Making Room for Life
Tom Shrader opens a four-week series on area ministry by addressing the frantic, overscheduled pace of modern life that crowds out genuine community and missional living. Drawing from 1 Timothy 6:6-7 and Ecclesiastes 5:10-15, he argues that contentment rooted in godliness — not the accumulation of stuff — is the foundation for a life that has room for others. He calls families, singles, and students alike to examine whether their current lifestyle allows them to fulfill God's design for relationship and kingdom impact.
“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.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: DNA of EVBC
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: contentment, simplicity, community, busyness, margin, missional living, relationships, generosity, overscheduled family, parent, single adult, student, feeling disconnected from church, struggling with materialism, new to community group, seeking community
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 1 Timothy 2:2, 1 Timothy 6:6-7, Ecclesiastes 5:10-15
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, community life, godliness, missio dei, kingdom impact, biblical contentment, covenant community, sanctification
Full Transcript
Making Room for Life
Something historic is happening at East Valley Bible Church. We are going to do something we have never done before: take not just this week, but four weeks to talk about a single subject. If you looked at the bulletin today, that same design will carry through for the next four weeks, because all of it centers on what we are calling area ministry. Maybe you have heard references to area ministry over the last two years, because that is exactly how long we have been working on this — two years of talking, preparing, planning, implementing pilot projects, and refining the idea. So over the next four weeks, we are going to explain it fully.
We have two inserts in your bulletin that are really helpful. I do not say this very often, but you need to keep the one that lists Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe, and Phoenix. That insert gives a great overview of the biblical basis for area ministry, as well as some specific details. You will also see a second insert designed like a door, with the heading "Want to Take the Next Step."
Here is what that second insert is about. At the end of our four weeks, we are going to launch a whole series of community groups that meet specifically for four weeks, designed for those of you who are not yet in a community group. The idea is to give you a defined, low-pressure experience. If you have been hesitant to join a community group because you were not sure what it means or how you would get out if it was not for you, this answers that question — four weeks, and you are done, unless you decide you want to continue. For this to work, we also need people who are willing to host groups in their homes. You do not even have to oversee the group, just open your home. The details are on that insert. If you are willing to help, please complete it and drop it in one of the boxes as you leave today.
What Area Ministry Is
In its simplest sense, area ministry acknowledges that we are what you would call a regional church. People — many of you — are driving a considerable distance to join us on Sunday mornings. How many of you drive more than fifteen minutes to get here? Historically, the assumption has been that traveling far to church makes it hard to feel truly connected. And even for those who live close by, we hear it all the time: the church is so big, I do not feel connected, I do not feel like I am part of it.
Area ministry is our attempt to address both of those issues. It is our attempt to allow you to truly feel like an intimate part of East Valley Bible Church — to take a large church and have it function very much like a small church. We take this entire region and divide it, and here is what we learned along the way: we started by aligning people according to school districts. We would ask people where they lived, and they would tell us an intersection, and then we would have to ask which side of the street — and we quickly realized that was far too complex.
So here is what we did instead. We divided the region into five areas, and all you have to do is answer one question: what city or town do you live in? Unless the answer is Tucson, you will be able to find your place. Mesa, Queen Creek, Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe, Phoenix — those are the areas. Over each of those five areas, we are building what some in the church world have always used as a negative phrase — a church within a church. We mean it in the best possible sense. We have five full-time pastoral staff members, each one heading and overseeing one area. You will meet them over the course of the next four to five weeks.
Living Missionally
The whole idea behind area ministry is twofold. First, it allows us to minister more effectively to you. But more importantly, it is designed to help you minister more effectively to the people within your own sphere of influence — those both inside and outside the church. One term that is very prominent right now is the idea of living missionally. A missionary is a noun; missional is an adjective. It describes not a role but a way of life.
To live missionally is to understand that God left us here for a reason and a purpose. God is sovereign. He brought you into His family, and He has also sovereignly placed you in a neighborhood, placed you at work, given you your children and your neighbors — and He has done all of it for a purpose. Some of you, God has given a very large sphere of influence. Some of you are running companies with many people who look to you for direction, guidance, and leadership. They would call you their employer, and that is a great opportunity. Some of you, God has given something like what He gave Yale — an extraordinary opportunity, and the calling to take full advantage of it.
Why Four Weeks?
When I came back and was going through my emails, I found one that made me laugh. It was from one of our pastoral staff members, one of the area pastors — Luke Simmons — written to our staff and elders in response to a question. And this was our own staff asking the question. The question, in their words: "How can it possibly take four weeks to explain area ministry?" I thought, it is great to be part of a team. But it is a fair question, and it is the question we are going to answer.
Making Room for Life
Luke responded to the question of why this series would take four weeks, and here is what he wrote about what I would say today: Tom is going to explain how the busy, overwhelmed pace of life keeps us from investing in the lives of others, both for healthy community and mission. He is going to challenge people to examine whether the kind of lifestyle they live allows us to maximize our lives for the sake of God's kingdom.
It occurred to us, as we laid this series out, that we have been so invested in these two years that we can assume you understand the need for area ministry — and you could be sitting there with no idea why we are spending time on this. Why would you staff five guys? Why would you go through all this? Why are we doing this? Anytime we begin to roll something out, one of the biggest hurdles we face is overcoming the difficulty in communicating. It is simply impossible for us to over-communicate these things.
Area ministry has consumed plenty of three or four guys full-time for two years, and now that has broadened. We are spending an extraordinary amount of time, energy, effort, and money on this. Why? That is a fair question. So rather than assume we are all on the same page and already understand the need for something called area ministry, I want to talk today about making room for life.
The Biblical Call to a Quiet Life
Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and says, "We urge you brethren to excel still more and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business with your hands just as we command you." One of the paraphrases of 1 Timothy 2:2 reads like this: "Pray every way you know how for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and for their governments to rule over us so we can be quietly about our business, living simply in humble contemplation."
I want you to know that I have borrowed liberally today from a book I read on vacation called *Making Room for Life* by Randy Frazee.
Watching People at the Hotel Del
I love vacation. Every year it gets a little more difficult to come back. I love to do hardly anything on vacation, and one of my favorite things is simply watching people. Susan and I were in San Diego, and Susan loves to visit the Hotel Del — just once, she doesn't even need to eat there, she just loves to go. Right next to the little outdoor lounge by the pool there is a store — a women's store for sure, lots of white and light blue, lots of pictures everywhere. I am a wonderful person to vacation with because I love to shop, but not in a store like that. Put me in an outlet mall and I am a happy guy.
So I said to Susan, you go in and do what you love, and I am going to do what I love — get something to drink and sit outside and watch the people go by. I had a blast. They came in all shapes and sizes, many nationalities, many speaking languages I did not understand. Lots of guys in shorts and black socks — I was always tempted to say, "How are things in Munich?" Susan came out after a while and I said, let's just watch them a while. I try to figure out people's lives and try to help them without ever meeting them. I don't want to meet them; I just want to figure out who they are and what they are doing.
What We All Have in Common
People come in all shapes and sizes, and yet in the midst of all that variety there is something that makes us common. One of the things that strikes me as similar is our lifestyle — specifically, how busy we are. So much so that most of us, when asked to do something, would say, "I'd like to, but I'm too busy." We have crowded schedules. Life is hectic, bordering on chaotic.
And yet in the midst of that, something really interesting has happened. Our lives are jam-packed and crowded, yet most of us would also say we are lonely, that we have few or no good friends, that we feel isolated, that we feel empty. I was reading a book the other day in which the author had a great phrase — he talked about "public privacy." We want to be in a public place like Starbucks, but we don't want anyone to interact with us.
I was in a coffee shop recently — Tyler and I were there, I had my computer, I was doing a little work, and then Tyler came and we talked for a while. After Tyler left I was wrapping up, and there was a woman there...
Making Room for Life
I said to her, "I have to go to the restroom. Will you watch my computer?" You know what she said to me? No. She didn't want to be responsible for my computer. But I'm thinking, why are you even out in public? Why are you even here? That's not an unfair request. That's not a huge burden. Keep an eye on my computer — it's not like watching a kid or a dog or something.
What we wanted to do is give you a picture. One of the families of the church allowed us to videotape them for a day. Take a look at this and see if it doesn't, in some small way, capture your world as well.
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*[Video plays]*
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Yeah, pretty amazing, isn't it? That's a day. That's just a day — and it was a non-school day. I want to thank Guy and Janice Carpenter for allowing us to follow them, and their kids for allowing us to follow them for a day. And really, it wasn't even a full day — we didn't even get to dark. The guy following them said, "Man, she did five loads of laundry and made six trips with the kids to different places." They were almost surprised, like, "Oh, you really work at home during the day." Yes. That's busy.
And that family only represents 12% of the families of this church — the biological mom and dad with kids, where mom stays home. I watched that video this morning for the first time, and halfway through it I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, I need to take a nap." Now, there may be some exceptions. You may look at that and say it doesn't totally capture who you are. But for many of you, that kind of represents life, doesn't it?
The Questions a Busy Life Raises
We're starting with that assumption — based on our own experience, and based on what I believe we know about the people who attend this church — that there is a genuine sense of busyness. When I begin to think about that, I ask myself a bunch of questions. Why is life that way? Does it have to be that way? If I look at it and say, "It is that way and I don't want it to be," is it possible to change? If life is that crowded, is there something that's not getting done that needs to get done?
Those are the natural questions anyone would ask. But we have to dig a little deeper. We have to ask: What impact does this have on my relationship with Christ? What impact does it have on my life with others? You can say, "I want to have this vibrant relationship with the creator God of the universe," and that's a worthy desire — but that's only part of the reason He left you here. He left you here to have that vibrant relationship so that it would transform the way you live as you interact with others. Not just church people, but especially with those who are lost. Especially with people whose lives are messy, where everything is not in place.
Have you noticed that you tend to gravitate toward the people who are easiest to deal with? I do. All of a sudden you see somebody coming and you start making excuses for why you can't spend time with them. And yet, interestingly, God drops them into your life — and they tend to be the neediest of all.
Is It Possible to Make a Trade?
I read an article the other day in the Wall Street Journal about a man who started with a red paperclip and kept trading until he ended up with a house. Some of you may have heard of him — he's written a book about it. That raises a question: Is it possible for me to make a trade? Is it possible to trade this fast-paced, hectic, hurried, jammed, overpacked schedule — driven by the urgency of the moment — for a slower, planned, deliberate, organized, purposeful life?
Let me stop here and hit the pause button. Some of you have already done that, or are in the process of doing it. To you, I want to genuinely stop and say: congratulations. We have a tendency at a place like this to assume everybody is too busy and then just hammer away at the point. But some of you have already taken steps to resolve that, and I want to encourage you. You need to step up and let the people around you see that — just to let them know there is another way to live.
Living Simply on Purpose
I get a little nervous every time we get to this point, because I want to be autobiographical, and I'm going to paint Susan and myself in a positive light. I'm leery about that because I don't want you to think I'm a proud or arrogant person. And yet there is a burden here that I hope comes across as genuine teaching.
Years and years ago, Susan and I resolved that we were not going to live that way. We were not going to be driven by the pursuit of stuff, or by trying to live up to some artificial lifestyle established by people we wouldn't even care about. I am so grateful for that decision. One of the women from the church — I'm not sure she's here today, but she gave me something after I spoke on this topic some months back — and it stays in my office. It simply says: *Live Simply.*
One of the key moments in my life came when I was with a friend — this was probably twenty years ago, and I hadn't really thought about it until this moment. We were driving —
By Design: Choosing Simplicity
We were on the 60, coming back from downtown, and it was a mess. A friend in the car had been building to this point, and he said, "Your life is so simple. You don't have a bunch of hassles in your life. You're not driven by a bunch of this stuff." Now, stop — I'm not saying we don't have problems. Life brings you issues. There's just stuff you can't stop. Susan has cancer. Nothing you can do about that. You have parents who get sick, parents who get old, who die. There's all sorts of life stuff.
But he said, "Your life is so simple. You're not driving around doing this, doing that." I looked at him — I could look at him because we were stopped in traffic — and I said something that made me think, "Oh my gosh, this is incredible." I said: yes, by design. We took control of those things that were controllable in our life. We took control of the kids. We told them, "Hey, you get one activity, pal. If it's student council, it's student council. If it's cheer, it's cheer. We aren't going to drive all over taking you to a bunch of different things." Do ballet, do ballet. Whatever it is.
Our relationship with each other and with the Lord has been deepened because we decided we were going to live simply. And even with that decision, it's very complicated to live simply. It's not easy, and it's counter to the world you live in.
Not Anti-Material, But Anti-Materialism
What I want to give you today is in no way an anti-material message. I love stuff. I've already confessed — I was at the Dell, I'm sitting at the ocean. I love stuff. I've got it, and I fight that battle. But it is an anti-materialism message. My life is not driven by those things.
I have decided to borrow liberally again from Randy Frazee's book, *Make Room for Life*. Early in the book, he writes this — and it's a great phrase — "Simply put, many of us have squeezed living out of life. We don't have the time to soak in life and deep friendships. Always running around to get to the next event." He identifies two major problems with this. First, our busy lifestyle stimulates a toxic disease called crowded loneliness. Second, and even deeper, is that in our original design we were created with a connection requirement, and if this requirement is not met, we will die.
That's what I want to talk about today. Why are we living at this fast-paced, overwhelmed, too-busy pace? Do we have to live that way? Is that just part of living in the good old U.S. of A. in this time and place?
A Core Principle Since God Saved Me
This has been a core, fundamental principle of mine since God saved me. I was not saved by Him a year before I realized I have to learn to be content. God saved me in 1980 — right in the middle of launching a career. And it became very clear to me very quickly that the American dream, as I understood and pursued it, was not going to be allowed to be fulfilled if I was at the same time going to have a passionate desire to fulfill God's design for my life.
Now, does God have a plan and a dream? Are they necessarily in opposition to the American dream? Not necessarily. Can you achieve both? Maybe — but it's going to be really hard, because the American dream is expensive. By that I mean the measurement of success and accumulation and wealth, and the continuation and establishment of it. Why? Because it never ends, does it?
Mikey and the Wheel
We had this hamster, Mikey. I'm not into a lot of pets and stuff, so when we got Mikey I thought, "Oh brother." But this hamster became a metaphor for life. Mikey would disappear all day, and then he'd come out at night and stretch. He'd come out about 7:30 or 8, stretch and yawn, get on his wheel, take about 15 laps, and then dig back down.
But then about 2 o'clock he'd come out and get on that wheel, and that thing would just hum. He would go all night, and that wheel never moved — never, in terms of direction. It never went anywhere. He just kept going, going, going. If you stopped and said, "Mikey, just talk for a second. Where are you going? What do you want to do? What's your dream? What's your aspiration? What's the plan?" he'd say, "Man, I just — I do."
Here's what Mikey did: he would eat, he would eliminate what he ate, and he would run on that wheel. This is sad, but he becomes almost an icon for the way some of you are living. That's no way to live. This is really serious stuff.
Examining Our Pace of Life
I want to examine our busy, overwhelmed pace of life and challenge you to consider whether that kind of life allows you to maximize your life for the sake of the kingdom. You may need to stop and think carefully about this, because not every one of you is in the same boat. Every one of you has different circumstances.
Some of you may be here as a single parent, and in almost all cases we can take this and multiply it by a factor of five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten to get your life. Some of you may be single — and I don't see that single people have any more freedom, really. Life is jammed with all sorts of stuff. You may be saying, "I'm just a mom, or a dad, and this is just me." In Frazee's book, he does a wonderful little exercise of talking about how expensive this life really is — and I want to take you there.
The Seven Deadly Sins Against Children
Here is what he writes: the way we are raising our children in stereotypical suburbia is taking its toll as we commit at least seven deadly sins against them. I met somebody after the service who said, "I'm so discouraged and depressed over what you just said," which is typically not what you want to hear at the end of a sermon. I want you to know I am trying to give you some hope, but the whole objective today is simply to have you look at your life. The hope is that it can change.
He talked about seven deadly sins, just talking about kids. I was not going to include this, but I laughed as I worked my way through it and started to illustrate it, because it really does take me back.
Lost Creativity
First, kids have lost their creativity. In most cases, kids don't even know the children in their neighborhood well enough to play with them, so they retreat to watching TV or playing video games rather than going outside. When is the last time you drove down the street and saw a group of boys or girls playing baseball in the street? Never. It used to happen all the time.
That is all we did. We got up in the morning and tried to figure out what it was our parents wanted us to do so we could get it done and get it out of the way. Then we just left in the morning, came back to eat, left again, and came in at dark. And we were creative.
I would stand out in the back — because you would wear out a hardball, so we had rubber baseballs, little hard rubber baseballs — and there was a wall out there. I would be going: boom, there's a ground ball to Kenny, over to stay musical, boom, there's number one. I would pitch and we would do this all day long. You get these kids today and they are stumped when it comes to creativity if you do not plan it for them.
Lost Leadership Skills
The second thing: they have lost all leadership skills. Jill Steinberg from the University of Wisconsin simply writes that kids have no ability to manage their own activities or lead anymore. There was always somebody who took charge.
Lost Mentoring
The third thing: they have lost mentoring. Frazee said he always hung around his brother, who was five years older than him, and he always had his three younger brothers around as well. They always had to find a way to make everything work, and there was always mentoring. He taught them some things — some things he is sure he should not have taught them — but there was multi-generational community around them.
I lived at 1007 West 16th Street, and we were the second house. In the first house was a guy named Spike Crow, an old man who was retired from the Rock Island Arsenal. Every day I would go over and hang with this guy. He was perfect. I did not understand it at the time, but he had it all figured out, because every day he would say to his wife, "I've got some work to do out back," and then he would go sit on the porch. And he taught me so much about life.
One day I was out there trying to hit a shot with a sand wedge. He said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm trying to hit a sand wedge." He said, "What kind of shot is it?" I said, "I'm playing from around the green." He said, "Put that stupid thing away. You are never going to be able to hit that. Take a six iron and learn how to hit it from about six, eight, ten feet in. Just learn how to hit that six iron." I was playing with somebody the other day and hit a little shot, knocked it up stiff. He said, "That's an incredible shot. What did you use?" I said, "A six iron." He said, "A six iron? Where did you learn to use that?" I said, "Spike Crow."
These kids now cannot even look you in the eye because they have never related to anybody other than their own generation and their own gender.
Lost Conflict Management Skills
Frazee said these kids have lost their conflict management skills. When I first read that, I was not sure what he meant, but he is exactly right. We would go play baseball and we were not three batters into the game before we were arguing about whether the ball was foul or fair, and yet somehow we were able to play all day long. The kids now have parents to resolve disputes, lawyers to resolve disputes, commissioners to resolve disputes. They cannot handle any sort of conflict on their own.
Lost Health
He also said kids are losing their health — and he is not talking just about overweight kids. He is talking about the stress of life. Overscheduling is a major cause of stress in children, and in the hustle and bustle of life, kids are missing out on two very important things: family time and solo play time.
I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that said the biggest problem preschoolers are facing is stress. That sounds silly until you go to a breakfast restaurant and watch a preschool drop-off happen. Parents show up at six o'clock, and here is this child who can barely move, dragging a blanket and a bear, who is going to be there all day with somebody paid minimum wage to love them.
The Cost of Specialization
He also points out that this lifestyle is really expensive. I was talking to a man the other day who gives baseball hitting lessons, and we are getting increasingly specialized. I never had that growing up. Harold Piper was my Little League coach, mostly because the only way his kid could make the team was if he coached — and he was not very helpful to me. But this man who gives hitting lessons was talking to me about the demographic he is seeing, and where these kids are coming from.
Making Room for Life
Are seven-year-olds paying $75 an hour for hitting lessons? I watch this all over. When I was in high school — and I don't look like an athlete, I've got that figured out — I played varsity football, baseball, and golf. I went out for basketball, but they already had one. I played every sport in high school. Now no kid plays unless he or she is an extraordinary athlete, and even then they only play one sport. You go out for baseball and that's it — no football, no basketball.
When I played little league, we played 15 games the whole year. We were done by the Fourth of July, so you could go on vacation. Maybe you made the all-star team and played a few more. We never got to Williamsport. Now you've got kids 12 and 13 years old traveling and playing 100, 120, 150 games a year. Dance teams are traveling internationally to compete. And that's expensive — not just in dollars and cents, but in time on the family. You can make an argument that you're spending family time together, but in most instances that isn't the case.
The Loss of the Family Meal
Here's something we really need to think about: we've lost the idea of family meals. We're never eating together. Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software, or new cars. We spend more money on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, video games, and recorded music combined.
A survey of American schoolchildren found that 96% could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus. The impact of McDonald's on the nation's culture, economy, and diet is hard to overstate. Its corporate symbol, the golden arches, is now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.
I remember asking my mom one day when the first time she ate in a restaurant was, and she couldn't think of it. She said, "We didn't even think about it." She's from Charlton, Iowa — a small town. The only restaurant they had was connected to the hotel, because people staying there had to eat. She said, "I don't know, I must have been a teenager or something." Let me ask you: when is the last time you ate at home — together — other than Thanksgiving? That's something worth sitting with.
The Cost of City Life and the Commute
Now let me accelerate this a bit. We live in what is now the fifth or sixth largest metro area in the country. I read an article recently saying that by 2030 it will be behind only New York and Los Angeles, or New York and Chicago. When I arrived in town not that long ago, Hayden dead-ended at Via de Ventura.
My brother was thinking about moving down here. He spent a day with a realtor and came back to me and said, "I wouldn't live here for two reasons: it's way too expensive, and it's just too crowded." He said it was going to cost him 45 minutes to an hour to commute each way every day. That's the very same thing we were saying about Southern California not too many years ago.
Let me give you a heads-up — and I've talked to you about this before and I get a reaction every time, but you need to think it through. If you're moving further and further east and working downtown, you are paying a huge price for that extra house. You either need to move closer to work, work out of the house, take the bus, or change jobs. Because that stuff is not that important.
Debt: Pretending to Be What You're Not
I was almost going to talk about debt, savings, and giving, and then decided I didn't need to — all you have to do is listen to the news. I was watching a man the other day who was angry at his lender for saying, "You owe me the money." You bought a house you couldn't afford. The lender made a deal so you could get into it, and you thought he was going to let you stay there forever at that rate? You're angry because you were willing to borrow more money than you could afford to pay back.
Here is my definition of debt — this is informal, you won't find it at the business school. Debt is an instrument that allows you to pretend to be something you really aren't. You can look like you're something really special when you aren't at all.
Two Passages of Scripture
I want to take you to two passages of Scripture. I want to set this table properly. The two passages are 1 Timothy chapter 6 and Ecclesiastes chapter 5. If you came without a Bible, there is a pew Bible available, and I want to work through this in a way that helps those of you who are newer to this.
I should mention — I did not realize this until this morning — the pew Bible we have starts renumbering pages when it gets to the New Testament, which makes no sense to me. For those of you who are really new: the Bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament the pages number straight through, and then when the New Testament begins, the numbering starts over. So for what I'm asking you to turn to today: in the New Testament it is page 165, and in the Old Testament it is page 479. What I am asking you to do is to swim upstream — to do something that runs against the current of everything around us.
The One Thing That Will Motivate You
The rest of the world is going to think this is almost foolish, and there is no way you are going to opt out of this never-ending lifestyle game unless you are motivated to do it. I want to give you the one singular thing that will motivate you. First Timothy chapter 6, verse 6 — I was not a Christian a year before I began spending time in this passage, and I am in it all the time.
"Actually, godliness is a means of great gain when it is accompanied by contentment. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it. If we have food and covering, we should be content."
Now I could make a thousand points out of that, but what Paul is saying is that great gain for him is godliness — a real, genuine understanding of who God is — and a sense of contentment. Not apathy. Contentment. He says he is content if he has food and covering. He does not quantify the food. He does not say hot dog or steak. He does not say studio apartment or five-bedroom house. And he tucks in the middle, in verse 7, a key idea: we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of it either.
What Ecclesiastes Says About Enough
Now look at Ecclesiastes chapter 5. Paul gives us some really basic truths. Verse 10: "He who loves money will never be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with income." Verse 11: "When good things increase, those who consume them increase." And then: "The sleep of a working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of a rich man does not allow him to sleep."
These are wonderful truths. Whoever loves money will never be satisfied. There will never be enough. There will always be one more dollar, another deal, another opportunity. Lingering in the back of our minds is this idea that if I just do that, have that, get that, I will be happy. Our whole life becomes about that — if I can just change my circumstance, get rid of him, get rid of her, get these kids grown, buy this house, move over there.
I must have met five people who are miserable with their lives and are moving to Montana, and all I can think is there must be a lot of cold, lonely, miserable people in Montana. It is the geographical cure — that is what they talk about in AA. The problem is that I am the problem. If I go over there, I go with me, and everything does not change.
I was talking to a man who is on his fourth wife, and he laid it all out for me. I listened to him for far too long, and finally at the end I said to him, "The only thing we see in common in all four of these marriages is — what? You. You are the problem." He does not need marriage counseling. He needs to come to grips with who Christ is and what it means to live for Him. That marriage counseling will give you some tools, but the real issue will figure itself out once the real issue is addressed.
The Tyranny of Things
Whoever loves money is never going to have enough. When things increase, so do those who consume them. As you get more money, you just want more of it. The more money you have, the more you come after. And what is the benefit? The sleep of the laborer is sweet. The rich man's riches give him no sleep. The hourly worker goes home happy, has a big gulp, watches television, and goes to sleep. His boss is getting calls at three in the morning about shipping and contracts and international operations — and the boss has all the money. And the worker cannot understand why the boss keeps pushing.
Look at verse 15: "As he came naked from his mother's womb, so he will return. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor." Do you see that Ecclesiastes 5:15 and 1 Timothy 6:7 are the same idea? One is Solomon, one is Paul, and both are talking about stuff and contentment. The secret to contentment is understanding that I came with nothing and I am leaving with nothing, and that around me is this tyranny of things.
Randy Frazee writes about a television set. He says, let us say I get a free TV. Now what? I hook up the antenna, subscribe to cable, buy a new DVD player, rent movies, get surround sound, buy a recliner so I can watch my programs in comfort. It all costs money. It takes huge amounts of time, energy, and attention. The time I devote to the TV and its accessories means less time for communicating with my family. So what is the true cost of my free television?
Needs Multiply as They Are Met
Jim Elliot has a wonderful line he writes in his diary — and this is from the 1950s, but here is how he lays it out: needs multiply as they are met. A car demands a garage, a garage demands land, land demands a garden, a garden demands tools, and tools need to be sharpened.
Now I want to acknowledge something here. This would be a great Sunday to have an extra half hour for a Q&A, because I know the questions that are coming. What about making time for people? What about this situation or that one? The key to this whole thing is you being honest with yourself and defining your motivation. Is there anything wrong with having nice things? No. But why do I want the nice thing? Why does it matter so much to me that I would go into massive debt so that others will think differently of me? Why does that matter? You will never hear from me an anti-material message.
Defining "Enough"
This is anti-materialism, and for some of us this is very difficult, because we have to start defining. How much house is enough? How much car is enough? How much savings is enough? I am at that point myself — fifty-eight in November — trying to figure out when prudent retirement savings becomes hoarding. This is tough stuff, but you cannot walk away from it. It is not a material issue; it is a spiritual issue. You have to define it, take care of it, and figure it out.
Confronting Our Excuses
We also have to start dealing with excuses — the reasons people tell themselves for living this way. One excuse is thinking, "Well, everybody does it." Everybody does not do it. Another is telling yourself, "This is just the American dream." Here is a lie I love, and I have worked with a great many men and saw myself fall into it at times: "This is just a season I am going through."
Now, let's be smart. If you are in the jewelry business, you are not getting off work from Thanksgiving to Christmas — that genuinely is a season. But when I was in the real estate business, I saw something telling. When times were good, men would say, "I have to work hard right now because I have to make hay while the sun shines." When times turned bad, they would say, "I have to work twice as hard because things are tough." It was always a season. It was never not a season.
You have to ask yourself — and if you are married, ask your spouse — why are we living this way? If we both agree this is nuts, if we both agree this is crazy, why are we still doing it?
The Church Must Not Add to the Burden
Here is why this matters for our ministry. I do not want us all to come together, agree that this describes how we are living, and then have the church pile on by saying, "Now we need a night from you for couples, a night for men, women over here, singles over here." We do not want to simply add more complexity to an already complicated life. And yet it is important for you to understand that God has a way He intends for you to live.
I apologize for how abruptly this ends, but all I am trying to do today — and judging by the looks on some of your faces, we have accomplished it — is help you see that you may be living in a very complicated way. And let me give you some real hope: it is never too late to get off of this treadmill, but the younger you are, the easier it is to break free.
The Cost of Early Bondage
If you are a student borrowing $125,000 to go to college in order to get a job teaching English literature at $40,000 a year, there is no reason to live that way. All you are doing is putting yourself in bondage and ultimately robbing yourself of the freedom to be the man, the woman, the student that God called you to be — trading that freedom for junk and stuff.
A Word to Those Who Are Blessed
Some of you have been very, very blessed. Do not walk out of here feeling beaten up, thinking, "Now I feel guilty about getting in my car." What I am saying to you is that God has given you a special responsibility. He has given you freedom, and in some cases an extraordinary amount of time, and He is calling you to steward that well.
Our ladies in ministry would tell you — and they may not love me for saying this — that the challenge with our mentoring program is not a shortage of women who want to be mentored. The shortage is mentors. That can only mean one of two things: either we have a congregation full of spiritually immature women, or their time is entirely committed somewhere else. That is the wrong situation for us to be in.
The last thing we ought to have is an economic problem either. I said this during the last building campaign: the good news is we have all the money we need. The bad news is it is in your pocket. But we do have all the money we need. Addressing this is going to require a total mind shift, because you are going to have to start thinking like God rather than like man.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us not to live this way. We may say we do not want to, but God, for those who are married, knit their hearts together in this desire to be free — not so they can do nothing, but so they can be the men and women You have called them to be. For the singles, let them embrace that singleness and the time and energy it affords. For the young men and women who are here, let them hear this message and let it become a core value of their lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.