More Than Enough: Peace
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: We will have more than enough peace as we realize that God is both willing and able to supply abundantly for all of our needs as we find ourselves in Christ, orienting all of our doing around his Kingdom purposes.
Power to Produce
Promise of Provision
Posture to Receive
Power to Produce
In God’s covenant with his people, he has given us the power to produce wealth.
This means that God is willing to provide for you.
This is for the timid.
Deuteronomy 8:7-19 ESV
“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. "Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.”
Through his covenant relationship with us, God endows each of his people with creative ability to produce in this world.
This means that no matter how hard you work, what degrees or job get, income or accolades you may receive, the ultimate source of all of these things is God.
No one created in the image of God or with hopes of seeing the glory of God should ever simply be a consumer.
He gives you both the skill and the strength to produce based on the unique gifting, talents and acumen that he has entrusted to you.
This means that as you develop your gifts and talents, you will develop your ability to PRODUCE wealth.
(CNBC’s app has an inspiring section called “Make It” that can be encouraging for those looking to put their gifts and talents to work in unique ways)
i.e. - While my daughter continues to work at Chick-Fil-A, during the Pandemic, my son started an eBay business and does window washing to help pay for upcoming undergrad costs (their Dad is proud of them 😆).
In addition to their professional careers, we have friends in here who’ve started their own businesses, done side hustles of DoorDash, created vlogs, converted their home for Airbnb use, flipped houses for sale or rentals, invested in the stock market, start-ups and the like, all giving God additional avenues to confirm his covenant by enabling his people to produce wealth.
According to God’s command through Moses in Deuteronomy, the key is that as you do these things and God blesses you, you do not forget the Lord.
In fact, Jesus said to make sure we put him first, which we’ll speak more about next week.
Work is honorable and is worship before the Lord.
Work or the product of your work is not to be your idol, but it is to be a manner in which you worship the Lord.
Colossians 3:22-25 ESV
“Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”
If God is the one who ultimately arranges our reward, then as we work, we must do it with the right attitude.
***Without complaint***
Philippians 2:14-16 ESV
“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
Philippians 2:14-16 NLT
“Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.”
Entitlement mentalities today are sinful and often have at its root the sin of covetousness.
These attitudes simultaneously strip people of both a Biblical work ethic and peace.
“Lord,
I worry because I forget your wisdom.
I resent because I forget your mercy.
I covet because I forget your beauty.
I sin because I forget your holiness.
I fear because I forget your sovereignty.
You always remember me. Help me to remember you.
Amen…”
-Timothy Keller
When we renew our minds by the Word of God, we are able to live in his promises.
Promise of Provision
God promises to provide for his people as we diligently execute our work as service unto him.
This means that God is able to provide for you as you follow his ways.
This is for those who are unsure.
If we see our work as service to God, it prevents a lack of balance where we either overwork, making an idol of career success; or underwork, never reaching our Christ-ordained potential.
Jesus is interested in neither sluggards nor workaholics - rather he is seeking those who see each of their pursuits as a calling (John 5:19-20), part of the good works which God has prepared in advance for each of us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
Diligence is a virtue with a promise in Scripture.
It is juxtaposed with laziness or the mentality of the sluggard.
What does the Bible say about each?
Everyone needs an element of being a self-starter within them.
Proverbs 6:6-11 ESV
“Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
Why?
Proverbs 10:4 ESV
“A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”
We begin to see in progression that God is showing us his ways, and giving us sure promises when we choose to follow them.
Proverbs 12:11 ESV
“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”
Proverbs 12:11 NIV
“Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.”
Fantasies are big ideas without a plan - without prayer, godly counsel or the work needed to see it come to fruition.
Proverbs 12:24 ESV
“The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.”
“I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get you pretty near.”
-Margaret Thatcher
Proverbs 12:27 ESV
“Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.”
In a recent Desiring God article, contributor Greg Morse challenges men in particular who attempt to look and sound busy, but would better be characterized as the hunting sluggard.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/roast-what-you-kill?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=NTP+–+USA&hsa_acc=1624234290982548&hsa_cam=23853351830210267&hsa_grp=23853351830270267&hsa_ad=23854952712480267&hsa_src=fb&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3
“The wise king of Proverbs shows us this active sluggard. He, unlike the traditional sloth, is up early in the morning. He has his eggs and drinks his coffee. Instead of being discovered in the sloth’s usual habitat — buried beneath sheets and pillows — he is up and about, stalking through the forest, pursuing his prey. He is a hunter.
See him tracking his animal — thoughtful, calculated, alert. He sets his traps and camouflages himself for the kill. He knows his target; he knows his weapon; he lies in wait. While his brother sloth is sleeping in the trees, he is armed in the bushes. While the other excuses inaction by complaining of lions in the streets, he is crouched where lions roar. When he sees his quarry, he times his assault perfectly and springs violently. The king sees this man return in the morning with a carcass draped over his shoulder.
So far, he is full of manful action. But notice where the laziness of this hunting sluggard manifests:
The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting. (Proverbs 12:27 NKJV)
What a strange picture. The man woke up early. He prepared his tools. He lay in wait. He acted deliberately, forcefully. He took the prize, brought home the meat — but never cooked it. Perhaps he decided he had worked hard enough for one day. Perhaps he realized just how tired he felt. His enthusiasm died before the meal was prepared.
He labored promisingly, for a time. He remained focused, for a while. His was hard but unfinished work. In the end, his plate is just as empty as that of the other sluggard, waking at his return.
Incomplete
Men, how many tasks have you started strong and finished weak (or not at all)? How many deer have we killed but never tasted? How much nourishment has laziness robbed from our souls, our families, our churches, our world?
I think this spirit of so-far-and-no-farther plagues our generation. We recreate at life; we rarely commit. Manhood seems less tethered to follow-through, to roasting the meat we hunt.”
He then gives at least three poignant examples:
Relationships : date but never marry.
Church : attend, but never join.
Work : labor, but for appearances.
I would say this also applies to when God opens doors of relationship with the gospel and there is a lack of follow-through to see men and women become disciples.
Proverbs continues with the frustrations we see so prevalent around us.
Proverbs 13:4 ESV
“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”
Proverbs 14:23 ESV
“In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.”
“The harder I worked, the luckier I got.”
-Thomas Jefferson
We also see the dangers of laziness:
Proverbs 18:9 ESV
“Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.”
You need to make prayerful plans buffered by godly, biblical counsel.
Proverbs 21:5 ESV
“The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
Proverbs 21:25-26 ESV
“The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.”
Some people spend all of their time jumping from get rich quick scheme to scheme, never wanting to put in the time it takes to make things grow.
Others have a poverty mentality spending all of their energy finding reasons why the promises of God and the diligence that he requires won’t work.
Proverbs 26:13-15 ESV
“The sluggard says, "There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!" As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.”
We need to repent of such thinking and live as people of faith.
We need to crush excuses (one of my favorite t-shirts) and allow God to come through at the appropriate time on his promises!
Posture to Receive
The power to produce is based on God’s promise to bless those who live according to his ways.
This means that we are able to live in more than enough peace as we set our hearts on that which Christ has provided for us.
This is for us all.
Proverbs 11:4 ESV
“Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”
Our highest aim should be to, in all of our work, enter the Sabbath rest and righteousness of God found in Jesus Christ alone.
Hebrews 4:9-11 ESV
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
Because God showed that he provided for our most dire needs through Jesus’ sinless existence lived for us, his sacrificial death to pay the price for our sins and Christ’s resurrection from the dead to pave the way to eternal life, how much more so should we have confidence that he will take care of our earthly needs?
Once we’ve done all that we can, we need to receive what God has for us.
This is the essence of the gospel - coming to the end of your own efforts and depending on God’s abundant wisdom and grace found in Christ.
“There’s an old saying that we should “pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you.” It’s been attributed to St. Ignatius, who said something similar, if not using those exact words, as reported in Vida del Bienaventurado Padre Ignacio de Loyola by Pedro de Rivadeneira. Many think the phrase captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and urgently to do God’s work.
I prefer to reverse it: “pray as if everything depends on you, and work as if everything depends on God.” This means that prayer has to be urgent: God has to do something dramatic if everything depends on me. It also puts our work in the right perspective: if it depends on God, we can let it go. We can work hard but leave the outcome up to him. If God is in charge we can tolerate mixed results and endure failure.
Ignatius writes about work and human effort in a letter to an aristocrat named Jerome Vines, whom I imagine was a busy, hard-charging, Type A character who was getting upset about the fate of his many projects. A busy man, Ignatius writes, “must make up his mind to do what he can, without afflicting himself if he cannot do all that he wishes. You must have patience and not think that God our Lord requires what man cannot accomplish.” He concludes with this: “There is no need to wear yourself out, but make a competent and sufficient effort, and leave the rest to him who can do all he pleases.”
-Jim Manney (author of God Finds Us)
We can therefore live in the reality of having more than enough peace as our King and our God has provided for us not only salvation, but will provide all things pertaining to life and godliness through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher