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!

If you are like the average American in recent years, you spent more than you earned – so you have negative margin. You have debt. Most Americans think its normal to have large amounts of debt. Here’s the deal. You and I make more than most of the people in the world and for most of us that’s not enough. Instead we go into debt so that we can have more. It’s a sickness. Debt is not God’s way.

Ok, so let’s back up. What does financial margin look like in our every day lives? It is having money left over at the end of the month. It’s possible and it’s a good thing! It’s having money available to help someone who’s in need. It’s having money to give that doesn’t create financial stress, and when we are able to give out of love, it gives us great joy. Margin could provide the opportunity to do something that you enjoy.

Financial margin is necessary in order to provide freedom. It is necessary to experience peace and joy and love in our lives. Financial margin is necessary to eliminate worry and fear from our finances and to give us financial freedom to live joy filled, generous lives. There is no good that happens when there is no financial margin. Most good things happen in the margin of our lives.

But here’s the deal. Financial margin is something that most people in America do not have, and apart from financial margin, it’s very difficult for most people to experience God’s best for them.

Here’s the primary Proverb that we’re going to be focusing on today. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil – there is more than enough, but a foolish person devours all they have. Proverbs 21:20 (NIV)

In the house of the wise, there’s margin. In the house of the wise, there’s more than enough. We could say that a foolish person lives pay check to paycheck. Foolish people use up all that they have.

Notice what the verse does not say. It does not say, “In the house of the wealthy there is margin.” It says in the house of the wise. The Bible does not say, “In the home of a two income family, there is more than enough.” The Bible says in the house of the wise there is more than enough.

There is a wise way to manage the money that God has entrusted to us and there is a foolish way to manage the money that God entrusts to us.

Look at the words of Paul to Timothy. But godliness with contentment is great gain. What kind of gain is it? This is not just a get-by sort of gain. I can hear the passion in Paul’s voice as he says this “It is Great Gain! It’s a big win! It’s a big W in the stats column! When there’s godliness and contentment it’s BIG! It’s great gain! For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

There are those families who look like they’re doing well but they’re really not. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:6-10 (NIV)

What are some of the many griefs that we see today? We see debt causing tremendous grief. We see financial pressure causing tremendous grief. We see people losing their homes because of foreclosure causing tremendous grief. We see mothers going back to work when they really want to stay home with their kids and it causes tremendous grief. We see financial tension in marriages causing tremendous grief. We see kids with great burdens on their shoulders because they feel the grief and tension of their parents caused by debt and poorly managed money. We see kids with deep grief because their parents are off chasing illusionary rainbows and pots of gold instead of spending time with them. We see people who cannot enjoy the blessings that they have because they are always worried about money.

So why do we live without margin? What’s the problem? Why is it that so many of us trade all the good things that come from living with margin with all the things that fill our homes and our garages and our barns?

Our culture is convincing us of a lie. Our culture is using this definition of happiness,

More than I currently have

If you had just a little more, then you’d be happy. Our culture tells us, you deserve it and if you can’t afford it, then make payments. Get it now because it’s going to make you happy. Don’t wait, you can have it today. Just do it.

We have 20 somethings trying to live at the same level as their parents. They want to live at the same lifestyle level that their parents live at, but it took their parents 20-30 years to get there. But they think they need it now. Why? Because if I have this stuff then I’ll be happy.

The crazy thing is, many of you are more blessed than you ever thought possible and yet you’re more miserable then you ever dreamed you could be. What’s happened? In our culture, most of us have lifestyled our way straight past margin. It’s not an income problem. Most of you would say “If I made a little more money, then . . .” but it is not an income problem, it is a lifestyle problem. As your income went up, your lifestyle trailed.

If we go all the way to the roots of the problem it’s not a lifestyle problem, it’s a spiritual problem. Matthew 6:19-21

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. The very thing that most of us do, Jesus says, “Don’t do that, because that will never make you happy, it will never fill you with joy, it will never give you great peace – don’t do that!” But instead store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Where your money goes, there your heart follows. So what do we do? 98 percent of our money goes toward the world on average in the U.S, and we wonder why we want more of the world? 2 percent of our money goes toward God and his mission and we wonder why we are so dissatisfied with God. It’s because where are money goes, there are heart follows. Instead of honoring God with our money, instead of acknowledging God with our money we acknowledge ourselves.

But let’s just say that we want financial margin and we want to be generous, but we don’t know how. I think that happens all the time. There are two obvious answers to the question, “How do I create financial margin? The first one is to make more and the second one is to spend less. The average American income is $48,000 a year.

If you are average, that puts you in the top 1 percent of all the wage earners in the world. If you make $37,000 a year or more, that puts you in the top 4 percent of all wage earners in the world. You can ask God for more and he might help you make more money, but there’s a good chance that God’s going to say, “You already have more money than the rest of the world, so the answer’s ‘NO’”.

So the obvious answer to the question, “How do I gain financial margin?” is answered by spending less.

Now the response that most of us will come up with is, “well, that might be ok with you, because you’re rich, but if you only knew how tight things are at my house, and if you saw how big my payments are and if you could see the stingy numbers on my paycheck, then you’d know there is no way to create financial margin in my finances.

So what does this look like? First, all the principles that we talked about two weeks ago apply. We talked about a whole bunch of parables that provide wise thoughts about how to think about our finances. All of those are true and each one will help you with your finances once you get back on the field of play, but for many of you, you’re so far in the hole right now that you’re up to your chin in debt and you feel so much pressure and anxiety over your finances that you can’t even breath. So this morning I’d like to lay out a plan that has been laid out by many financial planners. Here’s how it goes.

First, Pray. Pray and tell God why you want to get out of debt. Confess how you’ve mismanaged his money and ask for his power and the presence of his Spirit to empower you to be content and to seek him first above all other things. Pray his wisdom and his truth to fill your heart and mind, so that you might do his will and experience his blessings. First, before you do anything else, pray. You cannot get financial margin apart from God.

Second, make a commitment that you’re not going to take on any more debt. I suggest cutting up your credit cards if you can’t pay the whole card off every month. If you can’t pay it off, do plastic surgery. Any pair of scissors will do and cut the card up.

Third, List all your assets on a piece of paper. List all your cars, your house if you have one, maybe motorcycles or snowmobiles, or ATV’s. You’re listing all your assets because you may need to sell one or more of these assets to find financial margin, to find financial freedom, and to begin to live as though you’re rich.

Fourth, list all your debts on a piece of paper. List the company or person  that your debt is from, the length of the loan, and the interest rate being paid. You might have debts from credit cards, rent to own companies, car loans, doctors, dentists, or hospitals, house loans, vacations, boats, snowmobiles, etc. List them all out

Next look for the shortest loan and the biggest interest rate and commit to pay those off first.

The way to get money to pay these loans off is by sacrifice. It might mean that you have to go without coffee, or beer, or pop, or cigarettes. It might mean that you don’t buy any new cloths for a while or that you shop at Goodwill more. It might mean that you don’t go out to eat for a while or that you cut back from eating out three times a week to once a week. It might mean stopping your cable TV, or your internet or your cell phone service for a time. These are not needs . . . they are all wants. Getting into debt is always easy, but getting out requires sacrifice.

Remember, The borrower is the slave of the lender. Proverbs 22:7 (NRSV)

In order to feel rich, we have to have financial margin. We have to have money left over after we pay our bills. In order to get financial freedom we have to cut the chains of our debtors so that we are no longer their slave.

To be in debt is oppressive. Debt is a heavy weight that crushes people and robs them of their peace and joy. Debt is like a parasite that sucks the life out of people. Debt is never looked upon favorably in the Bible, so do everything you can to get out of debt and quickly. It takes sacrifice now, but it offers freedom later. Remember, we’re talking about margin. Everything good happens in the margins. Margin is the difference between what we owe and what we make.

Next step for creating margin out of debt is to pay off the smallest debt or the largest interest debt first. Take the $10 or $20 or $50 that you’ve created by sacrificing – let’s just say it’s $20 and add that money to your monthly payment for that smallest load or the largest interest rate loan. Do that until you pay off the debt.

Then take the $20 that you created by sacrificing And the money that you were paying toward the first debt and put that money all towards the second debt until the debt is gone. Then take that money and apply it toward the next debt and so on until you’re completely out of debt.

Sound simple? It’s not. It’s hard work, but it really worth it, because little by little you’re creating financial margin, your creating less financial stress, and little by little you begin to think about your finances in more positive ways. But we’re not done yet.

If you’re going to have a loan, probably the best loan that you can have is your house payment. Once you’ve paid off all the other debts, you roll all the money you were spending on loans and you begin to save for the very first time. At this stage you’re about to begin creating financial margin.

70 percent of all car buyers finance their cars. What’s amazing to me is that the average time that a person will drive their car is 4 years. The average age of a car is more than 10 years. Imagine what would happen if you paid off your car and put the same amount into an account for three or 4 years, then you could pay for your car with cash. Then if you kept the car up, you could keep making your payments to yourself and putting it in the bank every month. That’s how you create margin.

Once you have all your payments paid off, take the money that you were paying towards your debts and put a couple of thousand dollars in the bank and mark it an emergency fund, so when you transmission goes out in your car it’s not a national disaster, instead, it’s ok because you prepared for the things that you couldn’t plan for.

Once you have an emergency plan, then you go on to a savings plan and once you have that, you begin to have margin.

In order to get that point, we have to sacrifice. We have to spend less than we make. When we get margin, then we

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?

This message is entitled “How to be rich!” I am greatly helped in this message by pastor Andy Stanley. I heard a message by some time ago, and it got under my skin and has really challenged how I think about money.

In our world in our world people are always trying to tell us how to get rich, and a world that is constantly baiting us to get rich, and to have more and get more stuff. I live in that world and I fall for the same stuff. But what nobody ever talks about is how to be rich once you get rich. Once you get rich, how do you get good at being rich.

Now, some of you are already thinking, Well, this message is not for me because I’m not a rich person. I know rich people, but I’m not rich, so this message is for them and not me. But here’s the deal. Nobody knows where the line is between rich and not rich. You and I’ll never get a paycheck or a bonus and at the top of it, it’ll say You’re now Rich!!!

You’ll never know when you crossed the line from not rich to rich. You won’t be able to say, Friday at 3:00 I got rich!

You don’t know where that line is, so here’s what’s going to happen to you. One day, you might go from not rich to rich and you won’t know it. And instead of learning how to be rich, you’re just going to keep trying to get richer and you’ll never learn to be what you’ve already become because you don’t know where the line is.

Does that make any sense at all? You and I we might know some rich people and if we went up to them and asked them, “Hey, are you rich?” What would they say? “No, I’m not rich.” And they would immediately talk about the richer people, and you’d look at them and go, “You’re crazy! You’re Rich!” And they don’t even know it, Why? It’s because they don’t know where the line is.

The same thing that happened to them, might happen to you or maybe has already happened to you. They went from not rich to rich and didn’t know it, and instead of learning how to be rich now that they are rich, they, in fact, are spending time and energy trying to get rich, when they’re already rich.

Do you know any rich people who aren’t very good at it? Sure you do. Maybe you have a daughter and they’re selling candy bars or cookies and you see this big house, and the people obviously are rich, and you think to yourself, we can make short work of this. We’ll go up to that front door and those people can buy cases of what we’re selling and not even phase them, and tomorrow we can turn in all the money and say, “Done” because rich people ought to be generous, right? So my daughter finally got up to the door and the person bought one candy bar or didn’t buy anything, and you say to yourself, that’s not how to be rich!

Or, have you ever met an arrogant rich person? And you think to yourself, “If I were rich like them, I would not be like that. They’re not very good at being rich. I would be good at being rich. I wouldn’t be arrogant like that.”

So, this morning we are going to be looking at a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to a new church pastor by the name of Timothy. Paul, a seasoned veteran in pasturing is giving advice to Timothy who is a new pastor. Paul used to be rich, but then became poor when he became a Christian, because it was against the law in Paul’s time to be a Christian. Paul writes these verses to Timothy about rich people, and who better to write about rich people than Paul because he used to be rich.

Paul says to Timothy, when you see rich people and when you are around rich people, here’s what I want you to tell them. Paul says this:

Command those who are rich in this present world . . . 1 Timothy 6:17 (NIV)

Now, as soon as we read that first part of what Paul is commanding, we think, “We’ll this is not for me! I’m not rich, so I can just skip over the rest of these verses – I can just take a nap this morning, because this is not relevant to me.”

Why would Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, and why would God, who inspired the writing of the Bible, separate those people out from the rest of the people in the world and say, I have some very specific commands for you? Isn’t that kind of weird? Shouldn’t the Bible be everything for everybody? Why would Paul and why would God address rich people specifically?

The answer is pretty evident if you just look around at some of the rich people that you know. Rich people have unique issues, don’t they? Rich people have unique temptations. Rich people have unique responsibilities. And this may be difficult for most of us to believe, but it is difficult and challenging to be good at being rich. Consequently, rich people are set up for all sorts of trials and difficulties that non-rich people don’t have to deal with. So, since God loves all people, he says, “I want to be sensitive to the trials of rich people and I want to give them some very specific instructions.

You know the kind of unique things that rich people have to deal with don’t you? I mean, rich people have extra money, right? Rich people will save up money, because they have extra, and put in into the bank and then when their kids graduate from high school, they send them to college and they pay for their kids college, because they have so much extra money. Some rich families actually have a car for every adult living in their house and when their kids get old enough to drive, then they buy their kids a car, maybe not a new car, but a car none the less.

Rich people have so much extra money that they have to do estate planning – that’s the kind of planning some rich folks do, so that they’re extra money can be distributed correctly when they die. Get this, rich people know that they are going to run out of time before they’re going to run out of money – that when they die, they’re going to have left over money. So they have to spend money and time planning what to do with their left over money. Rich people pay other people money in order to help them plan what to do with their money after they’re dead.

Rich people over eat. Rich people have so much food, get this, this is amazing – Rich people have so much food, they have so much food in their house, that they will actually throw the old food away to make room for the new food. They will have so much food that food will go bad before they can eat it all. Rich people have pressures and have to think about things that non rich people don’t have to do.

I’ve heard rich people say to other rich people, “I’m worried about my kids, because they have so much stuff”, and then they go right home and buy them more stuff.

Rich people complicate their own lives unnecessarily, but they can’t help it because it’s the nature of being rich, and I think this is why God addresses them separately.

Rich people will do things like, they’ll go into their kitchen and they’ll take things out that work, and then they’ll put other things right back in that works. For instance, Rich people will take out a refrigerator that works, and then they’ll buy a new one and put it right back in the same place the other one was. Rich people rip out all the counters in their kitchens or baths and they’re stable, I mean you could sit on them, and then they’ll put in new counters. It’s amazing!

Then they’ll complain about all the dust and crude and disorganization that’s going on while they’re redoing their kitchen and how inconvenient it is to have to use the second kitchen downstairs while the remodeling is going on upstairs.

There is a lot of social pressure when you’re rich. When you’re out with other people, you have to look a certain way. You have to pay attention to style. Rich women will stand in front of a closet full of very nice cloths, and they’ll say – what do they say? Yeah, “I have nothing to wear.” You know some rich people!

Meanwhile their rich husband is down in the garage. A garage is a house for their car. Rich people have houses, yes, but they also have houses for their cars. Many people don’t have a house, but rich people have a house for their cars. Those rich people will look at their cars and say to themselves or to someone else, “We need a new car” and the crazy part about that is the car they have runs just fine.

Some really rich people not only have a house for their cars, but they have a house for their things called a barn. They have so many things that they build a house for their things. Can you believe that?

Rich people work for other rich people that tell them, “I want you to take a vacation– a week, or two, or three where I don’t want you to work at all, but we’re going to pay you during that time anyway. They say to them, “We’re going to give you money, but you’re not going to be here. Rich people don’t even have to work to get more money, and people give them money to not work. Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard of? Rich people then have to spend time planning what they’re going to do with all the time they aren’t at work.

This all adds level upon level of complexity that non-rich people don’t have to deal with. They get in fights and arguments about where they’re going to go, and where they’re going to stop and what they’re going to spend all their extra money on.  These rich people get on planes and rent cars, do great things and go to fantastic places, but they still die with money left over.

Rich people have a lot more complexity and anxiety and stress because they’re rich, so God very specifically, through Paul, addresses rich people in the Bible, because they deal with things that non-rich people never have to deal with.

Now, the problem with this verse, when Paul says to Timothy, “Command those who are rich” is that we don’t know exactly who Paul is talking to? Rich people, Yes, but who are they?

The reason why people don’t think that they’re rich is because they can immediately thing of others who are richer. Here’s the hard part about these verses in Timothy. If the verses are for rich people, but the people who are rich don’t think they’re rich, then the people that those verses are for will never take them to heart because they don’t think that they’re rich. Right? If God in his infinite wisdom says, “And here are some things for rich people” but nobody ever puts themselves into that category, then those verses go unattended to.

Let me give you some perspective here. There was a gallop poll taken and the intention of the poll was to try and determine what was rich. And not surprisingly, every group they talked to thought the next group was rich. Here’s how this goes.

v     Those that earned less than $30k household income thought that a household who earned $74K was rich

However, if you are here today and make $74K and I were to ask you, “Are you rich?” you would say, “No, I’m not rich.”

v     Those that earned between $30-$50K said “If I could make $100K per year, then I would be rich.

v     On and on up the charts it went. Each group of income earners believed that if they could, a little more than double what they earned, then they would consider themselves rich, but the people who made that amount of money never considered themselves rich.

Here’s the point: Being rich is a moving target. That’s why you may cross the line from not rich to rich and not know it.

Let’s take it to another level. Internationally, if you earn $37,000 a year or more, you are in the top 4 percent of the wage earners in the world. 96 percent of the people in the world are poorer than you if you make $37K a year, but if you make $37K a year, you do not think you are rich.

If you make $45K a year, you make in the top 1 percent of the wage earners in the . . . whole . . . world.

Now, here’s the interesting thing. Not one person in this room jumped up and down and yelled, “I’m rich, I’m rich, honey we’re rich! I love this church, because today we are rich” Not one person in this room smiled when I gave you those statistics. It didn’t take any of the financial pressure off of you did it. Why? It’s because you don’t . . . feel rich. There is no relief at all is there? Even though internationally many of us are rich!

The reason we don’t think we’re rich is because we don’t feel rich, and until you begin to feel rich, you’re going to try and get rich, and as long as you’re trying to get rich you’ll never act rich, because you don’t think you’re rich!

Here’s the deal: Feeling rich isn’t about income. It’s about how responsible you are with it. Feeling rich isn’t about income, it’s about margin and margin is the difference between what you owe verses what you have. It is the difference between what your bills are verses what’s in your check. Feeling rich doesn’t have anything to do with income! How do I know this? It’s because whenever I travel to third world countries, I inevitably find people who are rich, they are content with what they have, because all their needs are met.

There was a really great story a couple of years back when Bill Gates, the president and CEO of Microsoft went to India. Bill was trying to figure out how to be a responsible with all his money that he had been blessed with, and so he was way out in rural India, way off the beaten path in a very small hut where a single mom lived who was very, very poor. Bill was talking to this woman through a translator, and of course there was a journalist covering the story, and when Bill Gates left, the journalist asked the woman through a translator, “Did you know that the man who left your house is the richest man in the world?”  And the woman responded without any kind of expression, “Everybody who visits from the West is rich”.

In other words, if you had been the next person who came to her house, she would have put you in the same category as Bill Gates, because rich is rich! But that doesn’t make you feel any better about yourself does it?

The only paradigm in our culture is the paradigm of upward mobility. Make more, do more, have more, but that is a mirage that will never bring you contentment, peace, and joy.

If you make $37K a year or more, you are rich, and until we begin to acknowledge that we’re rich, we will never begin to act rich.

I don’t feel rich because I look around me and see people who have more than me, but when you look around the world you will see that you and I are very rich. If we are rich, how should we act? Here’s the rest of our verse.
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything – God owns everything – for our enjoyment. Are you enjoying your finances right now or is there a lot of anxiety or fear around your finances? Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share – loving our neighbor as our self. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 (NIV)

Next week we are going to be talking about how to get financial margin. Margin is one of the biggest things needed in order to FEEL rich. Now we know that we’re rich, but how do we begin to feel like we’re rich, that’s the topic of next week.

Let me start us with this question. Who did you learn about how to handle money from? How did you learn to handle money? And then this basic question, “are you doing it right?”  And then this one, “How do you know?”

This week we are going to be looking at the book of Proverbs for some wise counsel in the handling of money. Let me tell you a little bit about Proverbs.  Proverbs has many short micro- bytes of wisdom on many topics.  It is not really arranged topically.  The Proverbs, or wise sayings, are organized like a tossed salad, they’re just scattered throughout the book. So this morning we are going to take a number of these pieces and try to put them all together.  We are not going to look at every verse in Proverbs that has to do with money, but we are going to take a few glimpses of some of the wise sayings in Proverbs.

Many of the Proverbs were written by Solomon, but some were written by other authors as well. Here we go

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.  Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly into the sky like an eagle. Proverbs 23:4-5

Those are some great words of wisdom. Wealth is short-lived, it’s momentary.  There is only one guarantee that is given in this verse and it’s this, “Wealth will be here today and gone tomorrow, so don’t spend time going there.” Don’t spend too much time worrying about how much money you have because it won’t be around forever anyway.

How many people spend all of their lives working hard to get money and then life hands them something they had never foreseen.  What if life ends tomorrow? What will be worthwhile? Will it be all the things that you have or the money that’s in your bank account that will comfort you? 

Here’s some great wisdom.  Take a break; don’t wear yourself out to get rich.  Show a little restraint.  Don’t constantly beat yourself up by telling yourself that you have to make more money.  You actually don’t have to make more money!  You don’t have to make every dollar that you could make.  It is OK to be able to make more and make the decision to not make more.  Imagine making that kind of decision!  Talk about something completely unheard of!!

The man who Shannon, my wife works for would love her to go from part time to full time. She has told him “No”. Why because there are many things in life that are more important than money. Very early in our marriage we learned the Biblical aspects of managing money God’ way. Those principles have always blessed us and so we can say “No” when other opportunities come to make more money.

There is a point when enough is enough.  Don’t get on the treadmill of needing to work a little harder to make a little more.  Don’t feel that you are a failure if you are not continually making more.

Imagine the peace of mind that could come from this one principle.  Imagine if you replaced every thought that you have for making more money with the thought of thankfulness for what money and possessions you do have.

Imagine if you replace the thoughts of what you would do with more money with thoughts of enjoying what you are already have. Wealth is here today and gone tomorrow so don’t get bent out of shape making as much money as you can. Lighten up and take a break because it is temporary.

A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat. Proverbs 13:8

Possessions begin to own us. Maintaining our possessions consumes us. Big houses take longer to clean and they take more money to heat, cool and maintain. Smaller houses require less work. For everything that I buy, I have to store it and maintain it and that takes time away from the people that I love, and it takes away from being on mission for God.

I like to woodwork. Right after Christmas I bought a new router. It was my dream router and I was so happy to be able to purchase it, but even before I bought it, I began to dream about the accessories that go along with the router. I had to catch myself, because I didn’t even have the router yet, and I was beginning to strategize on how I might get the accessories for the router as well. A man’s riches may ransom his life. Our riches enslave us, but a poor man is free from being entangled by his wealth. A poor man has more time. He’s not enslaved by his possessions, so here’s the question, why do we keep striving for more?

Here’s another Proverb.

Better is a little fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.  Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred. Proverbs 15:16&17

Here’s another one like it

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.

Proverbs 17:1

Money doesn’t bring peace of mind.  We have visions that money will make life enjoyable and satisfying but the wisdom of this Proverb contradicts that. 

A fattened calf during the time this was written portrayed a huge party.  It portrayed a huge festive event with lots of celebration. It was a high caliber party.

Here is what Solomon is saying, “Better to have a party where there is harmony in relationship and all you eat is salad and vegetables than have a party with the best prime rib and have all kinds of fighting and turmoil going on. 

Better to have rich relationships and be poor, then to have poor relationships and be rich. But so often we spend so much time with things – shoveling the driveway, mowing the grass, cleaning the house, fixing the house, the car, playing video games, spending endless hours on the computer and we spend so little time developing and growing our relationships, both at home and those beyond our home.

It is better to have authentic, caring, and transparent relationships than to have lots of money.  It is better to enjoy life with honesty and a sense of being genuine and maybe not have all of the possessions than to have all of the possessions and be caught up in strife and relational turmoil.

It doesn’t matter how much pleasure you can afford or not afford or what kind of parties you can throw.  You can always be a person or a family where there is genuine love and concern for others.

Now, just because money is not everything does not mean that it is nothing.  Money matters a lot.  It is an important part of our lives.  God recognizes that.

Put both verse on the same slide

Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. Proverbs 13:11

Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. Proverbs 10:4

Proverbs encourages diligence when it comes to issues like earning and saving.  Again these are not iron-clad promises – there are always exceptions.  Lazy people do win the lottery.

But the way life generally works is that if you work hard and save wisely you will be provided for sufficiently.  It all comes together both in working hard as well as saving money.

Lots of people never save for two reasons.  One is that they think that saving only begins after you basically have everything else that you want.  Once you pretty much have what you would like to have – that is the time that you can begin to save.  That is not the case.  In order to save you need to begin saying “no” to things that you want or that would make your life easier or better today so that you can say “yes” to the long-term benefits of saving. 

The second reason is that people have the notion of why start saving money when I can’t save very much? If you can’t begin saving a thousand at a time why start at all?  The encouragement of Proverbs is very real here.  Start with $5.00 a week or $10.00 a week.  That may not seem like much but you need to start somewhere even if it is a little at a time. Where can you say “No” to something in your life so that you can begin to save some money?

Proverbs simply says, “Start where you are even if you think that amount seems small to you. Begin small and continue to pray for ways to grow what you save. Most of us begin to spend small and then begin to learn how to spend more, but the Bible tells us to do it the other way around.

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5

What this verse says is think ahead.  Plan well.  Have a game plan of how you are going to approach financial decisions.  Otherwise we tend to act on impulse.

This proverb is saying, “Don’t make snap decisions.”  Don’t make quick decisions especially about major expenditures.  Plan ahead.  Don’t ask the question, “What can I afford.” Instead ask the question, “Does this purchase fit into my long term financial goals.” 

You may be able to afford the payment, but maybe you need to afford something less and commit more money to a savings plan.  “Can I afford the payment?” is not the only question to ask.  You may be able to afford the payment. 

The bigger question is this, “Is this a wise expenditure of money in light of my overall financial plan including savings, giving, and retirement.” So often we purchase things because it feels good. I want that new boat or that new car or that new house, or that new router, or that new outfit and it looks good and I think it will feel good if I have that, so I buy it, often times without any thought to whether or not it fits into my financial plans. We think in the moment instead of with longer-term goals in mind.

Get this. We buy things in the same way that a man or woman becomes an adulterer. A man or woman becomes an adulterer because they pay attention to a strong emotional desire to feel good. We may go out to eat often because the food tastes good and it feels good not to have to prepare it, so we continue to go there even when we can’t give as God calls us to and we can’t save as God calls us to because we fail to say NO to strong emotional desires that pull us in a given direction.

I am not sure how this can work in any way other than by making a budget and tabulating expenditures.  Most of the time we really don’t know how much we are spending. How much did you spend on clothing last year?  How much did you spend on dining out or entertainment last year?  How much money did you spend on spontaneous purchases that you didn’t intend on buying, but it caught your eye and you just had to have it. These items may not be wrong to spend money on, but they can keep you from using the money the way that gives you financial freedom. We need to keep a record of our spending, so that we know what we’re doing with our money, so that we can make proper decisions.

One of the things that we have done is to categorize as many of our expenses as we possibly can.  We have as few “cash” categories – or miscellaneous categories as we can.

He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich. Proverbs 21:17

The principle is not that you are not allowed to enjoy life; the point is that you need to be especially cautious when it comes to entertainment, recreational, and dining expenses. 

We are encouraged by our culture to never say “no” to our desires.  If you have a desire, then fill the desire.  Don’t be harsh to yourself by saying “no.”  This is where delayed gratification fits in.  Delayed gratification simply means that saying “No” to present desire so that a future desire can be fulfilled.

If we are not tracking the sorts of things we need to, then we have no clear understanding of where our money is going.

You should spend to enjoy things.  That is appropriate.  God has given us many things to enjoy, but we should be cautious about how much we spend and when we spend it.
Do not be a man who strikes hands in a pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. Proverbs 22:26-27 (NIV)

Be very cautious about borrowing.  Don’t be a slave to what you owe.  Make these decisions wisely. In our world, people go into debt for almost everything – Tv’s, stereo systems, furniture, vacations, bass boats, cloths, cars, houses, we load up a mountains of debt on our credit cards or mortgages and then we wonder why we feel so enslaved by our finances. We wonder why we have so much fear about our jobs. We get angry because we have to work long hours in order to feed the monster called debt, and we wonder why life is so hard and why there is so little joy and so little peace in our lives.

The old saying is: “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go” is so true. We become slaves to those people who lend us money. It oppresses us, it enslaves us and it robs us of our joy, peace, and love. Debt is a curse; God makes that very clear. God created money so that it could be a blessing, not a curse, but we must listen to his truth about money in order to be set free from the life sucking power that it holds onto us with.

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Proverbs 3:9 

What is the definition of honor?  The principle in the Bible is that we honor God with 10% of what he has blessed us with.  That doesn’t mean that we set our entertainment budget and clothing budget, and automobile budget and then see what is left for God.

Proverbs says that we are to honor God first with all that we have, and one of the strongest ways to do this is by making God the greatest priority of your budget and then working backwards into the other areas.  

A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. Proverbs 22:9

This is an interesting principle.  The Bible says that God will bless the person who is generous toward other people.  The person who uses what they posses to share with the poor and to meet the needs of those who are disadvantaged – God will bless that person. 

That is an amazing principle.  The Bible says that you don’t necessarily get more by continuing to make more and hoard more.  This is true throughout the scriptures when we are generous toward God and generous toward other people. God tells us that there is something going on here that is not rational. There is something going on there that does not make sense. There is something going on here that defies logic and reason. There is something here that defies all the principles of the universe, and that is this, God will bless those who generous towards him and others who are in need. Basically God is saying this: If you are not selfish with what I’ve given you to manage.

Remember we said last week, we do not own anything that we have. Instead, we are managers of God’s resources. Everything that we have is God’s and when we uncurl our fingers off of the resources that he has given us and unselfishly give it to him and others, he will give us more.

Here’s the last proverb we’re going to look at. One man gives freely, yet gains even more; and another, he withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.  A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Proverbs 11:24&25

This is a similar principle.  One guy gives generously and as time goes on he ends up with even more.  Someone else seems to hoard every last dollar that they make and in time they come to poverty.

You really get the sense that God is involved behind the scenes when it comes to how we use our money.  You get a fairly clear indication that God kind of arranges things in his own way.  He sees to it that things work out maybe a little differently than what we had planned, but they work out none the less.

When we seek God’s will, when we seek God’s mission and we begin to love God with all that we are – even with our finances, and we begin to love our neighbor – those people all around us – even with our finances, God is behind the scenes bringing more of heaven to earth

Life Link:

Remind your group that the sermon series was picked while New Community was doing well financially.

How did you learn to think about money?

Was there a particular Proverb or teaching from Sunday that struck you, challenged you, or that you completely disagree with?

Do you find it hard to save money? Why do you think this is true?

Do you find the following statement true, “The more you own, the more it owns you”. Explain

Whenever you generously give to God or others, have you ever tested God and found that he always gives you more back? How do you think that happens? Why would God do such a thing?

We as a church try to help people sort out the issue of money in a biblical way.  God has a lot to say about money.  Throughout the Bible God gives us wisdom that will help us when it comes to how we think about, save, and spend our money.

God never intended for money to be a burden in our lives.  Instead, he intended it to be a blessing and a resource that we could manage in a way that blesses us and others.

In Luke 12:1 Jesus is teaching his disciples about money, but a very large crowd is listening also.

Jesus was very frequently talking about money and about possessions.  You and I might not think of money as a spiritual issue, but Jesus did. You and I may not think about how we think about money, how we spend it, and how we save it to be a spiritual issue, but Jesus did. You many not think that how you spend or save your money or how you think about money could ever affect your relationship with God, but Jesus did. Jesus thought the topic of money was a deeply spiritual issue.

Even in Jesus day two thousand years ago before Wall Street, Blue Chips, Ira’s, and Tech stocks Jesus was teaching about money.   He understood the significance of money and possessions. He understood the driving influence that it had in people’s lives.   

He understood that possessions and money were often at the top of what people thought about and how it influenced people’s life decisions.  In fact Jesus coupled the significance of possessions with the meaning of life like no other teacher had ever done. Jesus said this in Matthew 6:21

For where your treasure is – where your money is, where your possessions are, there your heart will be also.

The spiritual condition of our life is directly related to how we spend our money and the attitude that we spend it with.  He said that how we handle our money has a direct bearing on the condition of our heart.  Get this: Our heart and our money is inseparably linked.

Our money and our heart are like the steering wheel on our car and the wheels that it turns. If we turn the wheel to the right, the wheels on the car turn to the right. They are linked. The direction the steering wheel turns is the same direction the wheels of the car turn. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

Most religious teachers in Jesus day regarded the topic of money as a worldly topic.  It was a topic that really had no relation to God and to spirituality.  Spirituality and money existed in two separate worlds – they never came together, but not in the mind of Jesus.  In the mind of Jesus, the spiritual condition of a persons heart had everything to do with money – no other religious teacher in Jesus day made such a connection.

That’s the reason Jesus talked about money so much.  His desire was for people to be free.  His desire was for them to live a life of joy and freedom. He knew that one of the greatest restrictive factors of how much joy people have is directly related to how they think and how they spend their money. 

Sometimes Jesus used money as an illustration.  Sometimes he talked about money in the context of worry.  Sometimes he talked about money in the context of social justice. Sometimes he talked about the power of money and sometimes he talked about the temporary nature of money. But whatever the case, Jesus was always talking about money.

Luke 12:13  Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 

He says to Jesus, “I am having an argument with my brother about dividing the inheritance.”  Apparently the father had passed away and there was an inheritance.  This guy felt that he rightly deserved a portion of the inheritance but he was frustrated because his brother wasn’t dividing it as he thought necessary.

It is not a bad request.  On the surface it seems like a very legitimate request, and in Jesus’ culture, people always asked Rabbi’s or teachers – that’s what a Rabbi was – He was a spiritual teacher. It was normal for a person to ask a Rabbi a question, but this guy if you will notice, doesn’t ask Jesus a question, he tells him what to do, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 

To this man, it wasn’t a matter of right or wrong, he knew he was right and his brother was wrong. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. And anyone acquainted with Jesus understood that he would be the guy to ask.  Jesus understood money; he was always talking about it. 

Besides that Jesus was always concerned with justice.  He was concerned with right and wrong in society.  He was concerned about the poor.  He was concerned about those who were unjustly treated.  Jesus had expertise in this area and he cared about these sorts of issues. But notice Jesus’ response in Luke 12:14:

 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 

Jesus responds to this guy rather abruptly.  He responds in a way that seems to be out of character.  He says, “This is not my role.  What responsibility do I have to be a judge between you and your brother with whom you have this conflict?”

Where does that come from?  It seems so out of character.  Jesus was always making judgment calls.  Jesus was never judgmental, but he was always making judgment calls, so what’s up with this kind of response?  Why does Jesus respond this way? 

He responds this way because he understands what is going on in the man’s heart.  He understands that his underlying motivation for having Jesus settle the money problem is not primarily a concern for justice – Jesus is concerned about that. This man’s underlying motivation is that this man’s heart is wrapped around money. 

Here is what Jesus is essentially saying to this guy.  “I can’t help you solve the money issue because right now that is not the real issue in your life.  You think the greatest obstacle for your life right now is this debate that you have with your brother over a financial issue.  But that is not your greatest obstacle.”

One of our greatest tendencies is to come to God and say, “God, bail me out of this financial hardship; God, if I only could reach the next income level I would be content; God, if only you would make the market move forward instead of backward, life would be OK and then I would really believe in you.”

We have a tendency to say those sorts of things to God.  “God, if you would just solve my financial crisis then I would know that you are for real.”  

I don’t sense that this guy came inappropriately to Jesus.  He came with a good honest request, but Jesus read his life and said something needs to happen here before the request that you are making can be addressed.

Jesus then turns away from the man and addresses the crowd and says,

 “Watch out!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his or her possessions.” Luke 12:15

Jesus says, “Watch out.  Be on your guard.”  Be on your guard against the desire to always want more stuff.  Be careful about that because it will quickly take over your life.” This is not an obvious process.  The danger is that greed and the desire for more takes over our lives and we are blinded to it.  We can’t perceive it.  We become numb to it. 

The only paradigm that we have in our culture is the paradigm of upward mobility.  The only paradigm we operate under is making more, owning more and having more.  Jesus says be careful that you don’t fall into that paradigm.  You fall into it not by leaps and bounds but by subtle steps. 

Let me ask you a question. How would you answer this question: “My life would be better if we or I could afford _____________.  If we only made X number of dollars more life would be so much better.

Greed creeps in subtly.  Let me ask you a question.  Has greed been subtly growing in your life?  Is there some danger in your life of becoming too focused on possessions and material success?

Greed is a heart issue and it can quickly take over your prayer life.  “God, I need this and I need that.  God, could you please provide this for me?”  There is often a correlation between your prayer life and your possessions?  Are you sensing any danger of becoming too focused on possessions and on what you have and how much you own?

Possessions fool us into thinking that if we have a lot we matter a lot.  The more we have the more we mater.  The more we own, the bigger our investment portfolio, the more earning power we have — that means that we are worth more.  If I don’t have much, it must mean that I’m not much. We often tie our financial value to our personal value.

We feel more significant when we have wealth. Possessions deceive us in this way.

Jesus provides a parable in Luke 12:16-21 to teach us about these things. Look at this parable with me. It expresses the subtle dangers that come with focusing on possessions.  It expresses how we can become self-deceived when it comes to possessions.

The Bible says that at the very core of who we are, we were created with a non-material being – a spirit, a soul.   That is a central part of who we are.  And yet we can get to the point where we forget that who we are on the inside of us is far more important than the kind of stuff we can afford or how much money we have.  There really is more to life than being able to afford more pleasures and accumulate more possessions.   But unless we do a reality check once in a while we can get fooled into thinking that what we own is who we are.  We can be fooled into thinking that enjoying more of life’s pleasures will give us more peace and joy, but peace and joy come first on the inside, not from our stuff. Stuff might give temporary joy, but it fades so quick and then we move on to the next purchase, and the next, and the next, trying to fill the emptiness inside of us.

Be realistic about what you own. God said to the man who kept acquiring more and more,

You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.  Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Luke 12:20

The fact of the matter is that everything that has your name on it actually belongs to God.  He owns it all, you have just been entrusted with it for a period of time and that time will come to an end.

One time, God was upset at the heart with which people were sacrificing burnt offerings to him and he said, If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Psalms 50:12 (NIV)

God says that he owns the whole world and everything in it. You might respond to that and say, “Hold on! Not so fast!  I worked for everything I have.  I put in my time.  I earn my paycheck.  The stuff that I have didn’t fall out of the sky.  I earned it.”

You did work hard and you did put in your time, but the greater question is, “Who gave you the body to get out of bed and go to work?  Who arranged for you to be born in this particular country with the opportunities that it offers?  Who gave you a functioning brain that works efficiently and effectively?  Who blessed you with certain skills that enable you to be productive?  Where did that all come from?”  The fact of the matter is that it came from God. Without God, the universe wouldn’t even exist for us to be able to make money!  Everything that is, ultimately is God’s and that even includes the money in our bank account.  It is all his.

Our ownership is an allusion.  We don’t keep what we own.  We have to have that understanding about possessions or how we handle money and possessions will be flawed.

Do you know what that means?  It means that we will never be able to manage money and possessions well unless we first understand that it is God’s and not ours.

The amount doesn’t matter.  You may say, “I don’t have lots of money, so this is really not a problem for me.  The fact of the matter is that whatever you have belongs ultimately to God. People often think – well when I am richer than most other people then it will be natural to see that all I have is God’s.  But that is not how it works.  Everything we have right now – whether it is a little or whether it is a lot – belongs to God.

Suppose I came to you and I said, “I have 10 million dollars sitting in an account.  I am going to put your name on the account and I am going to give you access to it.  It is still my money, but I am allowing it to be used and spent at your discretion. I want you to enjoy some of it.  I want you to enjoy things that you have not been able to do before; I want you to have a nice house with it but I also want you to be wise with it.  In fact, in five years I am going to ask for a complete accounting of how every dollar was used and all the assets will become completely my own but for five years you get to enjoy it and manage it. 

Do you think that would have an impact on how you utilized the 10 million?  I think it would have a great impact and I don’t think they would brag to their friends too often that the money was totally theirs because they know it isn’t.  They know it is my money but they have simply been given the privilege of managing it and using it to meet their needs.  I would hope that they would enjoy it but I would also hope that they would have a sense of wisdom in spending it and investing it. 

That is the directive that God gives here.  He says it is very shortsighted to think of your possessions as your own.  It is a foolish decision and it is foolish because it doesn’t really belong to you.  It belongs to God.

The second thing is that we need to be realistic about what owns us.  Not what we own, but what owns us. We also have been given the decision to either acknowledged who the rightful owner of everything that we have is or to be deceived into believing that it is all ours.

In this area of life, the Bible presents an incredible plan. The Bible says that God sent Jesus to earth to die for our sins, so that your soul – the essence of your life – could belong to him. 

If you want to be self-owned God gives you that option.  He grants you the freedom to make that decision.  But how much sense does that make?  How much sense does it make to be self-owned when God himself gave you life – gave you the breath for living today.  If you are self –owned the Bible says that God gives you the privilege of being on your own.

But here is the irony of this.  If you are self-owned you will still enjoy plenty of God’s blessings in this life.  You will be able to enjoy the gift of living another morning and the beauty of another day because God is still extending his kindness to you even though you are self-owned. 

But here is the deal with this.  The Bible says that once you die your decision of self-ownership becomes final and you are forever removed from God’s presence and from all the benefits that God has blessed you with.  The full effect of your self-ownership kicks in only after you die because at that point you are totally removed from God’s presence.  The Bible says that is a terrible thing.  It says eternal separation from the owner of your life leads to eternal suffering.

But God offers to become your owner.  He really is anyway, but since God doesn’t want to force his love on you, he gives you a decision. Through Christ you can become God’s child.  You can turn over your life to God so that you become fully his or you can go your own way.

So there you have it.  The Bible doesn’t treat money as a dirty issue that is outside the realm of God’s interest.  Instead the Bible deals directly with the topic of money and says that it has everything to do with the spiritual condition of our lives.  It is a window to our soul.  It sheds light on who we are.

And the Bible also says that we better think through our relationship with our money with great diligence because the whole area can be very deceptive and it can subtly take over our lives. 

And then the Bible says that the most important thing is that we belong to God.  The most important thing is that we become God’s child because having that relationship with him will last forever.

 Does anyone know the significance of this day? Yes, it’s Super Bowl Sunday! Does anyone here throw a big Super Bowl party? Are there any passionate football fans here this morning? Who do you think is going to win tonight? Ok, let’s not go there.

 I played four years of high school football, so football is one of my favorite sports. One of the reasons why football is my favorite sport is because there are many similarities between Christianity and football. Did you know that? Did you know that there are many similarities between football and our faith?

 Let me give you a little pre-game instruction first.

Jesus’ primary message was “The kingdom of heaven is near”.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heaven has invaded earth. The values, the virtues, the blessings of heaven have come down. They are available, they are within reach, they are present to those who seek them. This is what Jesus was saying and this is what he was doing during his ministry on this earth. This is what Matthew 9:35 says about Jesus:

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.

Jesus went into every city and every village and every synagogue and he preached the good news of the kingdom of God. The good news is that the kingdom of heaven is here, it is present to people on earth. The goodness of heaven – that place where we hope to go someday when we die, is available in some form today, here and now. That was the message of Jesus. That was the good news.

The great problem of the ages since the beginning of time, since Genesis chapter 3 where Adam and Eve begin to choose their own way instead of God’s is that they begin to think that they can do better without God instead of with him. Throughout the whole Old Testament there is an absence of God in a saving way. It’s not about all the wars and hurt and pain that comes from sin, but rather the absence of God in a saving way. People are separated from God.

The great solution then is the presence of God in a saving way. Jesus, the king of God’s kingdom is coming and the first words out of his mouth in Matthew chapter 4 and the very last words that Jesus speaks in Matthew 28 is about the kingdom of God. Jesus mentions the church twice, but he says over and over again it’s all about the kingdom of God.

Jesus comes speaking about where he comes from. He tells us about heaven and how heaven can invade our lives. He tells us who God is and who we are in him. On every page and in every story he is declaring and demonstrating the kingdom of God, heaven on earth – he is declaring and demonstrating how God created us to be and how God created us to live.

And as Jesus taught his followers he expected that they would do the same. His famous words are, “Come, follow me.” Do as I do. There was more healing in one week of Jesus’ ministry than in the previous 2000 years. In Jesus’ ministry, heaven was invading earth.

Demons were fleeing. People were being healed. It was like light had been turned on in a dark room and the darkness fled where ever Jesus went, where ever Jesus spoke. Jesus wants his central message to stick to you. He wants it to impact the way you think, the way you act and the way you speak. The kingdom of God is at hand.

So, why tie that message to football? I created this analogy in order to help you hear with fresh ears and see with fresh eyes what God’s will is for your life. I created the analogy to help Jesus’ message stick.

So let’s get to the game.

Here’s the definition of football: 22 players on the field, badly in need of rest, watched by 22,000 spectators badly in need of exercise. There’s a lot of that in the church. There is a lot of spectator Christianity in the American church. Christians sitting on the bench, coming to worship on Sunday mornings, but they never have gotten into the kingdom ballgame that Jesus announced. People come to watch on Sunday, but they don’t ever get into the game.

They think that heaven on earth is a good thing – they say “I’d buy a ticket for that, or getting into heaven when you die that’s a good thing, “I’ll buy a ticket for that. But they misunderstand that Christianity because Christianity is not a spectator sport and it’s not an individual sport. It’s a team sport that requires all of us to work together.

It is statistically well know that men leave the church first and then the youth – the young people, and both groups do it for exactly the same reason. They do it because they don’t know there’s a game going on, that there’s a game to be won, and that there’s a lot at stake on this game. They show up and sit down, they might even put money into the plate – pay for their ticket, but there doesn’t seem to even be a game going on in most churches. They get bored because they look around and there’s nothing really going on, and they leave, telling themselves “what’s the point in this?” Nothing really going on, no real game to watch, certainly no game to get involved in, and they leave.

In case you’ve never heard about football in the Bible, let me lay it out for you. 

What’s the field where the game is played? Jesus talks about the field where the great contest of the ages is being played, and where the opponents are colliding, because you know that football is a collision sport right? Baseball and basketball are contact sports, but football is a collision sport. People are running at each other as fast as they can and colliding. There are great collisions happening, so much so, that you can hear the pads popping from clear up in the stands.

The kingdom of heaven has been having a violent collision with the kingdom of Hell, since the day that Jesus began declaring that the Kingdom of God was at hand. What he was announcing was that God has put together a team to challenge the Kingdom of Hell. Up until that point the kingdom of hell didn’t really have any opposition. They went unchallenged. There was no game, but when Jesus came announcing that the kingdom of God was at hand, it was as if he were announcing a worthy challenger.

Do you know this? Every day Jesus faced a fight. Every day the religious leaders fought Jesus and he fought them back, attacking spiritual deadness, attacking legalism, that is, living by the rules, but without mercy, grace, compassion and love. Jesus fought against demons and drove them out. Jesus was always battling evil.

And the enemy was always fighting him. Indeed, they hated him, and finally there were enough people that sided with evil that they crucified Jesus, the son of God. It was the ultimate quarterback sack, where all eleven players dog piled Jesus and their plan was to take him out – they crucified him. They killed him. Jesus was DOA at the local hospital. Evil had once again triumphed. They thought they were on there way to the Super Bowl, but God had something else in mind.

3 days later, Jesus came running out of the tunnel and the crowd went wild. The King of Quarterbacks was back!

What’s the field of play? The field is the world. It is the battlefield and the prize. What will become of the earth? It went to hell once and God sent a great flood to destroy every living creature, except Noah and his family, and to cleanse the evil from it, but he promised he would never do that again. What will become of the earth this time? Will evil win? Will the earth again be completely evil, or will heaven on earth be restored? It is the great battle between two teams – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan – the kingdom of light against the kingdom of darkness – the kingdom of hell vs. the kingdom of heaven. It’s the battle of a lifetime and the world is the field.

Did you come to the game? Are you watching the game? Or, are you playing in the game. Let me explain it a bit further because the game is still going on today.

The field is the people around you. It is the people of this world – your co-workers, your friends, the person who cuts your hair, the person who serves your food or pours your coffee at the local restaurant. The field is the people all around you. The people who have addictions, the people who are controlling, the people whose marriage is failing, the person who’s hurting, the person who’s empty, the person who’s done some bad things in the past and they can’t forgive themselves – it’s all the people of this world who were created for heaven, but are experiencing a bit of hell. That’s what’s at stake. Will they go to hell or will they experience heaven. It’s like a cosmic teeter-totter. Whose going to win

Jesus was constantly on the field running plays, pushing back evil, taking ground, moving the ball forward. Jesus was constantly healing people, he was constantly helping people, he was constantly teaching people about truth and about life. Jesus engaged and accepted people where they were, but he was always about pushing back evil, pushing back the opponent, pushing toward the goal of heaven on earth. It was a violent collision between two bitter enemies.

Let me help set something straight. Jesus is not about pushing back evil people, but the evil in people. God loves people, in fact he was willing to give up his life, so that good people could be set free from evil. There are no evil people in the world, just good people filled with evil.

We’ll talk about the line of scrimmage in just a minute, but first let me explain how you get in this game? No player starts at the Super Bowl. You might start playing rocket football and then you might play some high school ball, and then college – often times one of the Big Ten schools and then finally the pros. Everything is a contest. The collisions get more powerful the better you get, but you always play on a team. There has never been a great football player who played alone. They always play on a team. You can’t do it on your own.

God is calling you to join a team and whatever team you start on, God, the great coach, will grow you if you work hard, and if you do it with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. If you haven’t even begun to watch, then start watching closely how others are playing the game, because there’s a game that’s being played here and the outcome has cosmic consequences. You’re going to want to be apart of this.

Why get involved? What’s at stake? When Jesus came to earth, he brought his world with him. He brought heaven to earth. There was no sickness in heaven. He didn’t have to ask God if he should pray for that person, that person was sick and there were no sickness in heaven, so he prayed for the person to be well. Jesus came as the quarterback, calling the plays that would push the enemy back. Jesus’ plan was to always be on the offensive, moving the ball forward toward heaven on earth – that’s the goal – that’s our end zone. Jesus was always pushing towards that goal, but even he had a team that he worked with. He had his disciples. When we see heaven on earth, that’s when we score. The game plan is to score. The game plan is for more of heaven to invade earth.

I hope that you, today, begin practicing and training to fight against evil and that your goal would always be the kingdom of God. Have you raised your hand and said to God, “Sir, I want to play ball for you” and allow him to begin to coach you in this great game called life.

The enemy loves it when you’re not coached. The enemy loves it when you don’t realize there’s a game going on. They love it when they’re pushing us backward toward their goal. Their goal . . . is hell on earth. They love it when we don’t read the playbook and we’re reactive in our marriages and raising children, hurting each other with words and actions. You know what the playbook is right? It’s the Bible. The enemy loves it when we haven’t even read the playbook, because then they just push us backward, gaining territory, gaining ground, moving us backward towards their goal, destroying our marriages and our children, our souls and those around us. The enemy loves it when we’re not reading the playbook or talking to the Coach, because then he just pushes us all over the field, losing ground toward, experiencing more hell as they push us backward toward of hell.

Hell is not someplace where bad people go when they die. Many of you have already experienced the brokenness, hurt, and loneliness that’s hell. Are you tired of backpedaling and being pushed backward in life? You need to join a team. We practice here every week on Sunday mornings. We huddle up once a week in Life Groups, and as we work together to teach our youth and worship every week. We go to the line of scrimmage every time that we pray against evil in the world. We push back evil every time that we read our Bible, because we learn how to defend against the plays of Satan and we learn how to run the plays of God. We go to the line of scrimmage every time we share the story of what God is doing in our lives with those around us and every time that we recruit someone to join our team. Remember, there are no evil people, just good people filled with evil. We go to the line of scrimmage every time we, together, combat evil inside of us or inside of those around us. Evil is understood as anything that isn’t of heaven, anything that isn’t of God.

Some of you have, at times, already experienced bits of heaven on earth. But the question that I want to ask is how do we experience more touchdowns in this game called life – how do we experience more of heaven on earth? Because the game didn’t end at Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection sent the game into overtime. The outcome was determined at Jesus resurrection, but the game of the cosmos is still being played. The question is what side of the ball are you on?

The only people who win are those that are on the field playing the game, because you can’t score, you can’t get to your goal unless you’re on the field.

Here’s the deal. Football is a team sport. If you don’t show up with a team you forfeit the game. Christianity is not an individual sport. It is a team sport. We show up here every Sunday to be reminded of who our Coach is and what plays we’re running. We show up here to understand the plays and the book that they come from. We show up here to learn from the coach how to play better, but the other six and a half days we’re called to be playing the game. This is the sidelines. Ir’s not bad to be on the sidelines – at least you’re not in the stands. Here, I hope you come suited up and ready to play. Don’t be satisfied with being on the team. I pray that you want to be in the game.

Life groups are the huddle. We come together regularly so that we can talk to one another, support one another, and to help one another. In our high school football huddles, we’d talk a lot. It wasn’t just about calling the next play. I’d say, I need help blocking #55, I can’t do it on my own. We’d adjust things so that I could get some help. Sometimes we’d get in each other’s face and say, “You can beat that guy. I know you can beat him, push hard, move your legs, stay low. Life groups are where we work together as a team. If you’re not in a life group, I invite you into one of the five that we have during the week. We work together as a team, with Jesus calling the plays, in order to push the enemy backward and to take more ground and to get closer to heaven on earth in our lives.

Outreach is the line of scrimmage. Most Christians never get to the line of scrimmage. It’s where we do real battle with the enemy. It’s where the real game is being played. It’s where the game is going won or lost. If we’re a Christian we’re on the team – worship – and we root and cheer every time our team makes a great play and someone’s life is changed by it, but you’re not in the game. If you come to life group – the huddle – It’s great to be in the huddle, we’re all close and we talk about things that we don’t talk about on the sidelines, and we’re so close to the action. It feels almost like we’re playing. Many Christians stay on the sidelines and just as many stay in the huddle and never break and go to the line of scrimmage.

Let me remind you that Evil flourishes when good people do nothing. When good people sit on the side lines and when good people stay huddled up, evil flourishes. It takes people who are willing to go to the line and fight against evil and to fight for goodness, to fight for love.

How do we push the enemy back. How do we experience more touchdowns – more of heaven on earth, it’s first by loving our Creator and Coach with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love those people around us as much as we love ourselves.

Right now, there are a lot of people here who’ve been on the field playing their hearts out, taking ground from the enemy. They’ve scored some great touchdowns and have seen Heaven come down to earth in amazing ways, but they’re breathing hard. They need some rest.

I don’t say this to make you feel guilty. That’s not my motivation behind what I’m going to say, but it may very well cause you to feel uncomfortable. Football is a team sport. Throughout the Bible Christianity is identified as something that we do together. Right now we have some people who are looking toward the sidelines, wanting the coach to send some relief in, but there’s some of you in the stands, but you’ve not decided what team you’re on. There are some of you on the bench, and you’re wearing the team colors, but you’re not working with the team. There are some of you in the huddle, but you’ve not decided to join your team and line up against the enemy and through teamwork, push the enemy backward

There are people who need rest, but we have nobody to sub. The people who need to come out of the game aren’t quitting, rather, they’re very excited about playing, they just need some rest for a series of downs.

So here’s the question? Who’s going to win the game tonight? Here’s the bigger question, who’s going to win the game of all eternity. These, maybe, are the biggest questions? Which side are you rooting for? Are you going to join God’s team? Are you going to read the playbook regularly, so that you know the offensive plays of your team and the defensive plays of your enemy? Are you going to suit up and take the field? Are you going to stay in the huddle, small groups, or are you going to go to the line of scrimmage. Are you going to talk to and listen to your great Coach often through individual and team prayer? The stakes are high! The clock is running. Time is short. Make the right choice!

Last week we started talking about words, and last week we specifically talked about the power of our words to create evil, to hurt other people, and really, the power of our words to create hell on earth.

We started last week with this premise: We all understand at some level that our words have power. People say hurtful things and those words affect us? And yet, the very same people can say really good things that put a smile on our lips and joy in our hearts. Those words feel good. There’s something therapeutic about words that come out a good heart, out of good intentions, out of a heart that loves

We started with this scripture last week.

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

We said that carefully chosen good words bring healing and help those around us become the people who God created them to be (blow up a balloon). On the other hand, rash words, words said without much thought or much caution could do great amounts of spiritual and emotional damage to those around us, much like a sword thrust (pop balloon with sword).

Jesus said, Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Our words come from our hearts. There are not good words and bad words, but rather good words come from a good heart and bad words come from a bad heart, and we said that a bad heart is one that is governed by fear and a good heart is one that is governed by faith or love.

We briefly looked at the idea of speaking out of fear last week, so this week we’re going to look at what a heart of faith looks like.

In order to do that I’d like to draw your attention to what this (Bible) is called? It’s called a Bible, but it’s also called something else? Anyone want to take a guess? Yes, it’s called the Word of God. Why do you think they call it that? It’s an unusual name isn’t it?

I mean, if I wrote a book, it would be a really weird title if I called my book “The Word of Adam”, wouldn’t it? So why do you think people call it that? We’re looking at the power of words, so it’s a good question to ask, why would people call this book God’s Word?

This comes from Psalm 33:6.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. Psalms 33:6 (NRSV)

There is this ancient understanding that God created the heavens and the earth by merely speaking words. This idea comes from the creation story when God created everything by merely speaking words. In Genesis 1 we read the familiar line:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:3 (NIV)

God speaks over and over again in the creation story, “Let there be . . .” and by no other means other than by speaking words, God creates the world through his voice. The world is created and sustained by the words God speaks. God’s words are powerful and they are eternal. They go on creating forever.

In the same account, human beings are created, and we are told that we are created in the image of a God who creates with his mouth. You and I are created in the image of a God who speaks . . . to create goodness. We are not God, but we resemble him in many ways and the primary way in which we resemble God is that we create the world around us with our words.

You might think that we create our world with our minds or our hands, because we go to work each day using our hands and our brains to do a lot, but can you imagine if we couldn’t talk. How much could we do then? The single most important way that we resemble God is that we create the world around us with nothing more than our words.

Here’s a thought for you. Our words are spiritual. They are a direct reflection of who God is . . .He is Spirit, which is unseen, but heard. We cannot see our words, but we can hear them. We are different from animals because we can speak like God. Our words are maybe the the most spiritual part of us.

God’s word goes on forever, but your word and my word have limited power. We have power to create indeed, but our words are not as powerful as Gods. God’s word goes on and on creating the universe, but our words go out a little ways, they have a little power and then they fade away.

God stands back after creating and he looks at everything that he’s created through speaking and he smiles with joy in his heart and he says, “It is good, it is very good.” God created heaven on earth by speaking and it was very good.

When God speaks goodness and blessing always comes from his mouth.

We are told in the Psalms that: The Lord is faithful in all his words . . .. Psalms 145:13 (NRSV)

Throughout the Old Testament God is not seen, he is just heard by the words that he speaks. There is only a voice, a word, or a whisper, but no body. Then Jesus comes, and the disciple John begins his account of Jesus’ life this way:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 (NRSV) 

What word do you think John is focusing our attention on in this passage? Yeah, “Word,” It’s repeated three times in one sentence. The point John is trying to make is Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the embodiment of God. Jesus is the voice that created everything in the beginning. And if there was any doubt about what John is trying to say, he says in John 1:14

The Word became flesh and lived among us. John 1:14 (NRSV)

Jesus is the embodiment of the Word or the embodiment of the Spirit of God. He came to teach us about who he is  and how we are to be like him with our words.

But then, something happened. Those who spoke evil and those who did evil, they killed Jesus the word. Killed him dead just like God knew they would. Jesus the Word of God was killed and buried and he spoke no more goodness, but God raised him from the dead, just as Jesus had foretold his disciples that he would.

In Jesus’ death and in his resurrection, with the blood that he shed, it made it possible for our sins to be forgiven, for our words to be forgiven, and here’s the good news, that Jesus could now not just be with us, but his death and resurrection made it possible for him to be in us. The word of God, that creative, powerful, good word of God could be in us – could be speaking through us. Look at what is possible now.

Peter says, Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God. 1 Peter 4:11 (NRSV)

Throughout scripture you and I are called to speak the words of God, to speak words that give life, to speak words that give blessing, to speak words that lift others up, to speak words that give goodness to those around us.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way.

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, Is there any need out there for people to be built up? so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29 (NRSV)

That’s a conscientious choice. That’s being proactive. Today, I am not going to let any evil talk come out of my mouth. If I’m reactive, if I just go off every time I don’t feel like my wife is respecting me or every time the kid’s don’t do what they’re told, then I’m going to say some things that are hurtful. It’s going to take a conscientious choice. “I am not going to let any evil come out of my mouth today.” And if it happens, then I need to spend more time praying and asking God to remove the fear that is making me reactive or explosive and replace it with faith. When I am reactive I will be destructive. When I am proactive I will become constructive.

Every good word is like blowing up a balloon. Take out the balloon that was on your seat and I’d like you to take a big deep breath and on my cue, blow hard into the balloon. Does everyone have a balloon? Is everyone ready? Here we go, one, two, three, Blow! Ok, stop. You just created something with your mouth. You just created something with your breath. When you speak good words, words that build others up, it’s like you’ve expanded the goodness in the world.

You can almost see a person change as you speak good words to them. Shoulders that were almost too heaven to carry just moments ago feel like there’s a weight just lifted off them. You can see something different about their eyes. Where there used to be only darkness, you can see a glimpse of light. Maybe you can see the beginning of a smile. Your words, like your breath in that balloon have the ability to make a powerful impact in a person’s life.

The greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and when we begin to do embrace him and seek to love him, and seek to follow his will, then our hearts, like that balloon, begins to swell and grow with the love and presence of God.

To create goodness with your words is to make a conscientious choice each day to fill our hearts and our minds with the vision and the love of God. Together, we go after the evil and fear that’s in our hearts and minds and we seek to be warriors that fight for love and fight for goodness and fight for heaven on earth.

When I’m reactive, I ask myself, what did I fear? What made me explode? What made me say that? And with God’s help I go after it. I give it to God and ask him to clean that fear and sin out of my heart and I begin to live a life of faith instead of fear. I begin to live a life that’s proactive instead of reactive. I begin to lead a life that’s constructive (blow into balloon) instead of destructive (Pop balloon with sword.

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Here’ another proverb:

Proverbs 16:24 (NRSV)
Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

That’s a true statement isn’t it? We all know it’s true. How do we begin being creating good with our words? How can we be intentional about that? How do we keep from doing evil?

When I say something that hurt someone and I’ve become aware of it, I need to go and ask for forgiveness immediately, because If I don’t I’ve just collaborated with Satan.  I sometimes mess up and say things to people in my family or even some of you that I shouldn’t. I sometimes get reactive and say things that I shouldn’t – things that hurt others, and I immediately go and ask for their forgiveness. Someone may of said something hurtful to me, but sometimes how I responded to them can be just as wrong. By apologizing, I’ve used my words to begin working towards setting things right. I’ve used them to fight against the evil that I propagated. We don’t return evil for evil.

We return good for evil. We do this because if I return evil words for evil words, what good does that do? How do I join God in bringing heaven to earth if I retaliate evil for evil? Both of us will be hurt by the words that we speak if I return evil words with evil words. Instead, I choose to return good for evil. I choose not to enter into the evil. I choose not to be reactive. I choose to not let fear govern what I say and propagate evil, but instead I choose to be proactive and propagate goodness. I choose to speak good words that affect the world positively (blow into balloon).

And then we go back to our key verse: Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

There is boat loads of scripture containing wisdom on how we are to speak. Why is there so much scripture? It’s because you and I were created in the image of God, and God’s primary way of revealing himself is through his words. The primary way that you and I reveal who we are is through our words. The primary way that we reflect God’s glory is through our words.

God created the world around him with his words. You and I create the world around us through our words. Words are powerful and yet we speak thousands of them each day without a thought. Will you join me in beginning to speak the very words of God? Will you join me as we seek to speak words that bring healing, that bring joy, that bring goodness to those around us.

For those of us who speak a lot, we need to speak with caution and not haste. We need to think carefully before we speak. What words are we going to speak? Will those words make the world a better place? Will they make the people around us better? Will they bring more of heaven to earth? For those of us who speak a lot – too much it’s like we speak, (blow on balloon each time I say “Speak”) and we speak and we speak, and we speak, until the balloon pops. This is not good. We need to tame our tongue. We are called to listen twice as much as we speak because God gave us two ears and only 1 mouth.

For those of you who quiet and who don’t speak very often. Realize that your words have power and if you don’t speak you don’t create goodness. You have to speak a certain amount of words to share the goodness that’s inside of you, in order for the people around you to be built up. Without your words the people around you wilt like a flower without water. You have a power gift that God has given you. Use it wisely. Use it well. If you don’t speak, you make no difference (balloon in mouth, but not blowing).

In 2 Cor. 4 there is this idea that we are like cracked and broken pots. We were created whole, but sin has cracked us. Evil words have slashed and gouged us and now we are like a medical I.V. We leak. We drip. And what do we leak? We leak love from all the slashes and gashes and wounds – from all the rash, careless, hurtful words that we’ve uttered and now, instead of being a vessel that holds love forever, we leak.

The love of God is necessary for us to stay full of love. My words to you and your words to me are necessary for us to each stay full of love and God’s goodness. Kid’s you need to speak good, encouraging words to your parents and parents, you need to speak good, encouraging words to your kids. Spouses, you need to speak good encouraging words to one another, because this brings about heaven. When we do that, those words heal the hurts, the gashes, they slow the dripping, the leak of love from our souls

Rash words are like sword thrust – they create the drip, but the tongue of the wise brings healing – it slows or stops the leak

Apart from good words, words that build us up, words that show that we are loved and significant and valued, we all run dry, we get depressed, we lose hope, we try to fill that emptiness with drugs and food and smokes and more things.

When we don’t use positive words we don’t feel valuable or significant, and when that happens are hearts fill with fear and we become reactive and we enter fight or flight mode and when that happens our words become hurtful.

But when we use positive words we are filled with goodness and we feel valuable and significant and good.

It all starts right here. Love the lord your God with all that you are – with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

1. Reading or listening to God’s Word, the Bible fills us with his goodness, and his blessing as God’s word teaches us how to live and how to speak. God’s word fills us up because it is filled with his goodness. But that’s not enough.
2. We are called to pray – speaking to God is formative for us and listening to him speak to us forms us and fills us with his Goodness. But that’s not enough.
3. The church exists so that we can surround ourselves with people who are reading God’s word and who are listening to God speak, and we are called to lift our voices together as we worship God. We are called to live in community discussing God’ word and listening to each other share how God has spoken to them and shared his wisdom about how to live according to his will. The words we speak in life group help form us into the people God created us to be. 
4. Seeking God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, fills us up with his love, but we’re not done there. We are called to share God’s word with those that have never heard it – those outside the church, people who are often times empty of God’s love. We are called to use our words to love those who God loves

Good words, God’s words have the power to change your marriage, your relationship with your parents, or the relationship with your children, with all the people in your life . . . even complete strangers.

Listen to what the Psalmist says. This really speaks to me.

We can’t speak good words apart from God, so I invite you to join me in praying this simple prayer this week. A prayer that’s been prayed by many for nearly 3000 years
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalms 19:14 (NRSV)

Life Link

Have you contacted and invited all the people on your retreat list? Let them know that we need to know if they’re going by February 10.

Questions:

Do you recall anyone who helped you become who you are today because of the kind and helpful words that they spoke to you? Who, and what did they say to you that made such an impact?

Was there anything in the message that struck you, confused you or that you disagreed with?

Is it easier to speak good words to those who seem to have it all together or those that don’t? Why do you think that is?

Do you ever feel low, empty, depressed, isolated, alone, etc, or do you know someone who does? How do good words help dispel feelings of emptiness, depression, isolation and loneliness?

Depression is nine times more likely today than it was 60 years ago. How can our words help dispel depression.

How important is listening intently to someone as they speak and asking questions? Why?

Why is talking too much a sin?

Why is talking too little a sin?

Why is talking rashly a sin?

What power does your words have? Do you believe that together our words have more power to do good than all the medicine in the world? Why?

How does your relationship with God affect your heart and your words? How is your relationship with God?

Shortly after we began elementary school we stopped jading our enemies saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” because we realized that wasn’t true. Words do hurt. Very early in our lives we found that to be true. Words affect us.

What is it about words that hurt us? What is it about other words that make us feel so good? There is no physical weight, size . . . no density to any word that we speak. You can’t smell them or taste them but you can feel the sting of a word or the peace and goodness that comes from a word rightly spoken. What is it that makes some words hurt, while others feel so good? The writer in Proverbs says this about the power of our words:

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

We find that some words are like the thrust of a sword to the heart. Those rash words have the power to kill us spiritually and emotionally. But other words fall like fresh rain on parched soil. They sooth our soul, giving it peace and joy – goodness that feels so good. Good words fill our hearts with love (Fill Balloon). Bad words empty our hearts of their goodness (Pop it with a sword)

What is it about the power of words? Have you given much thought to your words this week? What kind of words are you speaking to those around you? Are your words like sword thrusts to those around you, or are your words bringing healing?

We’re going to be talking about the power of words over the next couple of weeks, because as I become more and more aware of the power of our words, I am just stunned that our education system never teaches us about communication and the power of our words on the hearts of those around us!

We spend a minimum of 13 years reading, writing and doing arithmetic. We spend years learning about history, computers, and geography, but most of us have never been taught even the barest essentials about the power of our words and how to effectively communicate. This appalls me because, in my opinion, words are more powerful and have greater impact than electricity, medicine, or the atomic bomb. I would suggest that words are the most powerful force in our world today.

The poor use of words creates more conflict, hurt, pain, anxiety, anger, depression, violence, isolation, and loneliness, than any other thing in our world today. The poor use of words destroys more marriages, more friendships, isolates more kids from their parents, and creates more misunderstandings among friends than any other thing in the history of the world.  I would suggest that words do more damage than most wars, but they are readily available to the youngest of children and nothing is being done outside of the Bible to educate people on the power of words. Words, I would suggest have more power to do good and more power to do evil than any other force in our world today.

We understand so very little about the power of our words, yet we speak thousands of them daily without even a conscious thought about their power on our lives and those around us. Words can do so much good, and words can do so much evil.

So here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to spend the next couple of weeks looking at the power of words and how to use them more consciously to do good and to more consciously keep evil and hurt from being spoken to those around us. Because when we use words in a way that propagates evil, we do the work of Satan and we collaborate with him, intentionally or not. We create, quite literally, with our mouths, hell all around us.

But when we use words in a way that propagates goodness, we do the work of God and we join him in his mission. When we collaborate with God and speak words of goodness, we give people, quite literally, a taste of heaven.

As we said, Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18 This morning we are going to primarily look at the first part of this proverb and next week we’ll tackle the second part of it.

The word “Rash” is not a word that I use or hear other people use much these days, so I looked it up and “Rash” means

1.      To do something too hasty or not using caution in acting or speaking

2.      To be characterized by great haste or recklessness

I generally speak without thinking. Speaking, for me, is like breathing. I’ve done it so much that it just happens with little or no conscious thought.

The Bible says that speaking in that way is “Rash” and that if we do that long enough, words are going to come out that are like sword thrusts to those around us. That happens because when I speak without caution, because I’m speaking in a reckless manner. If I do that often enough, I’m going to hurt someone.

Words are the most powerful force in our world today. They have the power to kill others and they have the power to make them well.

Our words can be like a loaded gun. They can kill the God given spirit within someone. Often time the very people that we love.

There is a second proverb, which is much like the first. It says Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21

Have you ever heard of a parent breaking the spirit of a child? They belittle them in front of others, they make fun of their decisions, they judge them openly with harsh, condemning words, and little by little that child’s spirit is cut and sliced and slashed, and their spirit begins to hemorrhage. The wounds are not induced with a physical sword like this one, but with a spiritual sword – Words – Thrust, thrust, thrust, until the spirit of that child dies.

Many of us here may not be so rash with our words, but instead of killing the spirit of our children, we tend to maim them. We know something about the power of our words, but we forget, and like we said last week, we become reactive in certain situations and we speak without caution, rash, angry, condemning hurtful words – thrusting, injuring, slashing the spirit which God so wonderfully said, “It’s good”.

Every word carries with it the power of life and death.

The same thing can happen with a marriage. Hurtful, angry, condemning words are hurtled around like two jousters jousting. It may start in fund, but it ends in death. The word jousting gets more and more intense wounding, slashing, drawing blood, until one or both begin looking, not to just hurt the other, but to kill, not their lover, but their worst enemy. A hurtful word feels like a sword thrust to the heart, and it’s no wonder why we want to retaliate and hurt those that hurt us in return.

But friends, here’s the difference between being reactive, as we spoke about last week, and proactive. Reactive means that I will say whatever comes to mind. It means that if I feel hurt, then I’m going to hurt the one that hurt me. If my child or spouse didn’t listen to me or respect me, then I’m going to yell and punish them with my words until they do. Being reactive or rash means that there isn’t a plan, just reactive, hurtful, explosiveness.

Being proactive means having a plan to not give an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth – to do evil unto those that have done evil to us – no not that. But instead it means that we are going to do whatever it takes to do good and to speak words that give life, even if someone else has wronged us. It means that I’m going to take the high road. I’m going to choose, every morning, to do whatever it takes to bring about heaven instead of expanding hell.

Words themselves are not bad. I came across this story this week and I think it helps to explain this idea better.

“BUTTHEAD! STUPID! JERK!”

These were the words I heard floating down the stairs one evening last week. My husband, I noticed earlier, had taken our three sons into our bedroom and closed the door. And so it was with more than a little surprise I heard these words (all of them normally off-limits) being shouted. Nervously, and, perhaps, a little gleefully.

I couldn’t help myself. I went upstairs and poked my head in the door. Hubs gave me a wink, and the boys all shouted, “Mom! It’s Man Town in here!”

Ah, yes. Man Town. The “place” my sons and husband have invented when something of a masculine nature needs to be addressed without the involvement of a nosy mother or a pesky little sister. It’s sacred territory, I’m told, by its occasional inhabitants.

The shouts of off-limits words subsided, followed, I could tell, by the calm and muffled sound of my husband’s voice. There was laughing, and then scattering, as the boys went off to play.

Hubs came downstairs smiling, and I asked him what was up. As it turned out, he had overheard a Son Who Shall Remain Unnamed secretly using an off-limits word. So Hubs took all the boys upstairs for a session of getting the words out of their system. For a few minutes, he gave them full permission to say the words in question, freely. He stripped away some of the forbidden fruitiness. He let them squirm a little, as the words came out of their mouths, perhaps not quite as much fun to say out loud as they thought it would be.

Best of all, he reminded them that the thing about bad words isn’t so much the word itself, it’s the motive and heart behind it. They talked about kindness and respect and doing unto others as you’d have done to you. They laughed together. Their dad looked them in the eye, and he treated them like men.

All in all, a pretty productive day in Man Town, I’d say.

http://forums.parenting.com/blogs/parenting-post/posts/bad-words-good-dad

This dad was a very wise man. He realized that words are not bad because they fit into some “Bad category” but rather it’s because of the heart behind the word being spoken. Kid’s just saying those words loudly into the air wasn’t bad, and I believe those kids felt really weird just yelling those off limit words into the air, because this dad took all the power out of those words because the kids couldn’t say them to each other.

For instance, There’s a long story behind this, but I’m going to shorten it considerably and so it may not all make sense, but my hope is that the meaning will come through.

I was at an area meeting of many churches and what they were doing something that was not of God. I got up and began to share with them in a very firm, but loving way that what we were doing as a group of pastors was not of God. You could have heard a pin drop in that place it was that quiet.

Then when I had finished and sat down, my good friend and coach Rob Link looked right at me from the table next to mine and with a smile on his face, said loud enough for everyone in the room to say, Potgiesser (that’s my crazy last name) you’re an idiot! He went on to say in many more words, “We needed to hear that and what you just did took courage.

Now, I tell that story not to point toward what I did as being right or wrong, but that one of my friends called my an idiot in front of all of my peers. Those are fighting words!!! The term idiot has always been understood by me as being a derogatory word that is meant to knock someone down. It’s meant to make them feel small.  I could have just thrown the gloves down and started going after him. Except . . . that I could see that he used that word with love and he used it to reveal that what I just did was a gutsy thing and he knew that took courage.

Words are not bad in and of themselves. Words were created by God ‘Good” The only thing that makes a word bad is the heart from which it is spoken from.

Jesus said, Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

What makes words good or bad is not because they are in a list of words that are “Good” or a list of words that are “Bad”, but out of the heart that they come from.

After sin entered the world, the first thing that entered the world was fear. Adam and Eve hid from each other and they hid from God. They feared. Fear entered their heart.

If we are honest with ourselves, we speak and act more out of fear than we do out of faith. We operate more out of fear than we do out of love. Do we love those that we’re closest to? Yes. But we tend to speak to them more out of fear than out of love. We’re reactive in our relationships and in our words. Those words that rashly come out of our mouths are like sword thrusts to the heart.

v     Your husband likes doing things with his friends once a week, you may think, “Maybe he doesn’t love me.”

v     My wife spends more time with the kids than she does with me, you may think, “Maybe she doesn’t love me.

v     She just told me what to do or where to be, and I felt more like her child than her husband, doesn’t she respect me?

v     If he loves me, he would help me with the house, the dishes, supper, the kid’s.

What’s in your heart?

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks

“Potgiesser, you’re an idiot.” Bad words are not bad in and of them selves. Words become bad when they’re send from a fear filled heart.

To love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, means to have faith and not allow fear to govern our words and our relationships. Fear is an inability to control that which I can’t control.

Evil words, hurtful words, words that feel like a sword thrust to the gut come from a heart that is fearful. When we seek to love God with all that we are and begin to trust him with our lives, both in the good times and in the not so good times, we begin to live more and more out faith rather than fear, and it changes the kind of words that we speak to one another.

Ok, so what do we do with all this? The first thing I’d like us to work on this week is to life our lives out of faith instead of fear. Live our lives proactively not reactively. Live our lives constructively, not destructively.

A second thing that I’d like to suggest toward minimizing the hurt that comes from our words is to do this. When someone says something that hurts you, say, with as little volatility as you can, “Ouch that hurt.” Whenever you feel hurt by someone say “Ouch that hurt”. Because I’m convinced that most of the time we don’t even know that we hurt somebody with our words. I’m convinced that most of the time we don’t even know we just thrust a sword into their heart. So I’d like us to work on just expressing the feeling that are going on inside you, “Ouch, that hurt”. This works for any relationship if you’re willing to be real.

This past week, my daughter and I were ruff housing and all of a sudden she said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!” and I quickly said, “What’s wrong?” She said you caught my earring with your shirt. I didn’t know that I had hurt her. I certainly didn’t do it on purpose. I wouldn’t have known that I hurt her unless she expressed what she was feeling. Of course, I apologized and things were good between us again.

We have to be willing to communicate the hurt that we feel inside of us, because that opens up a dialog between you and the other person. If we don’t say anything there is no chance for reconciliation, there is no chance for clarification.

Often times, the person didn’t mean to say what you heard, but when you say, “Ouch, that hurt” it opens up conversation and they have an opportunity to explain what they really did mean. Other times, by speaking up and sharing the hurt that has happened within you, it will be the catalyst for starting a deeper conversation where you might get at some deeper hurts and fears.

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Nanny Clip

How many of you have seen one of the Nanny shows? Yeah, she comes in and rescues people from these unbelievably, bizarre incompetence in raising their children. Now, what would it look like if a super nanny came into a house when the kids where old enough to be on their own. That’s not the way that super nanny’s usually work because they normally come into a home when the kid’s are young and impressionable and at a time when she can make a difference.

It would be very different if a super nanny came into a home where the kids were now young adults because then most of who they will be is pretty much formed in many ways. By the time a child is 13 years old, most of their beliefs and behaviors about life are already formed. Now all of us know that failure is not final. But if we do not start well in the arena of relationships, it becomes more and more difficult to develop positive relationships.

What’s undermining most of our relationships today, and is certainly undermining the relationship that parents are having with their children is because we are reactive in our relationships. We are often times reactive in our marriages and in our friendships and parents are most often reactive in their relationships with their kids.  Our relationships are often times poor or deeply challenged because we tend to be reactive in the way that we relate to one another.

We tend to wait for crisis – when things are going so bad that we cannot ignore them any longer – to act.

It’s like your car that’s been making a noise for some time now, but the car seemed to drive ok, so you just ignored it. Over the course of a year, you notice that you are having a hard time stopping your car, so you take it in and the mechanic. The mechanic, after checking the car over asks you if you’ve been hearing a high pitched screeching noise coming from your car and you tell him that you’ve heard that for about a year and he tells you that if you had brought your car to him then, it would have been $300 to put new brake pads on, but now, you don’t just need just break pads, you need pads, drums and rotors and he says it will cost you $1200 – 4 times what it would have cost you if you brought the car in last year.

In our relationships we tend to wait for crisis to act. We wait until things are going so bad that we cannot ignore them any longer. How many people have you heard that their marriage was at the very end, and then they say, “Ok I’ll go to counseling.”

Relationships are generally reactive and there are two problems with that way of thinking.

The first is that it’s generally it’s too late to relate with one another, from the beginning, the way the relationship should have been lived out. It’s just too late – that’s no longer an option. In other words, it’s too late to do it the easy way. Now we have to spend the time and money it takes to repair our relationship and the way we commonly relate to one another. It’s beyond the time when we should have started, but it’s better to start now, then to not start at all. And if you don’t have a crisis yet, don’t wait for the crisis to get started.

With my car I have regular scheduled maintenance. I don’t want to wait until the motor blows up, because that’s really costly. I want to do the regular maintenance to keep my cars engine in the best condition that it can be. It’s the same way with our relationships. We don’t want to be reactive. We want to be proactive.

The second problem is that being reactive in our relationships tends to put our relationships in the gambling category. It’s almost as if we are putting our relationships on the Roulette Wheel and spinning it and hoping that it lands red 7. Instead of doing what it takes from the very beginning, so that we can insure that the relationship has a chance of making it from the very, we tend to wait until the very end.

So if we’re going to overcome the desperation that is formed in so many of our relationships, certainly in our households and marriages, then we need to go away from the reactive means of doing relationships and begin to get proactive. In order to have a positive influence on another person’s life means that we have to live intentionally. We have to live with a plan.

Instead of waiting for the breakdown and then we start trying to repair the relationship, we, on a day-by-day basis, are going to make the proper investment so that the breakdown has less potential of happening. Two many of us do relationships like the story of Humpty Dumpty. We wait till he falls down and is all broken before we try and piece him back together again, instead of warning him of being on the wall in the first place.

Proactive involvement in relationships is all about the idea that we need to see every single moment in our relationship as a valuable moment. It’s kind of like the difference between doing preventative medicine and crisis medicine.

Most of us wait until we have a heart attack or a stroke before we begin to eat right and exercising. It’s amazing how many 60 year olds that I talk to who say, I exercise every day now. It’s because the crisis came and now they’re putting on the fix. The reason why they’re putting in the time in now is because they’re worried about the end of their life coming very soon if they don’t put the time in now.

Some of you have experienced broken relationships and you know that death would sometimes be better than the pain and loneliness that you face after such brokenness. Part of you dies when a relationship is broken. Death comes to the body when heart attacks and strokes come, but death happens to the soul when relationships are broken.

As a man after God’s own heart, I want to share with you truth about life and about relationships because there is someone called Satan, and he goes around like a prowling lion looking for a relationship to devour. A real lion might look to devour you physically, but this spiritual lion feasts on destroying love. He feasts on destroying your love because love is the one thing that makes you who God created you to be. In order to feel whole, in order for you to feel joy and peace, you and I need to be filled with the love of God and have loving, good relationships is the primary way that that happens in our lives. When those loving relationship are ripped away from us there is nothing worse.

Here’s what happens. Because we’re so busy, because we have so many things going on we often times get our priorities out of place, we don’t have the time or energy to be proactive and that’s one of the reasons why we’re so reactive.

If we are not proactive, our relationships will be more of a roulette style of relationship, and we will become reactive. Being proactive takes work. It takes diligence and intentionality. Leaving a positive mark on another person’s life requires proactive involvement. Even God said this in Deuteronomy chapter 6. He was talking about the family setting, the mom and the dad, passing values down to their children, leaving a positive mark, but this works in any context. It works in the marketplace, it works in friendships, it works in marriage, it works in any context. This is what God said through Moses:

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 (NIV)
These commandments (Love God and Love each other) that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. These are the values that will guide you in life. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

God says, If you are going to make a positive mark on the life of your children, then you’re going to have to pass the values that I’m giving you on to your children. God is saying, “See every moment as a teachable moment or as a moment that matters. Every moment, when you’re getting up, when you’re lying down, when your going out and when you’re coming in, when you ride in your car, when you come home these values are always important. There are no moments that don’t matter. Every moment in our lives is an investment in a relationship with someone . . . or not.

You can’t wait until crisis comes and then invest these values. God says that these values are so important that you need to bind them to your forehead and tie them as signs to your hands – kind of like my kids do, they write things that they need to remember on their hands – that’s what God is saying here. If you have trouble remembering important things, what do you do? Where do you write them down? Sometimes our family will write things with a dry erase markers on the mirror in our bathroom to remind us of something that we want to remember.

As parents, we need to set the example in the way we live, in the way we talk, in the way we act in every season of our lives. Make these the structure forms of our home. We have to be proactive if we’re going to leave a positive mark on another person’s life, but . . . generally we’re not. Generally we’re reactive people. We wait until it gets really bad and then we do something.

I want to encourage you, if you want to have the kind of relationships that you dream of having, start investing with your time and energy and intentionality. Start being proactive instead of reactive.

Here’s the application. If we want our lives to positively impact and build up our spouse and our marriage, if we want our lives to positively impact our children, if we want our lives to positively impact our friends and our co-workers, then we must become proactive in our relationships. We can’t wait for the problem or our relational collapse to try and fix the problem, because by then so much damage has been done that the odds are not in your favor and even if you do, it will take a very long time. Wouldn’t it be better to spend the time and energy on the front end by being proactive instead of on the back side being reactive?

So here is the deal, what do we need in order to be proactive in our relationships? What does that look like? Well, the good news is that God’s taught us how to do relationships.

The first way that you and I can be proactively involved in the relationships that we have, is that we have to choose to be a positive example. I chose in every season of life, in every circumstance in life, in every trial in life, to see the importance of that moment in my relationships, and I choose to be a positive pattern setter. And you must know that you have absolutely no option as to whether or not you will be an example. By what you say and what you do, you are setting the patterns for the people’s lives around you. You are a model for life’s behavior for everyone that loves you and whom you love.

The question is not whether you will be an example or a model. The question is what kind of an example or a model will you be? If we are reactive in our relationships, then we are just responding to the moment, and all of us know that if we just wait and respond in the moment that sometimes we respond well and other times we will not.

This is what Jesus said about modeling for other people. He said, I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. John 13:15 (NIV)

Jesus is saying, “You follow my example and you’re going to do great!” How many of you would like to stand up here and say to everyone else, follow me, you’re life is going to be great?” Jesus understood every moment of his life that he was setting the pattern for how we are to live. He chose to be a positive example.

He was in the garden getting ready to be nailed to a cross and he still said, “Father, I want to do your will, not mine. I have some ideas about how I’d like this to go, but they don’t line up with where you want them to go, but Father, not my will, but yours be done.” No matter what comes into our lives, we are called to be a pattern for those around us. We are called to do God’s will and to follow God’s way, because he will always lead us toward blessings in our lives. It didn’t look like the cross was a blessing when he was hanging on the cross, but 3 days later, God did the impossible – Jesus was glorified and was risen from the dead. Jesus sacrifice did remarkable good even though it didn’t look like a good idea.

Even when Jesus was nailed to that awful cross and the lifeblood was draining out of him, he said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Even in his last breaths, Jesus was a model and a positive example of how we are called to live.

Paul the Apostle said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 said Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Paul Got it! He understood that he was going to be an example and he decided that instead of being reactive that he was going to be proactive, so that he could leave a positive impact on those people in his life whom he had influence over, and he did it by saying “I will be a positive example.”

Now, the truth is, we’re going to be an example, and what we do will influence those who are dear to us.

Stephen Covey the author of a large number of well-known books wrote the following:

Project

If a child lives with criticism, he or she learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility, then he or she learns to fight

If a child lives with acceptance, he or she learns to love.

If a child lives with an apprehensive example, then he or she learns to fear in life.

If a child lives with recognition in his or her life, then the child learns to live with goals

If a child lives with pity, then she learns to be sorry for herself and play the role of a victim

If a child lives with approval, then he learns to like himself

If a child lives with jealousy then he or she will learn to feel guilty

If a child lives with friendliness then he or she will learn that the world is a nice place.

If a child lives with security, then he or she learns to have confidence in himself and others

You and I are modeling what will form others people’s patterns for life. What we say and do and how we act will invariably form and shape the people around us. God is a great Creator and we were made in his image. God gave us the ability to create. Our ability to create is just a shadow of what God can create, but none-the-less we create by what we do and by what we say. We either create goodness as God did, or we create evil as many have done in our past.

You and I cannot be reactive with life – just doing whatever we feel like from moment to moment and then dealing with things when they crash and burn is not a good way to do life. We are called to be proactive in life because we are modeling life for those around us and the way we live our lives impacts all the people around us.

The question is “Have you chosen to be a positive example or are you just living a reactive life?” The result of being a positive example regardless of the season or circumstance of life, is this, it provides a legacy. Jesus was able to say, Follow the legacy that I am leaving you, follow the footprints that I’m leaving you and you won’t go wrong. Paul was able to say follow the footprints that I leave as I follow Christ’s footprints and you won’t go wrong.

Moms and Dads should be able to say, “I’m leaving footprints for you to follow”, and the only way you can do that is if you set your heart on becoming a positive example for your kids.

God said, These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

In order to become people who leave a legacy to those around us we have to choose to be proactive in the way we live our lives, and s if we are going to lead proactive lives, then we must choose to be helpful and encouraging guides. We have to decide that we are going to help others regardless of the season, encourage others regardless of the season, and help to guide others in life because of their relationship with us. That should be the goal of all our relationships, but it will only happen if we get up every morning thinking, how can I make a difference in the people’s lives around me. I have to be proactive, not reactive.

Look at how the Bible says it: Hear, my child, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.  I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. Proverbs 4:10-11 (NRSV)  

I am a helpful and encouraging guide.

Fathers, (mothers) do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephes. 6:4 (NIV)

Don’t be reactive in the moment. Don’t frustrate them and confuse them, but rather be helpful and encouraging guides as you raise them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Now, for some of us, we didn’t have parents who left us a positive legacy. In fact, some of us have parents that not only didn’t leave us a positive legacy, they left us a negative one. They probably did the best they could with what they were given, so I don’t want to judge them for what they gave us, but the fact is we may not have parents or a mother figure or a father figure where we can say, I’m going to follow in their footprints and If I do, I can’t go wrong, because we can see where their footprints lead and it’s not where we want to go. Sometimes we can go in completely the opposite direction of our parents.

I ran into one woman that had domineering parents. They were controlling and, when drunk abusive, and so she chose to never spank or force her will on her daughter. That’s reactive parenting and it basically destroyed her daughter’s life. Proactive relationships are not moved by feelings but by God.

So what do we do? How do we lead our children? How do we know what to do? I’m glad you asked, because those of us who have committed our lives to Jesus Christ and received the forgiveness of sins, literally have the Spirit of God within us. We are not God, but rather have the presence of God in our lives. Listen to what John 14:16 (NRSV) says:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit, the Counselor, teaches us how to do relationships, but we have to seek him, we have to talk with him and like any relationship, we are called to thank him for all the goodness we see all around us, and not treat him like a vending machine that you only put your two cents in when you want something from him. Our relationship with God can’t be reactive and only go to him when things are going wrong in our lives. We are called to be proactive in our relationship with God, which means that we are to diligently sent out to know God, to understand him, and to love him with all that we are.

Here’s the great thing about Jesus. Jesus came into this world to be our guide, to be our model and so the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are very important books because we can learn a lot about who we were created to be. Jesus’ all-important words that still ring true in our lives today are “Come, Follow me.” He is our guide. He is our model. And when we seek to follow him and  love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then he gives us the gift of his Spirit to train us and guide us in how to live and how to train our children and how to live our lives in a way that blesses us and those around us and in a way that honors him.

Our relationships can be proactive or reactive. Reactive means you don’t have a plan or a destination. To be reactive means that you don’t have a goal or a direction, you’re just wandering and, quite frankly that’s dangerous.

To be proactive means that you have your eyes on Jesus and you’re following him as closely as you can because you know where he’s going – you know what his plan is and you know what the destination is . . . and that is Heaven on Earth.

What if we could describe the meaning of the whole Bible in just four words? What if we could impart who God is and who we were created to be in just four words? Wouldn’t that be cool? I don’t know about for you, but for me, I like things simple and easy to understand. Sometimes the Bible isn’t all that easy to understand. But, wouldn’t it be cool if we could understand the main point in this book with just four small words?

I don’t know about for you, but for me I grew up around church a little bit, and then as I got older I chose to go to church by myself, but for the longest time I had all these Bible stories in my head, but I couldn’t connect the dots between the Bible stories and my story. I didn’t see where they made much of a difference in my life, but then something happened. The dots got connected. They all made sense.

So this morning we’re going to try and connect the dots of the Bible, so that the Bible, and most importantly, God, makes more sense to you and I.

I have to be honest with you. I’ve preached a version of this sermon before. I’ve pulled it back out this Christmas because last Christmas it changed how I view Christmas, and couldn’t remember it all, so I pulled it back out and read it again. It moved me deeply, and by reading it again, so more things became clear to me, so I decided to share those with you this morning.

Here’s the deal. The Bible is not first and foremost about the ten commandments, or rules, or laws. The Bible is not a list of do’s and don’ts. It’s not primarily about how to get to heaven when you die. It’s not about living a good, moral life. It’s not primarily about how to be happy or to live comfortably.

The Bible is primarily about relationships. It is primarily about our relationship with God and our relationship with each other (point towards mission – love God and love people). It’s about fallen, broken relationships, and it’s about God’s desire for good relationships because they bring heaven to earth (point toward vision – heaven on earth). So what we’re going to talk about today is broken relationships and the movement toward good relationships and we’re going to use four small words to help us.

Here’s a real shocker, the first word is found in Genesis. We spend a lot of time in Genesis because the early chapters of Genesis share with us the foundations of the world – of what’s good and what’s bad and what works and what doesn’t and who God is and who he isn’t. Here’s the verse.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.      Genesis 1:27 (NRSV) 

Here is the first word. The word is “OF”. Small word, big truth. We were created of God.

I woodwork for a hobby. Once, I made a desk out of wood. The “OF” word means that my desk is a desk, but the properties that define it are, “It’s made OF wood”. We were created out of the image of God, of God, for God. We are meant to reflect his likeness, his goodness. God and us are not separate. We are different from God. But when people look at you and me they should get a glimpse of God, because that’s who you’re from. Does that make anyone nervous?

What’s the first word? OF

This is where the story begins for Adam and Eve. They are OF God. For any of you who have children, then you know how this all works. Your children are OF you, they are from you, they resemble you. When people look at them and get to know them, they get a glimpse of who you are, because they’re of you. It’s a very high level of relationship to be OF someone.

Adam and Eve actually knew God. They walked with him and talked with him in the cool of the day. They had this wonderful relationship with God. And it says at the end of Chapter 2 that they were naked and there was no shame. They had nothing to hide. They had nothing to be ashamed of. The first people on the earth had a great relationship with God. That’s how God created them to be. They were OF God and their relationship was good. It was how God created it to be. Heaven was on earth.

But if you know the story, then you know that being “OF” God was not enough for Adam and Eve. When Satan deceived Adam and Eve into believing that being “OF” God wasn’t enough, then their relationship with God and each other went to hell. Satan deceived the first human beings into believing that they could be like God. It was not enough for them to be “of” God, they wanted to BE God. They began to be self-centered instead of God-centered and this corrupted their goodness.

Now, God is a holy God, which means that he’s set apart from anything evil, and so when Adam and Eve began going their own way, they began to chose ways that were evil – ways that were not good – ways that were contrary to who God was. He couldn’t walk with them. They chose two different paths. God walked the path of righteousness – it’s the only path he would choose. Adam and Eve were on a different path that led away from God.  In that instant, Adam and Eve lost that intimacy and closeness with God. God could no longer walk and talk with Adam and Eve as he had before. And the rest of the Old Testament lives under a new word.

Let’s go to Exodus 33. We’re going to hop into the middle of the story of Moses, one of the central figures of the Old Testament. Of all the people in the Old Testament, few people had as close of a relationship with God as Moses did. Moses was able to meet with God in the tent of meeting and he had this honest, sometimes reluctant, relationship with God. Nobody in the Old Testament had a better relationship with God than Moses did.

He was one of the only people who got to see a tangible glimpse of the presence of God. We’re going to look at that right now.

Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And God said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. God is telling Moses, I can do whatever I want. I can show you mercy and I can give you grace, But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.”

Very different from what Adam and Eve had in the Garden. There’s this idea throughout scripture that if someone looked at the face of God they would die. To see someone’s face is to see them. If someone moons you from the back of a bus, you probably can’t identify them. I’ve seen people in the mall or in town and I thought it was someone that I knew, but when they turned around and I saw their face, I realized it wasn’t them. To see someone’s face is to see them. To see the face of God was to see God and for all the people in the Old Testament, they could not know God because of the evil that was in them.

It’s kind of like when war veterans have an MRI  thinking that all the shrapnel from previous wounds have been removed. When they enter the MRI the shrapnel is attracted to the powerful magnets of the machine and sucked out of their bodies.

Moses and all of his counterparts could not see God and all his glory because of the evil in side of them. If there were to look upon God, all the evil inside of them would flee like the shrapnel inside a war vet and it would kill us. We would die!

And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.” Exodus 33:18?23 (NRSV) 

Can you see how things have changed? The relationship between God and Moses had to be at a distance. They could no longer walk and talk together. They were separated by this distance and by this thing called sin that was between them. God kept a safe distance from human beings not because he hated them for their wrong decisions, but because if they saw his face they would die, because their sin or evil inside of them would rip them apart spiritually when they looked God in the face

There’s this new word that enters the story after sin entered the world. This new word is AND. Say that with me, AND. God AND us. There’s a separation, there’s a distance. God is still present, but the relationship is no longer what it used to be. God did not leave us, but the relationship that we once had is no long possible because there is something between us. The closest that Moses could get was looking at the back of God, which means that Moses and others could not really know God. God is still here, but not like he was.

There ends up being this elaborate process in order for people to even get close to God, because there was so much mess inside of people that were not OF God. This is the effect of sin. God hasn’t left, but we can’t be as close to him as we once were.

For some of you , maybe this sums up the whole of your life. You know that God is out there somewhere, but you can’t see him, you can’t sense him, you can’t hear him. It’s as if he isn’t there, but something keeps telling you that he is. So it seems like he’s distant or far away. And I believe that is why people sometimes write or speak about God being up in heaven, instead of present because they’ve never really felt, or heard or saw God move.

This is what And is all about. God is here and we are here, but we are not in this deeply connected relationship with him. This is what Moses experienced, and this is what everybody in the Old Testament experienced. Throughout the Old Testament all the prophets were pointing to a new word, but nobody in their wildest dreams ever imagined what it would be like.

This word is so important that God uses it to describe who Jesus is. It’s found in Matthew Chapter 1 –the first book and the first chapter of the New Testament.

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:23 (NRSV)  

What’s the third word? Anyone want to guess? Yeah, WITH. No longer is it God and us, but now it’s God with us. God says, I’m going to do something that is just going to blow your mind. I am going to be with you. This is really cool and while I was putting this message together for the first time, I realized that when Jesus came to this earth – when God was with us in the person of Jesus, we see something very close to what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden, because God walked with Adam and Eve and now in Jesus he comes and is walking around with people again. In Jesus we get see, at least in part, God’s face. The scriptures tell us that now we see as though we are looking through dark glass.

Even though things are still really messed up, God has brought us back together again and he is with us. God has turned this titanic called sin and it’s headed back toward who he created us to be and he did it at Christmas when Jesus was born. The world is still really messed up, but God is doing something about it. In Jesus, God is saying that you could know God like nobody in the Old Testament ever could. That in Jesus, people can know God a bit like Adam and Eve could.

God says, now I am with you. There is no longer the separation, no longer the distance between God and us. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. That’s why it is so important that we pay attention to the message of Christmas, because God does something unthinkable at Christmas because he bridges the gap from And to With.

For my wife Shannon and I, this word “With” is very important. We spent one whole school year of our engagement apart.  Shannon was going to school at Michigan State and I was working as an electricians apprentice here and we couldn’t be with each other except on the weekends. In Shannon, I had found the woman of my dreams and I had spent enormous amounts of time with her and every hour that I had spent with her was the best hours of my life, and I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life “With” her, but then she had to go back to school and I couldn’t be with her any more and it was absolutely not good. It was awful. It was a type of hell, but then when I got to be “With” her on the weekends everything was good – really, really good! Being WITH her changed my life. It changed our lives.

“With” is a very powerful word. We are with people all the time. The worst place to be is all alone – to not have anyone with you. That is a cursed place. God says in the person of Jesus, “you will never be alone, because I am with you. And we want to say as a church. We are with you. You never have to be alone, because we want to walk with you. That’s what life groups are about. They are groups of people who want to live life with each other because it is incredibly powerful experience.

When God came among us in the person of Jesus, what it means is that we can know him. In Jesus we know God at least in part. In Jesus we can see God’s face and we can know God. Maybe not fully, because in Jesus, God’s glory is cloaked under the skin of a human being, but in Jesus, we can see who we were created to be. In Jesus we know the truth about what life is about. It is about being with God and with other human beings.

But what the disciples couldn’t see was that God had in mind something even greater than “with” coming to our story. Because if you know the story at all, then you know it starts in a manger and it seems to end at a cross and a tomb, but it doesn’t end there. Jesus knew that he wouldn’t stay with us forever, but he had a plan and it was good.

If I had been one of Jesus’ followers, this would have been really hard for me to understand, because yeah, I get it now, I see that the kingdom of God has come down in Jesus and we don’t have to wait until we die to experience a bit of heaven on earth. And then Jesus says, I have to go now, but I’m going to send one that is even greater than me to you.

I’m no longer going to be with you, but I’m about to do something that you couldn’t even imagine. Something so much greater than just being WITH you.

Come with me to Col. 1:26. In this chapter, Paul goes on a rant about who Jesus Christ is, and I’d encourage you to read the whole chapter this afternoon or this week, because it is such a powerful image of who Jesus Christ really is. He goes on this rant and says, Just so you know, the fullness of God fully dwells in Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ everything was created, and by Jesus, all things are actually being held together. The very fabric of our existence is being held together by Jesus. He goes on to say that all things are not only being held together, but brought together. There being reconciled, fixed, healed by Jesus. After all this deep profound truth about who Jesus is, then he says the absolute unthinkable in the first century and maybe for you and I today – he says this:

The mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been disclosed to God’s people. There’s a mystery, a secret almost, something that nobody had any idea about. To them (God’s People) God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is drum roll please Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col. 1:26?27

Paul says all these things about Jesus, but then the punch line of this whole rant is that Jesus can live IN you. God can live in you. This does not mean that you or I are God – very different! But since God can’t walk around in person with each one of us like he did in the garden with Adam and Eve and talk with us in the cool of the day, instead, God wants to live in us.

What makes this possible is that in the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, God paid the price for our sins – God removes our sins when we desire to be reconciled with him. God removes our sins when we seek to love him. Jesus died for all people, but only those who accept him receive the free gift that he gave on the cross. The reason why God can come inside of us is because when we accept Jesus and choose to love God and decide that we want to be in relationship with him, then Jesus removes our sin and that clears out the inside of us so that God’s Spirit can enter.

The whole message of Jesus is that God wants to clean you and I out, so that we can be in relationship with him. God wants to enter our lives and begin to direct and guide us in such a way that we begin our journey back toward being OF him. Jesus’s plan is not for it to be us AND God, it’s not for it to be God with us, and it’s not even to be God in us. God’s plan us to live as we were created to be where we can understand that we were created to be OF God, living face to face in deep, personally relationship with our Creator, in such a way that Heaven comes to earth. That can only as we seek to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, so that God’s love is in us guiding back toward who he created us to be.

There are 4 small words OF, AND, WITH, and IN that display the movement of our relationship with God in the Bible. Where are you at? What word describes your relationship with God?

Does AND describe your relationship with God the best? Is your relationship with God distant? Do you pray to God like he’s “In heaven” somewhere? Do you feel to small for God to really be a part of your life? If this is true then you’re living in the past, in the Old Testament. You don’t have to live there anymore, because Jesus came and died, so that God could be in you and so that his love could fill you, and move you more towards heaven on earth.

Does WITH describe your relationship with God? With is a better place to be than AND, but it’s still not all that good. Is God with you as you go throughout your day? Is God an external factor that you call on when your day or your relationships aren’t going well? WITH describes God on the outside of us, so our world is still quite self-centered with God on the outside helping out. This is the place where many Christians are. They’re still at Christmas – God with us, but Christmas is not the end of Jesus’ story.

Does IN describe your relationship with God. God is no longer with you, but in you. God is not some external factor, but at the very core of who you are. You are no longer totally self-centered, but you’re journeying toward becoming God centered. It is no longer about your will, but God’s will. Your life is no longer characterized by your selfish desires, but, rather, is characterized by what God desires. This type of relationship is characterized by a strong desire to be OF God. You’re not there yet, but on good days you can see the kingdom of God – you can see what heaven on earth would look like and you deeply long for that – You deeply long for all relationships to be good, for the world to be good again – You deeply long to be OF God, so that all relationships – our relationship with God and our relationship with each other would be good. 

Song: “In Me” by Casting Crowns – Life Song album.

            We all know that it is electricity that runs through wires that makes all this work, but even that is a mysterious process.  We have seen it so many times that we take it for granted that it works.  We can’t really see what is going on, but we fully trust that when we turn on the switch the lights will come on.

            Yet how many of you have had trouble trusting in God for reasons that are very similar to the reasons that we would have for not trusting electricity.  We cannot see the electrons flowing through the wires (often we cannot even see the wires) just like we cannot see God.  Most of us do not completely understand how everything works in an electrical circuit and God tends to be very mysterious to us.  We cannot understand how he does things a lot of times, and the things he asks us to do seem to make no sense.  Yet somehow it is harder for me to trust God than it is for me to trust electrical lighting.

            I could name off a number of things that we have no trouble trusting in even though we cannot see them or necessarily understand them.  Gravity is one.  The sun rising and setting is another.  One that is very important to me is the shot coming out of the end of my gun making a pass at the ducks or gees that I am pursuing.  In fact, if I can see that shot, I begin to get worried as I know that it will not have enough energy to do the job that it is intended to do at the other end of its flight.  We have no problems trusting in these things to continue to operate, yet I know that I sometimes have trouble trusting in God to do what he says that he will do.  If you all are honest, I would guess that all of us have experienced that at some point or another.

            We are not alone in this lack of trust.  All throughout scripture you can see God calling people to do certain things and promising to be with them, and these people question God to make sure that this is really what he wants.  Noah is told to build an ark to prepare for something that no one on earth has ever seen to this day.  Rain.  Abraham is told to leave his homeland and travel somewhere.  God will let him know where when he gets there.  Yeah traveling without a destination is a lot of fun.  Moses is told to go up against the most powerful ruler of his time and lead this leaders free labor away.  Joshua is told to take down a very well fortified city with a large army by marching around it and blowing horns for a week.  Gideon is told that he has to many men and he needs to get rid of most of them before he goes into battle.  In fact he is only allowed to keep three hundred men and there weapons are a horn a lamp and a jar.  None of these agreed that the plan laid out by God made sense, but ultimately the decided to trust.

            I would like to look at one more in a little more depth.  This is a story about Peter.  To set the stage Jesus has just performed one of the most well known miracles in the Bible.  He has just fed five thousand men plus women and children with just five loaves of bread and two fish.  Then Jesus puts his disciples in a boat and sends them off.  He goes up on a mountain to pray, and then later on that night decides that he is going to join his disciples in the boat.  Lets read what happens.  Matthew 14:22-30.  Let’s stop there.  I would like to just imagine what that must have been like.  If I am John in this story the first thing I am thinking when I hear Peter open his mouth is “Shut up, what if he makes all of us get out of this boat and try your stupid stunt.  If you want to sink to your death that is one thing, but I am perfectly fine staying in this boat and taking my chances.”  Now I don’t really know if that is what any of the disciples are actually thinking, but it is interesting that only Peter speaks up.  And because he speaks up, he gets the chance of a lifetime.  He gets to be better on the water than Chris Schaap or Jim Rockwell.  But as he begins to walk toward Jesus on top of the water (by the way I wonder if his feet got wet at all?)  he realizes that the lake is not at ideal wakeboarding conditions and is in even worse shape for trying his current stunt.  Once he begins to focus on how bad the conditions are he loses the source of his power and begins to sink (I am pretty sure he got wet at this point).    Not only did he get wet, he got scared and cried out for help.  Video clip #1.

            We read in Romans that people often decide to worship and serve (read put their trust in) created things more than the Creator (God).  Romans 1:25.  When Peter started believing more in the power of the creation on which he was walking than the power of the one who challenged him to defy natures laws, he began to sink.  Let me share a personal story with you of an experience that I have had with not trusting that God could pull off what he was calling the group of which I was a part to accomplish.  The pastor had heard a number of people in the church wanting to do something to reach the community and begin to have a presence there without being “preachy”.  A coffe house or restraunt were ideas that kept coming up.  There was a building in town that was for sale or lease and used to be a pizza place so he met with the owners and then called a meeting of those interested as well as the leadership of the church.  He told us that he felt that God was leading us to open up a Coffee shop at this location and that we should open before Thanksgiving.  The only problem with this timeline was that the date of this exploiritory meeting was the end of October.  That didn’t give a lot of time for things to get done.  Having had worked with a couple of resteraunts that were just opening in the past I knew that it could be a daunting process even for those experienced in the restraunt business with contacts already set up.  We had no one in the group who knew about resteraunts or how to run them.  We had no suppliers, we had no people trained on how to make fancy coffees, we had no Coffee making equipment.  We had no coolers for the deli side of the business.  We had no health department inspections.  And we had a very limited budget.  How could all of this come together in less than a month.  The liscencing process alone could take three times that.  And yet somehow ( I still do not know how)  all of these things fell into place as well as the building being updated some, Volunteers being enlisted and trained to help with making and serving coffee.  All I know is that all of us just started moving toward that goal and everything fell into place.  There is no other way to explain it other than God gave a vision and he cleared the way for that vision to be fulfilled.  Not that there wasn’t a lot of work involved.  I remember being at the building at midnight on a Wednesday night changing out a compressor in a used refrigeration display case that we had gotten for a dollar because it had a bad compressor.  I remember other people sacrificing time, energy, talents and money to see this thing come together, but when Capstone opened all any of us could say was that God had showed up and cleared the way.   God does not leave us hanging.   Clip # 2.   Rest of the story of Peter.  Matthew 14:31-32.

            So where is God challenging you to step out of your comfort zone.  For some of you it may be that he is challenging you to take those first steps of trust in him.  You have felt him working on your heart, but you just have had your reservations up to now.  For some of you it might be learning to trust God with your money.  You trust him in a lot of areas of your life, but your money is so limited it seems impossible to give up control of some of it.  Maybe it is that God is calling you to Love other people more or get to know him better.  Or is it something more exotic than that.  Is he calling you to build an ark, open a coffee house to reach out to the community or serve him full time in some capacity.  Whatever it is that he is calling you to do (and he is always calling us forward) I know one thing for certain.  You are going to have to get out of the boat and risk sinking in order to accomplish it.  Trust God to take care of it.  He will.