Flirting with Consumerism By David Calderwood

I want to start this morning with a quotation to get you thinking about the whole issue
of consumerism. The quotation is from a discussion paper called Wasteful Consumption in Australia.
It's produced by a group called the National Institute, which is an independent think tank
dedicated to develop and conduct research and policy analysis, not Christian. And here's
what they say. At face value, we go to the shops to buy the things we need, or at least
we go to buy things we hope will make us more contented. Increasingly though, Australians
go shopping for the thrill of the purchase rather than the anticipated pleasure of owning
or using something. Now, obviously, we all consume things to live. We have to. But this
paper is suggesting that as a society we've moved from the point of consuming to live
to a much different point, which is living to consume. So the question as we think about
consumerism this morning is do you agree with that? Now, I suspect that many of you will,
but you'll probably be thinking of others as you agree with that, because that's what
statistics show. Statistics show that 80% of Australians believe that as a nation we
consume far too much, we over-consume. But interestingly, those 80% don't believe it's
true of them. It's a very interesting contradiction, isn't it? In fact, the same group of people,
the same surveyed group, stated under another question that they do not have, they believe,
sufficient income to purchase everything they need.
So on the one hand, they're saying, yes, as a nation we over-consume, but personally
they actually believe they don't actually have all the money they need to purchase all
the things they need. Now, when you think of the implications of that, they're quite
shocking really. I've got three printed in the outline, so if you're a visitor, the outline
of what I'm saying is on the back of that sheet you would have been handed as you come
in the door this morning.
Three implications, there may be more, I just come up with three. And the first is this,
it means that by far, we're talking 80% here, by far the majority of Australians think they
are poor, or if they don't actually think they're poor, at least they do not think they're
rich. They believe they're just surviving, and I take it that includes people here. And
that statistic is in spite of the fact that Australia is listed as the 11th most affluent
country out of 183 countries in the world. And in spite of the fact that we're included
in the 20% of humanity that accounts for 86% of global private consumption expenditure.
And yet as a nation, individually, we think we're just surviving.
The second conclusion is that it means we think we have a problem as a society, but
we don't see consumerism as a personal problem. And if we don't see it as a personal problem,
we're not going to try and address it. We might lament about the ills of society, but
if we don't see it as a personal problem, then we have nothing to do. It's somebody
else's problem. And yet the National Institute statistics show that well over $10 billion
annually of wasteful consumption happens. And they believe that's a conservative figure
because when they do audits of waste going into refuge tips, the figure would suggest
a much higher money value of overconsumption. But conservatively $10 billion. Now that equates
to almost $1500 for every household in Australia. And by overconsumption they mean things that
are bought that aren't properly used or aren't used at all. And yet we still say, personally,
we don't have a problem with consumerism.
The third conclusion is this. It means that we've lost any intelligent distinction between
what we need and what we want as a society and as individuals. And this is expressed
in the common phrase, I don't know what I would do without or I couldn't live without.
And then it's interesting what gets tacked on to the end of that. My latest model iPhone.
That third bathroom. That second car. That sports car just for driving on the weekend.
That LED TV. That iPod, iPad, and I won't embarrass myself like I did last week by going
any further. I couldn't live with the equipment I need for my sport, for my hobby.
We've lost the distinction at a meaningful level of what is really needed for life versus
what we really want in life. And you'll see the implications of that as I move through
because that means of course we never have any money left over to give. We need everything
to survive.
Prince, this morning I'm suggesting that giving in to consumerism is another way in which
we as Christians individually and as a church as a whole are flirting. Flirting dangerously
with the world. Consumerism is another point of worldliness. So again as I said last week,
instead of being separate from the world which the Bible calls us to do, instead of being
distinctively Christian in it, clearly stamped with the maker's stamp of made in the kingdom
of God. Instead of being like that we're more like sponges, soaked with the value system
of our Australian consumer society and showing little difference to those around us in society.
In the past the church has made it very easy to deal with worldliness. In past generations
I grew up in a church like this. It was very easy. Worldliness is associated with dancing
and smoking and gambling and drinking. So, you know, not to be worldly was a church where
you didn't dance, you didn't drink, you didn't smoke, you didn't, you know, have fun. That
was, you weren't doing those things, you weren't worldly. And all this sort of stuff was flying
under the radar. Much more subtle, isn't it?
I need to define consumerism or at least attempt to, well it's actually not a definition, it's
more a description. And in this description I want you to see that consumerism is just
the age old materialism on steroids. Consumerism, first of all, is not just about consuming.
We need to establish that point. Humans have always been consumers of material things.
In fact I would argue that Christianity is a material religion. We've always consumed
foods and goods and products and services and there's nothing inherently wrong or sinful
in that. In fact, Christians would argue that because we live in God's world and God gave
us this world and put us in charge of this world and challenged us and charged us to
work hard and then enjoy the benefits of our work, which are material things, that that's
a good thing to be a consumer in that sense. Because we need to remember as we consume
that all things we consume are good gifts given to us by God's hand for our enjoyment.
But alongside that, there's always been the temptation to materialism in our world, which
is when we forget God and accumulate material things assuming that they themselves will
make us happy rather than the God who gave them to us. There's always been the temptation
to materialism through greed. We want more and more things, far more than we actually
need. And there's always been the temptation to materialism through pride. That is we start
to evaluate those around about us by what they have or what they don't have relative
to us. So materialism is always and has always been a part of our sinful world. It's always
been a challenge to us as Christians. But consumerism is the latest form of materialism
and we must learn to recognise it because it's much more subtle, it's much more insidious.
And in some ways I think it's got hold of us as Christians much more than the materialism
of past generations. The first thing I want to try and describe or define materialism
in terms of is that it's a secular religion, the secular religion or worldview of Australian
society. Now worldview, I've used that term before, if you're new here you might not have
heard it, a worldview is simply a set of beliefs, a pair of spectacles through which you view
life and through which you understand things like identity and meaning and purpose in life.
Well consumerism is the practical expression of the Australian worldview because consumerism
believes that identity, meaning and purpose is tied up in the things that I either desire
but can't afford to have so you learn from them or the things I actually do have but
want more of. So for instance the right clothes, with the right clothes I will be seen by others
to be cool or sexy. With the right lifestyle I will be seen to be successful or sophisticated
or it can work the other way around you see, with the right clothes I can be seen to be
alternative. That's how we think as consumerists, we get identity, purpose and meaning from
the things we consume, the things we have or the things we desire. So consumerism is
all about individual identity and therefore it's all immediate, it's all about the products
that feed the senses, touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell because those are the things
that sustain self-image. And that's why I think shopping has become our national past
time. It's what people do when they have leisure periods. People actually go to the shops for
the day and I'm talking not just ladies here, I'm talking about men as well. Go to different
sort of shops perhaps but that's it. It's something you do for a day. You get on a bus
trip and you go to Melbourne to do it for goodness sake. Or anyway I'm showing my colours
here, I don't do a lot of it personally but I know the lure. In a recent documentary which
I watched called Britain from Above, a commentator, the commentator described the massive increase
in land space being used by shopping centres. In Britain it increased, the land space increased
by 20% in the last 10 years. He went so far as to say that shopping centres are the new
temples of the consumer society, the place where people go to worship the god of consumerism
and this is what he said, who promises the god of consumerism, who promises happiness
and wellbeing and value through the accumulation of stuff. The non-Christian commentator said
that. Second it's a way of life. So many people including Christians demonstrate practically
that they work so that they might have money to feed their craving to consume. Now they
won't necessarily put it in those words but that's essentially what they're saying. Talk
to people at work, oh I'm only at work so I can get money for the weekend to do the
things I really like to do, that are really valuable in life. And so the vast bulk of
energy and resources for Australians is applied to accumulating things, housing, food, clothes,
holidays, sports, services, experiences, dreams. People won't admit it but for so many Australians
and I fear for so many of us Christians, that is the goal in life. And it works like this
and I'm as guilty as you are, well perhaps more guilty than you are, I shouldn't assume
that you're guilty but I'm certainly guilty because I have lists in my mind, or a list
in my mind and I'm busy working to get the things at the top end of the list and I'm
busy adding things at the bottom end of the list. I've been doing it for 54 years and
the problem is that the list gets longer because the things go on the bottom quicker
than I can get them off the top. But that list is there, it drives me. It's a powerful
thing. Even worse, and I don't know what we do about this one but our whole Australian
economy, the global economy is built on, dare I say, greed and consumption. Perhaps I should
drop the greed word out, that's a bit emotive, but it's built on the idea of consumption.
Our leaders talk about a market driven economy. Just this morning I heard the Chinese leaders
talk about their goal this year in China is to expand the domestic economy. But when you
take the fancy political speak out of that is, it's just saying we've got to get people
to buy more things to make the wheels go round. Because you see our affluent lifestyles
here in Australia require lots of production because with production comes jobs and with
jobs comes wages to make us affluent. So we keep on producing but to keep that cycle going
we actually have to find people to buy all the stuff we produce. And so we build into
our society the whole seeds of overproduction and overconsumption. We build into it now
products that are only meant to last a year or two years and we sell by advertising the
idea that you have to have a new phone every two years, you have to have a new computer
every two years, you have to have a new everything every two years, including perhaps even a
wife. Although we've gone about 4.5 years for those yet. See if we stop spending our
economy collapses and so does our standard of living. So our politicians unashamedly
tell us that we must spend, spend, spend. What happened under the Howard government
when we finally got the country turned around and people started to save? We spiraled into
recession so we're back into the spending thing again. Our whole lifestyle, our whole
way of life is predicated on spending, consuming. And that process is aided by relentless bombardment
of advertising. And it's that relentless bombardment of advertising that has then totally confused
us about our needs and our wants. Because they're just dovetailed in together. So I'm
not sure that I really need the latest floral toilet paper to survive. Extra super strong
maybe. But that's what I'm told. That my life will somehow be less fulfilling without
it. See advertising defines what is normal for us. Statistics, it's hard to nail this
down but statistics reckon that on any given day we're exposed to in excess of 2000 advertisements
across all multimedia. Even if a computer, Alison was just saying yesterday that if you,
a pop-up advertisement, if you want to get rid of that, it actually highlights it and
you have to force yourself to look at it for a minute to get rid of it. She's looking strange
so I've probably reported that wrong, right? Okay, I've got that wrong. Don't worry about
it. Another apology coming in emails this week. The point is this, advertising, however
it works, defines what is normal or desirable. And so we're told today that to be normal
as a family is to have a certain type of house with a certain number of rooms and a certain
number of bathrooms and a certain number of living areas. To be normal perhaps is to
have an overseas holiday or a particular type of holiday. It is to have the latest mobile
model iPhone. I'm constantly, because I don't give out a mobile number, having people looking
at me as if I'm really weird. Mobile, don't have one. What? You don't have a mobile? I'm
made to feel strange, archaic, more than I should be made to feel archaic. We're told
that you have to have the latest fashion clothes. Last year's model of clothes isn't good enough.
You need this year's, this season's clothes. See, we're all the time being told what's
normal and what's desirable and so, of course, because we want to be normal, then we get
set into the process of, well, we've got to have that. And that's where we get confused
because we think that's necessary. We think that's a basic of life when it's not. It's
just what advertising tells us is the basics of life. But we get sucked in. The reason
they do advertising is because it works. And we'd be really stupid if we didn't believe
that it also works on us. And if we can't afford to purchase those things that make
us normal, then, again, come back to the statistics, we conclude that we're poor, underprivileged
and we set ourselves on a goal to get these things. These are the basic necessities of
life. I haven't even got this. I'm poverty-stricken almost and I've got to have that. That drives
me. And the third thing about consumerism is the power of personal choice. This is the
steroid factor of materialism that makes consumerism so hard to even see for us, let
alone resist. See, advertising is more than just selling products. It's selling an attitude.
It's selling a way of thinking that we automatically and instinctively relate to. Advertising promotes
the freedom that we have as consumers. We have make choices. And it promotes the power
that we exercise as consumers in making choices. So it's really important. All these ads are
now coming through. Do your research. That puts us in control. That gives us power. We're
not only getting the best product at the best price, but we've decided that we need that
product. We've researched it right through and finally we've got it. The whole thing
puts us in control. And it's all about personal choice. The customer is always right. We love
that feeling of power. We love that feeling of identity we get from the experience of
choosing and making a purchase as much as from the purchase itself, the object itself.
So consumerism is not just an activity of buying things, but it's a deeply embedded
attitude which is at once a way of expressing ourselves and also a way of showing that we're
in control of our world and we're in control of our wellbeing through carefully, as I say,
carefully researched and selected purchases. Now that's a very powerful attitude to be
within us. In a world that's so big at one level and yet so small at another level, it
feels really comforting to feel as if you're in control. But that also means it's a never
ending quest. Because you see, consumerism I think is like an addictive drug. Because
it gives us pleasure. See, it's as much about the search to find the best products at the
best price. It's as much about the rush of finally making that purchase. And that gives
us a sense of pleasure that we may not necessarily realise that we're having. It's subconscious
at points, I think. But you see, the problem with that is that in our society, in our consumer
society, there's always something new. You only get one model of the phone and the next
one's been produced. You only get one model of iPad and the next one's out. And so there's
always something newer and better and bigger and brighter and more alluring to follow up
with. And so we're never satisfied. Doesn't matter how much we have, we always need more.
Doesn't matter how much income we have, we always need more. Because we never have enough
to make ends meet. Do you see how it goes? And I'm not talking about what I hear from
people in Australian society at large, I'm talking about what I hear from you folks and
what I hear, I've heard in my own home. And friends, that's where the ideal of retail
therapy comes from. Making yourself feel better through shopping or at least spending a day
worshipping at the temple. That's what religion's all about. It makes you feel better. And as
I said before, this is applying as much to men shopping at hardware or sports shops as
it does to women. But there's something really sad about this addictive element of consumerism
and it's like, it's the same as any other drug addiction, is that the perceived freedom
that consumerism gives is actually a new form of slavery that we've all willingly subjected
ourselves to. We're slaves to clever marketing and advertising. A process by which others
subconsciously manipulate your choices, massage your ideas of what you need and like. So you
think you need X, Y and Z, but partly or largely that's going to be because somewhere along
the line, advertising has put it into your mind that you really need that if you're going
to be normal. You really need that if life's going to be worthwhile. And then the consumer
part clicks in, you think, ah, I've done all that by myself. Fashion's a great example.
Used to be when you talk about fashion, you're only talking about girls, but I despair in
my scripture classes. It's the boys that keep asking me about my dress sense. I told
them last week, I said I couldn't care less. Don't ask me again. Talk to somebody who cares.
So it's applied equally to boys and girls, but fashion's a great example. You see, advertising
tells you that you need to be an individual. Be yourself. Express yourself individually.
But then it convinces you to buy clothes that are the same as everybody else, that
just happen to be the latest fashion. So you have to have your hemline the same length,
you have to have your neckline the same shape, you either have to have a belt or not have
a belt or whatever. And so it says be individual, then it convinces you being individual is
being the same as everybody else. How does that figure? That's advertising. We're a generation,
a new generation of slaves doing the bidding of those who produce all sorts of stuff and
then tell us it's what we want and need. My friends, may I suggest, therefore, that
when we think of worldliness, again, it's not the so-called big sins that are going
to be a major issue right across this congregation, the big sins of whatever they've been in the
past, theft or heresy or rejecting the Bible or even sexual sins. Now, of course, those
sins are going to be part of a church, I guess, from time to time. But they're not going to
be the thing that sort of gets us off track as a whole unit. What really undermines our
distinctive Christian witness is that we're caught up in this trivia of being consumerists
in a consumer society. That's what really novels us as a group. We've got a thousand
choices that we make in any given week as part of our consumer society. And that distracts
us. It consumes our energy. It uses up our resources. And we can justify it all as being
really credible. It actually even sounds responsible. Well, I'm going to buy X, Y,
and Z, but I'm not just going to go out and buy any old thing. It's really important to
me as a Christian I get the cheapest thing and the best price. It sounds credible and
it sounds responsible, doesn't it? But it's slavery and we're all guilty of it. We don't
even notice it. Or worse still, we think we're just attending to the basic necessities of
life when we need to survive. You know, I've never heard MD say to me, I didn't have time
this week to go around all the phone shops and research the best iPhone or iPad to buy.
I've never had MD tell me that. But every week I have people tell me they don't have
time to come to men's group or small group. They don't have time to come to church. They
don't have time for this or they don't have time for that with respect to service as Christians.
Now, we can argue all we like and say we're not consumerists, but I think that proves
the point, does it not? And friends, this consumerist mentality is now seen in churches.
I've already been sort of trying to bring you in as we go along, but now let me just
make some specific comments. Christians today are more likely to choose a church based on
their choice of what they like about a church and what makes them feel good about themselves
in that church rather than on the basis of what is true or right. Oftentimes, and there's
a growing trend for Christians to attend two churches because, well, I like this about
this church and I like that about that church. And so they never really get committed to
either church because they're too busy being a consumer of churches and products that churches
offer. Oftentimes, Christians are low on commitment and there's a very big movement of Christians
among churches even here in Newcastle. And why is that? Because, well, they're consumers.
They very quickly tire of the product that's on offer at their local church and they're
all the time looking for something bigger, better and brighter. Of course, there's times
when it's quite legitimate and even quite times when it's necessary to change churches,
but oftentimes it's a consumerist mentality that drives that. Again, a different application.
Christians I think today, and I think we see this here, is Christians are less likely to
give sacrificially on a regular basis. The bounds of scripture would say, give sacrificially
on a regular basis to the work of the Gospel. But Christians, they are more likely to be
consumers. That is, they're more likely to give when something comes up that they decide
is good to give to. They might be quite generous at that point, but they're not giving regularly
because again, you see, it's that idea of control that you know what your money is going
for in a special sense. Now, again, can you argue that that's a bad thing? Not entirely.
And that's the subtlety of this consumerism. That it's not all good or all bad, but boy,
we need to be aware of how it drives us. And again, as Christians we quickly say we cannot
afford to give more to the work of the Gospel because, you know, in our household there's
not much left after we deal with the necessities of life. But you see, again, we go full circle.
Ask the question, what are the necessities of life you're talking about? And it's that
which advertising tells us is necessary. Again, the latest iPhone, you're probably getting
sick of me saying that, but I can't, you know, it's just the standard things that everybody
has these days. The latest TV, the latest electronic gadget, the latest sport or leisure
products, the latest clothes. Because we need to buy that coffee when we're shopping or
we need to buy our lunch at work because, or we need to go out for tea or buy a takeaway
because we're too busy and so on and so forth. All these things get added into that equation,
the basic necessities of life. And then we say, well, look, we really can't afford to
be more generous towards the work of the Gospel.
Again, Christians are more likely to come to church thinking about what they will get
out of it, rather than coming with a servant attitude and say, well, what can I put in
to help others? That's consumerism in the church. It's about me.
And this is the one I'm going to get howled down for. I'm going to say it anyway. You
may as well hold me down for a few things as just one. More and more Christian women
have returned to the paid workforce. More and more Christian men are working longer
hours. Now, before you get up and walk out, oh, he's only gone to his baby. I thought
Rod was on his way already there. You who know me know that I don't have a problem inherently
with women being in the paid workforce. But there's a subconscious thing happening. It's
often justified as, well, we really need the money. Do you? Or is it really about the desire
for extra money because of the extra things that our extra money can buy? Is it really
about wanting the lifestyle that our advertisers tell us is normal in Australia? Is it really
about thinking, and I fear this is true, is it really about thinking that material things
that can be built with money will actually make the family happier or more secure, more
stable than if I actually stayed at home with my children and nurtured them? Or if I worked
less as a man and was at home and available more for my children and nurturing them? See,
it seems that at points we've just sucked in that whole consumerist Australian mentality
that the best thing we can give our children is things, our things, whatever the grammar
is. Now, let me put in a caveat here, two caveats, actually. You may be thinking he's
trying to guilt us this morning, he's trying to put us on a guilt trip. Well, I'm not.
If you're feeling guilty, by all means feel guilty and do something about it. But I'm
not trying to put you into a mode of being guilty. I'm trying to get us to see something
that we're so blind to in terms that actually shock us. All right? That's what I'm trying
to do. Whether I've been successful or not, you'll have to judge that.
One caveat is this. The majority of my time is gone, I haven't even got to the scripture
yet. And again, I don't want to defend myself nervously, but you see, as I look at it, you
know, I know you know the scripture passage I'm about to push you to. And the problem
is that we haven't had a connect between the principles of scripture and the problem. And
I think it's because, not because we don't understand scripture, but because we don't
understand the problem. And so I've deliberately given a bulk of my time to unpacking or exegeting
the problem, as it were, rather than exegeting the text.
Now, this is nervous because I know I've got to face a sermon review with Chris on Tuesday.
When are you going on leave? All right, we might send Chris on leave a day earlier. Tuesday
you're going on leave, Chris. But this is a nervous sort of defence. Ordinarily, the
scripture would dominate a sermon. But from time to time I think it's okay to have the
issue dominate and then connect to the scripture. But anyway, that's another issue to be argued.
So how do we counter culture to this shopping centre culture? This is where Matthew chapter
6, the passage read to us comes in. Now, I want to say several things. This is just one
of many, many passages across the Bible which addresses the issue of materialism for God's
people. And that ought to say something to us, shouldn't it? That there's so many passages
that talk about this problem, therefore we should assume that it must be a big problem
and a subtle problem. And secondly, to reinforce what I've already said, the fact that there
are so many passages that we're familiar with and yet we still have this massive problem
of consumerism says that we're not good in applying the scripture to the problem, as
I suspect it's because we haven't understood the problem.
In response groups you're going to look briefly at another passage, 1 Timothy chapter 6. You'll
see the questions down the bottom there. And the interesting thing about it is that pretty
well all these passages say the same thing. First of all, they start with a warning of
the dangers of materialism and the dangers of the desire to be rich. And then they move
to a challenge to God's people, usually the same principles, principle of attitude and
a principle of action, which is what you'll see in 1 Timothy chapter 6 and what we're
going to see here in Matthew 6. And it comes back to this. Put simply, your attitude to
money and possessions or what you do with your money or what you desire to do with it
will either make or break your happiness forever. Now the Bible is that extreme. It doesn't
give us an option to have both and really. It's talking about the love of riches now.
We'll see that in a minute. But it's really quite extreme. And you can see that in 1 Timothy
6. Hopefully I can establish it here in Matthew 6. So the first principle I want to lift out
of this, and it's going to be very, very brief, is make God your treasure, verses 19 through
to 24. Part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is all about
spelling out the standard of his kingdom. In other words, all of life is to be lived
in the light of being the people of King Jesus. And in verses 19 through to 34, he spells
out what the kingdom attitude to wealth and possessions is. And the general principle
is made clear by three pictures, three metaphors in verses 19 through to 24. The first one
in 19 through to 21 is a picture of treasure. Very simple. What we delight in or value or
treasure actually governs our life. It's that simple. What we treasure or value fills our
minds and drives us to organize our time and resources and efforts to make sure we enjoy
it as much as we can as often as we can. That, by definition, is what treasure does for you.
So the challenge for us Christians is to make God our treasure. Second picture is the picture
of light and eyes, the whole bodies depicted as a room. And this is a little bit more difficult,
but I think in keeping with the other two metaphors, it's really just saying this. Have
eyes only for God. The good eye, according to the metaphor, is the one constantly fixed
on God and God's grace and God's goodness and the security and happiness we have in
Him. And you see, the idea is very simple, isn't it? Like the treasure, if we already
know here what happiness is, if we've already got our eyes focused on the source of real
happiness, then we're not going to be seduced by peripheral vision of that which pretends
to offer happiness. In driving, I've used this illustration before, you're taught, or
at least I taught my kids at night time, never look at the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
Because inadvertently, you'll just go for them. If we've got our eyes on God and the
happiness and the grace that we have in Him, then we won't be distracted by peripheral
vision. Thirdly, third metaphor, verse 24, recognize that you can only have one true
master. Now, it's not talking about bosses like we'd have here in two part-time jobs.
It's talking about masters in terms of a slave master. See, we might think we can serve two
masters equally, but in the end, we always make a choice based on preference or delight
or whatever. What or whom we want to serve most, what or whom we think offers us most,
that will be the thing that gets our allegiance. We won't give our allegiance two ways. It
will end up going one way, ultimately. And here, for Christians, there's only two choices.
There's God, or the old-fashioned word which NIV has rendered money, but the old-fashioned
word is mammon, which is a bit bigger than money. It's wealth and possessions, anything
that sort of this world throws up temporary goods. So there's our choice. We either got
to decide we'll have God as master or we will serve consumerism, the God of consumerism.
The second principle out of these verses, trusting God practically for your happiness
and security. Verse 25 begins, therefore. So in the light of this principle that's been
laid down, Jesus is spelling out the obvious outworking of that thinking in practical trust
of God's provision, God's provision of everything we need for our unique identity, happiness
and security. Verse 33, it really just sums it up. I'm going to sort of leave it at that.
Take first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you
as well. So there's our working. The person who treasures the Lord, the person who's determined
to find their identity, value and happiness and security in obedience and service of him,
will get all they want and more. They will have that security that they crave for, which
as society says, comes through having things. But we as Christians will find it in Christ.
And we'll know God to be a good and generous God who delights to care for and spoil his
children. You see, one of the realities of the consumer society is that it hasn't made
us free. It hasn't made us well. There's more anxiety, worry, depression, mental health
issues, suicides and other related clinical illnesses, heart attacks, system failures.
There's more of that now as we become more consumerist than there's ever been in the
past. And it won't at all surprise me if in 20 years' time we find that a lot of cancers
are caused by extreme anxiety and stress and worry. I'm keeping my eyes off Catherine because
I'm not sure how she's going to react to that one, but who knows? But the point is, you
see, it's established, isn't it, that these things, anxiety and worry that we're talking
about here, are often sourced in money and security in our houses, in our mortgages,
in our future, in our superannuation, worrying about our children and our children's children.
Will they have a job? What sort of job? And there we see. We follow that path. So it's
either our treasure, delight and allegiances in the things of this earth and we put our
hope in them and then we pursue them with a passion because, boy, we've got to because
they can just disappear at the moment. And how much is enough? How much superannuation
is enough? How big a house is enough? How many cars are enough? Or our treasure with
God, to whom we gladly give the bulk of our time, money, effort in service and worship.
Now, friends, in the light of that, we can see how pathetic we are at times. We want
to say we serve God and chase after the so-called treasures of money. How do we put those two
things together really? Yes, I really want to serve the Lord but, boy, a good part of
my week is going to be chasing after money and the things that money can buy. We talk
casually about heaven. It's going to be so good to be in heaven. But then we're actually
striving to accumulate possessions as though we want heaven here on earth.
So is any wonder when our Lord, when our non-Christian friends look at us, they see people who are
more consumer-like than Christ-like. Friends, Christ calls us to be distinctive in the way
we live. In this area, He calls us to think and act differently from the brainwashed consumers
around us. I plead with you not to reject what I'm saying this morning on the basis
of He just tried to put me on a guilt trip. Please do not do that. That's not been my
objective. Please measure your thinking, your actions, your behavior against what you hear
from God's Word. If then what I've said doesn't apply to you, by all means reject it. But
do so on that basis. And be careful, the last thing. Be careful lest you think that seeing
Christ as your treasure means you're going to have to give up the pursuit of riches and
gain. That would be a really un-Christian thought. Because in actual fact, you'll see
in 1 Timothy, we're never told to give up our pursuit of riches and gain. We're encouraged
by God to pursue ultimate riches and ultimate gain in Him. And there's our problem, you
see, like last week. It's not that we want to be rich. It's not that we want great gain
in this world. It's not that we want security. It's that we're too easily satisfied and we'll
settle for what our world tells us will bring the ultimate happiness and gain, and that
is possessions. And if you've lived into your high school years, even you will be able
to know that that is a gross lie. Happiness is to be found in the Lord. Let's pray.
Lord, it's a confronting topic which we need to consider carefully. Lord, there is much
that could be said that hasn't been said. There's perhaps things that have been said
that are not accurate. Lord, keep us from rejecting the overall message from a defensive
point of view. Help us to consider it individually and personally against your word. And then,
Lord, make whatever changes we need to make to our lives. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.