WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:15.200 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. Let's just bow our heads in prayer. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.879 Father, we give you thanks and praise that you know each one of us perfectly. 00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:28.159 Father, you know what we're really like. You know our strengths. You know our weaknesses. You know our 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:34.159 sins. You know those things that we're ashamed of. You know, Father, the different dodges we make when 00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:40.879 it comes to knowing you and following Jesus. You know what we really think about your Word. And you know 00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:45.679 all these things and still you love us. Father, we don't appreciate that as much as we should. 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:52.000 We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would fall with gentle power upon us this morning as we look 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:58.720 at a tricky passage of the Bible that talks about a tricky matter of our heart. And we ask that your 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:05.520 Holy Spirit would fall, that you would bring us to Jesus, that you would help us to hear your Word as 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:11.359 wisdom and beauty and goodness and truth for each one of us. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, 00:02:11.359 --> 00:02:15.039 your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:24.959 So just in case you don't know, we're summer in the Psalms. We're looking at different Psalms. We're not 00:02:25.359 --> 00:02:30.879 going through each Psalm from, you know, one after another. We're going to look at 10 of sort of 30 00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:38.239 Psalms between 91 and 120. But here's the thing. I'm going to talk about money today. And just so you 00:02:38.239 --> 00:02:43.519 know, I didn't know I was going to talk about money until I looked at the Psalm very carefully. And then I 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:51.840 realized the Psalm actually talked about money a fair bit. And that's a bit of a troublesome topic. And so 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:56.960 before I go any further in this, I just want to let people know that if you're here and you're outside of the 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:01.200 Christian faith, you're trying to figure out, maybe you're on your way out of the Christian faith. Maybe you're 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:05.520 trying to figure out whether you want to become a Christian. Maybe you're watching or are present because 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:11.200 you're looking for more ammo about why not to be a Christian. Regardless, we're really glad you're here. And so before 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:15.359 I say anything else, I want you to know that the rector and warden, I'm the rector, the wardens and I 00:03:15.359 --> 00:03:19.679 would like it if you're outside of the Christian faith. I mean, I hope you listen to this because 00:03:19.679 --> 00:03:24.560 there's lots of wisdom in it. I'll explain what the problem is in a moment. But we'd really appreciate 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:30.599 it if you don't give us any money. That we'd rather you didn't give us any money because we're not 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:35.599 interested in your money. We're interested in you coming to know Jesus. And the money will, you'll figure 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:40.159 out the money later on. But here's the thing that we're talking about today. I think if we were to 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:46.959 be honest and talk, every single one of us in this room, maybe not everyone, 99% of us would probably 00:03:46.959 --> 00:03:54.819 like to have just a little bit more money. And maybe not 99% of us would like a little bit more money 00:03:54.819 --> 00:04:00.560 because some of us would like a lot more money. Not just a little bit money, but like really a big 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:09.599 dump of money. And none of us would like to get less money. Maybe one or two of us would, but probably 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:14.439 most of us wouldn't like to get less money. But here's the thing about it. So we'd like to get a 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:18.680 bit more money. And part of the reason we'd like to get a bit more money is that we'd like to be 00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:25.139 just more comfortably, I'd like to be more comfortably me. And I think if I had a bit more 00:04:25.139 --> 00:04:29.899 money, I'd be more comfortably me. I'd be a little bit less stressed about certain things. I'd 00:04:29.899 --> 00:04:35.299 maybe be a little bit more hopeful. I'd be a little bit more generous. I'd like to have a 00:04:35.299 --> 00:04:41.719 little bit more money so I could be more genuinely me. But I also would say, you know, but by the way, 00:04:41.739 --> 00:04:46.159 I can see some other people. I look around, you know, my friends, you know, my parents, my grandparents, 00:04:46.479 --> 00:04:51.500 my cousins, my brother, my sister. And I don't want to be like them. I don't want to become obsessed 00:04:51.500 --> 00:04:55.919 with money. I don't want to become controlled by money. I don't want to end up serving money. I don't 00:04:55.919 --> 00:04:59.759 want to end up, you know, some people, they get more money and they start to act like 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:05.259 they're better than other people. It just changes them in bad ways. So what we would like is we would 00:05:05.259 --> 00:05:11.199 like to have a little bit more money and we'd like to not have money control us and bend us out of 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:16.519 shape. That's like a very common, I don't think it's just a Canadian thing. I bet if I went to 00:05:16.519 --> 00:05:21.459 Nigeria or Ghana or China, people would all say the same type of thing. That's what we'd like to have 00:05:21.459 --> 00:05:29.319 that relationship with money. But the problem is that money almost always does form us in unconscious 00:05:29.319 --> 00:05:35.099 and powerful ways. And I'll illustrate it by telling you a true story. About 20 years or so 00:05:35.099 --> 00:05:39.659 ago, there was a person who used to go to the church. They don't come here anymore. I think 00:05:39.659 --> 00:05:46.100 they moved off to a nicer place to live like Victoria or something like that. But they were 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:52.199 here and they had been part of a small little high-tech company and one of the founding employees. 00:05:52.539 --> 00:05:57.879 And their company got bought out by a bigger company. And so this person, we'll call him Bob, 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:02.100 he got a nice little lump payment. And I don't know, this is like 20 years ago. It was, I don't know, 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:06.339 two, three, four million dollars. 20 years ago, that's a lot of money today and it's even more 00:06:06.339 --> 00:06:11.300 money 20 years ago. And I heard about it. He wasn't boasting about it or anything. I'd heard 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:15.899 about it through the grapevine and I hadn't had coffee or anything with him in a while. So I said, 00:06:15.899 --> 00:06:19.560 hey, listen, we should have coffee or lunch or something. And it happened to be a Sunday where 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:24.779 my wife and all was gone and he said after church, hey, why don't I just take you out for lunch? 00:06:24.779 --> 00:06:31.099 I said, sure, let's go out for lunch. So we go down from that building to where he'd parked his car 00:06:31.099 --> 00:06:36.879 and I come up and I'm actually completely and utterly shocked when I see his car. It is the 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:46.559 smallest Honda Civic you could buy. It's over 20 years old and it has rust spots. So I get in the car 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:56.680 and I say, like, Bob, like, like what's with the car? And he said, well, you shouldn't be asking me a 00:06:56.680 --> 00:07:03.120 question like that. Why is it that I should have a more expensive car just because I have money? 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:16.340 Then he said, I like this car. The seat fits me. There's big windows. It's paid for. Gets me from 00:07:16.340 --> 00:07:23.500 A to B and B to A. Why do we need a better car? Well, why do we all think that? Why would we 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:28.780 automatically think that somebody who in like today's dollars has just come into an extra 10, 00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:34.259 15 million dollars should be buying something better than a 21-year-old smallest Honda they sell 00:07:34.259 --> 00:07:40.599 car with rust spots and three or 400,000 kilometers? Like, why do we think that? See, the fact is that 00:07:40.599 --> 00:07:47.299 money does form us. And in many cases, it's going to form us in a very, very powerful way. 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:52.619 So, you know, what's going on? So, you know, there's some religions and some forms of spirituality 00:07:52.620 --> 00:07:57.519 that basically say that, you know, all money is bad. And it's just like fundamentally, the poorer 00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:02.819 you are, the more holy you are. I mean, you know, those of you who are French Canadian, you know, 00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:09.459 Québécois, you know, there was a terrible legacy in Quebec of the church teaching people it's good to 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:15.519 be poor. It's a virtue to be poor. Don't try to better yourself. Is that like what? Or should you 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:20.360 become a fully devoted follower and worshiper of mammon and make as much money? Like, how do you right 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:25.900 place money? Understand money in such a way that you know you need it. You know, you know, you have 00:08:25.900 --> 00:08:31.819 to, it's a good and valid thing to have certain types of desires, like to be able to own a house 00:08:31.819 --> 00:08:36.680 or, you know, to be able to provide, you know, for yourself and your loved ones. So how do you sort of 00:08:36.680 --> 00:08:41.860 get all that going on? Well, believe it or not, in a very unlikely phrase, in an unlikely psalm, 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:47.580 written somewhere between 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, there is profound and beautiful wisdom 00:08:47.580 --> 00:08:53.240 about how to right-size money. So if you turn with me in your Bibles, we're going to look at it 00:08:53.240 --> 00:09:01.480 together. It's Psalm 112. It's the text that Monique read for us. Psalm 112. And so what I'm 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:05.680 going to do, I don't know how much of you, how much we were paying attention when the psalm was read. 00:09:06.060 --> 00:09:12.320 I'm going to read the psalm because, you see, at first glance, this psalm seems to say exactly the 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:17.660 opposite of how I've introduced it. So I just want to make sure, I don't want to try to hide 00:09:17.660 --> 00:09:20.940 something. I don't want to, I don't want to sort of, I mean, not that I'm very good at dazzling, 00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:24.940 but if I could dazzle you with things and dazzle you with all things, at the end of the day, it has 00:09:24.940 --> 00:09:28.700 nothing to do with the text, you know, and then you go back later on and look at the text and say, 00:09:28.740 --> 00:09:33.340 gosh, that all seems to go against what George Act, no, I want you to help you to read the Bible. 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:41.260 So we'll just go through it first, fairly quickly. And it isn't a text that at first glance 00:09:41.259 --> 00:09:46.259 doesn't look like it's saying what it, what I say it does. It begins like this, praise the Lord, 00:09:47.559 --> 00:09:53.340 or original language, hallelujah. And then it said, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 00:09:53.500 --> 00:09:59.480 who greatly delights in his commandments. Now, right off the bat, most people are going to say 00:09:59.480 --> 00:10:04.480 there's some problems with this, like why on earth is it blessed to fear the Lord? Shouldn't religion 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:11.179 and spirituality deliver you from fear? Why is it encouraging to fear the Lord? And then it goes 00:10:11.179 --> 00:10:18.120 on verse two, his offspring will be mighty in the land, the generation of the upright will be blessed. 00:10:19.099 --> 00:10:22.819 And you look at that and you pause, like what about people who haven't been able to have children? 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:28.759 Like what about people who would love to have been able to have had a child, but they weren't able to 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:34.559 find somebody to marry? What about people who struggle with infertility? Like, is that implying that 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:39.699 like really like only like God saying you should be blessed in such a way that you're going to have 00:10:39.700 --> 00:10:44.600 lots of children? And what about, well, you can, I won't go any further, but look at verse three, 00:10:45.160 --> 00:10:49.360 wealth and riches are in his house and his righteousness endures forever. Well, what on 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:54.200 earth does it possibly mean righteousness endures forever? And is it just saying that if you really 00:10:54.200 --> 00:11:00.600 love Jesus and follow Jesus, he's going to make you rich and wealthy? Like George, that's just not true, 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:04.900 is it? Like it can't be true. George, you're not wealthy and rich. I've seen the car you're driving. 00:11:04.899 --> 00:11:11.579 It's a 21-year-old Subaru. Like you don't qualify as rich. Well, verse four, light dawns in the 00:11:11.579 --> 00:11:15.639 darkness for the upright. He is gracious and merciful and righteous. And that sounds good. 00:11:16.259 --> 00:11:20.740 It is well, verse five, with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs 00:11:20.740 --> 00:11:29.259 with justice. Well, that sounds good too. Verse six, for the righteous will never be moved and he will 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:34.679 be remembered forever. Well, that's like a pretty outrageous claim, George. The actual word moved means 00:11:34.679 --> 00:11:39.739 shaken. So the righteous person, whatever that means, George, was never going to be shaken. They'll 00:11:39.739 --> 00:11:44.519 be remembered forever. Like that's a pretty outrageous promise. In fact, George, this sounds 00:11:44.519 --> 00:11:49.379 more like those health and wealth gospel people that are you leading this up all to saying that, 00:11:49.459 --> 00:11:53.819 by the way, if you just increase your giving to the church, God's going to give you tenfold and bless 00:11:53.819 --> 00:11:59.259 you? Is this, no, no, it's like what's going on. And then verse seven, he is not afraid of bad news. 00:11:59.259 --> 00:12:05.439 His heart is firm, trusting the Lord. His heart is steady. Verse eight, he will not be afraid until 00:12:05.439 --> 00:12:09.899 he looks in triumph on his adversaries. Well, George, is that saying that if I struggle with some fear, 00:12:10.340 --> 00:12:15.539 but the real adversaries, like George, if you knew the adversaries I had, you would say that it's 00:12:15.539 --> 00:12:20.139 unreasonable to not be afraid of them a little bit because I'm really dealing with some very, very 00:12:20.139 --> 00:12:26.860 tough things. And George, how does this text apply if you're in an underground church in China or 00:12:26.860 --> 00:12:35.340 Saudi Arabia or Iran? Like, that just doesn't seem realistic or true. Now, just sort of pause here. 00:12:35.419 --> 00:12:39.300 One of the things I'm going to bring back later, but one of the things to notice here is that, in fact, 00:12:39.379 --> 00:12:45.039 actually, the psalm is dealing with very realistic things. It talks about the fact that there is 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:51.120 darkness in the world, and sometimes you need to live in very, very dark places in very, very dark times. 00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:56.940 And it does say that there really is bad news. And bad news is a good translation, but it could also 00:12:56.940 --> 00:13:03.460 even better be called catastrophic news. And in fact, there is the, it mentions that there really 00:13:03.460 --> 00:13:09.060 are adversaries who are, they don't like you, they hate you, they are opposed to you, they fight against 00:13:09.060 --> 00:13:13.740 you. And it does actually talk about the real world, and we'll get back to that in a moment. But 00:13:13.740 --> 00:13:18.659 it seems like pretty outrageous. And in verse nine, he is distributed freely, he is given to the poor, 00:13:18.659 --> 00:13:23.399 his righteousness endures forever. That's the second time it's said, his horn is exalted in honor, 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:28.679 full disclosure, his horn is exalted in honor means he's going to be completely and utterly victorious. 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:33.860 And he's going to be not only victorious, but everybody will see his victory. And then it ends 00:13:33.860 --> 00:13:40.500 with verse 10, the wicked man sees it and is angry, he gnashes his teeth and melts away, the desire of the 00:13:40.500 --> 00:13:48.639 wicked will perish. Big contrast. So what on earth is going on with this psalm? It doesn't say 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:54.500 George, it doesn't seem to say what you're talking about. Is there some type of secret bullet that I 00:13:54.500 --> 00:14:00.659 just haven't seen? Like, right now when I read it, George, it's actually a bit discouraging, because 00:14:00.659 --> 00:14:08.240 I'm not wealthy, I'm not powerful, I don't have kids. Am I like a, not even a second class, but a fifth 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:15.179 class Christian? Like, what's going on with it? These are all very, very good questions. And one of the 00:14:15.179 --> 00:14:19.479 things, you know, I told you, I don't want to interpret, I don't want to try to say all these 00:14:19.479 --> 00:14:23.759 things and then it doesn't apply, it's just like I'm trying to make sure you don't look at the Bible. 00:14:24.859 --> 00:14:30.799 I want to help you read the Bible. And noticing things that are problematic is partly how you learn 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:37.779 to read the Bible. Because now you can start to ask wise questions at the text. So what's going on? 00:14:37.779 --> 00:14:46.379 So just one little, okay, all of the grammar nerds, you look up for a moment, non-grammar nerds, 00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:53.279 just don't think about too many other things for a moment. This is what's called an acrostic psalm. 00:14:53.720 --> 00:15:00.539 There's 23 lines in the Hebrew, and there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And the first phrase, 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:06.519 the first line, praise the Lord, hallelujah, is sort of just the introduction. And then the next 22 lines, 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:10.980 the first line begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second with the second, 00:15:11.100 --> 00:15:18.199 and on and on. So it's actually on one hand, a very tightly controlled psalm, showing to be a real 00:15:18.199 --> 00:15:22.939 unity. But on the other hand, because it's an acrostic, things aren't always in order. It's a 00:15:22.939 --> 00:15:28.519 little bit like, you know, zigs and zags and things coming at different ideas. But the whole thing 00:15:28.519 --> 00:15:36.480 holds together as a whole. And verse one is what is the big point. And that is, if you read 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:41.740 verse one, praise the Lord, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his 00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:48.580 commandments. That's the big idea. And verses two to nine are sort of throwing rifts on that and 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:53.220 helping you to understand what that means in the real world. And what is the real world? In the real 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:58.940 world, you need money to live. In the real world, money is a power. In the real world, there are 00:15:58.940 --> 00:16:04.519 adversaries and problems. In the real world, there are poor people and there's a need for generosity. 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:10.620 That is the real world. And so the psalm is going to try to unpack what it means a little 00:16:10.620 --> 00:16:17.299 bit on one aspect of this opening phrase, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights 00:16:17.299 --> 00:16:23.079 in his commandments. Or blessed is the woman who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his 00:16:23.079 --> 00:16:29.539 commandments. That's the very, very big idea. But now we get back to this really crazy problem 00:16:29.539 --> 00:16:37.240 of why on earth is it blessed to fear? Who wants to fear more? I can imagine lots of people saying, 00:16:37.419 --> 00:16:44.980 Lord, Jesus, George, I'm, I am already, I already have too much fear in my life. Why on earth would I 00:16:44.980 --> 00:16:50.959 want more? And, and, you know, don't you think, George, that true religion and true spirituality would, 00:16:51.099 --> 00:16:57.299 would, would, it would remove fear? Like, so what's going on? So let's, we're going to spend the 00:16:57.299 --> 00:17:01.519 longest time on this little bit of a phrase, because if you don't understand it, the rest of 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:07.639 the psalm isn't going to very, make very much sense. So first of all is this. Okay, it goes, 00:17:07.779 --> 00:17:13.740 blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. And it uses the word 00:17:13.740 --> 00:17:21.059 Lord, and that word there is very important because it's the covenant name for God. And, and so the 00:17:21.059 --> 00:17:28.500 difference is, it's the difference between, um, if I was to meet, uh, Mark Kearney, I would call, 00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:34.379 I don't know everything, I'd probably ask some of you folks, uh, who are in diplomatic or government, 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:38.159 how do I address him? But I definitely would call him at least Prime Minister Kearney, 00:17:38.279 --> 00:17:43.619 but his kids call him dad, right? 00:17:43.619 --> 00:17:49.939 I mean, in fact, I'm sure that if one of them called him, you know, Honorable Prime Minister, 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:55.639 he'd cuff them on the side of the head figuratively because they're, you know, being a bit rude to him. 00:17:56.459 --> 00:18:00.279 And, and so that's, you see, it doesn't, there's other, there's a whole range of different words in 00:18:00.279 --> 00:18:05.679 the original language for God, and none of the generic words for God are used. It's a covenant word. 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:11.159 A covenant means a deep personal relationship involving commitment of one to the other. 00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:16.100 And so that's the very first thing. It doesn't say, you know, blessed are those who fear God, 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:20.720 who fear the divine, who fear the almighty. It's man, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:24.440 now, and who greatly delights in his commandments. Now, it's still a little bit, 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:32.620 a bit troublesome, but, um, the, the, the, the, the word here, uh, is blessed, and that's an 00:18:32.620 --> 00:18:40.519 important word to understand. Blessing is God in his kindness acting for your 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:48.599 thriving in either a new creation or an old creation sense or both. So what, what is blessing? 00:18:49.500 --> 00:18:53.139 When, in reading the Old Testament, I don't, I don't want to talk about how people talk about 00:18:53.139 --> 00:18:56.500 in Canada, but when you read it in the Old Testament, our Jewish friends, what would they 00:18:56.500 --> 00:19:02.240 call the Tanakh, the Torah, when you see the word blessed, it always means that God in his kindness 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:10.220 acts for your thriving. And the thriving is either in a new creation sense, which I'll explain in a 00:19:10.220 --> 00:19:16.220 moment, or an old creation sense or a bit of both. That's always what it means. And all, a new creation 00:19:16.220 --> 00:19:20.779 sense, and that comes out of, uh, you know, people in the Old Testament, you've got a new heart from 00:19:20.779 --> 00:19:25.200 God in the Old, in, as soon as the Old Testament, new heart from God, a new spirit within you, and then 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:30.240 in the New Testament, it's made clearer. It means you're born again. It means you're God's child by 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:36.599 adoption and grace through faith in Christ. And, and in every case, new, new creation blessings mean 00:19:36.599 --> 00:19:43.019 a greater ability to pray, a greater ability to know God and have intimacy with them, uh, to have 00:19:43.019 --> 00:19:47.660 the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:55.420 self-control, grow in your life, uh, an increasing ability to be more like Jesus. And, and that's what it 00:19:55.420 --> 00:20:00.200 would mean to be blessed in a new creation sense. And an old creation sense would mean 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:05.460 that you're blessed with health, you're blessed with money, you're blessed with, uh, with safety 00:20:05.460 --> 00:20:11.440 in your streets, uh, you're, you're blessed with deliverance, uh, from, uh, a debt, somebody who, 00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:17.580 oh, is, is in control of you, or from enemies. And that's what it means. God sends in his kindness 00:20:17.580 --> 00:20:24.380 a power, throw it, to cause you to thrive, and it means it will either be in a new creation sense, 00:20:24.539 --> 00:20:29.440 an old creation sense, or both. So every time you read the Old Testament, you see that word, 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:33.519 that's what's going on there. And you can look to see specifically some of the types of blessings 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:39.080 that it's been giving you. And that instantly is going to help us with the psalm in a very 00:20:39.080 --> 00:20:45.940 significant way. Because it means that on one hand, you can look at it, and it is in some sense. So 00:20:45.940 --> 00:20:50.559 what we're going to get to in a moment is there's a profound mystery in the psalm, which I'll get to 00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:56.720 in, in, in a little bit. But even before this profound mystery, on one hand, it does mean some of 00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:01.839 these things, but it can also mean, like all creation things, that you are blessed with more 00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:07.720 money. You know, you are blessed with children. When I tell people that I, I have, you know, nine, 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:12.079 nine children, I, and they're usually always surprised. I, I just say, God has blessed us 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:15.980 very deeply. I really believe that. And then they say, well, I have two kids. I say, well, 00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:19.620 every, every child's a blessing. Like, right? Like that's, every child's a blessing. 00:21:19.619 --> 00:21:27.899 And, but on the other hand, it can also mean, it can also be blessing in a figurative new creation 00:21:27.899 --> 00:21:35.619 sense. So for instance, the comment about offspring, it means that, it might mean that for a woman who's 00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:45.859 never had children, that she can be a spiritual mother to many. In my former church, there, there was 00:21:45.859 --> 00:21:52.599 Ruth Jo of blessed memory. Ruth Jo, I mean, she, she was blessed with one son and with a couple of 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:58.379 grandchildren, but she was a spiritual mother to countless generations of children in that church. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:04.939 Always giving little gifts, always making all sorts of supplies for the Sunday school, always remembering 00:22:04.939 --> 00:22:12.419 children by their name. She had a profound effect. We, in fact, our, our youngest daughter, her middle name 00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:18.779 is Ruth Jo after her. And in this, in this congregation, and there was another woman of blessed memory in that 00:22:18.779 --> 00:22:24.680 congregation, Pat Smith, the same type of woman. And some of you might remember Fanny, who used to be a part of this 00:22:24.680 --> 00:22:31.759 congregation for quite, quite a few years, had spent 35 some odd years in China as a missionary, came back, never 00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:37.980 married, never had any kids. And she couldn't come to church on Sunday without lots of things to give the kids. 00:22:37.980 --> 00:22:46.360 And kids flocked to her. And I could go on. But you see, the text now is talking not just necessarily, 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:51.640 if you understand what, when it says at the beginning of the text, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 00:22:51.700 --> 00:22:55.819 who greatly delights in his commandments, and you understand what blessing means, you start to 00:22:55.819 --> 00:23:01.259 understand that the text can be read in these two different ways, both validly, because that's what God's 00:23:01.259 --> 00:23:08.519 blessing does. It's a thriving, in both an old creation sense, or it might only be purely a new 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:14.460 creation sense, purely in an old creation sense, or some combination of the two. But George, you might 00:23:14.460 --> 00:23:20.960 say, who on earth, how could it be blessed to fear the Lord? Like, what on earth does that mean? That, 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.299 that's sort of crazy talk. 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:34.039 I have to just tell you something. I'm a bit weird. Well, I'm more than a bit weird. You know, 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:38.059 there's a really good title of a book called Everybody's Normal Until You Get to Know Them. 00:23:40.059 --> 00:23:46.620 And then you realize they're not actually very normal. I grew up in a type of church where the theme song 00:23:46.619 --> 00:23:51.219 was, if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy, you know, and we have the 00:23:51.219 --> 00:23:56.399 victory in Jesus. That's the type of church I grew up in, you know. And gosh, if you're a depressed 00:23:56.399 --> 00:24:02.839 teenager, hearing that type of happy, clappy stuff only makes you more depressed. Just, just, just so 00:24:02.839 --> 00:24:09.359 you know, if you go on and, and, and, and start a church like that, it's a sure record, sure recipe for 00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:15.819 fake smiles and inner depression. And, and after I became a Christian when I was in grade 12, I started to 00:24:15.819 --> 00:24:19.480 read the Bible and I started to notice the Bible kept talking about the fear of the Lord. And 00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:24.559 in some ways then I've been on this quest for decades to try to understand the fear of the Lord. 00:24:24.639 --> 00:24:28.839 And for decades I've been praying that I would grow in the fear of the Lord. Full disclosure, 00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:36.119 I told you I am not normal. It's a regular part of my prayer that I would grow in, in fearing God. 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:41.019 So what on earth is going on in this phrase? So as I said, first of all, the Lord is a covenant term. 00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:45.519 It's not like talking to the prime minister, it's talking to your dad. And here there's, 00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:52.400 there's four aspects to try to understand what this term is and why it's regularly viewed as a 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:59.839 virtue and something that Christians should pursue. The first one is it involves a sense of awe 00:24:59.839 --> 00:25:08.519 at how profoundly different God is from me, how the Lord is from me. If you think about it for a second, 00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:15.500 it's an increasing sense that the Lord is the creator and I am the created. The Lord is infinite 00:25:15.500 --> 00:25:26.220 and I am finite. The Lord is eternal and I am in time. The Lord has no needs. I am one unending need. 00:25:26.339 --> 00:25:32.539 And you can go on and on and on. And part of what the fear of the Lord means, it's an ever deeper 00:25:32.539 --> 00:25:41.299 sense of awe at understanding how profoundly, deeply, thoroughly different God is. 00:25:43.420 --> 00:25:51.839 And another sense of it is that it is an ever-growing sense of God's hugeness and his perfection. 00:25:51.839 --> 00:26:02.579 This idea that all of, all of the universe cannot contain God, that he is the creator of all things. 00:26:02.579 --> 00:26:09.599 He establishes and sustains all things. He is completely different than this created order. He is 00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:16.919 a universe shaping, universe creating, universe shaping, universe holding together God. 00:26:16.920 --> 00:26:21.860 God. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and the other hand, there's also this 00:26:21.860 --> 00:26:30.360 increasing awe at his closeness. This idea that God is both completely transcendent, but completely 00:26:30.360 --> 00:26:35.700 imminent. And just to put those complicated words in a very simple thing, is that God is literally 00:26:35.700 --> 00:26:41.960 closer to me than my thoughts are to me. He is closer to me than my breathing is to me. 00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:50.220 That is how close he is. And this all goes together with how different he is. And, and, and so when you 00:26:50.220 --> 00:26:54.799 start to understand that the fear of the Lord, and why does the fear come in? Well, the fear comes in 00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:03.819 at a concern about boundaries not being violated or confused. And, and why, what I mean is this. 00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:08.539 You think about it. It's a very, very common thing in marriage counseling or in family counseling. 00:27:08.539 --> 00:27:14.119 It's a very, very common thing in movies and television shows where you start, you watch the 00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:21.259 show and you realize that the mom or the dad is actually violating boundary after boundary with 00:27:21.259 --> 00:27:27.859 their child. You look at it or you see that the husband is violating boundaries with his wife. He's 00:27:27.859 --> 00:27:34.119 not realizing sufficiently how his wife is actually really different than him. And that just because 00:27:34.119 --> 00:27:41.639 something makes him happy won't necessarily make her happy, right? That just because something is, 00:27:41.719 --> 00:27:46.879 is something that he really desires doesn't necessarily mean that she desires it. And he 00:27:46.879 --> 00:27:52.899 begins to confuse his desires with her. He makes like her desires are really what his desires are. 00:27:53.139 --> 00:27:57.139 What's going to be really good for him is what really good for her. And this is a common theme in 00:27:57.139 --> 00:28:02.799 movies and books. And we do this with people that we can see. And so the problem is that the God who's 00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:11.539 invisible, we do this all the time in huge ways. In huge ways. We, we begin to sort of somehow think 00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:18.039 that my glory is God's glory or that God's glory is that, that God who gives me gifts, that somehow 00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:23.319 that's something that comes from me. And it, and I start to transgress these boundaries. I start to 00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:28.940 think of God, not start to, I'm, I'm born that way of transgressing boundaries, of, of, of starting to 00:28:28.940 --> 00:28:34.160 take onto myself what is really God's and, and blurring the distinction between me and God and 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:40.200 taming God and making him small. And, and so the fear of the Lord is, is such a good word because on 00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:47.620 one hand it, it's talking about this, this growth in your ability to realize that you, I, George, I have 00:28:47.620 --> 00:28:54.360 beginning and ends. And God has something which makes him very, very different than me. And I increasingly 00:28:54.359 --> 00:29:01.079 become to understand that the, there is a profound difference between me and God, and that difference 00:29:01.079 --> 00:29:07.959 is good. And I have a horror, not that I do, that you have a horror, you, you start to grow into it of 00:29:07.959 --> 00:29:13.500 not wanting to transgress that. Just as in the movies and the books I'm describing, the, the, you know, 00:29:13.500 --> 00:29:19.519 if it's a movie or a book with a happy ending, the, the horror of the husband or the parents to realize 00:29:19.519 --> 00:29:26.480 how they've been transgressing the boundaries with their kids, and you don't want to get into that, 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:33.660 that's where the fear comes from. I'll give you an example, a thought experiment. Imagine for a 00:29:33.660 --> 00:29:37.519 moment that God did something very profound through you, maybe gave you a word of wisdom, 00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:43.420 an insight about something, and you tell it to the congregation. And as a result of that, like maybe 00:29:43.420 --> 00:29:48.059 that's, that, that something remarkable happens, something like many, many people come to faith, 00:29:48.059 --> 00:29:53.179 or we get a building, which is just completely given to us, and it's all because you had some type 00:29:53.179 --> 00:29:58.740 of word of knowledge, and you shared it with people. And then two months or two weeks after that, 00:29:58.779 --> 00:30:03.019 and you have the building, nobody remembers that it was all because of you telling people. 00:30:05.779 --> 00:30:11.759 Would you feel unhappy if they forgot you, and are only praising God? 00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:22.079 Well, okay, be honest, you would be bothered. Don't get all holy, holy, holy on me and say, 00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:26.240 no, no, no, I don't care if anybody remembers me, I just want, no, no, no, no, no, no, you'd be bothered. 00:30:27.559 --> 00:30:35.700 You see, you've transgressed this boundary. The idea came from God, you told it to God's people, 00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:40.240 the gift comes from God, it's all God, why do I have to be praised? 00:30:42.440 --> 00:30:49.519 Why do I, why might I be depressed for years to come? Why might I even leave the church because 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:51.860 they forgot that it was me who gave the idea? 00:30:54.860 --> 00:30:58.500 You see, that's why we need to have the fear of the Lord. And by the way, the way I'm describing the 00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:03.299 fear of the Lord, that helps us to understand why it is, in, in the Old Testament, the fear of the 00:31:03.299 --> 00:31:09.019 Lord is often connected to a longing and yearning for God, because the understanding of the 00:31:09.019 --> 00:31:14.839 differentness is so there, and, and so the, the fear aspect comes of not wanting to transgress, 00:31:14.980 --> 00:31:19.680 because you're getting a deeper knowledge of who God is, yet at the same time as you have that deeper 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:24.059 knowledge, you yearn for him, because the difference between God and me is a good difference, it's one 00:31:24.059 --> 00:31:31.740 that I absolutely need to see. So how does this all talk about, how does this all go about with the 00:31:31.740 --> 00:31:37.680 topic about money? Well, first of all, just a general word of advice, never believe anyone 00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:45.099 who says their way will make you healthy, wealthy, powerful, and there will be no obstacles or no 00:31:45.099 --> 00:31:48.759 problems in your life. Never believe them. Doesn't matter if they say they're a Christian pastor, 00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:54.579 doesn't matter if there's some wealth management guru, the Bible here is very, very, very frank. 00:31:54.779 --> 00:31:59.539 There is a world where money exists, there is a need for money, there's things that money can buy, 00:31:59.539 --> 00:32:07.579 but there's also times of great darkness, great, great adversaries, great enemies, and there is 00:32:07.579 --> 00:32:15.180 catastrophic news, there really is. And, and so what's going on with this psalm? What the psalm describes 00:32:15.180 --> 00:32:21.839 is this. I have to watch my time, and this is why it's actually really important. It's why, if you go 00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:28.119 back, and in a moment we're going to look at the psalm again, here's the thing about the psalm. 00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:34.219 Now, if you understand everything it said in light of, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 00:32:34.299 --> 00:32:40.559 who greatly delights in his commandments, when the Lord is huge and money is small, 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:47.639 you will live a very different life than when money is huge and the Lord is small. 00:32:47.640 --> 00:33:02.960 When the Lord is huge and money is small, you will live a very different life than when money is huge 00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:04.440 and the Lord is small. 00:33:07.460 --> 00:33:12.880 That's why the psalm talks about how the bad news, their heart is fixed on the Lord. They understand 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:20.060 that even with the bad news, the Lord is big, money is small. It's, it's even then while they, 00:33:20.100 --> 00:33:25.180 they start to understand that when the Lord is huge and money is small, you don't act in such a, 00:33:25.180 --> 00:33:29.720 because one of the problems is when money is huge and the Lord is small, you do start to want to either 00:33:29.720 --> 00:33:34.360 have more and more money to control it. You do get really bent out of shape with bad news. 00:33:34.359 --> 00:33:39.979 You are, you really resent adversaries who want to take any of your money away from you. 00:33:40.179 --> 00:33:45.939 It's hard to be generous and you, you, you easily slip into injustice and want to be treated separately, 00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:49.719 especially because money is huge and the Lord is small. But when the Lord is huge 00:33:49.719 --> 00:33:52.539 and money is small, you will live a very different life. 00:33:53.859 --> 00:33:58.459 When you begin to understand that blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments, 00:33:58.579 --> 00:34:03.459 you will live a different life. And here's the other aspect of it. It goes with the commandments. 00:34:04.359 --> 00:34:12.579 When pleasing the Lord and bringing him glory is huge and money is small, you will live very 00:34:12.579 --> 00:34:18.380 different than when money is huge and pleasing the Lord and bringing him glory is small. 00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:27.920 Money is huge, either because you don't have it or you want it. When money is huge, you will live a 00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:33.039 very, very, very different life. Here's the thing. Here's a profound truth. It's one of the reasons why 00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:39.659 many poor Christians are vastly more generous than people who are rich. And that is because this, 00:34:39.759 --> 00:34:44.079 when money is big and God is small, you will never have enough money to be generous. 00:34:47.900 --> 00:34:49.920 You will never have enough money to be generous. 00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:55.860 When I just make that extra $5,000 a year, then I can be generous. 00:34:55.860 --> 00:35:02.320 I just need to make that extra $10,000. I just need this promotion. I just need to get my mortgage 00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:07.460 paid off. Okay, now my mortgage is paid off. I need to get my car paid off. Okay, I just need to get the 00:35:07.460 --> 00:35:15.380 right amount of money in my RRSPs. And I know a man years ago in my previous church, and he had like 00:35:15.380 --> 00:35:19.860 four or five million dollars of assets. He still worried whether he could retire, whether he had enough 00:35:19.860 --> 00:35:26.420 money to retire. I'm not making this up. And so it's, you know, and obviously we can be generous. I 00:35:26.420 --> 00:35:30.940 think 89 or 90 percent of Canadians say they're generous, but the fact is I think it's only 17 00:35:30.940 --> 00:35:35.680 percent of Canadians give enough money to claim charitable givings on their income tax, and you 00:35:35.680 --> 00:35:44.200 only have to give $200 to do that. You'll never have enough money to be generous. It's always on the 00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:51.199 other just past the horizon. But when pleasing the Lord and bringing him glory is huge and money is 00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:55.779 small, you will live very different than when money is huge and pleasing the Lord and bringing him glory 00:35:55.779 --> 00:36:07.259 is small. Now, I mean, I'm just going to keep going. I think I have to keep going. So here's the first 00:36:07.259 --> 00:36:11.460 thing about the text, and then we'll get to understand how it is that you enter into this, 00:36:11.460 --> 00:36:17.159 this, this, this, this, have this fear of the Lord becomes more real to you. The way to understand Psalm 112 00:36:17.159 --> 00:36:21.599 is that it's not directly about you. 00:36:24.260 --> 00:36:33.300 It is only potentially indirectly about you. There is only one person who has ever lived who has lived Psalm 112, 00:36:33.300 --> 00:36:35.780 and that is Jesus. 00:36:40.160 --> 00:36:45.220 Especially if you understand how I describe the fear of the Lord, you know, just listen to it again in light of that. 00:36:45.720 --> 00:36:47.920 Blessed is the man, verse 1, who fears the Lord. 00:36:48.860 --> 00:36:53.700 God, the Son of God, always never confused himself and God the Father or the Holy Spirit. 00:36:54.060 --> 00:36:59.460 They understood the difference between that. He greatly delights, Jesus greatly delights in the 00:36:59.460 --> 00:37:05.280 Lord and the Father's commandments. The offspring of Jesus will be mighty in the land, and the generation 00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:09.659 of the upright will be blessed. All of those who become his children by adoption and grace will be 00:37:09.659 --> 00:37:14.800 blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house. He owns the entire universe. Only his righteousness 00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:20.460 endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness because he came into this darkness world, into this dark 00:37:20.460 --> 00:37:25.300 world, and light dawned on him. He always knew his way. He is full of grace, full of mercy, 00:37:25.300 --> 00:37:31.580 mercy, always righteous. He is the man who always deals generously and lends. He is the one who always 00:37:31.580 --> 00:37:36.700 conducted his affairs with justice. He is the one who's righteous, who was righteous and was never 00:37:36.700 --> 00:37:42.600 shaken. He is the one who will be remembered forever. He was not afraid of bad news. His heart 00:37:42.600 --> 00:37:49.280 was always firm. He always trusted in the Lord. His heart was always steady. He was not afraid. He did 00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:54.920 triumph over all of his adversaries. He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. 00:37:54.920 --> 00:37:59.240 His righteousness endures forever. And he did win the victory. 00:38:02.740 --> 00:38:11.139 It's describing Jesus. And it's indirectly describing me and you when we are in Christ. 00:38:12.420 --> 00:38:20.860 So years ago, there was a very wealthy man who came to the church, and his name was Tom. And I think 00:38:20.860 --> 00:38:24.659 I've told this story before, but I'm going to tell it again because it's a good story. And there 00:38:24.659 --> 00:38:29.599 used to be a restaurant in Ottawa called High's, which was very expensive, one of the most expensive 00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:33.739 restaurants in Ottawa. And it was where you could go and see cabinet ministers. And you could go see 00:38:33.739 --> 00:38:37.940 upper level bureaucrats and the rich in the city and the movers and the shakers and the mayor. 00:38:38.359 --> 00:38:42.339 And of course, anybody could go in if you had enough money. And he took me there for lunch. And the first 00:38:42.339 --> 00:38:46.659 time he took me there for lunch, he said to me, George, I've taken people like you to lunch for places 00:38:46.659 --> 00:38:50.779 like this before. And I want to tell you right now that if you look at the prices and you're going to 00:38:50.779 --> 00:38:56.659 be shocked, and you order the cheapest thing in the menu, as soon as you've ordered, I will tell the 00:38:56.659 --> 00:39:02.859 waitress to ignore your order and bring you the most expensive item on the menu. And then I will order 00:39:02.859 --> 00:39:09.099 you some appetizers and some dessert. And trust me, I can afford it. So after we'd been there a couple 00:39:09.099 --> 00:39:13.960 of times for these meals, I said to him one day, he was a very religious man. I don't know if he'd become 00:39:13.960 --> 00:39:18.240 a Christian. If he didn't become a Christian through our church, he came to assurance through 00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:24.599 our church. And I talked to him one day about the meal. And I said, Tom, if I went off and told 00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:36.619 everybody that I'd have a free meal, you and I both know that's not correct. That $250 meal wasn't free. 00:39:36.619 --> 00:39:42.480 Somebody had to pay. Somebody had to pay. 00:39:46.619 --> 00:39:51.599 And if you think about it for a second, how on earth can any human being think that they can ever 00:39:51.599 --> 00:40:00.239 pay the way to heaven? That they can pay the rent or ownership in heaven? That they can pay enough to 00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:08.019 be born again. In every one of these cases, somebody has to pay. I shared with him a very, 00:40:08.119 --> 00:40:13.079 very powerful verse that communicates that. It's in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9. 00:40:13.859 --> 00:40:19.139 And it describes what it is that God has done for us in Christ. It goes like this, 00:40:19.579 --> 00:40:26.179 for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became 00:40:26.179 --> 00:40:33.599 poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. I'll read it again. For you know the grace 00:40:33.599 --> 00:40:39.460 of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, 00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:46.699 by his poverty, might become rich. See, here's the wonderful thing. You read this text about being 00:40:46.699 --> 00:40:51.119 righteous and justice and all that, and you realize you can't live it, you don't live it. And you call 00:40:51.119 --> 00:40:57.400 out to Christ, and he literally, who is the richest that there could be, became the poorest that there 00:40:57.400 --> 00:41:02.259 could be, so that I might be rich when I put my faith and trust in him. And when I put my faith and 00:41:02.259 --> 00:41:08.960 trust in him, I enter into union with him. And that means that this psalm begins to describe me 00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:17.460 in the already not yet. That I begin to learn through grace and trust in Christ that he is my 00:41:17.460 --> 00:41:23.820 Savior and Lord. I ask him to come in. I ask him to make me born again. And he does all of these things. 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:31.760 And I begin to learn to live in a world where he is big and money is small. And pleasing him and 00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:39.780 bringing him glory is big and money is small. And the story that grips my heart is that he became poor 00:41:39.780 --> 00:41:44.260 so that I might become rich. And that is how I begin to look at the world. 00:41:47.380 --> 00:41:54.380 Just very briefly, in closing, in terms of applying it to us, you see, the text is saying 00:41:54.380 --> 00:42:05.360 that God will bless us in Christ to be free and to bless. He blesses us to be free and to bless. 00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:14.720 It means he blesses us to be free from having money control us and instead to see how to bless. 00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:22.840 We know that it's completely and utterly valid to work, to be able to maybe own a house or a condo 00:42:22.840 --> 00:42:29.300 someday, to provide for your loved ones, maybe provide for children, or if you've been blessed 00:42:29.300 --> 00:42:35.720 with that, or provide for maybe, you know, parents who need some money. But it also means that you're 00:42:35.720 --> 00:42:40.200 blessed to be able to not only make money, but to provide for the church, for the furtherance of the 00:42:40.200 --> 00:42:46.200 gospel, for the poor. And it means that you start to have a very, very different way. And so it's not 00:42:46.200 --> 00:42:50.960 as if the Bible is calling you to complete and utter poverty. To put it in very, very gross terms, 00:42:50.960 --> 00:43:02.059 you don't need to have the most expensive Mercedes Maybach G-Class $500,000 SUV. 00:43:04.559 --> 00:43:08.699 If God has blessed you with that money, maybe you just buy a Crosstrek. 00:43:08.699 --> 00:43:17.019 Because you'd rather see that money blessing others and bringing God glory. 00:43:18.859 --> 00:43:25.339 You know, it's one of the things is the council is, you know, we believe that God is calling us to, 00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:31.359 on the first week of classes at Ottawa U, to stand out and to give to the students and the graduate 00:43:31.359 --> 00:43:37.299 students and to the staff and the faculty and hand out free New Testaments. It's going to cost 00:43:37.300 --> 00:43:42.380 about $4,000. And I'd really like you to pray into that. And you see, hearing all of that thing, 00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:48.580 you think to yourself, well, you know what, I could give $600 for that or $500 for that. And, 00:43:48.700 --> 00:43:52.180 you know, if I just think about how, you know, maybe for the next month, rather than every time 00:43:52.180 --> 00:43:59.480 I go to a coffee shop, that rather than buying, like, the most expensive, you know, latte, I just 00:43:59.480 --> 00:44:04.620 buy a short coffee. And I'll just do with a little bit less, but I'm still having a coffee. It's still 00:44:04.619 --> 00:44:09.059 really tasty. And I'd rather see that money go to further the Lord's work. 00:44:11.460 --> 00:44:17.119 That's the change that starts to happen when God is big, money is small, pleasing God is big, 00:44:17.219 --> 00:44:25.440 money is small. And you see that when, and how you get into this relationship with this God is this 00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:32.900 profound act of generosity on God's part, the true blessing of God to make you his child by adoption 00:44:32.900 --> 00:44:37.760 and grace. And that begins to be the story by which you live. And then those, those, the way you view 00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:45.960 the world and the way of your possessions starts to change. That's our prayer. So brothers and sisters, 00:44:46.160 --> 00:44:52.880 friends, I hope if you get nothing else from this sermon, that you would desire to pray 112 verse 1, 00:44:53.019 --> 00:44:59.440 blessed is a man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. And if by the way, 00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:06.700 the Lord puts it on your heart to contribute to the Bibles, you know, you can send some money, 00:45:07.539 --> 00:45:12.760 makes, but only send money, you know, with a memo at light and to go towards that. If you understand that 00:45:12.760 --> 00:45:17.740 if any money comes extra than what we need, it will just go into the general accounts. But, 00:45:17.820 --> 00:45:25.179 but please pray for this, this project. Not all of us have extra money, but all of us can pray. 00:45:25.179 --> 00:45:29.000 Let's bow. Let's invite you to stand. 00:45:34.899 --> 00:45:40.179 Just before I, I say the closing prayer, um, I just really want to understand, make you to understand, 00:45:40.279 --> 00:45:47.599 I hope that you understand, um, today could be the day your life changes. 00:45:47.599 --> 00:45:57.639 Like there's no one so far from God, no one so consumed with fears, no one so consumed with idolatries 00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:04.639 of power or money that Christ didn't die for you. There is no one here who is so poor that Christ 00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:10.719 didn't die for you. There's no one here so rich that Christ didn't die for you. And his bigness and 00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:16.859 his hugeness is not something to oppress you, but to save you and to know that you can have this 00:46:16.859 --> 00:46:22.399 profound assurance that when you call out to Christ and say, Jesus, would you be my savior and you would 00:46:22.399 --> 00:46:30.519 be my Lord? He will not turn you away. He will hear your cry and he will come to you and he will bless you 00:46:30.519 --> 00:46:37.199 with new birth. He will bless you by adopting you as his child. And he will bless you by the, 00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:42.279 the teaching of the word by being part of a Christian community, by the leading of the Holy 00:46:42.279 --> 00:46:47.639 Spirit to grow within you more and more and more and more to understand that the real world, 00:46:48.079 --> 00:46:52.960 the world that you actually live in, even a world with problems and with enemies and with troubles 00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:59.639 is the real world where God is absolutely big and absolutely loving. And he wants you to be his child 00:46:59.639 --> 00:47:06.039 by adoption and grace. And there is no better time than now than to ask him, Lord Jesus, 00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:11.320 please be my savior. And thank you that you will never let me go. Let's just bow our heads in prayer. 00:47:11.460 --> 00:47:17.219 Father, you know that all of us need to grow in our knowledge, Father, of you and a knowledge of 00:47:17.219 --> 00:47:23.639 just how big you are. Father, we are always slipping into thinking that you are small and our troubles are 00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:29.500 big and people are big and institutions are big. Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would bring this 00:47:29.500 --> 00:47:35.760 word of scripture deep into our hearts and grow in us a fear of you, knowing that you are big and 00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:42.900 everything else is small and that your love is big, your goodness is big, your, your grace is big. 00:47:42.900 --> 00:47:48.599 And that, Father, you desire us to know you and to enter into you and live in union with Christ, 00:47:48.920 --> 00:47:54.400 that we might be blessed in Christ. We might be, we might be blessed with freedom. 00:47:54.400 --> 00:48:01.099 freedom. We might be blessed to work. We might be blessed to bless. And we ask all these things in 00:48:01.099 --> 00:48:05.940 the name of Jesus, your son and our savior and all God's people said, amen.