Can You Stand the Increase? - Sermon 1 of 4
Matthew 9:17 - Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
I Timothy 6:6-11 - But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 9But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 11But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Sermon:
I believe that the people of God needs to understand that as God bless us, there is a greater need for us to be good stewards. We curse ourselves when God is trying to bless us because we only partially fulfill the contract. For years one of the greatest misconceptions of stewardship was that it ended when we gave our tithe, our offering, and seeds, and that is only clause A of the contract. My question therefore becomes, “If I pay tithes, gives offerings, and sow seeds what do I do with rest?”
Why drive a luxury car to a trailer?
Why wear flashy clothes and jewelry and you’re hungry?
It is poor stewardship that causes men to wear expensive clothes, with rims on your car and cannot afford to make your child support payments. It is poor stewardship that causes women to sport Gucci bags, their hair and nails done every week and struggle to pay your bills.
With the pressure to impress becoming prevalent in our churches, we cannot teach and preach only economic empowerment, but economic management to teach us how to administrate what God has empowered us to possess. Somehow, we have become obsessed with the need to impress while missing how to be truly blessed. We have failed to acquire the skills necessary for sustaining success and the spiritual stability to keep your focus.
For our church, 2007 is the year of covenant perfection and maturity and today we stop the madness. Nothing that you can buy, sell, trade, be given, or receive in this world has any affect on your soul.
Your clothes
Your cell phone
Your plasma, LCD TV
Your MP3 Player
Your Palm Pilot
And everything else you got for Christmas doesn’t represent your status in the eyes of the Lord. You cannot buy your way into heaven. Salvation is free, and Jesus paid it all.
Do I believe in supernatural return on your giving?
Do I believe in a God that will open up a window of heaven and pour out a blessing if I pay my tithes and offerings?
Do I believe in reaping a good harvest when I sow good seed into good grown?
Yes, I’m living proof of what happens when you put faith into action operating kingdom principles, but why should I teach you to claim a car without teaching you about car payments and interest on the loan? Why should I teach you to invest in items that depreciate, while you fail to invest in things that you will appreciate with time? Why should we tell you about prosperity without helping you to develop a strategy that will bridge the gulf between what you believe and what you receive? It is important to me that we have trained people with an insatiable appetite, but more importantly, that we have people that know how to receive what they cannot budget with their checkbooks.
I want our church to be filled with blessed people with balanced budgets.
I want our church to be filled with blessed people with financial outlooks.
I want our church to be filled with blessed people with purposeful plans.
God’s design for you to receive more financially, but the catch is this. It only comes when and how he decides to release it. God doesn’t pour wine into old wineskin, because old skins lack elasticity, and when the wine fills them they burst. In other words, the skin is not capable of to stand the increase. As you become more blessed, if you don’t change your business skills you will not be able to stand the increase that God wants to release to you. Ask your neighbor, “Can You Stand the Increase?”
Can you stand the unprecedented favor?
Can you stand the unexpected checks?
Can you stand the unidentified resources?
Can you stand the gifts and surprises?
Can you stand the miracles?
Can you stand the joy in your spirit?
Can you stand the piece of mind?
Can you stand the love in your heart?
If you are going to get their next level blessing you got to get next level habits. If you don’t change the way you handle your business you are going to spring a leak, and the blessing you’ve been struggling to acquire will leak out. That’s why we are stopping on the first Sunday of the year to get these wineskins ready for the outpouring that we have believed for. Some of you have been healed for increased.
God healed your relationship.
God healed your mind.
God healed your credit.
God healed your spirit.
God healed you of your old dried out bad habits that would waste the promised blessings that God desired to give if he were to release it into old wineskins of financial improprieties and obsessive spending binges that are associated with a lack of self control. We are going to spend some time bringing the Biblical to the practical, so that we know what to do when the blessing tarries, what to do when it comes, and even when it doesn’t come.
It is necessary to learn to manage and transact business, but it is never, ever more important than the business of God. God had a problem with the church of Laodicea because they were rich but they were poor. How can you be rich and poor at the same time? Revelations 3 says that they were abundant financially but they were lacking spiritually.
Got money but lack mercy
Got cash but lack grace.
They had become so engrossed in the blessing till their love for the blesser had waxed cold. Far too many times, people fall into this trap. They are successful in the world but impoverished in their souls. They are so busy with their piece of job till they forget to be thankful to the God who gave them the job. They have the car and the house, the annuity, the stocks and bonds. But having had it all, there is still a void in their lives. The problem with the church is that we are so busy ministering to the poor that we don’t get to the people that have acquired what we’ve been preaching about because we think that if you a few things you are complete. The reality is that many people have mastered being public victors and private failures.
If you don’t believe me, I’m in Bible country. 2 Kings says that Naaman was the captain of the host of the king of Syria. He was a great man with his master. He was an honorable man because by him the Lord had given what King James calls “ deliverance unto Syria.” He was a mighty man in valor. Isn’t that something? The Bible calls Naaman a mighty man in valor, but in Judges 6:12, the Bible calls Gideon a mighty man of valor? What is the difference between the two? These two two letter words separate these two men because they mean two different things. “Of” means to have an origin from, but “in” means contained within.
Naaman is a mighty man only when contained in what he possesses, but Gideon is a mighty man because of what is within him. Naaman was dressed in valor, but beneath his armor was a decaying leper. Just like some of us. On the outside they are doing great, but in reality their life is crumbling to nothing. So to mask the emptiness they feel in their private life, that keep piling more and more on their shoulders. So like Naaman, eventually your life began to control you rather than you controlling you life.
Now everything revolves around your work schedule
You barely even know who you live in the house because you work so much
You work your schedule and weekends and overtime and you end up burnt out.
You can’t even make it to Sunday morning worship let alone a mid-week Bible Study.
So you become like a child who eats a lot of bread and don’t eat any fruits and vegetables. Bread isn’t bad, he just needs to have a balanced diet. Tell somebody, “Success taken to an extreme becomes disorder.”
Paul tells Timothy godliness accompanied with contentment, a sense of inward sufficiency, is great and abundant gain. The word gain means profit. He says true profit comes when the people of God are content with pleasing God more than they are with the acquisition of more wealth or success. The next verse declares, “For we brought nothing into this world, and obviously we cannot take anything out.” No matter how hard we worked, no matter how long you worked, no matter what you have attained, none of it is transportable to where we are going. The thing seen are temporal and the things not seen are eternal, and never shall the two meet.
I wish I had time to really dissect all 21 verse of 1 Timothy 6 because it is so rich. Verse 8 gives us a clear line to distinguish our wants and needs. He says if you have food and clothes, we should be satisfied. This then becomes the leveling place because now if I got a cardboard box under a bridge or a mansion in Marcus Pointe, I can say “Thank you Lord.” I got what I need for today. I got shoes on my feet, clothes on my back and food is on my table. I have the basics of life. The least I can do is be grateful, but I’m not just grateful for what he has done, I’m grateful for what he is doing and preparing to do. Waiting till he does it is a delayed reaction, which is a result of clogged pipelines. But I am expecting God to do what we confess every week during the ministry of giving. I praise him in advance, and began bringing corresponding actions to that faith in God to please him, not to get rich. We cannot get it twisted, being rich is not the goal, and it is the byproduct of the goal.
I’m almost finished, but I cannot close without touch 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” Money is neither good nor evil. It is what you do with it and how you react with it that colors it with moral relativity. The same hundred-dollar bill can feed a crack habit or it can feed a family. The same twenty-dollar bill can pay a prostitute or it can buy your wife some flowers. The simple truth is many will make you more of what you already were before you got it.
If you are a drug addict, you become a drug addict with money.
If you are an infidel, you become an infidel with money.
If you are a provider, you become a provider with money.
If you are a good husband, you become a good husband with money.
You haven’t changed, it is just the more money you have magnifies the values and preferences you had and funds what you would’ve done all alone.
But if you don’t get anything else I said, money is not the root of all evil, because Ecclesiastes 10:19 says, “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.” Money is not the root of all-evil, it is the love of money. In other words don’t let money become your mistress. Don’t look to money for what only God can give. This isn’t just for people with money, but it is also to those without. You can be so po… that you can’t afford the o-r, and have a greater heart of greed than Donald Trump.
Which leads me to my final point. A good steward has to have balance and faith. Paul would later write, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”
He said he was content. He was a preacher but he also was a business man. So he knew what it was like to be with and he knew what it was like to be without. And at the end of the day, he was motivated by his purpose, not his purse. He had learned to do all things through Christ whether he had food on the table or not. He let us know that focus is not on the amount in the checking account, but on the amount of contentment that can only be found seeking after God.
But you man of God, flee from all these things: aim at and pursue righteousness, right standing with God, godliness, the loving fear of God, faith, trust in God, love, the character of God, steadfastness, the patience of God, and gentleness, the heart of God.
My brothers and my sisters, I’m closing here now, but I heard Jesus telling his disciple, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.”
I can remember Moses sitting on the banks of the Jordan River, talking to the children of Israel telling them, “If you seek the Lord with all your heart, and with all of your soul and you shall find him.
Can’t you hear Isaiah crying out to the people of God,”Seek the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.”
I used to hear the old folks sing
Reach out and touch the Lord
As he is passing by
You will find he’s not too busy
To hear your hearts cry
He is passing by this moment
Your needs he will supply
So reach out and touch the Lord
As he is passing by
Be not dismayed
Whatever
Whatever
Whatever betides
God will
I know he will
God will
Yes, he will
God will take care of you
I’ve gone through the fire
And I’ve been through the floods
I’ve been broken into pieces
Seen lightening flashing from above
But through it all I remember
That he loves me
And he told me that he cares
And he’ll never put more on me
Than I can bear
Because the Lord is my shepherd
I have everything I need
He lets me rest in the meadow’s grass
And he leads me beside the quiet stream
And he helps me to do what honors him the most
Because I’m safe in his arms
And when the storms of life are raging
And the billows are tossing high
I’m glad the he shall hide me
Have I got a witness…
Won’t he do it…
(close)
