Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 This morning we're not continuing in our series today on the Book of Acts. Um, I'm gonna be running various series in parallel and the only way you can follow them sequentially is by watching them on a playlist on YouTube or something. So we're gonna be dipping in and out. Today I'm starting a new series called Trust. We will go back to acts in the weeks ahead, but today we're looking at the subject of trust. One Corinthians four says, the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but it's a matter of power. The kingdom of God is not designed to be something that we gather around in huddles and simply talk about what could be. The kingdom of God is real. It's active, it changes lives, it transforms communities. Amen. The kingdom of God is not something that's a theory, it's something that's an experience that's right. And right now at this time in the church where there's a season of God visiting us in a very precious way, I keep finding that God is questioning some of the statements that we make. Things like God, I seek you with all of my hearts. That's a lovely thing to say, isn't it? But I'm finding at this time that when I say things like that or when we as a church say things like that, that it feels to me that so often God is saying, do you all your hearts really?
Speaker 0 00:01:39 And he doesn't ask it in a menacing way. He's asking it in a way that he's trying to make sure that the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but it's a matter of power. He's trying to make sure that there's a reconciliation between what we know in our minds and what we experience in our hearts. And a few weeks ago, there was a moment in one of our gatherings where there was a sense of people saying, God, we trust you. Who in this room trust God? Give us a show of hands if you trust him. And that was the sort of moment we had a few weeks ago. God, we trust you. And at that moment I felt God ask a very specific question. And he said, really, in every area of your life, all matters. Do you trust me? And there was one that he particularly put his finger on for us, for us as a couple and as a family, but also for us as a church.
Speaker 0 00:02:42 And it was this area. Do you trust me with money, finance? Do you really trust me with your needs, your situation, your circumstances? Do you really trust me because trust, you know when I get in a car with somebody who's driving me, I can't say, well, I trust you to take me down the hills, but not up the hills. You know, I'm in the car. I have to go where they're taking me. And if I don't trust them, I don't get in for any of the journey. And the same is true with God. Now we are saved by faith. We are saved not by works. None of us earn the love and the affections and the care and the interest and the salvation of God. We are saved by faith alone in Christ Jesus. This is not about our salvation today, but this is about the depths of our relationship with him to know that we can trust him in all matters.
Speaker 0 00:03:52 Jesus spoke quite a lot about finance. He spoke in fact of the 39 parables that Jesus referred to in the gospels, 11 of them involved money and finances. Now they weren't all focused on the subject of finance, but Jesus wasn't shy about talking about issues of money. He said things like this where your treasure is there will your heart be also? And this morning, in these next few moments, I've got what I hope will be a really practical talk, a really empowering talk, not a, not something that's going to make people feel awkward or condemned, but an empower and redemptive healing, purposeful. Talk about how we can trust God. But I also am aware that this is a sensitive subject because in this room there'll be people that your financial situation is going well, even with all the torque of the difficulties of finance in our nation and many nations of the world, that that maybe for you it's going really well.
Speaker 0 00:05:06 Maybe you've got a whole string of assets, maybe you've got some wonderful investments. Maybe there are some great accumulators of finance that are doing well for you. And it's okay. And I'm aware that those people may be in the room, but I'm also aware there may be others in the room that for you, debt is a major issue. You a a, a drowning in a sea of debt, trying to work out how you're gonna put the food on the table for the next day is a constant challenge. The end of the month doesn't come around quick enough. And I'm aware that there's such a dichotomy of circumstances, such a spectrum of situations that people in this room and online will be experiencing today. And it's my prayer and my hope and my conviction is that God wants to speak into all of them. That his word is relevant to all of us no matter what's going on in our life and particularly relevant in the areas of finance because finance is more than how we pay our bills.
Speaker 0 00:06:11 Money is more than that. And we are gonna look at some of those things together. There are various sensitivities and complexities in this subject, but I want you to hear these words. Jesus can be trusted, amen. In all matters, in all situations. And there are people in this room, people part of this church who have proven time and time and time again that every matter of their life Jesus can be trusted, including financially. You see there, none of us know what tomorrow holds. And there's a quest in our world for financial security. I want you to hear these words. Financial security does not exist.
Speaker 0 00:07:05 It does not exist You, you can create an environment where it feels like you are financially secure. But let's think of the last 30 years. Let's think of pension funds that have gone. You know they have gone down pension funds that people put their entire investments into and they didn't survive. People have lost their future security housing markets. They go up and they go down. Jobs can be secure one year and insecure the next that there's nothing in this world that's secure. There's nothing in this world that is able to promise you a rock that you can stand on. The only rock that you can stand on is an eternal rock and his name is Jesus. If your security is built on anything else, it is very, very shaky ground. Jesus is the only firm rock. And as we look at this subject, we will challenge some of the status quos of the world or some of the wisdoms of the world because whenever Jesus spoke into society, he spoke about a kingdom that was not of this world and the kingdom that's not of this world has a different level of wisdoms.
Speaker 0 00:08:31 Jesus came and revealed to people things that caused their jaws to drop because it was so different from the wisdoms of society. And some of the things the Bible teaches about finance are different to the wisdoms of the world. This this morning is not about getting rich quick. In fact, if your obsession is about getting rich quick, you are very vulnerable because there are plenty of people and organizations in this world that will exploit your desire to get rich quick. The people who will get rich quick are the ones who are exploiting you, not you who are paying them the franchise to take out the deal of the sanctuary. If it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.
Speaker 0 00:09:25 This is not about how you can bring an abundance of riches into your life. This is about how we can steward and oriented our lives to a kingdom economy, to know the hand of the Lord and our hand in his and knowing that we can trust him in all matters at all seasons, at all times. So in these next few moments, I'm gonna share some kingdom principles and some kingdom or some practical ideals as ways of working that out. I won't touch everything today. We will keep coming back to this topic a few times because I believe that the level of the enemy's infiltration into the hearts of the people of God is so significant that we are gonna have to keep coming back to this to help you find a redemptive journey into a place of peace and wholeness and wellbeing in the Lord.
Speaker 0 00:10:22 And this is a very gracious thing that the Lord is doing. This is a very timely moment. You might say, mark, why last week while we praying for people to be baptized in the spirit, and there were many people over our two services last week, there were people who got saved and were baptized in the spirit and spoken tongues. There were numerous people last week in that situation. Mark, why are we gone from something that were so Pentecostal, so spirit filled to something that's so practical because there is no division of these issues. They all matter. That's right. And the burden and the experiences that you are facing. God doesn't just want us to speak in tongues. He wants us to live free. He wants us to live victorious. And if your bank statements keep telling you that you are unable to live free, then that will keep you from stepping into the purposes of God.
Speaker 0 00:11:21 So we are gonna look at some kingdom principles and some biblical wisdoms around finances and I believe these principles will work for everyone. We are also gonna look at some ideals that may be a million miles from where you are, but I believe these ideals can be worked towards and attained with a strategy. Okay, let's look at some principles together. Number one, everything belongs to God. Everything, everything belongs to him. Psalm 24, verse one says, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. You might think that God is just agricultural because apparently he owns a cattle on a thousand HILs. Well, he has more than cattle. He owns the hills, he owns the machinery. He owns everything in the world and everything has been entrusted to us not to own but to look after, to steward everything belongs to the Lord. Every single penny that you have in your life belongs to the Lord. Your clothes in your wardrobe belong to the Lord. Your car belongs to the higher purchase company, <laugh> to the Lord. Everything about our lives were a designed intended that the saints reflect what they have as this is our worship and our dedication to the Lord.
Speaker 0 00:13:17 We're not meant to just bring our songs on a Sunday. We're meant to bring our bank statements in prayer to the Lord and say, God, I thank you for what you've entrusted to me. It all belongs to him. Second principle, Jesus said there is a higher goal that each of us should be committed to seeking a higher goal than financial stability or a higher goal than paying your bills or a higher goal than retiring in your fifties. There should be a higher purpose and a higher goal in all our lives. In Matthew six, verse 33, Jesus says these words, but seek first the kingdom of God first and all these other things will be added onto you. You know what I was saying about the dichotomy of our words and our reality? The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but power. Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God.
Speaker 0 00:14:16 Amen. Just think about how hard some of you are working in order to seek financial stability. How hard are you working to pay off the mortgage? How hard are you working to create enough income to get through in the month? And Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God. There's a priority that the kingdom that goes way beyond the wisdoms of this world. Thirdly, sort of linked to the first one, but this sort of clarifies it a bit further, is that we're called to be stewards and not owners. One of our values here in the church is that we don't own anything. People sometimes say to me, mark, we hear things are going well in your church. And I look at them and say, I haven't got one, I haven't got a church. This is the Lord's Church. I'm just called to be his understudy to serve him and to serve his purposes. That's why I'm here. That's what God's called all of us. This is not our church, it's his church and we're called to be stewards. Faithful stewards, not self-focused owners. Fourthly, God models and celebrates generosity.
Speaker 0 00:15:32 One of the greatest joys of being a parent are those moments when you see your kids picking up some things that they've picked up from you. Sometimes it's horrible to see, but sometimes it's wonderful to see and God is looking for his people to be like him. He is a generous God and because he is a generous God, he calls his people to be a generous people. Proverbs 11, verse 24 25 says One person gives freely, yet gains even more another with hold and duly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Speaker 0 00:16:31 That doesn't work. The economies of this world that we keep, we keep holding in really tightly cuz we need to pay, we need to save or we need to create security. And we hold in very tightly. And yet this proverb says Those who withhold unduly, that it evaporates, it goes, there's something in the economy of God about generosity that captures his ways. And what happens is God says, I can trust them with stuff. I can trust that they're gonna be like me with stuff that I entrust to them to steward. I love the way it puts it. In two Corinthians nine it says of you, you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion you and I will be enriched so we can be generous. There's something very key about the generosity of God. Fifth principle, this world loves money, but God's people are called to militantly.
Speaker 0 00:17:49 Resist such an affection and love. One Timothy six, verse 10 says, for the love of money is the roots of all or is the roots of all kinds of evil, the love of money. Some people it says eager for money have wandered from the faith and they've pierced themselves with many griefs. You remember the story that Jesus told of the soul and the seed. You remember some of how that seed grew and it blossomed and it went into a harvest. But there were other seeds. They were the same seeds, they had the same possibilities, the same opportunities, but they were strangled up by what? By the cares And the worries of this world, the cares and the worries of your Monday and your Tuesday and your Wednesday and your Thursday and your Friday and your Saturday and your Sunday are powerful tools of the enemy to strangle and steal the potential of what God has placed in our lives.
Speaker 0 00:19:03 And the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Six. Our relationship with money goes very deep. Psychologists have done quite a bit of analysis around our relationship with money. They found that actually there are all sorts of emotions that we attach to money that drive our behavior. It goes deep. This is not just about a simple spreadsheet equation of can I afford it? Can't I afford it? There's something deeper that happens in our life. And one of the reasons why Jesus spoke so often about money was because by exposing the issue of money, he was able to reveal the issues that go deep into a person's life. That it's in their hearts. Yeah. So God didn't need to talk about money. He needed to talk about lives and about how money had captivated their lives. It become their security, it had become their strength, but there were all sorts of other deep emotional things taking place. They say that the most important emotions in relation to money are these fear. Fear produces all sorts of strategies about people's finances. Fear. How many of you believe that fear should be a factor in the decisions that you and I make about our finances as followers of of Jesus?
Speaker 0 00:20:49 No. Perfect love cast out fear. Fear was never designed to be something that would be the purpose or the motivation behind our handling of financial issues. Another strong emotion regarding money is guilt. Guilt plays a strong part in people's emotions and thought processes. Coupled with that, there's shame. And here's another one, when I grew up in Wales, they'd often say about keeping up with the Joneses cuz everyone's called Jones in Wales. But there's envy. There's that sense of keeping up with the appearances of the world around us, of allowing jealousy to capture our hearts, of seeing the lane that someone else is running in and thinking, I wish we had that. There are people in this room that will have overextended themselves because the prime motive is not the will and the purpose of God or because you seek in first the kingdom of God or because the wisdom of the Holy Spirit has spoken to you. The driver behind our circumstances often is we're trying to match our situation to someone else.
Speaker 0 00:22:13 When you think about some of the things we do in life, some of the things that captivate us, you know, why are people buying the new iPhone? Why do they queue up in the early hours of the morning to get this new bit of technology? Is it because the previous version they're going, oh it doesn't do anything. I can't get it to work. It's broken. Very rarely is that the reason because apparently the phone that they already had is able to do far more than they know what to do with it anyway. That's not the reason. Sometimes there's a a novelty, sometimes there's a sense of wanna be first. Sometimes there's a sense of wanting the gasps of, oh you got a new phone. Wow, what's it like? There's all sorts of reasons and advertisers know this and they know they don't sell you the product, they sell you an emotion.
Speaker 0 00:23:17 And it's the emotion that draws us in. Many of our financial decisions are made on emotion and the kingdom says there's a better way, but there's another one as part of this money goes deep and that is our family and childhood influences. They seem to stick with us for a long time. I read a story of a lady that was on mega bucks, she had a good career, she had worked her way up the Korea ladder and she was earning around $700,000 a year dollars because she was in the US $700,000. I wonder what you could do with $700,000 a year right now. I need to work to bring some of you back into the room cuz you're already thinking you've decided. Well the amazing thing about this story was this lady was broke and she sat down with some people who were trying to help her in the church that she went to.
Speaker 0 00:24:29 She was a Christian, she was a follower of Jesus and there was a as as she began to talk about her income levels, she was living on her own in a, in a relatively small flat. They said, how are you broke? And then some story came out as she was growing up in her home, she grew up in a very needy home. And there were situations when somebody would give her some birthday money. An auntie or a grandmother would give her some birthday money. And so she would take into a room and be delighted with this gift that she'd received. But because of some addictions in her parents, as soon as she had it, they'd go into her room and they'd take it from her.
Speaker 0 00:25:23 So she'd never experienced what it was like to hold onto money. And so she had developed this subconscious way of responding and living that as soon as she had it, she had to get rid of it before someone else took it off her. The issue wasn't a financial issue, the issue was a healing issue of the heart. The issue was a transformation by the renewing of her mind. The issue wasn't financial, the issue was discipleship finance and our relationship with money goes deeper and that's why Jesus spoke on it. Now I'm gonna just touch on some ideals. We're not gonna land everything today, but I'm just gonna just bring this as a topic to a place where hopefully we can feel confident that we can begin to work out our process of putting our trust in the Lord with our finances. Ideal one, in and out.
Speaker 0 00:26:27 If you've ever read the book The Challenging, the Deeply profound challenging book, the Intercessor by Reese Howells, it's a powerful book. This man lived a grew up in South Wales and he lived this sacrificial life of trusting God for everything. He wasn't born that way. He was coached by the Holy Spirit to live that way. And there were some principles he had in his life and that was he wouldn't accept any money coming into his life without the approval of the Spirit. And he wouldn't spend it without the approval of the spirit. God is as interested at what comes in as He is what goes out because the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. He always remember years ago, right now, bonk telling a story about being offered some finance, a large sum of money to fund one of his projects. It would've fixed a crisis and a need that they had in the organization. It was in the millions. And he felt the spirit say, don't accept it. Don't accept it because God is interested in the ins and the outs.
Speaker 0 00:27:46 Now you might think to account for every penny before the Lord and to invite his oversight and his input and his financial advice on every penny of our lives might feel a bit over the top, but God is interested in the most minded detail of our lives. Even the pennies. I wonder what extraction of a principle we can draw from this or an ideal. I wonder if it could be this. How can we involve God in our finances? You might say, well he's only interested in part of it, he's only interested in 10%. And we'll look at that in a moment, but no, no, no, no, no, no. That it's, it's all his.
Speaker 0 00:28:36 And I believe in this redemptive whisper of the spirit where he's saying, you can trust me. I'm the best financial advisor and coach you will ever have. I'm the most loving, insightful, deeply understand father you will ever know. I understand those calls on your emotion. I understand the way you have been framed by our society. I understand it and I am with you and I want to help you. Secondly, debt. Now the Bible doesn't actually say that debt is sinful or evil. If it did, none of us would've a mortgage. None of us, you know, would engage in in that in any level. But it, it also doesn't say that debt is something to be celebrated.
Speaker 0 00:29:35 And of course there are various levels. You get a mortgage on a house and your asset is worth more than the amount you borrowing and the interest payments are usually fairly low and the asset increases in value over time and so on. And we get that. I'm not here to be a financial advisor this morning for you. I've made lots of mistakes in our finances personally. I've bought housing, I bought a house that depreciated and went into negative equity and we ended up selling it for half of what we owed on it. I've made some clangers in my life, but I do believe that there are some principles around debt.
Speaker 0 00:30:17 Debt can mean that your subject to someone else's control over your life that you are required, you are subject to them in some way. And of course we understand in today's world that's often pay an interest payments plus back what you've borrowed. And I want to just encourage you this, it's good to create a strategy to get out of debt. It's a good thing to do. And I wanna talk about just for the next few months, some various strategies. And I want to tell you the worst one, listen really carefully to this one. If you are struggling with form of debt in your life, listen to this really carefully cuz this is the worst strategy that you could involve. And it's called bury your head in the sand. It's a strategy that has never worked in history, never. And it will never work. Ignoring the statements that come through the door, ignoring the phone calls, ignoring the need, ignoring the accumulation of that doesn't resolve anything. It is not a strategy.
Speaker 0 00:31:32 And you see, God wants us to love him, to know him, to worship him, to celebrate him, to share our faith with our friends, but he also wants us to live free. He also doesn't want the things of this world to hold you. He called us out of Egypt not to carry the chains of Egypt, but to live free from them. He didn't just call us to leave from one kingdom to the next. He called us to step into the principles and the joys of a new kingdom. Burying your head a strategy, as I said, I'm not a financial advisor, but I've just looked at various strategies that people propose. First one that most of them agree with is this list all of your debts, all of them. List them from the smallest to the biggest. Make sure that there's nothing forgotten, left out or hidden.
Speaker 0 00:32:29 Nothing that your embarrassment causes you to not add to the page. Bring everything, bring it. And as horrible as it seems and as deeply shameful as it might feel for you to list all of that on a bit of paper, I guarantee you the redemption of what can come from it is far greater than the moment of shame. You will feel. Amen. There is forgiveness. The other side of repentance, sometimes we have to acknowledge our need before we find the answers fully. So list them all from the smallest to the largest. Now there are various strategies about how people do this. Then some say you tackle maybe those that have got the highest interest payments first and you make a concerted effort to try to reduce the, to just increase your payments, to reduce your debts down. Dave Ramsey in the states who talks a lot on finance, he says the easiest one to go for is the smallest one on your list.
Speaker 0 00:33:29 Target every spare bit of money you can at that smallest one so you can get rid of it. And then when you've cleared that one, all the money that you were putting onto that one, then put it onto the next one and keep working your way through. He calls it a snowball effect. Keep paying it off. Now you might say, well the reason I'm in debt is I don't have enough money every month to pay for our needs and that's how I've accumulated this debt. So how am I gonna put any extra payments to things? Well if you feel that that's a statement of your circumstance and your situation, I wanna strongly urge you to get some help. There are brilliant organizations out there. Christians Against Poverty is a wonderful organization. I had a call with the founder of that John Kirkby this week and he started that off many years ago.
Speaker 0 00:34:22 And it has literally helped hundreds of thousands of people out of debt. And by the way, many of them have given their lives to Jesus in the process as well. So powerful mission organization cuz there are people on the doorsteps out here. People who need to hear that message are just been brought, but they're also drowning in the in the cares and the worries of this world. Get some help contact, go onto Christians against Poverty website, see if you can get an appointment. Call local citizen advice bureau, type in, you know, debt help into Google and there will be organizations that you can access but do not bury your head in the sand. But there are some ways that you might be able to think about that might help you to create some extra money that you can go into paying off your debts. And that is to look at your expenditure and see if there's some things that you're spending on that you don't need to spend on. For example, if you buy two large lattes a week at a famous coffee chain over a year, that costs you 416 pounds. That's a lot of coffee, but it just feels like three four pound at the time your Netflix subscription 131 pound a year.
Speaker 0 00:35:45 Now I know everyone in the room's tee total, but if you buy an average bottle of wine per week, <laugh> 415 pound a year, this one's fascinating. If you don't make yourself sandwiches in the morning and you always go to Tesco and buy a meal deal, 910 pound a year, just those four simple things, 2000 pound a year. It's amazing how these small amounts accumulate and make a difference. And you think, well what am I gonna eat? What am I gonna drink? What am I gonna watch? <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:36:24 Come to Alpha, get some food there, <laugh>, come to prayer, meet and seek the kingdom of God First <laugh>, did you really need that car upgrade? Did you really need that phone upgrade? Is it your emotions telling you that you do or do you really need it? Because it's so easy to get this credit, it's so easy to dig up the contracts. It's so easy, it's only an extra 10 pound a month, but it all mounts up. And so next ideal is create and stick to a budget put on the screen 10, 10 80. There are different ways people do this, but I think this is a fairly good principle. Save 10%, tie 10% live on 80%. Now there are various modifications of that I've, I've met some people in my time that they make it their goal to tithe 90% and live on 10%. Think Rick Warren who wrote Purpose-Driven Life, that book was one of the biggest selling books in the world. And he, in his own acknowledgement, it was not the best but it's a good book. It's a helpful book. But he had so much income come from it that he paid back his church 15 years worth of salary and decided that he was gonna tithe 90%.
Speaker 0 00:37:49 There are various ways of modifying this and I'm not really gonna go massively into the detail of tithing this week. There's lots of questions around this. If you're in debt, do you tithe? There's lots of questions around if you've got a non-Christian husband or wife. Do you ti there's lows, we can we'll look at this in the weeks ahead. Okay, we're gonna get really practical. But one thing I do believe people who tell me that tithing is an Old Testament principle and we live free from the Old Testament laws today. My question is then, okay well the New Testament principle is that everything is the Lords. Yeah. So can you tell me what it looks like in your life to give everything to the Lord seekers? I believe 10% is a starting place. One of the joys, Nier and I just a few days ago sat down and said, and just looked at how much we'd given away over the last month. And it was a joy for us. Think yeah, what a blessing that has been. Because the Lord doesn't love giver. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, someone who rejoices him. This is a privilege to do this.
Speaker 0 00:38:56 And you see, when fear is part of our narrative, fear makes us hold on and perfect love, cast out fear. See I hope this is being heard this morning as more than a talk on finance. This is, this is discipleship, this is the heart of God for his people to live free. Mark you saying if I give, God will bless me with more stuff. If that's your question, you're asking the wrong question. The Lord has already given me more than I ever deserve. And it is my joy to give him whatever I can in return. I don't give to get. Although I do believe the Lord will cause you to prosper so that you can be generous on every occasion. But creating and sticking to a budget is important. Make decisions in advance, not just when you feel like it. One of the things that we've done is that we've got various ways that we give in the church, but there's an app that we've got called Gift.
Speaker 0 00:39:55 And one of the things I like about the app is that every month I go on and I choose how much I'm given. So it's not like a standing order that just goes out the account. Nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, you know, standing orders they can end up not being addressed for like five years and your salary's doubled cuz it just feels like another bill going out given to God is never a bill. It's never a duty, it's never a law. It's always a joy and a privilege. And I love every month just going into the app and typing in the amounts in because it's a privilege and a joy. But we create a budget stick to it. I remember our first holiday we have had, when we went to Lanzaro and uh, neither of us had ever been abroad before and we'd been married for three years and we'd saved up for this holiday.
Speaker 0 00:40:46 It was a delayed honeymoon. And uh, we'd go to Lanzaro and it was just beautiful. We loved it. But I, I remember back in those days, you know, we didn't have, there was no credit cards, there was the, the, you know, banking you never knew when you went overseas, whether you a card was gonna be accepted. So we took all cash and we had an envelope for every day of the holiday <laugh>. We divided the cash into every day. And I remember had a file of facts and every day had a new envelope in there for that day's spend. If I underspend one day you could roll forward and we'd have, hey, you know, we can have ketchup on our chips tonight. <laugh>. You know, it just, it was so easy to manage and it's really challenging today in our digital age. Yeah, because you can use your card and your account goes into overdraft or hand a credit card over and it feels inconsequential but it always has a consequence.
Speaker 0 00:41:51 Just recently, um, neither and I as well as our sort of main bank account, we've also started one of these new accounts where you can create, I know some of you do it, you create spaces and they're like multiple accounts within the accountant. We just move money. In fact we've got week one as one of our spaces and we have our food money and our spending money in week one and week two we have our food money and at the beginning of every month we put it, it's like our envelopes. It's like our organization of this and we know when we've spent it and we know when we've got some leftover and he makes such a difference. And every penny is the Lords budgeting is a really important part of that. And then let me just bring this well known scripture to us from Malachi three.
Speaker 0 00:42:56 This Old Testament principle, that's not a law, it's not a decider whether your salvation is secure, it's not admittance into partnership in the church. In fact, I don't know what anybody gives in the church. So this is, you might all you know be given 90% for all I know, but I think this is a kind way that the Lord invites us to partner with him says, bring the full 10th into the storehouse so there may be food in my house. Test me in this way, says the Lord of armies. That's an interesting terminology and it test me in this. Didn't Jesus say when the enemy tempted him, they shall not test the Lord you God. But yeah, God is saying, test me. See if I'm faithful, see if I'm trustworthy, see if you can trust me. And he goes on to say, see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure, I will rebuke the devour for you so that it will not ruin the produce of your land. And the vine of your field will not fail to produce fruit, says the Lord of armies. I love it in that scripture he's called the Lord of armies. It's like he's got the whole forces of heaven on this to ensure that this test is proven.
Speaker 0 00:44:38 I often find that God invites us to do something as an expression of trust. He said to the man on the mat, get up, pick up your mat and walk. I don't know whether the man felt his muscles strengthen when he was laying on the floor, but he knew when he got up that the miracle had happened. I don't know when the miracle happens. And in some ways, you know, what I find is that because you budget that there's a better use of wisdoms around your life. There's a better understanding, there's better control. There's, there's less waste. But there is also a trust in the Lord. Just one final story to conclude. Nita and I have often, we've had, um, moments in our life when we, I remember one and some of you might have heard me tell this story, when we had a really busy, difficult season in ministry and we really felt like we needed a holiday.
Speaker 0 00:45:52 And it was one of those times when, you know, you were cut out all of the Starbucks coffees, you'd cut out all of the meal deals and, and there were still nothing really left over. And at the same time, the church that we were involved in leading, we'd had a building fund and we had nothing to give to it, but we created an opportunity for people to put pledges into the building fund. So we prayed and we felt to write on this pledge and to submit it, no one was gonna chase us and say, Hey, you pledged this amount, but before God we pledged it cuz all of our giving is towards God. And we submitted it, no idea how we were gonna do it.
Speaker 0 00:46:36 And then a few weeks later we get an envelope come through our door with a stamp on it, come through the post. But it was an anonymous check. It was those days where you get banker's draft checks and you didn't know who had written it. And this check was in this envelope. We opened it up and all it had typed inside as well as the check was a little anonymous note and it said, enjoy a holiday. Wow God, you know. But there was a real challenge because the amount on that check was enough to pay for our pledge.
Speaker 0 00:47:19 In fact, it was difficult cause we didn't know who'd given the check. So we couldn't go to 'em and say, Hey, I know you wanted us to have a holiday, but we've made this commitment before God can we use this money as to fulfill our pledge. God has provided praise the Lord. We didn't know who to speak to. So we made a decision we were gonna use the money to fulfill the pledge and buy a tent <laugh> with a little bit that was left over. So that's what we did, fulfilled our pledge. We were rejoicing and we bought a tent and we won camping. Liter camping. Okay, no hair dryers, camping. We had a wonderful experience. It was lovely. Wasn't one of the camping experiences where we got wind swept off the site. It was a decent camping experience in Wales, which is a miracle of no rain. It was a sunshine, it was beautiful.
Speaker 0 00:48:17 But let me tell you what happened. It didn't really satisfy that sense of we need a break. And one day Nita was by the kitchen saying a home. During washing up, I was in the office at church and Nita in desperation said, God, we really need a break. We're tired, we need a break. And then I get an email from the West Midland Safari Park, the Westland Safari Park's in a place called Butley in the West Midlands, funny enough, hence the name Westin Safari Park. And when you went to the Westin Safari Park, they at that time gave you a ticket and said, if you complete the back of this ticket, you can return for free.
Speaker 0 00:49:10 So you get two visits for price. So one, all you had to do was on this little box you had to write down I love Westman's Safari Park because, and then write something in. So on the way to our return visit, we just quickly find a pen in the car and we just quickly scribble something down, hand it in and we're back in for our second visit. Drive around the Westman safari, have a wonderful day, go forward a few months, need us in the home saying God need a break. I get an email and the email says, we're from the Westman Safari Park and you have been shortlisted to win a safari. Now I thought it was gonna be one of my mates winding me up, <laugh> that when I phoned the number and asked a Mr. C Lion or something like that, you know, <laugh>, that it is gonna, ah, I got you, I got you.
Speaker 0 00:49:57 So I phoned, I said, I've had this really weird email. So I phoned up, she said, go for it. Give it a try. What's the worst that can happen? And they said, yeah, yeah, Mr. Pugh, you've, you've been sure listed you and your wife and we'd like to invite you for Sunday their lunch. So everyone said, it's timeshare, you're gonna be sold a timeshare. So we think well make a trial. They want me, I haven't got any money, so we're not gonna buy anything from them. So we go and have this meal. We expected there to be a room full of people, people being preyed upon for timeshares. But it was just me and Nita and the owner and his wife. And we had a lovely meal with him for a couple of hours. And then I saw him nod to the waiter and the waiter went into a side room and he came out with this big a one poster that said winners of a holiday of a lifetime. Mark Anita Pugh. We had a 12 day safari in Namibia. We had four private flights internally in the country. We stopped in the same place that Jennifer Lopez stayed the previous year. No exaggeration.
Speaker 0 00:51:10 And it was like, look what the Lord has done.
