#struggles #contentment *

#struggles #contentment*
Sycamore Creek Church
February 1/2, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace, friends!

That’s a funny thing to say to open up this message today.  We’re in week two of a five week series looking at five struggles we have because of social media that interfere with Biblical values.  Last week we began with #relationships.  Next week we’ll look at #authenticity, followed by #compassion the next week, and #rest the last week.  But today we look at #contentment.  So let me say it again:

Peace, friends!

Social media has a lot of benefits.  It makes a big world smaller.  I have been able to keep up with friends spread all around the world.  We’re able to promote important things and causes and keep attention focused on them.  But there are some unintended negative consequences too.  Today I want to wrestle with this problem:

Comparison kills contentment.  Social media spawns comparisons.

When we compare, we become dissatisfied with our own lives.  Discontentment has never been a bigger problem than today.  Never before have so many people had so much and yet want so much more.  Social media is a leading driver of discontentment.  As one friend of mine on Facebook said, Facebook is “the constant comparison of my life to the ‘highlight reels’ of every one else.”  We see the best of their best, and we know the worst of our worst.

The working mom sees the stay at home mom post on Facebook and says to herself, “I hate you because you’re this perfect stay at home mom doing crafts from Pinterest and cooking all your meals from scratch.”  Meanwhile the stay at home mom sees the working mom post on Facebook and says to herself, “I hate you because you’re always getting out and about and dressing up, and I’m wearing a pigtail for the last week and yoga pants and haven’t seen an adult in three days.”

Or you are sitting at home and over dinner checking out what your friends are doing.  One of your friends is in Maine eating fresh lobster caught from the Atlantic sixty minutes ago while you’re eating Lean Cuisine from the freezer.  Or later that night you check Facebook again and your friend is at the gym building his guns and buns while you’re sitting on your couch in the dark single handedly keeping Hostess in business.

Never before have we been able to so clearly measure popularity.  When I was growing up we had to guess popularity.  But now we can measure it.  We know exactly how many followers and likes we’ve got.  Do you know who the most popular person is on Facebook?  Shakira.  Over 100,000,000 likes!  Or as one Tweet said:

I guess if you don’t get three digit likes, you’re just a loser in today’s connected world.  And you’re certainly not content if you don’t get three digit likes.  There are, I think, three categories of discontentment: Material, Relational, Circumstantial.  Let’s talk about each.

Surfing through my timeline I see that I’ve got these neighbors who seem to always be going on vacation to exotic places in warm locales:

 

I’m sitting in cold Michigan while they’re basking in the sun at Disney.  I don’t have the money to take my family to Disney.  Then there’s Rob and Marea taking a vacation in the Virgin Isles:

 

 

Thanks Rob and Marea for making my vacation not seem so stellar.  I don’t have the money to go there.  Then there’s university envy:

 

Oh wait, that is my alma mater.  Sorry about that.  I hope that didn’t make you discontent with your unranked team.  Maybe you suffer from material discontent.

Or maybe you suffer from relational discontent.  Stalking…I mean surfing Facebook I see Rob and Marea again having a great time on New Years Eve with lots of fun looking friends:

 

I wasn’t invited to this New Year party.  In fact, on New Years Eve I was sitting in my in-laws basement working on sermons for 2015.  What a way to bring in the year, right?

Or maybe you’re not married and everyone you know on Facebook is getting engaged or showing off how great their marriage is.  Or you see people posting pictures of time with their kids and you’re working two full time jobs just to pay the bills.  You see relational intimacy all over your news feed, and you don’t have it in your own life.  Maybe you suffer from relational discontent.

Or perhaps you suffer from circumstantial discontent.  Back to my newsfeed.  Noelle cooked up a great looking dinner for her family:

 

I’m cooking my family hotdogs tonight.  Thanks Noelle for cutting through the lie I was telling myself that hotdogs were good for my family tonight.  Or maybe you’ve been trying to get pregnant, and it’s not happening, and you’re sick of seeing the fourteenth reveal party event posted on Facebook this month.  Or you wish your life and job had more significance.  Personally, I work a lot all weekend long and I see y’all posting all the fun you’re having on weekends, and I’m working on another sermon.  Sure, you go have your fun while I’m busy saving the world for Jesus.  Life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how we respond, but most of us live as though it is 90% of what happens to us.  Paul, the first missionary of the church, was the master of responding.  He’s writing to the church at Philllipi while he’s in prison chained 24/7 and he says this:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Christ who gives me strength.”
~Paul (Philippians 4:12-13 NLT)

The secret of contentment is not found in what I have or don’t have but in Christ alone.  The power of contentment comes when we let everything be stripped away and cling to Christ alone.  Until you experience the goodness of Christ, you will always be dissatisfied, always discontent.  There is a God-shaped hole in your heart, and it can’t be filled with a trip to the Virgin Islands.  It can’t be filled with an awesome home cooked dinner.  It can’t be filled with a fabulous New Years Eve party.  It can only be filled with Jesus.  So I want to talk about two Christ #contentment hashtags we all need.

1.     #killcomparisons
There are ten commandments.  As a speaker I’m always aware that you will remember most fully the first thing I say and the last thing I say.  So given that philosophy, the tenth commandment is pretty important.  It says:

You must not covet your neighbor’s trophy wife or buns and guns husband, or kitchen aid, cuisine art, Cutco knives and Kirby vacuum, drawer washing machine (you know who you are), man cave with 70” 4K Ultra HD flat-screen TV, swagger wagon with automatic opening doors and built-in entertainment system and rearview camera to spy on your neighbors, perfect dandelion-free lush no-bare-spot yard, 4-foot-wide one-pass snowblower (while you’re using your little hand-trowel snow shovel), or anything else that belongs to your neighbor
Exodus 20:17 MSV (Modern Suburban Version)

Ok, that’s not really what it says, but it might as well.  Here’s what it really says:

You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
~Exodus 20:17 NLT

When I was in high school I coveted my friend, David’s 69 Camaro.  It was black, jacked up in the back, big racing tires, two white pin stripes down the hood, and a Pioneer CD player inside.  He picked me up every day for school.  It was his first car.  Then I got my first car: a two-tone 79 Plymouth Horizon that idled so low that I had to keep one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake when I was sitting at a stop sign.  I coveted that car.  In fact, I still covet it.  I always wanted to be like John Cusack in Better Off Dead.  He had the great car, the cute French girlfriend, and he played sax.  Well, I learned to play sax in eighth and ninth grade band, and I got the cute girl.  But I still don’t have the Camaro.

James, Jesus’ brother says:

But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom.  Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
~James 3:14-16 NLT

Demonic?  Wow!  Kill comparisons because they’re demonic.  There are two ways to kill comparisons.  First, just go for it.  You want more?  Get all you can.  Try it.  You’ll find that there are not enough things on this earth to fill your heart.  That’s because your heart can only be filled with God.

The second way to kill comparisons is to remove the bait.  Take a break from social media.  Maybe you need to unfollow or hide a feed.  Or maybe you need to cancel subscriptions to catalogues.  Or get rid of some shopping apps on your phone.  Or quit watching kitchen TV.  Or don’t go to the boat show and car show.  Then ask Christ to give you the strength to #killcomparisons.

2.     #cultivategratitude
So you’ve killed comparisons, but you still need to replace it with something positive.  Fill the gap of comparisons with the balm of gratitude.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
~Psalm 118:24 NRSV

God made the day you’re living in.  So be grateful for it.  Craig Groeschel says that “envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people’s lives, and ignoring God’s goodness in your own life.”  Maybe you need to celebrate the successes of others.  Thank God for those successes.  Someone gets the job you wanted…thank God.  Someone gets the thing you’ve had your eye on but can’t afford…thank God.  A friend is going on your dream vacation or maybe you just want any vacation…thank God that your friend gets what you want.

I struggle a bit as a pastor mixing this whole comparison thing with the gratitude thing.  The first three years I was at SCC were not particularly fun years.  In fact, it’s pretty hard to be a second pastor who follows the founding pastor.  Things didn’t go horribly my first three years, but they also didn’t go like I wanted.  In the mean time, my friends at Cornerstone Church in Grand Rapids are building a brand new huge facility.  I also went to several conferences at big thriving and successful churches.  These kinds of conferences are kind of like pastor porn.  Meanwhile, we’re shrinking.  I’m looking with envy upon these churches, and becoming very discontent with my own.  Meanwhile I’m neglecting to thank God that these churches are reaching new people for Jesus.  My lack of gratitude is making it all about me.

We need to learn how to celebrate life:

For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.
~Proverbs 15:15 NLT

If you think it’s going to be a horrible day, it will be.  If you think the weather will be horrible, it will.  If you hate your job, it will be a bad job.  If you think your kids are going to drive you crazy, they will.  If you think school is horrible, it will be horrible.  If you want to look for bad in the world, you’ll find it.  If you want to look for the good in the world, you’ll find it.  It’s all about perspective:

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless—like chasing the wind.
~Ecclesiastes 6:9 NLT

Instead of saying, “I hate my car,” say, “Thank God I have a car.”  Instead of saying, “I wish I had a better house,” say, “Thank God for a roof and indoor plumbing.”  Instead of saying, “I’m so busy. Life is so crazy,” say, “I’m so thankful I’ve got a family and kids involved in my community doing significant things.”  Instead of complaining about what your church is or is not, say, “Thank you God for my church.”

And if you can’t #killcomparisons and #cultivategratitude on your own, then begin by asking Christ for help:

Dear Jesus, I confess that I compare myself too often to those around me.  I especially do it on social media.  Help me cultivate gratitude in my life for what I have.  Help me to approach every day as if it is a day worth rejoicing about.  And when I don’t have the strength within me, may your Spirit give me strength.  Amen.

 

* This sermon was adapted from a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel