STARTING ANEW 

DEUTERONOMY 1:1-8 

          The title of today’s message is “Starting Anew” which when the Lord gave it to me I immediately thought it a fitting title seeing that this is the first Sunday in the New Year.  I figured it would be another one of those New Years messages that many treat just like they do New Years resolutions; nice to make but rarely kept beyond the first week.  Some see New Years messages good and encouraging when they are preached but they rarely put them into practice beyond January.  Well this year the Lord is going to help us go beyond January.  Now I need to tell you how the message came about.  The Lord laid it out on Friday morning while I was having my care serviced.  He gave me the title first.  Then the passages of scripture I was to focus on and the main points to be made from each.  On Saturday morning I sat down to start typing and immediately the Lord started talking.  You see I was already thinking that through this message the Lord would be talking to us about our land and the vision for it and how to bring the vision into manifestation.   But the Lord said no.  The message today is not directly related to the vision.  God has tied the message into the financial fast that we are embarking upon and that is how He intends to help us put into practice the message beyond January.  Then the Lord did something very sweet.  He rebuked me.   He said “Pam I told you to put the people on a 6 month financial fast.  I did not tell you to offer them the opportunity to go on a fast.  You made it their choice by giving them the option.   In other words I did not tell you to ask who wanted to participate I told you to put them on a fast.”  Then the Lord went on to explain to me why I did it they way that I did.  During His rebuke He took the time to teach me something about myself, something about being a pastor and something about people’s responses to leadership.  With that in mind, let me announce that we who are members of New Freedom Christian Fellowship are going on a 6 month financial fast.  That means that if you have indicated that you want to be apart of this body you are directed by God to fast.  It does not matter whether you have an income or not.  If you are a child 12 and older God has given me a plan for you too and you are directed to fast also.  

Deut. 1:1-3

          The first thing that I want you to notice is that Moses is talking to the people before they enter the Promised Land.  They are on ‘this side of the Jordan’.  They have not crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land.  But verse 3 tells us it is the 40^th year after leaving Egypt.  We know that Israel wondered in the wilderness for 40 years before they actually entered the Promised Land.  So as Moses is talking here they are about to enter the Promised Land. Israel is on the verge of getting a new start and thus the title “Starting Anew”.  God want me to point out just a few things that He instructed Moses to do and tell the people as they approached a new beginning.  Now some of you might say, ‘how is this fast a new beginning’.  The fast itself is not a new beginning it is the approach to one.  Just as the Children of Israel had been enslaved in Egypt for years, we have been in financial bondage for years and for many it is just getting worse and worse.  These six months will be our wilderness experience.  But God wants us to learn some things from Israel so that we will make it through to the end and we will be prepared to start anew.

Deut. 1:6-8, 19-22

          Understand that since they are at the end of the 40 years Moses is here rehearsing or going back over Israel’s history.  God told them when they first came to Horeb to go in and possesses the land.  But they came up with their own plan and sent spies to check out the land which eventually ended up in them refusing to go into the promise land and thus wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.  So since they are at the end of the 40 years Moses is going back over their history.  Now this is a good thing to do.  Though I have history itself, I am told that unless a man understands his history he will repeat they same mistakes.  Some of us have no clue as to how we got in the financial mess we are in or why we continue to get in deeper and deeper.  Some of us allowed our spending to get out of control.  We were buying not because we needed to but because we wanted to.  We had money and we could see how we could pay each bill and there appeared no reason not to spend it.  The question is “if we had money, why buy on credit?”  The answer is buying on credit allowed me to buy more and to hold onto my money in case I saw something else I wanted to buy.  Now I have credit cards will large balances and I find that by the time I pay all the bills I have little or no money left over and so when I need or want something I am now forced to use credit.  Some of us did not have the money in the beginning and someone offered us the opportunity to buy on credit because we had good credit.  Now our good credit is bad credit and the interest rate on those credit cards is so high that even when we pay we don’t see any change in the balance.  I say all that to say “stop and look at how and why you got into debt.”  If it was useless spending of the resources God had provided for you, then repent, so that you will not go back there again.  If it was ignorance in how to wisely use credit, then get wisdom and counseling on how to be financially responsible.  If it was a lack of funds initially then ask God to provide more income for you whether that is a better job or a part-time job.  We say that we want to be debt free, well freedom comes with sacrifice and I believe that this fast is going to help us learn to sacrifice in order to achieve our goal.  So the first point is, make the effort to understand how you got into your current financial condition.  Understand your spending habits so that you can change them.

DEUT. 4:1-2, 9, 15-16, 23-24

          These passages of scriptures are titled in my Bible among the warnings and charges to the Israelites.  In here Moses gives them 5 charges; obey the Law, do not add to or take away from the Law given to them, live diligently by the law and teach it to their children, live free from idolatry, and cleave to God and never provoke Him to jealousy.

Deut 4:1-2

          Moses told Israel to listen to the principles and guidelines laid down for them by the Lord.  While we are on this financial fast we are to pay close attention to all directions from God.  Also since you have agreed to submit to the leadership of this church by joining this church you must trust that the directions I give you are from the Lord and are to be followed.  God will honor your submission. 

Verse 9

          As we pursue our goal of being financially responsible we must be diligent in watching our spending and persistent in saying no to satisfying our flesh and spending needlessly.  If we are not diligent and persistent we will be tempted by our enemy to continue in our same bad spending habits.  Remember our children are watching us.  Many of us watched our parents rob Peter to pay Paul and we are now doing the same thing and passing those same habits on to our children.  Let’s break the cycle. 

Verses 15-16

          The children of Israel were reminded that when God appeared to them He did not show himself in any particular form so that the people would not later create an idol of that same form.  Thus they were warned against idolatry.  Though we do not worship things, we have become too engrossed with having them.  How do I know that we are too engrossed?  Well when we buy what we do not need with finances that we do not have, causing ourselves stress that our bodies cannot tolerate, what other reason can we have than we are out of control, trapped by the desire to have what we do not need.  Things have become too important to us.  So much so that many can not with comfort pay their tithes and certainly they cannot go beyond tithes to give an offering or to cheerfully give to someone else in need.

          As we walk through this next 6 months, as Israel was to cleave to God and give him no reason to be jealous, we too will need to cleave to God, holding fast to his desire for us, submitting to his will for us and denying our desire to spend; even those who may be able to afford to do so.

Deut. 5:1

          In much of the remaining chapters of Deuteronomy Moses went back over the Law and the statues that God had given to him to give to the people.  The reason for this is because almost all of the adults who had come out of Egypt had died during the 40 years of wandering around in the wilderness.  They had been fearful and rebellious when it was time to initially enter the Promised Land and as a result God let them wander until they all died.  This new generation of Israelites therefore needed to be taught the Laws that God would expect them to keep.  We know that we do not want our children to make the same mistakes that we have made.  We think about this in many areas.  We don’t want them to experiment with drugs or alcohol and learn as we did how destructive they can be.  We want them to stay away from sexual sins recognizing that bad choices in sexual behavior can change the course of their lives.  We do not want them to take their education lightly because we recognize that doing so will limit opportunities later in life.  We must now understand the importance of not only teaching them the value of money but also the responsibilities of wisely spending the finances that God provides for them.  If we do not teach them now they will be just as stressed in their adult lives as we are.  You see it does not matter how much more they will make, if they do not know how to wisely spend it.

Deut 8:1-9

          Here Moses explains why the Lord had taken the people though such a hard period.  It was to humble them, to prove them, to know whether they would submit to him.  He chastened or punished them for their wrong doing so that they would not repeat their actions.  Have you not noticed that the longer the Lord let us go on spending the more we just kept spending and getting ourselves deeper in debt.  We justified it by saying we work hard for our money and surely we should be able to spend it on things that we want and like.  God is not telling us not to spend our money on things that we want and like.  He is telling us to stop spending what we do not have.  If we sacrifice now and do as the Lord requires we will live a much better quality of life.  You see quality of life is not measured by the things we possess but rather by the level of peace experienced in our lives.  God wants us to get to a level of reduced stress.  We are going to have tribulations in this world, but those tribulations should be associated with us living a holy life in an unholy world, not with just figuring out how we are going to make ends meet from one day to the next. 

Deut. 8:10-14

          Here Moses warns the people against forgetting about God once they got to the Promised Land.  My hope and belief is that for all of us when we complete this 6 months fast our finances are going to look better.  The warning to us is that when God has gotten our spending back in line as it should be that we will not forget God, throw away all that He has taught us and go right back to our unhealthy and foolish spending, wasting our  resources and again become entangled in the yoke of financial bondage. I believe that through this fast, God is walking us through the wilderness of  financial bondage and starting us anew in the promised land of financial responsibility.  Though this fast may seem hard now and later you may even feel it to be unbearable, remember each day brings you closer to Financially Starting Anew.