Lord of Me | Ps Rachel Eaton

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of. So we hope this message inspires

you and build your faith, but it helps you have more of a God

perspective for your day. Enjoy.

When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice.

When we as a people thrive out there, they're going to rejoice.

And so the mission is to partner with God to make sure that we

are thriving. We are introducing a new series

and it is my pleasure to do so. This morning I was actually

going to start this message with a personal testimony of what God

has done in and through my life and my family.

But I'm decided not to because I don't actually want to limit

what God wants to do in you and through you through my

experience, because if I'm honest, I've got more more space

to grow here. This is not a message for you

who are are new at this or or have not responded to God in in

this area. It's such an important subject

that we're going to bring here this morning, but there is more

for every single person in the room.

And I pray that there be receptiveness to what God wants

to breathe because He's breathing.

God is moving and we get to align with where He's taking us.

And He's fun. He's so good.

So this morning we are speaking about money.

Pastor Graham's away, says a little bit of cheek.

Coming out this morning, we're talking about money.

Why do a series talking about money?

Why don't we just open up God's word and talk about the love of

God, right? Fun fact, if you actually when

you open up your bibles you will find over 2300 scripture

references directly talking about money, stewardship,

prosperity. Did you know how many verses

there are speaking about the love of God?

Roughly over 500. What up, Lord?

Maybe, maybe, just maybe, it's a really important subject.

Perhaps God wants to move in this area of your life.

Perhaps it's actually deeply connected to who we are and who

we serve. What would bring God pleasure in

this space for you? What is His will, his perfect

pleasure in your life. In regards to this area, I want

you to open up your Bibles with me to Genesis 128 where you can

read along on the screen. It says then God blessed them

and said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and

govern it, reign over the fish and the sea, the birds in the

sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground.

Do you know He actually wants you to be fruitful?

Turn to the person next to you. He wants me fruitful, fruitful

to multiply, to have dominion. This is actually the heart of

God for you, and it's not just for you, as Pastor Mel so

beautifully sowed the vision this morning.

It's actually not just about us. When we thrive, the people

rejoice. If we want to see reformation in

our region, these chains have got to break over our life.

We actually have to be a people that walk in abundance, that

walk in generosity, that walk debt free, that walk faith

filled, mission minded, ready for revival, ready for what he

wants to do. Ladies, do you remember Layla

this week was speaking about being ready, prep, preparation.

So we have to prepare and be ready for what God wants to do,

not try and just scram in the in the moment and try and catch up.

No have a preparation and intention in this area in our

life. And you may be filled with

questions right now. Well, if God wants me to have

this, why doesn't he just give it to me, right?

And doesn't the Bible say that money is the root of all kind of

evil? Hold up.

You're missing a very important word in there.

No, the Bible says that the love of money, in other words, deep

greed, is the root of every kind of evil.

It's not ungodly to be prosperous.

It is not ungodly to have things.

But we fall out of alignment when things have us.

You see, money is a power. I think it's can't find the

scripture here somewhere in Proverbs, it talks about money

as a power, an enabler and an enhancer.

See, I think it was passed to Rick over here years ago,

actually spoke from the platform about money and he he associated

it with an ER, hold on, just let me get there.

You see, money doesn't actually change who you are.

It enhances who you are. It heightens who you are.

Now, more of who you are gets to come out.

It brings out the ER. If you are a happy person, money

will make you happier. If you're a greedy person, more

money actually makes you greedier.

If you're a generous person, more money makes you more

generous. If you're a stingy person, more

money makes you stingier. If you are an anxious person,

more money's actually going to make you more anxious as it

comes. You'd start stressing out about

where it's got to go and if you're doing the right thing.

It actually heightens anxiety. If you are a selfish person,

wicked or lazy, more money will make you more selfish, wickeder

and lazy. ER, it brings out the ER.

But let me tell you, if you're a person who is mission minded and

aligned with what God wants to do and what He wants to breathe,

if you're following where He's going, then more money is going

to bring about an enabling. It will bring out the ER and

enhance what he wants to do in you and through you.

Are you partnered with Jesus? It doesn't change who you are.

It heightens it. It enhances it.

It's a little bit like a pipe. Let's imagine you've got a tap

here and you turn it on and outcomes some dribbles because

there's a block in the pipe. And when you turn on the tap and

dribbles come out. That's often how money feels

like it comes to us, am I right? You know, drip at a time.

Some drips are a little bit faster than others.

So more money is like removing that block.

Now whatever was banked up in that pipe is going to come out

with full force. It does not change who you are.

It will enhance and it will heighten.

It's an enabler. It brings out more of who you

already are. So friends, if, if there's a

misalignment there, if there's if, if you are not aligned in

God's purpose, more money can actually bring great damage to

yourselves, your families, the House of God and society.

So we must it must be aligned in God.

He must be Lord in this area of our lives.

Here we are Proverbs 22 seven. It talks about money being a

power. So I want to open up to Psalm

6211, which reads this. It says God has spoken plainly

and I've heard it many times. Power, oh God, it belongs to

you. All power belongs to him.

All power, all blessing, all glory, all honour belongs to him

who sits on the throne. Power must belong to Jesus.

God is not apologetic about this subject of wealth, which begs

the question, why? It's because money is never ever

just about money. Money is about lordship.

So the title of this message this morning is Lord of Me,

because money is going to compete for your worship.

Who sits on this throne today? Today is an introduction to a

series, what the Bible actually says about money.

We're going to bring content from a book called God, Money

and Me. And I'd actually encourage you

all to be reading that throughout this series.

It's from Paul Dijon. That's called God, Money and Me,

which I'm yeah, I do encourage, like be listening to this.

Allow this to permeate and saturate you.

We've got to, we have to bring change into this area in our

lives. So this series is going to

highlight, it's going to highlight God's heart for you

because we can get confused through circumstance.

We see things through our circumstance and our

experiences, not always through God's heart and his will for

you, which is found in here. So we're going to highlight

God's heart for you. It's going to address mindsets,

myths, and it's going to bring about biblical understanding

that if you allow that, if you allow, you are invited.

Just say yes to the invitation. If you allow, it's going to lead

you into levels of freedom and faith.

But this has to start with understanding who really sits on

this throne in the area, in your life.

Money is not separate from us. It's actually deeply connected

to who we are. And you might go, that's not

very Christian. I'm connected to Jesus.

I'm not connected to money. I'm not connected to that filth.

Why don't you open up your Bibles?

Actually, let's open it up right now to Matthew 621, because I

read here it says wherever your treasure is, there the desires

of your heart will also be. What is that saying?

That means that my money is actually connected to my heart.

Wherever I place my money, their shows what I value.

Their shows what I care about. It is connected to my heart.

Your money is attached to what you value.

Your money is attached to what you care about.

It's attached to pretty much who you serve, and the Bible says we

can't serve 2 masters in this area.

It's a great revealer, Matthew 624 reads.

No one can serve 2 masters. You're either going to hate 1

and love the other. You'll be devoted to 1 and

despise the other. You can't serve God and be

enslaved to money. So who is God of you in this

area? And I would encourage you to

maybe not answer this so quickly because sometimes we, we can

give a really quick response. I'm so guilty of that with quick

responses. But instead of just going, Oh

yeah, yeah, God's God's Lord, I would I would entreat you this

morning to maybe just sit and ponder the question.

Who really is Lord in this area? You can go.

Jesus is my God. I am surrendered.

It's the Lord who sits on this throne.

The Bible actually cautions us that says that they honor me

with their lips, but sometimes their hearts can be far from me.

I want to show you something in God's Word.

We just read. What was it?

Matthew 621 and Matthew 624. Guess what is sandwiched in the

middle of that Scripture in the context of money.

Let's bring up Matthew 6. Where are we?

Matthew 622 Sandwiched in the middle of these two verses, It

reads your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your

body. When your eye is healthy, your

whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy,

your whole body is filled with darkness.

And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, then

how deep is that darkness? So let me ask you, if we're

talking about money in Matthew 621 and we're talking about

Matthew money in Matthew 624, is Matthew 622 then all of a sudden

off topic? And then we go back to money.

Are we talking in the context of money and generosity?

Yes. In case you didn't know, this is

a, this is a scripture directly related to generosity and

stewardship and money. And it says the light that you

think you have may actually be darkness.

That means we I can have judgements on myself, on

ourselves, judgements, opinions, a self-confidence, self assured

thoughts about who is Lord in this area in our life.

This is not just for people who are new here.

This is for leaders, this is for pastors, this is for me.

So we've got to look at this and go the light that we think we

have. That means that we can think

that we are full of light. But it begs the question, is it

possible? Is it plausible that we may have

an unsurrended area in our life? That maybe Jesus is not directly

on the throne in all areas in this space?

Submission to His Lordship. It's not measured by our

perceptions, our self assurance, our own judgments or opinions.

It's actually measured by His authority.

There's got to be a willingness that goes beyond a willingness

that goes beyond a willingness that says, yes, Lord, no matter

what. That means a willingness to

surrender instead of just singing about surrender to

actually come back and go, you know what?

I'm going to allow you to press on my life and I'm going to

choose to live surrendered wherever he presses.

And I pray for every person here that where there may be a

stumbling block, that where something has a hold on you,

Holy Spirit, I even pray right now that you begin to highlight

that within people, Lord, where you aren't Lord Jesus, where

there is something that takes a greater place in your heart.

I pray right now a receptiveness, I pray you

highlight it, Lord, in Jesus name.

I remember years ago, friends of mine, we were in church singing

that song of surrender that says strip me back of all of my

pride, my possessions, until all that I seek and all that I want

is your presence. I remember being in church as

this song was being sung and I looked around and I saw my two

friends Jalen and Lucy. And does anyone know who they

are? Amazing missionaries in Vanuatu.

I looked over to them and watched them sing this song with

tears streaming down their face as they counted the cost for

what God was asking them to give up.

He was asking them to lay down everything, everything, to go

and be missionaries in Vanuatu. These are friends of mine that

we would go out, we would have coffee, We did Thai food.

Man, when he made dips that were Mediterranean, his family's

Mediterranean. Oh, like you can't pay for how

good this stuff was. We loved to catch up.

They were a regular people, regular couple with regular

children, just like you, just like me.

And they started counting the cost of what God was asking of

them. These guys had a business, they

had a home, they had a beautiful home, they had cars, they had a

respectable career. But Jalen had a beautiful,

respectable career. Lucien ran a successful

business. Their children were in private

schools, their wardrobes were full.

They had a boat for goodness sakes, and God asked them to

give up everything, to go and be missionaries in Vanuatu.

And they laid it all down. They sold everything,

everything. So when they went over to

Vanuatu and after serving and spending some time in the island

with no income, no income, an agreement was made for them to

be able to purchase a home and pay it off.

How is that possible? It's not possible.

Let me tell you about this home. It's 5 acres of land on the

beach, the beach. It's not near the beach, it's on

the beach. Their backyard is the Pacific

Ocean and this way is 5 acres. And the provisions don't stop

there, but it's seek first God's Kingdom.

Seek first the Kingdom of God, then all of these other things.

They'll be added unto you. But do we know what it is to lay

down our will and pick up God's will?

Do we know really what it is to put money on the altar and

dethrone it and put Jesus on this throne?

When you lay something down on an altar, it the altar doesn't

actually belong to you, it belongs to Jesus, and He is good

to take care of what belongs to Him.

This is where faith comes in. We've actually got to trust in

His goodness, trust in His Lordship.

When you put it down and you dethrone yourself from this seed

of money, all of a sudden you've got the King of Kings and the

Lord of Lords who wants to breathe and wants to bring

freedom into this area. He wants to break chains over

your life. He wants to renew mindsets.

What your parents live does not have to be your story.

What you grew up in does not have to be your future.

Your experience does not have to be what your child has to go

through. There is a better way.

There's release for this region and we're invited to partner

with what God wants to do, but he has to be Lord.

He's got to be Lord. He takes responsibility for that

which belongs to him. Let's read Second Corinthians

98. It says, and God will.

Can you say will God will generously provide all that you

need? Then you will always have

everything that you need and plenty leftover to share with

others. When can you actually keep that

scripture up there on the screen, please?

When you read this particular scripture from God's Word, the

Bible, and you hold it up as a stencil.

Oh, a stencil stencil. Someone's been a SWB.

If you hold this Scripture verse up as a stencil and you put it

over your life, what's it look like?

If I'm being honest here, not all of my lines are neatly

colored in here. There's more, there's more.

This is the heart of God for you.

His will is His Word, which says that there's a generous

provision. Not just a provision, a God

generous provision, having everything that you need.

Do you have everything that you need?

Do you have everything that you need with plenty leftover to

share? Is that what it looks like?

I've got, I've got people that I want to, I want to extend

generosity to, yet I've got I've got room to grow in this area.

There's some things I pray God that you align me in this area.

Align me, bring me into your perspective and what you want to

do. Call me higher, Lord.

Call me higher God, because this perspective doesn't always match

my reality. There's people that I see in

shopping is that I'm like, Lord, I wish I had $300 extra to pay

for that person's groceries today, but I don't.

I've got family members that I want to purchase houses for.

If I wanted my parents, if they needed a place to come and stay,

I need the means to be able to provide their own space for

that. I'm like, Lord, there's more

need. I am a chaplain at a school.

I've got 1000 kids that need to come to a scripture union camp

and hear about the goodness of Jesus in my region.

The stencil that's not always coloured in.

So I'm like Lord call me higher into your perspective, bring me

lower. Lord call me, show me, reveal to

me Holy Spirit what it is that I need to know that I can walk in

this in Jesus name. The security that money promises

must be dethroned. Jesus must sit on this throne.

I want to show you a picture. Just a very brief demonstration

of what Lordship looks like in this area of your life.

Yeah, Yeah, I know. Prop queen.

Uh oh. Can someone help me?

Thank you. Kingdom has have kings, right?

This is the first prop that's gone badly.

Thank you, Josh. Josh is here.

He's coming to save the. Oh, we got it.

It's all right. The girls have got it.

Thank you. I actually like that.

It matches my outfit planned by Jesus.

Kingdoms have kings. Kingdoms have citizens.

Yes. So when when we're talking about

lordship especially, we are talking about money, but this

applies to any area of our life. When when people come to

Australia, refugees, they seek out refuge in Australia, they

actually give up their everything to try and purchase

citizenship into a nation that provides safer security, right?

So and they will give up their lives, they will pay as much

money as they can to come into a citizenship that promises A

safer, A safer living experience.

We are have been invited into a citizenship where Jesus gets to

be Lord, where he gets to reign. And so this is the picture of

Lordship when I live under this umbrella of His lordship, I live

not just within His protection, I live within the realms of

everything that this Kingdom provides.

I live in safety, I live in security, I live in prosperity,

I live in abundance because this is the realm of security that is

provided within God's Kingdom. Here's your scripture.

Submit to the Lord, resist the devil and he must flee.

And you're like, what does this have to do with anything where

there is submission to God's lordship?

Wherever in your life Jesus gets to be Lord.

Wherever you place Jesus on the throne in your life and go, God,

you have access here. You have access with money, you

have access in my relationships, you have access in my attitudes.

You have access, Lord, with my life.

Every area that gets thrown down on the altar where Jesus gets to

be Lord, you live within the protective barriers and the

coverings of His Lordship. You live within the realms of

everything that this Kingdom has to offer you.

Now let's have a look at that verse backwards.

We're going to tip it up on its head.

When there's no submission, where there's no surrender in

any area of your life. See, this is more about just

inviting Jesus to be Lord of your life.

This is about inviting Him to be Lord over every area.

Any area in your life that is unsurrended or unsubmitted to

God means you lose the power to resist the devil because you're

playing in a Kingdom that does not belong to him.

And the devil has a legal right. He has legal right out here

outside of God's protection. The devil is here to kill, to

steal and destroy. It's not a playground where

there's fun. It's a playground that's going

to eat you from the inside out under this umbrella when you

live undercover. That's the definition of

lordship is where you have invited God to be Lords of that

area of your life. It's where you've put something

down on the altar and here you live and you breathe and you

exist within the realms of His protection.

So many people ask the questions.

Why are my finances always a mess?

I even tithe. Oh, I know, I've got some some

silence out there then. The Bible actually even says in

there that the the Pharisees were careful to tithe even the

tiniest part of their income. Guess what?

God didn't have their heart. This is so much more than a

percentage. It's so much more than than a

gift. This is about surrender.

Who sits on this throne? Who sits on the throne?

Any area in your life? You're like, oh, Lord, actually,

yeah. No, I'm not really into the

tithe. I just want all of the benefits

of the Kingdom without actually signing, without paying for the

citizenship. He's paid for your citizenship,

but that means that it's got to belong to him.

We got to lay it down. People do this in all kinds of

areas in their life. I mentioned relationships

before. You might be in an ungodly

relationship and you're like, why does it just never seem to

work out? It's because you can.

I can invite you into my heart, Lord, but oh, not in that area

of my life. Attitudes, yes, I show up and

like God should be grateful for what I do, right?

Grateful for what I bring. I managed to get out of bed and

get here this morning. God, you should be so grateful

for what I bring and God's like actually, can I have that

attitude? Any unsurrended area, we throw

off His lordship and then we throw off the realms of His

Kingdom in that area of our life.

Gotta be surrendered to what He wants to do and what He wants to

bring.