Channels Only, Blessed Master

Pray together. But we do want to come before you and acknowledge you are the ruler of creation. Lord, we're thankful that you have called us into your light.

We're thankful, Lord, for the kingdom of God that is advancing and, Lord, and that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Lord, help us have faith and believe that this morning. Help us to seek you.

Lord, I pray you'd come and speak through my brother Roger that you would use his words this morning to help us to grow. Lord, I pray that each one of us would truly seek you with all of our heart and that we would find you as you promised. Lord, help us to see where we may not love you with all of our heart.

Lord, help us not just to be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees we read about, but help us to be people that are filled with faith. I pray that you would just now guide the service, that your Holy Spirit would have freedom in our hearts, in our lives, that we would make you the Lord of our life. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. You may be seated. Thank you very much.

All right, well, good morning. It's good to be here. Thank you so much for making an effort to be here.

Thank you for those who took part in the service already. Thank you for the thoughts of the words or the actions of Jesus there in Luke about his kindness that he showed. And then Abe in the children's lesson, the kind words illustration and the devastation when that doesn't happen.

I think that fits with some of the things I have to give to you this morning. You know that most of you, most of you if you're regular here, that I was back in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania for a week of Bible school. They asked me to share five messages on a godly view of finances, a godly view of finances.

And when I got back here, I started sharing those same messages with you all here. We got up through three of them so far. And the first three, first one that I shared was my own testimony on the subject of finances, my fascination with accumulation and compound interest and how God got a hold of me with some of his teaching.

Second message was on biblical financial responsibility, went back into the Old Testament, into Proverbs. We looked at some of the principles there in the value of work, the value of controlling our spending, the value of managing debt, the value of you know, things like record-keeping and things like that, the power of that, the power of living for the future rather than just living for the present. Third message introduced, I guess maybe to some would be a new doctrine, but I'll just put up here on the board the references, Matthew 6, 19.

And we are now up in the New Testament and we are looking at the words of Jesus, Luke 12, 33. And I put these into a box along with quite a few other verses that I shared with you. And we called it the doctrine of non-accumulation and I encouraged you to ask the question, is that doctrine a true doctrine or not? Now, you don't have to actually use that word if you don't like that word, but what I would encourage you to do is to look at these verses and if you want to call it something else, some other doctrinal name, that's fine.

But ask three questions about those two verses right there. Number one, are they in the Bible? Number two, are they meant to be taken literally? And number three, do they apply to me personally? That would be another way to ask the same question. Today, we're going to move on then and ask another question.

And this is more along the lines of the why of Jesus' teaching, the why of non-accumulation. If you could sum up Jesus' teaching on that, on that, you know, with that word, if that's an accurate way to sum up his teaching, why did he do that? What's the purpose? And, you know, what's he trying to accomplish? And we're going to try to answer at least one part of that question. Why did Jesus teach the things that he taught? Maybe there's various reasons.

We'll look at why he said, you know, he wants our heart to remain with him. He wants a heart that's focused on eternity, not on the present and so forth. But I would like you to think of a particular resource, natural resource, that this world has.

And if you look at the various countries of the world, some have more of this resource than others. And as this natural resource is distributed, you could say nations can get wealthy or poverty stricken based on how much of this that they had. So what would you say is the most important natural resource in this world? Well, you could say, well, maybe if a world, if a country would discover gold, that would make them wealthy.

Lately, last several hundred years, people have said if you discover oil, that makes you wealthy. But the one that I'm thinking of is more important than either gold or oil. And this is water.

You know, if a nation doesn't have water, there is no way for survival. Life is not going to flourish. They become a desert.

And I have here something I'd like to just show you. This is a little map of the world on a ball called a globe. So here's just a globe.

And if you were to look at this right now, you could see all these different colors. And every color is a different country. But what if you, instead of looking at it by country, by geography, by nationality, what if it was a globe that had only by rainfall? Sometimes you could do that.

You can go on Google Earth or whatever, and you can see this based on how much rain they're going to get. Well, what you would discover is, way over here in the Americas, you would have this central part of the United States looks kind of scant. Way over here where we are, we get quite a bit of rain.

We get a little bit more rain over here in the eastern part of the United States. But then where you really get the rainfall is down here in the Amazon Rainforest. It would be totally green, dark green.

And that band kind of follows the equator. You turn that over here, and you come over here to Africa, and it would be a lot of rain down here. But up here would be the largest desert in the world, the Sahara Desert.

So I'll just put this over here and leave that. But I did actually print off a map. Now, it is black and white, but I'd like to show you this as well.

This is a map that kind of shows the rainfall of the various parts of the world. And here you can see the Amazon Rainforest. And they get a ton of rain down there.

Over here, Africa, it's kind of along the same parallel. They get a lot of rain down here in central to southern Africa. Up here, though, is this area called the Sahara Desert.

So I'm going to put this up here, see if I can get this to get this to stick. Maybe I'll just put it over here. And if that was the only way for, if rainfall was the only way for wealth to be measured, then we can look at this map that we have, and we can figure out which of these are the most, which of these countries are the most wealthy.

Now, you know, today, that's not the only one that we have. There are others as well. But I'll just stick with this one.

I'll put this up here, and we can think about that a little bit. We could say this is the part that has the most life behind it. There's probably more life in these equator, in these countries along the equator, than any other.

There's probably more vegetation. There's probably more animal wildlife. Now, I suppose there are animals up here, and there are some plants, but they're kind of few and far between, up where there's no water.

They've got to have some special stuff going on, some special resources, some special hardiness, in order for them to survive. Now, we're going to take one continent of this, and we're going to blow it up even more. And this continent that we have is the continent of Africa.

And this shows the Sahara Desert up here at the top. If I stay out of the way, can you see that? Okay. And you can kind of see the countries here in Africa.

You see down here is this great big country called the Congo. And the Congo, I suppose there's very few countries in the world that get more rainfall total than the Congo, right down here. I can kind of draw a line around there.

Meanwhile, there's another country on that same map. It's called the country of Egypt. And it's up here in the corner.

Now, if you go on Wikipedia and just ask for a ranking of average rainfall of these various countries, I just did that last night, and it gave me a list of 184 countries in the world. Egypt was number 184 of 184. That means it is the driest country in the world, at least in the listing that I had.

So you would think Egypt would probably be about the poorest country in the world as well because they just don't get much rain. God says he gives rain on the just and on the unjust. But why doesn't he give Egypt nearly as much rain as the Congo or Uganda or some of these other countries down there? I don't know.

I don't know why he does that. But, you know, what's interesting about Egypt is that of all the countries in Africa, it is one of the richest countries in Africa by GDP, by measurable GDP. I think it's number two.

I think South Africa is number one, and then Egypt is number two, gross domestic product. How is that possible that Egypt, who has so little of this important resource called rainfall, how is it possible that Egypt has become a country with one of the highest GDPs, gross domestic products, in Africa? Well, the answer is a little channel that runs from this lake, Lake Victoria, all the way up through here, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. And you know what it's called, the Nile River, the longest river in the world by most measurements.

The Nile River is a channel that is carrying this important resource called water from the Congo, Uganda, Lake Victoria, all the way up here into Egypt. And most Egyptians live within just a few miles of the Nile River. It has become a very important channel, in fact, to the point where the Egyptians have, in history, they have started worshipping the river itself.

That's not the right way to do it. It was a gift from God. But that's how God has decided to do it.

Why does God set it up that way? Why didn't God just give equal rainfall all over Africa? Why didn't God just give equal rainfall all over the entire world? I don't know. But he's chosen to do it this way, give the Congo and some of these other countries way more than they need, and then make a channel there to minister to the Egyptians. Now let's talk about another resource, our wealth.

If we were to draw a map, instead of rainfall, it would be the wealth of this world and who has the most of it. And, you know, the answer would be, it would be us right here in the United States of America. We have way more wealth than average.

We have way more than our share, if you measure it person by person. And, again, why did God do that? Why did God ordain to give some areas of this world far more wealth, far more financial resources than any of the others? You know, if you would take a bird's eye view of this world, and instead of rainfall or instead of geography, you would have, again, wealth distribution. How much of that would be centered right here in this land that we live in? And the answer is, it would be an incredible amount.

And most of it, we don't have anything to do with it. It wasn't because of choices that we have made that it was handed to us. There was, when Dennis was over in Iraq, he was there when he was, I think it was soon after he was 18, he went over there and he ministered through teaching English to some of these Iraqi boys.

And they would teach English during the day and then they'd sit around and talk during the evening. And he soon figured out that these guys had one dream in life, or at least one important dream in life. And that was, they wanted to come to America.

If there was one dream that could be fulfilled, to go to America. Oh, if only they could come to the United States. That's what they would want more than anything else.

These young Iraqi boys, you know, from age, I don't know, 14 to 20, somewhere in there. Here's the question. Do you think that'll ever happen for most of them? The answer is, absolutely not.

The chances of any one of those Iraqi boys ever coming to America is next to zero. You say, well, why is that? Well, pretty simple. They don't have enough money, but that's not probably even the biggest reason.

The biggest reason probably is that they can't get a passport that will allow them to go to America. You see, we have a privilege, everyone in this room, if you're an American citizen, you can go down to the post office and apply for a U.S. passport. That U.S. passport, the United States passport, will take you to almost any country in the world.

Not quite, but almost. Meanwhile, those Iraqi boys, even if they had lots of money, they could go down there to the Iraqi post office, and they could apply for a passport, and they'd probably get a passport, but that passport would take them to hardly any countries in the world. Just a few.

And so money is an issue, but it's not even the biggest issue. So we live in a country where a young man can grow up with very little training, very little expertise. He can get a job driving a combine or a tractor or a stacker or whatever, and in one month's time, he can have enough money to buy a plane ticket anywhere in the world, and home again, and supply all his needs while he's there.

It's not something that we earn, these privileges that we have. Once the harvest season is over and he has the money that will fly him anywhere in the world, he can go to the post office and get a passport, and now he's got the passport, and he's got the money, he's got a ticket, no limits. He can go anywhere in the world he wants.

One month, 30 days, that's all it takes. That's the kind of wealth most of this world can only dream of. They have no idea what it'd be like to be able to make even what our minimum wage is.

What is it here in Oregon? $15 an hour, $16 an hour? I mean, that's incredible wealth to most people in this world. And that's why has God given it to us, and how has he given it to us? Why is America so prosperous? You say, well, we earned it. Well, you know, here's something that you might find interesting.

Back in the 1800s, there was a man that went out to California from the East Coast. He discovered gold, and pretty soon word got back to the East Coast that there was gold in California, and people started heading out across. One guy I said, I think most people had wagons and horses and oxen or whatever, covered wagons.

One guy I heard, he was pushing a wheelbarrow out there with a pick and a shovel and a few supplies. I don't know if he made it or not, but they were infatuated with this idea that there was gold in California. The problem was, once they got to California, they started looking for this gold, and some of them found it, but how were they going to ever protect it? They said, here it is, right here on this plot of land, so this is mine, I found it.

The moment you walk away, somebody else walks up and takes it. See, there wasn't the ability to title land until a few decades later, but the whole thing of titling land became a thing in America when the government said, you can now draw a boundary around a piece of property, and that becomes yours, you can own it. You know, most of the world, over 70% of the world, does not have the ability to title land.

You don't own land. Land is like sky. I mean, how are you going to, you know, the sky, we don't own a piece of sky.

Birds fly through it, airplanes fly through it, nobody owns it, it's everybody's. That's how it used to be here in America, with land as well. It's just dirt.

Everybody gets to use it. But that's not how it is now. There's a way you can title land and say, this is mine, this field is mine, these acreage are mine, this house is mine, and the dirt underneath it.

And that very fact, the idea, or just the fact that we in America can title property has created a lot of the wealth, the ability to make wealth, that most of the world does not know about. So are these privileges that we've earned? No. The ability to title land and, you know, the economic profit and the minimum wage laws, all of those things were in place long before I was ever born.

But I was born into this. I was born into this opportunity. You were born into this opportunity.

It was undeserved, it was unearned, but here we are. And we live in this place where there's an abundance of wealth, meanwhile most of the world is struggling in some kind of poverty. What then is God's reason for doing that? And, you know, God has always had a heart toward the poor.

Verse after verse in the Bible, you see, God has a heart toward the poor. Blessed is he who considers the poor. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.

Proverbs calls it lending to the Lord when you give to the poor. Jesus said, inasmuch as you have done unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me. We enter into God's heart when we help the poor.

And, you know, if God wanted to make all this equal, he could have done that, but he hasn't. Instead, he's set this whole economic world up in such a way that he wants us to be like these miniature Nile rivers, being a channel from places of abundance like the Congo to places of need like Egypt. That's how he's set us up, and that's why he has given us more than we need.

Not so we could hoard it for ourselves, not so we could live in luxury, but so we can become miniature Nile rivers. And then he wants other people to become channels as well. As we look downstream, as we help others, they also can become generous.

They can also enter into this life of kindness rather than unkindness like we heard about in the children's lesson. And God does not force us to do that. God, his own glory is what he's after.

He wants his people to voluntarily move resources from places of abundance to places of need to become these channels. And again, it's voluntary. He does not force us.

In fact, when God makes us stewards of his resources, he says you're free to do almost anything you want. You can waste that money. You can hoard that money.

You can blow it on whatever you want. You can buy as many pieces of furniture, as many cars, as many guns, as many coffees as you want, and it's yours to do that. God does not restrict us.

Now, he does motivate us, though. He gives us, in his word, an abundance of promises. If we decide I'm going to be a Nile river, I'm going to be a channel, then God has all kinds of promises to you.

He says my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory. He says all these things shall be added unto you. He says your father which seeth in secret shall reward you openly.

These are promises to people who want to become a channel, who want to become a Nile river. These are promises. God will make all grace abound to you, so you having all sufficiency in all things will abound unto every good work.

That's for you, if you're willing to become a Nile river, if you're willing to be a channel. He says you shall have treasure in heaven. He says then your light shall rise.

Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 58. We're going to read some of the promises that God has given to the Nile rivers of this world, those who are willing to be channels from the abundance to the need, from the supply to the lack. God has given these promises here in Isaiah chapter 58.

Let's start in verse 6 and listen to what God says to people who are willing to be these channels, these Nile rivers. He says, Is this not the fast? I'm reading from Isaiah 58 starting with verse 6. Is this not the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free? And that you break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee. The glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.

Then thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, the speaking vanity, and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. These are just some of the promises that God has given to the people who are deciding, I want to be a channel.

I don't want to live a fruitless life, I want to live a fruit-filled life. I realize that I've been given more than I need, and there's people that have less. And so I want to be like the Nile River.

These are promises that God has for you. But God has not only given promises, he's given warnings. He says in Matthew chapter 25, if you're not willing to be a Nile River, someday you're going to hear the words, depart from me, I never knew you, you who work iniquity.

In James 5 it says, go to now, woe to you, you rich people, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Why? Because they were hoarding their wealth, rather than becoming a channel. Luke chapter 6, woe to you who are rich.

Luke chapter 12 tells the story of the rich farmer, who tore down his barns and built greater. He had more than he needed, like the Congo here. That rich farmer had more than he needed of this world's resources, and he chose to, instead of giving it to others, he chose to hoard it for himself.

Revelation 3, the church in Laodicea, you are lukewarm. Why? Because you've said, I'm rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing. Instead of being a channel, they become a hoarder.

And 1 John 3, 17, whoso hath this world's goods, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up the bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him. So we live in a place of abundance, United States of America. And meanwhile, our brethren all over the world, there's needs that they have.

There's one more warning that we want to look at. And I get this from this book that Gary Miller publishes, Where is Lazarus? I'd recommend everybody to have that if you haven't got it. But he's talking about the story of the rich man Lazarus.

You can turn to that as well if you would like. Luke chapter 16, and he tells the story here of a man who had more than he needed. He was like the Congo.

Meanwhile, there was a poor man at his gate. And this man was like Egypt. He had way less than what he needed.

And the rich man, he had the privilege, the opportunity to become a Nile River, channeling his extra to the place of need. And he said to his disciples, no, I'm sorry. Let's skip down to Luke 16 verse 19.

There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Now it goes on, gives a lesson on, I believe it's the resurrection and the evidence of Jesus. But let's stop right there. What did Abraham say to this man? Why he ended up in hell, and the poor man ended up in heaven.

Or just why this rich man ended up in hell. First of all, he was deceived. He thought things were going to be better after he died than what they were.

He didn't know he was going to be anywhere near the place that he was. He was deceived. Let's talk about this thing of deception.

I wonder if any of you were to guess. How many people die every day in the world? What do you think it would be? Well, the answer is somewhere around 150,000 people die every day. Now of those, some of them are children, 15 and under.

So let's just knock off about 20,000. And that leaves 130,000 people who are adults or near adults that die every single day. Now the question is, what do you think those 130,000 people expect as they start approaching life, and they see their health is going downhill, and maybe war has broke out, and there's various ways people die.

But however they die, what do you think they expect? Well, it's going to depend a lot on their religious viewpoint. So of that 130,000, what do they think when they think about life after death? Well, first of all, about 40,000 of these are some sort of professing Christians. They believe something about Jesus.

Maybe they're Catholic, maybe they're Mormon, maybe they're Jehovah Witness, maybe they're some kind of Protestant, whatever it is. About 40,000 have some kind of belief in Jesus, of those 130,000 that are going to die tomorrow. Another 30,000 are Muslim.

Another 30,000 are some sort of Eastern religion, which would include Buddhism, could include Hinduism, a few things like that. And then finally there's one more 30,000 chunk, and these people would be the nuns, the nonbelievers, the atheists, the agnostics, the people who aren't religious at all. And I think that adds up to 130,000.

So here's my question to you. Let's start here at the bottom. The atheists, the people who don't believe in God at all, as they approach death and think about life after death, what do you all think? Are they deceived? I would say, yeah, they're deceived.

They believe there's no God, and then when death happens and they wake up in eternity, I think they're surprised, they're deceived. What about this 30,000 that belong to some sort of Eastern religion? Do you think they're deceived when they think about life after death? I think they're deceived as well. They have one idea, but it's a wrong idea.

What about this 30,000 right here, the Muslims, who believe that when their god, Allah, judges them, he's going to look at how many good works they had and how many bad works, and he's going to judge them based on that. Do you think the Muslims are deceived when they think about life after death? I think the Muslims are deceived as well. What about this group here, the 40,000 people who profess to know Jesus? Do you think any of them are deceived? You know, this man here probably had a lot of his theology right, this rich man in Luke chapter 16, but he was deceived.

I suppose he was probably a Jew speaking at the time of Jesus, but he was speaking to people who would become Christians. That's who Jesus was speaking to, and he was using this as a warning. But he was deceived about what was going to happen after death.

Do you think there's any chance that any of us here in this room are deceived? Do you think we expect life after death to be somewhat different than what it's actually going to be? Do you think we expect our own preparedness to be somewhat different than what it really is? I think it's possible, and I think it's a scary thought, but as I look at the idea, as I read through some of these things, what were some things about this rich man in Luke chapter 16? Number one, he fared sumptuously every day. Number two, God desired for him to be a channel. And he knew about this poor man up here.

He knew about the need that was at his gate. It wasn't like Lazarus was, you know, 150 miles away by horse. No, Lazarus was right there at his gate, so he knew about it.

And meanwhile, the rich man, he was living in luxury. He was aware of Lazarus's plight. He somehow didn't grasp that how we use what we have extra is going to affect our eternity.

And you say, well, who are these people? Do we have them? Are they sitting at our gate? Well, I think some of them are. You know, we live in a world, the rich man lived in a world where he knew the needs. He knew that the, you know, Egypt was there, which in this case was Lazarus.

He knew that this man was full of sores and he wanted just a few crumbs from his table. He knew he was there. It changed things because of his knowledge.

And I believe it changes our life and our responsibility based on our knowledge. You know, if we lived in a world where Christian aid ministries did not exist, world missionary press does not exist, Mount Zion literature does not exist, we don't know of the needs around the world, it would probably change where, you know, how responsible we are. But we don't.

We live in a world where we know these needs are there and we know there's channels to get them, these needs. There are opportunities. And we live in a world where we have the opportunity to earn more than what we need.

Here's just a few of the Lazaruses. So we say, well, we don't know about these Lazaruses. Well, let's read about this.

Who is Lazarus? It's a broken world. Lazarus is personified in the many who lack basic spiritual and physical necessities around the globe. He is the family in Nigeria that is battling malaria, lacking mosquito nets and medicine to protect them from its onslaught.

He is the farmer in Ghana who's struggling to provide for his growing family, or the family in India who just lost everything in an earthquake. He is the mother in Mozambique who lacks safe drinking water. Lazarus could also be the new believer in China who's still waiting for his first Bible, or the millions in the 1040 window who have never heard about Jesus.

And then there are the children, the little Lazaruses. Lazarus today is a small girl in war-torn Somalia who watched her parents being slaughtered in a local tribal conflict. Now homeless and orphaned, she has nowhere to go.

Lazarus is a small boy, one of millions, who has been sold into slavery. He's the six-year-old who cries himself to sleep after hearing the dreadful word divorce. He's the little girl who cowers in her bedroom each night, listening to the blows in the adjoining room, hoping her mother will survive.

Lazarus is embodied in the millions of latchkey children in America who return home after a day at school to empty houses, as well as the millions more who live in broken homes. He is each of the over 400,000 foster children bouncing from home to home in America, longing for stability, security, and love. Lazarus can also be found among the more than 100,000 American children waiting to be adopted by a real father and mother.

For those of us living comfortable, middle-class American lives, Lazarus isn't as visible as he was to the rich man. We tend to associate with people of similar background, income, and ethnicity. In the middle of our busy social schedules and crowded calendars, we might think times have changed and Lazarus has moved on.

But make no mistake, there are still millions of Lazaruses in our world. No matter where you live in this broken world, there is a Lazarus close by. So are we aware of these things? I think we are.

There are people that God wants our abundance to supply. Now, it's not everybody. One person here, not even the richest man in the world, could possibly supply the need of every person in the world.

But we can supply some. What are we going to be held responsible? We're not going to be held responsible for that which we don't know and we can't do. We're going to be held responsible for that which we can do.

So if I decide that I want to be a channel, I want to be a Nile River, I want to be an avenue where the extra supply of this world, at least in a small way, in my life, can supply the needs of others with less than they need. If I'm going to do that, there's going to be some barriers to overcome. We talked about some of those barriers in earlier sessions.

There's the barrier called laziness. You know, if I've not learned to work and work hard and work regularly and stick to a job and get up on time and get to work and so forth, that's going to be a barrier to this channel here. It's going to get blocked off.

And I'm not going to be very effective in meeting the needs that God wants me to meet by putting me right here in the richest country that has ever existed at any time, at any place in the world. I'm going to block off that channel if I let laziness sit into my life. Another one is overspending.

Rich man, he fared sumptuously every day, the rich man in Luke 16. Gary talks about in his book a few things that can happen here if we allow this thing of overspending to take over. He says, Recently I was in a store owned and used almost exclusively by plain people.

Walking down the aisle, I came across a nice-looking ice chest. It looked like a basic cooler, similar in size to my old Coleman. So imagine my surprise when I saw the price tag of $300.

And that was on sale. Curious, I inquired how many people were actually willing to spend this much on an ice chest. I was shocked.

It seemed there are many young Anabaptist families willing to shell out several hundred dollars for an ice chest. Returning home, I investigated further. Just how much better is this ice chest? In tests, this brand kept food slightly colder after five days, and most researchers believed it was constructed better and might last a little longer than the cooler that sold for around a fourth of the cost.

They pointed out, however, that the main reason for this inflated price was the brand name. People were paying more, primarily, to impress. Here's another one.

Years ago, I was working in a very expensive home and was told that the wallpaper in the master bedroom alone had cost over $50,000. This was definitely an extreme example of conspicuous consumption, spending money to create a certain look or impression. We tell others that we only want to buy the best.

Recently, I listened to a discussion about barbecue grills. One man was talking about a particular grill, known both for being extremely expensive and consistently turning out good meat. He says, I wasn't about to shell out a couple thousand dollars for a grill, he told his listeners.

But then, I tasted some of that meat. I was sold. He said he now has one of these grills, and so do every one of his sons.

I left that day pondering this discussion and wondering just how good can meat get? Seriously, where's the end of this road? What if another grill comes out, and it will, that produces meat that is even more flavorful? Will that brother need to sell the old grill and get the improved version? Of course, if we were talking only about grills, it would be easier to isolate the incident. But now we face this issue in every category of our lives. How can a man know if he actually has the best lawnmower, the best circular saw, or the best cordless drill? There will always be sharper utensils, sewing machines with more features, sleeker kitchen appliances that do things a little better.

But do I really need to always have the best? Do I understand how insisting on the best puts pressure on others in my community to do the same? And so forth. So, overspending is another way we can put a barrier here and keep the Nile River from becoming what God wants it to be, by spending too much. Another one is hoarding.

The rich farmer in Luke 12, he had the ability to make more than he needed. But he said instead of taking care of the needs down the road, he was going to tear down his barns and build greater. He was going to store it up in his retirement account, rather than meet the needs of the people around the world.

And, you know, we as Christ followers, we're called to put away this thing called selfishness. We're called to do to others as we would want them to do to you. So think about that.

If you would do to others as what everybody would do to you, well, you just put yourself in the, let's say, the shoes of a farmer in Somalia. A young father, he's got three little children, and he's got a job. He's just barely making it, but he's making it.

He works hard every day. He puts in 12, 14-hour days, and they have enough food on the table. But then he falls and breaks a leg, and now he can't go to work anymore, and his family is on the verge of starvation.

If that was you, what would you want your brother in Christ over in America to do? Well, think of some options. I have a brother in Christ over in America who can make way more than he needs. I've just broken my leg.

My family's going to starve if something doesn't happen. So would I want my brother in America to just be lazy, sit back at home and do nothing? I'd say no. Get up and go get a job.

All right. Once he's made the money then, what would I want him to do with that money? Well, he could spend it on coolers and grills and fancy vacations and all these other things. That's one thing he could do.

Is that what I want him to do? Go out to eat? Let's just spend it all on fancy restaurants? Would that help me in my time of need? No, that wouldn't help me either. So what about this? What if my brother over in America would open a retirement account, put all his extra money into this retirement account? Would that help me, my family? They're ready to starve if somebody doesn't do something. Would that help me? Well, no, that wouldn't either.

So what is doing to others as we would have them do to us? That's what Jesus said to do. And he said to, so, you know, this thing of unselfishness, I can't draw lines for you and say, here's how far you should go down. There's probably no limit to how far you could go down this road of unselfishness.

You know, you could probably get a little mud hut or a little tent and say, I'm going to live in this tent and I'm going to eat only rice and no beans but water. And I'm just going to absolutely deny myself. No matter how far you go, there's always another step further.

And you'll never get to the end of that road. So I don't want to put that kind of a burden on you that says you need to go to the ultimate logical extreme. But what I am saying is Jesus wants us to walk this road.

He wants us to walk down that road knowing you'll never get to whatever the absolute end of it is. But he still has a will for us. He still wants us to make whatever choices we need to to become these Nile rivers, these channels moving our abundance to those who have need at some level.

And if you're going to do that, it's going to take some unselfishness. It's going to take denying yourself. It's going to mean take up your cross and go down that road.

There was a Chinese man. I'll just read it here. He said that this China man, he came over here to America with a desire to get rich.

And when he was over here in America, he says that he became a Christian. Upon arriving, Christians reached out to him and offered to teach him English. Through this interaction, he discovered the gospel and became a follower of Jesus.

But now he had a question. When I read Jesus' teaching, I get a sense that I should give everything to the poor. But I also read that I should care and support my parents in China.

How can I do both? His question was sincere. How much should he give? How much should he keep for family needs? Most of us have grappled with the same question. Reading Jesus' teachings on wealth creates a lot of questions and inner turmoil.

Well, I don't know God's calling in your life. It's only fair with a book to give some practical advice. So he does.

First of all, he calls giving an investment. I think we need to change our thinking that it's an investing. And it's the most important investment.

It's the most powerful investment. You know, we might have other goals. We may have the goals of owning my own business someday or having a house.

Or, you know, maybe I want to save up and buy my own car. Maybe I want to… What is it I want? There's many things. But keep in mind the most important thing is being a channel.

And if God allows some of the others, great. Give him thanks. But become a channel first.

Let the Nile River… Become a Nile River to the people in need. And then see what God does. It's an investment.

It's not an expense. He that gives to the poor is not giving. He's lending.

He's lending to the Lord. So he says invest, number one, prayerfully. Number two, proportionally.

How much do you earn? You can't give as much as somebody who earns 10 times what you do. But you can give proportionally based on what you do earn. Invest regularly.

Don't wait until, you know, sometime out in the future or even just until the end of the year. Give some at least every month. Invest finally secretly.

God loves silent kingdom investors. Don't make a big show of it. Do it secretly.

But do it. Do it regularly. Do it proportionally.

And do it prayerfully. Become channels. Are you willing to become channels? A channel.

What's the power of becoming a channel? Of becoming a Nile River? There was a man from South Africa who was a preacher. He came over to America to preach the gospel. He went into a convenience store, 7-Eleven or something like it, standing in line.

He saw a man up ahead of him. And this man looked pretty disturbed. He said he got up to the cash register, and he started fumbling around for his money, and he discovered he didn't have enough money.

It wasn't very much. Well, that South African pastor decided he needed, he decided to become a channel. So he grabbed $10 out of his pocket.

He reached up and put it on the counter. He says, sir, don't turn around. Just take this money.

And remember, Jesus loves you. He became a channel. And the man said thank you.

He didn't turn around. And that whole thing was over. Or so he thought.

He decided to become a channel of love. He decided to show kindness. When he didn't have to show kindness, he wasn't obligated to.

Nine years came and went. The South African pastor went back to Africa. But then he got called for another preaching mission over in America.

I think it was the state of Louisiana. As far as I know, this is a true story. He gets up to preach at a church in Louisiana.

He preaches his message. And after that message, a man comes up to him. He says, you don't remember me.

But he says, when you got up and started preaching, I recognized your voice. He says, I was that man at the 7-Eleven who didn't have enough money to pay for whatever it was I was buying. He says, here's what had happened.

He says, our life had been spiraling downhill. And it was me and my wife and our little child. And we decided to go, all of us, jump off of a cliff, commit suicide.

And then we decided, our little boy, we should get him something to eat, whatever reason. We're going to go and buy him something. So he says, I went back to the 7-Eleven.

And I got there. And I didn't have enough money. And then I heard a voice in a South African accent telling me, here's some money.

Remember, Jesus loves you. He says, he went back to the edge of that cliff. And he sat there four hours with his wife, weeping and repenting and saying, what do we do now? They got in their car four hours later, them and their little boy.

They drove back into town. They came past a church, a little church that had a sign out front that says, Jesus loves you. They pulled into that church.

And they went in there and gave their hearts to Jesus. And they've been part of that church ever since. He became a channel.

It wasn't much, $10. It changed a life. Are you and I willing to become a channel, become a Nile River from the place of abundance to the places of need in this world? Could you all stand with me? Let's pray.