Your Investment - June 10, 2018

From 1997-2004, I worked with the youth groups of the churches I was a leader at… first as a volunteer, then as an intern, and then as a full-time Youth Pastor. I loved those kids… mentored them… encouraged them… helped them through tough times… laughed with them… cried with them… prayed with them… in many respects, they were the most valuable people to me on the earth. (Maybe tell Justen story). They were my kids.

I was willing to invest everything in the world for those young adults… but something happened in January 2006 that Corrie and I… not to mention our parents… were not ready for… we had our first “real” child. Zeke came out a gangly, skinny, tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed ball of awesome… and I realized something: There was a greater TREASURE worth investing in …it wasn’t that those other kids weren’t amazing, it wasn’t that there wasn’t value, BUT once I’d seen my own child, we realized there was no kid that would get more attention than this one.

When we meet Jesus for the first time, something amazing happens. We say YES to His life… we say YES to following Him… to being led by Him… sometimes in some really strange ways:

·      We give up sleeping in on Sunday mornings

·      We start listening to different songs on the radio

·      We read the Bible …or Christian books

·      Perhaps we join a small group and give up a Thursday night

·      We might even serve with kids, teens, or on the tech team.

·      We begin to INVEST our time and talents like we’ve never done before…

Dilemma - But, if we are honest… most of us struggle to INVEST our treasure… for whatever reason, it seems to be the last thing we are willing to give up.

Why is that? …well, there are probably lots of reasons… but here are a few that I and my friends have wrestled with:

1.    We don’t trust the church (seen some bad examples)

2.    We feel like we don’t have enough (poverty mentality)

3.    That’s my money… God doesn’t need it

What I think we need today is “fresh revelation” …of why we give …of the real truth that:

Treasure in Heaven is more valuable than treasures on earth

PRAYER

Word

In Jesus’ longest recorded teaching (mount sermon), He begins Matthew 6 by discussing the disciplines of praying, fasting and (yes) giving… He focuses in on the HEART of things… wanting us not to brag on ourselves, but rather doing it in relationship with the Father. We all “like” that part. We agree with Jesus here: Yes, we should pray in silent, give in secret, etc.

But, Jesus says there are rewards to be had for doing this… huh? His rewards… there are heavenly rewards for investing the right way in God’s kingdom:

Matthew 6:19-29 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

·      We’ve all heard the phrase: you can’t take it with you… Jesus seems to imply that you can… that seems weird right? But Jesus has a revelation that is greater than ours. Jesus has an intimate relationship with the Father… doing only what He sees the Father doing. Jesus understands that what you invest in on earth matters… He understands that the mission of the Kingdom doesn’t have life-long consequences, but actually has eternal rewards attached to it.

·      He knows Treasure in Heaven is more valuable than treasures on earth.

·      What’s stunning is where He goes next in the text. He circles back around to our giving and praying telling the disciples that your focus is central to your INVESTMENT in the Kingdom of heaven. Don’t just do the right thing, but do it with the right motives…

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

People always want to turn this passage into a “Money is BAD” kind of thing. It’s not about that AT ALL! In fact, it’s about our focus. Look at the context of this passage… Jesus is challenging His followers to look at their motives… what is controlling your finances? Is it your heart of generosity… or is it your devotion to this life? …a life that will not last forever …a life that will fade.

A good litmus test in my own life has always been this: What am I worried about?

·      Worry tends to reveal in me where my heart is.

·      Worried about food on the table… my heart is in this life.

·      Worried about church growth… my heart is trending toward Kingdom.

·      Worried about vacation or basketball/cheer camp funds… my heart is in this life.

·      Worried about # of baptisms/salvations… my heart trending toward Kingdom.

You

What about you? What are you worried about these days? Where is your investment? Is it in this life of the next? Is it in the stuff of God’s Kingdom or the worries of life, family, bills, retirement, home, etc?

Jesus wraps up this way:

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

When I become anxious about the stuff of this life, I invest in things that will not last. When my heart is stirred to become generous with my time, talents, and especially my treasures to invest in Kingdom… my investment will last!

DEFINITION: “To invest is to allocate money in the expectation of some benefit in the future. In finance, the expected future benefit from investment is a return.”

I think sometimes we hold off our money till the last in our Kingdom journey because we don’t yet realize what we are investing in? When we give of our tithes (10% of gross income) and our offerings (specific gifts given above and beyond the tithe), do we really understand what we are giving to?

When my first child was born, no one had to tell me he was valuable… no one told me that my own kids were worth spending time on… I knew right away they were worth investing in… it was “Revealed” to me the first time I saw my children.

Action

Today, I think we need the revelation that Treasure in Heaven is more valuable than treasures on earth… that when we invest time and resources to TVCCI, we are investing:

·      In changing the world with Jesus

·      In life change at every level (groups, kids, teens, baptisms)

·      In church planting both in the US and missions partnerships

·      In feeding the poor (Hope Centers, Thanksgiving, benevolence)

·      In Convoy of Hope (disasters, feeding and ag programs, training)

·      In starting new campuses… to destroy the works of the devil in new cities

Our mission is valuable …Our vision is worth investing in!

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

TRANSITION to offering… try giving something… increase to tithe (10%)… go above and beyond… get extravagant with your gifts! (Really flush all 4 of these out well!)

We are invited into a partnership with God when it comes to our money.  He wants to bless your finances!  He wants to change YOUR world, first! I know that he wants to change the world through your investment…

DAWN MORO’S STORY:

Ø  I would love to share with you Dawn’s story, who attends here at the Urbana Campus.  Dawn said that she really didn’t understand tithing until the Vineyard shared a message a couple of months ago.  

Ø  She said, “I have sat in churches and been told “here’s the offering plate” with zero explanation...just “give us your money”. But what I learned that day is that are to give the first 10% of our income back to God through the church and as we do that, we are declaring trust in Him that he will provide for all of our needs.”

Ø  “So, I went home and did the numbers. I remember seeing that number and thinking “oh wow that is a lot!” I don’t know how I am going to afford that. But then in told myself to trust God. Trust and have faith that he will provide for all my needs. Not wants but needs. With that said I went into the Vineyard app and clicked on give. I set up my tithing to come out every other Friday on my payday. Boom!

Ø  Well, all my bills were paid and my tithe came out and I still had some money leftover. But the next day I checked my account and it was negative. I had forgot about my student loan coming out automatically.  I was upset that I had not remembered and worried that I would be charged with extra fees because of my mistake.

Ø  I went on about my day telling myself to trust in God I will be okay not to get upset. He will provide for me.

I think this is a really important thing to remember. When we make big faith moves like this, when we begin to tithe and trust God with our money, the enemy is going to do everything he can to get you to doubt God.  To doubt his goodness.  You must allow Holy Spirit to renew your mind and remind God of his promises from scripture.  He WILL provide for everything that you need!

Ø  So that same day, Dawn receives a text message from a friend inviting her to dinner.  And oddly, she told her to bring a notepad with her.

Ø  During the meal they begin to talk about some projects they are working on

Ø  but then her friend asks her to get that notepad out and to begin to write down some of the bills she has that are causing her stress.  So Dawn dopes, then,  Her friend grabs the notepad and writes down a number and says,

o   “Will this help take some of the stress off and give you some breathing room on bills?” The number was $6,000!!!

o   She wrote her a check and said we can start there. Her friend said that she has money to spare and God wanted her to help Dawn.

o   After dinner, they even went to the ATM and her friend took out an extra $250 in cash for her to keep on hand, in case of emergencies.  Of course, that money helped bring her account positive again and so there were no extra fees. 

o   And of course, Dawn decides to pay it forward.  She bought 10 copies of Putty’s live Like Jesus, to take to the jail so that others can know how good Jesus is!

o   When Dawn chose to tithe, it unlocked heavenly blessings.  It was a faith move that allowed God to do far more than she could ever think, ask or imagine!

Your money is blessed when you give your first fruits to the Lord.  It’s an act of worship and of faith as you declare in a very tangible way, “I trust you God.”  And he will provide.  He provides naturally, and he provides supernaturally!