Countering Consumer Culture: Building Relationships on Christ

(audience applauds)
Dale Mannon: Good morning.
I want to start with a prayer, so let's bow.
Father, what a privilege it is to come before you.
This takes me back more than 40 years
to when I was in chapel, and I wanna pray, Father,
that students will be benefited,
faculty will be benefited in the same way
that I benefited those 40 years ago.
Use me as an instrument to speak your word
and to encourage and build up the student body and faith.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Teachings of Jesus Christ.
They began to argue among themselves
about who would be the greatest among them.
Jesus told them in this world,
the kings and great men lord it over their people,
yet they are called friends of the people.
But among you, it will be different.
Those who are the greatest among you
should take the lowest rank,
and the leader should be like a servant.
Who is more important, the one who sits at the table
or the one who serves?
The one who sits at the table, of course,
but not here, for I am among you as one who serves.
How many of you are sports fan?
Raise your hand if you're a sports fan.
Okay, how many of you who are sports fans like NIL,
name, image, and likeness,
where players are paid to play,
but they are also free to leave the school that they're at
for a school that might pay them more?
How many of you like that?
Really?
Okay, not many of you like that.
All right, are you a basketball player?
No, okay.
Some like it, some don't.
What NIL is fallout,
it's a product of our consumer culture.
We live in a consumer culture, you know that.
Commercials and pop-ups scream for your attention.
What many may not realize is that in a consumer culture,
you are conditioned to be a consumer
in ways that you may not have even thought about.
When you were choosing to come to LCU,
what was one of the questions you wanted to know?
How much scholarship will you give me?
Suddenly, you're not looking for the best university
to prepare you for life and grow spiritually,
you're looking for the best deal.
When you enter the job market,
what's one of the questions you will wanna ask?
How much do you pay and what are the perks?
What are the benefits?
Suddenly, you forget your passion for helping people
and growing in your career,
you want to know who provides a company car.
Even churches can get into the act.
Suddenly, it's not about following Christ,
it's about finding comfort.
Many of you here are hoping to find a spouse
and good for you if you do.
Love, connection, university still lives.
That would be great.
But how does consumerism play in marriage
and in relationships in general?
Belgium-born Esther Perel, who is Jewish,
is the most famous couples counselor on the planet.
Though not a Christian, she wrote in her blog
about some interesting observations about the vows
she heard in our consumer culture
from weddings she attended one summer.
She noted the contradiction or incompatibility
of certain stated expectations.
I want you to hear what she had to say
because she knows a lot about what she's talking about.
She wrote, and these are excerpts from her blog,
she says, "We have a consumer society.
We look more frequently to our partner
to provide the emotional and physical resources
that a village or community used to provide.
Is it any wonder that, tied up in relying on a partner
for compassion, reassurance, sexual excitement,
financial partnership, et cetera,
that we end up looking to them for identity
or even worse, for self-worth?
Having promised each other the heavens and the earth,
they kiss to rapturous applause.
This litany of expectations is a grand setup for failure.
Never have people been more invested in finding fulfillment
in their intimate partnerships,
and never before have they split up in greater numbers.
Committed relationships, including marriages, she writes,
are increasingly crumbling under the weight
of unrealistic expectations."
In a consumer marriage,
suddenly you're marrying the brand with the best portfolio
rather than a child of God created in His image.
You expect to be known rather than seeking to know.
You demand to be happy rather than being holy.
Relationally, we become users rather than friends,
spouses, and family in Christ.
Our consumer mentality saddles us
with unrealistic expectations.
That's what Jesus' apostles were struggling with
in Luke 22, the passage I read for you earlier.
They wanted to be the I in team,
except there is no I in team.
They wanted to be the center of attention.
They wanted to be seen and treated as the greatest,
to which Jesus said in Luke 27,
or 22, 27, "I am among you as one who serves."
How would it change our relationships?
And by relationships, I'm referring to friendships,
relationships with coworkers,
teacher-student relationships, marriages, any relationship.
How would it change our relationship
if we listened to Jesus' teaching
instead of cultural teaching?
Where we first sought to understand others
rather than to be understood.
Where we sought to give rather than to get.
Where we sought to serve rather than being served.
Where we sought to love rather than demanding to be loved.
I mean, think about it.
Which works best for marriage?
Two people each looking at themselves?
Or two people looking together at God?
I know a husband who for years tried unsuccessfully
to please his wife and meet her seemingly endless needs
until one day in frustration he said to her,
"I can't be your Savior."
No one human can adequately feel your emptiness.
No one human can make you feel good
about yourself all the time.
No one human can erase your scars,
take away your fears, and make life fun and exciting,
nor should they.
There is, after all, only one Savior.
I and the faculty and administration
here at Lubbock Christian University
want the best for you and for your relationships.
Don't allow a consumer mentality to control you.
Don't let unrealistic expectations
destroy your relationships.
Don't follow the teachings of our consumer culture.
Instead, build your life, build your love,
and build your realistic expectations on Jesus Christ.
Then, Jesus said, you will be a wise person
with a solid foundation,
ready to meet the inevitable storms of life
and enjoy the blessings of healthy relationships.
Thank you.
You are dismissed.