Eternally Motivated Series

Rock Solid Finances: Part 4 “Eternally Motivated”

Preached by Jimmy Seibert

5/30/2010

Well, again, Carl mentioned it, but let me encourage you. If you weren’t here last Sunday, and didn’t get the message that Laurie Gulley shared, you want it, man. It was awesome! It was not just about parenting; it was about life and meeting with God in the struggle and in the challenge. So if I’ve ever recommended any teaching, and I don’t think I’ve ever recommended one of mine, so I’m recommending Laurie Gulley, last week, download that. If you don’t know how to get on the Internet, there’s a hard copy back there.

Hey, I want to share a story, it’s familiar to some of you guys, maybe new to others, but it helps me crystalize the thoughts that I’m wanting to share this morning about going on this great adventure in the kingdom of God. When Laura and I were early married, we had a passion and a heart for the nations and for being involved in what God was doing. God had led us on a journey where we had few resources, financially, but we were learning to meet with God and trust Him along the way. And a guy came through town with Youth With a Mission, and he shared at church about the needs around the world, and then he shared a little bit about his own journey and desire to work in the country of Brazil among the street children, and he ended up staying in our home. Kind of our agreement was that we would take him in the house and we would provide breakfast for him the next morning, give him a sack lunch to go on the way, as he went down to the next church and shared his story and his journey as he was raising funds to head out to Brazil. And after he shared that evening, Laura and I stayed up late with him, talking about life and God and his heart for Brazil. And Laura and I had twenty dollars to our name. That is not twenty dollars in our pocket, that was to our name. We were on this wild adventure with God, we’d never missed a bill payment, or rent payment or anything in the past months, but here we are, we need $100 the next day for a particular bill, and we only have $20. We’re already praying about it, “God what’s tomorrow going to look like?” As he shared his heart, we thought to ourselves, “Golly, man, I wish we could give to what he is doing.” He dismissed himself for a minute, left the room, and Laura and I said to each other, “Let’s give him that $20, what do we have to lose? I mean, golly, God’s our provider, we’re out here, he has a need, we just so want to sow into it.” So we gave him that $20. We said, “We’re just so sorry it’s not more, but we are so proud of the way you’re living your life. We believe in you. We’re going to pray over you.” So we took our twenty, and we prayed over him, that God would meet his needs. The next morning, we had a good breakfast together, he goes on his way, and we go into his room to just clean up, and there was a little thank you note, and I said, “What a great guy, leaving a thank you note from our time together.” We open up the thank you note and it says this, he said, “As I was praying this morning, God showed me that your need was greater than my need, and he spoke to me specifically to give you $100. I hope this meets the need that you have.” We said, “YAAAA! Praise God! God knows where we live! Thank you, Jesus!”

The wild adventure of the kingdom is available to all who are willing to go there, but it’s based on some truths that Jesus admonishes us, and scripture admonishes, and that is this: First and foremost that Heaven is our home. We are just passing through this place. We are literally pilgrims on a journey. We are not literally confined to what we can feel, taste and touch. God has a kingdom out there that is different from this world, and He’s inviting us to enter into the journey. In the book of Hebrews, it lists the great men and women of faith, and here’s what was said about them, “Having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth,” they said, “we’re just pilgrims passing through, for those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out (the world), they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”