Double or Nothing - Sermon 4 of 4
Matthew 25:20 - And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
Sermon:
This week as we bring this time of sharing on this subject to a close, I want to begin with bad news first. Far too many of God’s children are burying their gifts and talents out of fear. Consequently, God cannot beless us with the increase. Fear is the diametric opposite of faith.
Everything my faith says I can do fear says I cannot.
Everything my faith says I can accomplish fear says I will fail.
In fact fear will arrest your spirit and numb your ability to be creative. It is time to stop the madness and get rid of our fear, today. God has not given us the spirit of fear, so why claim it? Ask somebody, “What are you doing with somebody else’s stuff?”
What are you doing with somebody else’s stress?
What are you doing with somebody else’s anxiety?
What are you doing with somebody else’s issues?
What are you doing with somebody else’s problems?
What are you doing with somebody else’s confession?
You don’t have room for all that mess. God has invested too much in you to be dealing with somebody else’s demon.
You got too much word in you…
You got too much love in you…
You got too much joy in you…
You got too much peace in you…
You got too much revelation in you…
You got too much information in you…
You got too much inspiration in you…
You got too much destiny in you…
You got too much God in you to be stressed and stretched out like this. Tell somebody, “Give the devil back his stuff!”
Give the devil back his stress!
Give the devil back his anxiety!
Give the devil back his issues!
Give the devil back his problems!
Give the devil back his confusion!
Give the devil back his fear!
From here on out if it ain’t mine I don’t want it. What God has for me, is for me and someway somehow if I can survive the process, what’s coming to me will come. But I’m not going to rush it. I’m not going to get in a hurry. I’m going be like David in Psalms 40 and wait patiently on the Lord because after while he’s got to incline his ear unto me and hear my cry.
Here’s what you got to understand. Good stewardship doing the most with whatever God gives. So as he gives you time, it is your responsibility as a good steward to use it the best you can. Ephesians 5 says we are to redeem the times, but the NIV of the same verse says that we are to make the most of every opportunity, because the last thing that we want to be is unprofitable. Yet most of us are not investing and a little further into the context of our text, the benefactor rebuked the man that did not invest. He saved what he had, but he failed to invest what he had been given. If you believe that God is going to increase you like we’ve been talking about all month, you need to invest in what you believe. You can’t expect a harvest where there has been no investment.
Every farmer knows that a little seed, planted in good soil and well tended, will produce a harvest exponentially greater than the original seed. For example, each seed of corn invested in the ground has the potential to grow into a stalk that will minimally produce a couple ears of corn, each ear containing numerous kernels. Likewise, when you plant your money in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or any of a number of investment opportunities, he will receive a return that is greater than his initial investment. A seed of money planted at a certain interest rate will grow exponentially over the years if it remains untouched. $2,000 invested in the stock market at 11 percent interest per year would be worth about $53,416.19 after 30 years. Compounded interest causes money to grow greater the longer it is planted. Two dollars a day invested at a 13.17 percent annual return will grow to over $1 million after 46 years. So if you start early in life and invest a minimal amount, you can potentially retire as a millionaire. But like the farmer, you plant something to get a harvest.
The reason we are struggling is because we haven’t used resources that God has given. God gives acorns; we invest in that acorn and end up with trees. Despise not the day of small beginning.
So you have acorns of planning
You have acorns of networking
You have acorns of purpose
You have acorns of destiny
You just have to put something into it. Stop praying for trees when you’re acorns up to ankles. God answered your prayer for the tree when he sent you the acorns. Your thoughts are acorns from which mighty trees emerge. Your talent is given to you to be multiplied.
God gives you the power to get wealth, but if you discredit it you not only miss out on multiplied talents, but you also risk the loss of that which you have been given. Either you use it, or you loose it.
How many people have lost their gifts because they have failed to use it?
How many people have lost their musical ability because they have failed to use it?
How many people have lost their mathematically genius because they have failed to use it?
How many people have lost their ability to retain information because they have failed to use it?
How many people have lost their understanding of the word because they have failed to use it?
The people that receive the most in life are the people that give the most. As they give, investing in the lives of others they are constantly emptying their hands to be refilled.
Financial success will only come to those who take what they been given and invest it, planting it in good soil. Now when I say investing, I don’t mean in the weekly lottery. If you think, “If I only get lucky and pick the winning numbers, I can have an instant fortune and live happily ever after.” It is my job as your pastor to burst your bubble and tell you it is a better chance of being struck by lightning. The odds are stacked against you. How can you expect to grow money when you’re buying scratch-offs and lotto tickets everyday? You have to find a way to invest and get a return.
The main reason people get into financial trouble is that we allow ourselves to get caught in debt traps. This is important to me. I want to see the people of our church totally debt-free. I spent several months teaching on how to consolidate and cancel out our debt. The things I’m finding is that we’ve forgotten how to scrimp and save. We don’t understand how to live within our means. So we run up credit-card debt on things that we can’t afford to impress people we don’t even like. It is a shame that the burden of debt has become so great for so many of us are filing bankruptcy.
Credit cards carry high interest rates. Large debt with high interest rates is the total opposite of compounding. Instead of reaping a harvest or payback from the seed, over-time you end up paying the equivalent of the harvest to borrow seed. High interest debt is essentially economic slavery. When you owe people, your freedom becomes limited. Your ability to decide your destiny is tainted by how much you owe and three little numbers called a credit score.
Your credit score is an indication of how likely is your repaying your loan. You have to understand this is an indicator of your financial and important as your blood pressure or cholesterol count. For too many people just see it as a number, but it can make or break you financially. The good news is that you can correct it.
Paul said in Romans 13:7 and 8, “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”
You have to determine your lifestyle and stick to it. An increase in income does not mean an increase in what you consume. Extra seed is just right for investing. Most of the millionaires in this country do not leave extravagantly. They live comfortably, but at a level beneath their means, because their priority is not to eat all the seed, but to invest and produce a greater harvest.
You have to determine what your lifestyle priorities are and govern yourself accordingly. Don’t let people pressure you to deviate from your plan. If I have a full bank account, I have more to be accountable and responsible for. If I can’t buy it, I just can’t buy it and be steadfast, unmovable always abounding in your personal decision to do what you have to do.
The only way to get total control over your spending is to determine your priorities and budget. The purpose of the budget is not to restrict your spending but to direct your spending, so that you can maneuver your funds to match your long term goals. How you spend reveals how you prioritize. I can say this is my budget, but when I pull out my books and examine my receipts is going to reflect my priorities. Our national spending is showing us more and more that we are singularly concerned wit miniscul comforts for today, without any anticipation of tomorrow. In this nation alone, we spend at least $18.5 billion on coffer and buy at least 23 billion packs of cigarettes a year.
If we add up those little small things we buy, those things that we think don’t really matter, we are spending mad cash. A dollar and twenty-seven cent bottle of Coke-Cola ends up being almost ten dollars a week, forty dollars a month, almost five hundred dollars a year. Three dollars a day on a cup of coffee, end up being almost twenty dollars a week, eighty dollars a month, and a little over a thousand dollars a year that you’ve drank away. If you invest $20 a week into a mutual fund or an investment fund will develop into the beginning of a comfortable retirement.
Begin a budget by saving your receipts for everything, and after while you will begin to see where your money is really going. You will start seeing where you come up short, and now you can begin redirecting funds to correct your situation before it is too late.
The top priority in any budget should be to pay God first. God should get the tithe. Tithe is a tenth of your gross income, not your net. If Uncle Sam can get his out of the gross, God deserves just the same. Your tithe goes to the place where you are fed. The tithe is the only way to give all of it without giving all of it. It is the binding factor of the contract between you and God. When you pay your tithe, you obligate God to bless you. The logistics of your contract is found in Malachi 3:10-12, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts”
And I think I need to tell you that a breech of contract is a felony. The Bible calls it robbery, and if you don’t believe it read Joshua 6 and 7. Joshua 6:18 declares, “keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp a curse, and trouble it.”
Everybody in this church needs to be tithing, because when you don’t tithe you don’t only curse yourself, you cause the entire church to suffer. You ought to get to the place where you work to hard to be blessed to be tied to a curse. If you take care of God, he’ll take care of you.
You have to get happy about giving to the Lord. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 9, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
Not only do you pay God, pay yourself. Budget so that you are able to save a percentage of your income each month before you pay anybody else. Determine your long-term goals.
College for your children
A business venture
A comfortable retirement.
Invest every month to attain that goal. Start separating your money when you get it because if you don’t, you’ll end up dabbling in this and taking a little from that and you’ll never reach your goal. If you got to cut back in another areas of spending then cut back, but save and invest something.
Sow some to get harvest, and save some seed for sowing. Whatever current financial status, you need to begin saving and investing. Even if it isn’t but $5 every other week, you need to invest and or save.
After paying God and yourself, meet all of the other financial obligations. You need to get into the habit a paying your bills and paying above the minimum on time. You need to develop the habit and the money management skills to pay your bills in full when they are due. Every time you pay less than the full bill, you add interest to the balance. Consequently you begin to pay off the interest and never even affect the primary debt. Start paying off your debt bit by bit.
God gave Adam and Eve specific instructions. He told them to be fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue, and have dominion. When you bring command into alignment with our finances, the message is clear.
Fruitful means to produce an income.
Multiplying means to make your money grow.
Replenishing means to restore or reinvest a portion of the profit.
Subduing means to keep control of your spending.
Then you’ll have dominion over your finances. I’m closing here now, but stewardship is Lordship.
The text says that the two that have talents of 5 and 2 got more and the one with the one lost it all.
I heard Jesus saying “Be faithful over a few things, and I’ll make you ruler over many.”
The race isn’t given to the swift nor to the strong but to the one that holds out and endures to the end.
Neighbor…………you have got to go through something………..
IF I NEVER HAD A PROBLEM…………
I WOULDN’T KNOW THAT GOD COULD SOLVE…….
ANYBODY HERE KNOW HE CAN SOLVE IT………..
I wouldn’t know what a little faith in his word can do .
Have I got a witness this morning…………
But through it all …………
I feel a shout coming on yawl…………………
God whispered a word in my ear but I must shout it from the rooftop…
I’ve learned……………………..
I’ve Learned………………….
What have you learned preacher??
I don’t know much about History………..
I don’t know much about Biology……………
I don’t know much about Science Books………
I don’t know much about the French I took……….
But I’ve learned that if you trust him …………
He will provide………………….
He will bring you out……………..
He will bring you through……………
He will make a way out of no way………..
He will make a way ……….anyway……………..
BE NOT DISMAYED WHATEVER ……..
WHATEVER……………
WHATEVER BETIDES YOU……………..
GOD WILL………
GOD WILLL……….
TAKE CARE OF YOU!!!!!!!
WON’T HE DO IT……..
WON’T HE DO IT………
WON’T HE TAKE CARE OF YOU………………
You’ve got to let somebody know He’s able!
You’ve got to let somebody know He’s got power!
And he’ll leave you with a testimony....
Thorough it all
I’ve learned how to trust in Jesus
I’ve learned how to trust in God
I’ve learned how to wait on Him
I’ve learned how to pray
I’ve learned how to fast
I’ve learned how to depend on him
I’ve learned how to believe in Him
I’ve learned how to give him glory
I’ve learned how to wave my hands
I’ve learned how to praise His name
I’ve learned how to give Him Glory..............close
