I. Don’t let prosperity separate you from God
A. With wealth comes worries and burdens
- Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
- Many rise to get their part of the wealth: accountants, lawyers, government, and family
- The bigger house, cars, and possessions require people to clean, care for, protect, and maintain
- Lottery winners (Tampa Bay Online) Noreene and James Gordon, a north Tampa homemaker and a retired textile worker, claimed the February 2000 Florida Lotto jackpot of $52.4 million. They chose a one-time lump sum payment of $24 million. Things have changed since then. ” It’s a nightmare,” she said recently, with friends and strangers knocking and calling for a chunk of her prize. ” They don’t want a piece,” she said. ” They want it all.” Her husband died in 2006, and she has suffered three strokes since the windfall. ” People come out of the walls to take advantage of you every day of your life,” she said before ending the short telephone interview.
B. Wealth and comfort can separate you from God
- Problem with Israel: Deuteronomy 8:5-14, 17-20
- The warning was that they would inhabit the Promised Land and forget God in the good times.
- There is a pride that can accompany prosperity: we think we have done this on our own and that, down deep, we can do fine without God.
- Or, maintaining our prosperity and handling the details of everyday life choke out our faith, Matthew 13:22
C. This is a threat for all of us
- This is not addressed to the “super rich” or the vilified 1% in America—it is all of us!
- The average American income, and even poverty level income, is much higher than the rest of the world. The poorest of us are very wealthy compared to the world.
We have garages that are bigger than the whole living space of many people.
We have garages and attics full of unused possessions, clothes filling our closets, and refrigerators, freezers, and pantries full of food.
- Our children have luxury items and people still do not seem to be satisfied or content.
- There are people in the US and other wealthy countries who complain about luxuries they have when others are living in abject poverty with absolutely nothing.
- It is the everyday American living comfortably who has to make sure that he does not forget God.
II. Don’t let trials and adversity separate you from God
A. Job 14:1 – man’s days are few and full of troubles
B. Trials and adversity should produce good fruits in the Christian’s life
- James 1:2-8, 12
- It is through trials that we receive patience, trust, dependence on God, and appreciation of His care.
C. Trials and adversity are a part of life, it is how we handle them that determines whether they will crush us or strengthen us.
- Jim happened to meet the minister on the street one day, and during the conversation told him of all the troubles he had had during the past year. He wound up with: “I tell you right now, preacher, it’s enough to make a man lose his religion.” “Seems to me, Jim,” the minister told him quietly, “it’s enough to make a man use his religion.” Tan, P. L. Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations.
- 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
III. Trust God with the unknown things
A. We must realize that God’s greatness and wisdom exceeds ours and there are so many things in His domain of operation that we can’t grasp or know but trust that He has it in control.
B. Deuteronomy 29:29 – the secret things belong to God
- It really bothers me when we try to identify with certainty the things that operate in God’s realm
- Unless God explicitly reveals His actions, it is presumptuous of me to say ” God did THIS.” Give glory to God that whether by chance or His purpose, the action took place but in humility remember that ” His ways are past finding out.”
C. I don’t have to know how God will answer my prayers, I have to trust in Him to give all things to Him
- Philippians 4:6-7 – peace of God when we give everything to Him
- 1 Peter 5:6-7 – casting all anxieties on Him
- We can only do this when we trust God to handle things in ways we cannot know and see. This approach allows us to embrace the next principle
IV. Trust God to make all things work out for good
A. Romans 8:28
- This is a promise of God and I trust that He can do this even when I don’t know how He will do it and when I don’t see how He could make it happen.
- Tapestry example: kids working but the master directs
B. We label things “bad” and “good” (sleep, day, events) when, in time, our labels may reverse.
- Some people lose a job but it opens doors to a great career.
- Some people get a terrible disease “bad” but attribute it to giving them a better appreciation for their loved ones and the little things in life and bringing them closer to God.
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn was an atheistic Russian writer who was imprisoned in a Russian forced labor camp (Gulag) but emerged with a belief in God and wrote, “Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”