11.14.10 // Living with Less -- Aggravations

 High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                                     — John Gillespie Magee, Jr

There are three aggravating areas in living with less: discontent, money, and worry. Living with less is like Magee’s slipping the surly bonds of earth. We are never going to dance in the heavenlies with God unless we get free of the clutches of discontent, money, and worry that keeps us tethered to terra firma.

·   Now godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim 6:6, ESV)

·   Solomon said, If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless (Eccl 5:10, TEV)

·   Don't worry [be anxious] about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart (Php 4:6, TEV).

Living with less overview

We are on a four part series with Mark Tabb on living with less the upside of downsizing: smaller, simpler, slower, and harder are the sub-themes. The first three (smaller, simpler, slower) suggest reduction, the last one (harder) implies resistance (I knew there was a catch!).

How do we define less or more and who makes that call? We’ll address this morning.

More to the Max

Last week we saw the more to the max illustration by Jesus’ statement in Mt 16:26,

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Less to the Max

The polar opposite of this is less to the max seen in Mk 12:41-44,   

Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. (42)  Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans (farthing, KJV). (43) So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; (44) for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."

Jesus’ Point of View

Jesus was watching how the people, rich and poor, were putting money into the treasury. The rich put in much (v41) and a widow living in abject poverty gave two copper or bronze coins to the Lord (v42). This would be similar to someone giving hundreds of dollars in the offering plate and another giving two pennies to the Lord. But it wasn’t the amount the Lord was pointing out to His disciples. It was that the poor widow put in more than all the rest (v43)! He explained that the rich gave out of their abundance which had no affect on their livelihood. The widow, on the other hand, gave out of her poverty by putting in all that she had – her whole livelihood (v44). 

Did you catch the choice the widow made? She could have held back 100% or 50% of what she had but chose to give it all away, both coins. It turned out to be the greatest investment decision “a nobody” (female, widow in Jewish culture) in society ever made. What she gave was less but it amounted to more. While others who had more gave more but it amounted to less.

The other thing to notice is that Jesus evaluated her giving not on the amount of her gift but on what she had left to live on! It draws into a sharper focus motive, means, and residual when giving to God. I heard a statistic that only eight percent of Baptists give on a regular basis and of that eight percent only ten percent give 10% or more!

Even though we have to take the accuracy of that stat with a grain of salt, there is probably some element of truth to it; most people don’t give and those that do give very little. It makes you wonder about all of the “sacrifices of praise” being offered to Jesus in the churches today. As the saying goes, words are cheap. Sadly, we may very well be guilty of honoring God with our lips but our hearts are far from Him! Isaiah cried out to Yahweh, 

“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts" (6:5). 

The widow’s faith has blessed and continues to bless untold millions of believers and brought and continues to bring glory to God by her faith. She gave more with less and the others gave less with more. It’s a story of faith that causes us to reevaluate our giving unto the Lord.

Are we ready and willing to give all that we have if the Holy Spirit prompted us to give back to Him that which is really His, all? In a more-culture or in a less-culture, out attitude and actions toward money reveal our spirituality like nothing else for where our treasure is there will our heart be also (Mt 6:21). Truly, less became more for this blessed widow. Give In Faith Today!

Last week we looked at the spiritual diet of living with less in light of eternity. 

Living in Light of Eternity

Tabb suggested an investment strategy that in my opinion is as diversified as any spiritual portfolio as you are going to get. 

Investing in People

One is investing in people, the heartbeat of the second command of Scripture to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our neighbor was defined by the parable of the Good Samaritan – anyone who has a need.

Investing in Principles

Two, investing in principles is investing in a life that is consistent with the Word of God, making the Word of God the rule of life.  Everything God is and does is consistent with His Word. Our lives need to be in consistency with the Word of God.

Investing in Passion

Three, investing in passion is to live a life that brings glory to God. Whatever we do we are to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). Living in light of eternity is investing in people, principles, and passion.

Three Aggravating Areas in Living with Less

The Aggravation of Discontent

This week we are going to focus on discontent, money, and worry, the three areas that aggravates the attempt in living with less. The Greek word for content is arkeo (G714) and occurs eight times in the AV: enough (Mt 25:9), content (Lk 3:14; 1 Tim 6:8; Heb 13:5; – to be satisfied, content with, 3 Jn 1:10),  sufficient (Jn 6:7; 2 Cor 12:9), sufficeth (Jn 14:8).

 If my understanding of contentment is gauged by a more-generated society, then I need to throw contentment out the window. As I said last week a man can be satisfied with less but never more. If my contentment is determined by God then He defines what is less or what is more for me, and my contentment level is stabilized in the will of God either way – as the apostle Paul stated in Philippians 4:11-13,  

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever 

state I am, to be content: (12) I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.  (13) I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

In regard to need Paul had learned to be content in any situation. It was a process not something automatic after receiving Christ.

Whatever state refers to living in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia….

Seriously, the phrase whatever state refers to verse 12 – Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

How did Paul learn to be content wherever, whatever, and whenever? He knew with confidence that he was in the will of God when these things entered his life in verse 12. Since Paul believed in the sovereignty of God that nothing entered his life without divine approval, he learned that that wherever, whatever, or whenever the circumstances he found himself, it was by divine appointment. 

If he was full God wanted him to be full. If he was hungry God wanted him to be hungry. Paul understood that to abound or to suffer need was ordered by God! Things do not happen by chance in the life of a believer. On a side note suffering need is often viewed as punishment. This passage reveals to us that even when performing God’s will we can suffer need. God doesn’t punish obedience! 

Should we suffer need even when we know for certainty that we are in God’s will it is for the promotion of God’s glory. All things truly work together for good to those who love the Lord. These things we must learn to differentiate between punishment and promotion.

In order for us to even do God’s will we need enablement. For the will of God for our lives cannot be performed with human strength. Look what Paul said in verse 13 again,

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 

Paul’s claim that he could do all things is qualified by through Christ. The phrase all things pertain to God’s will for him, not self-aspirations. A literal translation of this verse could be,

I can do all things in God’s will as long as Christ is putting power into me.   

I have learned (whatever state) and I can do (all things) are not humanly possible. But God’s grace provides us with the power or enablement to do what He asks of us. We must realize that whatever state comes with the territory of doing God’s will. Contentment is learned because we see the whatever state as coming from God Himself while we do His will, not as punishment but for His glory. In doing God’s will circumstances are going to come at us from any direction, in many different forms, and at any time. 

Since nothing enters our lives without God’s permission, we are satisfied in knowing we are right in the middle of God’s will in spite of the resistance as God’s pours power into us to move forward. Whether full or empty, abounding or suffering need, the Decider of less or more, God is.

This is important that God determines what less or more is in our lives because the heart, which is the seat of our intellect (thinker), emotions (feeler), and will (chooser), has been compromised by sin and cannot be fully trusted. Even Jeremiah the prophet questioned the reliability and ways of the heart of man when the blessing and cursing from God are so clearly evident.

For the man who puts his trust in his own self,

(17:5) Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD. (17:6) For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.

For the man who puts his trust in God,

(17:7) "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. (17:8) For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

You see this is an illustration of the two worldviews we talked about last week:  naturalism versus supernaturalism, man versus God, or in the words of Jeremiah, shrub versus tree!

Jeremiah was baffled with the human heart and concluded that,

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it (17:9)?

 

There is some nasty stuff that can proceed from the dark recesses of the heart (Cf. Gen 6:5; 8:21; Psa 51:5; 53:1-3; Prov 28:26; Eccl 9:3; Jer 16:12; Mt 15:19; Mk 7:21-22; Heb 3:12; Jas 1:14-15). Oh, but for the grace of God go I!

Jeremiah gets his answer concerning the depravity of man’s heart in the following verse,

I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings (17:10). 

Though hidden from others, God knows our innermost thoughts and motives. Therefore, He can render justice to everyone according to the fruit of his doings – cursing or blessing. The shrub mentality is cursed, and the tree-mentality is blessed.

A quick side note since we are in the vicinity. You remember we talked a couple of weeks ago about silent running, a case for cursing the enemy (see http://lucottos.blogspot.com/2010/11/103110-psalm-129-silent-running-case.html)? Read what God’s prophet Jeremiah said in 17:18,

Let them be ashamed who persecute me, but do not let me be put to shame; let them be dismayed, but do not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of doom, and destroy them with double destruction!

Okay, enough said on imprecations, moving on.

It was Paul who declared, 

I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need (v12) and a few verses later he informs the Philippians who helped him in a time of need,

And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (v19). 

In v12 Paul states that he learned to suffer need and in v19 the very God who allowed him to suffer need (abase) is the same God who will supply every need (abound). God allows for us to suffer need for our spiritual growth of dependency on Him, identifying with others in similar need, and providing opportunity for others to invest and participate in the will of God for His glory. Contentment is born out of a daily dependency in the sufficiency of Christ, not self. 

God’s supply is endless – according to His riches in glory, but supplying every need is not the same as supplying every want. Those believers who give faithfully to the work of Christ will never suffer lack. The devil has twisted and marketed the word “want” to mean “need.” And then points out to believers that God is failing to meet our needs based on the promise He made to us as in Philippians 4:19. The devil has a rapacious appetite to trick man into believing it is to his benefit to question God’s Word. This goes way back to the Garden with Eve – did God say?

Paul suffered greatly (cf. 2 Cor 11:23-28) for the sake of Christ in spreading the Gospel to all men and never once complained that God failed to meet his needs. He learned that God’s grace was sufficient for every need. Eventually, Paul was probably beheaded in Rome for the faith (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-7). Humanly speaking, if any man could complain that God didn’t meet his needs it could be Paul; but he never did.

“… when I roll up my sleeves and take on life (including God) with a grim determination that says, ‘I’m going to get what I want,’ I find that I sometimes get it, but happiness is never a by-product. Never. In fact, those are some of the darkest days of my life” (Chuck Swindoll, Living on the Ragged Edge, World Books Publisher, 1985, p. 344).

Things never bring happiness; we think they do but we find out every time that they don’t. The source of true happiness is found in God. As we stated the week before that happiness, true, genuine happiness is wired into holiness (cf. Psalm 1:1f). There is no real happiness found apart from Christ. Without God’s viewpoint, we chase an allusion.

When our lives are lived in the world of time rather than the eternal, we will never see material stuff in the proper light (Mark Tabb, LifeWork, Fall 2010, p.134).

Contentment means choosing to believe God when He says He knows what we need before we know it ourselves and accepting whatever He provides as good enough (Ibid, p.137).

The Aggravation of Money

The next aggravation in living with less is money. Nobody likes teachers and preachers talking about the M-word. From the outset let me state the obvious. God knows we need money to live on. Pie in the sky and the sweet by and by are not going to pay the bills, put food on the table, gas in the tank, and a host of other things. The two following verses are familiar to all of us.

The love of money is the root of all evil – For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows (1 Tim 6:10, TEV).

You cannot serve God and money (mutually exclusive) – No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (wealth or property, Lk 16:13, ESV).

Let’s throw another passage into the mix, Hebrews 13:5-6, ESV:

(5) Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (6) So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"  

The love of money creates all kinds of entanglements. With what you have, if you recall, living with less or living with more is determined by God, and we are commanded to be content with that. Things can tie up our lives and drain us of life’s energy to where we are too busy to serve the Lord because we have to put in tons of hours to serve things. We are not to allow the love of money to move us away from the divine appointment, God’s will. Our sufficiency is in Christ – I will never leave you nor forsake you. The promise of His presence drives contentment!

Two Treasures – Matthew 6:19-21

(19) Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal. (20) Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. (21) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

A barometer of contentment is our attitude toward wealth or property. 

There are two types of treasures: treasure on earth (Mt 6:19) and treasure in heaven (Mt 6:20).  Jesus is not magnifying poverty and criticizing wealth (cf. 1 Tim 6:17).

Treasure on earth: wealth that is vulnerable and temporal (wood, hay, and stubble). Things you lose, material or physical things.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

 

Treasure in heaven: wealth that is invulnerable and eternal (silver, gold, and precious stones). Things you keep, immaterial or spiritual things.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

I like Wiersbe’s succinct description on laying up treasure in heaven,

“It means to use all that we have for the glory of God. It means to ‘hang loose’ when it comes to the material things of life.” (Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament)

Boy, I can relate to that because there was a time where I found myself holding on to things tighter than a tick on a dog! I was in a season of discontent. Money was an issue and worry was boiling over. Often in our accumulation we hold on to things too tight due to insecurities. Our security is not found in things but Christ, the Owner of all things. Wiersbe goes on to say,

 “It also means measuring life by the true riches of the kingdom and not by the false riches of this world.” (Ibid)

Laying Up Treasures in Heaven

So how do we lay up treasures in heaven? We need   

The right goal (not our self) “all that we have for the glory of God.” All that we have should be used for the honor and glory of God. We look at our possessions and ask the Lord, who owns them all anyway, how should we use this for your glory?

The right grip (not our security)  This is the clinging versus releasing. For fear of losing we grip that much tighter. Our security is in God, not possessions; He is the just enough and at the last minute God.

The longing for security gets in our way of our pursuit of a life that matters, that impacts lives for generations (Mark Tabb, LifeWork, Fall 2010, p.133).

Even though we believe that this present world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31), we live as if it is going to last forever (Ibid).

The heart and soul of Christianity is the conviction that God is the Maker, Owner, and Ruler of everything. The entire physical universe belongs to Him and He can do with it anything He please.

If we really believe this, then our grip on anything we think of as our own will be very, very loose. Instead of clinging to our stuff, our attitude should be one of constant prayer asking God, ‘What are Your plans for this (LifeWork, Fall 2010, p.  136)?’”

The right gauge (not our self-worth) What makes a believer of infinite worth is because Christ lives in the heart. Our culture values doing over being. We possess but are not possessed by things. Sometimes we can see we are having a problem with this by associating ourselves with the more-group and ostracizing the less group. Our standard is Christ. Our worth is found in Christ, not things.

The Aggravation of Worry

Wiersbe indicated that we can “dignify worry by calling it by some other name — concern, burden, a cross to bear — but the results are still the same” (Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament).

 I wish I could recall the preacher who said this, but I remember him saying that “Worry is nothing more than jumper cables to the imagination,” a quick jump start to stress.

Regardless of what we say we believe about God, when we worry, we live as though the physical universe is all there is, or at least, all that matters (Mark Tabb, LifeWork, Fall 2010, p.134).

Read what Jesus said about worry in Matthew 6:25, ESV,

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Merimnao (Gk,G3309) is translated anxious in this verse. It is also translated take no thought (KJV) and do not worry (NKJV). Anxious is probably a better translation. Anxiety distracts and divides, or as Wiersbe literally defined it, “to be drawn in different directions” (Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament). Worry or anxiety creates a distraction and pulls us apart. Wiersbe views it as going against nature itself,

“Until man interferes, everything in nature works together, because all of nature trusts God. Man, however, is pulled apart because he tries to live his own life by depending on material wealth” (Ibid). It seems we could learn a thing or two from nature.

Worry or anxiety creates a distraction that separates or pulls us apart from looking to Christ to focusing on the circumstances of life. Contentment keeps our eyes fixed on Christ to where we are satisfied amidst the swirling circumstances.  

High Faith

Father, oh, that we would slip the surly bonds of discontent, the love of money, and the heavy laden of worry. Released from our aggravations, our faith would unfurl its wings and take to flight into the sanctity of grace under the glowing favor of Your Shekinah glory. Reaching out our hands, we feel Your warm embrace, pulling us upward to greater heights of faith in living with less and giving more. Amen.