Introduction: Politics can be a funny thing. Do you like politics? I’m a political junkie really. I intentionally don’t talk about it in here much because I don’t think who leads our country has a whole lot to do with the mission of the local church. Jesus lived in a corrupt society and he never talked of reform or revolution – he talked about his mission. My mission isn’t to win democrats or republicans – it is to form followers of Jesus. But, I say all of that to say that politics are pretty funny.
One of our political parties seems gleeful at the prospect of the big “R” word in the economy. What’s the “R” word? Recession. They are delighted that the economy may be sliding into a recession because that would mean that people would blame the recession on the party that is in the white house now and they would get elected because of the economic misery of the country!
The other party rightfully points out that we really aren’t in a recession because there is a definition for the word and it is 3 economic quarters of negative growth. Since we haven’t had one quarter with negative growth –we aren’t in a recession. But recession or not, things are getting tougher out there! Wouldn’t you agree? People are losing their homes, people are having a hard time finding new jobs, unemployment is rising., fuel costs are affecting all of us – including everything we buy because it’s taking more money to get the goods to the stores! So, recession or not – we need help – we are motivated to look for answers – and every family here, whether wealthy or just getting by – is affected in some way by all that is taking place in our economy.
So, today we’re starting this series, “Recession Proof Your Finances,” but I have to warn you that this isn’t just going to be a series on economics. Here’s why. Because dealing with economics alone won’t fix our situation. In this message I will tackle some of this from a spiritual perspective.
You might say, what does spiritual have to do with rising gas prices? Everything. See, everything has a spiritual side to it. Life is more than the things that we can touch or see or put under a microscope. I would argue that everything in life is spiritual. You aren’t just skin and bones – you are also soul and spirit. I do have a body, but I also have a soul, my soul is my emotions. It’s where there can be happiness, or sorrow or anger. Then there is your spirit. Look with me at our first verse from 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it says, “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.”
The reason we were created with these three parts is because the Bible says that we were created in the image of God – and God is 3 parts. He is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In the book of Genesis where we read the creation account we read that God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” Genesis 1:26.
Interesting, isn’t it? He didn’t say, “I will make humans in my image and they will be like me.” Why not? Because God exists in three parts, just like us. .3 parts but only 1.
My point in all of that is you can’t separate the spiritual from the physical. Who you are spiritually affects everything else about you, who you are emotionally, physically – even financially are all interconnected.
I’m going to use this rope as an illustration – this rope is important in your life because it is what separates my power from God’s power. What is this side?
This line separates my best from God’s best. What’s this side?
Cursed or Blessed. What’s this side?
This rope is the battle line. You have this line in every area of your life. This is the line between a bull market and a bear market, the line of your best and God’s best, the battle line of blessing and curse. You face this line several times a day in your life. You have to choose which side of the line that you want to be on.
There is a principle in God’s word that I want you to get today and the principle is this: “There is always a battle before the blessing.” You’ll find this true throughout the Bible. From Genesis all the way to Revelation that there is always a battle before the blessing. Always. God wants us to learn how to move from my power to God’s power, how to move from my best to God’s best – how to move from curse to blessing.
What does it mean to live blessed? What it means to live blessed is to have supernatural power working for you and working in you and in your life. Cursed means the opposite of that. God doesn’t want me to live over here where it is all about my power or my best. It may be good over here – but it is only as good as I can do. That’s a curse. That is what living a cursed life is. It is living life to the very best of my ability but living it without the supernatural power that is available to me in God.
God wants us to learn how to live using His power, His best, the blessed life. How many of you would say that you want to learn how to live like that? I think all of us in here would agree that it is better to live life here, than here. We all know that it is better to live with God on your side than it is to live life without God on your side. The problem for us isn’t that we don’t know where we want to live, the problem is we don’t know how to get from here to there. Today I’m going to show you!
As I said earlier there is always a battle before there is a blessing. Always. Many of you are at the battle line even this morning, but each battle has a different level of intensity.
Sometimes there are battles are pretty simple, and we can go from one side to the other quite easily. Other times crossing this line is more challenging. But sometimes, and maybe some of you are there this morning, there are battles that you have to wage that are just big battles, you know, you get scars and wounds getting from here to here. Some of you are there this morning.
When you are in a battle you have to know two things. The first thing you need to know is who your enemy is. Let’s look at what the Bible says about that. Ephesians 6:12 says, “We are not fighting against humans. (Isn’t this good news? Your husband is not your enemy! Are you having problems with a rebellious child right now? Your child is not your enemy. Listen to me – your in-laws are not your enemy! I know it feels like they are, but they aren’t! The people that run your homeowners association, they might have too much time on their hands, measuring the length of your grass and stuff, but they aren’t your enemies! The boss at work who drives you nuts is not your enemy! Alright? The Bible continues…) We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.” (CEV)
Our enemy is never humans. The battle for your marriage is not with your wife, it’s not your husband. The battle is always with the enemy. The enemy is Satan. Satan’s goal, the reason he fights so hard for your life is because he wants to keep you on this side of the rope. That’s his goal.
Now, if you are a follower of Jesus, that is, you have turned your life over to God, you have acknowledged sin in your life and you have turned from sin to God, if that is you then Satan doesn’t have your soul, but he wants you to stay hindered in all areas of your life. He wants you to live on this side of the rope. See, the enemy can still win big battles in your life. He can still rob you and keep you over here doing your best. He can have a grip on your life, even as a follower of Jesus.
For example, I would dare say that for most people in this room money is a negative for you. You live with the bondage of money. You are being squeezed by debt. You have bills that you can’t pay, you never have enough, or even if you do have enough, you live life in fear that you won’t or that you’ll lose it or you are all anxious about it.
When you live with the enemy holding you by the throat it is called living in bondage – and the thing that holds you can be referred to as a stronghold. Some of you are living in that state right now – you are being held by our enemy – he doesn’t want you to move to the other side of the line and he is fighting like crazy to keep you over here.
So, we know who the enemy is – it is Satan. What’s our weapon? Jesus is our weapon! In just a few weeks we are starting a new series called the New Testament Challenge. For 63 days the entire church will be reading the entire New Testament. It’s going to be a great series. When you get to the Gospels, I want you to pay special attention to the ministry of Jesus.
What you’ll find is that the people followed Jesus in mass! I mean, there were hundreds, even thousands of people that followed him everywhere. It is a chaotic scene. Some of them had ulterior motives in following Jesus, some just wanted a miracle. The religious leaders just wanted to trip him up so they could get rid of him. But you know, I think a lot of people followed him simply because he loved them. Jesus was real! People were drawn to that, and they knew that in following Jesus, Jesus could help them go from this side of the line to this side. They knew that he could help them overcome some of the obstacles in their lives. Let me tell you something this morning – he can do the same thing for you! He can.
What you’ll notice though in the Bible when you are reading the story of Jesus is that because there were so many people, and the streets were narrow and all that kind of stuff that it was really difficult to get close to Jesus – to see him face to face. You remember the story of the people that lowered their friend through the roof to get him to Jesus? That was why, it was tough to get real close to Jesus.
So, Jesus had his disciples. And we learn that Jesus trained them and he spent time with them. One of the things that the disciples would do is when the crowds were pressing in on Jesus they would be there throughout the crowd and they would bring people to Jesus, and they would do some of the praying for people and some of the healing and that kind of thing.
There is one story that is repeated in at least 3 of the Gospels. By reading all three accounts of this story, in Mark 9, Matthew 17 and Luke 9 we get a complete picture of what was going on in this story. There is a guy of a teenage son, and he comes to one of the disciples and he says, “My son is demon possessed.” I know what some of you are thinking – so is mine!’ So, pay attention.
“Why do you say that he’s demon-possessed?” one of the disciples ask him. “Because he keeps going into seizures,” the dad said. “Sometimes he just starts flopping around and then he begins foaming at the mouth. There are times that voices are coming out of him– not his voices either and they say crazy things. One time he threw himself right into a fire. There he was, on fire, and his mom and me, we pulled him out of the fire, and then we worked to put out the flames. That’s why he has all of these scars on his skin.”
“Then other times he’ll just throw himself in the water like he is trying to drown himself and we have to jump in the water and try to pull him out before he’s harmed, which isn’t easy to do since he is a big and he’s not cooperating with us. We pull him out and save him. We don’t know what to do!”
The disciples ask, “Well how long has this been going on?” The father answers “this has been going on since he was just young, a long time. We’ve has tried everything to bring healing to him. We’ve taken him to doctors, we’ve taken him to the synagogue, we’ve taken him everywhere to try to get help for him but nothing seems to help and we don’t know what to do for our son!” Can’t you just imagine the desperation of the father at this point? This is a stronghold. The enemy has him up against it!
You know what the dad was saying, don’t you? He was saying – my boy’s here, but I want him to be here! And as hard as I try to get my boy from here to here, I just can’t do it!
We don’t know which disciple the father was talking to, but the disciple says, “well, you’ve come to the right place. Let me help you with your boy.” Let’s just say it was Peter, so Peter lays his hand on the boy and he prays over him, maybe gets real loud and says “be healed” but nothing happens. So, then John prays for him, and then James, and then maybe Bartholomew prays for him and when they’re all done they look at the son and what happens? The boy starts convulsing again, and he starts foaming at the mouth again and he throws himself down on the ground and these satanic voices start coming out of him again.
This dad realizes that this battle is big! Even these guys, these good guys, these guys who are on the inside track with Jesus – even they can’t help get my boy from here to over here! So you know what this dad does? He begins to make his way to Jesus. Remember, this wasn’t an easy thing to do – he takes his boy and he starts pushing his way through the crowd, until he came face to face with Jesus.
So Jesus asks him, how can I help you? Now, Jesus already knows what this guy needs, he didn’t need to ask him that, but there is something powerful about coming before the Lord and saying more than, “Lord bless me! Lord, meet my needs. Lord, bless the missionaries. Lord bless my church!” He wants us to name the issue. Tell him what it is. The Bible tells us that he knows our requests before we even pray – and yet we’re told to bring our stuff to the Lord in prayer.
So, the dad replies, I’m desperate and he recounts the story again for Jesus telling him all that is going on with his son. And then the father says, “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” (Mark 9:22) And Jesus says, “Can I? Of course I can, of course I will.” And the father says, “Well, I took my son to your men over there and they prayed for him and laid hands on him and told me they could help me but nothing happened.” So, Jesus looks out at the crowd and he says, man you people just don’t get it! I want you to get it, because I’m not going to be here forever.
The Bible says, “When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit. “Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak,” he said. “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!” (Mark 9:25)
Listen to what the Bible says next. It says, “Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran through the crowd as people said, “He’s dead.” (26)
Can you imagine witnessing that? The boy just hits the ground – it’s like he’s completely worn out and he just drops like he’s dead. Everyone there thinks that he probably is. But, then the Bible says this in verse 27, “But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up.”
The crowd starts cheering. The dad starts crying! He says, Jesus healed my son! They’d been everywhere! They’d been to the doctors. They’d been to the synagogues, they’d even been to Jesus’ posse and nothing had happened. Imagine the joy of the father now that Jesus had healed his son. His pressing through the crowd had paid off for him! When he was most desperate – God performed a miracle for him!
So, afterwards the disciples are walking away from this whole thing and they ask Jesus, “What happened back there? I mean, we follow you, we’re with you all the time, we always do what you tell us to do, how come we couldn’t help that father with his son?” Jesus says this to him in verse 29 he says, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”(NKJV)
Here’s what Jesus said, “Boys, what you’ve got to realize is you can’t help people get from here to here until there is a greater pressing in to me in your life. You can’t help people win battles, battles that are bigger than them; you can’t help them win those battles without power that is bigger than you.
What that dad knew is that if he pressed in harder to me I could help bring his son from here to over here. What I want you to do is to learn through prayer and fasting how to press into me and I’ll do that through you!
What in the world is prayer and fasting? I think we know what prayer is. Tonight, we are meeting here at 4:30 and we are going to have a time of prayer where we focus together and we are going to spend time praying. You won’t have to pray out loud if you don’t want to – but we are going to pray. Because this church is facing some battles that are bigger than us! Many of you are facing battles in your life, whether it is your marriage, or your kids, or your finances or your job or some spiritual breakthrough, you are facing a battle and it is bigger than you are and you will only go from here to here if you pray about it! Join us tonight for that.
Then Jesus mentioned fasting. Fasting is simply abstaining from food for a certain period of time so that you can focus on a spiritual goal or a spiritual aim. See, there comes a time in your life where you are right at the battle line. I know that you and maybe some people that you love dearly get to this line and you get stuck in the stronghold, you can’t get passed it! You want the Enemy’s grip to be released from your life. You want to move and you want them to move, from this side of the rope to this side of the rope. You feel like this dad. You’ve tried everything, even prayer and begging God for whatever this battle is – but for whatever reason nothing is happening.
Sometimes we get to that place, where we’re stuck and our prayers don’t seem to get through. We pray, we beg, we ask God, but we can’t get to the other side of the rope. And God is saying, son, daughter, today I want you to learn to press into me harder. I want you to learn to fast and pray! When you do, I will take my miracle working, supernatural hand and I will reach out to you and I will bring you to the other side. But see, it takes surrender, and a greater hunger for God to release the grip of the enemy so that he can help me to win this battle!
When we were over in the other side of this building and we were getting ready to spend 1.8 million dollars to add a welcome center and add on a worship center and all that kind of thing, we did that for one reason and one reason only. We wanted a better tool to reach our community. We felt the Lord saying to us – if you are serious about reaching this community then you need to take a step of faith. Not only was our building over there pretty full, but it was not conducive to how we do church here. Dramas couldn’t be seen and words of the songs couldn’t be seen etc. So, we sensed the Lord saying to us – it’s time to step out in faith to reach people far from me!
How many of you were here then? Raise your hand. That process started while Bonnie and I were in France. Scott, the senior pastor at the time sensed that’s what God was leading this church to do. It was risky, it would require a lot of faith and work and money we didn’t have! When Bonnie and I got here, the dirt had just about starting to move and Scott led many of us, mostly those of us in leadership, to start fasting as it related to the project and the fundraising, and the people that we were wanting to reach.
We prayed, we fasted, we trusted God despite some difficulties! Those of you who raised your hand, you know what happened next. All hell broke loose in this church while we were building this building. The senior pastor resigned, then a youth pastor was let go, then further staff cut-backs had to happen and we were in trouble. That was the battle. But was it worth it? How many of you have come to faith at Believers in this room or have had significant spiritual change take place in your life in this room? That’s amazing isn’t it? Thank God that there were those of us who had prayed and fasted to get to the other side here.
I believe we are at the battle line again as a church. I believe that there are families in our church and individuals in our church that are up against this line and the only hope they have is to press into Jesus. There are some obstacles facing us as a church that are preventing us from doing some things that I feel God wants us to do that we can’t unless God himself shows up and pulls us over that line.
I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’m going to ask you if you will join me in prayer and fasting. I’m going to ask you to join me in fasting for 1 meal, 1 day a week for the next 4 weeks. I’m going to give you a list of 5 things that I want you to pray and fast with me about. I want you to add your stuff to it too. Add your boy, your girl, your marriage, your job, your relationships, if your facing an addiction, add that to the list.
Here’s how it works. You eat breakfast early in the morning and then you skip lunch and then you eat again late in the day for supper. In the middle, you can drink water, drink tea and drink fruit juices. You write down the things that you want to pray over, list the miracles that you need God to do in your life. By 11 or so your mind will start getting pre-occupied with food. But instead of eating you will pray. You say, God we’ve done all we can in our marriage, we’ve done all we can with our son, we’ve done all we can in this battle, the battle is bigger than we are! We need you to move us from this side of the rope, over to this side of the rope.
What will happen, is, the more hunger you feel, the more aware of your shortcomings you become, the more open you are to what God wants to say to you and do in your life. That teaches you to press into him. This is the first step to recession proofing your finances – you recession proof your life by placing your confidence in someone who is bigger than the economy, who is bigger than any problems that you have, who is able to take you from the cursed life to the blessed life.
Here are the 5 things I want you to pray for:
1. Pray for 150 people to come to saving faith this year. We just finished up the ministry year 07-08 on August 31 and during that time 70 people came to faith in Jesus Christ just in this room – not counting our youth and children. This year, I am praying, and asking you to pray that 150 people will come to faith at Believers this year! You know what excites me about that? Some of those 150 people are in this room right now! Some of them are your friends and family and we are going to pray for them to get saved this year, and pray that they turn their lives over to a God who loves them a God who wants them to go from their best to God’s best!
2. I am praying that we will baptize 100 people this year. 100 people! We baptized 38 people last year – and I know that some of you here need to be baptized, but I also know that there are many that haven’t come in here yet that need baptized too! Our next baptism is October 5th in an evening celebration service.
3. I am praying that we will have 300 people in small groups for our NTC! I feel so strongly that people need to be in community that I just want to pray about these groups that at least 75% of our church will be in small groups! Maybe you need to sign up for a group right now, using the communication card.
4. We have some financial goals and challenges this year. Last year our income (your giving) grew over $100,000 from the previous year, you just did an awesome job with rising to the challenge. This year our needs are a little higher, we need $16,000 a week to make budget. I’m praying that we can do that and then some, because we could stand to add some support staff around here, and I want to support more missionaries, and I want to do more gas buy-downs and give-aways in our community to demonstrate God’s love in practical ways!
5. Lastly, I’m praying that we can pay $300,000 dollars off of this mortgage that we owe this year. Let me tell you why I’m praying that – because when we pay that down that much, it will free up about $70,000 a year that we can use for ministry and missions. I know that sounds impossible, but I’m telling you, if you were here 4 years ago and you saw where we are today, you would say THAT was impossible! I’m not going to go into real specifics about it today – I’m just asking you to pray! Then in the next couple of weeks I’ll give you some details.
Will you respond to this message? Check the block on the card. Will you commit to fasting with me to pray over these 5 things plus your stuff? Put that on the card.
Let me also say, you can’t move from this side of the rope to that side without Jesus moving you there. Some of you need to trust Jesus as the forgiver of your sins right now, pray with me.
