Dear Friends,
Maybe you’ve seen the bumper sticker that says “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
Somebody decided to have some fun with that idea and came up with the way different people might approach that idea:
* Judaism - He who buys toys at the lowest price, wins.
* Catholicism - He who denies himself the most toys, wins.
* Anglican - They were our toys first.
* Greek Orthodox - No, they were OURS first.
* Atheism - There is no toy maker.
* Polytheism - There are many toy makers.
* Evolutionism - The toys made themselves.
* Communism - Everyone gets the same number of toys, and you go straight to the opposite of heaven if we catch you selling yours.
* Baha'i - All toys are just fine with us.
* Amish - Toys with batteries are surely a sin.
* Taoism - The doll is as important as the dump truck.
* Voodoo - Let me borrow that doll for a second...
* 7th Day Adventist - He who plays with his toys on Saturday, loses.
* Church of Christ - He whose toys make music, loses.
* Baptist - Once played always played.
* Jehovah's Witnesses - He who "places" the most toys door-to-door, wins.
* Pentecostalism - He whose toys can talk, wins.
* Existentialism - Toys are a figment of your imagination.
* Confucianism - Once a toy is dipped in water, it is no longer dry.
Of course the original premise, that those who die with the most toys win something is a faulty premise. When I see the bumper sticker, I always think of Malcom Forbes. You may not know his name, but you probably know the magazine that bears his names, Forbes Magazine. Malcom, who died in 1990, was well known as an extremely wealthy collector of all kinds of things.
His net worth was estimated at somewhere between $400 million and $1 billion.
Back the in the 80’s, that was a lot of money! People talked about Forbes then the way we talk about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates today.
His biography, written the year he died, is called The Man Who Had Everything. And a book he wrote, More Than I Dreamed: A Lifetime of Collecting tells how he acquired everything from fine art to furniture to Fabergé eggs to toys.
Toys. Lots of toys. Toy boats. Toy soldiers (he reportedly had 110,00 of them). After he died, when his toy collection was auctioned off, it brought in $2.4M.
That’s a lot of toys.
Malcom Forbes may be one of the great collectors of all time, but he’s certainly not alone. In fact, there’s a sense in which all of us have become collectors of sorts.
Back in 1950, the average new home in the US was 983 square feet. In 1970, the average home had grown to 1500 square feet. By 2016, the average was 2675 square feet.
While our houses have gotten bigger over time, our families have gotten smaller. The average size of a family in 1960 was 3.67. Today, it’s 3.1. Bigger houses with fewer people living in them.
Meanwhile, 38% of the US population has a self-storage unit to store the stuff we have that doesn’t fit in our homes. There are 47,863 storage facilities in the US. Not 47,000 individual storage units. 47,000 properties that rent individual units.
So Malcom Forbes may have collected more than all of us combined, he may have been an outlier, but we are a nation of acquirers. We love our stuff.
You don’t have to work too hard to draw a line between acquiring a lot of things and the sin of covetousness. We buy things because we think they will bring us what only God can give us. Peace. Joy. Contentedness. Status.
Covetousness is a sin of the heart, not of the bank account. You can have little, and be covetous; or you can be rich, and yet free from covetousness.
How can you tell if covetousness is an issue for you? Here are a few questions to reflect on that you might find helpful.
- Do you ever sin against God or others to acquire money or possessions, like Ahab who killed Naboth to get his vineyard in 1 Kings 21?
- Do you ever sacrifice your health or your family or your other relationships for money or stuff?
- Do you care more for our money and stuff than for your spiritual condition, like the people who were invited to the King’s banquet and said “I can’t come because I just bought some land or some oxen.” Or like the Gadarenes who asked Jesus to leave them when he cast the demon spirits into their pigs and messed with their livestock.?
- Do you hoard stuff like the man who built the bigger barns? Do you lay not up treasures on earth, where month and rust destroy?
- Do you hope in your bank accounts and our IRAs or our 401Ks and no longer have to depend on God as your provider and our source? Some people wonder “why should we pray ‘give us this day our daily bread?’ We have that covered…”
- Do you show care or concern for the poor or the needy around you?
- Is your desire for something (or is your enjoyment of the thing) disproportionate to the worth of the thing you desire? John Piper calls it having a great desire for non-great things.
- When you do enjoy things, is your enjoyment saturated with gratitude to God?
- Do you find yourself thinking “I deserve this” or “I’ve earned this,” instead of seeing good things you have as a blessing from God? In other words, does what should be a delight ever become a demand?
- And when you don’t get what you want or think you deserve, do you lose our joy and contentment?
- Have you found yourself loving the gift more than the Giver, the creation more than the Creator, the stuff more than the Savior?
We live in a world that bombards us with the message that money and stuff will satisfy our deepest longings. We have to fight against that perspective. It’s easy for it to worm its way into our hearts.
A 17th century pastor named William Gouch defined covetousness as “an immoderate desire for riches.” He said our desire for riches becomes immoderate when we are not content with the portion which God by His providence and through lawful means has allowed.
“It is the blindness of a man's mind that makes him place a kind of happiness in the things of this world.” We need to be rightly instructed, he said:
- that real happiness is not something this world can offer
- that the things of this world cannot provide solid comfort, especially in times of spiritual distress
- that the riches of this world are uncertain and can be suddenly taken away.
If we were so instructed, he says, then surely our immoderate desire of riches would subside.
I remember seeing a bumper sticker once that had the famous quote “He who dies with the most toys wins,” with this line added: “But he still dies.”
Jesus warns us when He says “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).
That’s a good word. Be on guard. Keep your heart far from the idol of abundance that can fuel covetousness.
Last call for breakfast! Men, if you’re planning to join us Saturday, now’s the time to click here (https://redeemerlr.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2277993) to let us know you’re planning to attend.
And while we’re at it, guys, make sure you mark your calendars now for our final First Tuesday Men’s Meeting of the year, coming up soon.
On Wednesday June 5, it’s our annual Backyard Burger Bash (formerly the Parking Lot Picnic). Yes, I will be grilling my now famous Pastor Bob’s Burgers™. We’ll have inflatables for the kids. Competition (Cornhole?) for everyone. And lots of food, fun and fellowship. Put it on the calendar and plan to join us out back!
Our students have big plans for this summer. Take a look at this!
And please continue to pray for those students and parents who will be heading to Memphis in June for a week of outreach and ministry.
If you have a student who is planning to be part of Street Reach this summer, and if you haven’t filled out the registration form yet, you can click here (https://redeemerlr.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2257562) and make it happen.
Backyard Bible Club registrations are looking good! Our younger kids will be learning about the Fruit of the Spirit next month. If your kids aren’t yet signed up, here’s a link (https://redeemerlr.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2268897) so you can take care of that right now!
Raise your hand if you’re looking for a way you can serve at church once a month or so and you know your way around a computer or a video camera.
I see that hand!
We are looking for a couple of people, high school age and up, to serve on the Sunday morning tech team. Don’t worry, we’ll train you. And after training, you’ll serve maybe once a month or so, back in the video booth, running either our livestream video or advancing the slides. Contact Kevin Wang or Jeff Fehlberg, or just pop by the booth after the service on Sunday and speak with any of the tech team members for all the details.
This Sunday, we’ll be honoring our graduating High School students along with those younger kids who are moving from the Gospel Zone into the Roots Student Ministry. We’ll hear from Cate and Chad Donley about their time in the Downline program this past school year. And we’ll see what happens in Revelation 6 when the Lamb opens the fifth and sixth seals on the scroll.
See you in church.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Bob
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