Jesus says that life is more than simple necessities, like food and clothing. He knows we need these things, but His agenda for our lives is far more significant. We must learn to trust Him.

Life Is More

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

El Centro, California on Interstate 8. Drive through and there’s a large water tower and fifty feet up it says “sea level”. El Centro, California, the largest American city to lie entirely below sea level. It’s also home to the highest unemployment rate in America.

Swell

El Centro, California … has an unemployment rate of 32 point 4 percent, a distinction for which the city is not proud. This Charles Morris . . . we’ll talk with the pastor of the Calvary Chapel in El Centro. Ironically, Pete Mallinger is a former financial planner who God called 35 years ago to plant and grow a church for such a time as this.

(Pauline’s interview)

SONG – He Will Pull You Through – Curt Collins

CLIP – Pastor Pete Mallinger, El Centro Calvary Chapel

Whether we’re in a recession or a depression we need to know as believers that we are truly wealthy. If you are a believer you’re rich -- because Jesus is yours and he’s the Great Treasure. You’re rich because you have him, richer than the human imagination can imagine. You’re rich because you have the Body of Christ. If you’re a believer in Jesus there’s nothing that doesn’t belong to you. You’re an heir, an heir of the very Kingdom of God. If you’re a believer in Jesus, you’re the blessed of the earth. You have it all. You’re one of the truly wealthy.

You know why I’m talking about this. It’s because most of stories like Pauline’s. Most of us are getting poorer by the day. Whatever material wealth we thought we had seems to be slipping through our fingers. Maybe you don’t have any savings, you’re mortgaged beyond the value of your home, maybe you’ve even lost your job and your home – if so then you know what I mean. But if you’ve invested your money, if you’ve stayed out of debt and built a retirement fund, you know what I mean too. The financial stability we’ve been struggling so hard to build and keep seems to be falling apart like a house of cards.

And it’s into this very situation that Jesus speaks to us today and what he wants us to understand is this: we are very, very rich. He wants this to sink in so we can relax and know that our gains and our losses are not found here, in this world. He wants us to know the freedom that comes from not building our lives on material accumulations. Jesus wants us to know that we have the true riches, so we can stop running after the things of the world and begin to pursue the things of the Kingdom. He wants us to feel like the children of a Father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills a Father who’s promised to take care of us because that’s who we are.

I think right now, in the present economic crisis, we believers in Jesus have a golden opportunity to hear Jesus speak to us. I’d like to share with you the book that we’ve placed back in print for the first time in over 100 years, “The Lord, My Portion: Daily Need, Divinely Supplied”. It’s written by Octavius Winslow, a good friend of Charles Spurgeon and a fellow pastor in England in the 1800’s. We’ve put up a sample chapter in print and another chapter in audio there on our homepage, haventoday.org. This is a message written decades ago, but a message from the Lord that’s for you and me today. “The Lord, My Portion: Daily Need, Divinely Supplied” by Octavius Winslow. It’s a powerful way to get hold of just how rich we are in Jesus.

Jesus has a lot to say about money. Maybe you’ve heard that before if you’ve been in Christian circles very long, maybe you’ve read it in your Bible. But typically in the Christian world these teachings are turned into practical principles for how to save and not spend, how to acquire and hopefully how to give. These guidelines can only be if our hearts have experienced a radical reorientation.

I think this economic meltdown is a golden opportunity for that to happen. I think this world-shifting economic crisis is calling us to change our relationship to our material wealth. It’s calling us to open our hearts to the endless wealth we have in Jesus. It’s calling us to a new way of life.

Let me share with you the words of Jesus, Luke 12, starting at verse 15 “’Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ Then he told them this parable. ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool. This very night, your life will be demanded from you, then who will get what you’ve prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.’ Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens. They do not sew or reap. They have no store room or barn, yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow, they do not labor or spin, yet I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the fields which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, o ye of little faith? And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Do not worry about it, for the pagan world runs after all such things and your Father knows that you need them.” And then, this is still Jesus speaking to us, “Seek his Kingdom and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in Heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.”

These are the words of the Lord, the words of Jesus. It’s 2011. We don’t know what 2012 is going to bring but it’s hard to find reasons to be optimistic. What is Jesus saying to us? How can his words penetrate through our fearful hearts and become a powerful, liberating word that changes our heart?

First, we pray and then we look closely at what Jesus is saying, and then we believe it. Lord Jesus, by your Spirit, penetrate our hearts with these words and let us really hear them. Turn the light switch on, would you? Take away our false ways of looking at things and bring us into the truth that you’re explaining to us in these verses. Break into our habitual ways of thinking. Lord, make us feel rich. Let us ‘get’ what it means that we have such a great inheritance. Let a deep sense of security sink into our hearts and give us the great freedom of knowing that we’re co-heirs with you because God is our Father, Amen.

Now let’s look again at what Jesus is saying to us. What is he asking us to believe? Well, three things in the passage I just shared.

First, you need to live your life in light of your future meeting with God.

Second, you don’t have to be anxious and worried, because God is your Father.

Third, your Father has made you very rich.

So, first you need to live your life in light of your future meeting with God. Jesus uses a range of different arguments to get us to see things in a true light. His first argument is a serious warning about greed. We’re going to have a face-to-face meeting with God and greed puts us in great danger. Beware of all kinds of greed, Jesus says. He was responding to a young man who had shouted out, “Lord, make my brother share the inheritance with me.” That seems like a fair request, doesn’t it? But the fact that the man was so preoccupied with his inheritance shows that he was giving money a huge place, a too large place in his heart. His fixation on getting what was his by rights was a red flag that his heart was full of greed.

Jesus calls these things that seem very normal to us by startling names. It’s greed, according to Jesus, when money becomes our primary focus, when we want it badly and see it as the thing that matters most in life. It’s idolatry. Jesus tells us to beware of it. If it gets hold of our hearts and if we live like the rich man, as if having money is going to make us secure for the future, then we’re in serious danger. We need to live our lives in light of our future meeting with God. What will matter, what won’t matter on that day? Well, money clearly won’t matter. What will matter is whether or not our hearts and lives have been invested in the things of God.

Jesus often presents these two things as mutually exclusive. He says that we can’t serve both God and money. The story of the rich man contains a fearful warning. You don’t want to realize on the day you meet with God that you’ve invested your life in money. Money seems like everything right now, but when we come face to face with God our entire value system will undergo a major shift and Jesus is telling us to have that value system now, to live now in light of our future meeting with God. Plan for that day, invest in that day. Assign value to things in light of that day.

Second, you don’t have to be anxious or worried, because God is your Father. Jesus’ next argument is deeply reassuring. He knows what we’re thinking, “Yeah but what about ‘whatever’?” He turns to his disciples and to us today and says, the reason you don’t have to spend your life worrying about money and running after money and piling up money is that God is your Father. So don’t worry, he’ll take care of you. Relax, stop stressing. Don’t be like those of little faith. He will see to it that you have the basic things you need. You’re not on your own, fighting for your life, which doesn’t work anyway. You’re under the care of your Father. You’re tremendously valuable to him, he knows what you need. You don’t have to be afraid to turn your focus off the money and onto God and his Kingdom. Why? Jesus is as clear as can be, because your Father will take care of you.

Third, your Father has made you rich, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom”. Jesus’ third argument is simple. You don’t have to be afraid of what you might lose in this world because you’re already rich. The Kingdom is everything. It’s like a king telling his young prince that his whole kingdom will be his – everything he can see, all the riches, all the wealth, all the resources – they’re all his because he is the son and he is the heir. Jesus is telling us that it’s his Father’s good pleasure, his great delight to give us the Kingdom. We are his sons and daughters. We are his heirs. Everything in the world will have an end, but we have treasure in Heaven that will not be exhausted. That heavenly stock market value will never fall, no thief, no moth, no market downturn will reduce your wealth.

We need to count our assets and realize just how rich we are. When we really start to believe this, it will change our lives. The economic ups and downs of the global system won’t have such power over us. However things go in this world, we can relax knowing that we’re very, very rich and that our wealth is completely safe. What a liberating thought that is! It sets us free, free from running after money, free to give and free to invest our lives and our hearts in the things of God’s Kingdom. We have a great future ahead of us, but it’s not all in the future. Right now in 2011 we have Jesus. He’s our portion, as the Bible puts it. In other words, he is our share, our slice of the pie, and our share is the whole pie. Jesus is all that matters. If you don’t have Jesus, even if you have the whole world, you don’t have anything, and if you have Jesus, you’ve got it all.

PRAYER – Pastor Pete Mallinger