Ecclesiastes 5:10
1Timothy 6:10b
Matthew 16:26
When Dreams Become Nightmares
As
we have been reminded today, we are in the midst of our annual stewardship
emphasis … a time when we evaluate and focus on our giving to God. And I recognize that for many of us this is
not what we would consider an enjoyable subject to talk about. Some of you are thinking to yourselves, “If I’d of known that this is what was going
to be preached about today, I would have made other plans.”
Yet,
as Christians, we recognize that there is no subject that is more important to
our spiritual lives than our giving to God.
This is the foundational core of our calling as Christians. We give, because God has given to us beyond
measure.
Yet,
we struggle with this. Like all of you, I
struggle with financial priorities and decisions. I find that much of the stress and anxiety in
my life often stems from financial issues.
We all struggle with this. And
much of our struggle comes out of the cultural context of where we live. We live in the greatest nation on earth, where
we can all pursue “the American dream”!
But
let’s talk about “the American Dream” for just a moment. If you go back to the founders of our
country, they had one kind of dream for us … about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. But that didn’t necessarily mean what it
means today. I think about other great
and lofty dreams of Americans. I think
about what is inscribed at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty or the
Gettysburg Address. I think about Martin
Luther King, Jr. standing on the Lincoln Memorial and giving that “I have a dream” speech. Those are lofty dreams. But that’s not what we generally think about
when we talk about the American dream.
The
American dream for most of us, is the opportunity to pursue more than what we
have … to gain more than what we have, or to become successful. And success is measured by the stuff that we
possess. There was a political
philosopher who came to
“Americans are extremely eager in the pursuit of immediate
material pleasures and are always discontent with the position that they
occupy. They think about nothing but
ways to change their lot and bettering it.
For people in this frame of mind, every new way of getting wealth more
quickly, every machine which lessens work, every means that diminishes the cost
of production, every invention that makes pleasures easier or greater seems the
most magnificent accomplishment of the human mind.” “One usually finds that the love of money is
either the chief or secondary motive at the bottom of everything that the
Americans do.” - John C. Luik. This is how others see us.
When
I was growing up, the American Dream for most families was that they would own
their own home. And for most Americans
prior to 1960, that was a 1300 square foot home, with a garage. But that dream changed during the 1960’s and
70’s from being a home like that, to being a 2000 square foot home, with a two
car garage. Today, the average home in
And
that’s not enough! Now that our homes
are twice as large as they were in the 1950’s, we still don’t have enough room
for all of our stuff. And so, one of the
growth industries in
And those who study this have
determined that the American Dream has been fueled by two different
diseases. The first is one you have probably
heard of, called “Affluenza”. There have
been books written about this and a wonderful PBS special done on this
subject. According to that PBS special, “Affluenza”
is described as:
“1. The
bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up
with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of
stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American
Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to
economic growth.” – http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza
Some
of you have taken Dave Ramsey’s financial class on “Financial Peace”. It is an excellent class that I encourage you
to take if you get the chance. And one
of the things that he says, is that “70%
of all Americans say that their favorite recreational activity is shopping.”
This has become part of the American way
of life. In fact, our economy has now
become built upon this and dependant upon this. Today, we measure “consumer
spending”. We hear about this all the
time in the news. We hear about its
impact on the Stock Market and on our retirement funds. You remember after 9-11, our President told
us that one of the most important things that we could do for our country was
to spend and to buy stuff. That will
show how strong we are.
Now, there’s a certain logic
to all this, but the problem is that it fuels this disease within us. And there’s a whole marketing plan to fuel
this illness. Every time we turn on the
radio and the TV, there are people spending a lot of money to try to convince
us that we will never be really happy with what we have … that we need just a
little bit more. And they are good at
this and they’re convincing and this fuels something that is already inside of
us … this disease known as “Affluenza”.
But
there is another disease or illness that goes along with this. And it can turn “Affluenza” into something
that is deadly. It’s called “Credit-itis”.
Credit-itis is the opportunity for us to buy now and pay later.
Now, when
most of us in this room were kids, it didn’t work that way. I can remember when I was a kid and my
parents would take us to the store to try on winter clothes during the
summer. They didn’t have enough money to
pay for them right then, so they would take the clothes to the back of the store
and put them on “Layaway”. “What in the heck is Layaway?” my kids
want to know today. What an odd idea,
that you would save up the money and make payments, and then you got it “after”
you paid for it! That’s how it used to
work! But not anymore. Today it is credit cards. We get offers for these all the time. We all know that “There are some things money can’t buy, but for everything else,
there’s MasterCard,” right?
And here’s
what we find in
It’s not
just credit card debt that’s a problem, it’s also “car financing”. In the 1980’s, the standard length of a car
loan was 3 years … 36 months. And most people
put a significant amount down when they bought a new car. Last year, GMAC Financing reported that
50-55% of all their loans were for 72 months.
Today, you can finance a new car for 96 months or 8 years. At 15,000 miles a year, the car will have
120,000 miles on it by the time you finish paying it off.
The
problem is that most Americans don’t keep their cars for 8 years. Most trade in their cars on an average of
every 3 years. But what happens when you
go to trade in your car after 3 years with an 8 year loan? You’re “upside down in it”. But the car dealer can help you with that,
because they roll in the difference on your new car loan. Of course, you now will be financing 105% of
the purchase price. And after 3 more
years, you can roll that difference into another car loan and then you’ll be
financing 110% of the purchase price.
You see how this works? We become
indentured servants of the car financing companies, if this is the way we
operate. Most Americans shop payments
and don’t think about the long-term consequences.
Home
mortgages are another area. In the
1980’s were for 30 years with 5% down.
Today, you don’t have to put 5% down.
Today, you can do creative financing with 2nd and 3rd
mortgages, much like with your car. In
2006, companies began to introduce a 50 year mortgage. Today, you can even find 60 year mortgages.
Now,
that’s not the greatest problem. The
real problem is when it comes to most American’s greatest source of
savings. And for most Americans, this is
the equity that they build up in their houses.
But now, we have “Home Equity Loans”.
And this allows us to take out the equity that should have been building
up over time and spend it on more stuff.
And what we’re seeing now, is that the number of foreclosures on homes
in this country is increasing at an alarming rate.
And you
add to this the problem of savings. (I’m
almost finished with the happy news here.)
In 1982, the average American spent 89.5% of their income each
month. Which meant that they had 10.5%
left for savings. Last year, depending
on which figures you use from the Government, we spent 1% more than we
earned. That means, we had a negative
savings rate of minus 1%. Or the most
optimistic government figures calculate a savings rate of .5%. So, either we spent 99.5% of what we made
last year or 101%. And so, there is
nothing left to put in savings.
Some Economists
say that’s not a big deal, because we have our home equity. But no, we took that out. Then, there’s our investment in the Stock
Market. But not everyone is invested in
the Stock Market. So, what about that
rainy day? Well, “There are things that money can’t buy and for everything else, there
is MasterCard.”
This is
the “nightmare” that we find ourselves in.
And some of you are probably saying, “None
of that relates to me. Everything is
great in our area of finances.” I
thank God, that in our home we are not facing debtors or creditors. We pay off our credit cards every month. But every year when I figure our taxes and
look at how we spent our money, I always ask the question, “Where did it all go?” And I
holler at Marie, “Marie, what did you do
with all our money last year?” She
fires back, “No, you did it!” Have you ever had that question? “Where
did it all go?” All of us struggle
with these financial issues.
But
these things we’ve been talking about are not the real problem. These are just the symptoms of something
deeper. There is something that is not
right inside of us that has to be addressed.
And if we don’t address that, we’re missing the most important
part.
The
struggle inside of us is what the Bible calls “sin”. We were created in the image of God and if we
were to live into that image, we wouldn’t be yearning for more stuff all the
time. We’d be enjoying all the simple
pleasures of life. We’d be generous and
willing to share with people who are in need.
But there is something inside of us that is mixed up about this.
In
the list of the “7 Deadly Sins”, three of them have to do with what we’ve been
talking about. There is “envy” or
“covetousness”. That is, seeing what our neighbor has and having a deep
yearning to have it. There is the sin of
“greed”, in which we find an intense desire for more and an unwillingness to
share what we have. And then, we’re
afflicted with “gluttony”, which means, even after we’re full we keep
eating. We keep consuming, even when we
have enough, finally, to the point of making ourselves sick. All of these are indicative of something that
is going on inside of us. We were made
to love God and to live generously and to be concerned about the needs of
others, but there is something inside of us that needs to be addressed.
Now,
I find that the Devil plays upon these things within us. Jesus said, “The thief comes to kill, and to steal, and to destroy … but I came so
that you might have life.” The Devil
wants to lead us to a place where we don’t have joy … where we’re stressed out
all the time and where we can’t do the things that God wants us to do. The
Devil doesn’t have to convince you to have an extra-marital affair to wreck
your marriage. He doesn’t have to
convince you to become a drug addict to ruin your witness. All he needs to do is to convince us to keep
pursuing the American Dream the way everyone else does.
The
Devil wants to lead you to a place where you are in debt and unable to give
when there’s someone who’s hungry and in need of help. You want to help them, but you can’t, because
you need help. The pastor preaches a
sermon on tithing, but you feel so guilty about that that you stay away that
week, because you can’t give anything more.
And if God asks you to go somewhere to participate in a mission trip,
there’s no way that you can afford to do that.
This is what the Devil wants to do.
He wants to neutralize our effectiveness for the Kingdom, to rob us of
joy, and leave us feeling stressed out.
It is hard to feel “the peace that
passes all understanding” when the Creditors are calling.
This
is where many of us find ourselves. We
struggle with these things. And Jesus
understands this struggle. Remember when
Jesus was tempted in the desert. At one
point, the Devil takes him up to a mountain where he can see as far as the eye
can see, and he says, “You can have it
all Jesus, if you’ll just leave the path you’re on and follow me.” You see, even Jesus was tempted to seek
wealth and power, as opposed to sacrificial love. And if Jesus was tempted in this way, we can
count on the fact that we are going to be tempted with this.
When
Jesus talked about this, he told a parable about a Sower. You remember how he said the Sower sowed
seeds upon the ground. Some fell on good
soil, some fell on rocky ground, and some fell among thorns. For the seed that fell among the thorns,
Jesus said, “As for what fell among the
thorns, these are ones who hear; but as they go on their way they are choked by
the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”
You
see, God has a plan for our lives and part of it is that we be fruitful. He
wants us to be about doing his Kingdom work and to live into his will for our
lives. But our spiritual lives remain
immature and unfruitful so long as we’re pursuing the American Dream as our
culture tells us to.
Jesus
says it this way, “What does it profit a
man if he gains the whole world, but looses his soul.” And Paul says to Timothy, “Some people eager for money have wandered
from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
In order to address this spiritual condition
that allows us to be affected by “affluenza” and “credit-itus” and all these
other things, the real key is in inviting God to change us. It is “the new birth” … being “born
again”. But it is also inviting God to
change us and to work in our lives every day.
It is praying each day, “Help me to
live for you today, Lord. Take away the
desires that shouldn’t be there.” Every day, we need to have our hearts
changed and reoriented to God’s will for our lives. And this is what God does. He cleans us up from the inside out.
As
we came to church today, we were all reminded that this is the time of year for
pumpkins. And as I think about the
pumpkin, I am reminded of what God does in our lives. When you get your pumpkin home and begin to
transform it from a pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern through which light shines,
what is the first thing you have to do?
You have to open it up and scoop out all that nasty stuff inside.
This
is precisely what God has to do with us when he gets a hold of us. When we come to God, God has to scoop out all
that nasty stuff inside of us. God deals
with all the nasty, smelly, stuff inside of us.
He takes out all the greed. He
removes our desire to impress our neighbors, our envy, and our lust for
more. This is what God does.
And
only after God does this, is he able to replace it with something else. And what he does, is he puts his light within
us. And the goal is that when people see
us, they won’t see all that materialism, envy, greed, and that insatiable
desire for more. Instead, what they see
is Christ’s light shining through us.
This
is the mission of the Jack-o-lantern.
And this is our mission, as well.
This is what God has called us to.
“To let his light so shine through
us, that others might see him in us, and give glory to our Father who is
heaven.”
We
all struggle with these things. So, we
begin by inviting God to change our hearts and to make us new. We pray daily, “Help me God, to not be so focused on what I don’t have and to be
grateful for what I do have. Help me to so manage the resources that I have,
that when you prompt my heart to help someone who is in need, I have the
resources to do so. Help me not to live
my life in such a way that I’m constantly stressed out, because I can’t keep up
with the bills. Help me Lord, to live a
life for you.”
May
this be our prayer today.