How To Handle Money Series

TITLE: Who? Me? A Disciple?: HOW TO HANDLE MONEY 012703a

TEXT: Matthew 28:19,20 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.

PCC?s MISSION STATEMENT: Our four-fold mission is to: REACH lost people with a more relaxed and contemporary style of evangelism and worship. WIN them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. TRAIN them to be disciples. And, SEND them on to fulfill their God given mission and ministry.

I. BECOMING A DISCIPLE

A. I?ve been asked, ?Scott, how do you come up with your sermons??

Well usually, I consider a current event, a popular problem, many times one of my own. Then I consider what the Bible says about the thing.

1. But today I am going to begin a ten part series?roughly one a

month, in which I am enlisting the expertise of Harry Ramey to assist. We are going to turn my ordinary process around. Instead of taking our current affairs to the Bible for solace and solutions, we are going to start with the Bible and try to transform our current sate of affairs.

2. I?ve entitled the series, ?Who? Me? A Disciple?? Yes, you are

called and I am challenged to make you a disciple. Harry and I are going to show you from the Bible, what you must do in order to become one.

3. In Greek a disciple is mathetes, math-ay-tes, a learner, who is

expected to become a doer. This series will not just be theoretical, but practical. We want to challenge you to apply what we teach you to your daily lives? (James 1:22) But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

B. When we ask the question, ?Who? Me? A Disciple?? The follow-up

question also begs to be answered, ?Why me a disciple?? There are several reasons. Let me give you a couple.

1. When you become a disciple?when you grow in your faith?your

life will get better. Jesus said (John 10:10b) I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.

2. Honestly, how many of you would say, could say, ?I have life to the

fullest! I cannot dream of it being any better.? If Jesus statement does not epitomize you?it is likely that you need to submit to discipleship.

3. When you start becoming a disciple, adversity doesn?t magically

disappear, but strength to apply to adversities begins to accumulate in your reservoir. You will have at the ready more of God?s wisdom and strength in order to handle life?s situations more evenhandedly and more even tempered.

4. When you become a disciple, the crises you do face will change.

We bring many crises upon ourselves; do to the fact that we are not discipled. We have no fully submitted and committed our selves to the way God has challenged us to live.

C. I want to begin our series on a discipleship topic that is near and dear

to everyone in this room. The Bible gives us careful instruction regarding how we should handle money.

ILLUSTRATION: How many Trekkies, beside Larry do we have today. Larry is probably the only person in this room who believes the Apollo Moon landings were filmed in some Hollywood sound stage and the Star Trek episodes are really documentaries filmed in outer space. In one of the movies The Enterprise is hijacked by a powerful Vulcan psychic and taken to fabled Shagarree. That?s ?Heaven? if you are a Vulcan. Once on Shagarree. James T. Kirk and his landing party encounter a larger than life, nebulous being who possesses mystical, miraculous powers. With much fanfare, he introduces himself as the Almighty God. This being makes one demand. He demands that Kirk turn over control of the Enterprise to him so that he may announce his tidings of good news across the universe. Kirk asks one question that almost gets him killed, while at the same time exposing this God-want-to-be as the imposter that he is. Kirk asked, ?What does God need with a Star-Ship??

1. People at church commonly ask a very similar question: If God is

God, why does He need money? I understand that the church needs money to exist, but the money I might give isn?t going to help very much. I?m poor (look around at the demographic or our congregation, most of us would be considered poor relatively speaking).

2. I?m talking to the guys who live under the bridge or where ever they

can find shelter this morning. What does God need with money? Doesn?t He own and command enough resources to do what He wants?to accomplish His purposes?