Prosperity - Our Covenant #4

I'm going to continue our teaching here on our covenant of prosperity.

I) If you have your Bible with you, turn with me to Ephesians 2:10-12.

A) In (verse 12) Paul is giving us a picture here of someone that wasn't saved. Someone that hasn't made Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior.

1) They were outsiders from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God.

2) But today if you are in Christ than just the opposite is true.

(a) We have God, we have hope, we are the true seed of Israel (according to Galatians chapter 3) and if that's true which the Word says it is, and we have been brought into the covenants of promise.

B) Notice that (Ephesians 2:12) says "COVENANTS OF PROMISE." (Plural)

1) There are basically 6 major covenants in the Bible: Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Israel, and the church. Plus many other smaller covenants.

(a) As a matter of fact, the Word "COVENANT" is found over 300 Times in your King James translation.

2) Once a covenant was spoken by God, it was established, everlasting and eternal.

(a) (Psalm 89:34) "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."

II) Now back in (Ephesians 2:12) it talks about "The covenants of promise." But now in Ephesians 2:13 it tells us that the covenants belong to us.

A) So let's read it Ephesians 2:13.

1) Let me read it to you from the Message Translation. "You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything. The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders."

2) Paul goes on to explain in the next three or four vs. that now there is no difference between the Christian and the believing Jew.

(a) We both now have access to the covenants of promise. They belong to us just as much as they belong to the believing Jew. (And really more than the unbelieving Jew.)

3) It's by the blood of Jesus we now have the right to claim every contract, every clause, and every promise that God has ever made to his people in the Word.

(a) If it has been promised in the Word, no matter who it was promise to, it now belongs to us through the blood of Jesus.

(b) We have a right to claim each and every promise.

(i) By virtue of the blood, we have a right to everything God has ever promised whether it is healing or prosperity or all the blessings found in Deuteronomy 28.

B) I want to stop right here for a moment and say this.

1) In order for you to receive prosperity, which is found in the covenant, you need to give the Word of God high priority in your life.

(a) You won’t receive anything outside of God's Word.

(b) You need to read the contract.

2) Quite often, we have people ask us to pray for a need. And that's great I believe in prayer and I believe that God answers prayer.

(a) But in order for you to keep it you have to know the Word.

(b) It's the same thing for healing.

(i) You might be healed in a prayer line, but it takes getting into the Word of God and knowing it in your heart for you to keep it.

C) Turn to Acts 20:32.

1) First, the Word of God will build you up.

(a) The body of Christ needs to be built up.

(b) Too long and to often the church is beaten down and left church feeling worse than they did when they came.

(i) God's Word is going to build you up.

2) And second, the Word will give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.

(a) "Sanctified" means, "being called out." It's those that have been washed in the blood of Jesus. Those that are saved.

(b) As you get into the Word of God and allow it to build you up, it will increase your faith to receive the promises.

III) Now you'll get people who will say, "Doesn't God warn us about wealth and prosperity."

A) Yes, he does.

1) Money and prosperity has its proper place, but if not put in its proper place, it will destroy you.

2) (Proverbs 1:32) says, "Prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

(a) Just don't be a fool when it comes to money.

B) Turn to 1st Timothy 6:17.

1) You have to have your priorities right.

(a) Money is not your source God is.

2) (Matthew 6:33) says, "Seek he first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."

(a) What's the order of priority here?

(i) Seek first all that pertains to the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then things will be added.

C) God's plan from the beginning has always been for His people to experience abundance.

1) Even starting with Adam, God wanted him to have abundance and comfort and success.

2) God planned for him to have his every need met, for him to walk in authority, in power, in victory, in success, and in prosperity.

(a) It wasn't until Satan into the picture that caused man to fall into the curse of financial hardship.

D) Jesus came to reverse the curse. 1st John 3:8.

1) Part of the "works of the Devil" was financial poverty.

2) Luke 4:18-19.

(a) The "ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD" was God's plan to wipe out debt and poverty.

(b) In the 50th year, everyone's debt would be wiped out, forgiven.

3) In (verse 18) Jesus said that he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor.

(a) The word "GOSPEL" is literally the words, "GOOD NEWS."

(b) The good news to the poor is that they're not going to be poor no more.

IV) Not everybody is going to be a millionaire, but every child of God should have supernatural abundance and financial prosperity in their life.

A) This prosperity will come to pass in your life when you fully open yourself to receive the truth of God's Word and allow His Spirit to work through you as he desires.

W. O. L. C. C. Sunday, November 11, 2001 from the book called Our Covenant of Prosperity by Marcus Bishop. From Chapter 4 Pp. 37 through 50.