The Infiltration of the Prosperity Gospel

INTRODUCTION Are you familiar with the Prosperity Gospel? It’s the heretical version of Christianity that says, “If you give a lot of money to God, He will then bless you by making you Healthy & Wealthy” My guess is, if you’re a regular attender at a Bible teaching church like this one, that many of you would say that you do not believe in the Prosperity Gospel…in fact, far from it. When you turn on the TV, or see videos on YouTube, of Pastors or Evangelists saying, “If you just give $100 a month to my ministry, God will bless you with $1,000 a month!” You would say, “That’s not Biblical” You’d say, “I definitely don’t believe in the Prosperity Gospel” And yet, the Prosperity Gospel is more tempting to believe in that you might initially think In fact, I would wager that the majority of you listening believe in some aspects of the Prosperity Gospel…without even realizing it. I would guess that your beliefs about generosity (and specifically what God might do as a result of your generosity) are potentially more in line with the Prosperity Gospel than with what the Bible actually teaches. So, I think this is going to be interesting… What we’re going to do today is study a Scripture passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 about generosity, and I’m going to cover 3 ways that you might believe the Prosperity Gospel without realizing it. (Renovation App) (Bible – Weekly Verses) If you didn’t catch last week’s message, I encourage you to check it out. We went through verses 6 7 and talked about how, if we give from the right motivations of our heart, God will enable us to be a Cheerful Giver. Today, we’re going to dive into verses 8 15 Let’s take a look BLESSINGS AREN’T ALWAYS FINANCIAL (2 Corinthians 9:8 11) 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. What is the essence of this passage? The Apostle Paul is telling the Christians at Corinth, that God’s generosity is the motivation for why we should be generous. God is ABLE (verse 8 says) to bless us, and He has already blessed us with His Son, so we should be generous like Him. But if God is able to bless us, what might that look like if He does? And here, we have the first way that Christians can believe the Prosperity Gospel without realizing it 3 Ways Christians Believe the Prosperity Gospel Without Realizing It #1: They believe that God’s blessing is always financial This is a hallmark teaching of the Prosperity Gospel. They say, “If you begin tithing, giving 10% of your income…that God will bless you with even more!” Bless you with more what? Money. And yet, I find that most regular Christians don’t actually believe that differently from the Prosperity Gospel when they conjecture on how God might be generous to them. When their mind starts to ponder tithing, or giving even more generously, and they think about God providing… 99% of the time, they think about God providing what?? Money! Let’s look at verse 8 one more time…. (2 Corinthians 9:8) – NIV 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. The witty G. K. Chesterton once put it this way: “There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” G.K. Chesterton This is one of many things I think the proponents of the Prosperity Gospel miss when they look at Biblical texts. God tells you that He is able to bless you…in fact, He has already blessed you…so be generous. And we’re told, When God blesses you, you will have all that you…NEED That doesn’t necessarily mean He’s going to bless you financially. Listen, some of the most miserable people on earth are rich people. J Money isn’t always a blessing. I’ve said this before, but the one of the biggest things that shocks our people when we minister in Haiti (the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere) is just how happy many of the Christians are. Many of the Haitian Christians will say, “God is good, He has blessed me, and given me all I need to find joy” Would they want more money or a bigger house? Sure, probably. But that’s not where they find their worth and identity. And Has God not blessed them? Is He not good to them simply because they live in a poor country and their life is hard? If a part of you wants to answer, “No, He’s not being good” It’s because you’re tying God’s blessing exclusively to money… And for so many of us as Americans, we tie our happiness levels to how much money we have. Did you know that one of the ways God might bless you, Christian, is by causing you to have less income? I’ve seen God do this. Someone loses their job, gets demoted, has to take a different w/ less money, and yet, miraculously, through that challenging process…God BLESSES them by changing their heart to DESIRE less and be more satisfied in HIM I bet if you looked deep enough in your heart, you’d see that your true desire isn’t for more money, it’s to be satisfied. And God can give you contentment, satisfaction in Him, with less money…just like he does for the 99% of other Christians around the globe who have less money than you do In fact, with Jesus’ frequent warnings about how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven, I would argue that it’s easier to find contentment in Jesus when you don’t have a lot of money. And so how come we never say that God blesses us when we lose money? Chew on that for a bit J I would say it’s because we’ve let the Prosperity Gospel infiltrate our beliefs The real blessing is when we find contentment in Jesus… And God’s blessings are so much more diverse than merely financial blessings. One of my favorite Bible commentators, David Guzik, says it this way: Our giving is rewarded in many different ways, materially and spiritually. Materially, God may bless our giving by promotions with better pay, unexpected gifts of money, or by making things last so we don’t suffer the cost of replacing them. Spiritually, God may bless our giving by freeing our hearts from the tyranny of greed and materialism, by giving us a sense of blessing and happiness, or by storing up rich reward in heaven. There is no end to the ways we can be blessed when God is able to make all grace abound toward us. – David Guzik YOUR MOTIVATION FOR GIVING Let’s move to the 2nd way Christians can believe the Prosperity Gospel without realizing it 3 Ways Christians Believe the Prosperity Gospel Without Realizing It #1: They believe that God’s blessing is always financial #2: The reason they become more generous is because they want their finances to be better This one is a bit more subconscious for most Christians. I don’t meet a lot of Christ followers that outwardly say, “My finances are not in a good spot, so I’m going to start giving so they will be in a better spot” AND YET… when you make the leap to tithing, or increasing your generosity even beyond that… I want you to deeply examine your core motivations Why is it that you’re taking this leap of faith? Is it because you believe God is good? Worthy of your generosity? Is it because you want to be generous like Jesus was to you? Is it because He tells you to do so? OR, is it honestly just because your finances aren’t in the best shape, and you believe by tithing, God will then improve your financial situation But here’s a theological question for you: If you are generous with your giving, is God obligated to bless you? Timothy Keller answers this question with a parable: He says, “Once up a time there was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. So he took it to his king and said, "My Lord, this is the greatest carrot I've ever grown or ever will grow. Therefore I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you as King." The king was touched and discerned the man's heart, and as the gardener turned to go the king said: "Wait! You are clearly a good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want to give it to you freely as a gift so you can garden it all." And the gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing. But there was also a nobleman at the king's court who overheard all this. And he said to himself, "My! If that is what you get for a carrot—what if you gave the king something better?" So the next day the nobleman came before the king and he was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, "My lord, I breed horses and this is the greatest horse I have ever bred or ever will. Therefore I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you." But the king discerned his heart and said thank you, but took the horse and merely dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed. So the king said, "Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse." That’s not generosity And yet that’s how some of us give. Deep down, it’s for us. Here’s what the Bible is really teaching in 2 Corinthians 9. God is able to bless you…abundantly, with everything you need, so you can serve Him an others. And many times, as you give, God will bless you with finances….but you can’t assume so. As soon as you turn it into an “IF game,” you’ve misunderstood this passage and God. How many of us, deep down, think, “If I tithe, then God is obligated to be financially generous to me” Again, if you’re generous with your finances, God may certainly be financially generous back to you. He is certainly able. But He is not bound to be…like the Prosperity Gospel makes Him out to be. God is never bound to do anything because of our actions. That sort of thinking describes something more like witchcraft than it does the powerful and sovereign God of Christianity. You don’t control God by your actions. That’s what the nobleman got wrong it the parable. He thought He could just control the king by his actions…like it was a formula In reality, we have no idea what the King of Kings has for us next. The next thing God may have for you is a time of suffering, or discipline, or even death…we have no idea. But we’re still generous because He was so generous, and because we read that He is able to give us everything we need! BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING Let’s move to the 3rd way Christians can believe the Prosperity Gospel without realizing it 3 Ways Christians Believe the Prosperity Gospel Without Realizing It #1: They believe that God’s blessing is always financial #2: The reason they become more generous is because they want their finances to be better #3: They think the blessing is for them Let’s go back again to verse 8 for a second (2 Corinthians 9:8) – NIV 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. We read that “God is able to bless you abundantly, and when you have all you need, you will be able to what??” Obtain a lot of money?? No, it actually, says, you will abound in every good work. God will bless you SO THAT…you can do more good work for Him The same idea is portrayed again clearly in verse 11 (2 Corinthians 9:11) – NIV You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. You are given more blessings from God SO THAT you can give more blessings. It’s a cycle of blessings. We sometimes say it this way: You are blessed to be a blessing. One of the main heresies of the Prosperity Gospel, is that it says that the blessing is for YOU… But Paul says, “NO, when God’s blesses you, it’s so you can keep the blessing going.” You are blessed to be a blessing, not just blessed for your own satisfaction The next few verses do a great job of explaining this even further (2 Corinthians 9:12 14) – NIV 12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Paul points out that the Corinthians’ generosity would not only benefit the church in Jerusalem, it would also be a gift of thanksgiving to God So much so that those who receive it will PRAISE God for your obedience. They will be blessed when you are obedient. When you take a leap of faith, trust that God is Good and ABLE…lives will be changed. Listen, giving is one of the main ways that we live by faith as Christians. You live by faith when God calls you to a new job or into leadership or to give up an old way of life… But we also live by faith (and obedience) when we give generously. And when we do that, those who are blessed by our giving, have their hearts go out to us. And we just believe that is going to happen in the coming year because of the generosity of this church. I keep hearing stories from you all about your neighbors and co workers that are telling you that they are coming to check out Renovation Church…when we open the building. I met a number of people at our Renovation Rundowns last week who said, they found out about our church, by…SEEING our building (I thought, “Oh! NO one has ever seen us before!) J God is going to move! They are just installing our HUGE custom baptismal in the building in the next week or so…because we are going to baptize brand new believers over and over and over again! God is going to move and people are going to be saved! And it’s going to happen…because of your generosity. Think of the hundreds of new believers we will see… Their hearts will go out to YOU… They are literally going to praise God…because of your obedience…your leap of faith…to be generous with what God blessed you with. That’s amazing. I’m really proud of this church in this area. You guys have been SO generous over the last 6 years…and we’re almost there! This is REALLY the homestretch now. Let’s finish strong. As Paul says, a chapter earlier, in chapter 8 (2 Corinthians 8:10b 11) – NIV Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. We’ve been saying for a month or so now that our Harvest Building Giving fell behind this summer... We’ve started to catch up again, but we’re not there yet. This is the home stretch…where bills are paid, and our church (us, all of us) are on the hook for paying these companies for what we said we were going to have. Now is the time to catch up on your pledge. By the way, I know A LOT of you give significantly every year, at the end of December for year end giving to Harvest. If you are able to do that now, in November (instead of December), that is really helpful to the church. VERSE 15 And so, as you studied this passage today, perhaps you found a few places where the Prosperity Gospel has seeped into your thinking And to counter that, you want to change your motivation for giving to be Jesus focused. That our series title, Generous like Jesus. And our very last verse of the passage focuses us on just that (2 Corinthians 9:15) – NIV Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! God sent His one only son on a mission from the Glory of Heaven to the dirt of earth. And even though He committed no wrongs, He was killed for all of yours. And even though you didn’t deserve it, He offered you salvation and forgiveness anyway. That is generosity. That’s an “indescribable GIFT” God trusted that his generosity in you would result in something. Trust the same. Be 085f4d26-0123-4666-b956-09384d43303a. Let me pray. Copyright: David Sorn Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.