REVIEW
So we have started out this new year with a new teaching series on the subject of finances, and I am calling this series, “financially faithful,” because God requires faithfulness from His people in every area of our life, including our finances & possessions. We’ve started off looking at what I consider to be the most important part of faithfully stewarding our finances, and that is, the way we think about these things. You see, I’ve come to find out that our lives will oftentimes reflect the way we think. In other words, as the Scriptures teach us, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. Therefore, we need to correct any wrong thought patterns concerning finances because if we’ve got some “stinkin’ thinkin’” in this area, it will impact our financial lives. For example, there are certain people out there who have the mentality that you spend all you have, you run up those credit lines, and live for today’s pleasures. This is why, statistically speaking, people who win the lottery don’t hold on to that windfall for very long. The same goes for some young professional athletes who come out of very poverty-stricken situations and get signed to huge contracts. A lot of them also go broke. Why? Because of how they think about money. Therefore, our attitude, mentality, and way of thinking about finances can greatly determine how much of it we attract or repel, keep or lose, etc. And this works both naturally and spiritually – meaning, not only does it work in the world, but if one has a wrong belief system about Christianity & finances, then it can also greatly impact this area of our lives. So a couple of weeks ago, we started off this renewal of our minds concerning the spiritual side of finances by looking at the subject of prosperity and asking the question – Does God desire for us to prosper? And we discovered that it is clear in the Scriptures that God indeed has pleasure in the prosperity of His people. In fact, we saw how He told us to continually say this about Him in order to magnify this aspect of Him (See Psalms 35:27). And it’s simply logical as we made the point that there is no parent on this planet who doesn’t want for their beloved children to be successful, thrive, or flourish. No, we all what our kids & grandkids to prosper in every area of their life, including their vocation, finances, and possessions. And our Heavenly Father is no different. Now as we saw in Third John 2, the Lord certainly wants our soul prospering, first and foremost. Kind of like you and I want to have a good relationship with our kids more than anything. So if they started prospering in this life and then didn’t have any more time for you, then you might not be too pleased with their prosperity, right? But if they are doing well in life and they maintain good fellowship with you and aren’t hurting themselves or others with their prosperity, nothing could be much more pleasing than this to any good parent. Amen? Therefore, our hearts need to be okay with this truth that God wants His children to prosper – especially when there are so many Scriptures that back up God’s will to bless the financial lives of His children – because if we don’t embrace this truth, our lives can reject it. Amen or Oh me? Then last week, we looked at some of the Bible verses that many of us have heard over the years in church that seem to contradict this way of thinking that God desires for His children to prosper. We covered the story of the rich, young ruler – the guy who came to Jesus asking how he could inherit eternal life and Jesus eventually responding with telling him to sell all he has and give it to the poor. Well, we learned from that story that Jesus was just getting to his heart in telling him to do this. In fact, we don’t see Jesus asking anyone else to do this during His ministry. So it was apparently just a thing where Jesus knew that this guy loved his possessions, and this was keeping him from fully giving his life over to God. But this isn’t the only stumbling block from the Bible that people use to disarm the teaching of financial prosperity. We looked at another section of Scriptures that has been used to counter the prosperity gospel. These are where those sayings come from like – “Well, the Bible does say that money is the root of all evil” or “I mean, the Bible speaks of being content with just having enough.” So we looked at these verses in First Timothy chapter 6 and discovered that they are not speaking of a Christian’s calling to be poor, but rather of a sober, balanced view of money as believers. We learned that money is not the root of all evil, but rather, it’s the love of money. In other words, it’s not money in and of itself that is bad; it’s the way people can misuse it and think about it that is bad. In one verse, we saw how it was those who desire to be rich that the Scriptures condemns. You see, wealth and prosperity can either be a great asset or a great enemy. If we would not serve money but rather let it serve us by being a blessing to others with it, then wealth would not be able to choke our spiritual development. It is only when we allow money to deceive us into thinking, for instance, that we have to have it or that it is going to make us happy that it becomes error. Therefore, it is trusting in riches and mishandling it in other ways that will hinder our growth and fruitfulness. So we defined what true prosperity is, what it means to be content with such things as we have, and how to use money for the advancement of the kingdom – which is all beautifully described in verses 18-19 when Paul exhorted those who have money is to make sure they are using it to do good, and to give & share. Why? Because of the reward and how it affects us throughout all eternity! Amen! Therefore, there is a general, right way to think about money in order to be good Christians who properly handle our finances. Amen? REDEEMED FOR THE BLESSING Now today, I want us to continue our emphasis on how the way we think & our belief system are super important to becoming more financially faithful. This week, I’d like us to look more into how we see ourselves, how we think in our hearts, etc. So let’s talk today about the mentality that we need to have regarding ourselves and financial increase by looking at an extremely powerful passage of Scripture – Galatians 3:13-14. I for one, have spent a lot of time in the past talking about these verses and how we have been redeemed from the curse of the law, and we can see how this certainly included poverty & lack. But in verse 14, I want you to notice that not only do we see how we have been redeemed from the curse of the law; we also see how we have been redeemed for the blessing of Abraham. That means that the same blessing that was on Abraham’s life has been given to every born-again believer. Amen! Galatians 3:9 says, “So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” Some translations describe him as “faithful Abraham.” So all of us who are of faith are blessed along with the father of faith, Abraham. And again, this is not just any blessing; this is same blessing that Abraham was blessed with. So what is this blessing of Abraham? Many read this to say, “the blessingS of Abraham” – thinking that being blessed is just having a lot of stuff. But this is something that we need to renew our minds on because there is a difference between being “blessed” and having “blessings.” Being blessed is the empowerment to prosper and obtain blessings, but the blessings are not the root of the blessing. They are simply the fruit of the blessing. We are told in Proverbs 10:22 - “The Blessing of the Lord makes one rich and adds no sorrow to it.”Notice that in this Scripture, the blessing of the Lord is separated from riches. We, likewise, need to separate the two because the blessing is not wealth; it is the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). You see, the blessing of the Lord is an intangible thing. If our house were to burn down today, we are still blessed. Abraham’s blessing is not a donkey, a camel, a tent, etc. It is the root of the things he possessed. So the blessing of the Lord is an intangible thing that affects tangible things. To the Jews, they understood the blessing because they grew up in it. We here in the United States don’t understand it as well. We like to label blessings as things, but they did not see it that way. A great example of the blessing is found in the life of Joseph … In Genesis chapter 39, after Joseph was sold by his brothers, it starts off in verse 1 by saying, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharoah, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.” Have you felt like you are “down there?” So picture what was happening here … Joseph was in his lowest state. He had just been betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery for 20 shekels of silver. Now he, being stripped of his tunic of many colors, was standing stripped of his coat that represented his favor, being sold into slavery. So for all intents and purposes, Joseph looked as though he had been stripped of all favor and had hit rock bottom, being sold into slavery. But then in Genesis 39:2we are told that the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man! The King James Version translates it that he was a “prosperous” man. Mind you, this statement was on the heels of him being in the lowest place of his life. This seems to echo to me what the angel Gabriel said to Mary in Luke 1:28before she would give birth to Christ, experiencing the manifestation of the favor. He said, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.”Again, this was told to her before she even had a clue what God was going to accomplish through her! So what we need a mind renewal of is that it is still the truth even if none of our current circumstances line up with it yet. So here is the lesson we need to learn from this: Even if everything in our life seems to be falling apart and we are in our lowest state, God is still with us and, therefore, He still sees us as prosperous! Amen! Therefore, we need to see ourselves the same—as blessed and prosperous! Our circumstances do not determine whether or not we are blessed; God’s Word determines that we are blessed! Amen! In fact, the Greek word for “blessing” is eulogia – which is derived from the word logos which means “word.” So you cannot separate God’s Word from His blessing. And until we learn to receive God’s Word, we won’t be blessed. His Words are what blesses us—that is, us putting faith in His Words! The blessing of the Lord works in our lives as we mix faith with it. Like we have seen in Galatians 3:9, Paul taught that ultimately those who are blessed with the father of faith, Abraham, are those who are “of faith.” WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BLESSED? So what does it mean to be blessed? To be blessed describes “divine empowerment.” It means to be favored, empowered, enabled, and destined to succeed. In the Bible, there are several words that are usually translated as “blessing” or “bless.” The Hebrew word most often translated “bless” is barak, which can mean to praise, congratulate, or salute, and is even used to mean a curse. Genesis 1:22 is the first occurrence, when God blessed the sea creatures and birds, telling them to be fruitful and multiply in the earth. Likewise, in verse 28, God gave the similar blessing to Adam and Eve, adding that they were to exercise dominion over creation. When God called Abram to go to the Promised Land (Genesis 12:1-3), He promised to bless him, make his name great, and through him, to bless all the families of the earth. The blessings here are plainly associated with happiness and welfare, both for Abram and others. God is not the only one who pronounces blessings. When Rebekah left her family to become Isaac's wife (Genesis 24:60), her family blessed her by saying “may you increase to thousands upon thousands; may your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.” When Isaac was ready to die, he pronounced this blessing on his son, Jacob: “May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness— an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed” (Genesis 27:28-29). In the New Testament, there are two primary Greek words translated as “blessing.” The first being makarios, which carries the meaning of happiness. The Beatitudes of Matthew 5 and Luke 6 describe the happy state of those who find their purpose and fulfillment in God. As in the Psalms, the best life is available for those who love and fear God and order their lives according to His Word. Romans 4:6-8 ties this happy blessing to those whose sins are forgiven, for they know the relationship to God has been restored. Eulogeo focuses more on good words or the good report that others give of someone and also describes the blessing that we say over our food (Matthew 26:26). This word is where we get our English word “eulogy,” in which we speak well of one who has passed away. Ephesians 1:3 blesses God for all the blessings that He gives us in Christ, and First Peter 3:9 instructs us to bless those who mistreat us, because we were called to receive a blessing from God. Tying all of these threads together, we see that a blessing is a statement of goodwill and happiness that is said about another, as well as the condition that fulfills those good words. God's original design in creation was for His creatures, including mankind, to experience prosperity, peace, and fulfillment, but that design was ruined when sin entered the world. Statements of blessing are a wish for God to restore His favor on others or a declaration of His inherent goodness. The ultimate blessing that God has given is the new life and forgiveness that comes through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. The material blessings we enjoy from day to day are temporary, but the spiritual blessings available to us in Christ encompass time and eternity, as well as material and immaterial things. As the Psalmist said, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God” (Psalm 146:5). Now while it is hard to nail down one good synonym for the word “blessing,” I think the perfect antonym for the word “blessing” is a curse. Being blessed is the opposite of being cursed. So what does it mean to be “cursed?” It means to be damned, doomed, jinxed, to have bad luck, bedeviled. Now be careful about becoming too educated on the curse and curses. Some groups of Christians are so curse minded that they end up living in the curse. They are highly developed in faith for curses. There are these groups who always emphasize different kinds of evil spirits, curses, etc. And while I understand that there is a time where we need to talk about these things, they should be few and far between. If you and I spend more time focusing on and talking about all these evil spirits out there than focusing on and talking about the Holy Spirit, guess what kind of spirit you are going to have show up at your meetings? That’s right—those evil spirits who are being celebrated. No, saints, all you need to really know about the curse is that you are redeemed from it! But a point I want you to see here is that the blessing is primarily transmitted through words. This part is clear when we study the way God blessed people & things. In fact, we see the same in the blessing of Abraham because this is how God blessed him ... We see in Genesis 12:1-3that when he called Abram— “Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” Now a lot of these promises certainly included Abram being blessed financially too. Let’s not over-spiritualize this. Yes, it was God’s blessing on Abraham which is what caused him to increase financially. And this did not hurt his relationship with God either. Even though he was “very rich” (See Genesis 13:2), His commitment to following the Lord did not wane. Notice how Genesis 12:1 says, “Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land I will show you…” These words “had said” are very significant in this respect: they were words given well before there was ever even a blade coming up out of the ground! And do we not see this throughout Abraham’s life? God would give him grand and glorious promises of what He was going to do for him and then, sometimes a quarter of century later, he would see the manifestation of them. You see saints, God “has said” many things to us! He has promised us that the blessing of Abraham is on our lives, that He wills for us to prosper in all things and be in health, that He has pleasure in the prosperity of His servants, etc., etc., etc. But like it was with Abram, we will not see the manifestation of them until we start seeing ourselves as blessed! You see, Abram had to have his name changed from Abram to “Abraham” and then the fruit of the blessing began to come into fruition in his life. In other words, God had to change this man’s identity before he could receive the promise! Likewise, we need to change our identity as well! We need to start seeing ourselves as a blessed, highly favored, and prosperous man or woman of God. Then when that new identity is formed within us, we change our confession: no longer am I just “Lonnie Willis Dickerson III,” identifying myself by my old name; now I am “Trey Blessed Dickerson!” Saints, this is how real this needs to become to us—that just as we are Trey, Robert, Minton or Shannon; we are blessed! It is who we are! We are just as much blessed as we are who we are! Amen! THE ROOT OF THE BLESSING So like Galatians 3:13 says, we have received the blessing of Abraham. Now you can see the fruit of this blessing throughout his life, but if you want to see a specific description of what it entails, you need look no further than Deuteronomy chapter 28 where both the curse of the law & the blessing of the law are described. Now one might think that the blessing of the law was different than the blessing of Abraham, but I don’t believe there is – for as Romans 10:12says, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.” Yes, just like He is the same God to the Jews as He is to the Gentiles, He is the same God to the Jews as He was to Abraham. On top of that, this “same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.” In other words, He’s the same to all who call on Him, from Abraham thousands of years ago to the church in the 21st Century – and if He’s the same, then His blessing is the same. Amen? So let’s take a look at this blessing that God promised to the sons of Abraham in Deuteronomy chapter 28… Beginning in verse 1, the Lord through Moses said, “Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today…” Then he goes on in verses one through fourteen to describe the blessings that will come upon them and overtake them. Then if you look at verse 15, notice what He says then – “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these (what?) CURSES will come upon you and overtake you.” So in verse 1, the Lord said that if they would diligently obey His voice and observe carefully all of His commandments that all these blessings would come upon them and overtake them, but then in verse 15 he said, if you do not do these things then all of these curses would come upon them and overtake them. But what I want us to do here is ask a legitimate question – because people will read these passages in the dark and not through the light. How many of you know that it’s really hard to comprehend what you are reading if you are reading without the proper lighting? And while I do not subscribe to some of the preachers’ teachings out there that say we need to throw out the Old Testament, I do believe, however, that we need to see the light of the New Testament in order to truly comprehend the Old Testament. In other words, by truly seeing the Light of the world—Jesus— through the New Covenant, we can then begin to see Him in the Old Testament. As it has been so well put – The Old Testament is Christ concealed; the New Testament is Christ revealed. You see, the reason I say this is because people will read verses like this in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and they will say, “Ok, so if I will just obey God’s voice and observe carefully all of His commandments, then I will be blessed and not receive these curses.” But how many of you know this is not what God was trying to teach us here. Answer this for me: According to Galatians 3:13, Who is the Redeemer? In other words, who paid the price and ransom to free us from the curse of the law? Now I know that if you asked this question to a thousand Christians, you would likely get a 100% of them responding with the obvious answer – Jesus Christ. However, if you listen to them over an extended period of time and ask them pointed questions like how do we walk in our forgiveness, righteousness, healing, deliverance, prosperity, you will get the vast majority of them telling you all the things we must do to receive these blessings. Well, what does Galatians 3:13 say again? It says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.” So notice how the apostle Paul here specifically says that it is Christ who has redeemed us. You see, how could Jesus justifiably become the curse of the law for us? It was because He perfectly fulfilled this stipulation – He completely obeyed the voice of His Father and the Holy Spirit, He totally and carefully observed ALL of God’s commandments and His statutes. So because Jesus perfectly, totally and completely fulfilled these stipulations and then hung on the Cross and willingly took the curse of the law anyways, then we, who could not keep all of the law and deserved its curse, can justifiably be redeemed from the curse of the law. Now that is shouting ground right there! Amen! So the way Deuteronomy 28:15 needs to be understood is from the New Covenant basis of Galatians 3:13—that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, not we ourselves. So again, this verse was coming from the standpoint that, yes, you must do these things – obeying the voice of the Lord and observing carefully all His commandments and statutes – in order to be blessed. But if Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, then the cost is not laid on our shoulders. He paid the ransom for us to live free from the curse. Amen! Therefore, Christ, and Christ alone, has redeemed us from the curse. It’s not Christ PLUS something else. It is Him and Him alone. So when we mix faith with this instead of trying to accomplish it like the Jews were supposed to, then we will start seeing more of the fruit of it. THE FRUIT OF THE BLESSING Now as we begin looking at the different examples that the Lord used to describe how they were going to be blessed in Deuteronomy chapter 28, we need to understand that He was referring to the specific things they could relate to because they were primarily farmers and shepherds. Therefore, we will have to look at the specific things He said, and see how they relate to our current lifestyle & culture. So let’s look at this first example from that perspective: What does it mean to be “blessed in the city and blessed in the country”? (Deuteronomy 28:3) This basically just describes whether we are in one kind of area or another, we are to be blessed. Now by understanding who it was that He was referring to, you can tell why He said this. Why? Because these farmers and shepherds by trade might have been able to see themselves as blessed “in the country,” but they might not have been able to see themselves blessed “in the city.” You see, some people just seem to have a hard time if they are in a particular situation and cannot see themselves successful in something that is outside of their familiarity or comfort zone. While they might do well if they are in the “city” which is where commerce, people, technology, etc. surround them, they don’t do well in the “country” where things operate a little differently. On the other hand, some people just seem to be “cursed” no matter what their situation is or where they are at. They fail in the man-made places, and they fail in the God-made places. The Bible tells us that Isaac sowed in the year of famine and reaped a hundredfold harvest (see Genesis 26:12). This was in the worst economic situation imaginable, and he didn’t just “make it,” he actually prospered and prospered greatly! I am reminded of the story of Abraham and his nephew Lot: When the strife came up between their herdsman, Abraham gave the choice to Lot which land he would take. Of course, Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom (i.e. the city) while Abraham took the lesser land. Do you know why? First off, because Abraham loved Lot and preferred him above himself (this is the way the blessed man or woman will act), but also because Abraham knew God’s blessing was upon him and it didn’t matter who had the better land. He was going to be blessed no matter where his “lot” was (pun intended). Amen! Someone will say, “Well, I just have a tough time if I work out of town where I don’t know people, etc.” No, don’t say that! Rather say, “I’m blessed no matter where I am! I’m redeemed from failure no matter where I am positioned! Amen!” You see, this is why you see the strange inconsistencies in people who win the lottery going bankrupt within a short period of time. How is that possible? Well, it’s because prosperity is not just having more stuff; true prosperity begins on the inside, not the outside. So until we see ourselves as blessed and act like a blessed person acts (i.e. being a wise steward, etc.), we will not keep it on the outside. Then this verse says, “(Blessed shall be) the produce of your ground!” Now, again, the Lord was using the terms that the Israelites understood because they were farmers and shepherds. Their “ground” was the place where their increase and provision came from. So this would describe our workplace—the “ground” by which our increase comes from. Since this refers to our ground, this could also refer to our own business, etc. Regardless, the place where our provision comes from will be blessed! Amen! Did you know that the place you work for is blessed simply because you work there? It sure is – whether you know it or not. We see this in the life of Jacob – how the Lord blessed Laban for the sake of Jacob. Laban himself said, “Please stay, if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.” (Genesis 30:27) We also see this in the life of Joseph that the Lord blessed the house of Potiphar because of Joseph. (See Genesis 39:5) Saints, this is the kind of blessing that we should carry into our workplace! Now notice verse 5: It says, “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” I know that these two examples don’t mean a lot to us today, but let’s look at what they represent… The “basket” was what they used to collect their harvest from the fields (i.e. it was what they used to contain and carry their increase). Amen! So what would this be for us? How about our bank account, investments, purse, or wallet? That’s where you put your increase, right? I can’t help but think of Jesus feeding the multitudes and how, after He had given thanks and blessed the bread and the fish, he gave them to His disciples to distribute to the crowd. Now I envision that if they were feeding thousands of people, the disciples distributed the loaves and fishes in something – maybe in the baskets that they used to collect the fragments, right? But can you see what was happening here? These five loaves and two small fish actually began multiplying as the disciples were distributing them. Now I don’t personally believe that they even physically saw how they were multiplying; but that after they took some out of the baskets to give to people, it just seemed like more was there the next time their hand went to grab some more. Saints, this is how the blessing works, glory to God! Your basket is blessed! So as you become this “distributing disciple” – that is, that believer who sees themselves as a sower – God will supernaturally multiply your account’s bottom line, Hallelujah! Saints, if you are living in such a way that seems like you have holes in your basket and it disappears just as quickly as it you put it in there, that’s the curse, and you are redeemed from that! Jesus paid the price for you to be redeemed from having holes in your pockets! Amen! Now for the kneading bowl: This was the device that was used by the women of their day to knead dough for the purpose of making bread. So our “kneading bowl” would be described as the thing that we use to make our bread. No I am not necessarily talking about your crock pot; I’m talking about your money maker, or you could say our “kneading bowl” is the thing that creates our increase. Amen! So our basket and our kneading bowl describe the things we use to carry our increase and the things we use to create our increase. Deuteronomy 28:6 says, “Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.” (Compare Psalm 121:8) This means that we are blessed when we start out, and we are blessed when we go out—from beginning to end, we are blessed! Now being blessed does not mean that we will not have challenges – where it does not seem like we are blessed. You will have times and seasons where you will have to operate by faith and not by sight. Job did. The Scriptures teach us that he was the greatest of all the people of the East, living in the land of Uz. And the Bible describes his “greatness” as him, first of all, being “blameless and upright, one who feared God and shunned evil.” (Job 1:1) But then it goes on to describe his possessions- 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys and a very large household. (Job 1:3) Yes, this man was super blessed coming in! But then everyone seems to get hung up on the trials of Job and miss one of the greatest historical points of his story … Although he suffered more than any man should have to suffer—losing his family, his health and his possessions, the Bible tells us in the last chapter of the Book of Job that “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10) Also, verse 12 said, “Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. (Sounds like He was blessed going out, huh?) He also had 7 sons and 3 daughters (Job 42:13). Lastly, we are told – “After this Job lived 140 years, and saw his children and grandchildren for 4 generations. So Job died, old and full of days.” (Job 42:16-17). This verse reminds me of Psalm 91:16 – “With long life I will satisfy him, And show him my salvation.” Saints, we should become so old that even old people call us old—living out fullness of days and experiencing the fullness of His salvation all the way! We should be blessed coming into this world and blessed going out of it too! Amen! So those are just a few of the fruits of the blessing that is on our lives! But we must choose this blessing, and how do we do this? Let’s look over at one more important passage of Scripture … CHOOSE BLESSING! In Deuteronomy 11:26-28 & Deuteronomy 30:19, the Lord set before them blessing and cursing, life and death. In other words, He set it before the nation of Israel. He was not choosing it for them! Now He, in His great goodness, gave them the answer by saying “Choose life!” but He was not going to do it for them. Why is this important to understand? It’s because the majority of the church believes otherwise. Most Christians believe God is the One choosing who’s blessed and who’s cursed. Wrong! I said, wrong! God has given us the option whether we will have blessing and cursing, life or death! And how do we choose life and blessing? Well, Proverbs says that life and death is in the power of the tongue! Amen! So we choose life and the blessing by our faith filled words – by the spirit of faith, believing and therefore speaking (Second Corinthians 4:13)! This is how Paul said that we pull down strongholds & cast down imaginations in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5… The words “pulling down and casting down” come from very similar Greek words that, when broken down, literally mean to “choose down” – indicating that the element of choice is involved in bringing down those strongholds and wrong thought patterns that are contrary to God’s Word. You see, the way that you are going to pull down those strongholds of “I’m just jinxed, If I didn’t have bad luck then I’d have no luck at all.” Stop it! I’d rather curse than speak those things over my life! Plus, that is speaking completely contrary to Scripture. Amen? No, we need to choose the blessing today! And how are we going to choose it? We will choose it with our tongue! Our tongue has the power to choose blessing, life, and grace! Amen? So choose to start being more blessed minded today! Adopt a new way of thinking about yourself that is based on God’s Word. Once we start thinking this way, it will change our behavior. Once we have this mindset, it will change our experiences. Amen.
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REVIEW
Last week, we started a new teaching series on the subject of finances, giving, and God’s attitude towards it. And I do understand that this subject is a very controversial one in the Body of Christ as there has been much “unhealthy” teaching on the subject. You don’t have to watch Christian television too long to find that preacher out there who is just trying to get in your pocketbook to pad his or her pockets. So, yes, I acknowledge this is a problem and always has been a problem. And this is why a lot of Christians don’t like hearing the “preacher talk about money.” But just because there are abuses on the subject and those out there who preach about it for self-gain, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the Bible has a lot to say about this subject. So let’s not let the misuse and abuse of these things spoil the riches of the revelation of this subject. It will change your life when you start letting God be first in your finances and you learn to seek first His kingdom in this area. Nevertheless, the fact that a lot of Christians don’t like hearing this in church is not just because of the unethical teaching revolved around it. What I have found is that the majority of people who have a problem with when preachers talk about money are those are aren’t “doing” it in their lives. In other words, they are not practicing the biblical principles of being good stewards of their finances. Yes, one of the main reasons people don’t like to hear about this is because they are not doing it. For example, if you are living in sin, you don’t want to hear someone tell you the need to clean your act up, right? Well, we might need to clean up our act in this area. It’s quite possible that people need to do what the Bible says in this area. Amen? So I’m calling this series “financially faithful,” and while to most believers this concept doesn’t mean a lot, it really should – because God requires faithfulness from His children in every area of our life, including our finances & possessions. You see, when one gives their life to Christ, they are committing to be faithful to Him in every area of their life. It’s a lot like a marriage – Sure, we are supposed to have fidelity with our spouse, and yes, the Bible teaches us that even your body is not your own when you get married, but when we become one flesh with our spouse, being faithful means more than just the sexual things. It means that all that is mine is hers, and all that is hers is mine. Therefore, there’s not my money and Shannon’s money. It is our money – it doesn’t matter if I earn it or if it is given to her. Everything is ours. Well, our covenant with the Lord is the same. It is not our stuff and His stuff. He has promised to give us everything that is His. In exchange, He wants everything that is ours – including our finances. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Lord expects us to give away everything that we possess. He understands that we have needs and desires. But this mentality that it’s “my money” needs to be erased. Our body is His. That means if he needs me to be present somewhere, then I’m there. Or if He needs my hands laid on someone, then I do it. Likewise, our finances are His. So that means that if He tells me to give someone a certain amount of money, then I do it. And if he told me to give it all away, I do it. In fact, this is not just with our body or wallet; this is with our entire life. Yes, our life is His. And what He expects out of His Bride is that we are faithful to Him in every area of our life. Amen? And what is so powerful about this truth is that when we see things this way, it is not quite as difficult to be faithful with our money, because, again, it’s not our money. It’s His! I’m simply stewarding the money He has allowed me to be blessed with. (We will get more into this in the coming weeks). Now we started off last week looking at the way we, as Christians, think about money and what we believe that God thinks concerning it. You see, I’ve come to find out that our lives will oftentimes reflect the way we think. In other words, as the Scriptures teach us, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. Therefore, we need to correct any wrong thought patterns concerning finances because if we’ve got some “stinkin’ thinkin’” in this area, it will impact our financial lives. For example, there are certain people out there who have the mentality that you spend all you have, you run up those credit lines, and live for today’s pleasures. This is why, statistically speaking, people who win the lottery don’t hold on to that windfall for very long. The same goes for some young professional athletes who come out of very poverty-stricken situations and get signed to huge contracts. A lot of them also go broke. Why? Because of how they think of money. Therefore, our attitude, mentality, and way of thinking about money can greatly determine how much we attract or repel, keep or lose, etc. And this works both naturally and spiritually – meaning, not only does it work in the world, but if one has a wrong belief system about Christianity & finances, then it can greatly impact this area of our lives. So last week, we started off this renewal of our minds of the spiritual side of finances by looking at the subject of prosperity and asking the question – Does God desire for us to prosper? And we discovered that it is clear in the Scriptures that God indeed has pleasure in the prosperity of His people. In fact, we saw how He told us to continually say this about Him in order to magnify this aspect of Him (See Psalms 35:27). And it’s simply logical as we made the point that there is no parent on this planet who doesn’t want for their beloved children to be successful, thrive, or flourish. No, we all want our kids & grandkids to prosper in every area of their life, including their vocation, finances, and possessions. And our Heavenly Father is no different. Now as we saw in Third John 2, the Lord certainly wants our soul prospering, first and foremost. Kind of like you and I want to have a good relationship with our kids more than anything. So if they started prospering in this life and then didn’t have any more time for you, then you might not be too pleased with their prosperity, right? But if they are doing well in life and they maintain good fellowship with you and aren’t hurting themselves or others with their prosperity, nothing could be much more pleasing than this to any good parent. Amen? Therefore, our hearts need to be okay with this truth that God wants His children to prosper – especially when there are so many Scriptures that back up God’s will to bless the financial lives of His children. THE ANTI-ADVOCATE However, there is another side to this that we must address – because there are a lot of New Testament Scriptures that seem to take the opposite approach of this. We covered one of them last week in talking about the rich, young ruler – You know, the story of the guy who came to Jesus asking how he could inherit eternal life and Jesus eventually responding with telling him to sell all he has and give it to the poor? Well, we learned from that story that Jesus was just getting to his heart in telling him to do this. In fact, we don’t see Jesus asking anyone else to do this during His ministry. So it was apparently just a thing where Jesus knew that this guy loved his possessions and this was keeping him from fully giving his life over to God. Not to mention, we learned from the Book of Proverbs that when one gives to the poor, that they are lending to the Lord, and He promised to repay them. So this rich, young ruler was not being called into a vow of poverty like so many have taught. No, Jesus was simply targeting an issue in his heart that needed to be dealt with. Do you see that? But this isn’t the only stumbling block from the Bible that people use to disarm the teaching of financial prosperity. There is another section of Scriptures that I would like to address today – and these are found in First Timothy chapter 6. You see, people will use some of the truths from this chapter to say things like – “Well, the Bible does say that money is the root of all evil” or “I mean, the Bible speaks of being content with just having enough.” Let’s look at the verses of this chapter and see what Paul was teaching us about these things … Now it’s important to note that last week, one of the verses we used to describe how God is pleased to prosper His people was also in this chapter where the apostle Paul said in verse 17, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” So we saw how this verse teaches you and I that our Heavenly Father desires to give us, not just some things; no, He wants to give us all things. Not only that, but He desires to give us not just all things, but richly all things to enjoy. But what I want to draw our attention to this week is the context of this wonderful verse. In fact, some of the verses preceding this one seem to indicate that God does not want us blessed and that we are wrong in thinking that God desires to prosper us. But unless we think Paul was schizophrenic, they obviously cannot mean what many have interpreted them to mean when you look at them through the light of First Timothy 6:17. So let’s take another look at verses 5-10 and see what Paul was teaching us through them … THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL? You see, like I said, one of the favorite go-to quotes from the Bible when it comes to this subject of money is the one found in First Timothy 6:10. Now there are many who incorrectly quote it as saying that money is the root of all evil, but that is not completely true. Paul said that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. It’s like people say in our world today, “Guns kill people!” Well, that is like saying, “My fork made me fat, pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk” No, it’s how we use these things that causes problems. Many Christians have a great misconception about these things – thinking that prosperity is evil. But actually you can look at biblical accounts of those who walked with God and are today considered heroes of the faith, and they were multi-millionaires. Go study the lives of Abraham, David, Solomon, etc., and you will find that these guys were super wealthy but, most importantly, for the majority of their lives, were super godly. So for us to think that prosperity is evil in and of itself is just simply not true. Money is a tool! It is as simple as that. For example, if I have a flathead screwdriver and use it to fix things around the house, that tool is a good, useful thing. But if I start using that screwdriver to break into people’s house by prying open doors, etc. then I (not the screwdriver) am a transgressor. That make sense? So it is only the misuse of tools that is evil. You see, wealth and prosperity can either be a great asset or a great enemy. If we would not serve money but rather let it serve us by being a blessing to others with it, then wealth will not be able to choke our spiritual development. It is only when we allow money to deceive us into thinking, for instance, that we have to have it or that it is going to make us happy that it becomes error. Therefore, it is trusting in riches and mishandling it in other ways that will hinder our growth and fruitfulness. DEFINING TRUE PROSPERITY Now back up to verses 5-9 here in First Timothy chapter 6 because, here, the apostle Paul gives us some good words of wisdom on the subject of money and the prosperity message … Verse 5 says, “…who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.” Now it is important to realize who Paul is referring to here. He is talking about false teachers “who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.” So what you see here is that the apostle Paul is exhorting Pastor Timothy that he needs to withdraw from those so-called ministers & ministries out there whose motives are no different than people who are working a job to see their own needs met and to prosper in life. You see, these ministers still exist today! You can turn on Christian television and not have to look too far to find those out there who are simply looking to get into our pocketbooks. These are those whom Paul is warning Timothy against. But lest we become too critical of them, do we do this in our lives? Is our motivation in life mainly to have more money and possessions? Someone will say, “No money is not important to me!” Really? Well, then why do we spend most of our waking hours trying to get more of it? Most people do! They work 40 hours a week for their needs to be met and to have more than the guy next door. Now sure God understands we need to work and these things are necessary, but let me ask you this question: What does the Bible say that our motivation should be for working at a job? Ephesians 4:28 gives us the answer – It says, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” On a side note here: Do you see how Paul refers to “stealing” in the same breath as working hard? Did you know that many people are stealing from their employers simply by not working hard? You see, when we are employed, our employer expects us to put our best foot forward and do our job functions as well as we can. But so many do the minimum at work that they possibly can do just to get by and keep their job. How do I know this? Because I used to do it! For years in banking, I just showed up, did an adequate job and stayed exactly in the position that I was at. Then, through a chain of circumstances, I was put into the position where I needed to start busting my tail to prove that I was a worthy hire for a local bank here in Macon. Well, guess what this did? It created promotion in my life. Then the Lord showed me that when he told Israel that He would bless the work of their hands that this implied that their hands were actually being set to something and they were working heartily as unto the Lord. Amen! You see, if our hands are not being set to something and we are not working with the most integrity, God has nothing to bless. So if our hands are not working, He has nothing to increase. A hundred times nothing is nothing! But a hundred times something is a whole lot of something. Just like it was with the miracle of the feeding of the thousands … Jesus had to break the bread with his hands before it multiplied. His Father blessed the work of His hands. Amen! But again what did Paul say here is to be our motivation for working with our hands? “That he may have something to give him who has need.” Wow! Now that’s a revelation, isn’t it? God wants us to work, not just so that our needs our own needs are met, but so that we can be a channel to meet other’s needs! Do you see the focus God expects us to have regarding our finances? He wants our focus to be on meeting other’s needs, supporting various ministries, etc.—namely, seeking first the kingdom of God! And, glory to God, the promises we have for doing this are extraordinary! And one thing I can assure you of is when you do this – You cannot out-give God! He will bless the work of your hands and your seed sown! Amen! But Paul says here that regarding those preachers who are motivated by self-gain etc.— “From such withdraw yourself.” Now you would think that this is common sense, but it isn’t! How do all those televangelists stay on the air with all of their various methods of financial manipulation? Because people keep sending them money! This is when we need to do what this passage of Scripture says, “from such withdraw yourself.” In other words, stop supporting them! Withdraw your support from them! Herein lies a good principle regarding who we give to … If we would just give to the ministries that are feeding us and we know are feeding others, we would eliminate a lot of these bad apples – because the reason they are continuing to minister is because people are evidently supporting them. So just ask yourself the questions: Am I being ministered to here and are others being ministered to? Not giving “grudgingly or of necessity” or, as the Message Bible says, giving because of their “arm twisting and sob stories.” Amen? Then in verse 6, Paul goes on to say, “Now godliness with contentment is great gain.” What Paul is saying here is- This is the definition of true prosperity (i.e. great gain)! It is: a)“godliness” (i.e. being a well-worshipper or being a good God-fearer) Godliness is not an easy trait to define. In fact, it is only used a few times in the New Testament. In short, it can be described as being godly or Christ-like. So “godliness” is actively imitating Him—in love, peace, goodness, kindness etc. How many of you know that God is truly prosperous? And this isn’t just because of all that He has, but because of who He is. This is what makes us “truly rich” as well—not all the things they possess, but possessing true love, joy, peace etc. This is the sign of a prosperous soul. b)“with contentment” (i.e. “a perfect condition of life in which no air or support is needed” (BLB).) So contentment is not a complacent mindset but rather a person who is independent of circumstances, not needing anything else to be happy So the truly prosperous Christian is the one who is godly—that is, actively imitating God and displaying His divine characteristics—while certainly being content (i.e. not needing anything else in our lives to show forth that genuine joy and peace.) Now in verse 7, when Paul says, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that can carry nothing out,” what He was basically saying was – “You’ve never seen a hearse carrying a U-Haul.” Amen! So no matter what we accumulate and have here in this life, we can’t take it with us anyways. So we would do good to lay up the true riches and treasures in heaven, which is what we do now for the kingdom of God. Amen! This is a mentality that takes our money from being a thorn that chokes our ability to bear fruit and makes it a tool for even greater fruitfulness. Then Paul goes on to say in verse 8 that with “food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” In other words, we should be satisfied simply with just having our basic needs met. You see, the moment we get to feeling that we have to have this or that to be happy, is the moment we are not drawing our strength from Christ who alone can satisfy us. The apostle Paul taught this in Philippians chapter 4 when he said that he had learned that in whatever state he was in to be content (verse 11). He knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, he had learned to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need (verse 12). But the key to how he learned how to be totally “independent of circumstances” no matter what his circumstances were is found in verse 13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You see, it is only through Christ that we find true joy, satisfaction, and contentment. The flesh is fickle. It will tell you that you will finally be happy if you get this one extra thing, but then after the newness wears off of it, the flesh will need something else. This is part of what makes the “deceitfulness of riches” so deceitful – because money has a way of lying to us, telling us that if we get some more of it, that we will be happy. That is just a lie! Friends, if you cannot be happy with how things are in your life right now; you won’t be happy if things change. Contentment is learned, not earned! The contentment that Paul is speaking of refers to us being satisfied with our own basic needs being met, but this does not mean that we should be ok with having just enough to meet our own needs. There is a big difference between those two mentalities. You see, we ought to not let our own financial situation affect our joy, peace, and happiness. This is what the apostle Paul is teaching. But we should also not be ok with us just barely scrapping by, because we have a heart’s desire to be more of a blessing to others financially. Amen? Now let me recount a conversation I had one time with a Christian friend of mine … We were discussing the law of sowing and reaping and how when we sow finances into God’s kingdom, we will reap our needs being met in fullness and abundance. Well, he agreed that the law of sowing and reaping is a reality, but he said that he was content to have just have what he had and didn’t feel the need to believe God for more than that. Well, in the most loving way that I could, I looked at him and said, “Brother, you know I love you, but you’re selfish.” He looked at me like I had slapped him across the face! But then I went on to say, “Why? Because you are only concerned with having enough for you. If you are happy with what you have right now, great! But believe God for the harvest that is rightfully yours because of the seed you have sown and then give it away to those who need it!” You see, saints, this is the purpose of prosperity! This is why God wants us blessed in our finances—so that we can have an abundance for every good work (Second Corinthians 9:8)! Yes, we should be content! Absolutely! But that doesn’t mean we should be content to not increase so that we can be more of a blessing to others now! No, that is the purpose of us being free from debt and having more than enough financially. But it has to start somewhere … And that is where the principle of tithing comes in. God is setting us up for having all our needs met in fullness and abundance by us giving Him the first 10% of all our increase! Amen? But going back to what we discussed last week regarding how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God, I can guarantee you that if someone does not give at least this first 10%, they are NOT trusting God with their finances. It’s easy for us to say, “Oh yeah, I trust God with my finances” but if we do not practice the principle He laid out in His Word about giving Him the first 10% of our increase, then we are not trusting Him – because we are not trusting that He can make 90% of our income go further than 100% of it. It’s tight but it’s right! Then, in First Timothy 6:9, Paul brings in that element of Jesus describing these thorns as the deceitfulness of riches even further. He says, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.” This is why Psalm 62:10 says, “If riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” But the key here is found in the words “desire to be rich.” The word “desire” literally describes someone who “wills” to be rich – meaning, they are “disposed” to being rich, they “intend” to be rich, and are money “minded.” These are those who fall into temptation and a snare. Not just those who are rich and have an abundance of possessions. This is why Paul goes on to say what we began with here in First Timothy chapter 6 – “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Being “pierced through with many sorrows” sounds a little like these people fell into a patch of thorns, doesn’t it? And this is exactly what the love of money and the desire to be rich does to people. It pierces and it chokes. It ensnares and it hinders. This reminds me of Mark 4:7, 18-19 where Jesus taught us that the thorns of this world entering into our hearts will choke the production of God’s Word. But, again, it is not being rich and having money that does this to one; it is how most people tend to misuse it and how they view it. We see this later on in this chapter when Paul addresses specifically those who are rich … In verse 17 he says, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty (that indicates that a temptation that comes with wealth is pride and to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think), not to trust in uncertain riches (that sounds a lot like what we said earlier) but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” Now that last little statement there should correct some of our views on wealth and prosperity because Paul describes the living God, whom we are to put all of our trust in, as the One “who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” In other words, He gave these rich people their wealth. And for what purpose? To enjoy it! So God is the One who gives us richly all things to enjoy, not necessarily the devil. Do you see that? So evidently God does not mind us having things. In fact, He evidently doesn’t mind us “richly” having “all things.” He just doesn’t want things having us! And that is what makes “riches” a hindrance in our lives. This is why Paul went on to say in verses 18-19- “Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.” So Paul’s exhortation to those who have money is to make sure they are using it to do good, good works, to give and to share. Why? Because of the reward and how it affects us throughout all eternity! Amen! INTRODUCTION
Financially faithful. What does this mean? Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean a lot to many Christians. A lot of church people are of the persuasion that when we one gets baptized, that this didn’t include their wallet. But the truth is – when one gives their life to Christ, they are committing to be faithful to Him in every area of their life, including their finances & possessions. In fact, it’s like in a marriage – Sure, we are supposed to have fidelity with our spouse, and yes, the Bible teaches us that even your body is not your own when you get married, but when we become one flesh with our spouse, being faithful means more than just these obvious things. It means that what is mine is hers, and what is hers is mine. Therefore, there’s not my money and Shannon’s money. It is our money – it doesn’t matter if I earn it or if it is given to her. Everything is ours. Well, our covenant with the Lord is the same. It is not our stuff and His stuff. He has promised to give us everything that is His. In exchange, He wants everything that is ours – including our finances. Now that doesn’t mean that the Lord expects us to give away everything that we possess. He understands that we have needs and desires. But this mentality that it’s “my money” needs to be erased. Our body is His. Our finances are His. In fact, our entire life is His. And what He expects out of His Bride is that we are faithful to Him in every area of our life, including the financial part of it. Amen? So let me first give you a quick overview of how this series will likely go: We will spend the first several weeks talking about the spiritual side of being faithful with our finances – what God’s attitude is concerning us & money, what our mentality needs to be concerning us & money, and what are the principles of giving. Then, in the latter part of this study, we will get into more of the practical side of financial faithfulness by me showing you the things that the Lord has taught me how to steward our money. So we are going to tackle this subject from both the spiritual and the natural. Yes, there are laws of giving and receiving and promises that God gives us in this area that we need to renew our minds to and feed our faith on. But we can be doing all the spiritual things perfectly, and if we are not doing the natural things right, we can still suffer in this area. Just like it is with healing, you can feed your faith all day long on God’s Word concerning healing, but if you are eating donuts and drinking sodas all day, you are making it very hard on yourself to live a long and satisfying life. And the reason why is because there are natural laws that God has set up here on the earth that He is not in the business of superseding. For example, you wouldn’t expect a harvest of cotton if have not sowed the seed for cotton. So, yes, there is both a natural and spiritual side to this subject and that is what we are going to deal with in this series on “financially faithful.” Now I am not teaching you anything that Shannon and I do not practice, nor am I teaching you anything that our church does not practice. You see, I believe that giving and proper financial stewardship does not stop with you, the parishioners. I believe it is a universal truth that all believers and ministries should be walking in. Our church gives 10% of everything that comes in. When Shannon and I started out, it was difficult for us. We really struggled in the beginning. So we had to press through for the first close to 10 years of our marriage and things are looking up, praise God. I also practice what I preach when I go overseas. For example, when I go to India and I preach in a certain village, I’ll have a little old widow come to me and give me just a few little rupees because she was blessed by our ministry. Well, those few rupees aren’t much to me, but they were to her. And because I believe so much in this principle, I’ll receive it. A cool little testimony of this is when we went to Mexico, and I taught in this particular church about how the kingdom of God operates, etc., I had a lot of people come up to the altar for prayer for financial things. Well, we saw miracles and breakouts just like we would in praying for the sick. Amen! So it doesn’t matter what country you live in, what the economic situation is at the time; God’s kingdom does not operate according to this natural world. God’s blessing will work (i.e. Isaac sowed and reaped a hundredfold harvest in the year of famine) as we operate according to His biblical principles of financial stewardship, and we will prosper. Amen! In fact, we need to understand that it works the same way in finances as it does with healing and even the salvation of our souls. For faith for finances comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God concerning finances. We need to respect this subject and incline our heart so that we can reap the benefits of it. Now I understand that there are preachers out there who teach on the subject of finances from an ungodly standpoint, but what I am going to attempt to do is teach on this subject both scripturally and ethically. HOW WE THINK ABOUT MONEY Now I want us to start off by looking at the way we, as Christians, think about money. I’ve come to find out that our lives will oftentimes reflect the way we think. In other words, as the Scriptures teach us, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. Therefore, we need to correct any wrong thought patterns. For example, there are certain people out there who have the mentality that you spend all you have, you run up those credit lines, and live for today’s pleasures. This is why, statistically speaking, people who win the lottery don’t hold on to that windfall for very long. The same goes for some young professional athletes who come out of very poverty-stricken situations who get signed to huge contracts. A lot of them also go broke. Why? Because of how they think of money. Therefore, our attitude, mentality, and way of thinking about money can greatly determine how much we attract or repel, keep or lose, etc. So let’s first look at what we learn in the Scriptures regarding the overall subject of finances … MONEY IN THE BIBLE You know, the Bible has a lot to say about the subject of money, riches, etc. Let me give you some interesting “gospel facts” about this subject…
Nevertheless, what I have found is that the people who have the most problem with when preachers talk about money are two types of people:
THERE THE HEART WILL BE ALSO But in Jesus’ constant emphasis of financial stewardship throughout His ministry, He was targeting the heart. He was talking about the motivations of our heart, etc.- using money as a good barometer of indicating where our heart is (Matthew 6:21). So it wasn’t that Jesus talked so much about riches and used it as an object lesson for wrong reasons, but because He was really getting at the hearts of His hearers in an attempt to uproot those thorns that would hinder them from entering into His kingdom. And this is the real issue to the Lord! The real issue is how closely our hearts are connected to our possessions, wealth, etc. Did you know why the Bible has so much to say about the rich & the poor? You find Scripture after Scripture in the New Testament where the rich seemed to be basically condemned and the poor are basically lauded as being heirs of the kingdom. Now this does not mean, just because someone has lots of money, that they are immediately disqualified from being heirs of the kingdom. Nor does it mean that, just because someone is below the poverty line, that they automatically are blessed spiritually. No, all this is saying is that, as a general rule, those with lots of possessions have the tendency to put their trust in their possessions and not in the living God. And this condition of heart is what keeps them from entering into the kingdom of God fully and abundantly. Now what is rich and what is poor is relative. Here in the United States, we think the rich is those who make six figures or either have inherited something to that affect. But we need to understand that the average lower-class income here in America would be considered rich in most other countries. So I say this to say, most of us in this room fall under the “rich” category—just in varying degrees. And this is one of the reasons why it is harder for us in this prosperous nation to enter into the kingdom of God—not necessarily being born again, but more or less the kingdom of God coming nigh to us. But people have taken Scriptures like these and have basically concluded that if you are rich, you’re condemned already. They will cite Scriptures such as that rich young ruler and say that if you want to be a Christian, you have to give everything to the poor. No, that is not what that passage is teaching us. What Jesus was honing in on there was that this particular man was trusting in His riches and unwilling to do this one thing to inherit eternal life – as evidenced by the fact that he went away sad. But how many of you know that there are also Scriptures that teach that when we give to the poor, we are lending to the Lord, and the Lord will repay us (see Proverbs 19:17). So this rich young ruler could have come out better off if he would have just done what the Lord told him to do to inherit the kingdom. But let’s look at this story of the rich young ruler in more detail because it teaches us some invaluable lessons about what hinders us from experiencing the kingdom of God more (see Mark 10:17-31) … This young man came to Jesus – wanting to know what he must do to inherit eternal life – and the Lord referred him back to the various commandments – to which this man responded that he had kept all these things from his youth. Then Jesus targeted the one area of his heart that was not yet yielded to the Lord – his wealth. Jesus said, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up your cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 10:21) Now from an honest evaluation of Scriptures, you will understand that Jesus was not teaching here for people to take a vow of poverty and give everything they have away. But what He was doing here was targeting this guy’s heart and showing him the hindrance to entering the kingdom of God. As Jesus went on to say after he left sad, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.” This floored His disciples! And why? Because it was evidently not something Jesus said before and because it was uncustomary to the Jewish mind, who attributed wealth to God’s favor and providence. So then Jesus clarified in His next statement when he said, “Children, how hard is it for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:24). So what we see here is that the problem is not having riches; the problem is trusting in the riches that we have. Again, it is a heart issue. A PROSPERITY MENTALITY So this is a major point that I want us to camp on this week because we have a lot of sacred cows in the Body of Christ that keep us from God’s best for us – and this certainly includes finances. Like it is concerning healing, we have heard so much unbelief that God puts sicknesses on us to teach us something or it might not be His will to heal you that now, it is hard for us to receive God’s best for us – which is divine health – because our hearts have been impacted with these sacred cows of the church. Well, we have also been fed lies concerning Christianity & money – like, we are not supposed to have any. How many of you have sat in churches that teach or at least imply that to be poor is to be godly? Now the first thing about finances that we need to address is a very important yet controversial one in the Body of Christ. The idea of how God thinks about it and His will concerning it. There’s a lot of confusion about this in the Body of Christ – some taking the stance that God doesn’t want us having much of anything in this area and others believing that God wants you to have everything. So let’s begin this by looking at the foundation to this subject—what is God’s attitude towards us and money. Now we’ve already established that He does not mind talking about it – for finances is one of the most talked about subjects in the entire Bible. But what I want you to see this week is that God’s attitude towards our prosperity in this area is not the same as the picture religion has painted for us. So let’s look at a few verses that teach us that God doesn’t mind His people having things. In fact, you will learn from these verses that He actually is pleased when His children prosper. GOD’S WILL CONCERNING OUR PROSPERITY The first one I want us to look at is one of my personal favorite verses – Third John 2. In fact, you’ll find that when I sign my name, I like to include this verse. It says, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” The reason I have always liked to add this verse is because this is my prayer concerning all of you—that you would prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. But what I want us to focus on this month is that this verse does not just express my will for you, nor does it just refer to the apostle John’s will for the original recipient of his letter that we call Third John; this passage expresses God’s will for all of our lives! Let me explain … Some have commented on this verse, saying that the truth contained in it was simply the apostle John’s desire for Gaius, to whom this short letter was written. Therefore, they say that this verse does not express the will of the Lord for all believers for all time, but this is simply incorrect. For who are we to determine what parts of the Bible are intended only for the original recipients of the letters and what parts are applicable to us? If this were so, how would we know if what was written to the Romans were just promises applicable to the believers in Rome? Or how would we know if what was written to the Ephesians was just meant for the select church in Ephesus? How then would we know what parts of the Holy Scriptures were written to us? The truth is that all of the Bible was written for our benefit and instruction! All Scripture is given by inspiration of God—being God-breathed so that we can know and understand God’s will for all of our lives. He is no respecter of persons! Therefore, what He moved the apostle John to say to Gaius is what God wills for all of His children along with Gaius to receive and embrace. So Third John 2 is God’s will for all of His children for all time! So let’s delve into this powerful verse, but let’s look at it from the perspective that God is speaking this directly to us… YOU BE LOVED! First of all, notice that God refers to you as His “Beloved” … This means that He is addressing those who (pardon the poor English) “be-loved!” In other words, since this verse is God speaking directly to us, by calling us His “beloved,” He is letting us know that we are greatly loved by Him. You see, this simple truth, if understood correctly, should help us to embrace the truths contained in the rest of this verse that our Heavenly Father wants us to prosper in every area of our lives and live in perfect health. Why? Because how many of you parents out there who truly love your children want anything less than the best for them? No, you want them to prosper in every area of their life and you certainly don’t want them to be sick and suffering! Any parent that wills for their children to be sick and to suffer should be locked up with the key thrown away! Why? Because if any natural parent did the things to their children that God has been accused of doing to His, that parent would be incriminated in just about every culture or nation on the earth today. So how can we believe God is any different—especially when His love for us far outweighs any love that we have for our children? No, you “be-loved” and because God loves you so much, He wants you to succeed and prosper on all levels! Thank you, Father! PROSPERING IN ALL THINGS Now notice what the Lord starts off by saying to His beloved … He says, “I pray that you may prosper in all things.” What an awesome truth! God’s will is that we prosper in all things! Not just in some things; God wants us to prosper in everything! This leaves nothing uncovered! The word “prosper” literally means to be successful, to thrive, and to flourish. So God wants us to be successful, to thrive, and to flourish in every area of our lives! Praise the Lord, our success, growth, and prosperity is God’s will, and He wants us to prosper in every aspect of our life. Did you know God wants you to be successful in your career? He is not just concerned with what we consider to be the “spiritual things.” He wants you to be successful and to prosper in your business, and this happens as you seek first the kingdom of God in your secular job (i.e. as you practice godly principles and make your career’s aim to glorify God and be a blessing to others). He wants you to prosper in your vocation! Did you know that God wants you to thrive in the arena of relationships? He wants you to have such a wonderful relationship with your spouse or significant other that you are in awe of the goodness and graciousness of God! He wants you to have such wonderful friends that add to you and that you can truly trust! He wants you to prosper in all of your relationships! Did you know that God wants you to flourish in your finances? He does not want you struggling to make ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck! He wants you to have more than enough so that you can fulfill the blessing of Abraham that is on your life, which is being blessed, so that you can be a blessing! He wants you to prosper monetarily! You see, being able to be a blessing to others is one of the main reasons God wants you to prosper in every area of your life. Sure, He wants you to be blessed simply because He loves you and wants the best for you, but He also wants you to thrive in every area so that you will not constantly be trying to fulfill yourself and can correctly put your focus on the needs of others. If you have needs that are unmet, that takes time and attention away from meeting the needs of others. God wants our cup to overflow so that we can share with others! Thanks be unto God! DIVINE HEALTH Then notice what else the Holy Spirit told us that God desires for us in this verse … Not only does God want us to prosper in every area of our lives, but He also wants us to “be in health.” This verse alone should dispel the popular Christian doctrine that sometimes God sends sickness into our lives to teach us something. No, God’s will is that we are healthy, not sick. To live in sickness, disease, and infirmity is no more God’s will for our lives than for us to live in sin, transgression, and iniquity! And this is exactly what you see in Jesus’ ministry, which was a perfect reflection of God’s will (see John 14:7&9 and Hebrews 1:3)! Acts 10:38 says that Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil! Why did He go about only doing good and healing everyone who responded to Him in faith? It was because this was (and always will be) God’s will! But as great as healing is, I want you to notice that Third John 2 does not say that God wants us to prosper in all things and be “healed”; it says that God wills that we be in “health!” In other words, this verse tells us that God not only wills that we experience healing, but that we experience divine health. For example, God’s perfect will is for our bodies to be so charged with His resurrection power that when germs or viruses touch our bodies, they die immediately. His perfect plan for our lives is that everything from our eyesight, hearing, and overall health is strong and living well above the norm. And this not only includes wholeness in our physical bodies but also health in our mind and emotions. The prophet Isaiah said that the chastisement needful to obtain our peace was laid upon Him. The apostle Paul said that the Holy Spirit has been given to us so that we can have a “sound mind.” This describes a soul that is whole and not weak and sick. Jesus purchased not only wholeness in our bodies, but also wholeness in our mind, will, and emotions! He wants us sharp and strong in our soul too. Thank you, Jesus! JUST AS YOUR SOUL PROSPERS So God evidently has a greater vision for our lives than we do for ourselves … He wants us to be successful, to thrive, and to flourish in every area of life— which includes prospering financially, relationally, and vocationally! Not only that, but He also wants us to be whole and strong in every area of our bodies as well—which includes being healthy physically, healthy mentally, and healthy emotionally! Someone then might say, “Trey, if this is truly God’s will for everyone’s life, then why do we see so little of it fulfilled in our lives?” That is a good question; I’m glad you asked … The reason God’s will is not automatically experienced in a person’s life is because we have a part to play in God’s will coming to pass! It is true! Contrary to popular belief, just because something is God’s will doesn’t mean that it automatically will come to pass. For instance, it is God’s will to save everyone, is it not? Sure, God wills that none perish but all be saved and come into the knowledge of His Beloved Son (see Second Peter 3:9). But not everyone gets saved, do they? Why? It is because each and every person born on this earth must respond in faith to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sure, the grace needful to obtain God’s will has already been provided, but in order for us to obtain this grace, we must receive God’s will by faith! This is the only way to salvation! Likewise, the only way to receive every other part of God’s will—which is briefly listed here in Third John 2—is also by faith. And this is exactly what the apostle John said at the very end of this powerful verse … Third John 2 ends by saying that God wants you to prosper in all things and be in health “just as your soul prospers.” Now, first of all, we don’t have any problem believing that God wills for our soul to prosper, right? Sure, we all believe God wants us to grow up spiritually, for our hearts to be clean and hungry for God, and for our minds to be filled with thoughts of good and not of evil. We have no problem believing that do we? Well, if we believe that, we also need to believe that God wills for us to prosper in all things and be in health as well, based on this Scripture. Amen? Now the two words “just as” are extremely important because they show us how God’s will of prosperity and health is going to come to pass in our lives… These two words literally mean “according to”, or better yet “in proportion to.” So what the Holy Spirit was saying was that our prosperity and our health is “in proportion” to our soul prospering. In other words, our prosperity outwardly is in proportion to our prosperity inwardly! So I suppose we better find out what it means for our soul to prosper if every other area of our prosperity is tied to that, don’t you? In other words, if our experiencing God’s will for prosperity in every area of our life and living in divine health is according to our soul thriving and flourishing, then I for one want to discover how my soul can prosper! So Third John 2 is more than enough evidence to prove God’s heart for our prosperity. But since it is always a wise thing to hear a truth in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let me give a few more Scriptures that essentially say the same thing … You see, many miss this point because they are overly focused on what God desires for us to be doing. But I want us to look at a few Scriptures that really illustrate to us what His good pleasure is … HOW MUCH MORE? So let’s turn over to the example of Matthew chapter 7 because I believe there is something in this passage that the Father wants us to see… In Matthew 7:7-8 where Jesus plainly said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” Well, there were obviously no stipulations added here. But didn’t Jesus know that people might get the wrong idea here? So why didn’t He add something like – “Of course, I’m not talking about indulgences here” or something like that? But here is what I want us to see … If you consider the verses after this – verses 9-11 – you will find that Jesus is expounding on His simple exhortations in verses 7&8 by using the illustration of how we who are evil (in comparison to the goodness of our Heavenly Father) know how to give good gifts to our children, so how much more will He give us good things when we ask Him? In other words, our belief system is evidently very important in this “asking” thing. We need to believe that our good Father will give us what we ask for because we are absolutely persuaded of His goodness and His love for us. Amen! You see, we need to understand that our Heavenly Father wants to give to us good things and to be fruitful! John 15:8 says this is how He is glorified, when His children bear much fruit. Church, it is super important that we understand this—that God desires, wills, and is pleased with us being fruitful, not fruitless. He is not glorified when we are not reaching our full potential and being successful in life. In Psalm 35:27, King David gave us a wonderful truth … He said in verse 27, “Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; And let them say continually …” Now there aren’t a whole lot of Scriptures that tell us to say anything continually. Sure, the Bible tells us to let the praise of God be continually in our mouth and to pray without ceasing, but I would venture to say that there are not many things God has told us to keep continually in our speech. So when the Bible tells you to say something continually, what do you reckon we should be doing? Making sure we say this continually! Say what? Say, “… Let the Lord be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Ok, so first, let’s ask some questions: Why does God want us to say this continually? He’s a God of love, right? So just as it is with praise & prayer, God does not want us to constantly communicate with Him and tell Him how wonderful He is just for His benefit. No, the epitome of love Himself is telling us to do this for our benefit, not His. Amen! Yes, what He is trying to accomplish in us here is found in the first statement – to “Let the Lord be magnified.” You see, to magnify something or someone is essentially to glorify them and to make them bigger. So what I see here is that the Lord wants us to continually say this because He is wanting this truth that it is His pleasure to prosper us to be blown up and made bigger in our sight. Which, in turn, will glorify and magnify Him in the eyes of those who see His goodness in our lives! You will magnify what you talk the most about, just as you will talk about what is already magnified to you. Glory to God! But the fact that God is pleased when His servants prosper is what needs to be magnified to us. But this truth has been more shrunk & diminished in most Christian’s eyes. Then in Luke 12:32, after Jesus was teaching His disciples about not worrying about their needs but told them simply to seek first the kingdom of God, He added the following statement- “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Amen! Here, Jesus was establishing our hearts in a very important truth—that the reason we do not need to fear or worry about our needs being met is because it is our Father’s (Again, calling them back to sonship and teaching this based on the relationship between a Father and a child) good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” So, again, our belief system of understanding the goodness and grace of God is super important to receiving from Him. And this Scripture teaches us that He doesn’t want to give us just enough; he wants to give us His kingdom—the very kingdom that He told us to seek. So what the Lord was saying here is seek first the kingdom because the kingdom holds all the things that you need and desire anyways. Many miss this because they think seeking the things is how they obtain them; No, Jesus taught us to seek His kingdom and we will obtain them! Why? Because every need and desire is found in His kingdom to start with. Amen! You see, Jesus said in verse 31 to seek the kingdom of God and all these things we worry about will be added to us. Then in verse 32, He told us not to fear for it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us that kingdom we are seeking. That speaks volumes to me! Why? Because in one thought, Jesus said don’t worry about your basic necessities but seek first God’s kingdom and they’ll be added to you. Then in the next thought, He says not to fear because it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Well, what were they fearing? Not having their needs met. So Jesus was establishing their heart in the truth that the Father wanted to meet their needs. And He was telling them how to see their needs met in fullness and abundance—by seeking the very thing that held the provision that they needed. Then, finally, in First Timothy 6:17, we have another wonderful truth about the Father’s desire for us … He says, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” I just love this verse because even in the midst of a verse that strictly warns people who possess wealth and possessions to not let their prosperity affect their humility towards God and towards man, Paul gives us another nugget of truth about God’s attitude towards our condition. He says that God “gives us richly all things to enjoy.” This tells me that our Heavenly Father desires to give us, not just some things; no, He wants to give us all things. Not only that, but He desires to give us not just all things, but richly all things. You see, God’s not cheap. Nor does He just care about our true necessities. This phrase tells us He has pleasure in watching you enjoy things. Glory to God! You see, when our children are young, we buy them all kinds of toys and things that really don’t have a lot of educational or spiritual benefit, don’t we? We buy them these things just because they enjoy them, don’t we? Well, where does that come from? From our Heavenly Father! Some things God desires to give you simply because you enjoy it. No, you might not need it. No, it might not be something that will draw you closer to Him. (Ex. of the Holy Spirit golf lesson). Isn’t it fun being a parent on Christmas? We love to give our children gifts and to see their faces when they unwrap them. This brings us joy, doesn’t it? Well, this is God’s heart too! This is where we get it from! The Lord writes these things to us today, so our joy may be full! Amen! Church, it is clear when you study both the Old & New Testaments that God is blessed when we are blessed. He doesn’t want His children struggling in their finances any more than you and I want our children struggling. He’s the one who gave us that love for our kids. Well, the King’s kids ought to prosper as well – especially considering the fact that our Father is the King of all the universe. For us to live like poppers would be a perverted thing. Amen? So let’s let our minds be converted in this area – knowing & believing with all of our hearts that our God wants us to prosper. In doing so, we will start attracting it more in our lives. Believe today to be blessed! Happy First Fruits Sunday, church!
This is one of our most fun services of the year in that, on the first fruits Sunday of this new year, we come together to be a blessing to each other! And why? Because giving is fun! It produces joy, and it’s an act of love. And that’s what I’d like to talk to you about today – how blessed it is to be a giver. But before we do, I wanted to start off today with some information about how High Point Church does things in this department: You see, I know that we are not your common church in that we do not take up an offering & rarely ever make an appeal of any kind for y’all to give, but I want to assure you – that’s not because we aren’t excited about the subject of giving & receiving! HPC believes in giving & practices it regularly! So as I periodically like to do, I wanted to be transparent with you today about some of the ways that HPC operates in this area: First of all, we obviously trust you to do the right thing by giving to your church by the fact that we have boxes at the back of the sanctuary wall where you can freely & willingly put your tithe, offerings, and designated gifts, just between you and the Lord. We certainly could put giving more at the forefront of what we do here during our services, but we believe that everyone must purpose in their heart to give and do so willingly & cheerfully (a point we will talk about here shortly). Now regarding our stewardship of your tithe & offerings, I wanted to let you know that you can always find the prior quarter’s financial report on the bulletin board in the foyer area, which shows basic information such as the following. On that note, please know that you can give through our website @ www.highpointmacon.com in order to use the convenience of debit/credit cards (We certainly don’t encourage going into debt to give, but we live in an electronic age and this is how most of us do our business, including the Dickerson’s). That is what the church gives, and so notice that this church tithes! Every month, we take 10% of the tithe & offerings that are put in those boxes, divide that amount by five and then send that amount every month to five different missionaries that you can find listed on the back of the prayer card located in the foyer. So I wanted you guys to know that our church practices what it preaches (or will be preaching ) in that we tithe, give special gifts, and provides benevolence. Not only that, but your pastors tithe too! I know that’s no one else’s business, but I want you to know that we practice what we preach and are not just on the receiving end, but are also giving to this work and other works as well. Now I did want to let you know that we have it set up here that Pastor Robert and myself do not have our hand in what this church receives through your tithe and offerings. In other words, we are not aware of who gives what and how much (some of y’all are wiping your brows on that one. Well, you shouldn’t be worrying about what I think anyways. It is what God sees that’s important). With that said, when it comes to financial things, it is best for you to go directly to Bruce Van Bibber who is our secretary and treasurer and then he escalates it to all of leadership if necessary. We have a leadership team set up here that comes together regularly and endeavors to be the best stewards of all of our tithe and offerings. We have a great balance of generosity, wisdom and practical money sense on our team – all things that make one successful financially. (With that said, if anyone out there ever needs financial counseling, we are available to provide you with that as well). So that’s just some of the things that you need to know about High Point Church in regard to how & why we do things the way we do. But again, we certainly believe in giving in our church and believe God’s principles concerning it. So in the week’s ahead, I feel led for us to camp on some of these things – because again, being fully transparent, it has become apparent through both our numbers for 2023 and the current state of our world’s economy, that our church could stand to feed our faith in the area of finances. I plan to start a new series of teachings next week entitled “Financially Faithful” where we will learn how we can be faithful stewards of our finances so that we can walk in His faithful blessing. But this week, I want us to talk a little about the blessedness of being a giver … THE WORDS OF OUR LORD JESUS Let’s look over at a passage of Scripture where Paul quoted the Lord Jesus: In Acts 20:35, the apostle Paul concluded his exhortations to these elders by saying, “And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Now according to what we have recorded in the four Gospels, we have no record of Jesus ever making this exact statement. Of course, just because it was not recorded by any of the Gospel writers does not mean He did not say it. In fact, I will give you three reasons how we know for a fact that Jesus indeed said this: 1. It is recorded here in the Book of Acts. And since we know that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God (Second Timothy 3:16), we know that this must be a true statement. 2. There were so many more things Jesus both said and did than what is recorded in the four Gospels—so much so that even this world could not contain all of the books it would take to chronicle them all (See John 21:25). 3. There were several things that we do see Jesus saying in the four Gospels that implied this same principle, albeit not a word for word quote. Therefore, based on these three points, we should be firmly convinced that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” was indeed an accurate quote from the mouth of our Messiah. Regarding my third and final point of how Jesus said other things that echo this statement, let’s take a look at some of His other sayings that are recorded in the Gospels that reinforce this truth. First of all, Jesus said that in the kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first will be last (see Matthew 19:30 & 20:16). What this means is that the believer who is self-seeking and self-promoting cannot become first in God’s Kingdom. No, according to our Lord, it will be the one who lays down his life and has made himself last who will be considered first in the kingdom of God. In other passages of Scripture, Jesus said that it is he who becomes a servant of all who will be considered the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven (See Matthew 20:26 & 23:11). In other words, the one who truly learns to empty himself of his own self-centeredness and pride—learning to serve others more than he serves himself—is the one who will be considered the greatest in the kingdom of God. When Jesus explained how His Kingdom operates, He was not only showing how one will be considered first and greatest in the kingdom of God; He was at the same time showing how one will experience all of the fruit of God’s kingdom as well—including the joy of Heaven. Thus, we have His statement of it being more blessed to give than to receive. HOW TO BE “MORE HAPPY” Now when Jesus said that it is more blessed to give than to receive, what did He mean by “blessed?” Well, the word “blessed” also carries with it the idea of being happy. In fact, in Acts 20:35, the Amplified Bible uses the following phrase to further describe the word “blessed”— “and brings greater joy.” So, you could translate this statement— “You will be more happy and have greater joy when you give than when you receive.” Ah, now we are seeing the important role that being a giver plays in experiencing joy, aren’t we? Church, this is a principle in life that works no matter who you are. You will be more fulfilled, joyful, and happy in your heart when you are a giver than you ever could be if you are only concerned about getting. Sure, receiving is fun and can bring some temporary enjoyment and pleasure, but true and lasting joy is only experienced in giving, not getting. Now the world has tapped into this principle to a measure. That is why you see individuals and groups who enjoy contributing to charities and supporting other humanitarian projects. Yes, even the ungodly like to practice benevolence because they like the happiness it brings them. So, why do they experience these good feelings when they give? It is because they are tapping into this principle that God set in motion when He created man in the beginning—that it is more blessed to give than to receive. So then, we should ask ourselves the following question: How much more should a born-again child of God, who has Christ’s joy resident in their spirit, experience the joy of giving? Shouldn’t we be experiencing it more than the world around us? Absolutely! There is no doubt that those who are spiritually alive should reap a much greater harvest of joy than those who are spiritually dead. However, I can promise you that we will not experience joy and happiness to the degree that we could if we do not cooperate with this spiritual law of giving. Saints, do not be mistaken—an unbeliever who lives to give will be happier than a selfish Christian. Yes, even though the believer has more of the capacity to walk in the fullness of joy, if their focus is only on their own needs and desires, they will not experience any more joy and happiness than the lost around them. Saints, if we are going to experience fullness of joy, we must learn to become givers in all aspects of life—to give of our time, our service, and yes, of our resources too. Sure, it is important that we cooperate with other spiritual laws of God’s kingdom, but in order to experience joy, being a giver is what I consider to be the single most important key that we have to unlocking joy in our hearts. So I encourage you to not just look at it from the standpoint of giving finances and material things. You see, while being a giver of money is certainly a part of giving, there are other ways in which giving can be practiced. We need to be givers of our time—from giving a simple listening ear to someone to giving others a portion of our day when they simply desire our presence. We also need to give our service—which can range from volunteering at our local church to doing random acts of kindness for others as the Lord leads us to. Simply adopting a lifestyle where we “live to give” is where we will experience this fruit of God’s Kingdom. So again, do not just think of giving in one particular area but rather think of the giving of your life in general—which would include the giving of your time, attention, energy, service, help, money, and so on. THE GRACE ON MACEDONIA So yes, living to give is what will yield more bliss in our lives: Now I want us to look at Second Corinthians and see some principles of giving that we are given by the Apostle Paul in order to see what kind of giving solicits this joy. Now in chapters 8-9, the entire focus in on giving, and he begins his discussion on the handling of finances by referring to how the churches of Macedonia did it (See Second Corinthians 8:1-5). Let’s look at these verses: “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.” So Paul recognizes how these churches were going through some very tough times. They were in “deep poverty.” Yet, in the middle of these great afflictions, they “abounded in the riches of their liberality”, even being freely willing to give beyond their ability. That’s amazing! And do you know who was included in the churches of Macedonia? The church of Philippi, which was a city located in the region of Macedonia. So I believe we can look at Paul’s epistle to the Philippians (which I like to call the Epistle of Joy) and see specifically how they did it. Let’s look at a few of these things: FROM THE FIRST DAY UNTIL NOW Now in his epistle to the Church of Philippi, Paul was addressing a group of believers who understood the true meaning of giving. In fact, it was because of this church’s giving spirit that Paul was inspired to write this letter in the first place. I believe it is no coincidence that Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church has been called his “Epistle of Joy,” because his main intent for writing this epistle was to rejoice over this giving church. This reinforces the truth that we are learning in this chapter—that giving and joy are inseparable. In Philippians chapter 1, Paul begins by expressing how thankful and prayerful he was for them (vs.3-4); and then in verse 5, he goes on to explain why his heart was so full of gratitude for them. He said it was— “for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.” The Greek word used to translate “fellowship” in this verse is the word koinonia which can also be translated “partnership.” Therefore, we can see through this statement that Paul was filled with joy every time he thought of their faithful partnership in the gospel. The “fellowship” he was referring to included how they partnered together with him in supporting his physical needs. In other words, they consistently gave him financial support as well as met other physical needs that he had. Let me first of all say that their gifts were not what brought Paul the joy he possessed. He clarified this in Philippians 4:17 when he said, “not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account.” In other words, his joy was fulfilled—not by their gift—but by the fruit of their giving. And while we are looking at this passage of Scripture, notice that Paul said this biblical giving causes fruit to abound to one’s account. What “account” was he referring to? Perhaps our “heavenly bank account”? Glory to God! And, bless the Lord, this fruit does not just add to our account; Paul said it abounds to our account! Isn’t that awesome? That means that when we faithfully give into the Kingdom of God, our heavenly bank account abounds—that is, it fills to overflowing. Praise the Lord! Saints, if that were all there was to giving, then we have all the reason in the world to seek to become more extravagant givers, for laying up treasures in heaven is the wisest thing we could ever do. But, praise be unto God, that is not all there is to it! We have promises that we will live a blessed life now—on this earth—when we give into the Kingdom of God. We are promised that God will reward us with a harvest—which certainly includes a return financially, but also includes the spiritual benefits of joy & happiness at the same time. Amen! I’ll have that, how about you? But let’s look back at Philippians 1:5 and notice something very important that Paul said at the end of this verse. He says, “for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.” What was this “first day” Paul was referring to? It was the first day they heard his gospel and decided to partner together with his ministry. Now the “first day” is usually when most of the believers who have the propensity to give do well. They hear of a need in a person who is struggling in some area and zealously commit to help meet that need. In other situations, these giving Christians are blessed by a particular ministry, and they have on their heart to support them on a monthly basis. This is usually not the problem with most of the giving Christians out there. The problem lies six months, a year, or several years down the road after the exciting emotions wear off. These believers who had on their heart to give will give “from the first day,” but they don’t give “from the first day until now.” In other words, they are not faithful in their giving—not following through with their commitment. Yes, this is where many of us tend to err. We don’t follow through with what we had on our heart to do originally. A lot of times this occurs after we begin having some financial difficulties or, quite frankly, the excitement of it wears off. We simply let yesterday’s “pledge” falter, and do what is convenient for us today. Now please understand me, I am not throwing stones or trying to make anyone feel guilty who might have done this. The truth is—we have likely all done this in one way or another during our lives. My point is that faithfulness is a very important virtue that we ought to cultivate if we are going to be the kind of givers that imitate our Heavenly Father. To give you an example from our own life: Shannon and I both partnered with two ministries each before we were married, and we made the decision that we would continue to send financial support to all four of them after we were married. When we moved to Colorado for me to go to Bible College, we made the decision that our tithe to our local church and our partnership with these four different ministries were going to be our absolute priority every month. In other words, our giving was going to come before our rent, utilities, car payments, etc. We purposed in our heart that if we were going to fail financially, it was going to be by seeking first the Kingdom of God. Not that we actually believed the prospect of us not being able to pay our bills would ever happen because we understood that one cannot out-give God. We simply adopted that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego “but if not” mentality that we see in Daniel 3:18. It was just a commitment we made—that we were going to give “from the first day until now.” You see, you have to be this committed in your own heart—that even if you never see any of God’s promises manifested in your life, you will not be moved. Church, we have to be committed to do the right thing—not because of how it will benefit us—but simply because it is the right thing to do. And in our situation, it was not like Shannon and I had a lot of extra money lying around to do this either. But we understood that it is foolish to put our own desires and even our own basic needs above things pertaining to God’s Kingdom. Never forget, my brothers and sisters: Godly wisdom will consistently sow toward its future and will not consume all of its seed in the present. And, glory be to God, we never lacked one thing! God is faithful! SACRIFICIAL GIVING Since we are talking about giving faithfully from beginning to end, let’s move to the end of Paul’s letter to the Philippians and see how he concludes his “Epistle of Joy.” Let’s pick up in Philippians 4:15, where the apostle Paul said, “Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only.” Now verses like this are when those maps in the back of your Bible come in handy. Paul said here that when he departed from the province of Macedonia, this Philippian Church was the only church that continued giving to him. What makes this so significant is when you consider how far Paul was away from Macedonia. Saints, he was several hundred miles away from them, yet they still gave consistently into his ministry. Now in the world today, this would not be that big of a deal because we have a variety of ways to send money to people. We can mail a check, give electronically, wire funds, etc.; but back then, they did not have any of these modern-day conveniences. If they wanted to give to someone, they had to physically send their gift—meaning, they had to find an individual or individuals who would manually take their offering to the person. So, yes, the Philippians had to make a special effort to find out where Paul was even at; on top of that, they had to send someone to find him and give him their gift. For these Philippian Christians to go through that much trouble teaches us several things: For one, it teaches us that our seemingly inconvenient times to give are nothing compared to the hurdles they had to overcome. And it was not like they were a prosperous people either. Like we saw, the Bible teaches us that they were living in deep poverty during the time that they partnered with Paul’s ministry (See Second Corinthians 8:2). So, what this does is it strips us of any excuses we might have to not be faithful and extravagant givers. It also shows us that the Church of Philippi was one of the best examples we have of what it means to be faithful and honorable givers. Now let’s look down at verse 18: In it, the apostle Paul goes on to say, “Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.” Here Paul was likening their sacrificial giving to the sacrificial offerings given under the Old Covenant. What this reveals to us is that, while we are not bound to the Mosaic and Levitical laws of offering sacrifices any longer, there are still sacrifices that we can offer under our new and better covenant that diffuse a pleasant aroma to God. One of these spiritual sacrifices is the gracious and faithful monetary offerings that we give to the people and ministries that we purpose in our heart to give to. ACCORDING TO HIS RICHES IN GLORY Now notice in the following verse of Philippians chapter 4 what Paul says our “sweet-smelling, acceptable, and well-pleasing” offerings position us to receive from the Lord. Philippians 4:19, an oft-quoted passage of Scripture, says, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Now, let me first say that this verse is not just a blanket promise for every Christian like so many tend to use it. No, this verse is only a promise to those who sow faithfully into God’s works like the Philippian Church did. You see, a good rule of thumb when interpreting Scripture is to not take a verse out of the context in which it was written. Notice the one little conjunction that Paul begins verse 19 with— “And.” You do not begin a sentence with a conjunction without intending for the previous thoughts to be considered first, do you? So, what Paul was saying basically was— “Since you have given so graciously and faithfully into my ministry and God is so well pleased with your offerings, all your needs will be supplied according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus!” Therefore, Philippians 4:19 is a conditional promise intended for those who faithfully seek first the Kingdom of God in their finances. Let’s look further at this verse: Notice Paul said, “And my God…” Why did he refer to God as “my God”? Was He not the God of the Philippian Church as well? Of course. Paul was simply speaking to them out of his own personal experience with his God. A good paraphrase of this would be— “And my God—the God that I have personally known to be so faithful to me and to always supply all my need…” So, we can clearly see that the apostle Paul had a personal and experiential knowledge of his God. He had both tasted His goodness and fed on His faithfulness during his walk with Christ. Regarding this, he said in Second Timothy 1:12, “…for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded…” Likewise, when you get to truly know—intimately and experientially—the One in whom you believe, you too will become persuaded that He will do what He said He would do—not just for you, but for others as well. Then Paul goes on to say to them in Philippians 4:19 that the God that he had found to be so faithful and true— “shall supply all your need.” On the surface, this phrase may seem to say that God will just provide your basic necessities, but in looking at the original Greek language we find that it means more than that. The Greek word for “supply” in this verse is pleroo and literally means “to make full.” This does not sound to me like God will just give us the bare minimum to meet our everyday needs, does it? No, this says that God will take our cup that is empty and fill it up to the brim so that we do not have any more room to contain His provision. Hallelujah! Then Paul goes on to say how God will fulfill our every need: He said that He will supply them— “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” This is such an awesome truth, saints! Notice that He does not supply our need out of His resources; He supplies our need according to them! You might be thinking— “What is the difference?” Allow me to illustrate: Suppose a millionaire tells you he is going to help you pay for a car. Well, if he or she gives to you out of their resources, then that would mean they could give you as little as one dollar, correct? But if they say they are going to give to you according to their resources, then that means they are going to supply you with a whole lot more than one dollar, amen? You see, if a millionaire helps you pay for a car according to their resources, then we are talking about them paying for a good portion of that selling price of the car, if not flipping the entire bill. Why? It is because they are supplying your need according to how wealthy they are, not simply giving you just any amount from their wealth. Another good way to explain this is through the story of the widow’s two mites (see Luke 21:1-4). In this story, Jesus sat by the treasury to watch the people give their offerings, and He commented to His disciples that the widow who gave two mites gave more than all the rest. He then explained what He meant by this when He said that it was because they all gave “out of” their abundance, but she out of her poverty gave all that she had. In other words, they gave out of their abundance—giving just a small percentage of what they had—but she gave according to what she had in her possession—giving all that she had. So, the awesome lesson that we should learn from this is that God does not command, nor does He commend, anything that He does not already do Himself. Therefore, when this widow gave all that she had, we can also see God giving us all that He has—His riches in glory. Hallelujah! This is the glorious truth that is wrapped up in those two seemingly insignificant words in Philippians 4:19— “according to.” Do not be mistaken either: We are not talking about just a millionaire here. We are talking about the God who created the heavens and the earth. We are talking about the God who owns both the cattle on a thousand hills and all the gold, silver, and precious stones of the earth. To say that the Lord is extremely wealthy would be a major understatement. So, when Paul says that our God will fill our cup “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” he is not talking about God giving us just enough; he is talking about Him giving us more than enough. Friends, this is simply God’s nature! When He filled Peter’s net with fish, He gave him so much that his boat began to sink. When Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes, they ate until they were full—even having twelve baskets left over. Our God is extremely wealthy and delights Himself in supplying all our need according to His glorious riches. So, when we are promised in the Word of God that our faithful and sacrificial giving into the Kingdom of God results in Him supplying our every need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, know that we are talking about an abundance. I do not know about you, but this stirs me up to be even more of an extravagant giver! Glory! THE REST OF THE HARVEST But this monetary harvest is not the only benefit of the seed we sow. Simply consider how harvests come in the natural. When a farmer plants watermelon seeds, not only does he reap the watermelons themselves, but these watermelons also contain more seed in themselves. Therefore, when he plants the fruit’s seeds, he reaps both the fruit of the seed he has sown and also more seed at the same time. So, as wonderful as this promise is that we will reap what we sow, by far the greatest benefit of being a giver is not simply the financial harvest that you and I will reap from our monetary seeds; the greatest benefit is how our cup will also overflow with joy as we sow. Yes, when a believer begins giving in this generous and faithful manner, they will experience the same net-breaking, ship-sinking, cup-overflowing provision of joy & happiness in their lives. Therefore, as wonderful as it is to reap an abundance of seed when we sow just one seed, partaking of the fruit itself makes being a giver even more delicious. Amen! Church, there is no greater joy than being used by our gracious God to help meet someone else’s need, grant their desire, or be an answer to prayer. This is not only the privilege of every believer, but it is our duty as well. THE RIGHT WAY TO GIVE Now back to Second Corinthians – after spending all of chapter 8 talking about money, Paul continues in chapter 9 with more of the same … In verses 1-5, Paul thought it necessary to exhort them to be prepared and ready to give when he arrived in Corinth. Paul said in verse 5, “Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it might be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation.” Our giving should never be because we feel compelled to give. So many times, we get put on the spot and feel like we have to give because it will make us look bad if we don’t. This is absolutely the wrong way to give. We need to be prepared to give! How do we do that? We instigate our giving to people. We write our check before we even go to church. God wants us to think about giving before we have the need or desire pushed on us. Therefore, a good principle of finances is: Being wise in your sowing by giving thought beforehand to the need and preparing your gift accordingly. Let me give you a couple of examples of this: 1.The way that we collect your tithe and offerings here: We trust that you are doing this – that you know the impact that your financial giving has on both the church and on your home. And, praise God, many of you know this. I believe there is a lot of you that when you are paid, the very first thing you prepare is what you are giving to God. This is a practical way to put God first in your finances. 2.Giving to guest ministers: As many of you know, I take up an offering for our special guest ministers. Well, the right mentality to have is for everyone to plan beforehand what they would give instead of it always being a last second decision to write a check and put it in the offering on the day of. 3.First-Fruits: When you know that we do this on the first Sunday of every year, it is best to start planning earlier than say a week or two beforehand – praying about what the Lord would have you to do for someone in the congregation and then setting aside a little here and a little there. Second Corinthians 9:6 goes on to say, “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Here, Paul lays out the law of sowing and reaping to us. He says that if you sow “sparingly” (Lit. “stingily”) you will also reap “sparingly” (or, “stingily”). This would mean giving very little because you do not want to let go of what you possess. When you sow in that way and with that attitude you will reap that way. That is, you will get very minimal help from God when you have a need. On the other hand, when you sow “bountifully” you will also reap “bountifully.” The word “bountifully” literally means “upon blessing” in the Greek language. I believe that means “with the purpose of being a blessing.” We have been given the blessing of Abraham and part of that blessing is that we would be a blessing! When we sow with the intent and purpose of being a blessing, we will find that God will intend to be a blessing to us! That is awesome! So, another major principle in our giving is: “Make sure our giving is solely for the purpose of being a blessing and is not stingy in any way.” Second Corinthians 9:7 says, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” Notice what Paul says in this Scripture. This is how God now wants our giving to be! First off, he says “let each one (that’s every believer) give as he purposes in his heart (to give). The word “purposes” means “to choose beforehand.” Choose beforehand what? Before offering time! Why? Because God does not want you giving because you get talked into it! God is not interested in “talking you into” anything! He wants you to purpose what you want to give. Why? Because He wants you to willingly bring your tithes and offerings to the storehouse. Now notice where Paul admonished this “purposing” to take place – “in his heart.” That means that God wants you to want to! He wants you to give what is in your heart to give. That is the only way to get your maximum harvest back from your tithe, offerings, alms, and first-fruits – through a willing and giving heart. It just irks me when I hear preachers say, “Just try tithing and I guarantee you that God will bless you!” That is just not true because if you are giving out of a sense of obligation, fear, or covetousness then God might have mercy on you by your needs barely getting met but you won’t ever enter into the abundant provision that God has for you. I guarantee you that! The only way you will enter into the provision of Second Corinthians 9:8(And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work) is to fulfill Second Corinthians 9:7! So, let’s look further on at verse 7… Paul goes on to say, “not grudgingly or of necessity…” The word “grudgingly” describes giving out of “sorrow, grief, pain, or annoyance.” I could spend a lot of time on this part but let me just say that you should never give because somebody tells you some sob story. There are TV preachers that will get on the air and tell you sad stories like, if you don’t give, they will go off the air. You know, if believers would just give where they are fed then all the preachers that are not worth a flip would go under and the ones that are good for the Body of Christ would flourish (but that is another message). The point is – we should never give because someone tries to stir us up emotionally. And, you see, if we would only give what we purposed in our heart to give that wouldn’t happen. Some believers also give just to shut the preacher up! For example, I have heard of preachers keeping congregations in church until they got the offering they needed and then finally someone will give the remainder just to shut them up. Never do that, because all you do is show them that that kind of manipulation works, and they’ll do it again. Finally, the word “necessity” describes giving “by compulsion.” The Message Bible translates this word as “arm twisting.” This goes back to what I was saying before about giving with wrong motives. If you do not want to give it then giving it won’t profit you at all. Now I understand that sometimes your flesh will pitch a fit when you are willing on the inside, but I am talking about the attitude of your heart. If your heart is not in it then you will not see much, if any, of a return. HOW TO SOW IN LOVE AND FAITH Now when it comes to where we should sow, we should be very careful and thoughtful regarding what we support. Regarding these ministers and ministries that are after your pocketbook, do you know why they continue to do this? It’s because people continue to support them! Yes, if people would not submit to their sob stories and arm-twisting techniques, then they would go off the air just like they probably should. So, here is a good principle to live by that would help one know where to sow – only give into proven good ground. This would be the works, ministries and churches that are actually blessing and ministering to people. It could be a good mission minded ministry that is feeding people – both spiritually and naturally. It could be a good church that is meeting the various needs of the Body. So, look for those churches, ministries, missionaries and other works that are doing the work of the ministry. Consider the fruit; don’t just be swayed by the techniques they use to manipulate you. And the awesome part is – when we sow into works that are genuinely helping the kingdom grow and increase, then we will be more apt to give in love and faith. First Corinthians 13:3 says that even if we give all of our goods to the poor it profits us nothing if it is not motivated by love. Now it will profit the one you give to. This verse says, “it profits you nothing.” So, if you want to see the best harvest God has for you, then just make the adjustment in your heart and get willing. Just make the decision that you are going to honor God in your giving and give to Him because you love Him, and you love His works. The rest of verse 7 says, “…for God loves a cheerful giver.” Do you know what God really loves? He loves a cheerful giver! That is someone who loves to give! Someone who gives willingly and happily! God is more interested in your heart than in your actions. You can give all day and if your heart was not in it then you will not see God’s best harvest in return. But if you give willingly, you will eat the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19)! God loves a cheerful giver! Not someone who gives because of the negative consequences, nor because of some emotional decision. He wants us to want to! He wants us to desire to give. This is the right heart of giving. CONCLUSION So today, begin to think of ways that you can be more of a blessing—more of a giver to your church, more of a giver to other ministries, more of a giver to your neighbor, more of a giver to the simple stranger in the marketplace, and so on. When you live your life to be a blessing to others—sowing of your time, energy, and resources—you will most definitely reap the fruit of joy in your life. It is a principle God has set up here on the earth, and it will last for all eternity. Live to give today, and reap a harvest of joy, bliss and happiness in your heart. Amen. |
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