James 4:1-3, Matthew 6:25-33
James McTyre
Lake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)
James 4
1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
Matthew 6
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
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We're in a series of messages called, "Saints Alive! Living Generously," which, coincidentally, is the theme of our Stewardship Season (wow, how did that happen?). The Stewardship Committee has lined up speakers to begin worship each Sunday with a Call to Stewardship to talk to us all about the joy and responsibility of giving to God and giving to your church. And I, for one, am so grateful.
I am so grateful for Scott, and Peggy, and all the people working on Stewardship because your preacher is about the absolute last person in the world who should be talking to anyone about money. If that's what you want to learn, we can get some Dave Ramsey videos, maybe get some of you who are savvy to lead a seminar on wealth management - that's the new term for it, "wealth management," which assumes you don't have to manage your poverty, I guess. As a general rule, you do not want to get your financial advice from a preacher. And I know a lot of preachers. Trust me, we're just not built that way.
Except, and this is a big exception to the rule, the greatest preacher in the history of the world - Jesus - talked a lot about money. Jesus - the greatest preacher ever - talked more about money than he talked about heaven, more about money than he talked about hell, Jesus talked more about money than any other topic in the gospels... AND he talked more about money than anyone else in the Bible.
And let me say this, too. If you've been taught that Jesus didn't like money, if you've been taught that Jesus didn't use money, or that he thought it was dirty and bad and something you shouldn't talk about in church, that's just wrong. Some of Jesus' best friends were wealthy. The famous two sisters, Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus, the original deadbeat, were not only some of Jesus' best friends, they also supported his ministry with their wealth. Jesus ate at the homes of wealthy people all the time. Jesus did not dislike money. And if you were taught that in church, I'm sorry, because it's just wrong.
If anything, Jesus taught that we should look very closely at a person and how he or she uses money, and we should look very closely at ourselves and how we use our money because, Jesus said, "For where your treasure is (where your money is), there your heart will be also." (Luke 12:34).
Jesus didn't dislike money; he used money. He used money to support his ministry. (After all he had disciples, and twelve guys are going to eat like... twelve guys.) But more importantly, Jesus used money as a gauge. Jesus used money as a telescopic lens to zoom in on the heart. Jesus used money as an X-ray machine to see into a person's heart. Because where our money goes, he said, our hearts follow. If you want to know where a person's heart is, check out his money. Check out how she spends her money. Check out how she saves her money. Check out how he gives away his money. That's how the person's heart is. That's where a person's heart is. Jesus used money as a heart monitor.
So here's where I think it's not only OK, but necessary to talk about money in church. Because in church we talk about the heart. In church, we talk about your heart. But in church we don't talk about that organ that pumps blood. That's your cardiologist. We talk about your heart as that inner being, your heart as that inner core, your heart as that spirit that defines who you really, really are. Your heart is not just your blood-pumper. Your heart is not just your brain and all the stuff you think really hard about. Your heart is your essence. Your heart is the part of you specially crafted by the hand of God. You can't see it on a CAT scan. They can't see it when you go through airport security. Your heart is the deepest, truest you. Your heart is what makes you, you. The heart is the essence within. You can't see the heart.
Except, Jesus said, your heart can be monitored by looking at your... treasure. Want to see what's in a person's heart? Look for their treasure.
Jesus was painfully clear about this. He said, "The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil...." (Luke 6:45) Why? Because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
So, whether you're a stock market genius. Whether you lose every penny you ever get. Whether you secretly feel under the pew cushions when you sit down. Whether you kiss every dollar and rub it against your cheek. Whether you give it all away to the poor, or to give it your kids, or give it to the pharmacy, or give it to the government. Whatever your skill or relationship or love or hate to money is, we're all in the same boat. We're all equal in that our money is directly attached to our hearts. "For where your treasure is (where your money is), there your heart will be also."
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I guess all of us still get physical mail delivered. Snail mail. That part of the government's still in business, this year. Our physical mail is either one of two kinds: Bills, to tell us where our money is owed; and Catalogs to tell us where our money can be spent. So we can get more bills. It's November, so the catalogs are starting out outnumber the bills. Catalogs of clothes. Catalogs of creepy dolls that look just like you. Catalogs of home decorations. Catalogs of gadgets. Catalogs of pet supplies. So much paper. Our family, alone, is responsible for the destruction of three Brazilian villages.
(I almost said Amazon villages. But kids these days think "Amazon" is a web site where you stay up to 3am buying stuff. "Oh, wow. They named a river for it?")
You know that compulsive buying urge in the pit of your stomach? I get it over gadgets. Some people get it over golf clubs. Or shoes. Or Vera Bradley. Or books. Or cars. Or antiques. Or firearms. Some people, when they're out in their cars with nothing to do, their cars just autopilot their way to Bass Pro, or Best Buy, or Kohl's, or Abercrombie, or Apple, or Dillard's, or Jared, or Claire's. (Is anyone else salivating?) It's like they have a secret homing signal. ("Cosmetics." "Fishing equipment." "Yes, Master.")
And once the urge takes hold, it's like this irresistible force. And you start making rationalizations about how you've really EARNED that shopping expedition, how you really DESRVE that thing, that trinket, that gateway to personal fulfillment. Yes, just this one more thing and then I shall be complete.
And a little voice says, "No you won't." And you tell that voice to hush because it's on SALE, so it's like you're SUPPOSED to have it. And the little voice says, "But don't you also have to buy FOOD?" And you say, "But that's why God invented credit cards."
And the voice says, "Why do you worry so much about these things?" And you say, "Hey! Whose voice is this, anyway? Who let you inside my head?"
And Jesus says, "I'm not in your head. I'm in your heart."
"And your heart is having an attack. Because right now your heart and your treasure is on a store shelf. And I," (and this is Jesus talking), "I want to know... why? Why do you worry about this stuff? Why do you worry about stuff?"
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I'm paraphrasing. Here's what he really says.
He says,
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"
The Apostle James really hit it on the head, he said,
"Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?"
Here's the thing. You may think there's sort of this quiet little conflict or urge or craving going on inside you that no one else has to know about until they see the thing, or until the statement comes,
you may think you're keeping it to yourself, and that you and you alone have the power to do that, but you're wrong.
If you are conflicted about your treasure in your heart, it seeps out, and the cravings at war within you cause conflicts and disputes in your other relationships.
If you are conflicted about your treasure in your heart, not only is your heart under attack, but so are your eyes, and so is your mind.
Because if you are conflicted about your treasure in your heart, you won't be able to notice the lilies of the field, or the birds of the air. You won't be able to notice the natural and freely given goodness of God, your Heavenly Father, because you're so consumed by your consumer consumption.
It's like an illness and it infects the heart. Not your blood-pumper heart, your essence heart, your inmost spirit-heart. It's like an illness, infecting your heart and its number one symptom is confusion. It leads to secondary symptoms, like grumpiness, envy, and depriving other people of fun stuff because you can't have yours. But those are secondary symptoms. The number one symptom is... confusion. We get confused about where our treasure is. We get confused about our treasure and we get confused about what's in our heart.
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So.
Where's your treasure? What treasures do you worry about? What shopaholic urges get you on autopilot? What gets your heart confused?
Jesus says that where your treasure is, there also will be your heart. Your treasures are your heart monitor. Maybe the treatment for disease of the heart is to swap out our treasures. Maybe we can force our minds, force our tastes, force our wills to change about what we treasure and what we don't. Maybe we can change what we treasure. That's one approach. Maybe we can do, like, shock aversion therapy. Every time we get near an iPod or get near a new purse, we have this little thing that gives us a shock. Or maybe we can give our spouses or our best friends tasers to just take us out. (And some of you wives are thinking, "Yeah." The church does not condone the tasing of husbands.)
Maybe we can change our treasures.
Or maybe we can change our hearts.
Maybe you deal with that shopaholic thing all the time and maybe you really do need some professional help. Or maybe it just jumps up and grabs you every once in a while. The right way to deal with it - as it is with everything we can put -aholic after - starts with confession.
And I'm not talking about confession to God. God already knows. I'm talking about confession to the people affected by your spending. Confession to the people affected by your confusion, your worry, your obsession. Jesus already knows you worry about clothes and trends and trinkets and stuff. He knows you worry about that stuff more than you see the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. So you've got nothing to confess to him. Confess to the people who are affected by your heart.
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We are part of a consumer culture. And while the recession has changed a lot of our spending habits, I'm not so sure it's changed our wanting habits. The treasures are still out there. It's just that now they're farther out of reach. Maybe that's why our nation seems so grumpy lately. We still want the same treasures, but now we can't get them. I don't know. It just seems to me that as a people, we've got some real heart problems. And if Jesus is right - and he usually is - our heart problems are always connected to our treasure problems.
There's one place in worship every week when the church gets it right. There's one place where we get our hearts and our treasures in the right place. And it's usually the only place in worship where we expose our treasures. That is, unless you've been texting each other on your treasured cell phones during the sermon. The church gets its heart right when we collect the offering and then, immediately after, sing, "Praise God. Praise God from whom all blessings flow." That's a living lesson each week on heart-healthy behavior. For about five minutes, our hearts and our treasures are in the same place.
What if every purchase you made, you sang, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," as the cashier was swiping your debit card? Probably not the best idea to sing it out loud. (On one knee. Into a portable microphone.) Sing it quietly, to yourself. What if, every time the urge to buy clenched our stomachs, we sang it, to ourselves, or maybe out loud in the car if you're alone? Would it help eliminate some confusion? Would it help make us aware of how our treasures line up with our hearts?
It's just an idea.
"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness...."
Sent with Writer.
- James
