Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!

Thanks so much for joining us tonight as we continue studying the bible word PROSPERITY. Some folks may be wondering why we're spending so much time looking at this word from all these different angles and it's a fair question. Part of the answer is that by a wide margin financial stewardship is the most-mentioned topic in the Bible. Indeed, there're more than 2,300 scriptures about it, two-thirds of the Parables of Christ are about it and there're almost a hundred scriptures that include some form of the word PROSPERITY in them. Apparently the Holy Spirit thinks it's an important subject and if it's important to Him, it seems to me like we ought to be talking about it.

Another reason we're camping out on it is that over the years there's been a lot of error taught about God's PROSPERITY that's caused confusion and we need to get that straightened out. God says in His Word that PROSPERITY is a blessing (Deuteronomy 28:11) and that He wants us to have it (Deuteronomy 8:18), but the Body of Christ has been taught something different for nearly 18 centuries to the point that most Christians today are NOT receiving one of God's major blessings. There's even a large segment of folks that don't want to hear the word PROSPERITY mentioned in Christian circles and that's basically because they don't know what it really means. Can you get the picture here: the Bible says PROSPERITY is one of God's blessings while much of the Church is saying they don't want to even talk about it?

Another reason for spending so much time on this subject is that while the Bible clearly reveals the Kingdom of God to be a place of PROSPERITY, the world culture we have to physically live in is based on MATERIALISM which is often confused with God's PROSPERITY. Indeed, there are two totally different systems we can have access to with radically different sets of values. For example as I already mentioned, being PROSPEROUS in the Bible way is a blessing from God, something to aspire to; but the world says wealthy people are unscrupulous, dishonest and take advantage of the less fortunate. God says PROSPERITY is something He wants us to enjoy and use according to His purposes; the world says it's unfair for a few to be more PROSPEROUS than all the rest of us. The Bible says in red letters from the mouth of Jesus that to him who has, more will be given until he has an abundance (Matthew 25:29); the world says to take away from those who have more and redistribute to those who have less.

The result of 18 centuries of being taught not to PURSUE one of God's principal blessings is that many Believers are content to try to live out their lives without ever experiencing God's PROSPERITY or even expecting to. They're unable to see themselves PROSPEROUS so they don't THINK they can be PROSPEROUS and wind up becoming desensitized to their insufficiency and lack. It's even worse since the recession: the vast majority of people in the world financial system live in more lack now than they did before and Believers increasingly tend to identify with that image instead of with the possibility of becoming PROSPEROUS in the Kingdom of God. In the meantime many local churches are shrinking back from teaching about biblical finances because they don't want to offend people forgetting the fact that Jesus spoke about it extensively. The reasons He did that are just as important today as they were back then and the result of all this is that today, way too many Christians have wound up living in FEAR of what could happen in their financial futures instead of being excited about what the Word says is available to them.  

The Hindrance of Fear

Now according to Scripture God's PROSPERITY can only become a reality in one's life by GRACE through FAITH. God has ALREADY released the GRACE (His favor and empowerment) because of what Jesus accomplished at the Cross. And FAITH is the work of BELIEVING that we have to perform in order to receive the GRACE. In addition, FAITH springs from HOPE (Hebrews 11:1) which by definition is the confident expectation that the Word will perform in one's life exactly as it says it will. Biblical HOPE is not about wishing for things; it's about EXPECTING the Promises of God to come into one's life. So we can say that God's PROSPERITY can only show up in the life of a Believer by using FAITH to receive what the Bible says we can HOPE for.

The Bible says that FAITH comes (grows) by hearing (perceiving with spiritual ears) the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). FEAR is the opposite of FAITH. Or you could say that FEAR is belief in the lies of the enemy instead of HOPING for (expecting) the promises of God. So if Christians are living in FEAR of their financial futures it would mean they have no FAITH in the promises of God to PROSPER them. And if they're fearful about it would it not mean that they haven't "heard" enough of the Word of Christ on the subject of PROSPERITY and the related PROMISES made from the Throne of God? If they have no HOPE for these things, it's impossible to have the FAITH for them and without FAITH it's impossible to receive GRACE and it's impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

For the purposes of tonight's message we can identify the main types of FEAR that are showing up in the lives of too many Believers these days and driving them to the hopelessness and victim mentality so prevalent in the current world financial system.  

·   Fear caused by ignorance of the Word: many Believers gravitate away from the Kingdom of God and into the world financial system because they're ignorant of biblical financial principles. As a result they wind up acting like the unbelievers that surround them and almost always go through the same trials and get the same results.

·   Fear caused by ignorance of the financial industry: once they get over into the world system there's more cause for FEAR because it's apparent that it's extremely complicated and that the power there is stacked against them. If you don't know how to contend with the power structure, if you haven't learned how to protect yourself it can be a fearful experience. Keep in mind that Christ is not in the world financial system so we go there without Him. That's a good reason to be afraid because apart from Him we won't be able to accomplish anything (John 15:5).

·   Fear of failure: most people have a fear of failure so they often wind up not trying to improve themselves because they feel comfortable staying where they are. What if they tried to pursue God's PROSPERITY which requires FAITH only to fail at it and maybe wind up worse off than they were before they tried something so spiritual? If you're trusting the Word then failure isn't even possible because we can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13).

·   Fear of change: likewise people are fearful of change. If we're too carnal, which means limited to our five physical senses, then we're always going to have trouble with change. Most change involves the unknown. We don't know for sure how it's going to work out and we're going to be fearful if we don't have enough FAITH that God will work things out for us. The five physical senses NEVER want to venture off into the unknown because it can't be assessed. Indeed, FAITH requires us to go beyond the natural five senses to where it can't be assessed and we have to proceed in FAITH.

·   Fear of what others might think: a lot of what we do is modeling what we see others do. We want their approval and at the same time we want to feel like we're better than they are. We want to do things their way but be better at it and get better results. If everybody has been chasing after the world system and then we try something crazy like pursuing PROSPERITY God's way, what will the others think of us especially if we fail? We might be the object of their criticism or ridicule. What will our families think of us if we do weird stuff and get too spiritual?

·   Fear of condemnation: in addition to being condemned by friends and family in the world, there're any number of folks in our local churches or in other parts of the Body of Christ that are ready to condemn how we want to pursue and receive our PROSPERITY. Each condemner thinks they know the right way to do it, and that makes it all the more important to get our own RHEMA (see last week's message) for how to believe for God's PROSPERITY. 

·   Fear of letting God take over: finally in order to be in a position to receive God's PROSPERITY we have to let Him take over. When we do that, FEAR wakes us up in the middle of the night and starts showing us how to solve our financial problems ourselves. The only way to get rid of that FEAR and get back to sleep is to let God have the problem. He actually wants it and we don't so let's let Him have it. If we don't let Him have it we'll stay fearful and we'll never get to a real solution, the solution God has for us.