Sabbath 4-30-2016 Edgewater Seventh Day BAPTIST Pastor Keith “Simplify – The Anvil” Psalm 37;16-17, Matt. 6;24, Matthew 6;19-21

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Sabbath 4-30-2016 Edgewater Seventh Day BAPTIST Pastor Keith “Simplify – The Anvil” Psalm 37;16-17, Matt. 6;24, Matthew 6;19-21

 

 

Two guys are hunting, and they come upon a huge hole in the ground. One of the guys says, “Whoa. How deep is that?” The other guy says, “I don’t know. Let’s see.” He finds a rusty old anvil sitting nearby, and (grunting) it takes both of them drag it over, and heave it into the hole. –Woooo- the anvil whistles its way down the hole. The guys don’t even hear it hit the bottom, the hole is so deep. The next thing the hunters know, they hear a rapid clippity-clop, clippity-clop, clippity-clop approaching. A goat comes flying toward them, almost knocking them over. Before they can stop it, the goat soars into the air and falls right down into the hole. A few seconds later, the hunters see an old geezer running toward them. “Becky!” the geezer is crying. “Beeeeckyyy!” The old man reaches the hunters and says, “Hey! You fellers see a goat go by?” The one hunter says, “Yeah! We did! Just now! The thing went by about eighty miles an hour and jumped right into that hole!” The old geezer says, “Well that’s impossible. I had her chained to an anvil.”

Ya know, we can be more like Becky than we care to admit. If we aren’t careful, we may just find ourselves attached to an anvil –trying to go through life while carrying a heavy object that prevents us from coming and going with freedom – an anvil that, if moved, we follow, even to our own demise. Many suffer from addictions, from fear, from unwillingness to forgive others who have hurt us. And we go through life dragging around an anvil – or worse yet, being dragged by an anvil. Today, we will consider one such anvil that often drags us down… one anvil that can prevent us from living the abundant life as God intended… and that is the sense of value that we place on wealth… today we will consider the Anvil of Money.

The bible has a lot to say about our relationship with money…

Psalm 37:16-17 “Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.

Eccl. 5:10 “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.

Matt. 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

In Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Over the next several weeks, we will go into more specific ways of how to live an abundant life (such as forgiveness, conquering fear, choosing friends wisely). This week we will begin with how to honor God with our finances. For some of us, instead of learning to be content with what God has provided, we say, “Nah. I think I know better what I need to buy, even if it means I have to go into debt.” And then before you know it, the anvil of poor money management robs us of peace and joy. Today, let’s visit five beliefs pertaining to money that will help us to stay on the path to an abundant life in Christ.

 

**The first belief is the simple belief that… All that I have comes from God. None of us got where we are in life today 100% on our own. We haven’t single-handedly pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps and worked our way into our current positions. We all had a little help – parents, teachers, bosses, coaches, friends, and others who have been an influence on us, or gave us a break along the way. These were all gifts that have been directed our way by God. Scripture teaches us, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” God gave you life. He gave you talents and the ability to learn and to discover. He has opened educational and vocational doors for you throughout your life. Contrary to our culture’s mindset, you are not a self-made woman or a self-made man. You are a daughter or a son of a loving Father who has given you everything you have, and who invites you to steward your talents, gifts, education, opportunities, and possessions for His purposes in this world. So belief #1: Men and women of faith believe that everything that I have comes from God.

 

**Belief #2: I live joyfully within God’s current provision for my life.

Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Paul said in Phil. 4:11-13, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”

So many in our culture today live with discontentment… Discontentment says: “I don’t have enough.” Discontentment says: “What I do have is not nice enough... or new enough... or big enough.” Discontentment says: “I want what she has.” Discontentment says: “I worked hard to be able to buy nice things. And so I will.” Discontentment says: “Nobody else is going to take care of me but me.” Discontentment says: “Once I get this [house, car, vacation] then I’ll be happy.” You want to know what kills discontentment faster than anything else? Gratitude.

I Thessalonians 5:18 says:

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Gratitude says, “What I have is enough.” Gratitude says, “I don’t have to covet what others have.” Gratitude says, “I refuse to go into debt to buy something I cannot afford.” Gratitude says, “God sees me. He cares for me. He provides.” Gratitude says, “I know that happiness comes only from God.” Gratitude says, “I’m simply a steward of all these resources.” And God says, “Prove yourself faithful in the small things, so that in the big things you will be found faithful too.” I live joyfully within God’s current provision for my life. What the Lord has provided in my current status is all that I need for today. I am content.

 

**Belief #3: I honor God by giving the first tenth of all my earnings to his purposes in the world. There is the story about the guy at work who asked “How do you give 10% of your money?” “Its easy, when you get your paycheck, just move the decimal place one digit to the left.” “No, I mean what if you don’t have 10% left at the end of the week?” “That’s easy too. I just do it at the beginning of the week.” Do you trust God to do what God says only He can do? Only God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Only God owns every beast in every forest. Only God sustains all of creation by the simple act of His will. Only God can feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Only God can part waters and rescue an entire nation. Only God can raise the dead back to life again.

Proverbs 3:9-10 “Honor the Lord with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.

Malachi. 3:10 “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” Belief #3: I honor God by giving the first tenth of all my earnings to his purposes in the world.

 

**Belief #4: I set aside a portion of all my earnings for emergencies, for giving opportunities, and for my later years. Prov. 6:6-8 ^“Take a lesson from the ants, you sluggard. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.” After you give your first 10 percent to the Lord, put that second 10 percent into savings, because you’ll absolutely need it someday. Water heaters break. Cars fall apart. Medical emergencies arise. Taxes increase. There are thousands of ways that a “financial winter” can come upon you, but winter will come. The easy, breezy days of financial summertime won’t last forever. Winter is going to come. But when it does, you can be prepared if you set aside a portion of all your earnings for emergencies, for giving opportunities, and for your later years.

Prov. 13:11 Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.

 

**Belief #1 All that I have comes from God.

**Belief #2: I live joyfully within God’s current provision for my life

**Belief #3: I honor God by giving the first tenth of all my earnings to His purposes in the world.

**Belief #4: I set aside a portion of all my earnings for emergencies, for giving opportunities, and for my later years.

And finally……...

 

**Belief #5: I live each day with an open ear toward heaven, eager to respond to any whisper from God regarding my resources. Romans 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

Pastor Bill Hybels tells the story of a morning when he was working on a sermon in a diner, and he noticed that his server—a woman—was having a rough day. She was buzzing from table to table, meeting every demand for coffee or breakfast or extra napkins as best she could, but something was obviously on her mind. Bill had seen her check her phone briefly while scurrying back to the kitchen, and something about what she saw—a text? An e-mail?— something stopped her short. Whatever the news was, it caused her countenance to cloud over and her eyes to well up with tears. Knowing she didn’t have time to linger, she thrust the phone back into her pocket and quickly resumed her duties.

Bill tells the story this way: He writes, “Just then, the Spirit of God whispered something unmistakable to me: Bill, you’re writing a sermon right now, but your sermon can wait. Here is a woman under a lot of pressure, so just stop what you’re doing and change direction. Write her an encouraging note on a piece of your sermon paper. God’s whisper seemed pretty clear so I set aside my sermon and started writing a note of encouragement. And then the prompting came to me just like this: Oh, and Bill? Leave her a breathtaking tip. Now I was distracted – and a little worried – because I didn’t know what a ‘breathtaking tip’ meant. ‘Well first, I thought, let’s just finish the note. After finishing the note, I swallowed hard and prayed, “Uh, God, what exactly did you mean by breathtaking tip? Is it, like, 30 percent of my coffee and sandwich?” (That’s double the standard tip, right? I was just giving God a little coaching, helping Him define breathtaking)

Then God said clearly, ‘Leave her 100 dollars, Bill.’ Yea, a hundred bucks. That was breathtaking, alright. So I folded the note, tucked a hundred dollars into it, put my coffee cup on top, and left the restaurant. Just last week, I went back to the same coffee shop to work on another sermon. The same waitress waited on me. She just took my order and didn’t say anything, which was fine because I was working. When I was done, I paid her and began to gather my things. As I was leaving, the waitress slipped a card into my hand and said, ‘read this sometime later.’ Here’s what the card said:

“You will never know what your note and gift last month meant to me. That morning, my husband served me with divorce papers. He controls all of our money, and he took all of our money and our only car. That day was one of the worst days of my life. Then I found your note and your financial gift. It just reminded me that God is faithful and He will take care of me”

What a blessing that must have been for Bill Hybels, to witness God working through him. When you are spiritually and financially in tune with God, you get a front row seat to watch God use your resources in a special way. You can experience the joy and peace of living the abundant life within His will. And God wants that for you. He didn’t set you free from your sin so that you could live in bondage to debt for the rest of your life. His desire is that we are not chained to an anvil. He wants you to be free. And He wants you to experience the privilege of watching your resources help other people in His name. We can know the simplified and abundant life as God intended when we remain good stewards of the resources that He has provided. You serve a God of fresh starts, of second chances, of new days and a new life. When you give Him control of your financial world, you are making a decision that can change destinies. It could change your family’s values for generations to come.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”

 

AMEN