The Storms of Life
Financial Storms
CCCAG July 7h, 2019
Scripture- Matt 6:25-34
Intro:
In the fall of 2012, I was taking a walk in the woods with the family and we brought our Labrador, Candy with us. Candy was having a great time running in and out of the river, getting all muddy, and chasing squirrels. As we walked, we came up on a tree that had fallen over the river, so the girls and I took turns walking across it. Candy was following us running under the tree and in the river, and on the way back across got tangled in some branches and mud. She was so thoroughly stuck as she couldn’t find a place to put a paw without it slipping. I climbed down the log into the branches and got ahold of her collar and was pulling on it to help her climb up. I was at a really weird angle and pulling across my body when her collar broke and I spun around. I should have just fallen off the log, but my foot was wedged between to branches and as I spun, I felt my left knee pop and immediately fell onto the log. I tried to stand and couldn’t put any weight on it at all without severe pain, so I knew I messed it up good.
I managed to hobble the mile or so out of the woods and went to the doctor the next day and one of his nurse practioner’s diagnosed me with a knee strain and gave me a week off work. It wasn’t a big deal as I had the vacation time and AFLAC covered some of the difference and after a week, my knee felt a lot better, although a little unsteady at times but I figured it was good enough for work. My first call back I slid across the bench seat to open the back door and my left foot caught in one of the cot wheels and it turned my leg sharply and I felt another pop. This time I could barely walk on it at all and it swelled up to the point of not even being able to bend it. I signed out of work and went back to the doctor’s office the next day and actually saw the doctor. He took me off duty until I got an MRI of my knee. The MRI showed several tears in the cartilage and my ACL ligament was torn completely apart. (brief explain).
I saw the knee specialist a week later, and he gave me a fairly grim prognosis- 4 to 6 months after surgery with physical therapy before I could even think about returning to work, and even then, my years of being a paramedic or firefighter might be over.
Couple that with workers comp being understandably hesitant to pay for an injury that seemingly began off duty, AFLAC being unwilling to supplement my salary or to cover an injury which occurred at work, and rapidly dwindling vacation time-
We had no money coming in at all. Tammie was a full-time homeschooling mom, so she had no paying job. We only had about $1k in savings at that point, and that was less than a month of expenses.
We were in a financial storm, and a storm that may take years to recover from if I had to go learn a different job.
It was a time of spiritual stretching for us.
During this time, one of the scriptures that God really spoke to me through this was found in Matthew’s Gospel, and was part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Let’s see what Jesus has to say about financial storms this morning-
Matt 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Prayer
Most of the interpersonal conflicts we have seen throughout our lives and even throughout world history have been conflicts over resources. I once read a quote that said most wars are started by one country committing armed robbery against another country.
Part of the image of God within each one of us recoils at the idea of stealing from other people, because we hold the idea of personal property to be sacred. It was codified into the moral law with the 8th commandment prohibiting stealing.
Most of the time, we worked by the sweat of our brow to earn the money to purchase our property, and we should have the right to be secure in our possessions.
This is why the concept of financial stability is huge for us, because when you get right down to it, it’s a matter of survival. When we start thinking about survival, it can bring up the worst in us, which is why Jesus had such strong words for us to follow in Matthew’s Gospel.
That’s why the first thing Jesus tells us is-
I. Don’t worry
Easier said than done right?
I’m not going to lie- when I hurt my knee, we looked at our finances and the minimal we could get by with every month and it looked pretty grim and hopeless.
During this time, I woke up early one morning to spend time with God and was praying about this situation and I had on simple phrase keep coming back to be-
“Be still, and know that I am God”
It was an encouragement- anytime the Spirit of God speaks into your heart it’s a blessing that brings peace and hope. It fed my spirit, but didn’t do a lot for my practical side.
I wanted the details and timeline about when God was going to move!
I remember saying, “Ok God, $800 mortgage is due on Friday and it’s Wednesday with $50 in the bank. Food is running out, and the week after the utility bills come due. Better get to multiplying some dollar bills here!”
About 4 hours later, I received a call from the workers comp people who had been denying the claim and refusing to pay for time off work.
Apparently, they had just had a phone meeting with my physician who was also a friend and mentor in the medical field. AJ held the position of being the chief physician for all of Aurora Health Care in Kenosha/Racine area. We don’t see it here in West Central Wisconsin, but get south of Madison or over to the east side of the state, and Aurora is the largest single health care provider in Wisconsin. Aurora Health Care also happened to be the worker comps company’s biggest client by far. After talking with AJ, they changed their mind and would be overnighting an $1800 check to me for the last 3 weeks I had been off of work and would now be covering everything.
I was reminded of Daniel chapter 10 in that moment. In Daniel chapter 10 the prophet is given a vision of something so terrible that it causes him to go into prayer and fasting for 3 weeks. He spends at time interceding for his nation and for his people because he knows what is coming will be horrible. From an earthly perspective he knows there is no way out of this horrible war that is about to come upon his nation.
At the end of the 21 days he has a vision. In his vision he sees a man who turns out to be a pre Incarnate Jesus coming to give him an encouraging word. One of the phrases that our Lord told Daniel that has really stuck with me comes from Daniel chapter 10 in verse 11
11 He (Jesus) said to me, “Daniel, you are of great value. Understand the words that I am about to speak to you. So stand up, for I have now been sent to you.” When he said this to me, I stood up shaking.
12 Then he said to me, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel, for from the very first day you applied your mind to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your words. 13 However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia was opposing me for twenty-one days. But Michael, one of the leading princes, came to help me, because I was left there with the kings of Persia.
The truth and the principle we need to get from this scripture is this-
God never stops fighting for you. He is always working even when we can't see it. We also have to remember that sometimes in this working in the spiritual there is opposition that has to be overcome. Sometimes that opposition maybe something within us that God needs to root out and change but other times it could be simply spiritual forces coming against you that have to be fought before your deliverance comes.
I had no idea that my physician was going to bat for me against the workers comp company. But God knew. That is why he was able to tell me to simply stand still and know that he is God.
That is one of the reasons why he allowed the financial storm to teach me this lesson.
Another lesson about financial storms is this- we often cause our own storms. Sometimes it’s our own stupidity that brings the rain clouds and thunder down upon us.
That leads us to the next part of our lesson this morning
II. Don’t be a pagan
Matt 6:31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
I was standing in a McDonalds line watching a kid, probably 6 or 7 years old, trying to buy an ice cream cone. If I was to judge based from his appearance, he came from poverty, and was counting out the pennies he probably scrounged together and slowly counting them out to the cashier. He was 10 cents short.
You could see the expression on his face as he was turned away from the counter- it was completely downcast and sad. As I reached into my pocket to see if I had a dime, someone beat me to the punch and offered to just buy the child his cone. The expression on his face was priceless and he was filled with joy as he walked away licking at the vanilla goodness.
As I was preparing this message that little incident popped into my head as I was thinking about how we as adults do the same thing.
How many of us feel that way when we stand in front of something we want, and can’t afford it?
I have a little bit of a confession- I'm a nerd when it comes to technology. I like having the best, fastest and most advanced technology especially when it comes to my cell phone.
Which is why I don't buy Apple. (joke)
A couple years ago my phone was starting to show its age. It was a few model series out of date and like most cell phones the battery start to die and be unable to hold a charge after about 2 to 3 years. I started to check out the technology websites to see what was out there for cell phones. This was when Samsung was coming out with its Galaxy S9 series. I looked at the specs for it, the battery life, the camera, and the hands free capabilities that they said it would have and I fell in love with it. This was probably in December when I was thinking about it and looking forward to mid April when it came out and would be available through my cell phone carrier. I even put it on my calendar of the date when I was getting a new phone.
My cell phone carrier allows you to get a new phone about every 2 years and then you by the phone on credit and the payments added your cell phone bill. As the date approached, I kept telling Tammie that on Friday I would be getting that new cell phone. Tammie being the more mature person in our relationship when it comes to buying expensive things told me if I just wait a couple weeks it would be much cheaper once the hype died down, but in my Pagan desire to have this newest greatest thing ignored her advice and now I'm paying probably about $200 more than I needed to for this phone.
I was a bit of a pagan when it came to this cell phone.
Let me define what Pagan means
The word Pagan Came about in the early church and it means to worship something other than the god of Christianity. in our modern culture its meaning has morphed into to desire something that will please you generally at the expense of your spirituality. If we were to say that a person is living a Pagan lifestyle we generally would mean that they are living a hedonistic or self-pleasing lifestyle at the expense of everything else.
What Jesus is speaking of here is exactly that. Jesus is warning against living a lifestyle where we get our pleasure, our security, or our fulfillment from the things of this earth instead of seeking and living for God.
For me, the pursuit of a cell phone clouded my better judgment.
What clouds yours?
What thing of this earth causes you to act irresponsibly when it comes to your finances? What financial storm has been caused because you made an impulsive decision regarding money? How many fights have you gotten into with your spouse over spending habits?
If we're really honest, most of the financial storms in trouble we get into is because of our own doing.
An examples-
Couples buy way too big of a house or property and so both of them have to work long hours to afford it and the family suffers.
Let’s face it, if you're credit card balances are more than your annual income you may be a financial Pagan. The average household in America carries about $20k in credit card debt, with a significant percentage carrying $30-40k in credit card debt.
That’s a pretty good indication you might be a pagan in your finances.
But I have some good news, Your father loves you too much to live that way. That is why Jesus ends this section of scripture with what is the most important advice regarding our finances or even in our lives.
III. Seek 1st
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
When I first got saved I went to a camp meeting in Columbus OH. If you don't know what a camp meeting is, it’s a several day event in which prominent Christian leaders come and speak in it's a revival type atmosphere.
During the time I was there I went up for prayer at one of the altar calls and this thought of seeking the Kingdom First was the prayer point. I wasn't going to go up for prayer, but a friend and mentor nudged me and said I needed to go forward because this was a struggle in my life.
I'd only been a Christian for about a year and still in that mindset that I was fine and didn't really need any help but because I valued his opinion I went up for prayer and my friend came with me. The woman who prayed over me told me that she could see that I had problems with surrendering control to God.
And she was right- my teenage years where based off of Frank Sinatra’s song- I did it my way. My way led to a lot of horrible decisions and consequences. Even after getting saved I still struggled with letting God have control and giving up my right to myself. Most of you know I have a very introverted personality in nature which means I live inside my own head most of the time and if something doesn't make sense in my mind then I reject it.
The woman praying over me said I needed to just let God be God in my life whether it makes sense to me or not.
After the service my friend went out and bought me a hat that said simply, God First on it.
My friend who knew me well knew that if God was first in my mind then all the other things that I struggled with would fade into the background.
As of Wednesday, I have been following Jesus for 26 years now and this concept of God 1st keeps coming up in my life. About 7 years ago God showed me something during our staff devotional time at Prayer House when we were talking about priorities in ministry. Our pastor had us all go up to a white board and write out what our priorities were in life. Everybody was an agreement that the general priority was God, family, church. When it was my turn to go up, I looked at everyone else’s list and realized that they were wrong.
The Holy Spirit inspired me to do something other than a list because realized that putting God in any list was idolatry.
Our relationship with God should be everything and everything should come from our relationship with God. When we put God on a list of priorities we are saying that these priorities mean almost as much as he does and that is textbook idolatry.
Whiteboard.
instead of being a bullet item on a list, God should be everything and everything should come from him.
Seek Ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness an no storm in life or ever be able to topple you financially, emotionally, or spiritually.
Your possessions, your time, and your money will all be natural outflows of the incredible spiritual life you can have through our savior Jesus Christ.
I will end this morning with this final thought-
The areas of your life that are attacked the most are the areas in which you are not seeking the Kingdom First (repeat).
You have a spiritual enemy, and like most enemies that want to attack, they send out scouts to survey the landscape looking for weakness.
They aren’t coming through the front door where Jesus is King, they will try to sneak in the low or weak part of your spiritual walls.
If you are going through life and are never able to get ahead when it comes to your finances, I would ask you this morning- Are you putting the Kingdom 1st in this part of your life.
The devil will always attack the weak points, so it’s to your advantage to let God defend that area as well.
Just surrender to HIM this morning.
Conclusion
Altar Call
