Advent Conspiracy II – Spend Less, Give More
Matthew 2:1-12
December 13, 2009
How we spend our money says more about us than most anything else. It signals what our priorities really are in a way few things do. The Bible says a whole lot about money—several examples:
• Man’s life does not consist of the abundance of the things that he possesses.
• You can’t serve both God and money; you will love the one and hate the other.
• Moth and rust and thieves (and fashion’s changing whims and the stock market’s changing values) are real threats to earthly treasure; nothing threatens heavenly.
• Don’t be anxious about the basic needs of life—you have a Father in Heaven Who values you much more than little birds—and He will meet all your true needs.
• The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
• Those who chase riches are constantly falling into temptations and snares. They are regularly caught by their stupid and harmful desires, dragged down and pulled under into ruin and destruction.
We could find many more without too much trouble. As we today consider how we might spend less, and yet give more, I want to look at
What the Magi teach us:
They are called “wise men”; in the Greek, the word is “magi”; add a letter to it, and you get the word “magic”, which gives us a hint as to who these men were: they were considered to be able to read the skies and make predictions based upon their readings, a form of “magic” in antiquity. Additionally, they were men learned in many fields, greatly respected in their communities as leaders of thought and of superstitious religious observance.
Interesting, isn’t it, Whom it is God chooses to reveal Himself to? It’s not the people we’d pick, and certainly not the people a Madison Avenue ad agency would choose for the task. A teenage girl; a band of ragtag shepherds; an old man and an old woman in the temple, and a group of foreign magicians. It’s not only unlikely people, it’s un-looking people in some instances. But God doesn’t reward people for their goodness or their good sense to seek Him; He chooses and saves Whom He will. Salvation in Christ isn’t a reward for good behavior; it’s all of His grace. You and I were neither smart enough nor good enough to merit God’s favor; there are better people than us and smarter people than us who aren’t followers of Jesus—because it’s all of His grace. And in His grace He chose these wise men, these magi, to leave their homes and make a 1000-mile trek across the desert. Note first:
I. They Gave Costly Gifts.
Gold’s never been cheap! Frankincense was used in worship at the temple, and it represents to us Christ’s deity. Myrrh was costly as well; it was a kind of perfume and used in beauty treatments; further, it was used to anoint a body after death, to prepare it for burial. This gift pictures Christ’s suffering and death. Gold represented Christ’s kingship, then, frankincense, His deity, and myrrh, His humanity. Though the magi probably didn’t understand the significance of these gifts, God sovereignly arranged even the gifts such that they would teach us about Christ. And these gifts weren’t second-rate!
II. Their Gifts Flowed from their Worship.
The Scripture is clear: the Magi came with the purpose of worshipping the Baby King. Interesting: before they found the Christ-child, they had an encounter with a king, King Herod—but nothing prompted them to worship him! What Herod craved, the worship and adulation of people, they gave not to this man, but to the Baby Jesus. It was as an act of worship that they then presented their gifts to Him—but the motive was worship. Stop there: if the motive of the precedent-setting Christmas gift giving was worship—and if our lives as Christians ought to be about worship—then why should anything be different today from the experience of the Magi? The question then becomes, can I say that I am worshipping God when I give Christmas gifts? And how might that one perspective change my gift-purchasing habits?
They gave costly gifts that represented worship. Third,
III. They were Sensitive to God.
This is seen several ways:
• The leading of the Star
Scholars today find the star of Bethlehem intriguing; what was it that the wise men were referring to? Was it, as some suggest, an alignment of stars and planets? Another scholar wonders if this were simply one star, one that can still be seen by telescope today, but which was a bright nova in the time of Christ. Astronomical calculations provide support for the first theory; the testimony of ancient Chinese astronomers for the second, that there was an unusually bright star at the time of His birth. Regardless, these men were led by God to follow—and follow, they did.
• Their Knowledge of the Scripture
They quoted to an oblivious King Herod the prophecy that six-year-old children in Jerusalem would have known—but the king did not. Though they may have been pagan astrologers, something had directed them to the Hebrew Scriptures, and they had studied and internalized the message of the coming Messiah to be born in Bethlehem.
• Their willingness to Obey God’s leading
And when they were warned by God in a dream that Herod’s intentions were not to worship the Christ-child, but to do Him harm, they went home by a different route.
These were men who were sensitive to God, even as neophytes in the way of worship, men whose determination to worship and give inspires us even to this day. Now let’s answer one key question:
Practically, how might we spend less but give more?
1. Acknowledge any idols in your heart, and root them out.
Scriptural terminology for those things that become substitutes for God is very fitting, but it’s not a word that we often use today. That word is “idolatry”. An idol is anything that substitutes for God in my life. An idol is anything that goes in the place that God alone deserves. May I suggest several that rear their ugly heads in our lives, perhaps more prominently at Christmas?
a. The Idol of Wrong Motives
Why do I do what I do at Christmas?
“…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31). The root motive of my life needs to be God’s glory. The impetus for the Christian to live life must be to bring honor to Christ. Everything I do in life ought to pass through this filter: do my words/thoughts/actions/ attitudes bring glory to God, or not? Fast-forward to Christmas: why do you make the choices you make when celebrating Christmas?
b. The Idol of Approval
Whose approval am I seeking—God’s first?
Related to the above is the idol of seeking the approval of man more than the approval of God. Question: whose approval matters most at Christmas: our kids’, our friends’, our families’—or God’s? If it comes down to it, would I rather my child be disappointed on Christmas morning, or for God to be disappointed?
c. The Idol of Unconcern
Do you care at Christmas—and at other times—about the needs of the people of this world? These are just three, but I’m wondering, what other idols might be inhabiting your heart this Christmas? Second,
2. Develop Contentment as a Biblical Discipline, and Spread it to Others.
Paul wrote in Philippians 4, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 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.” Paul had learned this…it didn’t come naturally to him, he says—and that’s a good thing, because contentment doesn’t come naturally to us, either. Brian Bill wrote, “Work at wanting what you have even if you don’t have everything you want…the key to contentment is not having everything you want but wanting everything you already have.”
Here’s the truth: as followers of Jesus, we have everything we need to be content. Everything. Period. If I am not content right now, it’s because I’m not living by faith, trusting God with all I have, obeying God with all I am, loving Christ will all my being. But isn’t this contentment the cure to the pagan religion of consumerism that drives us to buy and acquire more and more? It is. Third,
3. Gain a Biblical Grasp on real Value.
a. Eternal v. Temporary
We must live—and make our Christmas choices—in light of eternity.
b. People v. Things
We do need each other; relationships are the stuff of which meaningful life is made, beginning with our relationship with God in Christ, to be sure, but relationships with those made in God’s image comes next, so closely aligned the two that Jesus tied loving others as ourselves with loving God supremely as forming the greatest commandment.
c. All People v. “People Like Us”
I’m going to step out a little bit on this one to ask you to consider something that I honestly have not spent enough time considering in my life, likely because of a fear that to do so might earn me the label “liberal” or something. I’ll urge real caution here; we can sometimes get caught up in causes without doing our homework, and that’s never good, but here’s where I’m going: if my purchases, at Christmas or other times, serve to support human rights abuses in other countries, and I’m aware of it, then as a Christian, am I loving all people if I’m willing to turn a blind eye to it, as though it wasn’t happening? Just this week, I learned that a significant percentage of the world’s chocolate production involves forced slavery of children—and that most of the big chocolate manufacturers, who pledged to do something to bring this to an end, have done little. And so the question that comes to me as a Christian is, is it worth it to me to eat cheap chocolate if eating that candy bar contributes to keeping a kid enslaved against his will? Would I buy that candy bar if your kid was enslaved to make it? Of course not…but is it any different if I know that thousands of other people’s kids are forced into slavery just so I can eat a candy bar? By the way, if you’re interested in knowing more, see me…as a Christian, I am compelled to be concerned, not just about folks like me, but all.
4. Give the gift of Yourself.
The gifts that the wise men gave were costly gifts for the purpose of honoring and worshipping the Christ-child. The Gift that God gave on Christmas was a relational Gift: Himself. “Incarnation” isn’t a word we find in the Bible, but it is a truth that is clearly there: God took upon Himself human flesh. Jesus, His Son, Who had existed from eternity along with God, was “born of a woman, born under the law” at a given place and time some 2000 years ago. He made His dwelling among us. He became present in a way unlike ever before. The very name used in Matthew’s account, “Immanuel”, means “God with us.” That’s the Christ-child in the manger: “God with us”. What were the words of the angel to the shepherds on the hillside? “Today, in the City of David, a Savior has been born to you.” The gift of the Christ was relational and personal. Can I suggest that a fitting way to celebrate that “with us” aspect of Christmas is to find ways to connect people with you, and even more importantly, with the Christ Who lives within you.
a. Your Time
Jesus spent time with people. His ministry was out and among people, face-time with both His 12 apprentices and among the populace at large. He welcomed the outcasts; He hung out with the down-and-out to such a degree that the religious leaders found fault with Him. He welcomed little children, who were typically overlooked in His culture. He had a conversation with a loose-living Samaritan woman at a well in Sychar, breaking about every social taboo imaginable—but because He valued people, He spent His time with them.
b. Your Wisdom/Experience/Counsel
One of the most encouraging things about this generation of young people is their willingness to listen to the voices of experience that have walked the path of life ahead of them. What experience can you share?
c. Your Talents
Do you have a talent that God has given you, that you might in turn use to bless others?
d. Your Money
This goes without saying: use your money to be a blessing to others. My hope and prayer is that you’ll use it in ways that provide for others personal blessing rather than impersonal.
Giving is a good thing. Honoring God at Christmas through giving is a powerful way to worship. The idea behind Advent Conspiracy isn’t about giving less, not by any means; it’s about giving more:
• More genuinely
• More meaningfully
• More lastingly
• More compassionately
At the same time, we can accomplish these things while spending less money—if we are willing to get “outside the box”, to trade the easy way of VISA and MasterCard for the more meaningful path of thinking, to consider how to give of ourselves in ways that foster relationships and bless others. If the word for last week was, “make the effort to do something this Christmas as a response of worship to the One Whose birth it is we are celebrating after all”, the word for this week is to think before you shop, to not fall into those easy-to-fall-into traps of doing what we’ve always done, but rather to give of yourself to others—and maybe, to save some money in the process—money we might then use in turn to bless people whom we’ve never met, but who can benefit greatly from our selflessness.
Jesus offers us a gift beyond riches this Christmas season; He offers us the gift of eternal life, found only in Himself. It’s all bound up in Him, His sacrifice for our sins. May our giving this Christmas season reflect well on our worship of the One Who gave all for us!
FLOCKs Homework
For the week of December 13-19
In what practical ways does it make a difference that the gifts given by the wise men flowed from their worship? How might this differentiate the Christian’s giving from that of the non-believer?
The wise men were sensitive to God, shown in several ways. What are some Scriptural teachings that might guide our spending?
Read I Timothy 6:17-19.
• What does this passage say to us as American Christians about ourselves?
• About God?
• About the way we ought to understand and live life?
Read Philippians 4:11-13. Paul talks about contentment.
• What is his “secret”?
• Is it easier to be “content” when we have more, or when we have less—or is that irrelevant?
• How would you counsel a “discontent soul”?
