My Stuff

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Mine. In this series we are exploring the implications of ownership, stewardship, and lordship in various areas of our lives. Last week Tim did a wonderful job investigating this topic in the area of relationships. Tim pointed out our relationship with Christ is to be above all other relationships; Jesus uses some extremely provocative wording about this, saying that we are to “hate” our mothers, fathers, spouses, children, and so on, in comparison to our love for Christ. We also looked at the account of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac; apart from the messianic foreshadowing of this event, it was a test of Abraham, to see if his love for and trust in God went beyond even his love of his long-awaited son. We of course are to love our families, but God wants it to be a godly love, an agape love, not a selfish love. And a godly love of others keeps God above every human relationship. 


Tim also discussed the passage from Luke 10 which we call the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus affirms in the Scriptures that the “big 2” commandments are to love God and to love “our neighbor as ourselves”; in Luke 10, Jesus tells the vivid story of the robbed and beaten Jewish person left basically to die. A priest and a Levite didn’t want to get involved but of all people, a Samaritan, someone whom the Jews hated, gave generously of his time and money to care for this person. Jesus told this story in response to the question “And who is my neighbor,” and it showed that if God is really God of our relationships, then we need to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit to respond in love to those who need help whether we are comfortable or uncomfortable, whether it is at a convenient time or an inconvenient one, whether it is easy or difficult.

Today we are going to explore the questions of ownership, stewardship, and lordship with regards to our things, our stuff. I was first going to call it our possessions, but even that is a “loaded” word; to call them possessions means that we possess them. In fact, it is really difficult to even talk about this without using loaded words; “our” things, “our” stuff, the things we “have”, etc.

The bottom line is that we humans are very possessive of our stuff, and we don’t seem to need to learn this behavior; little toddlers are some of the most possessive people I know. You have probably heard what has been called the “Toddler’s Creed”, which has comes in a lot of variations but goes something like this: “If it's mine it's mine, if it's yours it's mine, if I like it it's mine, if I can take it from you it is mine, if I am playing with something ALL of the pieces are mine, if I think it is mine it is, if I saw it first it's mine, if I had it then put it down it is still mine,

if you had it then you put it down it is now mine, if it looks like the one I have at home it is mine,

if it is broken it is yours.” In the same vein I also think of an old Veggietales video in which Bob the Tomato asks Larry the Cucumber how much stuff he needs, and Larry replies, “I don’t know, how much stuff is there?” And one more, this from the Pixar movie Finding Nemo, in which there are some seagulls saying “Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine” in the sound just like what a seagull makes.

Now, I have only two main points to make today, and they are really simple to make but hard to really believe, that is, it is hard to believe them so much that you actually live like they are true and not as though they are false.

Here’s the first point: Your stuff is worthless.

Turning back to toddlers for a moment, they will wail and cry just as loudly if you take a diamond ring away from them as they will if you take away an old scrap of food. My son Isaac when he was a toddler once wailed because I took away half a cockroach. I’m not going to tell you where it was on his possession when I took it away, nor will I tell you what happened to the other half. But we can laugh (or grimace) at toddlers because they have absolutely no discernment; well, neither do we.

I am reminded of a passage from Revelations 1. This is where, in an astounding vision, John sees someone:

“like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” John fell at this person’s feet, and he told John, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”  --Revelation 1:13b-18

And so, from this description, we know with certainty this is Jesus Christ, Himself. He told John to write what he had and would see down and distribute it to the “seven churches.” Jesus then went on to give special introductions to each church. I want to focus in on something He said to the church in Laodicea.

Before I do, let me tell you a little bit about Laodicea, a then-prosperous city in Turkey which was about 10 miles from Colossae and about 100 miles from Ephesus. I love it when little details in the Bible point, confirm, and agree with things we learn from archaeology and non-Christian documents, so let me just point out that, in Colossians 4:16, Paul writes, ^“After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.” As they were only a day’s journey apart, this makes complete sense. We don’t have Paul’s letter to the Laodiceans, although some ancient sources such as Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 AD) say that it was simply a “recycling” of one of Paul’s other letters, and a number of scholars think it most likely was Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. If you have been a part of this church for a while, you know that I love to explore these kinds of things – if there is such a thing as a Bible confirmation nerd, I am it.

Anyway, I am going to quote from the Wikipedia page on Laodicea; although you can’t believe everything you read there, I have checked out most of the details here and seen them in other sources.

”At first Laodicea was not a place of much importance, but it soon acquired a high degree of prosperity. In 220 BC, Achaeus was its king. In 188 BC, the city had passed to the Kingdom of Pergamon, and after 133 BC fell under Roman control. It suffered greatly during the Mithridatic Wars, but quickly recovered under the dominion of Rome; and towards the end of the Roman Republic and under the first emperors, Laodicea, benefiting from its advantageous position on a trade route, became one of the most important and flourishing commercial cities of Asia Minor, in which large money transactions and an extensive trade in black wool were carried on.”

So Laodicea was a rich city, full of rich inhabitants. Let me quote a little more from the Wikipedia page:

“The place often suffered from earthquakes, especially from the great shock in the reign of Nero (60 AD), in which it was completely destroyed. But the inhabitants declined imperial assistance to rebuild the city and restored it from their own means.”

The details here are, I think especially important, because pretty much all scholars agree that Revelations was written sometime after 60 AD. One common theory is that it was written around 68 or 69 AD, shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Some scholars think it was written a little later. In any case, it would have been not long ago that Laodicea had suffered the terrible earthquake and been newly rebuilt. And so not only was this a rich city, it was also a proud city, because it had refused the funds of Rome.

And one more thing: according to ancient sources such as Strabo, there was a well-known medical school in the city, and in particular, there was a famous ophthalmologist there. He appears to have been known for a special salve or eye-powder called the “Phrygian powder” whose origins probably came from ancient Phrygia.

So you have this city, known to have pride in their independence – they spurned the rebuilding funds of Rome – known for their wealth, known for wool cloth, and known for eye medicine. With this in mind, hear part of what Jesus told John to write “to the angel of the church in Laodicea” in this vision:

“These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. – Rev. 3:14-18

I wonder how the Laodicians took this. Probably not very well. It’s kind of like a kick in the stomach as the very things they took the most pride in are shown to be worthless. Well, how does this relate to us? I think America is a lot like Laodicea; we see ourselves as rich, but not only rich, but self-sufficient. We still look up to the “self-made man”; we still, to an extent, see America as a land of opportunity where people can, with a good idea and a lot of hard work, make a real fortune for themselves. “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But the church of Laodicea was horribly wrong; their wealth was an illusion. It was only the stuff of this world; and it was destined to perish, as you can see in the pictures of Laodicea today. Their “stuff” was, in reality, worthless.

And the same is true for us. We have technological marvels that the ancient world would think were magic and they would probably bow down to us and say we were gods, but none of it matters. It’s all worthless. You can’t take any of it with you. And to the degree it distracts us from really seeking God, to the degree it keeps us from seeking to live as a holy people, to the degree it keeps us from loving one another with the love of Christ, to the degree it keeps us from sharing the gospel with a lost and hurting world, it is actually worse than worthless. I am not a Luddite; I don’t think, like the Amish, that we need to reject modern technology, but we need to be aware that it can really hurt us, keep us from why we are still here on Earth. It can also be used as a powerful tool for advancing God’s Kingdom and sharing the gospel, but we have to work to make it do these things for us. It’s a lot easier to “veg” out and watch TV, play computer games, or mindlessly surf the Internet than it is to use these tools for Kingdom work.

There are other verses that speak to this. For example:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. – I Tim. 6:17-19

It’s not only the rich who can be arrogant, but there is a universal tendency across cultures for the rich to view themselves as an “upper caste,” above others who have less. In America today, I believe the cultural divides over wealth are far more pronounced than those over race or any other criterion. As believers, we are all one in Christ, rich and poor, and God does not see any one person as more valuable than another.

One of the dangers of wealth, as this verse says, is that we put our hope (our trust) in it. It is a supreme irony that our money says “In God we trust.” No we don’t. We all trust in money to some degree, some of the time. But this is foolish! God is certain; He is a rock; He is a strong tower. If we have believed in Him and turned our lives over to Him, then in Him we have the certainty of an eternal glorious unimaginable future with Him. Compare that with our dollar, whose value is based on, well, hope in the future, hope in hope. It is absolutely insane to trust in money or stuff more than God.

Stuff is worthless. And stuff breaks. We watched both our cars develop problems in one weekend, and one we decided wasn’t worth it to repair it. And so, for the first time in 13 years, we bought a car. Yes, it’s a new car. It is not lost on me that I am preaching to myself as much as to anyone this week. My clothes probably smell of that new car smell. I like my car, but it is worthless. You hear that, self? I hope you are paying attention! Wealth, of any amount, is so uncertain, but in God alone is security, peace, eternity.

We went to a doctor for a second opinion for my wife’s glaucoma in Atlanta this week, and we took the new car. When we finished, we went back to this large multilevel parking garage – and couldn’t find the car. I started thinking that maybe it was stolen, the brand new car without even tags yet. While praying we would find our car, I actually thought of Proverbs 23:5:

Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. – Prov. 23:5

We eventually found our car. It was up perched on the roof. No, I’m kidding; it was just where we left it. But this is what stuff does. It takes up your energy. It takes up your time. It makes you worry, if you let it. I am reminded of the circus plate spinners who spin more and more plates on poles, running from pole to pole to keep them all spinning. The more stuff you have, the more plates you need to keep spinning.

Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them.

And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them? – Eccl. 5:10-11

If your ego is stoked by your stuff, you become tempted to have more and more stuff. Like the conversation between Bob and Larry, “How much stuff do you need?” “I don’t know; how much stuff is there?” And what is the point of having something just so you can look at it? Now, I’m not saying you need to live in a cave; but check your heart. A test of your heart is whether you are satisfied, as this verse says. Are you constantly wanting more stuff? Are you constantly wishing you made more money? These are bad signs. 

So your stuff is worthless. Are you ready for point number two? It’s equally simple: It’s not your stuff.

It’s really not your stuff. You aren’t an owner. You are a steward.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. – Psalm 24:1-2

Why is this important? It is important because, at the end of the day, or week, or month, or year, or lifetime, a steward is held accountable for what they have done with the owner’s possessions. Being an owner is entirely different from being a steward. If you buy a new car and actually own it, then if you want to remove the tires, cut off the roof, throw a bunch of dirt in the back seat, add a bunch of worms, and plant some flowers, basically turning the car into a large (and rather ugly) planter, that is your business. But if you do that to someone else’s car, you better watch out! I can pretty much guarantee it’s not going to go well when they see what you have done.

You see the principles of this even in how God set up the use of land when the Israelites came into the Promised Land.

The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you reside in My land as foreigners and strangers. – Lev. 25:23

I like how this is worded in the New Living translation:

The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to Me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for Me. – Lev. 25:23 (NLT)

One of the dangers of believing you own your stuff is that you become overly protective of it. You don’t want to share. Again, I’m preaching to myself this week. We have our brand new car, and Isaac wants to drive it. Now. Can’t he wait just a little? Just a few months, or maybe a year? At least until the new car smell is gone? Maybe it’s not my car, but it’s not his car either!

Seriously, a hallmark of a genuine Christian is generosity. I think of the early believers in Acts 4:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. – Acts 4:32-35

Sometimes people misuse this passage a bit to imply that we should all live on communes together; I don’t think that is appropriate, nor does it really describe what was going on here. What was going on was that people were paying attention to genuine needs and giving generously, voluntarily, joyfully, filled with the joy and grace of the Holy Spirit. I think these people understood that it wasn’t ultimately their stuff. They owed their lives to God; they had been bought at a terrible price, the crucifixion of Christ. How could they not be generous in return?

Now obviously, generosity is not about buying a new car and letting your son sometimes drive it, although that is a start. Generosity is also not just about giving to your local church, although that is a part of it. It is about investing your time and your energy into how you can be generous and really meet needs. It isn’t always easy to find the right way to be generous. You need to pray, asking God to show you how you can be a “tenant farmer working for Him.”

And so, from an eternal perspective, our stuff (meaning the things we buy for ourselves) is worthless, and it’s not our stuff (meaning our money and what we can potentially do with it). 

I want to read to you a rather long passage from a book called Lord Foulgrin’s Letters by Randy Alcorn. This book is completely based on the C.S. Lewis book, The Screwtape Letters; Alcorn is quick to acknowledge this, equally quick to say that there is and always will be only one C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis invented a whole new genre with Screwtape, a method of telling a story about a person’s journey of faith from the point of view of a fictional demon who has the assigned task of trying, at first, to keep the person from becoming a Christian believer, and later, to keep him distracted and off task so that he does not become an effective “tenant farmer” for Christ. Screwtape is written solely as a series of letters from an elder demon to the one who is assigned to this particular person; Foulgrin is written in the same basic method, although it also includes short passages showing what is going on from the person’s point of view, in this case a man named Fletcher. Anyway, in this passage, the elder demon is writing to the younger one about money and possessions. Keep in mind that this is from a demon’s point of view, so when he says “Enemy” he means God, and when he says “vermin” he means Fletcher. Here is what he writes:

“One of your greatest opportunities to keep Fletcher from becoming a radical Christian is in the area of money and possessions. The Carpenter claimed, ‘A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ Hold a mirror to these words and you have our perfect strategy […]. Let Fletcher spend his brief insect-life scurrying around accumulating things as if there were no eternal tomorrow. The vermin acclimate to their materialism, becoming desensitized. If they were able to look with sudden clarity at how they go through life hoarding things, they would have the same feelings of horror and pity a sane man has when he views people in a mental asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall. Just keep him from such moments of clarity!”

“It’s reassuring to hear Fletcher’s still fretting about the shutters on his vacation house. My desire isn’t that Fletcher fails to see materialism is wrong, as much as that he fails to see it is stupid.”

“Like drug addicts, these thing-addicts miserably wander through life from one accumulation to the next, thinking their only hope is getting more and more of what’s left them miserable. Let them worship at the altar of Mammon; […] let them never see the toll Mammon demands from his servants. […]”

“The more they have, the more they have to worry about. Urge Fletcher to fret about his vacation house, wondering whether it’s being vandalized or having storm damage. When he goes to his parked car, let him study it to see if there’s any scratch or dent. If there is, make him mad at the world. […]”

“Major purchases mean major distractions. The more he has to occupy his time, the more he has to worry and agitate over, the less he’ll be available to the Enemy. Pay close attention to the Enemy’s words: ‘People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.’ Temptation, trap, foolish, harmful, ruin, destruction, evil, wandering, pierced, griefs – that’s our kind of language! Cultivating and maintaining Fletcher’s love for money is your greatest opportunity. […]”

“Keep Fletcher in debt, for debt is servitude. ‘Want me? Buy me.’ They end up not owning their possessions, but being owned by them. The debts of Christians are immensely useful to us. Why trust the Enemy to provide when they can just go get a loan? It’s a way of short-circuiting His intended means of acquisition – work, saving, planning, self-discipline, patience, and waiting for His provision. By incurring debt – or buying lottery tickets – they refuse to live on what He’s provided and insist on going beyond it. Regardless of their doctrinal statement, this clearly demonstrates they don’t believe in His sovereignty and goodness. Think of what we accomplish through debt – worry, sleeplessness, loss of opportunity, conflict, destruction to marriages and families.”

“Don’t let Fletcher ask what effect his choice to go into debt today may have on his ability or willingness to give to the Enemy tomorrow. Don’t let him ask what effect today’s choices will have on tomorrow’s freedom to follow the Enemy wherever He wants him to go. […]”

“Aside from abject poverty, I can think of no better way to curse a man than to heap wealth on him when he’s unprepared to handle it. And, of course, nearly all of them are.”

“The best thing about his material possessions is how they encumber him in the battle. How can a soldier fight skillfully with all those things hanging around his neck? If he grasps them, gravity alone will bring him down, with little more than a push from you.”

“You must be sure he keeps his vested interests on earth and doesn’t transfer them to heaven. He must store up his treasures where they’ll perish, not where they’ll last. Remember, the Carpenter said where they put their treasures, their hearts will be. That’s why it’s essential you don’t let Fletcher get a taste of giving generously to the Enemy’s kingdom. Once he starts moving his treasure there, you’ll have no power to restrain his heart from following. Once he begins buying up shares in the Enemy’s kingdom, his shifted vested interests will compel him to follow that kingdom’s progress.”

“One day Fletcher will stand before the Enemy, stripped of his tailored suits, credit cards, checkbooks, laptop computer, cell phone, dinner reservations, and stock holdings. He will have nothing in his hands – the Enemy will look only at what is in his heart, and what he has done in service to Him. Your job is to make sure when the day comes, his heart is empty and his works consumed in the fire. […] Win the battle for Fletcher’s money, and you’ll win the battle for his heart.”

I want to close with a short poem:

Eyes blinded by the fog of things

cannot see truth.

Ears deafened by the din of things

cannot hear truth.

Brains bewildered by the whirl of things

cannot think truth.

Hearts deadened by the weight of things

cannot feel truth.

Throats choked by the dust of things

cannot speak truth.

                                    - Harold Bell Wright

I beg you, don’t let things get in the way of serving and loving Christ.