As a congregation we haven’t ever had a Good Friday message. We always move from Palm Sunday to Easter, so today, I’d like us to imagine that it’s Good Friday. In order to make this more powerful, I need your help.

I am going to read off a series of questions and if you answer any of those questions with a yes, I’d like you to stand up. Nothing will be asked or required of you, except that you vote by standing up. This is a safe place. We value each of you and would never do anything to diminish your value, your significance. If you can answer any of the following questions with “Yes” then please stand up. We’ll start off with a couple of easy ones to help you get the feel of it.

1. If you’re a human being please stand up?
2. If you brush your teeth, please stand up?
3. If you have ever felt rejected, betrayed, or abandoned please stand up?
4. If you’ve ever felt like you had a friend, but then they did something and it hurt really bad, and you felt betrayed, rejected or abandoned by that friend then please stand up?
5. If you’ve ever had a parent who you thought they were going to be there for you, but you were mistaken, because they weren’t, then please stand up?
6. If you’ve ever had a spouse who you tried to love with all your heart, but at some point you felt like they rejected you, betrayed you, or abandoned you.
7. If you’ve ever felt like a brother or a sister rejected, betrayed, or abandoned you when you needed them, then please stand up?
8. If you’ve ever felt like you were betrayed, rejected or abandoned by a church or by a religious leader, please stand up.
9. If you’ve ever felt betrayed by our government or a political party, the please stand up?
10. Please stand up if you’ve ever felt alone or isolated and at that time it felt like nobody cared?

Thank you for your help.

If we are human and if we are honest, we have all been rejected, betrayed, and abandoned by others, often times by those whom we love the most. Rejection and betrayal are powerful evils that leave deep hurt in our soul. How should we respond to such powerful evil, because as unfortunate as it is, it’s likely that we’re going to feel betrayed again? How shall we respond to such powerful hurt? What is the right response to these feelings? Why is Good Friday so good? How does what happened 2000 years ago deeply affect the way we live our lives today?

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 How many of you have ever been to a wedding? If you have been at a wedding, then you may have heard these words that Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” It goes on, but it ends this way, “And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13).

Faith, Hope and love are like the trinity of the soul. They are essential for life. We talk a lot about love and we talk regularly about faith, but the idea of hope is not talked about much, so I’d like to ask you a few questions to get us tracking in that direction this morning.

Did you know that hope is very important for life? People with little hope get depressed. The less hope they have the more depressed they get. Did you know that people who feel hopeless often commit suicide? Without hope people die on the inside. Our innermost being dies without hope. People who commit suicide die on the inside first.

Have you ever thought about our need for hope? Hope is essential for life. Without hope something inside us dies. Hope is so essential to life that people can’t live without it. For you and I hope is as necessary for life as food, water, or air.

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How many of you occasionally or normally feel stressed? Would you raise your hands? How many of you would say that you occasionally or regularly drive over the speed limit because you’re late or because you don’t have enough time? How many of you wish you had more time to spend with the people that you love.” How many would say that?

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Last week we looked at a passage where the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Timothy a new pastor and Paul said to Timothy, “Command all those who are rich in this present world . . .” (1 Timothy 7:17) and we camped out on the idea that rich is a moving target.

We said that you’ve never open a paycheck at 3:00 on Friday afternoon and have it say, “You’re rich!” That will never happen, because rich is a moving target. And so people who are rich never know that they are rich, so they keep trying to get rich, and never get good at being rich.

We said that a poll was taken to determine what rich was and people who made less than $30,000 said that if they made $74,000 a year or more, then they would be rich, but if you asked people who made $74,000 a year or more they would tell you that they are not rich. People who made $50,000-$75,000 a year said that if they could make $200,000 a year that they would be rich, but the pollster asked people who made $200,000 a year if they considered themselves rich and they said “No”, and then they pointed at people who made $500,000 and said “They’re rich!” And on it went. Rich, they determined, was a moving target.

So, we said that if being rich is a moving target and people never really consider themselves rich, then they would never learn how to honor God with their wealth.  Lastly, we said that if you make $37,000 or more then you are in the top 4 percent of all wage earners in the world and if you make $45,000 or more that you are in the top 1 percent of all wage earners in the world. We said last week that many of us in this room are rich because we are in the top wage earners in the world, but here’s the deal. We don’t feel rich, and since we don’t feel rich, we don’t think that we’re rich, so we keep trying to get rich and never begin to act rich.

Here’s the question we left you with last week. If you make $37,000 a year or more, you are rich. I am rich. But here’s the question, “Why don’t we feel rich?” Why don’t you feel rich?

I mean, how many of you would say that you occasionally or maybe even often have financial stress in your lives? Would you raise your hands if that’s true for you? I want you to look around and see how normal this is. This is what the world calls normal. In our culture, financial stress is completely normal. Living paycheck to paycheck in our culture is completely normal. Having monthly payments normal – debt normal, worry, anxiety, fear around money – especially in a slowed economy is normal. Having financial fights if you’re married, is very, very normal in our culture.

Sadly, in our culture, having little or no margin is normal. The reason I don’t like normal finances in America is because normal is not working. Normal doesn’t give us that (Vision Banner: Heaven on Earth).

Financial margin is the amount available beyond what is necessary. Margin is the amount available beyond what is necessary. Financial margin is a simple math problem. It’s the difference between what we have versus what we need. So let’s put it into real numbers. If I make $500 a week and my bills are $400, then I have $100 margin for that week. If you earn $3000 a month and you spend $3000 a month, then you have how much margin? Zero, Zip, Natta!

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How many of you would like to be rich? Maybe you bought a lottery ticket yesterday, or maybe you found a lottery ticket yesterday on the ground, and today they read off the numbers and Eureka, Hot Dog, you are rich!!!! How many of you would like it if that happened? But then here’s the question, “What kind of rich person would you be?

Maybe you’ve known rich people in the past or maybe you’ve seen them on TV and so many of them are arrogant or rude or extremely selfish, even greedy, and you might have thought to yourself, if I was rich like them, I wouldn’t be like that. I would be more generous with my money if I was them, right? What kind of rich person would you be?

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