So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt part 4
It’s A Manna Of Having Enough
Enough is enough!
How much is enough?
Do we have enough?
In part four of our series we’ll see that the temptation to return to our spiritual
Egypt just might have to do with thinking that we don’t have enough.
I want you to leave here today with a simple tool that will indicate if
You’re heading back towards Egypt or heading to the Promised Land
Last time I asked to rate yourself on a 1 to 10 scale, with a 1 being –
“I want to follow the American Dream”
and a 10 being – “I want to follow God.”
When I rated myself I asked the question—Can’t I have both?
Can’t I follow God and live the American Dream?
The American dream is that everyone has the chance to achieve success and
prosperity.
That path to success, fame and wealth comes through
ingenuity, hard work, thrift,
and making the most of the opportunity living
in these United States offers.
In our Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers wrote
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
The American dream has something to do with certain unalienable rights.
Just a little side consideration here, Real Christianity has less to do with
rights and more to do with loving others.
In 1931 the book “The American Dream” was published ,
author James Truslow Adams writes:
"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone,
with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.
…A dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able
to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable,
and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the
fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
(Adams, The American Dream, pp.214-215) http://online.sfsu.edu/~kferenz/syllabus/dreams/thedream.html
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., August 28, 1963 said:
The American Dream is about a “nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
The American dream sounds pretty good.
It is pretty good.
But there is a problem, and that problem is materialism.
The Materialism I am thinking about is the pursuit of things,
a continual quest of acquiring and accumulating more than enough.
The motto of materialism is More is better,
In the American dream corrupted by materialism:
“Covetousness we call ambition.
Hoarding we call prudence.
Greed we call industry.” (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 81)
Jesus warned us about materialism in His explanation of the parable of the Sower.
Matthew 13:22 (MSG)
"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
“This need for accumulation and consumption is at the heart of the deceitfulness of
[of the kind of] wealth that Jesus said ‘chokes’ the Word’s ability to be
fruitful in us.”
(Stirratt, p. 65)
That makes it real hard to follow an American dream when that dream is
corrupted by materialism and following God at the same time.
Jesus warned us about trying to seek both
Matthew 6:24 (MSG)
"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.
Can I follow God and live the Corrupted American Dream?
I am of the opinion that you can’t.
“Jesus calls us to develop a heart that only needs what we “need.” (Stirratt, p. 58)
American materialism is about acquiring, consuming and accumulating more
than we need. We want more than enough.
In the desert God provided for the basic needs of His people--
Water from rocks, quail running through camp,
Manna coming from the sky,
But the people wanted more than just having their basic needs
meet.
Numbers 11:6 & 20(NIV)
But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!...you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"
We get this desire to go back to our Spiritual Egypt so we can get the things not
only that we know we need,
but also the things that we want.
We’re trusting God for the necessities and
trusting our selves for the luxuries.
We live in a country that has one of the highest standards of living in the world.
There is a lot of stuff available to us.
Not only do we think we should have everything we need,
We also think we should have everything we want,
And pretty much have it given to us.
We wonder, God is able to provide for me, but will He give me what I want?
That’s a question that seeks an answer in the desert.
I invite you to join me in the struggle to figure this one out.
“We must evaluate the level to which materialism is choking our ability to have a
vital relationship with God.” (Stirratt, p. 58)
I started out my investigation with Job.
If you don’t know the story of Job,
He’s extremely successful, and in what seems like two days
everything he has is taken from him.
And why?
It’s taken from him because his fidelity to
following God is being tested.
Job 1:9-11 (MSG)
Satan retorted, "So do you think Job does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why, no one ever had it so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does—he can't lose! "But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He'd curse you right to your face, that's what."
Thinking about Satan’s accusation,
I had to ask, what about me?
Do I follow God for the perks,
or do I follow God because He is God?
If God withheld His provision would I still follow,
Or would I head back to Egypt?
I’m afraid that on my own,
I would take matters into my own hands,
Stop trusting God to provide,
and make plans to provide for myself.
That’s one reason I need you in my life.
I need your support in following God.
Left to my own, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep
trusting and hoping and believing.
When you get scared that there is not enough,
When you wish you had more,
When things are not the way you want,
Doesn’t a word of encouragement from a brother or sister
help you change your perspective?
Doesn’t knowing that you’re not in this alone,
Support you to keeping going on?
I have come to realize how important living in community is.
That’s why I love small groups,
Home groups and our small group bible studies are a start
We get to connect in community.
We strengthen on another to keep following.
Another thought popped into my head as I was considering Satan’s accusation of
Job.
I thought “I must require a lot of stuff to remain obedient.”
Am I following because God gives good gifts to His children,
Or am I following because I am His child?
Is my obedience motivated by what I think I get out of the
obedience, or is my obedience motivated by love?
It’s questions like this that make me cry out with the Psalmist
Psalms 51:10-12 (NIV)
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to
sustain me.
The lesson of the desert is that God “is calling us to abandon a value system that
believes we must live in abundance to remain obedient to God’s call.”
(Stirratt, p. 61)
When I can’t figure out my own heart,
I want to fall forward into the grace, mercy and forgiveness
which is part of the love of God.
Will I follow God “if it means abandoning a value system committed to
accumulation?” (Stirratt, p. 59)
So I look around my life and I see I have all this stuff.
How much of it don’t I use any more?
I look in my closet and I start thinking how much of this stuff don’t I
wear any more, yet here its shelved or hanging.
I look in my garage and I can’t even find the stuff I need for the stuff I
don’t.
I look at my library and say how many of these books will I read
again, how many of these CD’s will I listen to again, how many
of these movies will I watch again.
Why don’t I sell all this stuff and give the money people who don’t have stuff?
Why don’t I just give this stuff away?
Why am I hording this stuff?
Look at all the stuff I’ve got.
Is all this stuff an encumbrance to following God?
I think when I have acquired more than I need the weight of all that stuff
slows me down in my pursuit of God.
So yes its an encumbrance.
The lesson of the desert is I have to “reject this culture’s value system,
which evaluates success according to my ability to acquire more than I
need.” (Stirratt, p. 68)
I need to get rid of the stuff I don’t need.
So I’m turning all of this over in my head and another thought pops in.
Am I trusting in my stuff and my ability to get more stuff than trusting in God to
provide for me what I need?
Deuteronomy 8:12-14, 17-18 (MSG)
Make
sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle
in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch
your standard of living going up and up— make sure you don't become so full of
yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;… If you start thinking to
yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"— well,
think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all
this wealth …
Moses adds a warning,
telling us that if we forget God is the provider of all our wealth,
we will get seduced into worshiping something other than God.
We’ll get off course and find ourselves back in Egypt.
I told you of my suspicion as to why God hasn’t allowed me to win the lotto—
I might not filthy rich because God knows I would rely more on my bank
account than I would Him and in gaining the whole world,
lose my soul.
Though I do ask to be tested in this….
As we grow in the faith we learn to do relationships better and better.
We develop our relationship with God,
We pick up ways of nurturing our relationships with others.
We are liberated to healthier relationship to our self.
We learn to be stewards of the Earth.
The Earth represents everything material,
The Earth is the source from which we draw all our stuff.
Our rightful position to the Earth is that of steward.
A steward cares for the property of another.
A steward has great authority to act on behalf of the owner.
Like an executor in a trust fund, or a CEO of a corporation,
the stuff is not yours,
But you’ve been entrusted with the care of it.
In Egypt what’s mine is mine.
But we must unlearn that and embrace not owning anything in our hearts,
Instead becoming the curators and trustees for what God has given us
to manage.
Could it be that God wants me to be a conduit for stuff?
Could it be that my stuff isn’t for me but for me to give to others?
Could it be that I really am supposed to be my brother’s keeper?
Luke 12:48 (NIV)
From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
Another thought came to me during my prayer time.
Maybe you can help me sort it out.
The questions came, “Is my wealth the cause of another’s poverty?”
“If I take more than I need, does someone else go without enough?”
Before I could even come up with an answer a less philosophical question came to mind:
“How much am I in debt because of stuff?”
Have I bought into a corrupted version of the American Dream and
now have people I owe money to?
Are my financial obligations choking out my relationship
with God?
Proverbs 22:7 (NIV)
“…the borrower is servant to the lender.”
John Wesley was teaching on stewardship and offers us this principle:
Make as much as you can,
Save as much as you can,
Give as much as you can away.
This way you will never become a servant of debt.
Is your head spinning?
Mine certainly was as God laid these things on me to pass on to you.
Let’s take a look at where we’ve been
This conversation all started with a request to rate ourselves on a 1 to 10 scale,
Where a 1 is following the American Dream and a 10 is following God.
We discovered that in the corrupted version of the American Dream is materialism
in which we are driven to consume,
and accumulate stuff and display the symbols of our success.
We discovered that its impossible to follow both God and live to acquire the
corrupted version of the American Dream.
Then there were those questions to help us “evaluate the level to which materialism
is choking our ability to have a vital relationship with God.” (Stirratt, p. 58)
If God withheld His provision would I still follow
or would I head back to Egypt?
Is my obedience motivated by what I think I get out of that obedience,
or is my obedience motivated by love?
Is all my excessive stuff an encumbrance to following God?
Am I trusting in my stuff and my ability to get more stuff more than I am
trusting in God to provide for me what I need?
Do I see myself as an owner of stuff or a curator and trustee of what God has
given me to manage?
If I take more than I need, does someone else go without enough?
Is servicing my debt hindering my serving God?
From those questions we can discern three lessons of the desert.
The lesson of the desert is to “abandon a value system that
requires material abundance to remain obedient to God’s call.”
Faith, hope and love not material abundance is why we follow God.
“True followers value the relationship with the Father over the material
blessings He provides.” (Stirratt, p. 67)
The lesson of the desert is to say no to materialism and learn to trust in God
to supply what we need,
enjoy what has been given,
and be content with our portion.
Before we consume and acquire we need to ask ourselves
“do I need this stuff?”
“A thirst for accumulation and consumption leads us away from the true
source of provision—Our Heavenly Father.” (Stirratt, p. 66)
The lesson of the desert is to reject the idea of ownership and assume the role of
steward
Psalms 24:1 (NIV)
The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…
God is the owner of all things,
and that we are only managers of His possessions.” (Stirratt, p. 69)
The starting point of knowing that you learned these desert lessons is if you tithe.
Tithing “is a universal act of worship and trust in God’s provision.”
[ Proverbs 3:9 1 Corinthians 16:2 ] (Stirratt, p. 73)
In the Old Testament tithing means dedicating a tenth of your income back
to God.
In the New Testament Jesus expands this idea by teaching us to
“Give to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21)
God through the prophet Malachi proclaimed:
Malachi 3:10-11 (MSG)
Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you …
You will discover that even after giving so much, you still have enough.
You may not have all that you want, but you will certainly have God’s
favor, and you’ll learn that His favor is exactly what you need.
That simple tool that indicates if your headed back to Egypt or still on course
following God to the Land of Promise is the tithe.
So, in your spiritual journey what direction are you headed?
Next week in Our series So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt
We’ll be considering “It’s A Manna of Desire.
I know I’ve given you a lot already to think about,
But as a way of introducing our next conversation
I want you to again rate yourself.
Rate yourself on a 1 to 10 scale with a 1 indicating your Desire to Be Happy and a
10 your Desire to be Holy.
HAPPY HOLY
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Let’s dismiss with the reading of the Word.
Exodus 16:17-18 (NIV)
The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it …, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.