Pastor Kelly continued the series on Life and Debt. These notes are from our prayer meeting held on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. We encourage everyone to come to prayer meeting, as it is a more intimate setting with an opportunity for questions and direct answers. Hope you find the following notes helpful. Please feel free to visit out website at www.rubitv.tv to watch this sermon for yourself, as these are my notes and I may have missed something that could have been extremely relevant to you and your current situation! Bible in hand?! Let’s go! J
Text: We read from Malachi 1: 11-14
Quick Recap:
- When we put God first, other things just fall into place!
- If the priorities are out of whack, the finances may be out of whack too.
Five things you can do with money (in no particular order)
- Spend it
- Pay Debt
- Pay taxes
- Save it
- Give it
Two things govern what percentage goes to each category (mentioned above)
- Priorities
- Self-Control
- For those with no self control, their #1 priority is to SPEND! Folks market things today as “If you don’t have it, you are going to die!!!” (a bit dramatic but true!) Therefore you need to have self-control! The sale doesn’t work for you if you don’t need what you are buying which is on sale. Think about it, Is it really a “deal” if you don’t need it?! Self control has to do with (and affects) a lot of these areas (listed above).
- If you don’t have self control, you WILL get into debt. Everyone wants to give you a credit card, which is really money you don’t have to spend.
- You must get your priorities and self control, straight!!!
Let the bible put these into order. Let’s get to the word:
- Malachi 1: 11-14 (English Standard Version). The people were given God leftovers, in essence. They were saying “we are going to bring you something but we are keeping the best for ourselves!” God is saying “let’s flip that, bring me not only the best; bring me the stuff FIRST! I need to be first, not only in your life, but if I am first in your life I will also be first in your finances.
- How do you make sure God is first in our finances?!
We GIVE IT! (#5 on our list above, has now moved up to the #1 position). We ought to give it, not to taxes or credit card collectors, but to GOD, who is NOT going to get my leftovers. There is something about giving God what is His, FIRST! - God always ends up getting cheated when we don’t pay our tithe first. Something ALWAYS happens. There is something about doing it first! Some people like to give to God by saving up everything and doing it at the end of the year, but what happens if you fall ill, you will use the money!! Some of us will try to use that as a blessing “the Lord had me save all this money so I could use it for this emergency!” (lol). No He did not! Don’t cheat God!
- What did God do before he did anything? HE GAVE (“For God so loved the world that he GAVE….”) When we give, it gets us to understand that we need to be other focused. Christ is “other-focused” (gave to others-to us!) and we know that because He gave! If our first priority is to spend, the focus is on ourselves! Get your priorities straight.
- The second thing we ought to do is with our money is SAVE! We spend a lot of time paying everyone except ourselves. (We will break down Luke 16 this Sabbath). After you give to God, you need to give to yourself. We pay everyone else but ourselves. We don’t pay ourselves enough!
- The third thing is PAY TAXES. Make sure you are prepared for taxes. Jesus talks about “rending unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God’s.” Start preparing for that ahead of time! Give, save and make sure you pay your taxes. That’s self control, since we have an option to either take it out now, or later (on our paychecks) Some of us do it later but if you sow now, you can reap later.
- The next thing is PAY DEBT. If you keep your debt and only pay the minimum on your credit cards, you will be paying off more than what you owe. People don’t really thing about monthly fees, interest, etc. Some of us think debt is a joke until you try to get a house. Some of us try to get out of it (debt) so bad that we stop giving and saving. The more debt we are in, the more handcuffed we are.
- The last thing we ought to do is SPEND IT. Doesn’t it feel good once you’ve done everything above, and now you get to spend it?! When you prioritize, you will actually have MORE!
We can put all of these together in three words that we need to live by the rest of this month:
- Give
- Save
- Live
In Closing:
- If you give and save first, the quality of the “life” will be much better. There is a promise attached to Malachi which is why God was so frustrated. ‘Do you not know that when you give me the best, I open up windows that you don’t have room enough to receive?’
- Israel was giving up to 50% of what they had! If we challenge God in a way, and we say “God, I am going to give, save, and live” God can’t help BUT to continue GIVING to you! God gave, we were saved, and now we can live! The plan of salvation, right there for your finances.
Pastor stated that if doing what it says above does not work, let him know. He will then have to change what he teaches!!!
Things to do:
- Come back Sabbath (Saturday, January 14, 2012) and bring your ledger sheets with you (you were to track your spending this week).
- Read Luke 16 so you can get some context before his next sermon.
- Join us LIVE at church, or online at www.rubitv.tv (you can also view from your Iphones if you are not near a computer!).
Closing Prayer: We thank you for the opportunity to give, save and to live. We can do that with our finances because you did that with your son Jesus Christ. You gave him, he saved us, and now we can live. Help us with our finances. Help us to do what you’ve asked, right now it’s 10% tithe and however you move on us for offering. If we put this in order, we are challenging you to do something incredible in our lives and when you do may we trust you more with what you have given.
Hope you guys were as blessed by this message as I was! JOIN US, even if you’ve missed the first sessions, it will be very easy to follow along! J Tell a friend, or five!
Be blessed, and a blessing,
Xoxo,
View from the Pews
