How to Not Waste Your Life

Okay, well good morning to each one and I want to bless you in the name of Jesus Christ for being here. It's good to see each one, good to see visitors far and near. As the home crowd knows, I was asked back in April to go give a series of messages at the Shippensburg Bible School on the subject of finances.

It was called A Godly View of Finances. There were five messages and after I got back from that series, I decided to share them here with the crowd here, with the group here at home. We already shared the first four of them.

The first four, first of all, we talked about the first one was my personal testimony, how back at a young age I was all excited about laying up treasures on earth and compound interest and saving for retirement and a lot of things like that and how someone pointed out to me some of the words of Jesus where he said do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth and sell and give and things like that. We went on to session number two, the biblical financial responsibility from the book of Proverbs primarily where he talks about the value of hard work, the value of controlling spending, the dangers of debt and, you know, the importance of record-keeping, things like that. Went on to the third one and the third message, we talked back to the words of Jesus again, talked about what we called the doctrine of non-accumulation.

We actually had a book that we handed out, gave everybody a copy that wanted one and I'll just say this, on that Sunday they didn't all quite get taken so I'm going to put these up here. If anybody else that wasn't here wants a copy, you're welcome to take it. So put it right up here on the front row and afterward if you want a free book, go ahead, help yourself.

Fourth sermon then, we talked about the why of Jesus' teachings, the why of non-accumulation or whatever you want to call Jesus' teachings. Why does Jesus do it? Why has he set things up? We read about already this morning about the rich and the poor. Why is God given some more than others? Why is it that some nations have so much wealth and other nations have so much poverty to the point of starvation? And how God's purpose is to make us channels, channels only, channels of his love and power, channels of the place of abundance to the place of need.

And this entire series, we could say this, has something to do with this thing of values. And values is an interesting word. Maybe before we talk about values, let's talk about another word.

When I was back there at Bible school, we had evening messages. We had a speaker that came in every evening and one of those speakers talked about this thing called morals. You say, well, what are morals? Well, are we making the moral choice? I guess we're going to probably hear about morals, maybe some this evening when we get together.

And both morals and values are extremely important if you're going to be successful in your Christian lives. You need to have a moral compass that aligns with God and his morals. But what about this thing called values? You know, there's a chapter in the Bible called the Hall of Faith, Hebrews 11, God's list of people that he honored.

There was Abraham and there was Rahab and there was Noah and the difficult choices they made. And God says these people were men of faith or women of faith. He honored them.

It's interesting if you read through Hebrews 11, it doesn't say a lot about those people's morals, but it says a tremendous amount about their values. They were people of a different value system than the people around them. One example, Moses, he valued the reproach of Christ, greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.

That was a different value system that Moses had than the people around him. And you know, people around us, they know when our value system fits with the Bible or not, fits with Christ or not. I got this email from, it was written by Pete Lewis, and I just got it just two days ago on Friday.

It's called the Christian's wallet. Denny was a machinist in the shop where I once worked, an irascible fellow. He had no use for any religion.

While talking one day about a professing Christian man, Denny scoffed, ha, everybody's a Christian anymore, but just let me touch their wallet and I'll show you how much of a Christian they are. He had a point. Denny knew professing Christians who did not pay their bills on time, failed to promptly repay borrowed money, tried to chisel down prices set by business owners and paid unfair wages to their employees.

They had left a terrible testimony and Denny had not failed to notice. The inconsistency between their practice and their profession, in his mind, was a good excuse to have nothing to do with a lot of them or their religion. At least he was consistent in not pretending to be something he was not.

What is my response when someone touches my wallet? Do I remember that its contents are not really mine and that I'm just a steward? Am I concerned that the seller gets a fair price for his goods or is a bargain for me far more important? It is not, it is not, says the buyer, but when he is gone then he boasts. Do we pay our bills in good time or do we wait till the last minute before a penalty is charged? What is my response when someone takes advantage of me financially? For this is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward God endured grief suffering wrongfully. The big difference between stinginess and honest thrift is that thrift will not take unfair advantage of someone.

Let's make sure we have a consistent God-honoring testimony in all things including those things that touch our wallet. Timothy says for the love of money is the root of all evil. So we're ready to go on then with with the message number five but before we do that I wonder if we could just bow our heads one more time and have prayer together.

Lord we come to you in the name of Jesus and we just invite you to again this service this message we pray God that you would teach us what you would have us to learn. I pray that you would walk with us and you would open our ears or our mouths. For me that as I speak let your words come out and not my own and for those that are listening open the ears so that the words they hear would be what you want them to hear.

I just pray God that you would guide us through this morning in Jesus name I pray amen. A while back I got a call from an atheist on the billboard line his name was Alex and Alex had a issue with Christianity and the belief in God he says you guys say that God is all powerful yes you guys say God is all-knowing yes you guys say that God is all good yes well then how is it possible Alex said that there are starving children in the world how is it possible there are wars and there are famines and innocent people are suffering why is there so much evil in the world if there is a God somewhere who is both all-powerful all-knowing and all-good he says that doesn't make sense because if God knows that those people are starving he would feed them if he was good and if he if he's not all-powerful now that would maybe make sense but if he is all-powerful he has the power to do exactly what he wants to do and that's a common argument people bring up against the existence of God and I told Alex so first of all maybe I should ask you what would you tell Alex the atheist why would just think about that for a moment what would you tell someone who objected to the exist the idea that God exists because of the fact that there are starving children the world there are little children they get leukemia get cancer and they die and they suffer horribly in the process why is that true well I responded Alex this way I said Alex I don't know if I can I probably I don't know if I can even tell you I don't even know if I myself have come to a conclusion about why that is true you know why is it that God does allow the sufferings that he does and I said but here's one thing I would like you to consider Alex I said you know in spite of fact people have wrestled with the very question that you're wrestling with and haven't come to satisfactory answers for at least not for at least not for everybody but Alex if you'd at least consider something the Bible describes a picture of reality and the picture reality the Bible describes is a world that God created good it was all good he said it is very good and then it's a world that was corrupted by sin and when sin came death came and when sin came and death came then suffering came and I said if Alex if that was true what would we expect to see now in our world today a good world but it's been corrupted by sin I think we would expect to see a not purely evil and not purely good we would see a mixture I said Alex that's exactly what we do see we see beautiful sunrises we can go out to the ocean and see the beautiful scenery we can see the beautiful mountains and you know there's people with with at least some goodwill in their heart that do nice things for each other there's a lot of good and beauty in this world but what else do we see we see a lot of suffering we see a lot of pain we see a lot of crime we see full prisons we see broken homes we see people doing evil things to each other and that's the mixture that we see and it's perfectly in line with what the Bible describes reality is we don't always know the question why but we at least know the question what and God's and God's answers are correct with they're totally consistent with what we see and the Bible tells us that this whole world lieth in wickedness that's in 1st John so what should we do if we live in a world you and I that's in wickedness the world lies in wickedness we claim to be part of the kingdom of God what should we do well Matthew 633 says seek first the kingdom of God that's our response it says we should seek the things that are above in Colossians in Mark 16 it says go and preach the gospel to every creature because the gospel is good news and it's the answer to all the problems we see in this world today so how how big of a task would that be if I just gave one of you the job so go preach the gospel to every creature in this world how would you do it what if you said well I need the help of the rest of us here so okay we've got what a hundred people here 75 people I don't know go preach the gospel to every creature how many would each of you 75 have to preach to how big of a task would that be turning your purple songbooks to number 762 hymns of the church number 762 this is a song that said the title of it is from Greece Greenland's icy mountains and in the very top line it says from Greenland's icy mountains from India's coral strand and there we have in the first line a mention of two different countries of the world Greenland and India and then down toward the end of that it says they call us to deliver their land from errors chain go up to verse number three and it talks about us can we Christians can we whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high can we two men be knighted the lamp of life deny salvation Oh salvation the joyful sound proclaim till each remotest nation has learned Messiah's name what would it take for every nation every person in this world to learn the Messiah's name well let's talk about the first country on that song Greenland how big is Greenland Oh Greenland last detect has about 55,000 people in it let me just read this here the largest island in the world is Greenland it has a population about 55,000 which is about the same as Albany Oregon the city where I was born this might not seem like a lot of people but think about the fact that all of these people need Jesus if we could share the gospel with 10 people per day it would take us well over 15 years to reach everyone in Greenland this may seem like a large task but it would not even but it would be an even bigger task to evangelize the island of Guam in the western Pacific this little island has over three times the population of Greenland with nearly 165,000 people and these people only Jesus to however even Guam's population is small compared to the central American country of Belize this country has a population of 375,000 people which is more than double the population of Guam and all these people need Jesus also the population of Belize however small compared to the country of Bhutan in southern Asia with over 800,000 people Bhutan has more people than the countries of Belize Guam and Greenland all put together however Bhutan is also small when you compare it to the country of Bahrain in Western Asia with a population of nearly one and a half million Bahrain has more people than Bhutan Belize Guam Greenland all put together every one of these people also needs Jesus even bigger than the than Bahrain is a country of Mongolia in Eastern Asia with a population of over 3 million Mongolia has more people than Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together now Mongolia might seem like it has a lot of people but it is also small when compared to the country of Nicaragua in Central America with over 6 million people Nicaragua has more people than Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together however even Nicaragua small when compared to the country of Somalia in Eastern Africa Somalia has a population nearly 15 million people make it which makes it bigger than Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all put together and every one of these people needs Jesus although Somalia certainly has a lot of people it doesn't have nearly as many people as the country of Nepal in southern Asia Nepal's population is over 29 million and therefore has more people than Somalia Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together there's another large country in eastern Africa called Tanzania Tanzania has over 57 million people making it bigger than Nepal Somalia Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together and every one of these people in Tanzania needs Jesus Tanzania might seem like a huge country and it is however there's a country in the Western Hemisphere that has over twice the population of Tanzania this country is Mexico the 10th most most populous country in the world the population of Mexico at over 129 million people is more than the populations of Tanzania Nepal Somalia Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland together although the population of Mexico is huge it's small compared to the country the population of Indonesia the fourth largest country in the world Indonesia has a population of nearly 264 million people which is more than guess Mexico Tanzania Nepal Somalia Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together and these people all need Jesus although the population of Indonesia is truly mind-boggling the population of the country of India remember India from that first line of that song we just looked at the population of the country of India is much much larger with a population of well over 1.3 billion people India has more people than Indonesia Mexico Tanzania let's back up a little bit what if we would double all those other countries Indonesia double it Mexico double it and Tanzania and on down the line we double the population India would still have more than Indonesia Mexico Tanzania Nepal Somalia Nicaragua Mongolia Bahrain Bhutan Belize Guam and Greenland all together and so how many people does India have well 1.3 billion how long would that take you to go spread the gospel to every person in India and how would you do it what kind of format would you use would use gospel tracks we use Bibles would use maybe billboards maybe the radio maybe TV maybe YouTube I don't know how would you get the gospel to everybody in India and what because you know Jesus says go and preach the gospel to every creature well if that's our responsibility then what should we do well here's one response I think we need to do and that is we need to do our part and we can't be wasting our life and the title of this morning's sermon is how to not waste your life how to not waste your life now you see we all have a purpose last Sunday we heard a sermon on the subject of purpose we all have a purpose God has a purpose for every person is building here this morning and if you fulfill that purpose that God has for you your life is not wasted and I don't know what God has called all of you to maybe God's called some of you to be a missionary some of you maybe to be a teacher maybe some of you to be a homemaker maybe a pastor I don't know what that long-term calling is on your on each one of your life but the life is broken up into smaller pieces called days and so the way to waste your life is to start by wasting one day of your life and then waste the next day of your life and keep on and so if you're not going to waste your life we need to learn not to waste even one day so this week's topic is this this series is topic is about finances and that takes up quite a bit of our lives now some more than others some of us get up probably tomorrow morning go to work we spent a lot of time either dealing with this thing called money a good share of our life what how can we how is it possible to waste that part of our life and how is it possible to not waste that part of our life so in order to illustrate this we're gonna just take an average day just a normal day and let's say it's a you know a month from today but except it's not on a Sunday let's push it off till a Tuesday let's say let's say a next you know some Tuesday a month from today we're just gonna pick a random day like that when a lot of us are going to work not all of us but a lot of us how can we waste that how could we not waste in order to look at this we're going to take a look at we take a look at five different brothers and we're gonna give them names and we're gonna alphabetize them and so we have brother number one starts with an A we'll call him Andrew number two is B we'll call him Brian number three is C for Caleb number four is D for David and the last one is E for Edward I want you as we go through these brothers I want you to look at their lives and ask yourself the question which one of them is wasting their life more specifically which one is wasting that particular day of their life so here we go Andrew he gets up in the morning actually he his alarm goes off in the morning he kind of rolls over he really doesn't want to get out of bed but he finally does and he's doesn't feel like going to work but he finally does he gets to work late and he's not very enthused about working working is not his favorite thing in life but he does it because he needs to he's got bills to pay and so he goes to work but Andrew you know through the day his boss is watching Andrew and he's not very impressed with Andrew's work ethic he doesn't give Andrew very hard jobs he keeps him to the easy stuff and you know for that reason he doesn't get paid a tremendous amount you know when closing quitting time comes the boss says hey Andrew I got some extra time you can work if you would like to some overtime well Andrew says no thank you I need to go home and take it easy and that's how Andrew approaches all of life with it we call him Andrew the slothful or Andrew the lazy so Andrew the slothful is his brother number one now Brian comes along he wakes up that morning and he's looked at his brother Andrew and he said I don't like Andrew's example I don't want to be like Andrew I want to be hard working so he you know when his alarm goes off he pops right up out of bed he grabs a bite to eat he heads off to work gets there 10 minutes early and he's he's you know talking to the boss and learning about his job and working hard and he's doing good work and his boss notices and his boss looks at Brian and says Brian you're doing good can I can I bump you up to Foreman and I'll give you a pay raise while while we're at it and and you know when quitting time comes he offers him hey can you want to stay and work an extra hour of overtime and and Brian says absolutely he'd be glad to do that you know as a result of Brian's work ethic his earnings are higher than Andrew's and it's higher by let's say a hundred dollars so he's earning every day $100 more than his brother Andrew because he's a worker Brian the worker so we have Andrew the slothful we have Brian the worker along comes brother number three his name is Caleb we'll call him Caleb the saver Caleb looks at his older brothers he looks at Andrew he says Andrew does not impress me at all he's lazy I don't want to be like Andrew I want to be more like Brian so he goes and he goes to work and he works hard like Brian follows his example and gets the you know gets the raises and works the overtime but when once he gets his paycheck Caleb stops a little bit and says you know Brian's interesting he is making good money he is a good worker but at the end of the day at the end of the month at the end of the year Brian has nothing to show for it see Brian he was he was a good worker he had money to pay you know he could pay his bills but even more than that he could drive a fancier car than Andrew Brian could go out to eat more often than Andrew Brian could I mean he lived high on the hog he had a good life Brian did why because he was a hard worker so Caleb looks at his brothers and says I don't like Andrew's example I do like Brian's but at the end of the day Brian really has nothing to show for it he's living for the moment he's living for the now he's making more he's making money but he's spending it as quick as he make it and he's enjoying his spending but at the end of the month it's all gone and Caleb says I don't want to be that way and so Caleb instead of taking his extra hundred dollars and going out to eat with it he opens a savings account puts that money into the savings account starts earning interest on it that money starts growing eventually he he branches out into into some stock funds and then he's buying maybe some rental properties and he's he's got all this extra income and Caleb just keeps on he keeps on you know saving his money living for the future instead of living for the here and now all right along comes another brother David David looks at his three older brothers he says I don't like the example of Andrew I want to be a hard worker like Brian but he looks at Brian he says Brian is a hard worker but he spends it as quick as he makes it he says I don't want to be like that either I want to I want to be more like Caleb I want to be a person who lives for the future but then David stops a little bit he says you know there's something about Caleb that's bothering me just a little bit he's living for the future but his future is ending the moment he dies and I look at my ancestors they're all gone my Gregory grandpa's gone my great-great-grandpa my great-grandpa they're all dead what's gonna happen to us what's gonna happen to Caleb what's gonna happen to his money when he dies he says is there any way to live for the future and the future would extend past my day to death and David opens up his Bible and he starts reading and he starts listening to people Christian people telling him that yeah Jesus made a way that you could lay up treasure in heaven it's called giving and David gets all excited about this thing called giving and he says I'm gonna start giving and he he gets that first hundred dollars extra and he sends it off to you know first charity he can find he doesn't do any investigation about this charity he just sends it off and now he's done his giving it so happens the charity he gave to wasn't a particular reputable charity they're kind of known for wasting the money and his hundred dollars actually didn't make much of a difference in anybody's life other than the people running the charity so that was David long comes Edward the boy number brother number five he looks at his brothers he says I don't want to be like Andrew slothful I want to be like Brian a worker I don't want to be like Brian and his spending though I want to be like Caleb living for the future Caleb the saver and he says he goes and talks to his brother David and David convinces him that giving is a good way to actually invest for the future and he gets he looks at all the scriptures that David presents to he says yeah I think David is right I think David has a point and so Edward says I'm gonna I'm gonna be like David in that sense but Edward does something else before he's just puts a check in the mail and sends it off he says I'm gonna do some investigation he says I'm gonna look into where this money is going and so he gets newsletters and he does research and he talks to the people that are heading up these charities and he discovers some opportunities that he did not know was there one of these opportunities was a place where they were sending Bibles overseas not just any Bibles these were Bibles in the language of the people they were going to and the people they were going to was experiencing a mighty revival in that country was a poverty-stricken country but the gospel was going forward in a powerful way and they said just give us Bibles we'll distribute them we don't have enough Bibles for all these people that are coming to Christ Edward finds out about that and Edward decides he's going to give money to send Bibles to these people who need them where they're coming to Christ you know the Bibles he was buying were around three dollars a piece so for a hundred dollars one day's worth of work he was able to give over 30 Bibles to this country that needed Bibles Edward the shaker why do we call him the shaker because he shook the world with one day one day of work hard work frugal spending he took his extra hundred dollars dropped it in a envelope put a stamp on it put it in the mailbox the world will never be the same one day of work and Edward decided he's going to make this a lifestyle he's going to keep on doing this after Tuesday comes Wednesday and he goes to work and he works hard now we talked earlier in this week about a doctrine of the doctrine of non-accumulation and we look at these guys and we say well which ones of them are obeying the doctrine of non-accumulation we say well let's look at their bank account at the end of the day did Andrew have anything in his bank account no he didn't have anything in his bank account what about Brian did he have anything in his bank account no he spent it all he worked hard but he spent it all are they following the teachings of Jesus the answer is no they're not obeying the doctrine of non-accumulation they're far from it in fact Caleb the saver he's closer to it than they are because you know he's at least he at least is living for the future and that's what Jesus wanted his followers to do he said live for the future don't live for the present live for the future but finally you ask the question which one of these finally was it was was living by the teachings of Jesus so a day of your life if we want to waste our day it can be wasted in various ways it can be wasted by laziness it can be wasted through consumption spending your money as fast as you earn it or it could be wasted by accumulating in a way in a place where you can't keep it that's another way you could waste your life all right and so finally God's desire is for us to be like Edward he wants us to shake the world with the opportunities he's given us he wants us to be channels like we we talked about in the last session he wants us to be like Edward shake the world with our time with our prayers and especially with our giving I encourage you all if you don't have so what are some tools you need open a checking account first of all you don't know what a checking account is someday there's all these newfangled accounts you know cash app and things like that but if you don't have a checking account I'd encourage you if you have any money at all open a checking account that has these little paper checks you can sign your name on it write a number drop in the mail see it's real handy you need one of those okay and also another thing you can do is get the newsletters from various charities read the newsletters find out where you're where this money is going so Edward like I say Wednesday came around he got another day got another $100 he's still working hard he's still saving his money he's still careful with his money Edward says what else can I do he starts researching another opportunity called gifts that grow so what's gifts that grow well that's a program where they the these corporations have all this surplus stuff maybe it's food maybe it's medicine maybe it's clothing and they say we don't need this stuff we'd like to donate it to a charity as long as the charity provides the shipping to get it to the third world country you can have it it's free and so what the result of that is one donation a donation of one dollar can free up a hundred dollars worth of stuff to go to some needy person somewhere so Edward was so excited about this when he saw this gifts that grow he said next day he says I'm gonna give that hundred dollars to gifts that grow his hundred dollars turns into I don't he did the math add two zeros ten thousand dollars worth of stuff going to people that need it the next day was Thursday he did it again he starts researching he discovers a program called seeds for the hungry a place called that you could you know instead of just handing him a bag of groceries now you could teach these people some you could go into these villages and hand out these high-quality seeds and they could plant their own seeds and grow their own gardens and multiply you know a hundred dollars worth of seeds is going to touch lots and lots of families not only that as they're distributing these seeds there's an opportunity for the missionaries to preach the gospel to these people teach them biblical principles and so forth Edward got excited about that and once again shook the world by dropping a hundred dollars into an envelope the next day was Friday he starts investigating in him even more he discovers these produce principle called native evangelists some countries get American missionaries coming in there and they're expensive in there and there and it's good I want to I want to affirm anybody who does do any kind of evangelism at all but Edward it can be expensive let's just put it that way Edward discovered a ministry that was sending out their own people the native speakers the people who knew the culture people who knew the gospel people who knew what you know the lay of the land they knew how to live in that economy and they would send these men out and you know that the amount of investment for the amount of return was was was completely different than a typical Western missionary and Edward got excited about this and he started supporting some of these native evangelists and Edward also started researching later on new days came new hundred-dollar bills came literature Bibles books gospel tracts I don't know if you've ever considered what the money of all this history of inventing you know in the last century or so people have invented the airplane they've invented the you know new kinds of engines and and and all of this stuff but probably the most powerful invention that's ever happened as far as shaking the world was probably the printing press let's think about that a little bit maybe maybe you disagree but think about that probably the printing press has has has changed more lives than any other invention that has ever happened and the power of the printed page one missionary instead of going in and preaching to everybody he can hand out gospel tracts he can hand out Bibles here's something I'd like to read again when it comes to the message that were given writing sometime in the first half of the 1900s Oswald Smith a Canadian pastor and writer challenged believers to put their money into the gospel of Jesus rather than into luxurious houses of worship here's what he wrote we must decide whether we're gonna put our money into the building or into the message for nearly 1900 years now the church has been putting its money into the building and instead of getting out the message we've been erecting magnificent and luxurious auditoriums in which to worship God some false cults have been much wiser they put their money into their erroneous message they know that the message is more important than the building yet all over the United States of America and of America and Canada we're still investing in bricks and mortar whereas God wants us to invest in the message not until the church realizes the message is more important than the building will we be able to evangelize the world if for every 14 cents invested in the printed page we can win a soul for Christ and by all means we should put our money into the message God did not tell us to build luxurious churches and invite people to come in he told us to go out with the message and preach the gospel to the entire world let's put our money not into the building but into the message and maybe we could say Edward subscribe to these things maybe Edward like I did this past week I got this little brochure called child rescue from cam maybe some of the rest of you got this if you're on cams mailing list there's a story in here called adherence story coming from a destitute family with a drunkard father at hero was sent out to beg in an Asian railroad station she chose a stop train and went inside to beg suddenly she felt the train moving but it was far too late for her to get it was too late for her to get out it took her far from home until she and she got off in the bustling chaos of a huge railroad station in the capital city unsure what to do next at hero wandered around the crowded station a passerby noticed her distress and informed the police at hero was taken to a home that provides her with a safe and secure environment although efforts were made to find her family but those efforts have been fruitless at hero has found security in her new home had she not been rescued at hero may well have faced abuse at the hands of human traffickers many lost children like her have fallen victim to greedy characters looking to make a profit so what is child rescue cam is opening up there they're trying to support places like Mexico South Asia Kenya plate people that have opened ministries to rescue these children and there's so many of them all over the world there's some as Edward went through life looking for all these different opportunities Edward had a dream here's Edwards dream that he had listen to this he dreamed that he was part of a massive army advancing across a plane toward a huge fortress within the fortress were millions of prisoners held captive by their evil master Satan surrounding the fortress was a thick wall of road with a row of fortified doors above the doors was emblazoned the caption the gates of hell the mission of those in the attacking army was to use their weaponry to break down the doors of the fortress and to free the prisoners within the commander of the advancing army went from soldier to soldier urging them to be courageous and handing out the various weapons of warfare to some he gave the weapon of preaching to and others the weapon of prayer to still others to give the weapon of fasting or of exhorting or of teaching or praise most of the soldiers were given more than one weapon they were all encouraged to use them valiantly one weapon that the commander handed to Edward among others was the weapon of giving the commander told him to take courage and use his weapon with simplicity with wisdom and with patience once every soldier had his weapon in hand and the older with order was given to advance the liberating army was sprang into action every weapon blazing with every new barrage of artillery the walls would shudder the gates would crack open and a few more prisoners would escape to prison freedom the battle would prove to be long hard and costly for the liberating army however with every soldier fighting valiantly under the leadership of their invincible commander the gates of hell never stood a chance Edward was given the gift of the the weapon of giving I wonder how many here think they have the gift of giving you say well some people have that gift to giving but that's not my gift I have other gifts that God has given me how do we know if the gift of giving is one that God wants you to exercise well here's one way probably to know go to Google Maps and you'll see a little blue dot if that blue dot that shows you where you are ok in the world if it's between the borders of the eastern and western United States and the northern and southern United States I would submit you have the gift of giving because you're in the country that is the richest in the world and you have opportunity that other people do not have in this world so whether those people over there have the gift of giving or not I don't know but I would submit that if that blue dots in that geographic region most of us maybe not all of there's some young people I know there's young children and maybe some elderly that maybe don't fall into that category I'd say for the most of us for most of us that we should consider ourselves this is a weapon that I've been given God expects me to use it let's go use it planting and plowed soil Edward learned that you know there's differences in giving there's differences in seeds being planted you know seed is planted in hard so it's not likely to sprout we go down to the pass out tracks at the football game you know these are rich people there said on going and you know watching their you know their team run over the other team that's not a particular fruitful group of people but if you go to another and I think we should do it anyway don't don't get me wrong I think it's right that we do it but you can go to other parts of the country other parts of the world where there's been war there's been famines there's been all kinds of problems and you know people are hungry for the gospel I read this book called a victor's crown of glory by Dorcas Hoover a powerful book talking about the war that came to Syria here what was it 10 years ago 15 years ago and the people were open to the gospel in a way they had never been open before and you know people come into Christ people were martyred interesting what Austin said earlier about martyrs and their place in heaven but lots of martyrs during that time when the radicals were killing these people who were becoming Christians natural disasters sometimes come to this world when they come that's an opportunity COVID was an opportunity you know all the devastation that happened in the world through COVID it was an opportunity for the gospel the plowing that happens Gary Miller in his book where is Lazarus we looked at that I think last last time but he says you know first of all he says go get involved in giving but he doesn't call it and give it he doesn't call it giving you know what he calls it he calls it investing he says go get involved in investing and when you're investing there's four principles invest prayerfully pray about it invest proportionately take a look at your income and let your giving be tied somewhat to your your income three invest regularly do it do it often do it often enough to keep your exit your muscles exercise do it secretly don't do it to be praised a man do it for God do it in a way that only he knows if possible so Edward kept living this way he was living he was looking for opportunities he was still working hard he was earning more than he needed he was giving to people in need the end of the year comes around it's time to go to his accountant and get his taxes done so Edward brings all his numbers in there he sits across the desk from his accountant and he hands him his list of income his list of expenses and the accountant he looks down over that he says to Edward he says you know something Edward you could be doing a lot better for yourself if you would you know I notice how much you're giving here if you would cut back on your giving a little you could you could be you could have your own house a bigger one than you're living in it be nice and and you could not only have your own house but you could probably have some rental houses you could have you can open a retirement account and you could you could start putting money in there you have all these investments and you know Edward you could probably have a nicer car than that old beater you drove up in and says Edward you're making a lot of money you can tell you're a hard worker but you could do a lot better for yourself you just cut back on your giving a little bit and Edward he pauses he thinks a little bit he says yes Mr. accountant he says I've thought of that but every time I think about it I start thinking about Trump and the accountant says oh Trump says Edward I didn't realize you were into politics and Edward says oh I'm sorry no not that Trump there's a different Trump it's called the last Trump first Corinthians 15 tells us there's a Trump coming when the trumpet of God shall sound the dead in Christ will rise first and then those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air he says that's the Trump I'm thinking about and I keep thinking about that and how it's gonna go when that Trump sounds I don't know what I'll be doing when that happens I might be sleeping I might be mowing the lawn might be brushing my teeth I don't know but that Trump's gonna sound and and we'll be caught up through the air and he says I have two scenarios going through my mind he says number one here I am gaining altitude all these angels all these Saints all around me and leaving everything behind and he looks back down he reaches over and taps an angel on the shoulder says angel hey yeah what hey look down there do you see that that's my house I I just that's a nice house is yeah it's pretty nice house I guess but he says I just got it paid for he says I just made the last payment last month isn't that a nice house he says well yeah but it looks like it's on fire and he said what but angel look at the car in the driveway and then that nice diesel pickup sitting beside it wow those things were nice drives I love driving those things and the angel says well yeah but looks like they're on fire too they're burning what well looked off to the left you see that string of houses those rental houses I I was working on getting them paid for as well and and they were doing really well for me and the price of the real estate market was going up and and the angel says you know I hate to tell you this but looks like they're burning too he says well angel look down the down the road is the bank now in the bank that's where I had my savings account that's where I had my retirement accounts that's where I had my crypto wallet passwords that's where I had all you know all the stuff that I you know had going by the way have you seen what the S&P 500 is doing lately angel have you have you have you seen the price of Bitcoin and the angel says no I haven't keeping up on that and he says it was all there in that bank he says I hate to tell you this the banks on fire too Edward says that's scenario number one he says but then I think there's another scenario coming here I am brushing my teeth and the Trump sounds don't even have time to rinse up I go and going through the clouds and now I get a tap on my shoulder Edward says he says the angel is saying hey Edward look over there you see this crowd of people coming up from the continent of of Africa those are people that you sent Bibles to so they could read the Bible the Word of God over here from India those are people you sent missionaries to and and just so they could hear the Word of God over here in China these are people you gave food and medicine and clothing to that were needy those crowds of people you affected them and so Edward says to his account he says you know when I think of the last Trump and I think of those options it becomes more clear what I want to do with my life and the accountant looks really puzzled kind of confused he says well maybe we should just get started on your taxes the verse Caleb read at the beginning of this session said seeing them that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy manner of conversations in other words Peter is saying here live your life in such a way make your decisions in such a way that recognizes that everything here is going to burn up let me read the entire passage or 44 verses just the surrounding verses but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also in the works that are in therein shall be burned up seeing them that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversations and got conversation godliness looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness could we stand for prayer let's bow our heads close our eyes I'd like to read a prayer I believe I read this prayer back at the beginning of session number one a few months ago Lord this is this is a prayer that could be sung to the tune of where should I go but to the Lord Lord here I stand before your holy throne facing a future all unknown young and untried yet trusting you to guide show me the way you'd have me go life lies before me beckoning me on my heart is filled with youthful zest channel my zeal thy purpose to fulfill just use me Lord as you see best well may I face some disappointments here hope scattered around my feet may lie sorrow and care I well may someday share still may I say Lord here am I though it may seem my life is all in vain others my labor may not see all is worthwhile if I may see your smile gladly your servant will I be where shall I go and what shall I do seeking a purpose for my life longing to serve thy kingdom to preserve help me to say Lord here am I one more prayer I'd like to pray here Oh God in heaven please raise up a whole army of people who are passionate about building God's kingdom with whatever tools you've given them raise up people who have learned to work hard and manage their finances well so they're not so they can accumulate wealth on earth but rather so they can lay up treasure in heaven raise up people who have crucified the covetousness of their own hearts and have caught a vision of what can be done by letting go of the temporal riches of this world in exchange for the eternal riches in heaven please use them to spread the gospel to feed the hungry to build your kingdom to shake the world for Jesus' sake amen you may be seated