Sunday December 1, 2013 | Shawna Boren
This week’s sermon includes practical ways we can live a more generous life. Our speaker, Shawna Boren, challenges us to explore the role God has for us in living a simple life and finding our true peace in him. She talks about some ways we can be more giving of our time, resources, money, and possessions.
We are at the end of a sermon series about generosity and exploring how living simply can help bring about the Kingdom of God. In our lives it is often those things that seem completely normal that can end up being the most dangerous. The consumeristic culture is one of these things. As Kingdom people we must remain awake to the reality that we are in a war—not with other people, but with fallen powers. To get caught up in the consumeristic view is to push back against the kingdom, rather than being that which brings it nearer.
To be a follower of Christ means that we find contentment in him alone. There is nothing apart from him that can bring us peace. The culture has conditioned us to think otherwise. Advertising, marketing, and media have told us that we are discontent and the solution to this discontentment is to obtain more. There is peace from the emptiness caused by this state of constant discontentment—living simply and relying on Christ for all our worth.
In our last sermon of the series we look practically at what it means to live simply. God has an important role for you in this war we are fighting. God is without borders when it comes to his love for you and his willingness to fulfill the plan He has on your life. Our role is to discover his will for our lives and go about living it out. We do this by seeking him in prayer and asking him to lead us. We do this by hearing his voice and obeying that which he asks of us. We do this by being fair and just with our neighbors. We do this by being compassionate and loyal in our love towards God and others. We do this by getting behind the vision of our neighborhood congregations.
It doesn’t matter what job you have, what gender you are, or what kind of car you drive—God wants you to be his arms, to reach out to the world, and bring love to those around you. Remember your journey towards simplicity will look different than those around you. Don’t worry if you feel the task is too big. No one has “arrived” on this journey, rather we are moving towards the goal together.