You cannot save enough money to hedge yourself against what God’s is bringing on this planet.  We’re going to deal with the real issue of how your heart and my heart, as believers, the motive of why we’re pursuing a certain avenue, of investments we might be making, job opportunities that are made available to us.  We pursue those and they’re in no way conflicting with the establishing of the covenant.  God will not bless you to minimize His ministry, His covenant, the kingdom, the church, your brothers and sisters; amen?  God will not bless you and give you gain and prosperity and separate you from the believers to do it and to separate you from your wife and your children to accomplish it.  If that’s the case, you’re driven that way is because you don’t trust God and you don’t believe God.  There are some bad consequences to trusting in riches.  What we’re wanting to see is that God is our source.  Now, He’s not going to make every one of us superabundantly rich.  We know that, again, because of that sixth chapter of Timothy.  He says, “Charge those among you that are rich.”  We see, from the context of this sixth chapter, he’s not just speaking of those that have tomorrow’s food and are taking no thought for the morrow.  The indicator here being that the majority of the church is already sufficiently prosperous.  “Having food and raiment let us be therewith be content…  But godliness with contentment is great gain…”  We understand, then, that God, in His sovereignty, will make some of us exceptionally more prosperous than others.  The Bible says when somebody in our midst prospers, we’re to rejoice with them; amen? 

What’s being spoken to here is so important.  It’s that we’re realizing our source.  God is the source.  See, there are a lot of people that don’t believe God wants to prosper His people, that somehow there’s spiritual merit in being poor.  That is not biblical.  When Jesus is teaching the Sermon on the Mount He’s talking about the poor in spirit; amen?  That’s talking about humility.  It’s talking about those who are, in humility, trusting God to be the source of all of their needs physically, spiritually, emotionally.  That meek spirit.  That humble spirit.  God resists the proud but He gives grace to the humble; amen?  The humble, those that are trusting God, those that believe that God truly is the source.  Proverbs 3 says “Honor the Lord and He’ll fill your barns with plenty and your wine presses will burst forth.”

We hear people say all the time, “Everything I have is the Lord’s.”  Then try to get it from them to do something for God.  Jesus, when He was getting ready to enter Jerusalem said, “Go tell this man that I need his donkey.  If he has trouble with it just tell him the Lord has need,” amen?  The guy didn’t readily respond.  They said, “The Lord has need.”  He said, “Okay, if the Lord needs it,” and fulfills the Scripture that Messiah would come riding into Jerusalem. 

You know who I think is the richest man that ever lived?  Adam.  He had it all.  But what he had, primarily, was God.  Isn’t that what Abraham said?  Wasn’t that the heart of Abraham when he told Lot, “Look, you just pick.  Wherever you want, you go.”  Lot picked the lushest land, where all of the prosperity was manifesting itself there in Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities round about.  Abraham said, “You take that and I’ll take God.  You go ahead and choose first.  I’ll just take what’s left over with God.”  Don’t you think that’s prosperity?  Isn’t that the heart that God’s looking for in each and every one of us?