ.

And even now, perhaps belief is showing up in your heart, and we would welcome you to come forward and to take communion.

Communion is about what has been done and accomplished outside of us and given to us, so we come forward to receive.

We take the bread, dipping it in the wine available in the cup to your left, and the grape juice which is available in the cup to your right.

The bread and wine are God's symbols of his love for us.

Communion reminds us that we are acceptable to God not because of any work we have done, but because of the work Jesus has done for us.

On the night he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and he gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my body given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way he took the cup, saying, This is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood, poured out for you.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Therefore, by taking this bread and this cup, we proclaim the mystery of our faith.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we pray in your mercy and goodness and the power of your Holy Spirit, you would sanctify this bread and wine to be for us a sacrament of the body and blood of your Son.

All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ, who made the perfect, complete, final sacrifice, all that was needed to take away the sins of the whole world, all that was needed to take away our sin and to satisfy for us your just demands in full.

Amen.

The gifts of God for the people of God, take them in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

We don't take communion row by row here, but just as you feel led and prepared to receive and to come forward.

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