Put a Lid On Your Dreams
Tom Shrader explores Paul's teaching that godliness accompanied by contentment equals great gain, contrasting this biblical principle with American materialism and consumer debt. Using statistics about spending, credit card debt, and the temporary nature of possessions, he argues that contentment comes from understanding we brought nothing into the world and will take nothing out. He calls believers to find satisfaction in basic necessities and to practice generous giving rather than accumulating possessions that will ultimately end up in landfills.
“We came into the world with nothing, we leave with nothing, and you and I live at a time when we're mortgaging our soul, and I mean our soul, our spiritual well-being for stuff.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: An Examined Life (2002)
Recorded: 2002 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 54 min
Themes: contentment, materialism, generosity, stewardship, gratitude, simplicity, giving, possessions, struggling with debt, facing financial pressure, consumer culture, middle class, young professional, family provider, retirement planning, new believer
Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-8, 2 Timothy 3:16, 1 Corinthians 11:26, 2 Corinthians 3:5, 1 Timothy 6:17-18, Matthew 6:33, Ecclesiastes 5:10, Hebrews 13:5
Theological Themes: godliness, spiritual maturity, christian living, biblical stewardship, spiritual contentment, sanctification, discipleship, christian worldview
Full Transcript
Father, we come before You and we pray that we would hear Your voice this morning, that as we look at Your word, You would speak to us, that we would hear You, and even more importantly than hear You, we would obey You. We would respond the way that You'd have us respond. And we thank You for that magnificent reminder, that call that we have to follow You.
God, You've placed us exactly where You want us. We pray that what we would do is not try to run away from the circumstances You bring into our life, but to embrace them. We have that promise that everything that happens in our life is caused by or permitted by You, because You're sovereign, You're God. So Father, we rest comfortably knowing that You're in control. God, in that truth, we can even thank You for the hardship and the suffering and the pain. Even though we may not fully understand it yet, we know that You will use it to accomplish Your good work in our life. So we praise You, Father, in Christ's name, amen.
A Beautiful Evening at the Coast
Lisa, thank you very much this morning. It is good to see you. I don't know what you did last night. Some of you up to Seaside, any of you go up there? Yeah, how was that? See, the younger people, the adventurous younger people said, we're out of here, we're going to Seaside, get a tattoo. That's what we're doing. Not quite.
I'll tell you what, Susan and I had a great night. We went out to the park here and just walked down the beach about halfway down to Haystack and just stood there and laid on the beach, and that was as good as it could possibly be for a Fourth of July. It was just incredible. I would love to be able to do that every year. That was perfect, and they tell me the weather is exceptionally good. I have only been here, this is my second time here, and I've never seen it rain, so I just assume it never rains here, and so when I share that with people, they say, that's not necessarily the truth.
A Different Teaching Approach
I want to do something different than what we've done. Back home and in church, what I typically do, the way I teach, is chapter by chapter, verse by verse. We just go through the books of the Bible. We're right now teaching the Book of Acts, and my calculation is it's going to take us just about a quarter of a century to do the Book of Acts, and that's because this is what we're doing. We're into where Paul is now ministering, so as Paul now goes out and then writes a letter back to the church, then we go and study that letter.
So I announced when we started this series about a year, oh gosh, almost two years ago now, I said, this will be my opus. This is the last series I'll teach at the church, and it was fun to watch that. There were a lot of people really excited because they thought somebody new was coming, and I said, yeah, there is, but it's going to be a while yet.
The Missing Ingredient in Most Lives
If you have your Bibles, would you open them with me, please, to 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, 7, and 8. I want to talk to you a little bit about this passage this morning, and I just want to apply it and apply it and apply it. You may well be the exception to this, but I am pretty much convinced that what Paul talks about here as he writes to Timothy, what Paul talks about here is the missing ingredient in most lives.
Paul writes this in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, 7, and 8: "But godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. And if we have food and covering with those, we shall be content."
Now, we may talk about some of the other points that Paul makes after this, but that's really the focus of where I want to go in the next half hour, 45 minutes. Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. That's what Paul says in verse 6.
The Equation for Great Gain
I like to put that in the form of an equation: Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Great gain in God's economy. Not necessarily in the economy of the world, but then we would hope that what we're concerned about is being successful and wealthy in the things of God, not necessarily in the things of the world. So this comes to the success that ultimately we would be striving for.
God said there's two things that need to be in place. One of them is godliness. The other is contentment. Both of them are necessary for great gain. That's why I call this the missing ingredient.
You can go to most churches this Sunday, decent churches, most decent churches this Sunday, and you will hear some message or some variation on the idea of godliness. In fact, churches are known for that. They're known for talking about godliness. But it seems to me rarely, almost never, do you hear a message on contentment. And I think they go hand in glove.
Contentment Flows from True Godliness
My point to you is going to be that true godliness, from true godliness, flows contentment. That's the whole idea that I think Paul's trying to communicate here. But we will go, and we will talk a great deal about godliness, very little about contentment. Yet if I read this correctly, both are essential if I get to great gain. You see that?
So we put it in the form of an equation. If I say to you, one plus nine is ten, we may have a great deal of value for the nine. We may love the nine, but I still have to have the one to get to the ten. Godliness may be what us Christians are known for, godly, holy people. But if I'm not content, something's missing.
Defining Godliness
Let me give you a little bit of definition around it. We would define godliness this way: just a consistent, genuine walk with God, a vibrant relationship with God. It means that we are alive in Christ and that that relationship with Him is vibrant. We are walking with Him. We're communicating with Him. We are involved in prayer. We pray without ceasing. Our life is a prayer.
We were down on the beach last night, and we'd reached a point where we'd
walked about as far as we were going to walk, and we stopped and we sat down. Susan was sitting behind me, and I just kind of leaned back, and I had my head in her lap, and there were fireworks going on all around us. It was terrific. And Susan said, "Isn't God good to allow us to be here for this night?" In a sense, that itself was a prayer. It was acknowledging that our presence here was a gift from God, that God had brought us here, that God had made all of this possible. God had put it together.
So if I'm in a vibrant relationship with Him, I'm praying, I'm studying His Word. I have to study His Word.
Living in Difficult Times
In 1 Timothy, in 2 Timothy chapter 3, just to the right, let me just make this point to you, and it's a total sidebar, but let's make it, because I don't think I've mentioned it yet, and I want to make sure we get it. Paul says this, in 2 Timothy chapter 3, "Realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come." Now, the last days are that period from when Christ left this earth to when He comes again. You're in those last days. We seem to have a sense that this is the close, that His coming back is very, very close. But you understand that Paul even kind of anticipated that. People have always been left with the idea that God could come at any minute. That's so it will affect our behavior and we'll live that way.
"Realize this, in the last days, difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good." It's not just that they love evil, they hate good. "Treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, verse 5, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power."
I don't believe I could write a better description of the country and the culture that you live in than that right there. We even have Self magazine, Money magazine. We are not just satisfied any longer to do evil, we hate good. What's interesting is he said, nonetheless, they'll be very religious people, hold to a form of godliness, though they deny its power.
This is a little bit of what we looked at yesterday. You live in a very spiritual world, you live in a spiritual nation. You live in a nation that seems almost obsessed with spirituality, but when you start to define it, they deny its power. The power is the power of Christ, and they deny that.
The Answer: God's Timeless Word
What do you do in a climate like that? It's interesting, look at verse 16, "All scriptures inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, reproof for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God might be adequate, equipped for every good work." What do you do when you live in this world? Well, you don't become like the world. When you look for answers, you don't necessarily go to the gurus of the day, you go to this Word.
A timeless God does not produce dated material. I have people all the time that say, "Tom, you keep going to this Word, don't you understand? It's 2002." Don't you understand that at some point in time, they were going to their pastor and saying, "Come on, lighten up, it's 187. It's 516." This is the answer. In the midst of this world, where do I find direction? This ought to sound very familiar to you. I go to this book.
So the point that we're making to you, if I'm in a godly life, there's a time where I'm consistently spending time in this Word. The Bible tells me truth, teaching, and reproof, and correction, and training, and righteousness. Here's the easy way to remember it. The Bible tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right.
Essential Elements of Christian Life
So if I am a man or a woman who's pursuing godliness, I'm a person of prayer, I'm a person of study. I'll tell you another thing. I spend time with other believers. You'll hear that all the time from people. "Well, I don't need to be in church. I'm a Christian, but I don't need church." I don't buy that. I think you desperately need to be with other believers, equipping them, building them up, them pouring into your life. That's the way God designed it.
We won't look at it now, but you look at the second chapter of the book of Acts, and look at the early church. They ate together, they dined together, they fellowshiped together. Those that had sold what they had so they could take the proceeds to give to those who didn't have enough. That's the way we're supposed to live.
Salt and Light in the World
And also, we need the lost world in this sense. There's no way for us to fulfill the Great Commission, which I always thought was 10 percent on raw land and 7 percent on finished product, but it's not. The Great Commission is go and make disciples of all nations. Well, I can't fulfill the Great Commission if I'm not in contact with lost and dying people.
One of the things that I see in our church at home is what I see is a little bit of an alarming trend toward creating a Christian ghetto. We only listen to Christian music. We have Christian comics. We have Christian TV, Christian magazines, Christian books. Our dog's a Christian dog. We baptized our dog. Everything's Christian around us. Growing dogs God's way, that's our new thing. And so we've got all of these different things.
And I'm fine. You got my first point, and that is we're to be together as Christians. But you're supposed to be salt and light. How are you going to be salt and light if you're not out in the world? You're supposed to be out in the world. You have to be.
Declaring the Gospel
And you're there to evangelize. Evangelize doesn't just mean sharing your faith or your story. Evangelize means sharing the gospel, declaring the truth. That becomes a fundamental part of our life. We're declaring the gospel. In fact, that's so much a part of what we're supposed to be doing in our life. And one of the great ways that we can do it is through the act of, and this may shock you, of communion.
The Foundation of Our Faith
At our church, we sat down when we started and asked what the early church was doing when they gathered together. One of the key practices we identified was communion. I don't know anything about the churches up here, but down in our neck of the woods, most churches have abandoned communion and relegated it to something they do once a month on Sunday night before the service, when no one's there. Yet if you look at scripture, you see all the way through that the early church, when they gathered together, celebrated communion.
Well, why did they do that? Let me give you the answer, because Paul gives it in 1 Corinthians 11:26. He says, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." When we go to communion, we proclaim the incarnation of Christ, the sacrificial death of Christ, the resurrection, and the fact that Jesus will come again.
Understanding Godliness and Contentment
In the passage you have in front of you in 1 Timothy chapter 6, godliness plus contentment equals great gain. When we talk about godliness, it includes many things, not the least of which is prayer and study and time with believers and evangelism.
What's contentment? When we talk about contentment, the Greek word here means literally self-sufficiency. It's a person the Stoics used it to describe somebody who was unflappable, that they were unmoved by external circumstances, they were satisfied. You are to be satisfied. You are not to be necessarily seeking after more than what God has already given you. Certainly in the physical sense that's the idea.
How can we be satisfied? Let me read to you 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 5. Paul writes, "Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God." See how this flows? Godliness, a consistent genuine walk with Him produces a sense of contentment in our life, a sense of satisfaction.
The Key to True Contentment
Let's read the passage again. I'll break it down and help you spot what I think is a key ingredient to discovering and living in the joy of contentment. Here we go, 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 6: "But godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so we can't take anything out of it. And if we have food and covering, with those we should be content."
Paul says, here's what should make you content: food and covering, the basic necessities of life. Now make no mistake about it, Paul is not condemning material things. What he's condemning is materialism.
Look at verse 17: "Instruct those who are rich in this present world." Paul understands that there are going to be people who have a lot. Some of you materially don't have much. Some of you materially have a great deal. Paul speaks to you who are rich and he says this: if you're rich in this present world, see 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 17, "Do not be conceited or fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all good things."
The Dangers of Material Success
There's something about having stuff that makes you conceited. That's what he's acknowledging here. When all of a sudden there's a certain level of success in your life, when all of a sudden God has blessed you, perhaps beyond anything that you ever dreamed possible, it is amazing how hard it is to be humble.
I can go into a sales office where there are 50 sales people and they'll bring me in to talk about whatever it is. I can spot the top five and the bottom five sales people. The bottom five are writing down everything you say. Good morning. Good morning. I hope you're having fun. See what they're trying to do? They're broken, they're humble, they've tried everything they know how to do and it's not working.
The top five are going like this: "When's this over? I don't need this." Why? "I'm in the top five. How did I get there? I pulled myself up by my bootstraps." And then we even feed this. We give them pins and plaques and we have them come forward and we have them talk at these seminars like there's something great. Hey, let me help you out. They couldn't take another breath unless God gave it to them.
Everything Is a Gift from God
They can take this little virus that we can't see except with a microscope and even then might not fully understand, and stick it in this successful guy. Listen, I have three things in my life that we'll never see like again. Number one, the Beatles. It gets no better than that. Number two, Secretariat. I love Secretariat. Number three was Muhammad Ali. There's not going to be another Ali like that. Just nothing like Ali. The greatest.
You can argue, Susan is not at all a boxing fan, but I'll have the TV on sometime when they're showing old Ali fights and Susan will even say, "That is incredible." Bam, bam, bam. He was the greatest. But look at him now. The greatest can't control his right hand. Everything we have is a gift from God.
The Uncertainty of Riches
But when I'm rich, I have a tendency to be conceited and to fix my hope on the uncertainty of riches. Here's what I used to think that meant, and I think it does kind of: money, riches, stuff is like a greased pig. You squeeze it, it's gone. The uncertainty of riches - you got it, then it goes.
I don't think that's all that he had in mind here. I think part of the uncertainty of riches is this: we think it'll make us happy. That's what we think. We think if we have stuff, we'll be happy. To this day, I meet Christians who think if they could just change their bank accounts, trade them with someone else, have more zeros behind that first number, they'd be happy.
Paul said, don't do that at all. If you're rich, don't be conceited. Don't fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God. Trust Him. He gave them to you. Verse 18: "Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share, storing up for themselves..."
a treasure of a good foundation for a future. You're to be givers. There is something that's very important for us to understand, and that is we are to be givers. I love being in an environment like this because I'm not your pastor. I won't benefit from this one drop, but my suspicion is most of you don't give enough. And here's what I'm talking about: cash, dough. You are to be a giver. We'll talk more about it in a second.
Here's what he's saying now. If I've got the basics in life, I should be content. Godliness will indeed bring about that contentment. That's what Jesus said, Matthew chapter 6, verse 33: "But seek first his kingdom"—there's godliness—"and all these things shall be added unto you." What's He saying? All these things will be taken care of.
It doesn't mean you don't work. It doesn't mean you don't strive. It's just that I know that God knows my need, and God's going to meet that need. Our problem, most of the time, is not that our needs aren't met, it's that our wants aren't met.
Food and Covering, Not Luxury
He says if you have food and covering—he doesn't say it's a hot dog or it's a filet. He doesn't say it's a studio apartment or a five-bedroom house down on the beach. When we were walking down there last night, and those fireworks are going off, I was looking at some of those houses up on the beach, and I thought, you know, wouldn't you think God would want me to have one of those babies right there? That just seems like what God would have for me. But that's not what he wants.
Here's what God wants, and this is an amazing thing, and it's absolutely true. If I pursue Him, if I seek first His kingdom, if I'm in prayer and study and with fellow believers, somehow this other stuff gets taken care of and beyond our wildest dreams. I'm saying this to you again. Susan and I—and I know speakers say this, and I presume they all mean it. I can't look into their heart. I can tell you mine—we are honored to be here. When we were laying on that beach last night, and Susan said, "Isn't it amazing that God brought us here and provided us?" It is extraordinary. And you know what we're really doing? We're just doing what we think He's gifted us to do.
The Key to Contentment: Verse 7
Now, I want to show you something, because I've taught this passage a billion times. It's one of my favorite passages of scripture. One day, I was at Forrest's home, standing right over on this side of the platform. I had on PowerPoint verse 6, 7, and 8. Something always bugged me, and it was verse 7. I think this passage reads better if you take verse 7 out. Look at it: "But godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. We brought nothing in the world to take anything out."
Well, get that out of there. Now read it without it: "Godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment, if we have food and covering with those we should be content." Now, you got to admit, it flows if you get verse 7 out of it. Doesn't it? Doesn't it just flow better? It absolutely does.
Here's the problem. The creator God of the universe wrote it, so we know He wants verse 7 in there. And it always bothered me that it was there, and I probably should have seen this right away. But I had this epiphany as I'm standing in the platform at Forrest's home, and I'm looking at it, and all of a sudden, it went BAM! Feel like Emeril. BAM!
Here's why verse 7 is in here. It's the key to contentment. You're never going to be content in this world, thinking about this world. The way the world is structured, it's always going to bring a lack of satisfaction in your life. The world is always going to say, go for more, get more. But if you understand you came in with nothing, and you're leaving with nothing, all of a sudden, there will be in your life contentment. See that?
The World Always Says "Get More"
I want you to understand the struggle. The world says, get more. I don't care who you are. I love athletics, because those are great illustrations. The Lakers win a championship. What did they just win? Their third one, was it? They just win the third one. What do they say to them after? "Congratulations, Kobe." "Thank you." "Okay, let me ask you a question. You think you can do it again next year?"
That guy still smells from this game. He hasn't even showered yet, and they want to know if he's going to do it next year. I want you to know something. That's the third year in a row they've asked him the same question. "You think Shaq will be back?" "I don't know." "What are they going to do next year?" "What about next year?" I read an article not long ago, talking about Tiger Woods slump. I mean, what kind of slump is this? It's always another one. It's always one more thing.
America's Great System
I had this moment. I was working at Motorola in the C&E division, and Motorola used to only be able to buy—this is great. This is what makes America great, by the way. But Motorola, you could only buy their phones and all those products. You could only buy it from Motorola direct in the old days. When I sold what you would call a cell phone, it was actually a mobile phone mounted in your car. A mobile phone cost $3,300. You waited two years on a waiting list. Then it was $2 for the first minute and $1 for every minute thereafter. Men and women, that's what makes America great right there. That's competition. That's entrepreneurialism.
Let me give you my 4th of July message. It's not the American people that are great. I'm so sick of hearing that the American people are great. The American people aren't that great. It's the system that's great. I can take 15 people off a refugee boat, put them in Phoenix, and in 10 years they're going to own eight apartment buildings and seven restaurants. They were great people. They were in a bad system. Does this system have abuses? You bet it does. But let me tell you something, this dog's leading the world and it's bringing certainly some level of hardship, but a lot. You pick up a phone now and they don't even charge you for long distance. Entrepreneurialism, capitalism—
free marketplace. Enough of that because it'll blur this message. But I want you to understand that. That's really important.
So I'm working at Motorola. We're closing a quarter and this is our close for the close of the year. In our region, we have an opportunity to be, for the very first time, the number one region in the country. He said, "Listen, I know you came to us because we were all over quota. I know you got orders in that drawer that you're saving for next quarter. But I'm asking you for the good of the team, bring them in now. We got a chance to be number one."
I remember that night, it was about 9:30 at night, when all of a sudden we found out we were the number one region in the country. We're high fiving and celebrating. "Yeah, we did it. We did it." That's Friday. We came in Monday. Absolute truth. We sat at a meeting and the guy who got our orders from us said, "I want you to understand something. This is a new year. Right now we're all at zero."
Well, I'm number one. I thought I was number one for a weekend. See, that's what the world does. So if you buy into that world system, you're never, ever going to be satisfied. I don't care if the Lakers win eight, when they lose the ninth, they're losers.
The Emptiness of Worldly Treasures
Randy Alcorn has a new little book out, and I cannot remember the name of it. Maybe somebody in here can. Treasure Principles. It is a terrific little book.
In there, Randy writes this: Take a ride with me. A few miles we turn off the road, pass through a gate and fall in line behind some pickup trucks. The vehicles ahead are filled with computers and stereo systems and furniture, appliances, fishing gear and toys. Higher and higher we climb until we reach a parking lot. There the drivers unload their cargo. Curious, you watch a man hoist a computer. He staggers to the corner of the lot and hurls the computer over the edge.
Now you've got to find out what's going on. You scramble out of your car and peer over the precipice. At the bottom of the cliff is a giant pit filled with stuff. Finally, you understand this is a landfill, a junkyard, the final resting place for the things in our lives. Sooner or later, everything we own ends up here. Birthday and Christmas presents, cars, boats, hot tubs, stereos, clothes, barbecues, the treasures that children quarreled about, friendships were lost over, honesty was sacrificed for, and marriages broke up over, all end up here.
Then he adds this. It's a parenthetical insert. It's absolutely terrific. I recommend taking a family trip to a junkyard. It's a powerful object lesson.
That's what Paul's saying. We came into the world with nothing. We leave with nothing. You and I live at a time when we're mortgaging our soul, and I mean our soul, our spiritual well-being for stuff.
The Statistics of Our Debt Addiction
Let me give you a whole bunch of statistics. Americans owe 600 billion dollars in non-mortgage consumer debt. So that doesn't count your houses. 490 billion of this is credit card debt. 10% of those credit cards are in the hands of teenagers.
The top credit card providers are spending 1 billion dollars per year at the 250 largest universities for marketing rights on the campuses. Here's what it says. Literally, that means that a college freshman moving into his dorm will have three credit card applications waiting for him with pre-approved credit of $3,000 each. That's $9,000 of instant credit requiring no effort, no discussion, or no permission from mom and dad.
There are enough credit cards in circulation right now in the country for every man, woman, boy, girl, baby to have four. On average, an American adult carries $7,000 in credit card balance and is paying over $1,200 a year interest. If that $1,200 per year interest were invested for 30 years at 8%, total of $36,000 invested, compound interest would have grown to $136,000. Isn't that amazing?
The savings rate in the U.S. right now is 0.5%, half of a percent, the lowest since the depression. Now get this, for every $1 increase in household income, spending goes up $1.10. As my grandpa would say, wouldn't that jar your preserves? So for every $1 more you make, you spend $1.10. That's the world you are living in.
Christians and Money: A Troubling Picture
Here you go. We're talking now about Christians. 33% of Christians and 44% of non-Christians indicate that money is very important to them.
I'll give you the antidote for this materialism. You know what it is? It's giving. Remember we said saving was at the lowest since the Great Depression? Giving as a percentage of income is lower than it was during the heart of the Great Depression, which was 1933.
3% of American Christians are giving 10% or more. Here's what's great, 32% claim they give 10% or more. So not only don't we give, we're liars too. 37%, this is incredible. A room would divide about right here. So 37%, from about here over to the wall. 37% of those who attend church give nothing at all. What is wrong with them?
Christians on average give 2.5% of their income. Pagans on average give 2.6%. So the antidote to all of this, I think, is giving. We're clinging to this stuff like it's ours and like it's going to last and like it's really important. I just want to pound this point away.
A Century of Change
Let me give you some statistics. I did not plan on talking about this or I would have had a PowerPoint because it would be more helpful to see them. U.S. News and World Report did a story last August comparing the year 1900 to the year 2000.
Population increased from 76 million to 281 million. Some of this stuff is interesting to me. Percent of people living alone in 1900, 1%, in 2000, 10%. Households with 6% or more, 50% in 1900, 10% now. Homeowners, 1900, 37%, now 66%.
I'm going to give you a bunch of them before I give you this. Automobiles, in 1900 there were 8,000, now there's 132 million. Telephone calls, in 1900
there were 38 per capita, now there's 2,325. Electricity, 2% of the households in 1900, 99% now. Flushing toilets, 10% in 1900, 98% now. Mail received, annual per capita in 1900, 93 pieces of mail, now 729. High school graduates, 1900, 13%, now 83%. College graduates, 1900, 3%, now 25%. Women with bachelor's degrees, 19% in 1900, 56% now. Teacher's salary in 1900, $6,500. Adjusted for inflation in 2000, $40,000. Pupils per teacher, 1934, 2019.
Here's the one I was saving. The percent of money that a family spends on food. In 1900, it was 43% of your income. 43% of your income in 1900 was spent on food. In the year 2000, it was 15%. Isn't that amazing? So we have an extraordinarily high amount of disposable income. We've got money all over the place, and we are spending it.
Two years ago, Radio Shack ran an ad that said, "We have thousands of things you never knew you needed." I spoke at one of my daughter's graduations, and I said to them, "I just want to give you a list of things that are commonplace to you that weren't around when I was your age." Phones. Cell phones. Portable phones. Color TV. I didn't have it. We had cable TV now. Computers. We didn't have it. Microwave. CD players. Vacation. We never had a vacation. You can make your own list.
How Times Have Changed
I had a great line. I said to them, "When I was in high school, Nike was a Greek god." And I wasted that line on those minds of mush. They didn't get it. Here was one. This is my favorite. Here's what we never had. We never had a garage door opener. Here's what we would do. We would pull up, and my dad would say, "Tom, get out and open the garage door." And that's how we got the garage door open.
See what I'm saying to you? We live in a world where we have more, and yet it's insatiable appetite.
The Dangerous Effect of Earthly Things
Jim Elliot wrote these words. You know Jim Elliot, many of you. He wrote this at age 22. "I've been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effect of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter the pumpkin eater's proverbial dilemma. He must find a place to keep her. And most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So with a wife demands a house. A house requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, etc. A house with these things must soon become a home, and children are the intended outcome."
Now this 22-year-old writes this phrase. Listen to this phrase. This is so contrary to how we think, and yet it's absolutely true. Needs multiply as they're met. Here's what we think. We're going to go meet a need, and when we meet a need, the need's gone. But in fact, we meet a need, and we just add more needs to it.
Randy Alcorn again writes this. "Nancy and I have been living in our house for 23 years. For the first nine years, we had ugly orange carpet. We never cared what happened to it. The day we finally installed new carpet, someone lit a candle. The match fell and burned a hole in the carpet. The day before, we wouldn't have cared. Now we were upset. Were we better off without the new carpet?"
Then he asks this. This is great. "Let's say I get a television for free. Now what? I hook up the antenna and subscribe to a cable service. I buy a new VCR or DVD player. I rent movies. I get surround sound. I buy a recliner so I can watch my programs in comfort. This all costs money, but it also takes time and energy and attention. The time I devote to my TV and its accessories means less time for communicating with family, reading the Word, praying, opening our house. So what's the cost of my free television?"
How Possessions Redefine Our Priorities
Acquiring a possession may push me into redefining my priorities. This is really key. Needs multiply as they're met. Here's his illustration. "If I buy a boat, I want to justify my purchase by using the boat, which may mean frequent weekends away from my family or church, making me unavailable to attend my daughter's game or teach a Sunday school class. The problem isn't the boat. The problem is me."
I learned that a long time ago. It is much better to know somebody who has a boat than own a boat. It is way, way better to know somebody who has a cabin in the mountains than to own a cabin in the mountains. See, this stuff is costly, yet do you feel the tension?
What Wealthy People Say About Wealth
Let me share with you from some guys who were pretty successful, and listen to what they say about wealth. W. H. Vanderbilt said this, "The care of $200 million is enough to kill anyone. There's no pleasure in it." John Jacob Astor, "I'm the most miserable man on the earth." John D. Rockefeller, "I have made many millions, but they have not brought me any happiness." Andrew Carnegie, "Millionaires seldom smile." Henry Ford, "I was happier when doing a mechanic's job." Do you hear any joy there? Do you hear any happiness there?
I know what you're thinking because I do the same thing. "I'll bet I'm the exception. I'll bet I can handle that $200 million, and I'll bet I'd be all right with it." But you know what? The evidence is overwhelming that you couldn't.
Forget those guys. How about the wisest man that ever lived, Solomon? What did he say? Here you go, Ecclesiastes 5:10, "Whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income."
The Never-Ending Appetite for More
The Orange County Register did a poll a few years ago. Here's what they discovered. They asked how much money would it take to make you happy? Those making $30,000 said $40,000. Those making $40,000 said $50,000. Those making $50,000 said $75,000. Those making $75,000 said $100,000. Those making $100,000 said $100.25. There's no end to this. Why? Because for every dollar more you're making, you're spending $1.10.
Here's what Solomon said. "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure." Solomon had it all. He had the material things. He had wisdom. If it's sex that turns you on, he had what? He had 300 wives and 700
concubines. By the way, the original 700 club, that's what I always thought it was. A little earthy, but nonetheless. Right on the edge for Cannon Beach, but I think we're okay there.
See, nothing of the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun. He said the conclusion to this is fear of God. Do you hear joy there? Do you hear happiness there? I don't. Nor do I see it.
Look, the next time you're on the freeway and you're driving at rush hour, look around you. Nobody's smiling. Nobody's happy. You know why? Because you're living a lie. Because you think this stuff is going to make you happy and you're caught on this wheel and you can't get off.
The Power of Simple Contentment
I want to show you a video. It's about a five minute clip. It's from a retrospect of Charles Kuralt when he died several years ago, and it's a story he did probably 20 or 30 years ago. So hopefully we've got the volume right. Just watch this and contrast this with I'm miserable with $200 million and see if you can contrast it.
I love this video. Whenever I hear that the family is a dying institution, I think of that. Whenever I hear anything in America is impossible, I think of that. Now, there's an amazing moment in there. Charles Kuralt says there's probably no lessons in this. How can there be no lessons in this? It's one giant lesson.
And to us, it's not a lesson about work harder, because most of us are probably working hard. Can you imagine? I was talking to a guy last night on the beach. Susan and I were walking down. We met a guy, and he seemed like a terrific guy. His family came to Cannon Beach years ago. He runs the variety store over here. His name is Pete. His daughter got a scholarship. He sent his daughter away to Pennsylvania to school. He's going to fly out with her, and they're going to go to a Yankee game and spend a couple days in New York City, and then His mom's going to come out and get her settled and spend three days with her there. This guy sends His kid to college with $2.50 and a bus ticket.
Our Lives Are Filled With Stuff That Doesn't Matter
Here's the message. Our lives are filled with stuff that doesn't matter. See, the reason I get so excited about this is it's a spiritual issue. The time, and the energy, and the effort, and the money that you're spending just to have a new car, or just to have an extra bedroom, or just be able to take an expansive vacation.
My mom and dad, I remember one night in our entire life that we spent in a hotel, and that was all six of us in one room. We didn't have it. My mom would do this. Here's how we do it. We're four boys. She'd get a Pepsi and four three-ounce glasses, and she'd split it up every night, and that was our treat. My kids leave that around every day. Why? Well, because it's there.
Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5 says this, let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have. Being content. Why? Because the Lord said, I'll never desert you. If that's the thing we say is so important, we all stand here and say, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Master. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is what's important, and then He gets virtually none of our time, energy, effort, and money.
Five Minutes After We Die
Let me close with this. Again, Randy Alcorn. You should have had Randy Alcorn here this weekend. He writes this, at the end of the movie Schindler's List, there's a heart-wrenching scene in which Oskar Schindler, who bought from the Nazis the lives of many Jews, looked at His car, His gold pins, and regretted he didn't give more of His possessions and money to save lives.
Schindler had used His opportunity far better than most, but in the end, he longed for a chance to go back and make better choices. Unbelievers have no second chance to relive their lives, this time choosing Christ. But Christians also get no second chance to live their lives over, this time doing more to help the needy and invest in God's kingdom. We have one brief opportunity, a lifetime on earth, to use our resources to make a difference.
Five minutes after we die, we'll know exactly how we should have lived. Ask yourself, five minutes after I die, what will I wish I would have given away while I had the chance? And when you come up with the answer, why not give it away now? Why not spend the rest of our lives closing the gap between what we'll wish we'd have given away and what we're really giving?
The Test of Prosperity
Boy, let me just tell you again, it's not anti-material, it's anti-materialism. And I think it's one of Satan's great lies. If I say to you, you're going to be tested today, you're going to have a real giant test. Most of you will think of cancer or losing a loved one or a child that dies. I think one of the great tests that we have is the test of prosperity. And it's very hard to pass that test.
Someone has said for every 10 people, for every 100 people who can handle the test of adversity, there's only one that can handle the test of prosperity. It's a very difficult test, and you're right in the middle of it.
And you can always get, and here's what I've noticed, about the time, when God's starting to convict you, you'll think of somebody who has more, or someone who wastes more, or somebody who becomes your excuse. Do you understand that when you stand before God and you are judged, by the way, I assume you understand that as Christians we'll be judged, when you stand before God and you're judged, He's not going to judge you for how I lived my life, or how the other people wasted their resources. He's going to judge you by what you did with what He gave you, how you spent, or better yet invested, your time, your energy, your effort, and your money.
The Only Thing That Transcends
Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. You came in with nothing, let me help you out my friend, you're leaving with nothing. The only thing that's going to transcend to that other side is the time that you have spent with God's people and with
The loss. A really serious message, isn't it? A great message, I think. Well, I want to stay that tone, and tonight, I know I talked to several of you that I think are leaving this afternoon, so we'll miss you, but I want to talk tonight, I want to stay kind of at that moment, it's kind of a somber moment, and yet I think it's really helpful.
I want to talk, it will be one week ago tonight that Haley got married. So, we ought to celebrate that anniversary. She's in Aruba, really celebrating. We're here, and we're going to commemorate it tonight, and I'm going to show you a little bit of a video, and it should just be a great night.
So, let's pray. Father, we come before You today, and most likely right now, our hearts are feeling something. It might be guilt, it might be a sense of satisfaction, for it might be that we're living lives exactly like we should be. It might be that moment where we're understanding we need to get away, and we need to talk. If we're married, we need to talk to our spouse, we need to say, hey, we got to get control of this stuff.
Father, because it's a spiritual issue, every time we invest in this world, buying things that will inevitably end up in that landfill, it's money that we're taking from Your kingdom. God, there's opportunities all around us. Just think in that rec center. Think of the lives that over the next decades could be touched by a basketball. God, we have those things all around us.
We pray that our lives would become all about You, and not about us, and then about others. And God, we would kind of just be along for the ride. We thank You for Your grace, mercy, Your love, Your provision. You've given us so much, not only more than we deserve, just more than we can ever use. We've got boxes of stuff in our pockets. We've got boxes of stuff we've never even got back to in a decade, and yet we keep piling it up. And we've got to get a room to store it, and we've got to pay a mortgage on that.
Father, help us break that cycle. When we say it's all about You, God, let us truly mean it. We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.