Materialism, the opiate of the people?

You say; I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing, not realising that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. REV 3:17

We live in a society where we are bombarded every moment of the day with subtle often unnoticed inducements to buy stuff. Our every whim and desire can be purchased with a few key strokes of our computers without us even venturing from our armchairs. Our lives are spent earning enough money to buy everything we feel we need.

Our idols are our possessions and our pride in them; also, our need for endless connections on social media.

The question we must ask ourselves is where is our first love? Do we spend more time in front of a screen than we do in prayer, worship and bible study?

Recently we have been studying the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation.

Each letter highlights the good points and the often-hidden problem areas which characterises each church, I think the largely unrecognised problem in the Western church is our reliance on wealth and not on the faithfulness of God.

What we forget however is that any idol is of no use in eternity, Jeremiah wonderfully lampoons idols when he describes them as worthless as scarecrows in a cucumber field.  

Jesus underlines this problem on the sermon on the mount when he tells us that we can either serve God or money. Matthew 6 19-24

The sad reality is that we no longer just own our possessions but they actually own us. For example, two lovers sitting across a candle-lit table and staring into their mobile phones instead of each other’s eyes.

Another good example is the story of the rich young man who wants to follow Jesus, only to go away sorrowful unable to fulfil Jesus’ request to sell all that he had and give to the poor. Jesus commentary on the story is another wonderful hyperbole. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven. Luke 18:18-30

So how do we avoid the traps of materialism which are very powerful always waiting to ensnare us. For us it seems nigh impossible but as Jesus says with God everything is possible.

It can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives to help us to focus on the love of Jesus. All our desires have to be on Him, as the old hymn says,

 ” Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.”

As many of us have found a trip to a third world country helps us to realise that money does not buy the wonderful blessings of a loving community which we see and helps us to have compassion for the poor, and the evils of hoarding wealth for ourselves

 when so much could be done with our money to bring real benefits to the poor. Love of money will be replaced by compassion for the poor, as Scrooge discovered in the well-known Dickens tale.

So as Jesus says, let us store up treasures in heaven.  

Are you alive or dead?

Notes for a sermon to be preached in Rwanda.

Ephesians 2: 1-10
 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 

 Muraho great to be here again.

Are you dead or alive or just luke-warm? Perhaps once you were on fire for Christ but now you are just like the embers in a fire, barely alight.

Do you know what your spiritual destination will be? Alive with Christ in heaven or just a corpse rotting in the ground.

Looking at you all now laughing and singing with beautiful smiles on your faces you look very much alive, but what about in your spirits are you alive or dead.

I want to remind you of what happened in Eden.

Now Rwanda is a very beautiful country the land of a thousand hills; now imagine somewhere thousands of times more beautiful, where there is no illness and no death. A place where there is plenty of food for everyone and beautiful clean water to drink and the most wonderful thing of all, was that Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in the cool of the evening just as a friend talks to a friend.

However, the devil was not happy to see Adam and Eve, happy in the paradise of God. He wanted to spoil God’s lovely creation and rule over the earth and have his wicked way over Adam and Eve.

So the devil tempted Adam and Eve, and they ate from the tree that God had told them not to eat from for they would surely die.

Suddenly they were afraid of God and hid from Him knowing full well what they had done.

So Adam and Eve lost Eden, thorns and briars sprang up in the beautiful land, death came into their lives, they were separated from God, and they were spiritually dead.

So we are all descended from Adam and Eve and we are all  still Spiritually dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked, unless we know the new birth of Jesus Christ in our lives.

So down the long centuries man lived in disobedience to God. However God never stopped loving his people like a loving father, with an aching heart wanting them to return to Him.

When they were enslaved in Egypt God sent Moses to bring them back to the promised land. But they were still disobedient even when he sent prophets to give them stern warnings, they would not relent and God had to send them into exile.

However, God loved His children so much that He knew he had to do something that was truly wonderful and also truly sacrificial. Something that would see the entire universe transformed.

Something that would truly transform the hearts of sinful people, something that would totally change their lives and make them once again alive and recreated, sons and daughters of God.

You see God loved every one of His children so much that he sent His one and only son into the world, that all who believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus came into the world to defeat the power of sin and Satan. To take back the rule from Satan and establish the kingdom of God on earth as it also has been in heaven.

Jesus came into the world as a little baby just like you and me. However unlike everybody else he lived a perfect life perfectly obedient to the will of His father in heaven. He went about doing good healing the sick and raising the dead as a demonstration of what the rule of Jesus looked like a rule of perfect love. This kingdom was now breaking in to the kingdom of this world and Satan hated it, he did not want to lose his grip on the lives of men.

He tried to plan to destroy Jesus, he entered into the hearts of sinful men who plotted against Jesus, finally having Him condemned and put to death on a wooden cross.

However, the devil did not know that he was playing straight into Gods hands as Jesus was to be the perfect sacrifice which dealt with the sins of the whole world he dealt with the blackest of my sins and the blackest of your sins.   It was not the nails that held Jesus on the cross it was the love that he had you and for me.

The devil thought he had won when in fact he had been totally defeated. Jesus was gloriously raised back to life on the third day.

Jesus is alive, he is here now here in this building, with His arms outstretched in love waiting for His children to repent and come back to Him.

So if you do not know Jesus as your personal friend and saviour I invite you now to come forward.

All you have to do is ask Jesus to cleanse you from all your sins, and invite  Him into your heart as your saviour and Lord.

There is nothing else you need to do because Jesus has done it all.

Jesu is calling you even now.