The Miracle of Provision

Celebrate Him, celebrate Him, keep clapping. Hello everyone, wasn't that fantastic worship? Come on, let's give Jesus some praise in this place. Thank you Lord. God, we love you and we love your presence. Let's pray. Dear Lord Jesus, come in this place Lord.

We love your presence, we love who you are. God, I pray this morning Lord, as we hear your word Lord, may I not speak this morning, but may you speak through me Lord. Open up our hearts to hear from you Jesus and hear from your word. God, I believe that what you placed on my heart this morning is important Lord, not just for us as the life of a church God, but individually on an individual level. So God, I pray, speak to us this morning.

Hey, so how are we all doing? Good. Excellent. So today I'm preaching on one of those lovely subjects that we all get so excited about, giving and tithing. Yeah. Who doesn't get excited for a bit of giving and tithing? Well, you know, I was when I, in fact, my plan today was not to preach on giving and tithing.

My plan was to speak on living a life that is consecrated to Jesus. And I was going to speak on culture and cultural norms and how as Christians we should be against the grain, against the culture. But just a couple of days ago, I felt God changed the message and tell me to speak on giving, which is not a subject that I would pick. But I was looking through the Bible and I was trying to work out how can I speak on this subject. And on my heart came the power of the 10 menace.

So let me read this to you. This is a power ball and this is Jesus speaking and telling the story. How many of you know that when something's red, the color red in the Bible, it means Jesus is speaking? Yeah. Fantastic. So while they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a power ball because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.

He said, "A man of noble birth went to a distant country "to have himself appointed king and then return." So he called 10 of his servants and gave them 10 menis. Now, a menis is like a month's wages, maybe more or less a month's wages. Put this money to work, he said, until I come back. But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation to him.

We don't want this man to be our king. He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it. The first one came back and said, "Sir, your meaner has earned 10 more. "Well done, my good servant," his master replied.

"Because you have been trustworthy with a small matter, "take charge of 10 cities." The second came and said, "Sir, your meaner has earned five more." His master answered, "You take charge of five cities." Then another servant came and said, "Sir, here is your meaner. "I kept it laid away in a cloth.

"I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. "You take out what you did not put in "and reap what you did not sow." His master replied, "I will judge you by your own words. "You wicked servant, you knew, didn't you, "that I am a hard man, "taking out what I did not put in "and reaping what I did not sow." Why then did you put my money on deposit so that when I came back and have collected it with interest?

Then he said to those standing by, "Take his Mina away and give it to the one who has 10 Minas." Sir, they said, "He already has 10." He replied, "I tell you that to everyone who has more "will be given, but for the one who has nothing, "even what they have will be taken away. "But those enemies of mine did not want me to be king over them. "Bring them here and kill them in front of me."

Let me just clarify, we're not gonna be killing anybody here at the front of the stage this morning. But you know, what this tells me is that the Minas that the Master gave to his servants was not their Minas. It was the Master's Minas. That he entrusted it to them to look after it. And the one who turned that Minas into 10 more Minas was a good servant.

He was a steward of that money. And the one that kept it hidden, he didn't spend the Minas. He didn't steal it. He understood that it wasn't his, but he wasn't a good steward of that Minas. And you know, when God gives us stuff, he gives it to us to be a good steward of.

Now, there are many quote unquote gospels that people live by. If you go to a big flashy American church with lots and lots of money, they might stand on stage, not really quote the Bible, but share the prosperity gospel, which is this fantastic gospel where we put in a bit and God gives us far more, right? It's concept that we put in 10, God puts in 100, we put in 100, God gives us back a thousand and it's all about what God can give us. It's give in order to get. It teaches a toxic view of Christianity and you know what, given God does give back to us.

We know this, this is proven fact, but it's about our heart position. So that's the prosperity gospel. Here's another methodology that people use. The poverty gospel. It teaches that the poorer you are, the better off you're gonna be in God's kingdom.

That God has a favorable view upon you because you are poorer than others and because your poorer and life is harder, you get more glory from God. But that doesn't sound like the God that I serve. The productivity gospel. Now there's lots of truth in this one too. Work hard in your get.

And how many of us know that? Do nothing, don't work hard, you won't get. But work hard and you will get. That's the productivity gospel. Now here's one that I love. Notice they all begin with P, there's a theme here. (audience laughs) The provision gospel.

That teaches us that God is our provider and when we trust in Him, there is provision. I love that. You know, none of these are wrong. They all teach a view of God, but none of them on their own give the whole picture. The presence gospel. This is that our God is a good dad and he loves to give good gifts to his kids.

And that is true, church. How many of us know that? That God loves to give us good gifts. And finally, the popularity gospel. This is the view that the more popular you are, therefore the better you must be because you're more popular and therefore the better God gives you because he favors you because man sees you as better than others.

And you know, maybe that's true, maybe that's not true, but that's not how I like to see my God. So church, I love the concept of provision gospel. And although that's just one of these things that I've talked about this morning, that's what I wanna focus on. Because our God is a God that provides. The provision gospel teaches us that we're not just here to get, we're not using God as a cash machine where we put money in and get more back, but we instead put our trust fully in Him because we understand that we are just a servant here on earth and that everything is His.

You know, everything we have on this earth is just here, on loan to us. So I was doing some research because I want to give some numbers, some facts for you, right? And so I was looking at the death rate here in Norwich and what I found when I dug deep into this is that here in Norwich, around 100% of us will die. (audience laughing) 100% of us will die. (audience laughing) 100% of us here in Norwich will die. It may be different elsewhere in the world, but here the statistics say that 100% of us will die. And do you know what will happen when you die?

All of those fantastic, cool things you've collected for your life. I have some really cool things that I exist just to look at. Do you remember those cameras we bought from Top Gear? Yeah, they're still in your loft, but they're a treasure. These are some cameras that I bought at auction that we used to film a Top Gear special many, many years ago.

And they still have debt on them in paint that you saw in the TV show. But everything you have is not yours. And when you die, it all goes elsewhere, right? You know, when we die, our kids are gonna look for all of our rubbish and be like, I can't believe that they wore this. Ah, it's so ugly.

They might be saying, you know, they might be, sorry, one second, I've got a wardrobe malfunction. I feared that would happen. They'll look at our stuff and be like, oh my goodness, this is so stupid. Can you believe that mum wore those ugly mum jeans? And those things that we spent so much money on that for years we saved up for and were really important to us, we'll, they'll look for those things and go, I don't know, give it to someone.

We'll sell it for 50 quid on Facebook marketplace. And here's what I want you to grasp from this church, that nothing is ours anyway. When we die, it all goes back to the Lord. In fact, it even says this in the Bible. It says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

How many of you know that? So let's talk about tithing. Who's heard of tithing? So tithing is the principle of giving 10. So tithe means 10. It translates directly as 10. It says Leviticus 2730, a tithe of everything belongs to the Lord. That's a 10th of everything belongs to him.

So tithing is not giving. Tithing is not an offering because it's not yours anyway. Church, I want you to grasp this concept that everything we have is not ours, it is God's. And so when we tithe, what we are saying is God, I know that my life is yours, my time is yours, my finance is yours, everything that I have is yours. And so I am showing you that I understand this principle by giving back 10% of everything that I have.

That's not just 10% of your money either. That's 10% of everything, right? We are giving God first our 10%. Now I also want you to grasp that this is not our last 10%. It takes very little faith to give your leftovers back to God. But it takes lots of faith to give your firsts.

It says in Proverbs 3, 9, 10, "Honour the Lord with your wealth "and the first fruits of all of your crops. "Then your barns will be filled." So this is the concept that I live by and I want you to understand. That when I understand that nothing is mine, that it is all God's, what I have to work with becomes unlimited. And this is completely supernatural.

So let's not put God in a natural box. That the bills that I have to pay, the things that I have to do, when I understand that my existence here on earth is to honor and serve God, I know and trust and believe that God will take care of the rest, everything that I need. That might not be everything that I want. (audience laughing) Who here would like, I don't know, a Thraori or a Lamborghini? I don't need it. (audience laughing) I don't need it. But when I understand the principle that everything is God's, I have unlimited.

This is what I like to refer to as the miracle of provision. And it is a miracle. And you know church, we talk about miracles, but I want you to understand this. This conversation, this message is not because we want your money. The same miracle that exists in my own life where the pot is unlimited we have here in our church.

And I tell you this boldly and with confidence, we don't need your money. We don't need you to give. We don't. God provides, here's what happens in our church all the time, right? Bills come out and money comes in. It is supernatural. And what's really interesting about it, it is not above and beyond what we need.

It's exactly what we need. And so we talk about this as a leadership team all the time where whatever we need is provided for and it doesn't even make sense. Some months we need more than others. Some months we need very little. But each month, the amount that we need seems to just add up together.

And we saw this miracle and you know this story and I want you guys to really know this story because it is a miracle in the life of our church and I want you to hold this and believe it and I use this as a testimony. But when we paid for this roof, we took up an offering and between you will you manage to raise in pledges 10,000 pounds. That's a lot of money, 10,000 pounds. But also I want you to understand this. Look at the practicals here.

That was pledges. So some of that money came in straight away. Other parts of that money is people saying I will give this in the future or I'm gonna give this monthly over the next year. And we took up this offering right before we needed the money as well. And we were expecting the roof to cost 30,000 pounds but it actually ended up costing 43,500.

That's an exact figure for you, 43,500 pounds. And we did not have that. In fact, at the time we had exactly 9,000 pounds in our church account. That was some of the money that we'd raised through that offering. Others it was just the general cost of running church.

We have bills to pay, we have all of the different things that we need to pay for. So some of that money was like general church running money. And, but we had no choice. We had a window of weather to work in because taking the roof off the church during the rainy season is not a good idea. And so the builders, they had to start the work and we had to start paying them throughout every step of the process.

And so we did. We just kept paying their bills and paying their bills and paying their bills. And over, what was it, a month, a few weeks while they did the work, we just kept paying the bills. And at the end of it, we'd successfully paid a 43,500 pound bill. And we had the same amount of money left in our church bank account as we started with at the beginning.

Exactly. And please hear me, okay? This is not a on paper thing. This is not a boosted up story. This is complete factual information for you. God provided the need that we had as a church, He provided. And we see this time and time again. I could list you story after story in our church life of where God has provided.

But I want you to know that there is a miracle of provision that exists. And that same miracle that we have access to as a corporate church, you have access to yourself in your private life. That same miracle, the miracle of provision. But we have to understand that none of it's ours in the first place church. When we pay a bill and we are serving God, it's not our bill, it's God's.

He's a supernatural God. So why would we put Him in a natural box? I mean, would you expect your boss to, if you had to do some work for your boss at work, would you expect to pay the bill? Or is that His bill to pay? So church, in that power of the 10 menace, the servant who took His menace and He used it well, understood the principle that it wasn't His and He used everything that He had in His and to serve His master.

We must serve our Lord Jesus with everything. Understand that finance and giving is not about the money. It just isn't. I've told you, we don't need your money. What my heart for you is, is that you would catch this miracle for your own life. And I don't want you to miss it.

I've seen it in my life. Let's have a look in the Bible of when the miracle of provision is talked about. This is in Exodus 16.4. Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you." The people are to go out each day and gather enough for the day.

In this way, I will test them and see whether they follow my instructions. I don't know if you know the context of that story, but God provided what they called manna from heaven. And the interesting thing about manna is it was just enough. It wasn't crazy amounts of food each day. And this was when the Israelites were wandering in the desert and they hadn't yet reached Israel.

God didn't provide huge extravagant amounts of food. He provided exactly what they needed. It's the miracle of provision right there in the Bible. Luke 16, 10, one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest with very little is also dishonest with much.

Proverbs 9, type three, nine to 20, "Honour the Lord with your wealth, "with the first fruits of all of your crops. "Then your barns will be filled to overflowing "and your vats will bring over with new wine." This principle goes way beyond finance, as I've said. How many of you know what the Sabbath is? The Sabbath, some people think that the Sabbath is a specific day that exists.

Often people describe it as being Sunday. I don't know if I subscribe to that. I think the Sabbath is a day of rest and it is our first day and we give it to the Lord. I've talked about first fruits, how it doesn't take faith to give your last. Well, it's the same with our week.

We have to give God the first of our week. The first thing we do in our life is think about God. The second is everything else. And so the Sabbath is so important because it's all about giving our first to God, having a day, a week that we dedicate to Him. And it's a principle that exists, one yes, to honor the Lord because he's worthy of us.

But it's also a principle that exists for our own benefit. How many of you have worked seven days a week every week and felt exhausted? I still do it and I'm still learning the principle of the Sabbath. But it's hard, church. It's hard to stop and honor the Lord with our time.

But in the same way as I believe there's miracle in finance, I believe there's miracle in our time too. So you know, this morning, church, wherever you're at, maybe you've got bills to pay and you don't know where your finances gonna come to pay those bills. And believe me, I do understand what that feels like. But I want to challenge you this morning. Seek first the kingdom and all shall be provided.

First fruits. Begin to honor God in your finances, in your life, in your time and see what God does. Because I promise you there is a miracle and it is untouched. This morning church I challenge you. Put God first and see the miracle. Church, let's pray.

God, we thank you for the miracle, Lord, of provision. God, we repent right now for when we have not put you first, God. Personally, Lord, I repent Jesus for when I have not put you first. For when you have not been the first thing in my life, when you have not been the first thing in my finances. And God, I ask, Lord, that you help us catch hold of the vision.

Of the meanest, the vision of provision, the vision of tithe. That it is not about us. It is not about what we give, what we provide. It is all about our heart's position with you, Jesus. I pray for every single one of us this morning, Lord, for a supernatural overflow in our life as we catch hold of this principle.

God, I pray, Lord, that as people begin to catch hold, Lord, and tithe, Lord, and put you first in their life, God, that you will provide a supernatural overflow in their life. That every bill that they need paid would be paid in Jesus' name. That everything they need would be provided in Jesus' name. And God, I pray, Lord, for us as a church that you use us. We're not here, Lord, for our glory.

We are here for your glory. And so I ask this morning, God, use us. Move amongst us. Use us, Lord, that every moment in our life, whether we're at work or school, God, whatever we are doing in our life, God, that it would be for you and it would be for your glory, that we would be your army in the mission field, Jesus. Lord, provide for your army this morning.

I pray. So maybe this is all really new to you. Maybe. Maybe you're not even sure if you believe in God. Let alone the miracle of provision. But our God is a good, good God. Maybe you're here visiting. Maybe somebody has invited you this morning. Maybe you've been coming along for a while, but you don't feel yet that you have connected with who Jesus really is.

And that these crazy conversations about money and finance make no sense when you're yet to discover who Jesus really is. And so I would like to give you an opportunity. If you haven't already to get to know who my Jesus really is, my God that provides. So we're going to pray a prayer. Follow after me, church.

Dear Lord Jesus. This morning, God, I accept that you are my Lord and my savior. And I ask you to be the provision in my life. God, may my life live for you. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Hey, church, have you prayed that prayer for the first time this morning?

I want you to do something really courageous for me. Nobody's looking. I want you to raise your hand as a deceleration of faith. Thank you.