Counsel for Online Shopping Addicts?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Megan, one of our podcast listeners,
00:00:07.360 | writes in to ask this.
00:00:08.680 | "Pastor John, I have a confession.
00:00:10.880 | "I love stuff and I am very materialistic.
00:00:15.100 | "I buy things online and get a thrill in buying,
00:00:18.280 | "as well as getting things in the mail.
00:00:19.920 | "I know I need to stop this and I wanna stop this,
00:00:23.060 | "but how do I?
00:00:24.280 | "And why do I do this in the first place?"
00:00:27.160 | What would you say to Megan?
00:00:29.560 | - I have tasted enough of what Megan is talking about
00:00:34.560 | that I think I can speak with some sense of empathy.
00:00:39.680 | Even though for me,
00:00:41.200 | the temptation is almost entirely restricted to books.
00:00:46.200 | As you can imagine.
00:00:48.120 | I love to look at Amazon.
00:00:50.080 | I mean, I love to click immediately on some new,
00:00:54.280 | like Doug Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards,
00:00:58.600 | the ex-Sajit, oh, hasten the day, right?
00:01:01.560 | - Yes, absolutely.
00:01:03.040 | - And I just love to click, one click,
00:01:06.800 | be here in two days, 'cause I'm an Amazon Prime guy.
00:01:09.840 | And when the doorbell rings
00:01:12.360 | and the FedEx guy is walking down the sidewalk,
00:01:16.400 | there rises up in me a kind of euphoria
00:01:19.840 | that I'm gonna get to open a box
00:01:22.040 | and in it's gonna be a book.
00:01:23.440 | I mean, I think I know what she's talking about.
00:01:26.360 | I mean, for her, it may be clothing.
00:01:27.720 | I don't know what it is for her,
00:01:29.000 | but she likes stuff and books are stuff.
00:01:31.680 | They're more than stuff, but they're stuff.
00:01:33.720 | And so I feel the issue here.
00:01:37.840 | And we are swimming in treacherous waters.
00:01:42.840 | Why is it that we get this kind of pleasure
00:01:46.360 | from ordering things, things that we can hold in our hands?
00:01:50.600 | And why is it that our pleasure rises
00:01:55.480 | when those things come in the mail?
00:01:57.480 | And as I've tried to analyze my own heart,
00:02:01.720 | as well as read about the experience of others
00:02:04.040 | and look in the Bible
00:02:05.200 | and look at the way people market things to us,
00:02:10.200 | it seems to me that the pleasure rises
00:02:15.120 | mainly from the elusive sense
00:02:20.000 | that buying and receiving things is life-giving.
00:02:25.000 | It feels life-giving,
00:02:27.720 | or it feels like I get a sense of empowerment here.
00:02:32.720 | When this book arrives, for example,
00:02:34.840 | there's a kind of this amorphous, euphoric sense
00:02:39.840 | that life is gonna be better for me now.
00:02:42.600 | My knowledge is gonna be larger.
00:02:44.440 | My influence is gonna be greater.
00:02:47.360 | Some of my weaknesses and limitations of ignorance
00:02:50.440 | and looking foolish 'cause I've never heard of this book
00:02:54.200 | are gonna be overcome.
00:02:56.040 | In other words, there's a sense
00:02:57.480 | that somehow my life will go better
00:03:01.560 | and I will be stronger, more capable person.
00:03:06.040 | And of course, for someone else, it may not be books.
00:03:08.480 | It may be clothing or tools or gadgets
00:03:10.720 | or the newest device.
00:03:12.200 | And in their case, the life-giving empowerment
00:03:16.120 | wouldn't be necessarily like mine.
00:03:18.240 | It might be you're gonna look better,
00:03:20.320 | you're gonna be more productive,
00:03:21.480 | you're gonna be more cool with your latest data device
00:03:26.480 | and so on.
00:03:27.840 | And we should admit, I suppose, in passing here,
00:03:30.880 | that to some degree, there's truth in that.
00:03:33.720 | Maybe, maybe.
00:03:35.600 | We may indeed be enhanced in some way
00:03:39.680 | to be more productive or fruitful in a good way,
00:03:43.400 | not just a bad way.
00:03:45.560 | But if we're honest, and it seems to me
00:03:47.440 | that Megan is really being honest,
00:03:51.160 | the pleasures that we feel are not often totally noble.
00:03:56.160 | They're not coming primarily from the fact
00:04:00.760 | that we are being equipped as better servants of Christ
00:04:04.840 | because we just clicked and got it in two days
00:04:07.360 | and could open the box.
00:04:09.040 | So we need to hear the words of Jesus.
00:04:11.840 | Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness
00:04:16.840 | for one's life does not consist
00:04:20.800 | in the abundance of his possessions.
00:04:23.480 | It seems to me that strikes right
00:04:25.880 | at the heart of the matter.
00:04:27.760 | Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
00:04:32.760 | That feeling, that arrival of the package in the mail,
00:04:39.920 | that feeling is an illusion.
00:04:43.200 | The euphoria is short-lived, it's shallow.
00:04:46.600 | It keeps us from deeper pleasures that we were made for.
00:04:51.600 | And another reason why I think we're so hungry
00:04:55.680 | for this kind of elusive, life-giving, empowering pleasure
00:05:00.600 | is because there's a void in our hearts,
00:05:04.000 | some measure of emptiness that Jesus intends
00:05:08.520 | to satisfy by himself, his fellowship, his ministry.
00:05:13.520 | Paul says in Philippians 4
00:05:16.160 | that he learned the secret of contentment
00:05:18.960 | so that he could have little and stay contentment.
00:05:21.320 | No doorbell ringing this week, no packages showing up,
00:05:24.680 | totally content, door ringing three, four times,
00:05:27.560 | totally content.
00:05:28.880 | And the reason he gave is chapter three,
00:05:32.440 | I count everything as lost because of the surpassing value
00:05:37.240 | of knowing Jesus Christ.
00:05:39.280 | Jesus Christ was such an overwhelming value
00:05:42.760 | and a precious treasure for Paul
00:05:47.760 | that the ups and downs of having much
00:05:50.280 | or having little, doorbell ringing, doorbell not ringing,
00:05:52.600 | clicking or not clicking, did not destroy his contentment.
00:05:57.600 | His craving heart was satisfied on Jesus.
00:06:03.880 | So Megan and I need to devote ourselves
00:06:07.880 | to feeding our hearts on Christ and his word,
00:06:12.880 | but not just his word and his fellowship are satisfying.
00:06:18.800 | I think, I'm thinking now of Acts 20, verse 30
00:06:24.160 | that says, Jesus is quoted,
00:06:26.720 | "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
00:06:30.600 | The fact that Megan or I would get more pleasure
00:06:34.400 | out of receiving than giving shows
00:06:38.280 | that something's gone wrong in our hearts.
00:06:42.080 | We were designed as followers of Christ
00:06:45.640 | to experience even greater euphoria in giving
00:06:50.640 | than in the doorbell ringing and a new package coming.
00:06:54.440 | And perhaps this pleasure has fallen
00:06:58.240 | into disuse for Megan maybe, and she needs to recover it.
00:07:03.240 | And that very pleasure of giving would, I think,
00:07:07.960 | dampen the pleasures of material possession.
00:07:12.960 | I would mention perhaps just two other things real quick.
00:07:17.680 | One is that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6,
00:07:20.520 | he didn't want to be enslaved or mastered by anything.
00:07:24.200 | We're free in Jesus.
00:07:25.840 | Megan, as a Christian, is free in Jesus.
00:07:29.520 | And she and I should be on the lookout
00:07:32.040 | for anything that has an enslaving force in our lives.
00:07:36.280 | And when we spot it, we should wave the flag
00:07:39.160 | of Christian liberty in front of it
00:07:40.960 | and say, "You will not enslave me.
00:07:42.640 | I'm a free woman or I'm a free man.
00:07:45.440 | You material thing will not control me
00:07:47.800 | and renounce it in the name of our freedom."
00:07:50.680 | And maybe just one more, the best thing I could say,
00:07:54.480 | because it's so breathtaking, it's so influential
00:07:58.520 | and powerful when it grips us, is this.
00:08:02.360 | 1 Corinthians 3, 21.
00:08:04.480 | Megan, listen carefully.
00:08:06.640 | "Let no one boast in men," or I would say in things,
00:08:11.640 | "for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos
00:08:18.120 | or Cephas or the world or life or death
00:08:20.800 | or the present or the future.
00:08:22.560 | All things are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God."
00:08:26.040 | Megan, if you are a Christian,
00:08:27.920 | you already possess all material things.
00:08:32.320 | You really do.
00:08:33.540 | Your Father created and owns everything,
00:08:37.280 | everything in the universe.
00:08:39.180 | And as His child, you will inherit it
00:08:42.440 | and it will be at your disposal in the age to come
00:08:45.720 | on the new earth, in the new heavens,
00:08:48.760 | and you will be able to do with it as you please.
00:08:51.960 | This is why Jesus said,
00:08:53.480 | "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
00:08:56.760 | but in heaven."
00:08:57.800 | In heaven, we will have them forever.
00:09:00.720 | We won't lose them, no rust, no thief.
00:09:03.600 | And we will be able for the very first time
00:09:07.200 | to use them with joy, without any greed,
00:09:09.460 | without any covetousness, without any idolatry.
00:09:12.440 | So in a sense, abundance of material things can wait.
00:09:18.640 | We have more important things to do right now.
00:09:22.840 | Love God, love people,
00:09:24.760 | and find the greatest pleasure in giving.
00:09:27.860 | Yeah, amen.
00:09:28.700 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:29.600 | And with that, the week comes to an end.
00:09:32.060 | If you missed any of the episodes from the week,
00:09:33.920 | you can catch up with the daily
00:09:35.440 | Ask Pastor John podcast apps,
00:09:37.080 | and you can go online to our online home
00:09:39.280 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:43.000 | And you can keep up with all of the episodes there as well.
00:09:46.800 | On Monday, we tackle that age old question
00:09:49.160 | of how do I know what God is calling me to do?
00:09:52.840 | Who or what should we follow
00:09:54.600 | as we seek to follow God's plan for our lives?
00:09:58.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:59.720 | We'll see you back here on Monday.
00:10:01.420 | (upbeat music)
00:10:04.000 | (upbeat music)
00:10:06.580 | [BLANK_AUDIO]