The Prosperity Test: Preppers, Tithers, and Givers

 The Prosperity Test: Preppers, Tithers, and Givers

-What the bible says: A few verses on how we should interact with money.

1. Luke 12:15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 

2. Phillippians 4:12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

3. Psalms 62:10 Put no trust in extortion;

set no vain hopes on robbery;

if riches increase, set not your heart on them.

4. 1 Timothy 6:17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

5. Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Be a Prepper: Prosperity is not the Goal…

Was Joseph the First Prepper? perhaps

Most of us in Western Society are pretty far removed from the economics of biblical times.  We think of prosperity as a nice house, a nice car, nice vacations, not worrying about where the money is going to come from…

-What did prosperity used to look like in biblical times? It was having enough Food to live through the winter… and enough to plant for the next spring.  I want us to have this in mind when we consider the prosperity test today.  You will be tested!  Whether you think you are prosperous or not we will ALL go through the prosperity test MANY times throughout life.

My wife and I have a pretty big garden and we are learning to store food by canning, pickling, dehydrating, fermenting, etc… We have pet chickens for the egg protein… We have emergency supplies, canned food in the basement, we discuss adding a well and solar panels… some would call us preppers… well…   

Joseph interpreted Pharoah’s dream and said, while there are 7 years of abundance and prosperity in Egypt, let’s store it up, way up, stacks on stacks, full storehouses, warehouse-cities full of grain, an entire industry of preparing for famine… Joseph was a PREPPER… perhaps this is the story of the first prepper… now if the famine never came, Joseph would have been known as a fool… and we see that with people who prepare for alien invasions and zombie apocalypses, it never comes and they are fools.  But, if you have emergency blankets in your car and get stuck in a snowstorm then you are seen as a genius… the fine line between fool and genius is what actually happens.  This is why we listen to the Holy Spirit and not the Unholy media… 

So, Joseph had actually interpreted the dream from the Lord correctly and the famine came… 

let’s read in Genesis 47, starting in verse 13

13 Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. 15 And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.” 16 And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. 18 And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. 19 Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. 21 As for the people, he made servants of them[a] from one end of Egypt to the other. 22 Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.

It looks crazy to prepare for the worst during the best of times… but it turns out that it is wisdom… it is stewardship.  Listen to the Holy Spirit and if He says it is good to store up for a rainy day because a rainy day will definitely come then do it.  Think about Noah’s Ark… it wasn’t raining when he was building the ARK, think about Joseph the weather was great, the harvests were great and he wasn’t partying and wasting it, he was storing it up.

Notice historically that the roaring twenties came right before the Great Depression.  Every time the stock market falls it is preceded by historic highs.  Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it… well history is going to repeat on it’s own… whether you have been a good steward and prepared or not…  

Don’t listen to me on this, listen to the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom is listening to the Holy Spirit.

You will have all this stored up to bless other people with.  When the famine does come, and it will come, you will have all this stored up to bless other people with.  We can talk about more than money.  Store up time with your spouse, store up reading books to your children, store up kindness to your co-workers.  There will come a time when there is a time-famine or a kindness famine or an ability to read famine… You don’t store up just to store up… store up your treasures in Heaven… every time you help people, every time you pray for people, everytime you are generous and ready to share; you are storing up treasures in Heaven.

This is biblical prepping: 1 Timothy 6:17 continued

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Prepping is not the goal and Prosperity is not the goal, it’s the test.  When the famine comes will you give?  Will you be in a position to give… to help? You will be tested.  You know, one of the most beautiful and Godly things that happens in times of need in our world is when people that are hurting and suffering themselves help others, even risking what they have left, to rescue neighbors, to check on the elderly, to rebuild for others before they rebuild for themselves.  Giving blood when there’s a tragedy, giving money to relief efforts… it goes on and on.  Christians don’t sit on their pile of treasure… we prepare so we are able to help people.

Be A Tither

Biblical Old Testament tithing is giving 10% of your income to the Lord.  We are a tithing church… hold up!  We’re talking about money and some of you just got really tightened up.  It’s ok to be talking about helping people in a crisis and it’s ok to be talking about how Joseph was a Prepper but now you’re talking about MY money!!! Well let’s slow down, we don’t want your money.

Let me say that again, we don’t want your money.

If it is YOUR money, then we don’t want it.  You see, biblical tithing is a commitment to your local church as a member of the body… you aren’t giving your money to anyone or anything… God gave you money to hold onto and use for His Glory called your income, and you are giving 10% of God’s money to your local church that you are a member of, so in many ways God is allocating 10% of the money that He gives you to you in the form of your church… now if this is not YOUR church then you definitely shouldn’t tithe to this church, you would be giving God’s money away to a place that He hasn’t told you to give it.  We don’t want YOUR money.  Also, there is no New Testament edict that it should be 10% it’s just that the word tithe means 10%.  What Jesus Himself said about tithing was in Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

What Paul says about the matter is in 2 Corinthians 9:7 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.

If you look into it further, it turns out that the tribes of Israel gave closer to 23% of everything they earned throughout the year to the Priesthood, not 10%.  We get hung up on the percentage all the time but it’s not about a law to follow.  You don’t give 10% in order to get healed or forgiven or to be part of the church.  Actually, no one here knows who gives what… we set it up that way, so we don’t know your finances at all.  We don’t know who gives 1% or 50% or whatever, we have no idea.  You don’t give to get… You get to give.

Now, why am I even talking about tithing instead of Joseph… well it’s because tithing is a crucial part of the prosperity test.  When I first got saved I was in high school, I was making $5 per hour doing plumbing and electrical work, yardwork, stacking firewood etc… and I was in school so it would only be a few hours a week, maybe 4 hours on Saturday that I end up working.  That’s $20.  So, my tithe on Sunday would be $2.  That tested me!  I only had $20 and I was giving $2! If I looked at it as my money I might say why am I giving this? I need the gas money… why can’t someone who makes a lot more than I do just give $2 instead of me Lord,?  It wouldn’t even matter to them but to me $2 was 2 gallons of gas.  So, your prosperity is tested.  Do you pass the test and give cheerfully and let the Lord renew your mind so that you see that it is His Money and ALL of it is meant to be used for the Kingdom so you are just giving some of His money back to Him for YOUR church.  So, you get older, you get a career, you start making more money.  I’m a teacher up in Old Forge and I make, before taxes and everything is taken out, $80,000.  So here’s the prosperity test. Tithe is still 10%. That’s $8000 dollars… You’re being tested!  You want to say, that’s a lot of money! Don’t you know my wife wants the bathroom renovated Lord? Don’t you know my kids want to go to college Lord? It’s not fair that I would give this much and others would give less.  Or, I could ask the Holy Spirit for the right perspective and say I get to give.  I get to be the steward of this money that the Lord has allowed me to hold onto and distribute to where He wants it and He wants this much of it to go into MY church, so I will obey the Lord cheerfully with an open hand.

Now, what if I have a sudden windfall of money in the future and a relative passes away leaving me 2 million dollars?  It’s a prosperity test.  Will I give $200,000 to the church?  We don’t give to get, we get to give.  What a blessing to be able to do that for MY church!

So, here’s what happened in the story of Joseph:  During the 7 years of famine all the people from Canaan came and bought grain that Joseph had stored up… then they ran out again and came back and sold Joseph their livestock for grain in return… then they came back and sold themselves into slavery for grain in return.  Then the famine ended and Joseph had all the Egyptians and all the Canaanites as slaves and here’s what he did:

Genesis 47:23 Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. 24 But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.”

25 “You have saved our lives,” they said. “May we find favor in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.” 26 So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh's.27 Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

So, the percentage here is 20% a double tithe.  I think that tithing is a great prosperity test and it has served my wife and I well.  I would challenge you to give it a try… but remember we don’t want YOUR money… and also, I don’t work here so I’m really not seeing any of the money anyway, and none of us will know if you're tithing or not.  It’s a prosperity test between you and the Lord.

Be a Giver

The borrower is a slave to the lender!  You can see this play out in the story of Joseph: these people did not prepare when times were good, and they ended up literally being slaves in the end.

What does this mean for us today?

-Getting out of debt: talk to Pastor Brandon about the debt snowball method.  You can talk to Darren Lallier, Isaiah Smith, Peggy Kirk, to name a few.  They would love nothing more than to see you set free from the debt in your life… 

-We endorse the Dave Ramsey Approach and teach Financial Peace University here so watch for that being offered again sometime, but if you can’t wait then let us know. 

-It’s more than getting out of debt.  Dave Ramsey’s motto is: “live like no-one else so you can give like no-one else.”   to become a hilarious giver, and I’m not talking about giving to the church, I mean supporting missionaries and children in Africa, and giving to neighbors in need… helping people who need a new roof or a bag of groceries… blessings that can be anonymous and bring no glory to you but ALL the glory to the Lord.

Conclusions

1. We don’t give in order to get… we get to give.

2. We don’t want YOUR money.

3. Budgeting, Investing, and Preparing are wise stewardship of God’s money.

4. I dare you to tithe, to give, and to be generous.