Gtcotr/ss010522
I want to encourage those who were unable to attend our mid-week service this past Wednesday evening, February 2, 2022, either on campus or online, to take time and listen to Part 1 of the 2-part series on the fear of God. You’ll need both parts to fully understand what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church in this particular season. We will hear Part 2 this coming Wednesday evening at 7pm Texas Time on campus or at ChurchOnline. You can log in with our COTR app or go to our website at www.cotr.com.
3 Things for Today: First – The Word
1. The fear of man brings a snare.
Let’s read from a passage in the Gospel of John which confirms this truth. This happened just prior to Jesus and His disciples eating the last supper.
John 12
42 Nevertheless even among
the rulers many believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees they did not
confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue;
43 for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
Proverbs 29:25 The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
Psalms 56:11 In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
Proverbs 14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death.
Proverbs 15:16 Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, Than great treasure with trouble.
These men didn’t have great position, power, or prosperity, it had them.
Our Second Truth Concerns Giving
2. God has chosen and destined you to be rich.
Some people have great problems with what is called the prosperity message. Please realize that there is often a great difference between the message and what people hear. At times the listeners hear the words but miss the message. Just a few days before John’s account of those Pharisees in Jerusalem who refused to publicly join Team Jesus … another good Pharisee near Jericho came to ask Jesus how he could please God.
Mark 10:21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”
It is a fact that God is going to make every one of His children rich beyond their wildest imagination, (1 Corinthians 2:9&10). However, Jesus encountered several rulers of the synagogue during His earthly life and ministry, who knew the Word and the Way and even the Will of God but thought it would ruin their reputations if they publicly followed and supported Jesus. They imagined supporting Jesus and His radical ideas of loving and helping the poor and needy would cost them the riches and comforts of life they had accumulated. Such was the case of this man.
A spiritual search of the deep things of God reveals God’s will to prosper His children. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. Everything God has is ours. This is not a get rich quick scheme or some false teaching designed to turn God into some spiritual Santa Clause or a genie in a bottle. It’s a forever settled fact. You are a child of God with a divinely ordained inheritance. Jesus told us how to work with God to accomplish His plan and how we can live in prosperity both on the earth and throughout eternity.
Just
like salvation makes a difference in this life and especially in the life to
come, so do all the other promises we read about in the Bible.
·
Promises
of healing and health make a difference in this life and, in the life to come healing
will be complete and health will be eternal.
·
The
joy of the Lord makes a difference in this life and in the life to come you
will know nothing but the joy of the Lord.
·
The
peace of God which passes all understanding makes a great impact in this life
and in the life to come, peace will be constant and everlasting.
·
Prosperity
is nothing less … God wants to bless us here and now and forever and ever.
·
God
has made a way for us to access His abundant grace on earth.
·
We
have been given access to the storehouse of God’s grace.
·
However,
The Law of Prosperity requires two things:
o Faith in the
right person
– His name is Jesus.
o Works for the right reason – to accomplish God’s purpose.
When God blesses His children with income from their labor or some other increase, it has been His will since Adam and Eve’s family, and with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived over 400 years before the Law of Moses, that people in covenant with Him should honor the Lord with their substance and with the first fruits of all their increase. (Galatians 3:17)
Proverbs 3 NKJV
9 Honor the LORD with
your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.
Tithes are a part of the Abrahamic covenant of faith. Tithes are a critical part of the covenant we have with God concerning our finances. So critical that tithing became a part of the Law and then continued beyond the Law once Jesus died so we could be included in the covenant of Abraham.
Galatians 3
13 Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the law …
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus…
The last writer of the Old Testament was prophetically looking forward to the Messiah and the Church age when he wrote the Word of God to us by the Holy Spirit:
Malachi 3
NKJV
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet
you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes
and offerings.
10 Bring all the tithes into
the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And
pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room
enough to receive it.
11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” Says the LORD of hosts;
This is such an open-ended opportunity for every Born-Again Believer. “Try Me now, says the LORD of hosts … see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven …” This passage confirms Solomon’s words: “So shall your barns be filled with plenty …”
The
young rich ruler we read about in Mark 10 could not see beyond his own
checkbook or imagine he was being given such a great opportunity.
This man is the premier poster child for Treasure with Trouble!
Number Three – How and Where Do We Connect?
It has always been hard for some people to join anything. We, especially in America and the west, are of an independent sort, perhaps a little skeptical and maybe a bit cynical at times. It’s not unreasonable to check things out and make sure you don’t become a part of something you can’t support. And at the same time we are admonished by God to become a part of something bigger than ourselves. It begins with family. Covenant relationships are the will of God and covenant means commitment.
John 3 NKJV
1 ¶ There was a man of the
Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Here is another ruler … this one comes to Jesus by night. He believes Jesus has come from God, and he is evidently being drawn by the Holy Spirit but yet, he is unwilling to publicly commit.
3. A successful life will require covenant relationships.
By the way, you can be rich, stinking rich, and yet not be successful. Who are you without others? Even God without others, is just a lonely God. Relationships are everything … treat them like gold.
1 Corinthians 12 NKJV
14 For in fact the body is
not one member but many.
18 But now God has set the
members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.
20 But now indeed there are many members,
yet one body.
24 … God composed the body …
27 ¶ Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
Psalms 68:6 God sets the solitary in families
as it pleases Him.
· Where has God set you?
Ephesians 4 tells us that Christ is the head of the Body, the Church, and we all join ourselves together by personally and purposefully supplying the needed relationship glue it takes to make us fit tightly and function properly as one body … the Body of Christ.
·
Don’t
be afraid of what man can do to you … join “Team Jesus.”
·
Faithfully
bring your tithes and offerings to God and watch what He will do in you, for
you, with you, and through you. Then you will receive great Treasure without
Trouble!
· Take a step, commit, become a functioning member of the local Body of Believers God has given you.
Now
let’s receive Communion …
