Designer God - A Design for Your Finances

 

“Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then give all you can.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley

Gain All You Can

In regard to finances, there are generally two mentalities driving people to two extremes: poverty and greed.

God wants to bring us to a place of contentment and generosity. Before we can be generous, we must have something to share.

Deuteronomy 8:11-20 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Save All You Can

If you are going to save successfully, you must also have a plan to get out of debt.

Debt:

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

We can not escape the trap of debt when we do not control our impulse to nickel and dime ourselves to death.

How Good Is Your Money Game?

Proverbs 21:17, 20 Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich. Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.

Didn't Jesus say not to worry about saving money?

Matthew 6:19-24 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." No. He was a Jewish Rabbi in agreement with all of the wisdom of Proverbs, which says the following: Proverbs 13:22 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.

What He is saying is not to let the desire to reach a certain goal keep you from your ultimate devotion which is generous obedience to Christ.

What does it mean to serve money as your master?

It means to look to money as the source of your security, stability, happiness and salvation.

It is through the practice of worshiping God through your tithes and offerings that He frees you from the idolatry of looking to your job or people as your god, rather than Jesus Christ.

Give All You Can

People have the false idea that they should begin a life of generosity when they have accumulated enough. However, it is a deception to feel like you will ever have enough if you do not live by Christ's standard of contentment.

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” - G.K. Chesterton

Where and how does God say giving should begin?

Deuteronomy 26:1-15 When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.” Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him. Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household. When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. Then say to the Lord your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them. I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while I was in mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything you commanded me. Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The tithe is a mechanism through which you continually renew your covenant with God, reestablishing the trust that you have in your heart toward Him in regard to His provision and protection (i.e. - Old Testament times' covenants with kings). It is for your benefit to free you of the idolatry in your heart, looking to another god or savior.

Proverbs 11:24 One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

The place that I will show you...

The church is not a charity like the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity. Though wonderful organizations like these found their beginnings through the motivation of Christian benevolence, they do not replace, supersede or divide the portion that belongs in the house of God alone. It is a place of consecration where, by the command of God, our hearts are shaped in worship as we give the first and the best of our time, talent and resources to Jesus for His direct, unadulterated Kingdom/gospel purposes in the earth.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
- Maya Angelou

Old Testament tithe or New Testament generosity?

Matthew 5:17-48

The writers of the New Testament make reference to the fact that we are not under the law of sin and death for our reconciliation (to be counted innocent in the sight of God) because of Jesus' atoning sacrifice for us. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law for us (Romans 8:1-5), paid the penalty for our rebellion on the cross and rose from the dead for our justification (Romans 4:25). However, through Christ, we now have a greater expectation to the law of the spirit of life (being led by the Holy Spirit), which leads us to the eternal principles that were at the heart of the law, rather than the letter. This calls us to greater righteousness, not less, as some would suppose.

The Old Testament tithe to the local storehouse is to be the floor, not the ceiling of our generosity. As we saw in The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus always took the law to a higher, not lower level. Do you think that Jesus would want you to be more or less generous in the New Testament? Use the tithe, the tenth, as your starting place to know, "at minimum," I should do this...

Should I wait until I'm out of debt or reach all of my financial goals before I begin?

No.

You don't make up for years of disobedience by perpetuating it. You begin with obedience now as a mechanism to invite God to reverse the curse. Additionally, if this is your first time learning about this, you develop a lifetime of trust by taking the first steps of obeying what you now know.

Generous like Jesus Christ:

Joy comes as a result of having Jesus' perspective, when you know that the sum total of your life is part of a larger story. Do not let the longing for individual desires weigh you down. You must live for and give yourself to something, to someone, bigger than yourself to truly find authentic, sustainable, increasing joy. The only lasting, eternal cause is Jesus Christ and His everlasting Kingdom. Let's meet Jesus at the cross today and allow Him to produce His promises in our lives by the power of obedience to His wisdom and Spirit.

Second City Church- Designer God Sermon Series 2015

Designer God - A Design for Your Family

It is said that "home is where the heart is."

A Home Built Around God's Word

The greatest benefit of the home is to provide a safe, consistent environment where the love and purposes of God can be cultivated in the lives of an individual.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

1) Have a daily time in your home where you study the word of God and pray together.

2) Through prayer, develop a family mission statement through which you can serve Christ in your local community.

A Heart Built Around God's Word

Have your heart connected to a local church.

Mark 3:31-35 And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark 10:29-30 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

The nation of Israel was divided into tribes, clans, families and individuals.

It takes time to build healthy, deep, committed relationships: spiritual family. It is worth it. Be all in. It will make all of the difference.

(Pastor Rollan gave the example of merely podcasting versus having a commitment to the local church.)

You can not have true biblical fellowship this way.

It is like identifying with people on sitcoms versus filling your tank through flesh and blood relationships.

Second City Church- Designer God Sermon Series 2015

Designer God - A Design for Your Faith

It has been said that "the Old Testament is God's will concealed. The New Testament is God's will revealed."

Designed through the Law

The purpose of the Law is to show us who God is and show us the way to right relationship with Him by walking in His ways.

Deuteronomy 4:15-31 “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of that good land. Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. “When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Galatians 3:24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

The Content of the Law

The law of God establishes His authority in our lives.

“Don't be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you've been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I haven't seen it myself. I couldn't prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority -because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.” - C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

Deuteronomy 5:1-22 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said: “‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “‘You shall have no other gods before me. “‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. “‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. “‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. “‘You shall not murder. “‘And you shall not commit adultery. “‘And you shall not steal. “‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. “‘And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.’ “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

"Obedience is very, very, very hard; disobedience is lethal." - Timothy Keller, Praying Our Fears - 18:30-23:45

How should we interact with the law today?

Anything fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ is the basis of our righteousness and relationship with God. It is finished. This includes, for example, the sacrifices that were made regularly at the temple in payment/atonement for sin. This was settled at the cross and through Jesus' resurrection. Anything left to daily decision making is the present responsibility of the Christian to demonstrate love for Christ.

The sermon on the Mount took the law to the next level, making it about the heart rather than mere external works.

Matthew 5:17-20 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This applies to your career:

"There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job." - George Crane

Faith and the Law

Trusting in the finished work of Jesus at the cross establishes the basis of our confidence in relationship to God and our resultant walk of love in obedience to Him.

Romans 3:27-31 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Second City Church- Designer God Sermon Series 2015