Seriously Sowing - Dead Serious, Week 2 (Adam Heather)

He once got asked famously, how much money is enough? His answer, just a little bit more. Because that is what greed says, just a little bit more. And Jesus knows that, which is why he comes to us, and he so often talks about money because Jesus cares about this pipe. He cares about this place. He longs that we would all have a life full of light. [00:20:49] (37 seconds)  #GreedWantsMore

So at the end, he basically says, yes. Money really can and often does make you mean because it makes you self centered. And important and importantly, it makes you redefine what is good and bad. When life when money flows through you, it brings life. When it just sits with you, it makes you sick. Or in the words of Jesus in this parable, it is very hard to be rich towards God if you're always being rich towards self. [00:15:27] (36 seconds)  #MoneyMakesYouMean

It's like God seems to think about money like water. And a water is life giving and pure and wonderful when it flows like a river. But if any water sits in a big lake and nothing's coming in and nothing's going out, and it sits there, it goes stagnant. And suddenly, that water, in a different way that would have brought life, suddenly, drink that water and it makes you sick. [00:13:52] (27 seconds)  #BeARiverNotALake

Now, almost half half of all of Jesus' teaching has to do with money and possessions. Half. Which means if I was able to invite Jesus as a guest speaker here for a month, two of those Sundays by his current track record would be around money, two of the four. And if Jesus is going to give that much time and real estate over to the topic of money, it must be because it's something about money has a disproportionate effect on our souls, our spiritual lives, and our well-being. [00:06:54] (39 seconds)  #MoneyShapesSouls

And he must have forgot why he was rich in the first place. The story tells us the ground yielded an abundant harvest. Now, maybe he was great with a trowel, maybe he was good with his fertilizer, but let's be honest, the wonder of how you plant a seed and somehow you get an abundant crop is God's domain. This was God's blessing into his life. But he missed the key point in all of this, which is that he was blessed to be a blessing. [00:11:14] (32 seconds)  #BlessedToBeABlessing

He was blessed to be a blessing. If I was a bit more Pentecostal, I'd get you to repeat to me, but I definitely can't pull that off, so I'm not gonna ask you to. But that is the heart of God all the way through the biblical drama. God is looking for a group of people to bless that they might be a blessing. It isn't blessed. He was not blessed so that he could say, me me me me me. I I I I myself. [00:11:46] (26 seconds)  #BlessOthersNotSelf

It is to live a life that is blessed to be a blessing. And the truth is, in most of life, definitely when it comes to money, good thoughts and good beliefs will not keep you free. That is kind of the lie of postmodernism. If we can just think the right thing, then we'll be fine. The truth is change, freedom requires actions. It is the opposite of selfishly just building bigger bonds. [00:23:32] (29 seconds)  #FreedomRequiresAction

And so in this series, when we're looking at how do we get serious, one of the areas we have to get serious about is how do we surrender our finances to the way of Jesus, to the teachings of Jesus, and to the wisdom of Jesus. Or to put it another way, one of the greatest litmus tests of how serious you are about following Jesus, how much you trust his care is played out directly in your bank balance. Nothing tells you more about where you put your security and what person you believe really has the key to the abundant life that you want than how you choose to operate with your money. [00:07:32] (46 seconds)  #MoneyRevealsTrust