The God of Materialism (Clip) — Shane Idleman

Poverty and Global Suffering

On the dirt floor of the family shack, you were dried off with a dirty rag or an old newspaper. Your home was made of tarps, sheets held together by bamboo sticks. It was pretty crowded with your whole family living in less than 100 square feet of space.

The shack was right next to a railroad track and every 10 minutes a train would come roaring through. Sleep was difficult under these conditions. When you were born, you were already malnourished. The little milk your mother was able to give you couldn't do much to ensure your growth.

You might also suffer night blindness from vitamin A deficiency. As soon as your mom had to resume her day job of cleaning streets, or soon your mom had to resume her day job of cleaning streets with a hand broom and washing other people's clothing to provide food for the family.

So you were left in the care of an older sibling. As you started to crawl, you explored on your hands and knees the open sewer trenches running along the alley between neighboring shacks. If you had any clothing at all, it was made from rags found in the nearby dump, which is where all the household treasures come from.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. According to this organization, more than one billion children around the world are deprived of one of these essential things, adequate shelter, food, water, and sanitation.

A billion? I told the First Congregation, this is mind-boggling. We sit here and we have the audacity to complain about our nation? Or about California? Everybody wants to leave California. Why don't you go live in Calcutta?

Materialism and the Temptation of Consumerism

And I see so much materialism, even in myself. We had a hard week this week. I was telling my wife that I finally paid off my truck. What does any good American go do now? Yeah, go buy a new truck. Right?

Is that what we do? Of course, I took the test drive of the new Dodges, and I'm like, oh, why did I do that? So I'm fighting my flesh all week. And then I'm reading this book. Because the flesh isn't happy.

Anytime you're going to do God's will, let me tell you, you're going to throw tantrums. You remember little kid tantrums? Adults can throw them, too. They're mad, and I can't believe, and why, because it's an old junky truck, it's got 100 ,000 miles on it.

And I'm reading this. I told my wife, I go, I can't go buy a new truck. Let's take half this payment, pay off the rest of yours, like Dave Ramsey fans out there. We'll do that. Then the other half, let's go help some of these families for the love of God.

Contrasting Affluence with Global Deprivation

They don't even know what air conditioning or heating is. Remember that missionary I had speak from Africa a while back? He just, we took him out to lunch. He doesn't even want ice in his water. He goes, ice?

You guys know we don't even have ice. They don't have ice in Africa, where their villages are. Ice, folks, ice. Cockroaches, normal, on dirt floors. Heating, air, nothing. Bamboo sticks, holding tarps over.

And we have the audacity to sit here and complain. And materialism keeps coming in and coming in. God says, I've blessed you, nation, not to fill your cells, but to bless others. What we have to do is restructure our entire lifestyle so we live below our means so we can bless others.

I know it's convicting, it's supposed to be. Convicted me, right? Now my job's to convict you. And this isn't some plea for money and emotionalism. This is truth. This is real life, real life. We've got stories in here.

Responding to Extreme Poverty with Practical Compassion

My wife will tell you, we just could not believe. You may have heard on the news of the mom who sold her baby for a bag of rice in this area. They're interviewing the mom, and she's crying, saying, I want my baby.

What happened? I've already lost one kid. My other kids, we're gonna starve to death anyway. At least this one has a good chance to make it. You know, give us some rice to get us by. I just want my baby back.

And she's crying. Folks, what do you do with that? You just push that down, suppress it, and leave here? No different? I can't. I can't. Oh, but Shane, there's so many needs. I don't care. I'm gonna help at least one, or two, or three, or four, or five.

And that's what we wanna do. We're investing in this organization for missions. We're investing in sex trafficking here, local organizations. Of course, we're helping grace resources and care. There's so many different needs.

Confronting Sex Trafficking and the Need for Justice

You gotta pray, Lord, what do you want me to do? I mean, if I took time and talked about sex trafficking, say, oh yeah, those poor people back there. No, in New York for the Super Bowl. Folks, little girls, daddy's little girls, 10, 11, 12, 13, brought to New York and were sold.

I think we need to redo our books, too, on the legal aspect and what happens to people who get involved with that. There needs to be serious punishment, serious ramifications. I think they rescued like 45 kids.

Rejecting Self-Absorption Through Personal Sacrifice

And America, folks, America, it's a perverted, sick, dying country, and you better wake up. We better stop being so self-absorbed and self-focused and all about us and start saying, Lord, how can I make a difference?

How can you make a difference? Just remove your addictions. America spends 100 billion a year on nicotine, billions more in caffeine. Stop Starbucks and save a kid from walking in the sewer for the love of God.