A Simple Life
Now as for today we’re continuing our teaching series called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which is about finding peace in our world of hurry. Our primary research for this series is from a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, written by Pastor John Mark Comer who did a deep study on the unhurried life of Jesus. So what we’re doing is learning from the life of Jesus, how to live an unhurried life like Jesus, and today we’re learning about simplicity. We’re learning about living a simple life, instead of a consumeristic life. See the problem with living a consumeristic life is the more products we buy, the more hours we need to work to pay for those products. It’s a vicious cycle where we need to overwork, to feed our excessive consumeristic desires. Well today we’re learning from the life of Jesus how to break this vicious cycle, by living a simple life like Jesus. Let’s turn to Matthew 6 and get into it. If you open your bible to the middle, keep turning right, you’ll find Matthew. We’ll be in Matthew 6:19-34, and the title of the message is A Simple Life. The big idea is a simple life can help break the cycle, of overworking to feed our excessive desires...A simple life can help break the cycle, of overworking to feed our excessive desires.
Here’s your context. At this point in the book of Matthew we have the longest sermon Jesus preached in recorded history. It’s called The Sermon On The Mount, and you can read it in Matthew ch’s. 5-7. In his sermon Jesus is primarily focusing on how we’re to live our lives, and he covers all kinds of topics such as how to live a blessed life, how to pray, how to live a content life. Well in today’s text he’s primarily focusing on how to live a content life, a simple life, when it comes to our wealth and possessions. So let’s see what Jesus has to say, about living a simple life.
Matthew 6:19-34 states, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus is talking about our possessions here. He’s comparing our treasures on earth with our treasures in heaven. He’s saying don’t live your life pursuing temporary treasures on earth that’ll eventually fade away, instead pursue eternal treasures in heaven that’ll never fade away. But if you notice Jesus also connects our treasures to our hearts. Some people have their wallets connected to a chain, but Jesus connects our treasures to our hearts. He says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The heart is the steering wheel that drives our deepest emotions and desires in life. Whatever our heart feels, desires, treasures the most in life, will drive our hearts to pursue those things. Jesus is saying we need to make sure our hearts aren’t set on temporary treasures on earth that’ll eventually fade away, instead we need to set our hearts on him and the eternal treasures of heaven that’ll never fade away.
Now to be clear, Jesus isn’t saying we can’t have wealth and possessions. He’s saying we shouldn’t treasure our wealth and possessions in our hearts more than him. The bible isn’t against us having wealth, possessions, being fiscally smart, or even saving to enjoy nice things and nice vacations. The bible isn’t against any of those things, it’s against us treasuring those things more than God or thinking they can satisfy us more than God. So many of us are running on a consumerism treadmill that satisfies us for a little while, but eventually that satisfaction fades leaving us chasing more things again. Jesus is saying we need to check our hearts and get off the consumerism treadmill, because it’ll never fill the joy void in our hearts. So how’s your heart?...Is your heart pursuing temporary treasures on earth, or eternal treasures in heaven?...Is the reason you’re overworking, trying to make more money, because your heart is on a consumerism treadmill that never satisfies?...It’s a vicious cycle of overworking, to make more money, to pay for temporary treasures we’re pursuing in our hearts. Jesus says where you’re treasure is, there your heart will be. He’s telling us to be careful of letting our wealth and possessions consume our hearts more than him, because none of it will ever satisfy the joy void in our hearts like him.
Vs. 22, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!” In the 1st century if someone says your eye is healthy, they’re saying you have a good eye that’s focused on the Lord. But if they say your eye is bad, they’re saying you have a bad eye that’s focused on something else instead of the Lord. In this case it’s about having healthy eyes that are focused more on the Lord, than wealth and possessions. So part of living a simple life entails being intentional about what we’re setting our eyes on. It entails resisting the need to impulse buy just because we set our eyes on something that looks good or because our eyes saw it was on sale. It entails resisting the need to fill our homes with temporary treasures we don’t really need, and they end up sitting in closets or storage units. Most importantly, living a simple life entails being intentional about not letting our eyes drift towards thinking we need more money and possessions to make us happy, when what we really need is more of God. A healthy eye is more focused on God and needing more of God. It’s more devoted to serving and seeking more of God, than serving and seeking more wealth and possessions. Jesus mentions this next.
Vs. 25, “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Jesus says we can’t serve both God and money, which means we have to make a decision. We have to decide if we’ll serve God and live a simple life like Jesus, or serve money and live a consumeristic life like most Americans. The struggle we face in our American culture is we’re constantly being taught that having more money is a better God. We’re taught that having more money, wealth, possessions can bring us more happiness than God. French sociologist Jean Baudrillard has repeatedly said atheism hasn’t replaced cultural Christianity, materialism and shopping has. Amazon’s become a regular place of worship for us, the “buy now” button has become the offering plate, and our sacrifice is the time and money we spend feeding our consumeristic Amazon god.
Several years ago Wall Street banker Paul Mazur from Lehman Brothers said, “We must shift America from a needs culture, to a desires culture...People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old is entirely consumed.” Notice he said we need to be “trained” to desire and want new things, which is exactly what’s happening through advertisements and algorithms appealing to our deepest desires. In fact the University of South Carolina put out an interesting article titled Thinking vs. Feeling: The Psychology of Advertising. The article said in the 1970’s people were exposed to roughly 500 ads per day, but now we’re exposed to roughly 5,000 ads per day. Those 5,000 ads are designed to appeal to our deepest desires, they’re designed to “train” us to desire and want new things. The consumeristic treadmill is real, and it has us caught in a vicious cycle of overworking, to make more money, to keep feeding our excessive desires and wants. Jesus says we can’t serve both God and money. We have to decide if we want to serve God and live a simple life like Jesus, or serve money and live a consumeristic life like most Americans.
Vs. 25, “Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” Notice Jesus is connecting our wealth and possessions to worry. The word therefore connects the previous sections with this section, and Jesus says don’t worry. When we treasure wealth and possessions in our hearts more than God it doesn’t make us happier, it makes us more worried. We get worried over not having enough, worried over losing it all, worried over having to fix, clean, maintain all the excessive possessions we have. Having more wealth and possessions doesn’t increase our happiness, it increases our worries like Jesus implies. In his book The Progress Paradox: How life gets better, while people feel worse, journalist Gregg Easterbrook states, “Ten times as many people in the Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings without a specific cause, than half a century ago. Americans and Europeans have more of everything, except happiness.” His point is that wealth and possessions can’t buy us happiness. But what if we stopped believing the culture’s lie, that having more wealth and possessions will make us happier?...What if we stopped falling for consumeristic advertisements teaching us more is better, and started buying only the basic necessities for life like food, clothing, a tiny home roof over our heads?...How much less stressful would your life be if you lived a simple life like Jesus, and only focused on buying the basic necessities for life?...Human civilizations have survived off far less luxuries than us for centuries, and we can too. But we live a consumeristic life instead of a simple life, and it increases our worries. Jesus connects our desires for wealth and possessions with having increased worry. It makes me wonder how much less worried we’d be, if we’d only pursue a simple life like Jesus.
Again vs. 25, “Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? 27 Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the flowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. 30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? 31 So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” I studied this text during my sabbatical, and what I realized is the Lord wants me to be as free as the birds and the flowers in the field. But the problem is there are a lot of things in my life that are hindering that. So I’m still processing what it looks like for my life to be more free like the birds and the flowers in the field. I’m processing things like my overcrowded daily schedule, my screen time on my phone, my spending habits, my pursuit of excessive wants. It’s all things that are pulling me away from living a simple life like Jesus, from living free like the birds and flowers in the field. But what about you?...What do you need to adjust in your daily schedule, your screen time, your spending habits, your pursuit of excessive wants, so you can live a simple life like Jesus, instead of hurrying, worrying, overworking to feed your excessive desires and wants?...What does it look like for you to live free like the birds and the flowers in the field?...
Vs. 33, “But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Jesus says the solution to our worry, especially when it comes to our wealth and possessions, is to seek first the kingdom of God. The solution is to seek treasures in heaven instead of earth, seek God instead of money, seek Jesus and his eternal kingdom instead of a temporary consumeristic kingdom. The solution is to live a simple life with Jesus, a simple life like the birds in the sky and the flowers in the field. You don’t see the birds and the flowers worrying about keeping up with the Jones, which makes them far more free than us. A simple life is free from the shackles of overworking, to feed our excessive desires, and here’s three things to help with that. It’s three quick things, to help you start living a simple life like Jesus.
#1 Create a budget: If you already have one, then re-examine your budget. A budget helps make sure our money goes to the right treasures. It helps us avoid wasteful spending, so we can spend our money on things that matter most. It helps us see what treasures on earth we’re wasting our money on, and where to cut spending so those things aren’t filling our life with hurry, worry, having to overwork to feed those things. It helps make sure our money goes to the right treasures.
#2 Retrain your mind to think WANTS vs. NEEDS: You need to retrain your mind to think wants vs. needs. This will be a game changer for us learning how to live a simple life like Jesus, because like I said before all the algorithms and advertisements are training our minds to treat our wants like they’re needs. So we need to retrain our minds by asking ourselves “Is this something I want, or is it something I really need?” Too many of us are having to overwork to feed our excessive wants, instead of being content with a simple life that meets our basic needs. Too many of us are living to work, instead of working to live. We’re living to work so we can feed our excessive wants, instead of working to live a simple life that meets our basic needs. The next time you go to a place like the Amazon temple, pause before you hit the “buy now” button, and ask yourself “Is this something I really want, or is it something I really need?” Retrain your mind...
#3 Seek the joy of the Creator, instead of the consumeristic lie: We need to reject the consumeristic lie that more wealth and possessions brings more happiness, because consumerism always costs something. It costs you money, time, and worry. But getting to enjoy the Creator and the beauty of his creative kingdom is free. You don’t have to pay to have a relationship with God, and you don’t have to pay to enjoy the creation of God. You don’t have to go in debt going on a walk, watching a nice sunset, or enjoying the beach on a sabbath day of rest. Enjoying the simple beauties of creation has a way of calming our soul in ways consumerism can’t. It has a way of settling our unsettled hearts, as we refocus our lives on the beauties of God and his creative kingdom. Like the birds and the flowers, we can enjoy the beauties of creation without swiping a credit card. These are just a few things to help you start living a simple life like Jesus, but what are some other things you can do? What are some other things you can do, to start living a simple life like Jesus? What needs to change in your life, so you can start living as free as the birds and the flowers?
The big idea is a simple life can help break the cycle, of overworking to feed our excessive desires...If you want to eliminate some of the hurry and worry in your life, then start living a simple life which can break the cycle of overworking to feed our excessive desires. Jesus didn’t live a consumeristic life, he lived a simple. He lived a simple life, and even gave up his wealth, his possessions, his very own life on the cross for us so we could enjoy an eternal relationship in heaven with him. If you believe Jesus died for your sins on the cross, if you put your faith and trust in him today, then you don’t have to worry about FOMO tomorrow. If you put your faith in Jesus today, you don’t have to worry about missing out on single eternal treasure in heaven with him.
We forget this too often as Christians, as we run on our consumeristic treadmills, living as if this world’s our home, chasing treasurers that’ll never satisfy us like Jesus can. If you don’t believe Jesus is enough to satisfy you, to live a happy and simple life, then it’s possible the consumeristic lie and advertisements have already trained your mind and rearranged your heart. Jesus says the solution is to get off that consumeristic treadmill, live a simple life like him, get back to seeking him and his kingdom again. He says if we put him and his kingdom first in our lives, then we’ll have everything we need to live a happy and simple life like him...Let’s pray...