blessings abound...

1 Chron 29:10-14
10
"Praise be to you, O LORD,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
14 "But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.

Have you ever stopped and thought about- REALLY, truly thought about the things that you absolutely cannot live without? Obviously food and water… but I’m not talking about that- I’m talking about the things that define you the things that make up who you are. What are you without your iPod? Can you remember the days before your entire music collection was at your fingertips? I don’t think any of you lived in the days of the HUGE CD binders that we kept in our back seats. Finally in the late 90’s CD burners came out so we could make mix-tape CD”s … but for the bulk of my jr high and high school years… a portable CD player was my iPod… and THIS was my memory card. Last Christmas my ipod was stolen. I didn’t have one for 3 whole days. I thought I was going to die. Who are you w/o your iPod?

What are you w/o your house? I know we all need shelter- but the house you live in now- maybe it’s the same one you’ve lived in your whole life. You have your room and all your pictures and stuff on the walls. It’s your house- your home- what would you be without it? Not only that, but the neighborhood you live in…your friends and neighbors you grew up with. The people that maybe you played with in the back yard during the summer, or made snow forts with during the winter… If you had to get up and move tomorrow… how big of an impact would that have on you? How much of YOU is because of your house?

What are you without computers? I can’t spell worth anything, so w/o MS Word’s spell check I am a lost puppy. And the Internet- how did we ever live without it? And FACEBOOK. Oh my goodness. How did I function w/o status updates and walls to write on on people’s birthday… I had seriously 2 hours a day of more productivity before I signed up for facebook 3 years ago… But now… how did I ever live w/o it.
Or E-mail… are you like me? If I go out of town or am not at my computer for like a day, I expect to find like 400 e-mails waiting for me. Like the world knew I was unable to check my messages, and thus they’ve all piled up. I’m usually disappointed to find only Spam and junk mail…

Same with my cell phone- what would you be if you didn’t have a phone? Can you imagine not being able to be reached of 24 hours a day? Cell phones are an intricate part of our society now, but 10 years ago we used to make fun of people who had them in High school… seriously. They were almost a geek accessory… now, you’re a bit strange if you DON’T have one. I can’t even count how many phones I’ve had. At least 20. If I can’t get a hold of someone RIGHT AWAY nowadays, I get angry. Having to leave messages? Please. Answer your phone! Right? And then there’s text messaging. I used to fear t9… now I can’t live without it… and I used to think cameras on phones was the most preposterous thing ever. But now… I use it all the time…
What would you be without your cell phone?

Think about it- think about how much impact these things have in our lives. Not to mention the clothes we wear, or TV shows we watch regularly… on NBC… Thursday nights… can you imagine life without stupid Office quotes? Or how about our cars? Can any of you car-owners even THINK about riding your bike anymore? No way, your car is part of you now. It’s one of the things that helps define you as a person.
Just think of how all the things that we have make up who we are-
Ponder for a second if you would, how the stuff we own are the things that define us.

The first thing I ask when I meet someone is what? What do you do? Or what school do you go to? Our careers and education consume our lives. If you met a guy who’s 40 years old and is a cashier at Taco Johns… do you think of him differently then a 40 year old who’s a lawyer? Of course you do- we all do… because whether we like it or not, our society has put a huge weight on our lives’ ambition. And making money and excelling in our chosen field is paramount. And getting into a good school is key, as are extra curricular’s and community involvement and on and on. All these are parts of us. They make up who we are.

One more thought—if you had to list the top 5 most important things in your life, what would they be? Would it be your phone? Or your iPod or your PS3? Your car? Or your dog or maybe your family….
Think for a second, what is on your TOP 5 list? 5 things you can’t live without. What’s on the list? Got it?

The thing is, though… how different would those have been, say 5 years ago? You didn’t have an ipod, you didn’t have a car, PS3 wasn’t out yet… what was top of your list when you were in jr high? Your pokemon cards or your new Spiderman DVD? I just happen to have recently found my 5th grade yearbook. A few of my favorite things: Pizza, Adidas shoes, and TV. OK, so for me, it’s the same now as it was then.. but someother peoples- Joey Johnson was Nintendo and a hockey stick, and Melissa Germscheid was troll dolls.. so you get my point… And how different do you think the list of your teachers would be? I don’t know if half of them even know what a PS3 is… Top of their lists would be their spouses, and their kids and grandkids… priorities change with age… BUT

What defines you? What are the pieces that make up who you are? What can you not live without? Who are you without those things?

Looking at 1st Chronicles we see King David with his son Solomon at his side ready to build the temple. In front of him were all the things that the people of Israel donated to build it. The picture that is painted is mind blowing. 190 TONS of gold, 375 TONS of silver, 3,750 TONS of iron, thousands of precious gems and stones… It must have been un real to see… And here David was with the whole nation of Israel in front of him and he prays. A beautiful prayer reminding us all that everything is from God. All we have and all we need is a gift from above. And he sees all this stuff and he is kneeling before our everlasting God and then he asks- but who am I, and who are these people that we even have these things to give.

And that’s what I’m asking today. Who are we that God has blessed us so richly and deeply to give us all the gifts that he does each and every day? Who are we? What makes us so special? And then we sit and we think about our top 5 things, the things that define us and we ponder the things we just cannot live without and our God- our creator and sustainer… was He even on the list? Maybe it’s a forgone conclusion- certainly a possibility.
BUT friends, how much of who we are is made up of stuff- of cell phone and ipods and what job we have or dream of getting- how much of us is in that- and how much of Jesus is in us? Are the things of this world slowly edging out our Savior in our lives as we grow? In this financial environment that we are currently in, people are up in arms because we cannot afford today the things that we could 3 years ago, apparently. And we are scared because retirement funds are gone, and payments are higher… But I think the scariest part of it all for some people is they have found that they put their faith in a multi-national baking conglomerate. In bricks and mortar and people… and they have let us down. Fellow Redeemed, as hard as it is to imagine your life without the stuff that surrounds you, how much more frightening is the thought of our life without the creator of that stuff?
I mean, Who are we without Christ?
Who are we without the love and blood our savior Jesus? What hope and future do we have without the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God who made us and gave us every single thing we have?

Hopeless wonderers, empty vessels, vain creatures of self-indulgence would be all we COULD be without the blood of Jesus clothing our hearts in righteousness. If we define ourselves by and build our lives on the things of this world- the stuff that we can get and endless pursuit thereof, then we are on sinking sand, guys. We have invested in stock that is plummeting. Our eyes are focused on the inconsequential and the fleeting. Music and technology is different from day to day, from year to year- but Jesus, and only Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. For it only on Christ the Solid rock can we stand. And it is only in the arms of Jesus can we be lifted up and bought back from the very depths of Hell. Because it is ONLY thought the perfect life and innocent death of Jesus on the cross can we have forgiveness of sins, and it is only though his resurrection can we have victory over death and the devil! Our Lives are more than just trends and purchased goods. Our lives have BEEN purchased and WON by the son of God Himself, Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong, The stuff of this world is great- it really is. I love my iPod, like a child. I can’t be willingly separated from my phone,
and facebook is almost an addiction. But we must keep in perspective the fact that these are merely disposable goods. AND- That all these things- the stuff in our lockers and backpacks and rooms- all we have are literally gifts from God. Everything comes from You, oh Lord, David reminds us.
The fact is, We deserve nothing, but our God has seen fit to bless us in ways that are unfathomable to most of the world.
So enjoy the earthly gifts of God- But use them to glorify Him, not to replace them. I am attached to my iPod and phone, But they do not define me, they do not lift me up when I am weak, they cannot hear my prayers, they have no positive bearing on my eternal salvation. They are indeed gifts from God. But they are NOT my God.
The wonderful truth of the matter is, we as redeemed children have a hope and a future that is personally and lovingly crafted by the same hands that personally and lovingly crafted the mountains and oceans and sunsets and you. Our hope is in Him. It is my prayer that as a follower of the one True God we can say with the hymn writer:

Take the world, but give me Jesus;
In His cross my trust shall be,
Till, with clearer, brighter vision
Face to face my Lord I see.

And we embrace the words:

What is the world to me?
My Jesus is my Treasure,
My Life, my Health, my Wealth,
My Friend, my Love, my Pleasure,
My Joy, my Crown, my All,
My Bliss eternally.
Once more, then, I declare—
What is the world to me?

May that be our prayer until eternity.