How We Work

SOM: February

Economic Atheist: How you Work

What are the 4 most defining questions for your economic life?

The ones that if you got these 4 questions right then you’d get your economic right?

What are the 4 that stand above the 4 thousand questions about economics?

What are the 4 questions that if you got these right you’d be financially right?

But see it’s not just about you being financially right…

What are the 4 questions you would teach and train your kids when it came to dealing with money?

What are the 4 questions that God might elevate about finances?

1. How you work

2. How you honor

3. How you budget

4. How you Sabbath

When it comes to finances there are times in our lives where we need to dig into situations and there are times where we need to dig out…

There are times like in 2008 where the economy totally slaps you in the face! And what you thought was stable was no longer stable….

Are we on our own or is God intimately involved in all these areas?

Well let’s go after the first of the 4 today…How we work…

What if you’re deceived?

What if you are doing what you think is right…your doing the best you know how to do…

And we think that what we are doing is going to bring gain…but ultimately it brings loss?

You think it will bring life but it really brings death economically speaking…

There is a story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis…

The year was 1846…

He was an OBGYN…He worked at Vienna General Hospital and it was a very important research hospital.

And in his ward, 1 out of every 10 woman who gave birth died….

Think about that…those are horrible odds…Literally there are stories of women on their hands and knees begging to be put out of his ward

And this was a huge mystery…it confused and confounded Dr. Semmelweis and all of the other doctors…

So at one point he took a 4 month leave and when he did, the death rate dropped dramatically…It made the question of why are these women dying under Dr. Semmelweis’s care all the more important…

So finally they came to the understanding that Dr. Semmelweis was their lead researcher at the hospital. He was the one performing autopsy’s…and often, in the middle of preforming autopsies, he would get called up to deliver a baby…

And he never washed his hands!...Once they figured out that germs can be passed from a dead person to an alive person…

Dr. Semmelweis established a rule for himself and for all of his other doctors…and it was so simple

Wash your hands in chlorine and lime, before you care for living patients

And you know what happened? The death rate dropped incredibly!

That’s all it was! Wash your hands! A simple guideline

A fence was built and it made all the difference

They were self-deceived and they didn't even know it…They thought they were bringing good when they were really bringing bad…

They thought they were bringing life when they were really bringing death!

At a conversation of his own lamenting he said, “God only knows how many patients prematurely went to the grave because of me.”

Can you imagine…You are a doctor and the whole point of your existence is to bring life but instead…you bring death to many!

That's what self-deception does…and in order to combat this…They made a simple guideline.

This was what the book of Leviticus was all about…It’s God providing fences and guidelines and giving clear understanding of simply profound things…It's a book about these guidelines and fences…

There are sexual fences…dietary fences…relational fences…worship and sacrifice fences…but where we are going to spend out time is something that I think is really practical…and that is economic fences.

Now let me just give you a little background: The book of Leviticus is one of the 5 books of the Pentateuch….

The first 5 books of the bible are called the Pentateuch…they are the foundation of Judaism and Christianity…and I’ll tell you this…Understanding the first 5 books of the bible really helps you to understand the depths of Jesus

So Leviticus is all about these lines in the sand that God draws…They are these laws these fences and he is basically saying…if you want to know how to live in the land I am giving to you…

Now quick side note: The fences that God draws are designed to bring life…When Jesus rails against the Pharisees in the new testament…its because they saw God’s fence and said…well lets draw another fence so we wont even get close to God’s fence…and in that way they taught their people to worship fences and not God…

God’s fences are always designed to give God the glory…The Pharisees started giving their own rules the glory…

The fences that God builds are all out of love.

You probably do this instinctively with your own kids

Before you cross the street look both ways…Why? You love your kids and you have to set a boundary so they don’t get hit by a car

Parents…How many times have you heard the toilet flush in your house…Seen your kid walk out and you said…Did you wash your hands?....and then they turn around and go back in…Then you yell…WITH SOAP! Its establishing a fence!

When Emma was little, one of the fences we put up was to not go places with strangers. And we would quiz her...

Ok Emma, if someone comes to you with candy at the park and says come with me…are you going to go…She said no!

then we said Emma if a stranger tells you that he has a car full of puppies and he wants you to see, what are you going to do? …We found Emma’s weakness…She was like…Oh I’d go because why would you lie about puppies?

God installs fences through His word and as a parent…Out of love…you install some fences too!

So the fences in Leviticus

If you follow them…you have life…if you don't…there is death!

And here is how much I love you I am going to tell you what they are…

Leviticus 18:1-5

18 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

See God is making a fence for his people. He is saying, don’t live like the people in Egypt!

A Theist is a person who lives like there is a God…who believes in one God.. We are theist

Don't live like the people around you because they live like atheist

So you have to live like the theist in a world of atheists

By the way…this is still what God is saying to us today! We have to live like theist in a world of atheists

Jump with me to chapter 19

19 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

In other words, I am the Lord your God…I am going to establish a theocracy…a government based on who god is…and God is the king in this scenario…You will live under his rule because he has life to give you

So God builds a fence of his favor

and the idea is that if you learn to live in this fence then you will learn to live in His favor

and if you get out side of this fence…you start living by your own rules…you forget to wash your, hands so to speak…

He wants you to know how to do life…He wants you to know on this side is his favor

On one side of the fence is blessing…the other cursing…

One side is feasting and other side is famine…

So lets get into how you work…and in order to understand how we work…we need to know some fundamental questions

1. What is an economic cycle?

This is how you do work and business…this is how you make things grow

And you have to understand by God establishing this fence he is saying, I am the author of economics! I will walk you through this!

See many of you might have this idea that God can have a voice in my money sure…but money is material…it is just a neutral medium of exchange…so sure God has a voice in it but I’ll take care of it!

But here is something I want you to get. The Bible talks more about Money and economics than it does about prayer and faith combined! Do you think God takes money lightly? Then why should we?

We HAVE to start with the understanding that God is the Lord of Economics…He doesn’t just he get a voice in it…He is Lord of it!

Leviticus 19:23

23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden.[b] For three years you are to consider it forbidden[c]; it must not be eaten.24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the Lord your God.

This is God’s economic cycle!

So in the first year you plant…For three years its forbidden…

The fourth year it is Holy and you give it as an offering

And the fifth year you may harvest…

You know what everyone always talks about God and money as if God wants to take away from you…Some of you even when I read this probably thought…See God is just trying to take all the fruit…But you see when you live by God’s plan he has designed it for an increase for you…

Everyone wants to know how do you get ahead? Well this is how…but the funny thing is that we read this and think…this is how you get behind…but God clearly says…this is how you get ahead!

White board:

Let me lay out the economic cycle for you…

Three Words: Sow —> Grow —> Harvest

So what God is saying is, I have created the way in which work gets done! How it actually works! While this applies to agriculture…he is revealing a truth about how he created all of life

Sow: You plow and plant

…This is often recognized as the hard work…In every area of work there is a sowing season

Everywhere where there is work…there is this hard work, there is this sowing stage…Maybe it’s college or the trades or being a Journeyman or an intern…In every area of life there is the hard work…the grunt work and you cant neglect it it's the most important…In fact…I would submit…if you neglect this…you’ll never get to harvest!

When I first started in ministry, I was part time…I had to work another job to support myself doing ministry…I did the grunt work that no one else wanted to do.

I remember all I wanted to do was to preach but I was in my early 20’s, I ran the sound board when the sound guy was sick, I fixed the computer when it wasn’t working. One Sunday morning, I actually climbed in the rafters to replace a projector bulb, like minutes before church.

Why? because when your young, you have show that your invested

One of the things I see constantly in ad’s targeted toward twenty somethings is this desire to skip the hard work

Get your paycheck early...

Put your money with us some things could be free.

Watch almost any ad that had kids in their 20’s in it…The ad is tapping into that desire to cut in line…To get ahead without the work of sowing!

Parents. We have to teach our kids the value of hard work! They need to see it as a phase of life to lean into, not to skip. Your kids wont be able to understand now they will complain, they will tantrum and they will call you names....But no one will be able to teach them the value of hard work but you.

Parents you have the luxury of foresight. And the reality is that you get about 1/5th of their life to mold and shape them into who they are going to be the rest of their lives.

And I love my kids so much but they just cant see down the road to what life will be like when they are in their 30’s...

I am trying to parent my kids now to have fun and be kids but also to be able to leave the house one day and live on their own. To raise their own families. And that takes hard work.

Generationally I am an “Elder millennial” Which means I am on the oldest end of the spectrum of millennials.

I hear all the time from people who are responsible for teams and staffs how frustrated they have been with the younger generation…Why because they don’t put the work in.

Because they won’t go the extra mile

I have heard people say they need to be coddled on the job. Now I know that is not true for a bunch of millennials

But if we really believe that there is an economic cycle that God establishes…It makes me want to teach my kids now, the value of working hard. Its a fence that needs to be established

Grow: Weed and wait

…how many of us would say…we hate to wait? and we hate both of these ways Leviticus says wait 3 years! You cant shortcut this time! If you were an Dendrologist you would get what this is saying…you need three years for the roots to get deep enough so that the tree will be healthy!

Don't cheat the process…don't try and eat the fruit when its not ready…don't try and speed this up…its not economically mature…

Do everything you can not to pull money out of your 401K until you retire....Why? Its all about waiting with that...

And in the 4th year you get your first Harvest, but whose is that? God’s

Why? We need to be clear about who is in charge! Its his land…its his tree…he is in control…

But year 5 you are going to be totally prosperous

Now this tree will do all you imagined!

Now this is true in all of life!

Now if you are a high schooler or early college years:

All of society is Sowing into you…You are not an asset yet…You are a liability! And when you are done with high school or college you get into this Grow Phase of life…Get on your own, move out! And during your 20’s and 30’s you are in the grow stage of life…and when you get into your 40’s and 50’s you hit the harvest stage of life…

Many of my friends got into trouble in their early 20’s because when they got out of their house and moved into their own place they tried to live at the economic level that they used to live in with their parents…Their parents were in harvest stage and they were in Sow to Grow stage

Early 20’s Sow

30-40’s grow

50’s to 60’s Harvest!

And whenever you get to the harvest stage you have to remember to pour back into sowing …Because if you don't do that then you will deplete the harvest!!!!

God has created this economic cycle because this is how it worked

Now what stage do we love the most?

Harvest right?: This is Reap and Reward

And that is awesome…But what we are at risk of is that we love harvest so much, we are at risk of violating how we work!

We so love harvest that this is how we get outside the fence of God’s favor.

So we become consumed with consuming!

Harvest —> Harvest—> Harvest

When countries live this way what happens…They owe more than they make and they bankrupt their entire nation…

When you live like this… Harvest —> Harvest—> Harvest

…You will go bankrupt!

It’s why we have Saturday Night Live Moments like this:

SNL Video

In the sarcasm of all of this…what they are making fun of is this mindset that Harvest —> Harvest—> Harvest . …Doesn’t work!

But have we created a nation who believes that that is how it should be?

Have we communicated that you can cheat the process? And if the harvest doesn't come how you want then someone should just give you a harvest…

If you remove the fence of Leviticus 19 then you will inevitably fall into other things…Let’s get back to some of the other fences that Leviticus 19 puts up…

Leviticus 19:11

11 “‘Do not steal.

“‘Do not lie.

“‘Do not deceive one another.

When you get addicted to the harvest…Those get easy!

Listen to this!

2 Thessalonians 3:6

6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching[a] you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

It doesn't say…unable…It says unwilling…

That is in the New Testament…The time where grace abounded…and you know what…teaching people to work hard is an act of grace!

Just listen to this!

Ephesians 4:28

28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

Students: when you cheat in school, that was your harvest…and you sowed that back into your life & eventually when you really do have to work you will try and cheat the process

In our nation we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in security measure because we steel from each other…

I want to just show you one example of this

This was on the news a few years back from the Ft. Lauderdale airport….

Video of Man stealing a Rolex at the airport line

You know what’s more troubling? Some of the comments that were on the YouTube

“Who cares if this is steeling or not, maybe the idiot who spends $6,500 on a watch shouldn't forget to pick up her watch”

“It’s not steeling as there is no motive or intent to do so”

“A first year law student would be able to get him off those charges”

You know what’s even more concerning: There are followers of Christ all over who would be ethically outrage at what they just saw…But it never occurs to them that we do that very thing at offering time!

God says the 4th year the first fruits are mine! It’s how you acknowledge me as God…

Maybe its never occurred to you that every opportunity to give you withhold what is God’s from him…He sees you just as we watched the man steal that Rolex

And what’s terrifying is we keep what’s God’s because we actually believe it will help us get ahead!

Once you buy into Harvest —> Harvest—> Harvest: You will have no choice! You will ultimately lean into stealing, cheating, shortcutting and robbing…because Getting ahead has become your god.

What is an economic theist?

Someone who acknowledges God in all things and realizes that God governs your economics!

Someone who lives as if it were true that God is in charge of all of your finances!

Someone who knows that God is in charge of: How you work…How you honor. How you budget…how you Sabbath…

An economic theist is someone That realizes that God’s financial gifts to me are all gifts…

What is an economic Atheist…Someone who says when it comes to my finances there is no God…I am god, I decide how I work, how I honor…how I budget…how I Sabbath

Dr. Semmelweis had a great deception

He believed that everything he was doing was bringing life and what he didn't realize was that he was bringing death

We have a great deception: We thing that we are working very hard to bring about economic prosperity while simultaneously we are undermining the very favor of God and bringing loss and often death to our finances!

I want you to hear this: If you talk and pray like a theist and you handle money & work like an atheist: God wont bless that....

If you talk like a Christian and pray like a Christian…but live like an atheist then what do you expect?

Maybe you get outside the fence in how you work…how you honor or how you Sabbath…

And I want you to hear me…if your there…this series is designed to bring you back into the fence of God’s favor!

I want to invite the back into the favor of God…I want to invite you to take an economic stand this series!

Will you use this series to come back into the fence of God’s favor?

Will you come weekly and dig in?

Will you discuss this at your dinner tables? With your kids…Will you live this out!

Let’s Pray!