Health, Wealth, and Prosperity

Our understanding of blessing and suffering shouldn’t come from catchy phrases or popular sayings. It should come from Scripture. God never promised health, wealth, and prosperity. He called us to holiness, servanthood, and purpose. Let’s look at some often misquoted verses and the timeless truths behind them.

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My name is James, one of the pastors here. Excited to be with you guys. Uh, we are in a series called God Never Said That. And uh, for the past couple weeks, we've been looking at just phrases, sayings, really mindsets that sound Christian that are maybe even been perpetuated by us unknowingly. And uh they just simply are not true. God never said that. Uh so week one was God will never give you more than you can handle. He never says that. Uh last week was uh Disney Channel one, where it says follow your heart. Um, God does not say to follow your heart. In fact, scripture says the complete opposite of that. And so today, uh, what I wanted to do was just look at something that's not not only not what God said, but it's not just a misunderstanding. It's not something that people say lightheartedly. It's actually been truly poorly taught, poorly communicated, and and a twisting and a misuse of scripture. And so today, what I wanted to hit on was God never said that you're to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. And I know some of you are like, I'm out of here because I would love to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. Anybody else? You're afraid to admit it now? Okay, I get it. I'll be sure to tell your boss that the next time a race is going around, right? That you don't want that. Uh it's it's an important subject because for many people, uh, this has been perpetuated whether we realize it or not. And it's damaging because of the expectations that we would have either on God or ourselves. And what I mean by that is within this sort of teaching, you might hear things along the lines of if you give, you will get. If you give a hundred dollars, you're gonna get a thousand dollars. Well, what happens if you give a hundred dollars and a thousand dollars doesn't come? It means you either didn't give the right way, and so it's your fault that that happened, or maybe God isn't really wanting to do God's promise in that, you know, that his promise. But it's been pushed that you know, there's different things that if we say this prayer, if we attend this service, if we go to this thing, if we if we participate, if we serve, if if we uh you know have enough faith, then this will happen. And it's a dangerous, dangerous ideology, and it's oftentimes been misused and uh really poorly uh communicated from the front. And so what I want to do is is of course, just sort of get our mind right when it comes to health, wealth, prosperity. What does scripture actually say? What is our relationship with God actually supposed to look like in this area? But also too, just kind of maybe make us aware of maybe some of the misuses and the traps that we've fallen into. Can I I'll give you a softball here? Jeremiah 29, 11. How many of you know Jeremiah 29.11 here, right? Here's what it reads it says, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. The NIV reads it as, I have um, I have plans for you, declares the Lord. Plans for prop plans for you to prosper, right? And not for evil. I can't tell you how many times we've heard that verse. It's on a coffee mug that's sitting in your cabinet, right? It grandma has a pillow and that's stitched onto the front of it. The the Bible cover that you have has that on the front. And so we take that passage and we don't read anything else around it, and we go, God has plans for me to prosper. That's what it says. He has plans for me that I will succeed. So here's the question: Is every Christian business then going to succeed? It says that he has plans for us to prosper. How many of you in here are like, I missed the prosper plan that God was given out? And so there can be create attention in us of I must be doing something wrong, or God's not really going to fulfill his promises, or maybe, maybe we're misapplying this portion of scripture here. Because Jeremiah 29, verse 1, tells us that this is a letter from Jeremiah the prophet to those who are in Jerusalem in captivity, in exiles in Babylon. And so he has plans for them that they will no longer be in captivity, plans for them to prosper, plans for them to succeed, to return back home. But we seem to forget that they were also in captivity. So clearly, God at times will allow hardships and trials and difficulties. It's not always that we will prosper. I think we're maybe misusing that phrase oftentimes that we're we're conquerors, or that we have a newness of life, and so we can sometimes take that and apply that to that. We're gonna be physically well off, that we're gonna be materially well off. I I think many of us have read Jeremiah 29, 11. I mean, it says, For I know the plans I have for you, and we've made ourselves the you in that. God didn't write that to you. I just burst a bubble in here and I heard it pop. You are not the you of that. There's an actual audience for that. And you go, well, yeah, isn't isn't there a larger promise though in that? Yeah, God does have plans for you. God does have great things set for you. But it does not mean health, wealth, and prosperity. It does not mean financial well-being. It does not mean that nobody in here is ever going to get sick. The plans he has for us are radically different than the plans that we've come up with are what is good and what is prosperous. Can I maybe pop another bubble for somebody in here today? Uh Philippians 4, 13. We all know this one. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Amen? I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So we're gonna go out there and we're gonna win that football game on Friday night because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I'm gonna get that promotion because it's Christ who strengthens me. We're not gonna struggle anymore financially because Christ is gonna strengthen me. We're gonna launch this thing, we're gonna do this, whatever it might be. But could I read for you Philippians 4, 11? Paul says, Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Paul is quite literally communicating that you can lose the football game on Friday night and still say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can be hungry and in need, and through Christ who strengthens me, that will be enough. And we've taken this as a promise of success, of being able to conquer anything. And Paul's whole point is you could be imprisoned through Christ who strengthens you. You could be poor and learn to be content through Christ who strengthens you. I can be in need. But man, we just love Philippians 4.13. We don't want to include 11 and 12. It's kind of funny, but before the game, right, or after the victory, we'll say, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. But it'd be worthwhile after the devastating loss, after true hardship in our life, after things not going the way we planned, for us to say, Lord, I will learn in whatever situation to be content, and I can do this through Christ who strengthens me. As we uh prepare in the next couple months for the kickoff of the NFL, Raider fans, just be prepared. That as you lose every Sunday, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If you would, I've popped uh some bubbles, I've devastated some worlds, I've I've ruined it. And so, what, James, what are you trying to communicate? Is it that God just wants me hungry and he wants me broke and he wants me just floundering in life? No, being broke is not holy either. Being in sickness does not make you then closer to God. So it's it's not necessarily that God does not provide some at times health, wealth, and prosperity in our lives. Because the truth is, every single one of us in here on some level is very much wealthy. And the in the grand scheme of life, in fact, all of humans that have ever existed in the world, we might be in the most comfortable of situations and times ever in human history. And so it's it's not that that's necessarily wrong, but I think what can be dangerous is this expectation of God that his goal in life is to make us comfortable, or that the purpose of this life is that we would have everything that we want. That we would just live a life where everything goes as a plan, where the market never crashes, and we always get the pay bump. That's not the goal. The disciples struggled understanding the correlation and the relationship between if if God is God and we're his people, w doesn't that mean that everything should just go according to plan for us? Doesn't isn't isn't that what it means to be blessed? The passage I want to spend the most amount of our time in is Matthew 16, where you're gonna watch the struggle of this very subject kind of reveal itself in Matthew 16, starting in verse 13. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And Jesus says to them, Okay, well, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. So Peter has this moment where, you know, there's always these times where Jesus is like, Man, you guys still aren't getting this, but Peter finally has this moment where he goes, You are the Christ, you are the Messiah, the Savior. You're not just a prophet, you're not just a good teacher, you're not just a miracle worker. You are, in fact, the Son of God. In other words, you are God. And Jesus just encourages him. This wasn't revealed to you by flesh and blood. This doesn't come from human understanding. This comes from the Heavenly Father. You're thinking spiritually, you're hearing from the Heavenly Father, you're getting this divine insight. And Jesus charges him, like, Peter, on this. I'm gonna build my church. And the gates of hell, the defenses of hell will not be able to prevail because you will be on the offense, we will be on the offense and the church, and the kingdom will move forward, and nothing will be able to stop it. And so I would just picture Peter here, like hearing this, like he just got the right answer. And now he's got like this great name, and he's powerful, and he's mighty, and he's got the keys to the kingdom, and and and we're gonna go take down like hell's gates, like we are doing this thing, there's gonna be a new kingdom. He finally got the right answer. Verse 21. So, right after this, from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. The gates of hell will not prevail. We will have victory, evil will not reign and rule. And Jesus is like, We gotta go to Jerusalem. I'm gonna be suffering from the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and I'm gonna be persecuted, and I'm gonna be put to death. That's a head-scratching moment. Because I thought that the gates of hell will not prevail. I thought that the kingdom of heaven was here, and you're the Son of God. And so Peter, Peter has already heard from Jesus on this. So Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. But Jesus turns and says to him, Get behind me, Satan. Guys, five verses ago, Peter had a brand new name. He got the answer right. He understood who the Lord was, but he did not understand the dynamics of that relationship. What do you mean, Lord, that there's gonna be pain and suffering and death? I thought this was your kingdom. I thought you were the Messiah. You see, Peter is expecting that they're gonna actually rule and reign, an earthly kingdom. He thought that the Romans would no longer be in charge and all of the oppression that's come their way. That would be pushed aside, and Jesus would be put on the throne, and Peter's gonna be the right hand guy. He's close to the one who's going to be the king of the kingdom. Peter had very much, all of them had it in their mind that we're gonna be rulers, that we're gonna have wealth. We're not gonna be in a season of struggling anymore like we are under the Romans. This is going to be our time. And so when Jesus says, I'm gonna go and suffer and die, that doesn't sound like the kingdom. I wonder, hear this. How many of us know that Jesus is Lord, that he's the Messiah, he's the savior of the universe? But we just we think we know best of how things are gonna play out or should play out. He says, get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but of the things of man. The complete opposite of what was just said seven verses ago that he heard from the Heavenly Father. But you're thinking now in terms of man, and you're thinking humanistically that any sort of suffering is bad, that any sort of pain or hardship is bad. Have it not be, Lord. How crazy is it that he calls him Lord yet tells him what should be done? How many of us we we know Jesus? We believe he's the Messiah, but we get into our prayer time and we're like, Lord, I pray that you would just bless me with this, that you would take care of this problem, that you would remove Susan from the office. She's just a nasty woman. Nasty woman. Lord, I pray just for my kids that everything would go well for them, that this would happen, and that this would go, and that they would make the all-star team, and that we would get this, and that you would make a way for. Talk about a low moment for Peter. I would just imagine if I was one of the other disciples and there was ever a conversation of who's the greatest. The very first thing I would say was, Well, who here has been called Satan? Oh, Peter? Alright, well, that makes one of us. But what a low moment to to be have this great moment and then be brought down of get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance. You're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. I think the whole question does God want us healthy, wealthy, and prosperous is us thinking in the way of man. That that that money represents blessing. That easy living means God is for us. And if if times are hard, then God must be against us. That's a dangerous way of thinking. Because either you're sh you're messing up or God's angry. And I think the whole way of skewing it and misinterpreting it is so far from the heart of God. He doesn't call us to a life that's comfortable. He says to them, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, go ahead, let him deny himself. You take up his cross and follow me. Guys, I know this message is not fun. I know it. I don't know how I got stuck with this week. It just happened to me. But we need to hear this. Genuinely, we need to hear this. Because we believe in Jeremiah 29, 11, that we're the main character. And that God exists, that we might do well in life. And our prayer life looks a lot like serve me, Lord. And we choose churches based off of whether we like them. Can I encourage you? Don't go to a church because you like what they teach. Go to the church because they teach what is true. Worship. I want to go there because I I like the worship. We're not worshiping you. I don't like this song. I don't like you singing it. It's a good thing we're not singing to you then, aren't we? How about we sing and worship because we're actually worshiping him? What if we open up the Bibles and not said, Lord, give me my fix for the week? Give me my little daily bump of Bible so that I feel good and I'm gonna get the blessings of I've read the word. How about we read it just so I can know about more about God and I could be obedient to what He's called me to do? Why is everything, this is really offensive, why is everything about you? Why does your prayers consist of you? The worship is about you, the church you attend is about you. We get up here and we say, Why don't you come serve? Because then you'll meet people that you can like might like. How about you'd not do it for any benefit for you? How about we just serve just to serve? Oh, but God's gonna bless you for it. It's gonna do this and that. Again, it's just a sales pitch back to serving you. And Jesus says, Do you want to follow me? Deny yourself. So the whole question of does God want me wealthy? Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow him. Don't get in front of him, don't try to tell him what to do. Follow him. Jesus says, For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. This is a great, great line right here. For what will it profit a man? What good is it, right? If you gain In the whole world. If you had everything you ever wanted. But you forfeit your soul. Or what on the other side of it? Or what shall a man give? Wouldn't you give up the whole world? In other words, that's a rhetorical question. Wouldn't you give up everything in return for his soul? It just shows the value that is actually there on the things that don't matter. It's so small, it's so empty. It's meaningless. I want to call all of us, and I get the blessing of I think about this all week, you know, and so then I just like kind of come here and I word vomit all of it that I've been thinking about all week. But God wants us to follow him in such a way that we we put to death everything that is about us, that is self-centered, self-focused. We no longer pray the prayer according to what we want, but what he wants. If you would look at the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Great and mighty are you, Lord. Hallowed be your name. Your will be done. Your kingdom come. Have your will, your kingdom here on this earth be done. Not my kingdom, not my way. Nowhere does God say, Follow me, and there will be no problems. Follow me, and there is no suffering. Pray this prayer, and things will go well. Give this amount of money, and this will happen. Jesus says, Follow me, and in doing so, you will actually find your life. You'll actually find true meaning, purpose, fulfillment. You'll live for that which matters, that which is eternal. But the biggest enemy to get in there is your own self. It's denying yourself and taking up your cross. I wanted to see somebody who has done this well. Uh Acts 20, 24, Paul wrote these words, and uh I just feel like this is the goal of everything that I that I'm trying to communicate. Paul writes this. He says, But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And that that that has been challenging me just sort of all week of going, how far is my heart and my soul and my thoughts from Acts 20, 24? How big is the gap that I gotta close to where I start to sound like that? If you feel like I'm right there, I'm I'm I'm I have the same mind and heart as Paul. Man, I would love to talk to you. I would love to hear how the Lord has done that work in your life, but I'm gonna take a guess because I know my own soul, that many of us in here, we look at those words and we just know that that's really far from where we're at. That my life is really, really important. I don't know if you know this, I'm kind of a big deal. I think about me all the time. I'm thinking of all the ways I can be comfortable. I think of all the ways I could have more money. I think of all the things I want to treat myself with. I think of all of the the things I believe I deserve. I account my life as a lot. And then on the flip side, how important is it the ministry that God has entrusted you with? How important is the gospel, the message of God's grace to people? How important is that to you in comparison to everything else in your life? You're like, dang, this is convicting. The gap is far. I know that in my own life, and that's just been my prayer is Lord, would you show me the areas that I'm letting live around in my life? What are the things that I'm I'm I'm keeping intact because I think they're important to me? Is it reputation, status, how we come across our our appearance, our our looks, our our uh persona? Is it my wealth, my comfort? What are the things that are stopping me from denying myself that I might genuinely follow you? That I might actually come to the place of Acts 20, 24. Church, I'll I'll I'll sort of round this corner here. I hope you don't walk away going, God just wants you to be miserable and uh your life to be disastrous. Not not at all. But I think we sometimes confuse his blessing and his goodness and what he wants to do in our life with physical um wellness, material blessing. We get those conflated. God absolutely has a plan for you, but it includes hardship and trial, but it also has meaning and purpose that it might point people to the good news of the gospel. God definitely has a plan for you and thinks good of you, hence why he sent his son to die for you. He has given you a hope and he's given you a future, but it's not here right now, it's on the other side of eternity. God does love you, God does want what's best for you. But what he knows to be best for you is different than what you think is best for you. And so we could get these terms kind of conflated and a little bit confused. I'm a conqueror, I can do all things through Christ, he has a plan for me. I just want us to have a biblical perspective that very much includes pain and suffering and hardship, but all of it is for his glory. And God's greatest hope for you is that you would deny yourself of continuing to live for the comfort and the money and begin to follow him, and in that you truly find your life. That's what I got for you. I'm gonna pray. And I feel like every week I say, have a great week. Have the week that God's gonna have for you. Let's pray. Deavenly Father, I thank you for who you are. I thank you for the truth of your word, the understanding it brings. Lord, I pray just against the confusion of this world of thinking on the things of man, thinking the ways of man. Lord, I pray that we would see things with a heavenly perspective. We would see the good in the suffering. We would see the resurrection that comes after the death. Lord, I pray that our relationship with you would be that of those who acknowledge that you are a God and not a genie. Jesus, give us perspective to see things the way they are. Change our hearts in the areas that need to be changed. Lord, help us to hear the very hard message that it's not about us. Lord, we pick up our crosses and we follow you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.