God’s Economy
Your Money Is Your Life, prt. 2
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
November 22, 2009
There was a little boy named Johnny who used to hang out at the local corner market. The owner didn't know what Johnny's problem was, but the boys would constantly tease him. They would always comment that he was two bricks shy of a load, or two pickles short of a barrel. To prove it, sometimes they would offer Johnny his choice between a nickel (5 cents) and a dime (10 cents) and John would always take the nickel ... they said, because it was bigger.
One day after Little Johnny grabbed the nickel, the store owner took him aside and said "Johnny, those boys are making fun of you. They think you don't know the dime is worth more than the nickel. Are you grabbing the nickel because it's bigger, or what?"
Slowly, Little Johnny turned toward the store owner and a big grin appeared on his face and he said, "Well, if I took the dime, they'd stop doing it, and so far I have saved $20!"
I’m glad you’re here this morning. I want to talk to you about this morning about surviving these tough economic times. You have come here having braved another week of the worst financial crisis our country has encountered since The Great Depression. This thing started like a year ago and you know what? This is the first time we’ve even talked about it. In fact I’m probably guilty of not talking about world events that often and there’s two reasons why. First is that talking about world events is hard to do without talking about politics. It’s not that I’m afraid of talking about politics, but I do live with a concern that somebody might miss my message, which is not ultimately about politics, but about a God who still lives, who is as active in the United States in the 21st century as he was in Palestine in the first century. Get into talking about politics and it’s likely that people will hear politics and not hear God. But God is both working through politics, and is way beyond it and past it and above it. God is both intimately concerned with the details of our country’s economy, and still able to work his purposes in our country and in our world. God is pained by our pain, but not in any way constrained by our constraints. The second reason I haven’t talked a lot about the economy is because I am convinced that if we are properly formed on the inside, if we have faith, if we are people who not only say there’s more to life than money, but are living it out every day, if we are truly learning to trust in God with all of our hearts and not lean on our own understandings of things, then the bullets can fly all around us, the crap can hit the fan, the crowds can raise their voices, the media can cover this and neglect that, the world can go wherever it’s going, and we can stand firm. If faith cannot do that for us, what’s the use of it? If it cannot bring us this kind of hope, then why bother? This is not the place where you come to hear a preacher tell you how to live in fear. This is not the place where you come to be reminded how bad it is and how desperate our times are. This is not the place where you come to receive a naïve shot of positivism to combat for a while the real truth that everything’s really, really bad. This is the place where you come to sing, and to hear, and to be reminded, that God is mighty to save, that God is sufficient, that his grace is enough, that if you have God, God is all you need, and if you don’t have God, you are poor no matter how much you have. So because of these two things I don’t often talk about world events. I picture in my mind a people who are learning to stand firm no matter what happens around them. I picture a people who are learning what is real – that this stuff we see going on around us, yeah it’s real, but it’s on the way out. It’s coming to nothing. Therefore, we should learn how to live with it because it’s reality for right now, but frankly we shouldn’t take it too seriously. The truth is that ultimately it doesn’t matter who just won the World Series, and ultimately it’s not gonna matter than for a few years at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, times were tough. What’s gonna matter is how you responded to those times, whether you faced them with courage and integrity, or whether you lived in fear. So I want to give you some things today that can maybe ground you, help you stand firm in the middle of whatever is going on around you.
First, I want to assure you that God is present and active in our world. In the book of Colossians we see this great language:
Colossians 1:15–17 (The Message)
15 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. 16 For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. 17 He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.
Do you struggle to believe that? It’s easy to tell if you struggle to believe it. A sign that you struggle to believe it is constant worry, constant fear, that everything is coming apart. See, we’ve been given this assurance, that God is behind everything, holding everything together, even at this moment. But we sometimes have to take that on faith. Sometimes we don’t see God’s activity. Where was God on 9/11? Where was God in the Indonesian tsunami of 2004? Where is God in your life, in the middle of your circumstances? Where was God when this or that tragedy or bad things happened to you or to someone you love? How come God didn’t heal your loved one, or save you from this or that experience, or keep you from losing your job? How come God hasn’t seen fit to provide for you? The world is harsh and horrible things happen, and evil is oppressive, and it sinks under our skin and into our bones and leaves us feeling cold and faithless and dry. It is not always easy to maintain faith, but faith is the thing that can lift us above our circumstances and keep us from drowning in them. Writing in a time when Christians were being burned alive, and skewered on stakes, and thrown to lions, just for being Christians, the Apostle James says,
James 1:2–4 (The Message)
2 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. 3 You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. 4 So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
Now this was written by a guy who knew what suffering was, who was himself facing death, and was writing to people in the same situation. And James says there’s something in this – when we face difficulties and challenges and tests in our lives, there’s something in there that God can use to grow us into the kind of people he wants us to be – people who are mature and well-developed. It is God’s desire that we grow up, that we learn to have faith in the middle of the worst circumstances. Does this mean God brings suffering upon us intentionally? Of course not, God does not bring suffering upon us, but when suffering comes, we have an opportunity to cling to God in faith – to not do the easy thing, which is give in to the evil that is around us, to curse God and say he is not there and he does not care. And we cannot forget that even Jesus – God the Son himself – was not spared from suffering when his hour came. We will have these hours. Times will be difficult – perhaps terribly so. We will lose our jobs and not be able to find work. We will see our loved ones lose their health and their lives, and we ourselves will deal with all manner of discouragement and sickness. And as those things happen, we can give up faith – we can believe things really are as terrible as they seem. Or we can cling to faith the way Job did in the most desperate moments of his life, saying
Job 13:15
Though you slay me, yet will I trust in you.
This is a choice. It is not determined for us by science. It’s not a matter of choosing faithlessness if we want to be intelligent, or choosing faith if we are stupid. Statistics show that about 64% of scientists are theists – they believe in God. Not all of those people are Christians, but my point is that it does not come down to smart people choosing to tough it out as agnostics and stupid people choosing faith. It really is a choice, and both roads are open to each person.
Joshua 24:14–15 (The Message)
14 “So now: Fear GOD. Worship him in total commitment. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped on the far side of The River (the Euphrates) and in Egypt. You, worship GOD.15 “If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship GOD, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we’ll worship GOD.”
I think it’s critical that every person make this choice, and that we choose whether or not to believe realizing that we are not compelled by science or by circumstances to not believe. If you choose to believe, you will suffer and struggle as a believer. If you choose not to believe, you will suffer and struggle as a non-believer. Jesus said that God,
Matthew 5:45 (TNIV)
45 ….causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Rain will fall into the lives of those who have faith, just like good things will happen in the lives of those who do not. The question is, when good things happen, who will you thank? When bad things happen, who will you trust?
So the first thing to realize if we’re going to survive this economy is that God is present. God is present. You can choose to learn to believe that and it will bring new dimensions of joy to your life, even when things are difficult. Or you can choose to not believe it, and keep toughing it out on your own. Or you can choose to say you believe it, but then tough it out on your own anyway!
Second, not only is God present, but God’s plan for our lives ultimately is a plan of hope, not a plan of despair. It’s one thing to believe God is present in the world, but some people have a really dreary, scary vision of what this means . They see disaster around every corner, signs of impending doom in every world event. Here is God’s promise to us:
Jeremiah 29:11 (TNIV)
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
What if we left here today having made a decision to live as if God is present in our world holding things together, and that his plan for our life is to prosper us, not to harm us, to give us hope and a future? Now we would have to live this way in light of the fact that terrible things do happen. We’ve already talked about that. But isn’t that what faith is? Isn’t faith about continuing to believe, in the face of circumstances that suggest we give up? If you have been married more than a few months, you have already demonstrated that kind of faith in your spouse. There have probably already been times when there seemed to be little reason for hope that your marriage had a future, when it seemed almost more logical to simply give up – maybe even like the compassionate thing to do. But through dark times, when there seemed to be no reason to hope, you chose to believe that there was a prosperous future ahead of you, and you chose to maintain hope in that future. Then all your energy went into holding on to that hope. You simply refused to give up. You stuck it out and stuck it out. You went through pain and frustration, maybe, but you kept your commitment. And hopefully you came out on the other side. That’s what faith IS. Faith is refusing to give up belief that God knows, God cares, and God wills good for us.
Hebrews 11:1 (The Message)
1 The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see.
So, in this economy, in every difficult situation, God is active and present and holding things together. Not only that, God’s plans and intentions for us are good – God wants good things for us and desires that they should come about. Faithlessness brings so much chaos and damage into our lives because when we lack faith, we run around desperately trying to make things work out for our own good, and in that process we hurt other people, they get upset, and then try to hurt us and/or take revenge on us. We’re always struggling and gritting our teeth and sweating it out and living in drama because we will not simply trust in God’s presence and activity in our lives. Then when we begin to experience those terrible consequences, we demand that God deliver us immediately from those consequences and threaten to stop believing if he does not do that. Having faith in a God who is present and who is good allows us to relax, to stop striving and trying to make everything work out perfectly, and to accept the imperfection that is in the world, both in ourselves and in others.
Next, I want to assure you that the effect of real faith in God and in his love and his good intentions for you is the banishment of fear.
1 John 4:16–18 (The Message)
16 We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.17 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. 18 There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
Isn’t that awesome? Just because we may have always lived in fear –fear of the economy, fear of losing our job, fear of not having enough – does not mean we have to always live in fear.
But fear is not banished overnight. We do not learn to live fearless lives simply because God says that we can live fearless lives. No, we LEARN to live without fear as we LEARN to trust in God’s love and good intentions for us, despite the plain fact that bad things can, do, and will happen. In John’s words, this means taking up permanent residence in a life of love. This goes beyond saying some kind of prayer for “salvation,” and beyond regular attendance in church. What would it mean to take up permanent residence in a life of love? It would mean living in such a way that we are constantly directing ourselves away from our worries and problems, and toward the peace and love of God.
I have a confession. For most of my life I’ve been a religious dabbler. I’d dip a little here, dabble a little there – I wanted to know I was not going to hell, but I also wanted to preserve my basic way of life, my basic way of thinking about the world. Then I could never figure out why I lived in constant anxiety, constant worry. Even after I went into the ministry I lived this way – constant worry, constant anxiety. I would read passages in the Bible where Jesus would talk about not worrying, but would only find comfort in them literally while I was reading the passage, then I’d immediately begin to be worried again. I could not understand this. I thought, “I’m a Christian. I believe in God and in Jesus. I go to church and read God’s Word regularly. I even know quite a bit of it by heart. Why do I not live in the peace God promises? Why do I always live in fear?”
It took me many, many years to realize that even though my religion was Christianity, I was just participating in a religion instead of experiencing God. Still dabbling and dipping. I mean, I was doing all these things on the outside, but I had not been willing to stop dipping and dabbling in religion and actually take up permanent residence in a life of love. Religion can’t do anything for you, but riddle you with guilt and maybe, at its worst, make you into an arrogant fanatic.
Galatians 5:6 (The Message)
6 For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
It took me a really long time to come to understand that what I had been doing was dipping and dabbling, while God speaks of full immersion into his life!
Matthew 6:33 (The Message)
33 Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
So it’s not dipping and dabbling that brings us into a place of peace, it’s steeping – it’s full immersion! A life fully immersed in the presence, the power, the love, and the benevolence of God is a life that experiences peace in the middle of even the most difficult circumstances.
Now it matters not to me what walk of life you come from here this morning. I am convinced that the greatest cause of anxiety, worry, and lack of peace in our world today, among both the traditionally religious and the irreligious, is that people generally have not taken up residence in God’s life of love, but rather we continue looking out for our own interests. As long as we do this we will live in anxiety and fear, because our resources are limited – our ability to provide for ourselves never goes as far as we want it to go, and ultimately we are left feeling worried that we will not be able to get what we need. I have sometimes fancied that we would rename our church from Wildwind Community Church to Wildwind Spiritual Formation Center. For it is not another church, more church, that people really need, but rather we need to learn how to live from the place where God is – to steep ourselves in his love and his provision and his mercy. Frankly this is the kind of teaching that I think the church has typically not done a good job with, and it is what we most need.
That’s all I have for you today. That’s God’s economy. In God’s economy, you will be provided for. He is present and active in our world and in your life. His intentions for you are good. And because of that, you do not have to live in fear. Now if you choose not to believe that, if you choose to continue striving to make your life work out on your own, then anxiety and worry will be the places you will naturally find yourself. You simply do not have the resources to make your life work out the way you want it to, nor can you control what happens to you in the most important areas of your life, so if you are not immersed in God’s presence and love and goodness, you will constantly find that fear and worry inhabit the space between your desires for your life and what you are able to bring about on your own. So wherever you are today – Christian, not Christian, skeptic, questioner – I invite you to continue on the journey with us, where we are learning to take up permanent residence in God’s life of love, to trust in him, and to rest in his good intentions for us.
Did you think you were going to hear stuff today like “Get out of debt, save money, get on a budget, etc.”? Those are all good things, and we need to do them, but first things first. We need first and most deeply to live in faith and trust in God, and from that place we can then begin to order and arrange our financial houses. We invite you to attend our Good Sense budget course on January 16th. Good Sense is a Saturday seminar where we will teach you the practical steps you need to know to manage your finances, save, get out of debt, and determine when to buy and when not to. This is something we are passionate about at Wildwind and we know we can use this seminar to serve you and our community. Greeters are passing out cards for you now, and if you are interested in getting more information on our upcoming Good Sense Budget Seminar, please just mark the appropriate box and let us know how to contact you and we will make sure you get the information you need. You’ll see other options on the card as well and if any of those things interests you, again just check the boxes and give us your info and we will follow up with you. Will you pray with me…
