“Buyer’s Remorse”

Sermon: “Buyer’s Remorse”

Rev. Glenn G. Grant

Kirkridge Presbyterian Church

Transcription from December 19, 2021

Sermon transcription is automatically generated. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

This is a time of year when, uh, oh, I'm sure that doesn't apply to anybody that's here this morning, but a lot of people end up spending way more than they anticipated on the holiday, you know, because you start back, maybe even as early as summer, thinking ahead to Christmas. Now, well, let's see oh, there's something that would be really good for that person, and you purchase it, and you take it home and you stash it somewhere until Christmas. The only problem is, is come December you forgot that you purchased it back in July and you find something else for that person. So, you spend more, and you spend more and, oh, well, hold it. I got something that's worth this much for that grandchild. So I've got to get something, I can't have more presents for that grandchildren for this grandchild. Nobody here has been through this, have they? Or maybe substitute child for grandchild or whatever. And you'll lead to a little bit of buyer's remorse.

You know, why did I spend all that money? Now I got to pay off the credit card, or maybe you were smart, you know, only paid with cash to begin with. Well, why did I buy all this stuff? We really don't need more stuff. There's already more toys around the house than we have space for, more books or more, or whatever it is. I know it's impossible to have to many books. I always get grief from my own family.

But we have buyer's remorse. Sometimes it comes when you buy a car. Right? As soon as you sign on that line because it has committed you to five years of payments. It's did I really have to do that? Was that the best move? And then multiply that by about a hundred-fold, if you just are buying a house, as soon as you go to settlement. It's like a, what we just get ourselves into, especially when the next day the heater craps out in that house you just bought. But buyer's remorse. Now. I want to put that in a slightly different context. Think about Mary who has had this little chat with an angel. Who has told her that she is going to have a child out of wedlock.

You know how old Mary was, Larry? Not to pick on you (referring to Brynna). You're actually older than Mary probably was. But think about that. Mary finds out that she's going to have a child out of wedlock and she says, if that's what you want God. But then do you think maybe she had a little bit of buyer's remorse when she felt that she had to tell Joseph what was going on? You know her fiancé. Oh, by the way, Joe, I'm pregnant. And it's not your child. Especially since in that day and age, anyone that was found to be expecting out of wedlock would have been stoned to death, and supposedly so would the person that got her that way, but that rarely happened.

I think Mary probably had some buyers remorse. I am sure that she had a lot of second thoughts about that, what am I getting myself into here? What did I say yes to? I didn't understand as a young teenager, that this was going to change my whole life. I didn't understand as a young teenager that this was going to change my body, the way it's changing. I didn't understand that I was not going to be able to stay in my hometown, because of this. Yes. That's why Mary was going to visit Elizabeth. She was going to stay with her cousin until, she came close to her time of birth. So that folks in her own town didn't know that she was expecting out of wedlock.

You see, she could go and visit Elizabeth and everybody in that town would say, well, they didn't know. They didn't know she wasn't married. So, she would survive. She would be able to go on with her life and get through the rest of her pregnancy with Elizabeth, there to take care of her.

Now, of course, when she gets there, she gets this greeting or she greets Elizabeth and Elizabeth says, Hey, the child in my womb, leapt when, I heard your greeting. You were so blessed. You are blessed, Mary,

I'm not sure Mary felt blessed. But Mary came to feel blessed just as oh say you bought that car with a heated leather seats because it was the only one on the lot. And then you get into January in Michigan and you say, you know, those heated leather seats aren't bad! Now, you may have been sorry that you spent that extra money right up front instead of waiting and hoping that you could find one without them but come January. Yeah, that's pretty good. And then you get to the next June, and you'll discover that not only are they heated, but they're cooled and it gets even better.

Buyer's remorse is something that we have right up front, but it sometimes takes us a long time to really appreciate the gift that we have gotten. I'm sure that it took probably 30 years for Mary to really come to appreciate the gift that she was given. When the holy spirit first told her she was going to have a child. And any parents here that took 30 years to appreciate their child? You got a long way to go, buddy.

But, you know, it takes time to grow to the point where we understand the love that is entailed in that gift. And it frequently is not until much later, Mary may not have really understood the gift of love that she had been blessed with until the day of his crucifixion. Think about that. She may not have understood until the day of the crucifixion or maybe even three days later.

See, sometimes it takes a really long time to get over buyer's remorse. And I think that as a society, there are times that we get into buyer's remorse as well. We're sorry, we did that. You know, uh, there are a lot of people that grew up in the thirties, forties, fifties. They were sorry that this country didn't get involved in stopping Hitler a whole lot sooner.

And it's taken a long time for society and we're still working to get past that event in history. We're still working to get past the events of history wrapped around slavery. We're still trying to get past. The events in history that were wrapped around the arbitrary division of parts of the middle east, following world war II and the problems that that has caused now. And yet, if we really look through all of that, there are things where we can look and we can see where the love of God is at work.

One of the last few survivors of the Holocaust died this week, anybody see the story about that, he spent his life after concentration camp making toys for children and part of his bequest was that any of the toys that were remaining went to poor children whose families could not afford them.

The love of God sometimes takes a long time before we see it come to fruition, but it's always, always, always there. So next time we have a little buyer's remorse over something that's happening in our lives. Something's going on in our lives. Something… Another time we hit buyer's remorse, you know, when we volunteer to do something well in advance and then it comes time for it and it’s like “Why did I volunteer to do this? What am I getting myself into?”

Kim just volunteered to take charge of the luminaries this year, like right before service, literally. Now, Marty Ray's been in charge of that for the last few years. Obviously Marty's not going to be able to do that for us this year. Kim just stepped up in charge of that. If she doesn't get some help, she's going to have a lot of buyer's remorse! Hint, hint. but that, you know, we, we do we step forward to, oh yeah, I can do that. And then you start looking at your calendar and say, when am I going to do with that? How am I going to fit it in?

or you find out that there's a whole lot more, that's going to be involved than what you thought there was going to be when you said yes, but in all of that, God's love will be present. And that is something that we need to hold on to. And that is really the message of the Christmas and advent season is it God's love is always going to be present with us.

Sometimes you feel that love as your family gathers. Sometimes you feel that love as you witnessed something else. Anybody that went to Walmart here in town on Friday, you would have seen all kinds of flashing red lights. And if you went, you know what I'm talking about.

Grand Blanc Township, police and fire had the firetrucks there. The bucket was up in the air and they were all ringing bills for the Salvation Army. God's love is there. They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to do it at all. So for the next few days, we have opportunities where we can look around. And when you see a place where God's love is being exhibited. I want you to take a moment, think about it and say a prayer of thanks. And when we start doing that, there won't be any more buyers remorse. Let us pray…