If my people will…Give it away October 28, 2008
Money is not the Answer: We Cannot Buy What We need the Most: Spiritual Power
I was at a football game and ready to eat my lunch. I have been trying to eat better, so I brought some peanuts. Peanuts are like dessert when you are trying to eat well. Before I could get to my lunch, a squirrel ate my peanuts. He even tore a hole in my duffle bag. Not only that, he left the shells for me to clean up. This just shows how easy it is to lose your peanuts!
That is how a lot of people are feeling right now, only it is not peanuts they are losing, but money, retirement accounts, houses, jobs, and peace of mind. By the way, the government is sorry about the economy and mistakes the made – if that makes you feel better. It is amazing that those who caused much of this mess are now telling us how bad it is. Their comments are like a football coach who said, “We need to focus on what we are doing wrong and get better at it.”
What does this crisis prove? Money is not the answer.
The answer to our nation and world’s troubles does not lie in the hands of presidents or millionaires, the answer is found in the House of God, on the knees of the people of God. The most critical factor in where our nation and world goes from here is the response of the people of God. Will we respond with repentance and prayer?
THE PROBLEM…Money cannot buy spiritual power. Acts 8:14-24
Simon tried to buy spiritual power, but it didn’t work. The world has tried to buy power and it doesn’t work.
Kenny Chesney sings a song called “Everybody wants to go to heaven:”
“Said preacher maybe you didn’t see me Throw an extra twenty in the plate. There’s one for everything I did last night And one to get me through today. Here’s a ten to help you remember next time you got the good Lord’s ear. Say I’m comin` but there ain’t no hurry I’m having fun down here.”
Another popular song was “Can’t buy me love…”
The government cannot do the Church’s job. We cannot look to the world or government. God says that we are responsible – we need to quit pointing fingers and blaming everyone else and take our responsibility seriously.
Greed has crippled our world: We have bowed down at the altar of mammon
Reuters Life! reported that a man died just as he was about to win a university binge eating contest in Taiwan, scoffing down two buns filled with rice and cheese as well as some of his teammate’s food, all to win $60.
Luke 16:13 says that we cannot serve God and money. Malachi 3:8-9 asks, “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me when you do not bring the tithe into My House.” When we put money before God, our whole nation is cursed.
We are guilty. We have bought into the corruption of greed:
1 Tim 6:10, speaking to Christians, says “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, in their eagerness to get rich, have wandered away from the faith and caused themselves a lot of pain.” The American Dream has become the American Nightmare.
Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Dallas commented that we do not really own anything. You might own your house, but just stop paying property taxes and see what happens. Haggai 1:6 says that the people who put their own house before God have holes in their pockets!
Leadership Journal quotes John Ortberg about happiness, he says, “One theme that keeps cropping up is the happiness paradox: ‘the more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.’ The article goes on to explain the principle of indirection: “happiness, by its nature, cannot be obtained by direct pursuit. You have to sneak up on it. Or rather, you have to let it sneak up on you while you’re pursuing something more important.”
Even the church has bought into greed by making buildings and programs more important than God. We have promoted easy Christianity. We have made salvation cheap. We have failed this generation by making Christianity so easy that it is easy to quit. We have not challenged our children to a real faith that is compelling.
Bill Hybels says the largest gap is not between seekers and believers, but between less mature Christians and "Christ-centered" Christians. The less mature, he says, believe that "God is for me, my plans, and my agenda in this world." But the truly Christ-centered have given up their lives and dreams in complete surrender to him." (Leadership Journal)
1 Peter 4:17 (NLT) says “For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God’s own children.” If the Church does not get it right, what hope does the world have?
Jerry Lee Lewis sang “A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On.”
Hebrews 12:27 (NLT) says “the things on earth will be shaken, so that only eternal things will be left.”
In economics, they call it market correction: Perhaps there is a spiritual correction going on. This world cannot last too much longer as it is – the moral values of each generation are worse than the previous (the people running our government grew up in the 60’s.) We are suffering for more than forty years of godlessness. Somebody has moved the lines.
• Yahoo reported, “ABC Wants Britney Spears to Wake Up America” on their morning news show. “But are we really that surprised ABC got her? After all, Spears’ bare and buff video for her record-breaking first single "Womanizer" premiered two weeks ago on 20/20.” Brittany Spears will not wake up America!
• On discussing religion and politics on the Daily Show with John Stewart and whether a candidate is really a Christian, Comedian Bill Maher believed that the candidate was just saying he is a Christian to make Christians happy. He would rather have a President who is a liar than a Christian.
• Jose Nunez, an immigrant from Mexico celebrating his American freedom, was assaulted while working for Proposition 8.
• An elderly woman and pro-life volunteer was assaulted by a mother who was upset that the volunteer counseled her pregnant daughter about alternatives to abortion.
• In Massachusetts, David Parker was arrested for asking that he be notified when his kindergarten son was being taught about issues that went against his religious beliefs.
Who determined that it was up to schools to teach our children moral values? We did by abdicating our responsibility. Pastor Ed Young said “We are one generation away from extinction.” There was a book once entitled "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us." We are in trouble and this may be the wake up call we need.
Okay, we are done! God bless you! NO! There is Good News! Even in hard times, we should not just be all gloom and doom. There is still hope!
POSTIVE OUTCOMES OF THIS SHAKING
• Money is not god.
• We are praying more than ever.
• We trust God more than money
• Our faith is stronger.
• The next generation has seen the tragedy of greed.
• The Bible is proven again
• We will see the Hand of God. When we trust God, we will see miracles! Not by human might, but by the Spirit of God. It’s in God’s hands.
This is our responsibility: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV) says “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
This verse was written during the dedication of Solomon’s Temple to the people of God. Times were good, but God knew the people would sin. If our nation will see the blessing of God, it will start with the people of God.
We must do the following:
1. Humble ourselves: Acknowledge He is Almighty God, worship Him, not money. We represent the Name of God. If I give someone a reference and they do a poor job, it makes me look bad. This isn’t just about us. If we call ourselves Christians, we represent God. We must worship Him alone, not the things of the world.
2. Seek His Face:
We need prayer, not money – not for our will, for His. We need to fast and deprive ours greed for money, food, and buying. We have filled ourselves to the point we don’t need God. That empty feeling…is normal!
We must fill our lives and homes with Scripture, not TV. We need more of the House of God, not less. We must be ready. The events of the end times are like a movie, we haven’t taken this seriously, but Jesus could return at any moment.
We must live by faith, not fear. Fear is controlling our world. We should show the joy of the Lord so the world can see that God is good.
3. Turn from our wicked ways:
We must turn in repentance, as Daniel did for twenty one days of fasting and mourning. We need to weep – to wash our eyes so we can see! The promise of the Holy Spirit in Joel 2 follows repentance.
We need purity that does not compromise.
An 11 year old boy went to the mall with his mom. When they got home, he asked her, “How do you get pictures of women in their underwear out of your mind.” The world does not care about our children, they care about money.
But lust and sexual sin has also entered the Church. Ezekiel 22:26 says that the people made no distinction between clean and unclean and God looked for a man to stand in the gap, but could find none. We must draw a line.
One of our students had a dream that we were cleaning out the church and throwing things away. It is time to clean up the Church! God says he will forgive our sin and THEN he will heal our land.
An old gospel song says, “It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer…not the preacher, not the sinner. But it’s me, oh Lord, Standing in the need of prayer...” It is not the world that needs to pray, but the people of God.
There is more to this story: If greed got us into this mess, giving will get us out. It is not enough to just stop being greedy, we must do the opposite:
When God blesses His people, we must give it Away:
Simon tried to buy the power of God. But Malachi Malachi 3:10 says, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” When the Church gets its priorities right, when Christians put God first in every area, the heavens will open and the Church will be a source of blessing to the world.
Respected author and researcher David Barton said that since President Lyndon Johnson’s "Great Society" social programs, the government as given 9 trillion dollars to the poor. But out of every government dollar given for the poor, 30 cents actually gets to the poor. The government was never supposed to save the poor: we are!
Proverbs 14:31 (NLT) says, “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who help the poor honor him.”
The widow gave her last meal to the prophet Elijah and her family was saved. Templo Emanuel in Crystal City, Texas, gave $8,000 to build church in Panama, then received a $2 million church for free!
Our church is blessed because we give food and help the needy. But this must be more than just food. We must give them hope. This is not just for a few of us, but all of us need to be involved, especially during the holidays.
We get calls almost daily from people needing help. We will have plenty of opportunities! They are coming to the Church and we better help them. Will we have an answer? We have something better than money. If we will pray, repent, and seek God, He will open the heavens and make us a blessing to the nations.
Will the Church to withdraw from culture or engage it? If we want to be blessed, bless the poor. We have so much – maybe we have too much. Instead of going to Olive Garden after church, why don’t we go home and have sandwiches. We cannot buy spiritual blessing, but we can give it away!
CONCLUSION: GOD IS GOOD
Ira Stamphill wrote a hymn that says, “Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand. But I know who holds tomorrow And I know who holds my hand.”
In the worst of times, God has a people and He does incredible things.
In 1974, the Arab oil embargo caused many people to wait in line for gas. Watergate shook the United States. Times were not good. Country singer Merle Haggard sang a song “If we make it through December.” The same year, Christian singer Bill Gaither sang, “I just feel like something good is about to happen.” Which song will we sing?
West Point’s "Harder Right" comes from the "Cadet Prayer." It is repeated every Sunday in chapel services at West Point: "Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice & injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy." (Book of Illustrations)
In the movie “The Express” about the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the football coach says at halftime: “This is not just a game anymore…don’t give this one away. Don’t let anyone steal history from you.”
We are at a historical moment. The people of God must pray, we must humble ourselves, repent for our sins of greed and lust, and when God forgives us and heals our land and blesses His people…
We must give it away.
LORD, we come before You, our Father, God Almighty. You alone are God. Thank You for Your love and faithfulness. Thank You for salvation. We ask for mercy and grace. We have sinned by making money and possessions more important than You. We have even worshipped church more than You. We have allowed lust and sexual sin to come into Your Church. We have compromised Your Word. We have disobeyed Your commands. We have not been Your witnesses. Please forgive us. We turn to You. You are our only hope. Forgive our sins and heal our land. Restore blessing to Your people that we might be a blessing the nations.
