Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 I wanna go to a passage that I started with last week and I'm gonna continue on a thought that I began last week.
Speaker 1 00:00:15 One Timothy is the verse that we are gonna start with today. It's kind of like an anchor verse. And, and from that passage we are gonna go a whole different um, ways through the word of God, particularly around the topic that I wanted to share. So one Timothy six and verse 17, Command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. So don't put your hope and wealth, which is uncertain, but put your hope in God. God who richly provides God, who provides. And that is the topic that I really wanted to delve into, to share some thoughts on. The God who provides this time of the year is um, in a Jewish calendar leading up to a very significant festival.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 It's the festival known as urt. And really what it is remembering or bringing emphasis to is the journey of the exodus of the people of God that we would read about in the Old Testament where they were oppressed, enslaved in the nation of Egypt. And therefore there is a liberty brought to them by God through Moses. And they go on this journey through the wilderness, towards the promises of God. And when you look at these scenarios, we can start to draw upon lessons for our life, even in the context of our faith following Jesus, that we would believe that actually every person up until the point of receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior is oppressed, enslaved to a state separated from God, I e, a state of sin. But by way of Christ there is liberty brought to our lives. But from that place of liberty, we are heading towards the ultimate promise of God.
Speaker 1 00:02:44 We are saved justified in a moment, but then we are on this journey of what is known as sanctification changed and changing still, but on our way towards the promise. And so we can see in this festival of circuit, what they are brought into being remembered is the temporary nature of life, the temporary nature of the journey that they found themselves in the wilderness, but it was not to be their eternal state. They were heading towards a promise. But it rarely emphasizes to remember that God was present with them even in the wilderness, even in times of uncertainty, even in times where we might be going down a path that we don't necessarily know where it is, that we are traversing in the midst of challenge, In the midst of good God resides with his people, it's the display of who God is, That even though he is a magnificent God, a God who is uh, beyond our comprehension, a God that is so powerful that we cannot fit into any one box this God desires to intimately reside with people, to tabernacle with people is the term. There was a tabernacle instructed for them to erect, which was essentially a meeting place. It was a meeting place for God with his people. And that tabernacle traveled with them on the journey. But not only was it to remember that life is temporary, that God resides with his people, even in the wilderness, it was also to emphasize that God is provider that he provides for his people. So last week, just to recap quickly before I get onto what I, I wanted to talk about today, that God desires for us to be fruitful.
Speaker 1 00:05:02 He wants our lives to bear fruit. If you look at, uh, the original creation of mankind, we would see in Genesis chapter one verse 28, a very specific blessing being ordained over God's creation. It was to be fruitful and multiply. We then see that very same promise taking place through Noah, which if we look at it, we see this rise and fall of humanity where there is this original intention of God. And people turn away from that blessing and God resets. And every time he resets, he resets with the ordination. Be blessed, be fruitful and multiply. It happens again with Abraham. Same specific promise. And what we would find now in this context of being fruitful is that through Jesus, there is fruitfulness available to us. John chapter 15, again, Jesus uses that idea of us being fruitful as we are connected to him, that as we abide in him and him in us, we will bear fruit.
Speaker 1 00:06:18 So God's intent for our lives is for us to be fruitful. And so I'm talking about that in the context of God's provision. And when we use the word provision, what we're talking about is God's supply, that he would be the source of our lives. And that covers every aspect of our life. And so when we talk about provision, what we tend to do is go straight towards a material aspect of that provision, which is not wrong by the way, in us talking about the provision of God. We are not too shy away that God desires to bring material provision into our lives. We live in a tactile time and space material world. And therefore God works through that means. But it's to cover every aspect of life. And so he is to be the supply of all of our needs from psychological, emotional, spiritual, as well as material.
Speaker 1 00:07:25 And so this intent of God that we would be fruitful, I want us to think about within the paradigm of God providing or his provision, what I wanted to talk to us about today is simply this statement. The way that we see is the way that we will be, the way that we see things will affect the experience of our life. I wanna go to a passage of scripture in the Old Testament. And it's kind of in context of what this time is now with regards to circuit in the wilderness, in the desert, the people of God heading towards the promise of God, the promise being fruitfulness. There is a land flowing milk, honey, fruitfulness, blessing. The promise is there, it is a promise of God's grace and his favor. But the journey towards it, the way you see is the way that you will be.
Speaker 1 00:08:37 Numbers Chapter 13, we have a scenario where the people of God are now at a threshold point where they are close to stepping into the promise of God from a literal geographical perspective. And what Moses does, Moses being the one used of God to lead the people of God towards the promise. He does something that's pretty wise. He gathers 12 leaders from the 12 tribes that make up the people group known as the Israelites. And he sends them on a scouting mission. He sends them to spa the promise. And we're gonna find a very interesting scenario taking place, Numbers 13. But let me just share a, a story quickly about, uh, a travel that we did coming up to five years ago, which is crazy to me. We, uh, lived in the United Kingdom for about 11 years and then we moved from the UK to living in Australia for seven years.
Speaker 1 00:09:42 And then when we left Australia, we were just incredibly blessed, did very well out of a property sale. The home that we lived in, we sold. And it was just a great time to sell. I believe there was God grace upon it without a shadow of a doubt. So what we chose to do was instead of investing a portion of that in, uh, shares or in crypto, wasn't necessarily a thing right then. Some people were talking about it. I remember, you know, Felix was, was right into it. Um, we decided to invest into a travel for our family. So we took our kids outta school and for six months we traveled around the world. We, we bought around the world ticket. Uh, we traveled through a whole range of places. It was one of the best things we could ever have invested our finances into.
Speaker 1 00:10:33 And then we found ourselves in Iceland. And the ironic thing about Iceland is that it's green and Greenland is ice <laugh>, but Iceland is a phenomenal place. So we hide a Campa van, uh, and drove around Iceland. We made the very bad mistake of on the first night, cuz we had like a little kitchen in the campervan. We bought some fish, cooked the fish inside the campervan and some of it went down the, the sink in the campervan. And literally for the next week we smelt like the ocean, but in a bad way, not a good way. Like literally everything. Like our backpacks are clothes, everything was just like fish. However, on the very first night that we were in Iceland, you go there typically to see, uh, the waterfalls. Like it's, it's the land of waterfalls. You just cannot believe how many waterfalls are there.
Speaker 1 00:11:34 You go to see like nature. It is, it's green, it's it's beautiful aesthetically, it's one of the most stunning places you could ever go to. But one of the other things that you go to Iceland for is to see the Northern Lights. I dunno whether you have heard of the Northern Lights, but it's this incredible natural phenomenon that uh, the, the, the sky turns into luminous colors. So we are excited. We go to Iceland, we're gonna see the Northern Lights and there's a website that you can go on to that tells you where you should be and what time because the activity at that time of the year is conducive to you seeing the Northern Lights. And it just so happened that it was our very first night in Iceland we're like, this is too good to be true. So the idea is, is that you drive out into the countryside.
Speaker 1 00:12:23 And the cool thing about Iceland is that if you have a camp event, you literally drive anywhere, park and just sleep. And so we were drove outta the city and you wanna get away from any of the artificial lights. You wanna be in the natural lights of the first night. We are so pumped. We are excited to see the Northern Lights. We get out of our camp event, it's pitch black, We're looking around, we're looking around nothing. We're like man, okay, that was interesting. Obviously they weren't there. Next morning Tam, we move on to another campsite. Tam is overhearing an Australian couple who are traveling at the same time and they look at Tam and they're like, Did you see the light show last night?
Speaker 1 00:13:08 I'm like, No, we didn't see it. And they're like, you don't actually typically see it with your natural eye. You actually have to use a device, your camera with a filter. So I wanna show you a little video and I'm glad my kids aren't in here because they don't get too stoked when I show little videos of them. And they were much younger. And if you can pick it up, there's kind of a bit of an Aussie accent with uh, Sienna who had the mix between pepper pig, British accent and, and uh, and Australian. But bring all the lights off first cans. Cuz I wanna show you something here and we're gonna get into numbers 13 in a second. Okay? The way you see something is the way you'll be. It's not about what you see, it's about the way that you see it. So this is what we saw with our natural eye.
Speaker 3 00:14:03 Take light. Mm-hmm <affirmative> it shine, shine your life to see that's steady. Cause I wanna run to him if it's cause
Speaker 1 00:14:20 Nothing, right? No, no northern light's there, right? Same night. Okay. Choosing to see the same thing in a different way by way of a filter. This is actually what was going on in the sky. So that was captured through a filter. We have the scenario where Moses is sending out 12 people to scout the land. Verse 26, after they have scouted the land of numbers 13, they came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israeli community at Kadesh in the desert of Parran. I'm not saying that at all. Feel like it needs a a role. Parran, you agree with me Owen? <laugh>. Okay, Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 There. They reported to them to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave this account to Moses. We went into the land, which you sent us to, and it does flow with milk and honey, here is the fruit. So 12 people go to a land, they bring back a report. All 12 saw the same thing. And uh, if you read that version, it actually tells you that it required two people to carry the cluster of grapes. That's how fruitful it was. Now, I I I sometimes read those versus and think that's just some creative liberty happening, right? Like it's trying to give us some, some picture of like, oh my gosh, the grapes. Cuz I, I go to a vineyard in Sando, I can carry some grapes by myself, <laugh>, you know, but actually in the Middle East, have a look at these pictures and I just grab them off the internet, okay? They are legit, but the quality isn't that great. But just an idea as to the size of the fruitfulness. You might need to bring the lights off again. Cans. And I think there's one more now, those that is from the Middle East. Okay?
Speaker 1 00:16:51 And uh, I think there's one more photo because in that same travel we were, uh, in Jerusalem, like I, I couldn't believe this is at a market in Jerusalem. And when you drive around Israel, which we did, uh, somewhat naively, we hired a car and drove around Israel on our own, uh, through like the West Bank and military zones and wasn't good. But
Speaker 1 00:17:21 Like the fruitfulness, I was astounded by. I could not believe out of this desert nation there is this fruitfulness, okay? And this is the land that they were scouting from where they were, they were scouting out fruitless. So 12 people see the land, they all see the same thing. But have a look at what happens here. Verse 26. So here is the fruit. The grapes are so heavy, two of us have to carry it, but the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of anac there. The emerites live in the negative, the head tides, the jbu decides the Amorites all enemies, right? Live in the hill country. And the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan, verse 30, then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, We should go up and take possession of the land for, we can certainly do it.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 But the men who had gone up with him said this, We can't attack those people. They're stronger than we are. And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said the land we explored devourers, the people living in it, all the people we saw there were so great, they were like giants. Ki verse, the way we see things is the way that we be. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes is what they say. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. It's amazing to me how a group of people could see the same thing and yet see it differently.
Speaker 1 00:19:27 And when it comes to provision, when it comes to God's supply, when it comes to living fruitful, the way that we see is significant in our experience and how we be. If you go now to Luke chapter 11, and I was listening to a message by a teacher pastor, a Christian leader, a guy by the name of John Mark Coma, somebody who I have only started listening to and following the last few years, but is somebody who is a phenomenal teacher, is incredible at bringing, bringing insights from the word of God. And if you want to, I wanna recommend if you go onto their church podcast platform, their church is called Bridgetown Church. It's based in Portland, Oregon. And you go all the way back to 2019, they did a vision series about becoming people of generosity. And this is where I heard them speaking from Luke chapter 11 because I'd never rarely seen this or heard it said like this.
Speaker 1 00:20:37 But Jesus is speaking through Luke 11. It's the key passage of scripture where he teaches us how to pray the Lord's pray. But then from the Lord's prayer, he, he speaks about coming to God with our needs and God providing. So here is the context of what Jesus is saying. Like there's this uh, reliance on God, there is this provision of God. And then he goes into talking specifically to the religious people of the time. And in Luke chapter 11, verse 33, he makes use of a particular phrase or saying no one lights a lamp and puts it in place where it will be hidden or under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand so that those who come may see the light in it. Verse 34, here is a particular phrase that for the people of the time, they would've understood what Jesus was trying to say.
Speaker 1 00:21:41 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy. I'm reading for the NIV version. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. He then actually goes on to talk about the principle of tithing, The principle of giving, which we are going to get to in this breaking down a thought of God's provision and God's supply because we can't negate the principles and practices that are set before us as the people of God when it comes to the provision of God in our life. But we're setting context and we're setting foundation before we go there. So he uses this phrase, when your eyes are healthy. Now if you have the niv and if your niv, which is like my niv Bible app, and this is where I got this from, listening to that message from John Macomb, that phrase, when your eyes are healthy, it's again speaking of the way that you see things, not what you see, but the way that you see it. And that phrase actually speaks of, cuz it's written in our New Testament in the Greek. And so that Greek phrase, Jesus wouldn't have been speaking Greek, but the Bible is written and Greek. And so that phrase is encapsulating a way of seeing healthy being generous.
Speaker 1 00:23:23 It's trying to help us see that if we see with generous eyes, it affects our whole state of being. So it says, if your eyes are healthy, if your eyes are generous, your whole body will be filled with light. If they are unhealthy, it means stingy. Your whole body will be filled with darkness. He's trying to emphasize to the people of the time that the way that you see things is significant. And what it actually refers to is the way in which we see things in our day and age could be categorized into two ways. By looking at these two passages, scripture, we can either see with eyes of abundance or with eyes of lack or scarcity.
Speaker 1 00:24:22 And it affects so much of our behavior, of how we view things, of how we live our state of wellbeing or lack thereof. How do you see life do you see with eyes of abundance or with eyes of scarcity? And I would suggest that scarcity gets a lot of air time in our lives. I was, I'm reading another book at the moment, it's called, um, Sacred Economics. It's written by a guy called Charles Eisenstein. And I am just, I find it so fascinating. He's looking at essentially where the monetary system came from, how it's being used in today's day and age, how it's drifted essentially from its desire when it first came into being. And he's speaking about the significance of economics in building community. And rarely community is formed. We've spoken about this at the point where there is an exchange between need and gift.
Speaker 1 00:25:32 That's where community is formed, where we find ourselves being in a place where we are vulnerable enough connected to other human beings to express need. And the other person has what our needs might be. And by their way of generosity, their gift meeting our need is where community occurs. That's that point. Okay? So he's talking about, uh, economics and, and a love that he uses the term sacred because he believes money. It's intent was for it to be sacred. That it was to be used in an endeavor, to build community, to not tear it down, to not bring division, but how it's drifted to this point now where scarcity is driving so much of our economic systems. So we can either see with eyes of abundance or eyes of scarcity from his book, Sacred Economics, He says this, So immersed in scarcity are we, that we take it to be the nature of reality. But in fact we live in a world of abundance.
Speaker 1 00:26:53 The assertion that we live in a world of abundance may provoke an emotional reaction. First, it seems to embody a privileged ignorance when so much of the world faces extreme poverty. You could look at our backyard right here between people who have people who don't. And so when we even utter the concept that actually there is abundance in the world that is contrary to our seen reality. Okay? But he goes on to say this for it seems to embody a privileged ignorance when so much of the world faces extreme poverty, hunger, homelessness, and deprivation, more production will solve these problems, right? Wrong. We already produce more than we need. We are able to feed, house, and cloth every single person that exists right now, the problem is not one of under production or scarcity, it's one of mal distribution. In other words, the scarcity is real, but it's artificial.
