Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Wonderful. My name's Andrew. It's an absolute privilege to have some time with you this morning. We're gonna be talking about contentment this morning. Radical contentment gonna be talking about money, I dunno about you, but this is one of those things that sometimes in church we misstep
Speaker 0 00:00:25 And I pray this morning that as we open up God's word, that he speaks to every single one of us. I'm preaching to myself more than anyone else here. Every one of these scriptures we're gonna be reading, I'm reading for myself more than for anyone else. I feel a sense of trepidation as I stand up in front of you and bring a few of these scriptures because of all the things I could speak about that none, none of them might be fixed in and solved in. But this is certainly an area where every one of us are on a journey of obedience, a journey of stewardship, of all those things that God has placed into our hands.
Speaker 1 00:00:57 We're
Speaker 0 00:00:58 Gonna be talking about how, how high the stakes are in our lives and in society, how there's an opportunity for us to be a bit righteously rebellious against the rules of this world. How our wallets can be used as weapons for the kingdom and that there's an adventure ahead of us. I think there's some fun things to dive into this morning. Before we do that, why don't we just grab your wallet or your phone or your cards, whatever is there, just grab hold of it. This is a scary moment, right? I'm not gonna ask the ushers to take up another offering. It's all okay <laugh>. You know, there's two things that really tell the truth about our lives. We can sing, it's all about you and all I have is yours. But our calendar tells on us as to where we spend our time and our, our wallets, our bank accounts tell on us as to where our financial priorities are. It's really difficult to get away from those line by line where my money's going. So father, as we, as we start opening up your word and talking about contentment and talking about financial wellbeing, we hold onto our wallets, our cards, our phones, whatever it is we use. Some people might even be holding cash.
Speaker 0 00:02:11 And Father, we thank you that everything we have is yours. Yes, we wanna be good stewards of what you've placed into our lives. We wanna be faithful with what you've given us
Speaker 0 00:02:33 And we wanna plant seeds for the future, not just the future on this earth, but our future in eternity. So Father, as we, as we open up your word and we talk about these issues, father, I pray that everything I say that isn't of you would just fall to the ground. And everything that you are speaking to us this morning about will be like clanging, gongs in the ears of every single one of us that are listening, that we would walk away with your wisdom imparted in us. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Amen. 15% of what Jesus said was about money. If we add up all the scriptures that talk about faith and prayer, combine them, there's still more that's talking about the work that we do with our hands. That's talking about finance, that's talking about money. 2000 verses of scripture. You know, money is a fantastic servant, but it's an awful master. Francis Bacon, the great English statesman, said something like that and he ended up in financial ruin. He knew this all too well, that our money can be a fantastic servant, but it's an awful master. The stakes are really high for this topic.
Speaker 0 00:03:45 They can be what what we have as the resource in our lives can be the capacity, it can be the limiter, it can be the prison we live in. It can be the empowerment for ourselves and our children and those around us. It's a primary cause of a divorce and relational breakdown. It constrains opportunity. The stakes are also high for eternity. If you go to Matthew six 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasured on earth where moth and Ross destroy and thieves, breaking in steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven for where your treasure is there your heart will be. Also The message translation says it's obvious, isn't it?
Speaker 0 00:04:28 For where your treasure is. The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be and the place you will end up being. We know one Timothy six, the scripture that's often used for the love of money as the root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierce themselves with all kinds of griefs. The stakes are high, the stakes are high in the economic climate in which we are in the uk, the latest inflation numbers around 8%. It's come down a touch, but it's still more than we've experienced for many years. I know there are many people in this place that have, say we've seen far, far worse, but inflation is gripping this country. There's wage, wage stagnation and the poorest of the poor in our nation are facing real hardship. There are less safety nets. I think the Oxford English dictionary, English dictionary is now added perma crisis. That sense that we're just going through one crisis after another.
Speaker 0 00:05:27 This is hard and it's also hard because in this room we have people in all different situations. There's some people here with jobs, some without jobs, some with dependent, some with not dependents, some with benefits, some without benefits, some who are doing great, some who are facing challenges about their next meal. We're reading on the news, migrant deaths as they cross the channel in the search of a better life. The stakes are high. And this is hard, hard. God doesn't call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful. And let's start off by just establishing that before we go any further. Our job is not to seek success, it's to seek faithfulness, to be trusting, to obey. Luke 1610 says, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, trusted with little, trusted with much.
Speaker 0 00:06:21 We sit here this morning with an attitude of stewardship, however little or much we have, I dunno why the master in that parable in Matthew 25 gives some one, some two, some five. But I do know that he asked all of them to be faithful with what he had given them, the time, the talents, the treasure, the capacity that he'd given them. So there's no judgment in this room. Whether you're trusting God for your next meal or whether you're trusting God for a multimillion pound business deal. That's not the point. That's not what we're dealing with today.
Speaker 0 00:06:56 We honor God in both of those situations by trusting and obeying, by focusing on him, by putting him as first in our lives. I felt that complete frustration and shame at my finances. How can't, why can't I get things under control? Maybe it's just me in this place, but that, that Saturday morning sinking feeling as we've gotta go and look at our budget and pull out an Excel spreadsheet and realize that we've spent more than we wanted to and we don't have enough for what we think we needed. In my work, I've many times been in a situation where what we see in front of us, the resource in our bank account is not enough to pay the staff we've employed and what we've got ahead of us.
Speaker 0 00:07:37 Many, many of our, many, many people in this room have journeyed with me through some of those ups and downs, some of those highs and lows of suddenly realizing that if it wasn't for a miracle, then something bad is gonna happen. I remember if you, if you Google the company that I was running at the time, the company we built it, it, the one article in the press in the evening standard was about how our office manager stole a six figure sum from us. And I remember that day years ago where we got this call to say, we've just discovered 12 months of fraud, 300 grand. It was what we were gonna pay our staff, their mortgages and families were based on that. And suddenly this sinking, this shame, this sinking feeling that we'd not been responsible with the money that was there. It wasn't our money.
Speaker 0 00:08:23 We'd been lent it, we'd been given it, been invested in us by VCs, by venture capitalists. And suddenly we were sitting there and the money they'd given us to go and build this business to build value for them we'd not been good stewards of, we trusted someone, the whole company loved and trusted this person and yet they'd st stolen from under our noses. And we now, you know, the one thing was facing up to the, the lack we had, the, the worst thing was having to go back to the people who've given us the money and say, I'm sorry we've screwed this up. And yet even in those dark moments where you just wish the whole world would just swallow you up, there'll be a hole you can just dive into. He remains faithful. I know there's people all across this room who have got story after story. We heard a couple testimonies earlier, stories after stories of God's faithfulness. Have you got one of those? I've heard some of them from you. God's faithfulness time and time again.
Speaker 0 00:09:16 I've got so much respect for people in this room that I, when I know your story of those moments of believing for God to come through where everything natural says, the game's up for people across this room that inspire me because of the lack of the world's claws that are in you, trusting God and being content with what's in your, in your world, rather than having this worldly need to chase and amass more. All these challenges that we see in front of us, they're also an opportunity to be founded on the rock, to live by faith, to be a witness to those that are around us. Just like many people here have been a witness, an example to me as I've been growing and especially in a time of economic crisis, it's our opportunity as the church in the nation to be a source of provision, to be a source of help for those in our communities, to have the biggest needs.
Speaker 0 00:10:19 Today we're gonna talk about a few things that are demonstrably counter-cultural. God's way is different to the world we live in. It's upside down. I know at Limitless, one of the key scriptures that uh, everyone was looking at was Roman 1212. Two, do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you will be able, do not conform, be transformed and then you will be able, we're gonna talk about four ways this morning that we need to allow God to transform our minds. Four ways that we need to allow him to update our operating systems, update our sets of ambitions and our sets of beliefs. Four ways we need to update the way that the world has taught us to think.
Speaker 0 00:11:11 The first one is around the normality that we judge our lives by. We spend 24 7 bumping up against different people, bumping up against a whole array of advertising and social media scrolling that sets normality for us. And the chall challenge with that normality is it's not God's normality. We're judging ourselves against something that God doesn't judge us against. Back in the early 19 hundreds, um, Lin to Lin wrote a lot about what he called conspicuous consumption. And it's even more paramount today, the fact that anyone who's got something to spend and even those who don't but can access credit to do it, tend to conspicuously consume. That is to consume things that they're pet spending more than they need to of in order to bolster that their identity in society. He writes about conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure, spending time on activities that take a lot of time and take a lot of money as a way of gaining status in society.
Speaker 0 00:12:20 We see through every ad and every social media scroll, the norm is lots and lots of expensive holidays and eating out and coffees all the time, constant spending. We also see that it's normal to hide these areas of our lives when things are going wrong and to not admit when we've got a challenge in front of us to just open up another credit card. Following on that, that theme of conspicuous consumption, the uh, the philosopher RTR then wrote in nine in the nineties about what he called cathedrals of consumption. Now we're standing in a church this morning, I'm standing, you're sitting in a church this morning and that hits home. And he meant it really specifically cathedrals of consumption because the mos that he was describing, the Apple stores he was describing are designed as being big open spaces that give us this vast sense of being that promise us that if we just buy the next thing then our lives are gonna be okay that have this sense of theater and drama around them that moves our emotions, cathedrals of consumption.
Speaker 0 00:13:26 There's a wonderful book, um, titled Affluenza The Illness of Affluence that I love. I loved reading uh, as I was at university. And in that book it says possession overload is the kind of problem where you have so many things you find your life is being taken up by maintaining and caring for things instead of people. Dr. Richard Swenson in the book says, everything I own owns me. People feel sad. And what do they do? They go to the mall and they shop, which makes them feel better but only for a short time. There's an addictive quality in consumerism but it simply doesn't work. They've got on all these things and they still find this emptiness, this hollowness, these are secular philosophers writing critiques of consumerism of what's grabbed us. Normality isn't having nothing as the opposite of all of this. It's just being attached to nothing. Philippians four 11, if we just pop it up,
Speaker 0 00:14:27 I'm not saying this because I'm in need for, I've learned to be content for ever the circumstances. I know what it's to be a need and I know what it's to have plenty and I have learned the secret of being content in and any si every situation. That's a challenging verse. Normality, the normality of our lives isn't about having nothing, it's about being attached to nothing. We also see in one Timothy six true godliness with contentment is itself great gain or is itself great wealth. So in our lives there is a resentment that builds based on us comparing ourselves to a false normality. This reality that we are seen in front of us on our TV screens, on our mobile phones and our job is to replace that resentment with a true godly contentment. A sense that it doesn't matter whether I'm in need or whether I've got everything and I'm fully supplied but I'm not attached to anything and therefore because I know he supplies I can be content, we've gotta oppose resentment with that sense of godly contentment.
Speaker 0 00:15:44 So the first transformation in our lives is that sense of resentment to contentment. The second one is about our world that teaches us instant gratification. My kids love McDonald's. No one in this room does. Obviously you all love perfectly nutritious food. Our world teaches us that we must have it now not to wait, not to prepare, not to invest ahead of time but to have it now. Every ad asks us to experience right now and part of my role is in marketing. There's a whole theory and practice around marketing around what's called destabilizing the status quo, taking what people's reality is right now and helping teach them that it's unsafe or untenable or unlikely or unwanted, undesirable so that you create a gap that people have to fill Now you create urgency of people needing to fill the hole that that marketing, that advertising has now created. And of course in our world of needing instant gratification, we load up on credit cards on other forms of debt in order to feed those needs that are created now in front of us. Average UK credit is now starting to rise again. Credit card spending is up to about five or 6,000 pounds per UK adult. Depending on which study you see saving is down. 34% of UK adults don't have any more than a thousand pounds in savings.
Speaker 0 00:17:18 We end up spending to have things now but with God we've gotta replace now with soon remember that old hymn. Soon and very soon we're gonna see the king. We've gotta replace now with soon we've gotta do that in our natural lives. Proverbs 21 says, the wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down in Matthew six 19. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and vermin destroy and where thieves breaking in steel but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. We've gotta transform our minds and allow God to transform our minds to replace the need for now with an understanding that soon has priority soon, not now soon.
Speaker 0 00:18:11 The third transformation we need to ask God for in our lives is one of comparison with our neighbors. I remember the first time I really recognized in this in myself. I was at university in my second year. I was in America and I was studying to go into business. I was doing a business degree and that's all I wanted to do. I'd already started a couple of things and I thought I was doing okay. I'd done everything that was asked of me. And then I met a guy in my class in America who already had this business that had 20 or so staff and suddenly not 'cause I was doing any worse than I was a minute before, but the comparison maybe crumble inside. 'cause suddenly I realized I wasn't doing as well as I thought I was in comparison to the person sitting next to me.
Speaker 0 00:19:01 Crazy comparison, stupid comparison. And yet my looking over my shoulder suddenly reduced my self-worth suddenly eradicated kind of that sense of progress in me and I was now looking over my shoulder to understand how I could quickly catch up disgusting feelings. All of us have the danger, the tendency to look across the fence to see how we're doing. But in God, the only reason we should ever look across the fence to our neighbors is to see if they have enough. It's not to see if we've done enough to see if we've caught up. We look over our fence to see if they have enough. There's so many scriptures we could dive into about generosity and sharing rather than comparing. But let's just quickly look at James two. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm and filled without giving them the things that are needed for the body, what good is that? Wow.
Speaker 0 00:20:05 God cares about the physical needs in front of us. So we've gotta com, we've gotta replace compare with share. We've gotta replace the need for comparison with the first reaction in our bodies, in our bones, in our minds is to understand that we should be reaching out and sharing. The fourth transformation is really rooted at the bottom of these rest of these three, which is one of selfishness. Anyone in this room ever displayed selfishness in any way whatsoever? No. Just me. Two or three. It's a couple of a couple of honest people in the room. Fantastic.
Speaker 0 00:20:44 We're stewards. Every capitalist influence around us emphasizes the primacy of personal ownership. It emphasizes that we own things, that we get things and then we have choice to do what we want with those things. But in God, if everything is his, we are merely stewarding it for the 80 years that we're on this planet. And as we said before, he's not demanding success of us. He's demanding faithfulness. The earth is the Lord's and all it contains the world and those who dwell in it. Psalm 24, I think it's interesting here. It's not just that everything is God's, but also everything that's in us that is is able to earn. It's something he's given us. If we go back to Deuteronomy, remember the Lord your God, it is him who gives you the ability to produce wealth. It's not just that everything he's poured into your hands is his. It's the fact that the very skills and talents, the training, the natural instincts that he's put inside of you is a gift from him. The source of everything you have is his, not just everything you has have is his.
Speaker 0 00:21:53 And the challenge of these four transformations, if we don't allow God to do them in us, we have resentment based on a false normality. We have a comparing ourselves constantly with our neighbors, with needing instant gratification. And we've got this sense that everything I have is mine. The danger of all of those things is that instead of loving people and using things, we end up using people because we love things. We end up using people because we love things. And I believe that in this community of God, if we're to see his glory reveals the southwest, it's gonna take a people that are looking beyond their own circumstance, beyond their mind, beyond their resentment, beyond their comparison, beyond their now, and looking out to our society, to those around us to be a people that hold firm the line that our job is to love peace people passionately and to use things wisely, to love people abundantly and to use things wisely in our pursuit of loving people, which are gonna talk about a few ways. Now before we close for maybe some prayer at the end, we're gonna talk about some ways that we get to use our wallet as a weapon for the kingdom of God. And before that, can I just share with you a cheesy 15 year old American video? Is that a we? We all want one of those on a Sunday morning, don't we? Cool. Sunny said yes. Is that right? Cool. Fantastic. Su, if we could just queue this one up.
Speaker 4 00:24:15 Oh I couldn't well maybe just a bite. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 00:24:24 Oh
Speaker 4 00:24:31 Don't forget the interest dude. He brought Z pie.
Speaker 0 00:26:19 My German accent isn't very good but dude he brought Z pie. This is a question of priority, it's a question of priority. In order for us to live, we've God as first place, we've gotta be wise stewards in how we do four things, how we give, how we save, how we spend. Then we'll quickly come on to earn at the very end. Firstly, let's talk about giving. It's not about the church's need, this is about your personal responsibility, your priority and your submission to God. Let's just go to the New Testament. We've got two scriptures here from Corinthians first Corinthians and second. The first one's really interesting here. And you know we know anyone who's been in church a while, you'll have read and been taught about tithing and all the scriptures and the Old Testament about that.
Speaker 0 00:27:19 And the New Testament establishes some principles. There's some great principles in one Corinthians 16, two on the first day primacy, it gets priority of every week. It's regular. Each of you should set aside it's separate and taken out a sum of money in keeping with your income. It's proportionate so that when I come no collections will be have, have to be made. It's the first thing, it's priority, it's regular, it's separate and set aside and it's in proportion to our income. And then in two Corinthians it says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver, God loves a cheerful giver. Can he turn to the person next to you? Smile and say God loves a cheerful giver. <laugh> God loves a cheerful giver.
Speaker 0 00:28:17 You know, we could talk about all kinds of principles here, but I think these principles the most important first, regular in keeping with your income and set aside. We could dive back in and talk about how the tithe is 10% and but then you look in the Old Testament and many people would read that as actually being this two or three or four different types of tithe that are given. And then we look at the New Testament and we see this radically generous people who gave more and more and that sold houses and lands in order that everybody in their community would have no need. So I'm not really interested in diving into percentages right now. What's really, really important is that it's first, that it's regular, that it's set apart and that it's in proportion to our income if we do this. What I love and what I've seen in my own life is we break the power of those four unformed minds.
Speaker 0 00:29:13 I believe that this is part of the action that God gives us in order to transform our mind. Because when we're doing this, when we're doing it first and it's not like the pie guy where it's the very last thing that's left over when it's the very first thing that's in our lives, then suddenly we start to establish a new normality in our life and it's a normality of contentment. We start to not look at who's around us and think about sharing. We start to realize that we're actually thinking about about the future, not just on this earth but in the future 'cause of how our hearts are positioned towards God. And we start recognizing that every single thing he's given us, everything he's given us, even the gifts he's given us that we use out in the marketplace, out in the workplace, he's placed them within us. It's not a religious formula. You get to fill this act with faith and there are, there are stories all across this room. Grab me afterwards if you want more from my life of testimonies of when we put God first, seek first the kingdom and all these things shall be added.
Speaker 0 00:30:22 So giving the wise steward gives saves and spends. So giving. How about saving? As I said, the saving rate in the UK is dropping. When I looked at the stats last week, I think at the Covid high, the saving rate in the UK was around 12% of pre-tax income is now done at 8% already two years later and dropping further. There are lots of principles here. If you are earning, you're in the workplace then some people talk about 10, 20 70, about giving 10%, saving 20% and then spending the 70%. It really depends on your context, right? That will work for some that will be too little and it'll be way too much for others.
Speaker 0 00:31:09 One thing that I've learned from those around me beyond me in years is to think about this as standing orders that go out of the account at the very beginning. Savings that go into different accounts that I can't see them. 'cause if, if it's there, I'll spend it creating new pots of money that even a tiny bit of money is going into every single month. So that something is building for the future in a high interest environment. Like now not having a current account but putting in a savings account makes a big difference because otherwise that money just inflates away. And also thinking about saving with purpose. Not just putting savings there for the sake of it, but think about the buffer. What you need if something goes wrong in the house, thinking about those things you would love to do or experience or have in the future. So we wanna be wise givers, we wanna be wise savers and we wanna be wise spenders. This is probably the most challenging one for me. I travel for work, I work long hours and then I'm tired. And when I'm tired it comes back to I want something quickly. I want food quickly. I wanna solve that challenge quickly. I don't wanna spend more time digging in and researching what the best deal is. I just want it now.
Speaker 0 00:32:18 But we get to choose our lifestyle
Speaker 0 00:32:21 And we need to choose it with design. And without default, that might be cooking healthy rather than eating out and eating fast food. It might be charity shopping. I love charity shopping. Everything I'm wearing right now is from a charity shop I love, I love the the I go with my daughter. We go and cruise through hospice care and get what we need for the next uh uh, the next few months. I dunno what it's for you, but think about a godly normality of how you spend your money, separate your needs from wants. We're really bad at thinking all these things in front of us are needs. Whereas when we look really seriously often there's a whole bunch of wants tied up in there as well. And then regularly assess. Assess what you spend and then what you can cut.
Speaker 0 00:33:01 In our businesses, we do this as well. We should do it in our personal life. Every six months or so, walk out of the room, come back in the room, look at what's being spent and say, is it all necessary? But we're doing this with purpose. It's not thrifting us for the sake of it or a cism. This is a case of wanting to use our finance for God's glory. And so looking at everything that's on our plate of spend and saying, do we really need that? One thing that I love doing with my kids is having a conversation with the advertising we we face. We see a a TV ad or we see something big billboard. And I love to say, okay, what is it? What is this trying to do? What's this trying to do in our lives? What's it trying to destabilize? What's it trying to persuade? I think sometimes we need to look at the world's messaging and communication with a response of I know what you're doing, I know what you're doing. I know what need you're trying to create. I know what urgency you're trying to build in my life. I know what you're doing.
Speaker 0 00:34:00 I think it's fascinating when you dive into the psychology of all of this. You know, Tesco value with the blue stripes and the red. And they've recently rebranded that 'cause they felt it was getting too embarrassing for people to put those in their trolleys and that was one of the reasons of then changing it to other own brands. But there was a whole psychology behind making it look like that. Because if you're trying to profit maximize in a grocery store, you want everyone to spend the maximum on every category of good. And if someone can't afford the whatever the premium version of Tesco's is, then they'd have to get over the embarrassment as the designer saw it to putting this thing but looked like it was really cheap and their trolley, it was designed to look ugly so that only the people who had to buy it would buy it. And everyone else would spend an extra 20, 30, 50 p on buying the thing that didn't look so ugly. I know what you're doing. We've gotta have that conversation with the visuals that are around us, the messages that are around us, what the world is trying to tell us. I know what you're doing.
Speaker 0 00:34:56 And then as we just come in and conclude here, I want to remind myself, remind everyone here that this should be an adventure. Sometimes the discipline of creating pots and getting the Excel spreadsheet out and thinking about what we're saving, spending, giving, I dunno can bore us to tears. This should be an adventure. We've often been shocked when we've redone our budget. I know that fear, not wanting to look at the account, not wanting to sit and discuss it, but this should be an adventure. Our giving should be an adventure. Honestly, it's been one of the most exciting bits of my life is saying, okay, God, what are you gonna do? Maybe there's people here today who are gonna look at the economic challenge in front of us and put a little bit more in a savings fund, not for themselves but to say, Hmm, he can do it. That's what I'm gonna store up to. Easily overflow into situations around me. Think about your postcode and what you're gonna do to bless it as a result of what you've been able to save. And this isn't just a case of settling. Contentment does not mean settling
Speaker 0 00:36:13 In contentment. Our circumstances are nothing but in settling. Our circumstances are everything. They define us in contentment. We say, your will be done, your kingdom come. But in settling we say, oh, whatever I get, I get. We're not talking about settling here. In fact, part of stewardship is also working and trusting for increase. We see that through the Bible time and time again. And this isn't some flaky prosperity gospel. I love what Moler says about that, that the biggest problem with prosperity theology is not that it promises too much, but that it promises too little. Let's not reduce our God to pounds and pence to things that come into the bank account. The wind from our God is so much greater and so much mightier than any said simple formulaic return that someone might wanna preach. It's not about that at all, but he owns it all a cattle on a thousand hills are his part of being a steward is to trust for increase. If we roll forwards in that passage about Philippians to verse 19, it says, my God shall supply all your needs according to his glorious, his glorious riches. We shouldn't be burying our talents. When we look at the the PA passage, the Matthew 25, some, some two, some five, but there is zero judgment on the person who got given one for being given one. The challenge and the judgment and the conviction is 'cause of burying that rather than using it for the master's advantage.
Speaker 6 00:37:46 This
Speaker 0 00:37:46 Isn't just a money thing. This is all aspects of our lives. This is every piece that God gives us. I think there are people here who, as we face into an economic challenge in this day, that there are takeaways that aren't just around giving better, saving better, spending better, but also people in this room are trusting for promotions who are re-skilling for new opportunities, perhaps getting back into the workplace after not being in work for many, many, many years. Side hustles, investments. I dunno, I maybe I'm just too practical, but I take God to work with me.
Speaker 0 00:38:30 I can remember starting to do this. My first ever proper job went up to London. I was working for a big four accountancy firm. I was 18 years old and my first job was to audit the fixed asset register of some big software company. I had no idea what those words meant. I still don't. My second job, we were up in um, Canary Wharf in one of those big skyscrapers, in this big boardroom. I was the youngest person on the team and their job for me was to reconcile the foreign exchange movements between the different treasury departments of this massive media company. Again, no idea what idea that means. I don't know to this day. And that was my job. And I thought, okay, okay. John 1426 says, the Holy Spirit will teach you all things. Now, I haven't been to Bible school, so I don't know if this is theologically correct at all, but I took myself to the toilet, locked the door, sat down and said, God, your word says your Holy Spirit teaches me all things.
Speaker 0 00:39:23 I'm not smart enough to know any difference, so I'm gonna stand on that word right here or sit on that word as it was. And I'm gonna walk back into that room and say, I need to know this stuff. I need to know this stuff. I can remember just walking back out, feeling no different whatsoever sitting down and then just things starting to click. Some of us need to take God to work in a new way tomorrow morning. Some of us need to take God to work. And then you, some of you're believing for promotions and yet that promotion isn't gonna come by any sense of entitlement or any sense of you deserving it. Deserving it. It's gonna come by hard work and it's gonna come by you starting to do your boss's job and make it easier for them. That Joseph anointing of being given the entire household to steward because of you stepping into it. The Bible talks about this over and over again. If we should bring up those two scriptures, Suze,
Speaker 0 00:40:21 God would generously provide all your need. You'll always have everything you need and plenty over to share with others. Let's trust God that the increase in our lives isn't about increasing our standard of living, but of increasing our standard of giving. That the overflow will be greater. Psalm one, blessed is the man that does not walk and the council of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on that law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water which yield its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever they do prosperous, some people have gotta take God to work. Tomorrow morning, this echoes Deuteronomy, which talks about how all the work of our hands can be blessed. May every increased resource for people in this place and for this church be to build longer tables, not higher walls.
Speaker 3 00:41:22 Jesus
Speaker 0 00:41:23 May, father, may we never trust for more for our own selfish ambition, but help us build longer tables for our communities.
Speaker 0 00:41:41 We started off considering the context and the consequence of not getting this right. Well, how about we just consider for a moment the consequence of getting this right, of getting this done well, of being good stewards, wise stewards across the southwest who live for the future, sacrificial givers who uplevel every circumstance around them, upwardly mobile workers who re-skill and side hustle and have Joseph favor proper promotion. Faithful entrepreneurs who see market opportunities and start new charities and projects, things that the world needs that we can go and solve. Unashamed table turners that see injustice and walk into that situation to stir the pot and say, this isn't good enough. It's gotta be done a different way. Cities rejoicing as the righteous rule. Cities rejoicing as the righteous rise may across the southwest. Our regions, our postcodes, our towns and villages be blessed as a result of us getting our lives in priority with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There's a wonderful book by Edsel VSO called Transformations that chronicles city after city and nation after nation that have seen revival, that's had social and economic consequence, politicians and workplace boardrooms that have invited Jesus into their midst and seen societal problems fade away, have seen economic problems fade away.
Speaker 0 00:43:15 We're not working some formula here, but we are saying, God, you are the king of kings and the Lord of lords. You teach us all things. You supply all our needs. You've said that if we walk in your council, that whatever we do prosperous,
Speaker 3 00:43:43 Where
Speaker 0 00:43:44 Do we go from here?
Speaker 3 00:43:46 There
Speaker 0 00:43:47 Are loads of great resources to dive into any of this more, whether it's thinking more about your giving, your saving, your spending, your earning. I've mentioned transformations, that's great if you are in the marketplace. Money Possessions in Eternity, A book by Randy Alcorn's, a fantastic book about the primacy of God in our finances.
Speaker 0 00:44:10 A church here. Over the next few weeks, we're gonna be inviting interest for those who want to meet weekly and do a course around some of this. We've got people in this room who are cap advisors, cap counselors, Christians against poverty advisors, helping people come out of debt. We've got people in this room who run courses on financial peace and wellbeing. And there's gonna be some options, some opportunity over the next few weeks of if you want to step forward and say, look, I wanna get this sorted. There's gonna be some ways we're gonna put on for you to do that. We've got <inaudible> Pryor who runs his kingdom business course every Monday night. It's not really a course, it's a, it's a meeting of people in the, in the, in the workplace. We just wanna pray and share testimonies every single Monday night on Zoom. You'd be welcome to join that. It's on our website. But as we see this economic challenge around us in this nation,
Speaker 3 00:45:04 We,
Speaker 0 00:45:07 As we see some exciting projects coming to us, like Mark has just been talking about, about the bigger boat, I believe it will also come with God asking us to get our hearts right in this way. In Genesis 22, we see Abraham be asked to give his son and then God steps in and provides, and Abraham walks away from that place and says, I'm gonna call this place Gyre Jehovah Gyra, my God, who sees experiences and provides. I'd love us all just to sit or stand love, Noah, just to lead us out on, there's a refrain of the, of that song Gyre. Maybe we can just do that. And it says, you're more than enough. I will be content in every circumstance. And I think before we just pray for a few other things. I'd love us to make that declaration this morning that we are content radical, contentment. Contentment the looks of the normality of the world that says, now I know what you're doing. I know what game you're playing. I'm gonna be content. No matter the circumstance, radical contentment that isn't settling, that doesn't sit down and say whatever I get, I get, but reaches
Speaker 0 00:46:37 Knowing that the steward is one who seeks for increase.
