Sermon 11-9-08

Great God, Heavenly Father, we thank You for the outpouring of Your Holy Spirit, we thank You for those words of praise as we see what a great God You are. And, Heavenly Father, as You now speak to us through the words of the Bible, may Your Holy Spirit touch our lives and give us wisdom and understanding as this morning You instruct us in Your ways. And we pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Scripture Readings-

Our first reading from the Book of Malachi fits with our sermon theme as we talk about God’s Financial Plan for each of us. Malachi talks about the principle of tithing which is simply giving ten percent of our income to the Lord. God says, “Test me in this and I will open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for it.”

Old Testament – Malachi 3:7-12 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD Almighty. But you ask, “How are we to return?” “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” But you ask, “How do we rob you?” “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse-the whole nation of you-because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit”, says the LORD Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land.” says the LORD Almighty.

The second reading tells about God’s ability to provide for us and He tells us that He will provide for all our needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus.

Second Reading – Philippians 4:18-20 I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice; pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Today’s Gospel Lesson goes hand-in-hand with the Old Testament reading from Malachi. A lot of times people think that tithing was just an Old Testament concept; but in the New Testament Jesus talks about tithing too.

Gospel – Luke 11:42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, bat you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

Sermon –

What we are talking about today actually got started about a month ago when I watched a news story that ran for two days on CNN about a lady who was deep in financial debt and had no financial peace. The news story said that she attended a program her Church was offering, Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, that taught God’s financial principles. One year later she is out of debt, her needs are provided for and she has financial peace. We are offering that same program here but the course is full and the next class won’t be until winter or spring. But you need help now; this country is in the middle of an economic crisis. So what we decided to do is take some of God’s financial principles in the Bible; some are in the Dave Ramsey class, some are not, and some I have just learned over the course of helping people with financial problems through my twenty years in ministry. So we put together what I call “God’s Plan for Financial Peace – the Speed Version”.

We did part one last week and, just for the sake of review, let me bring out some tools. I have a screwdriver - it’s a nice tool because the name tells you exactly what it does. I also have a fly swatter and a level. Their names also tell us exactly what they do. But there’s a problem here, I have a dollar bill but it’s name doesn’t tell us what it does. We think money is for buying things. But money, in God’s hands, is actually a tool just like the screwdriver, the flyswatter or the level. And the name of this tool is Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder. This is just a tool that God uses to test our faith, to ease our worry and to build our trust in Him.

And last week we discussed some basic financial principles, the first being that God owns everything in the world. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” This money that I have in my hand is not mine – it belongs to God. And the great thing is that when you sustain losses, when the stock market goes down, you know that the money lost wasn’t yours to begin with; when God decides you need more money, He’ll give you more money. Knowing that gives us peace.

We also talked about how money has a sliding face value with God and that the real worth of money is simply how much it tests our faith and gets us to trust in God. God can make money appear out of no place – and he does! I have two illustrations - a couple of years before I came to Keene, when I was in New York, the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, of which I was a member, wanted to do some ministry in mid-town Manhattan but we didn’t have a church there. If you’ve been in mid-town Manhattan, you know that there is no land available and the buildings cost millions. We didn’t have that kind of money so we prayed about it. A couple of weeks later a church in mid-town Manhattan in a wonderful neighborhood by Central Park called the head of our district and told him that they had a church they wanted to sell. They wanted to sell it to a group that would spread the Gospel and they ask us to come in for an interview. So the head of the Atlantic District went in and was ask by the Church to tell them the fund-raising efforts that are being done in our church. He said, “It’s very simple, we do a Bible Principle that’s called “Tithe and Offerings. We don’t do raffles or bingo.” They were so impressed that they offered the LCMS that multimillion-dollar building in mid-town Manhattan for only one dollar! That’s what I mean when I say money has a sliding face value. God can change it, God can multiply it. Last week we talked about God fed over five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. He can take things and multiply them. He took the one dollar that the Atlantic District had, multiplied it and made it worth millions.

The next example is the miracle we experienced here just last Sunday. Last Sunday God proved that everything we talked about is absolutely true. I had used a $1bill for this demonstration and after the service, I went into the Fellowship Hall to teach Bible Study, came back to get my things together for the 10:30 service and when I looked at the $1 bill it looked different. It was not a $1 bill, it was a $100 bill! Somehow during Bible class that $1 turned into $100! You’re probably thinking, “Well, Pastor, someone played a joke on you. They came in a switched it!” But it doesn’t matter. I had $1 and I now have $100. Whether God motivated someone to switch it or He did a miracle and changed $1 into $100, it doesn’t matter. The thing that matters is that God proved a point, money has a sliding face value, He owns it all, He provides, He can take $1 and make it $100, He can take $100 and make it worth $1, He can take $1 and make it worth a million dollars! That’s what God can do. So, what are we worried about?

The other essential thing that we talked about last week is that financial peace begins with being right with God. Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “What good is it if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?” Without the forgiveness of sin that Jesus Christ offers we are separated from God; no heaven, no answers to prayer (Isaiah 59.2), and God’s financial plan is not going to work for you. We need to be reconnected to God which comes through faith that Jesus Christ died, paid for our sins and through faith in Him, sin is forgiven. With sin forgiven we are reconnected to God, have eternal life in heaven, answers to prayers and God’s financial plan works. Remember the Epistle lesson we read? “God will supply all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. You have to be connected to Christ and you are connected to Him through your faith.

With that being said, we are ready to go on with the rest of

God’s Plan for Financial Peace… The Speed Version

Step IV) Instructions for using your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder Tool

Read the warning labels

Do not trust in your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder Tool to supply your needs – trust in God.

As with all tools, we get instructions. Does anyone here have a little drill called a Dremel? Did you ever read the instructions for your Dremel? It says “Do not use this tool as a dental instrument; do not use it for doing your teeth by yourself.” It actually says that in the instructions! You will want to read the warning label on your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool. It says “In God We Trust.” Even money tells us to to trust in it, that we are to trust only in God.

Do not use your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool for anything other than its God-given use.

Do not attempt to buy happiness – money can’t do that
Do not attempt to buy peace of mind – peace of mind comes only from God.
Do not use it to attract love.
Do not use it as an ego-booster.
Do not spend more than you have – I heard a very disturbing commercial the other day. It talked about buying hundreds of dollars worth of stuff and it said “no payments, no interest for one year” That is so dangerous. As you will find out if you take the Dave Ramsey Course, credit cards and debit cards are very dangerous. He recommends that you use cash and if you don’t have cash, don’t spend. The possibility is there with debit and credit cards to create financial hardship. Don’t spend more than you have.
Do not attempt to keep up with everyone else – don’t try to “keep up with the Joneses”, it doesn’t work.

To operate your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool, note these basic procedures:

God will put you in need and just because you’re in need doesn’t mean that God has forgotten about you – it means that He is probably going to work His financial plan in your life; it means you will probably see a miracle. He will put you in need, He did it with all sorts of people in the Bible and He does it today.
God will test your faith, asking you to do something that won’t work unless He makes it work – The “CRAZY IDEA!” Last week we talked about feeding the five thousand; to feed over five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish is just crazy! Yet God put them in need and then He asked them to do the “CRAZY IDEA!”
God will miraculously make it work. Did He make it work when feeding the five thousand? He’s going to miraculously make it work!
Seeing God at work will ease your worry, and
As worry eases, it is replaced by trust in God.

So, let’s see this in action –

Manna (Exodus 16:4-5)

God put His people in need everyday
God tested them, instructing them to gather enough for that day
God miraculously supplied their need for food everyday
Seeing God supply food eased their worry
As worry eased, it was replaced by trust in God

Manna was a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool

Isn’t it interesting that one of our nicknames for money is “bread”? That’s exactly what manna was for the Israelites in the desert and what did God do with this bread/manna? He had delivered the people from slavery in Egypt, they were in the desert with no McDonalds on every corner. God had put the people in need. He could have delivered them from slavery and had them wander in a nice oasis but He didn’t choose to do that. Instead, He put them in need; He stuck them in the middle of the desert where they would die unless He intervened. Every day God put His people in need; He told the people to collect only enough manna for one day; if you collected more manna than you needed it rotted, it smelled bad and God was not very happy because people were not following His instructions. And every day for forty years God miraculously rained down manna in the morning. They always had enough – God worked a miracle every day feeding them for forty years. Seeing God supply food eased their worry and, as worry eased, it was replaced by trust in God. Manna was a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool.

War (Joshua 6, Judges 3, 7, etc.)

God put His people in need…they needed victory in battle.
God tested them, sending them into war outnumbered and with no weapons. The “CRAZY IDEA!”
God miraculously gave them victory
Seeing what God did eased their worry
As worry eased it was replaced by trust in God

War was a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool

There was plenty of food after the Israelites entered the Promised Land so they didn’t need manna anymore; and they didn’t need money because houses, vineyards, food, everything was provided. But still God wanted to test His people to make sure they trusted in Him so now He used war. God told the Israelites when they entered the Promised Land that every day they would have to go to battle and drive out the people who were in the land. What God did was put the people in need every day again because every day they needed victory in battle.

In Judges Chapter 7, Gideon was leading the people into battle against the Midianites and God said to the Israelites, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into your hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her announce to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave.’ And 22,000 men left; 10,000 remained. Then God said, ‘You still have too many people’.” So God divided them out and eventually narrowed the army down to 300 people. The Israelites, God’s people were outnumbered four hundred and fifty to one! And then God sent them into battle without weapons all they had were clay jars, a little torch and a trumpet. Now if that isn’t a crazy idea I don’t know what is! But that is how God works. So using war, God put His people in need and tested them every day, sending them into battle outnumbered with no weapons. Then miraculously God gave them victory – read the story in Judges Chapter 7 – they blew the trumpet and broke the pots which threw the Midianites into confusion and they ended up killing each other. God caused the Israelites to be victorious. Seeing what God did eased their worry and as worry eased it was replaced by trust in God. For the Israelites at that point in time, war was a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder.

Money (Malachi 3:10-12)

We need money every day to survive
God tests us, increasing our need, asking us to give Him ten percent or more of what we make. God promises He will supply our needs and that ninety percent of our income will have more buying power than one hundred percent – the “CRAZY IDEA!”
God miraculously supplies our needs and pours out so much blessing that we don’t have room for it.
Seeing God supplying our needs eases our worry.
As worry eases it is replaced by trust in God and financial peace.

Money is a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool.

How does God test faith, ease worry and build trust today? He doesn’t lead us into the desert without food and water so He can supply manna; there is war, but we don’t have to go to battle every morning, He has another plan – it’s called tithing. This is the plan that God uses on us today. God says in Malachi 3:10-12, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse of the temple that there may be food in my house” says the Lord.” Now tithing is simply giving 10% or more of your income to your church. A lot of times people will say that they do give 10% of their income away - some to the Red Cross, some to United Way, some to Joel Osteen Ministries, some here, some there - but that’s not God’s principle of tithing. God’s principle of tithing is to give ten percent to your local congregation. For the visitors here this morning, your ten percent goes to your church for your ministry; members of Trinity, your ten percent goes for ministry here. And then God says, “test me in this and I will throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing you won’t have room for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit ahead of times.” In other words, God says that He’s going to reach out his hand and do something so that the ninety percent you have left has the buying power or more than one hundred percent.

We need money every day to survive and God tests us just as He did with war and manna, increasing our need and asking us to give him 10% or more of what we make. God promises that He will supply our needs and that 90% of our income will have more buying power than 100% of our income. That’s a crazy idea – right? It will never work – right? But that’s the point. It will never work unless God intervenes and does it. And when He does, you have just experienced a miracle. Just like providing manna every day and those victories in war, you have experienced a miracle. And seeing that miracle will ease your worries, will build your trust and you will have financial peace. Money is simply a Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder.

And if you ask how God can take 90% of your income and give the buying power of more than 100% well, I had $1 and now I have $100! Who did that? God did! For whatever reason and by whatever means the fact remains that I had the buying power of $1 and now I have the buying power of $100. A miracle. And it’s a faith tester too because God challenges us to believe it’s a miracle. And when we see that has God supplied, it eases worry and trust is built. That’s what God does; money is simply a tool in God’s hands.

Step V) Enjoy the benefits of your Faith Tester Worry Easer Trust Builder tool for years to come!

Freedom from money’s control
Less worry
More blessings that you will have room for

Material
Spiritual
Emotional
Peace based on God’s promises to provide for you

Doing all this, you will enjoy the benefits of your tool for years to come and you will have freedom from money’s control. I remember Hal Holbrook’s famous line from the movie “Wall Street”. He said, “The bad thing about money is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.” You’re free from that now because you know what money is all about. You have freedom from money’s control - less worry and more blessings – material blessings, spiritual blessings emotional blessings – peace based on God’s promise to provide for you.

People have asked me what I am going to do with this $100 bill. I’m going to put it in the fund that we use to help people who don’t have enough money for oil heat. It’s really easy to do, if you’ve been in this congregation for any length of time you know that I’m a tightwad, it’s hard for me to part with my money. God had to work on me thirty-five years before I was able to get the nerve to tithe and I have never regretted it. So this money was pretty easy to part with and you know why? I know it isn’t mine to begin with so when I put it in the fund for oil heat, there’s no problem. That’s what God does in freeing us from the control money has over us.

Prayer –

Heavenly Father, Thank You for revealing Your financial plan in the Bible and thank You, Lord for giving us that proof we need by turning the $1 into $100. Heavenly Father, help us to work Your plan. May Your Holy Spirit touch our lives and give us the faith and the courage. And we pray all this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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