The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The Healing Word ministry on One Place is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the Word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Why is it that we doubt him in that area because if we truly believed that he's going to bless us if we handle our money and our finances according to his will, if we truly believed that, we would do it because we would get the blessing? But we don't do it because we think that it's not going to work in that area.

His promises work in every other area. I can pray for my children. I can pray for my parents. I can pray for my health. I can pray about everything. But when it comes to money, the Lord just must have missed it. And yet he had more to say about that than any other one subject.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word, a ministry dedicated to offering strength and encouragement through God's Word for anyone facing life's challenges. As believers, we want to serve God and walk in his will, though the path isn't always easy. Today's message is here to meet you at your point of need, bringing hope and renewing your faith. Now, here's Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: I want you to know, and I think you do, that God desires to bless you, you his people, in every way: physically, spiritually, financially. God is a God of blessing. Now notice in Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse eighteen, "But remember." We must remember and thank God. Thanksgiving is just right here, the date on the calendar I'm referring to, but thanksgiving is always for the child of God.

And we're to remember, but sometimes we forget. I remember one time we were in a restaurant, Corinne and I, and a couple was seated at the same table. Everybody was seated around a table, there were a number of couples. Corinne and I bowed and we gave thanks for the food. And then this other couple, I looked over and they were praying. And then I leaned over, they were next to us, and I mentioned to them, I said, "I noticed that you're being grateful and giving thanks." And the lady spoke up and she said, "Yes, if we're not thankful for what we already have, why should God give us anything else?" I thought, wow, what a sermon. That's all right, lady. Amen. Let's take an offering. No, I didn't go that far.

But God wants to bless. He's a God of blessing. And you and I are body, soul, and spirit. God wants to bless us physically. He wants to bless us in our soul. He wants to bless us in our spirit and prosper us in every way. That's what I'm going to be talking about today, but this is the difficulty. Many of God's people, they're Christians all day long, but they're living beneath the blessing and the privilege that God has for them.

God has so much for us. Not everyone is, but if you're not receiving all that God has for you, hopefully you'll be notified by the Holy Spirit that there's more for you, that you enter in and receive that blessing that God has for you. He is our Father, that's his name, and our Father wants to be a dad to us and bless us and give us the inheritance that's ours. But we're not ready to receive it, at least some of us aren't. Hopefully today, we're going to see how we can move into receiving this blessing.

Mainly the blessing I'm going to refer today has to do with finances. All year long, I talk about the blessing of God spiritually, how God wants to help us, and he does. Very seldom do I preach an entire sermon on finances. But finances is part of the blessing that God has, and he desires to give it, and we need to be in that place and he's going to lead us by Scripture to that place where the glory of God will come upon us and we will be blessed financially.

Now money is important. Wouldn't you say so? It's pretty important. We can't hardly live without it, could we? No. We handle it every day. If there's anything that we touch with our fingers every day, many times during the day, it's money. Boy, if we'd only touch the Bible. Well, I won't go there right now. But we touch money all the time and the Bible has a lot to say about money. If you're in a supermarket, there are a few people around or you're at a bus stop and there are a few people, you don't have to call out loud, but if you just in a conversational tone say money, every head will turn and look at you. Money captures our attention, doesn't it?

Money predates the writing of history. It goes back some three thousand years ago, money came into being. And the first attempt at money as exchange was the bartering system. Before there were paper money and coins, somebody would come with a sack of grain and trade this sack of grain for something else, or they'd come with a cow and they'd trade. And then it moved on to becoming a money clay coins and then from there copper coins. And so the history of the progression of the development of money is very sketchy because it predates history, the writing of history as a meeting minimum of exchange.

But as I said, money is essential and you agreed to that. Do you know Jesus had more to say about money, now listen to this, he had more to say about money than he did about the subject of heaven and the subject of hell combined in the New Testament. So if the church is going to preach the gospel, all the gospel, if Jesus gave such emphasis to it, why did he do that? Because of the emotional impact that money has on our lives.

We are moved by emotion and we are moved by the emotion of money. Mention money, you've got our attention. It's an emotional subject. USA Today snapshots did a research and they found out that money is the top priority of the American people: our jobs, our income, our retirement, our savings, our investment. We spend more time in that area of our life than in any other area of our life.

Northwestern Mutual says that money is the biggest source of stress. People worry about money, concerned about money, finances. So Jesus took that subject on and he dealt with it very clearly. And if we follow what Jesus tells us about money and how to use it, then we're going to be blessed financially because money that Jesus talked about is also the inspired, infallible word of God. But most, well, I won't say most, many people aren't paying attention to that part.

Now we'll pay attention to other things that Jesus says and we'll listen to all the promises that he makes. But when it comes to telling us that he's going to bless us if we do the right thing by money, that part we seem to put aside. Why is it that we doubt him in that area because if we truly believed that he's going to bless us if we handle our money and our finances according to his will, if we truly believed that, we would do it because we would get the blessing? But we don't do it because we think that it's not going to work in that area. His promises work in every other area. I can pray for my children, I can pray for my parents, I can pray for my health, I can pray about everything. But when it comes to money, the Lord just must have missed it and yet he had more to say about that than any other one subject.

Wouldn't you like to hear what the Bible has to say about it, particularly what Jesus has to say about it? We need a plan. We need a financial breakthrough. We need a biblical Bible breakthrough. Do you know couples have more conflict over money than any other concern or subject? They do. When they have a conflict in that area, that conflict then goes into all other areas of their life and even including their sex life. You can't have an argument in this area and have a blessing in that area. It just doesn't work.

So the Lord wants to help couples. Now let me just briefly tell you why couples are having problems in that area. Because they don't communicate with each other about their money. They don't talk about it. One man and a couple came to me some time ago and the wife said they were having conflict in their home. I said, "What's it all about?" He came home one day and drove in the driveway with a Lincoln Continental and got out of the car, walked in the house, and said, "Hey, look what I bought."

She looked out the window, she said, "You didn't talk to me about that. We can't afford that right now. We have these other bills that we're behind on and we've just added another bill, a big bill, a bill of thousands of dollars." So if couples only communicated, they would resolve a lot of difficulty concerning finances. But this is the area of conflict for couples.

Well, how about middle-aged people? Middle-aged people are working hard trying to get ahead, get a promotion, get enough money put away, get ready for retirement. They're at a breakneck speed getting ready for something that is up ahead. Well, they're wise to prepare for the future. But when it takes so much time and energy and concern and it breeds conflict. Well, what about the senior citizens? Many of them are on a limited income and they just don't have enough money to live as comfortably as they lived at one time, but there's nothing they can do about it. It's stressful.

So whether it's young couples, middle-aged, or senior citizen, money occupies top priority in our thinking. What does Jesus have to say about it? How can Jesus help us? Friend, God give us ears to hear and know this, that what Jesus says about money is something we know that he will hear us if we confess our sins. We know that he will bless us and forgive our sins. Why? He says he would and he does. But when it comes to money, I just don't believe that he's going to bless like he says he's going to bless. You wouldn't say that, I wouldn't say that, but because we don't obey him in that area, we don't believe he's going to come across in that area. He'll come across in all other areas, but there's a section of the Bible we might want to just take our scissors and cut out, at least cut out of our thinking and yet all the while go right on worrying and having conflict. And the Lord has the answer.

We need a prayer and that prayer must include two things: prayer and Scripture. Now when we pray about our finances, at that moment we are shifting part of the burden from ourselves onto the Lord and immediately we have a degree of comfort because we've shifted part of the burden onto the Lord. Secondly, when we pray, God will give us insights, practical actions and activity that will help us in the area. And things that we see that we could do, we don't see it until the Lord opens our eyes to it. And we need to include Scripture. Yes, we need a breakthrough.

Okay, here we go. The first thing we need to realize is that we are stewards, that God owns everything: even the money you have in your purse and in your wallet and in the bank and in investment. He has it all. You're going to leave it one of these days. You're going to stand before him and there's going to be some embarrassing Christians at that moment. Not that you're not going to go to heaven, I think you will. But when you're going to face the Lord and the Lord's going to say, "There is an area that you ignored and you didn't believe and I wanted to bless you, I wanted to help you, I wanted to make life more easy for you, and you just left me out of that area of your life. The money belongs to you, other things you'll let me have charge of."

Stewards, we are stewards, meaning that God owns everything. Let me tell you, give you an illustration. I got this from Dr. Tony Evans. He's pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas. He's born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. As a very young man, early twenties, married and he went to Dallas, Texas to go to Dallas Theological Seminary. But he needed money to pay the bills and he and his wife didn't have children at that time. And he got a job or a position caring for wealthy people's homes, their houses. They would go away on vacation or on business, and Tony and his wife would be contacted and Tony and his wife would go over and stay in that house and live like royalty for a few days until the people came back.

So they went over to this beautiful mansion and Tony picked up the phone and he called his buddies in the dorm back at the seminary and he said, "Hey fellas, I want you to come over to my pad. I want you to see where I live." And then he hung up the phone and his wife said, "Tony, you shouldn't invite people here." And Tony said, "Well, why not?" She said, "This is not our house. This isn't our house to invite people in. It belongs to somebody else."

Well, that's what a steward is. Everything you have, your health, your strength, your breath, but today in particularly, that area that we may have been ignoring, our finances. Everything belongs to God. Now notice what it says in Deuteronomy 8:18, "But remember the Lord your God, for he it is who gives you the ability to produce wealth." God wants you to produce wealth, but you have to obey him and do it his way and the blessing will come.

It's just like a farmer going out into the field in the spring and planting a crop. The farmer can't say, "Hey, I'm not going to do it in the spring. I'm going to plant in the fall." It's not going to come up. But if you obey the laws of nature, you're going to get a harvest. And so it is spiritually speaking when we obey the laws of God and God put these laws down and he makes them very easy: just do it and watch what happens if you do it as worship unto the Lord. But we just don't seem to get the point.

There's a story about a young man, well-off. He wanted to give his dad an exotic gift for Father's Day. His dad was well-off. His dad even had more possessions and money than the son had, but the son was very well-off. And so the young man thought, "What can I give my dad? Very exotic. He has everything." So he found this pole parrot, the son did. And the pole parrot could speak five languages. Do you believe that? Well, it's not true. This is just a joke. The pole parrot could speak five languages and could stand on one leg and sing "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

So the young man bought that, had it sent over to his dad. Next day he called his dad and he said, "Dad, how did you like the pole parrot?" The dad said, "It was delicious." He just didn't get the point.

The Scripture tells us the words of Jesus in Luke chapter nineteen. Now listen, Jesus is talking. But there's some talk that came from Jesus you don't think it applies to you. But the Bible is the inspired, infallible word of God. Jesus tells the story in Luke nineteen of a nobleman who's going to take a journey and he has ten servants and he's going to leave the ten servants in charge of his house and his property. It's like Tony Evans and his wife in charge of the beautiful house there in Dallas.

And so the nobleman said, "Look, I'm going to go away, but I'm going to give you three months, every one of you, all ten of you, three months' wages and I want you to invest this money while I'm away." Hey, Jesus is talking about money. "I want you to invest this, I want you to put this money to work for me while I'm away. I'm going to go away and the Congress is going to make me king, crown me king. I'm going to go to that ceremony and then I'm going to come back. I'm going to return. I'm going to see what you did with my money."

Not your money, my money. Remember, it's his air. He gave you the job and me the job to make money, to even make wealth, so that you can buy the clothes that you're wearing today, the car you're driving, the house you're living in. Well, this nobleman gave that and he went away. Well, one of the servants invested the money wisely, got a good return, a great return. The other one was a little bit slack, you know, he sort of was hit and miss with his service to the Lord and his gifts to God and to his master. And one servant didn't do anything at all. He said, "It's mine. I earned it. It's mine." God says then you keep what is yours and remain poor the rest of your life. I want to bless you with wealth, but you choose to take what I have given you, the health, the strength, the brains to do the work to get the paycheck, you've taken it all and you act as though it's yours.

So God will let you keep what's yours. But God will also let you keep what's yours and bless you with more if you do it his way according to the Scripture, according to the Bible. Well...