Series: The Price is Right Week 1 (A Penny For Your Thought) 11.06.05

How many of you own cell phones? How many of you love your cell phones? I love my cell phone! I love it! I love it so much that I hate it! What? I know I said I love it so much that I hate it, but what I mean to say is the relationship I have with my phone is a love-hate relationship. At first I didn’t want it, in fact my mom got it for me when I was in college. She got it for me so that we could communicate when I would travel from school in Cincinnati to home in NJ. Eventually over time I have learned to love my cell phone because I can call people whenever and wherever, I can play games, send pictures and text messages, I can do almost anything. But I hate it because it rings when I’m busy, I don’t get any privacy, I could turn it off but then if someone is trying to call me I feel as if I’m being rude. I feel almost like a prisoner to my cell phone. In fact I don’t like what cell phones have done to me and others. People are always using them in their cars, they interrupt conversations, they fill a room with noise, people use them when they should be doing other things and the worse is when people text message each other when I’m trying to talk to them. Now cell phones aren’t evil inventions and I’m not saying they are a bad creation it’s just how we use them, it’s when they start to take over our lives is when they become a problem.
Two weeks ago we finished our series Sticks and Stones and after a break in schedule with our Hallows Eve bash we find ourselves in the first week of our new series The Price is Right and I hope that I gave out some peace of mind when we discussed this week’s theme A Penny For Your Thought where I expose 3 Myths about Money and the Things We Own.

Myth #1: You Can Never Have Too Many Things
– Matthew 6:19-21 – Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

– We sometimes believe that you can never have too much of a good thing and the best example that comes to my mind is music. I own over $4000 worth of music and probably listen to less than 10% of my collection. You might ask yourself why is this, well basically because I have too many CDs, MP3s and albums. Where would I have the time to listen to all this music. Because I have so much music and neglect most of it, it then becomes a waste and junk. As it says in the passage above we should be storing on heavenly treasures (i.e. God’s love, Christ’s teachings, etc.) not earthly treasure which break and decay. So it becomes easy to see when you have too many earthly treasures, they start to lose their value.

Myth #2: The More I Own the More I Have
-Ecclesiastes 5:10 – “Where there are great riches, there are also many to devour them. Of what use are they to the owner except to feast his eyes upon?”

-This myth is similar to the first; however, instead of focusing on one thing we are focusing on many possesions here. Once again you must ask yourself when is enough, enough? Simply when you realize you have more than you can handle. The more you own the more responsibilty you might have, the more chaos you might have, the more stress you might have. But the one thing you won’t have is more joy and happiness. When we buy things that we desire and things that we want instead of need we just use them and abuse them until they eventually lose value. That is why we should go after not riches but heavenly treasures, things that we can take with us to heaven.

Myth #3: Money Solves Everything
-Hebrews 13:5 – “Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never forsake you or abandon you’.”

-This is simply not true, in fact money causes more problems than it solves. Why does this happen? Simply because we take on more than we can handle. How do we make money less stressful? When we realize that it isn’t our money but that it’s God’s money. We need to start reflecting and praying on how to use our money in the way God wants us to use it. By doing this we are freeing ourselves from the love of money. It’s like the old phrase, “God will provide…” God does provide and he will take care of what we need. Money doesn’t solve everything but God does.f