God Given Resources | Psalm 24:1 | Shannon Plate

Well, good morning.

I I'm so excited to come here.

I'm so, so blessed that Rainey and Colton bring me and I get to talk about these things that God has put on my heart.

It becomes very clear very quickly when they say, We want you to come, we want you to come this day.

And I say to God, what do you want me to talk about?

And almost instantly, there's there's a word, there's a thing, there's a thing.

And then I work on that from then until now.

So please know that nothing that I'm gonna say today is off the top of my head.

This has been worked on and prayed over and thought about.

So it is my prayer that you get something useful out of the next 33 minutes.

Excuse me.

Psalm 24 starts with the earth is the Lord and everything in it, the world and all of its people, belong to Him.

Not a lot of wiggle room there.

I have looked for loopholes.

There are none.

We, the world, and literally everything in it belongs to God.

And then God, in his incredible generosity, gives back to us things to work with personally, financially, and globally.

And then he asks us to use these things in a way that would please him, the one who owns it all.

So these things aren't ours, not us, not our money, not the world.

And we are asked very nicely and kindly by God to take good care of the huge blessings that he's given us in a way that would make him proud.

So today we're talking about resources and our responsibility around what we've been given.

As generous as God is, there are in fact limits to the physical bounty he's created, both in us, in our finances, and in our earth.

And he could change that.

But what we know now is that things are born and things live, and then things get used up in all three of these categories.

Starting with ourselves, we have these amazing physical bodies.

We have our emotions, we have our spiritual self, and we have our brains.

All of these things, when used wisely, can get better and stronger the more we do what we know is good for us.

The opposite, of course, is also true.

If we ignore what we should do for physical, mental, or spiritual health, things can steadily or very quickly go down the tubes.

Physical health is probably the most straightforward.

Our body's this huge resource.

We count on them for so much and sometimes do so little to make that happen.

When it comes to keeping us going, we can all recite the major ways to stay healthy, right?

We could do it, raise your hand, eat well, exercise, get good sleep, limit the things that are bad for you, sugar, alcohol, too much screen time, too little time outside.

Sounds so easy.

I went online and searched easy plans for physical health, and my computer about blew up in front of me.

There are a gazillion different diagrams, numbered formulas.

52108 is one of them, 333 8020.

There are a million different ways to do this.

And the truth is, we probably all know what we're doing well and what we aren't.

To have a good plan or a formula can be a great way to stay on track, but we have to start with wanting to do it, with being willing to do something, a little exercise instead of none, or bump it up if you aren't getting enough.

Get rid of the daily can of coke or the chips or that very tiny pile of Hershey kisses.

Do a little more of some things, a little less than others.

Take care of this amazing resource.

A way to start is to choose one thing to do more of, and one thing to do less of.

Then feel free to get guidance from a doctor, from your trainer, from the millions of numbered plans online.

Very helpful to do it with someone else, creating a relational bond and then consistency through expectation.

Well, if you don't go, I'm not going.

I don't want to be responsible for that.

We know this.

We know this.

We know this information.

So what makes it so hard to do?

We believe it will help.

We will feel, we will look, and we will behave better.

What is the reason we just don't do it?

When it comes to our spiritual lives, it's exactly the same.

We know what we should do.

We should read our Bibles every day and we should pray.

We get on a good track and then we get sidetracked by busyness and kids and schedules.

Strangely, vacation is what always gets me.

I take all of my stuff, all of my Bible stuff, and embarrassingly rarely use it.

And then once I'm out of practice, I have to put a sticky note on my computer to not look at that before I do my Bible study.

What in the what the heck?

Like all of our other resources, this takes time and attention and consistency.

I have this little sign on my dresser.

I've had it since I was probably 18.

And it applies to many things, but it certainly applies to this particular thing.

God gives every bird its food, but he doesn't throw it in the nest.

God will meet us where we are, but this is a partnership.

He's not going to do all the work for us because doing the work is part of what will grow and change us.

So here's the doing part.

You know this.

Read your Bible daily.

Do some kind of study when you can.

And if you don't use your time well in the morning, have something to fall back on.

I get a little devotional every day.

So at least there's a little Bible in my head, even if it's not my full study.

Speak or journal your thoughts and prayers.

Listening is a huge part of prayer.

We can talk and talk and talk, but if we don't listen, we might not hear the answers.

How much do you guys think it matters that you show up here?

Do you feel the import of being part of a Bible-based community with a skilled and knowledgeable leader who is also so darn cute?

This is huge.

Show up.

Things happen just by you being in the room that would not happen if you stayed home or just watched the podcast.

Public, meaning here, and private worship keeps your thoughts and ears on God.

What is the music that plays in your car?

It's an easy way to get God more into your life.

Keep a close eye on your sin, because we do it.

So you can confess it, apologize to whoever deserves it, and ask God for forgiveness.

It's one less rock to carry around in your heart.

And God loves repentance.

Forgive others quickly, as quickly as possible.

Colossians 3.13 says, make allowances for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you.

Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Get it done.

Get it done, get it finished, get it out of your life.

Forgiving quickly in your heart makes it so you aren't carrying this boulder around.

And you can do that long before someone asks for forgiveness.

There are so many more things you can do in your spiritual life to be close to God.

I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

I'm just putting it in front of you again.

But think about the resource that the creator of the universe, the creator of literally everything we see, wants to communicate with us, wants to be in relationship with us, who will give us wisdom and answers and create ideas and comfort us.

We know that this is great.

So why not do it?

What is our struggle?

Our emotions, fabulous resource.

Imagine what it would be like without them, without the ability to feel joy for a sunny day, or the love of your people, or sorrow at the loss of one.

We need anger too.

We need anger against hardship and injustice.

We have this huge pile of emotions to use as we like, but it's not automatically well done.

It needs to be harnessed.

Have you guys seen the Inside Out movies?

Oh my gosh, they're a riot.

It's animated, but they're they're fabulous for kids and adults.

Emotions can be a barometer of how we feel about what's going on around us, but they're also a window into our hearts and a way to assess a need for help.

To feel sad or depressed for a short time might be normal.

But if something unusual drags on, it's a way that you know you need to seek assistance.

Emotionally, we know when we're on point and when we're not.

We know when we lose our grip and can most of the time understand what led up to that as it came along.

But our emotional life is decided by how we direct it.

If we allow our emotions to do whatever they like, they will drag us around up and down and up and down into forever.

The controlling of emotions doesn't make you a robot.

It means you are using this important resource responsibly.

Letting loose with whatever you feel, whenever you feel it, puts both your body and the people around you in chaos and it's detrimental to both.

This resource gets us into a ton of trouble relationally.

Unchecked emotions, anger, disgust, disrespect, contempt not only deeply affect the person to whom that is directed, it also floods our bodies with cortisol and adrenaline, which is very useful if you're facing a saber-toothed tiger, and not so much if I'm overreacting to my husband's messy dresser.

An abundance of these emotions is damaging to our relationships and our bodies.

And it lessens the value of the emotion when you might actually need it.

If you're just mad all the time, nobody's gonna notice when this becomes, in fact, appropriate.

Ecclesiastes 7.9 says, control your temper for anger labels you a fool.

And I think we could say, control your temper for resentment labels you a fool.

Control your temper for envy labels you a fool.

We know this stuff.

We know we shouldn't make mountains out of molehills and a big deal out of nothing.

What makes us think it's okay to go on a rampage, or on the other hand, ignore emotions that keep us from living fully?

Our brains, this huge resource only ever imagined by God, this magical thing we have that we can use or we can waste.

We now have more to fill our minds with either amazing or completely useless information than any other time in the world.

Our brains do what we tell it to do, and what we fill them with defines in many ways who we are.

Yes, we are what we eat, but we are also what we put in our heads and how we spend our time doing that.

I finally had to take Facebook off of everything because I would go on specifically looking for a picture of my friend's new grandchild.

And then two pictures down, you get to the reels, and they have your algorithm.

Don't think they don't.

And so my algorithm is animals getting rescued and servicemen coming home to surprise their families, right?

So you go down to the reel, and there's this little tiny wet puppy being, you know, almost being scooped up out of the water, and I go, I have to see that.

One, one reel.

What can it hurt?

And 30 minutes later, I have now wasted time, I will never get back, and realize that it was good for absolutely nothing.

That time would be better spent doing anything else.

Talk to a person, I could do counseling notes, which I hate, but still have to be done.

Pick up trash, do a crossword.

Anything is better than that.

Incredible waste of time.

And who doesn't want to be smarter or be able to react or process faster?

It's part of the whole package in that what you do for your physical body also helps your brain.

Get seven to nine hours of sleep, eat healthy fats, leafy greens, and antioxidants, get regular exercise.

I sense a pattern.

If you want to do better with the brain that you have, here are some quick points to take in to do just that.

Don't multitask.

We all think that we're so much more efficient if we're busier.

In fact, we are not.

Excuse me.

We are less efficient when we don't work sequentially.

Excuse me.

Focus on the present.

It will improve attention and reduce stress.

Continue to learn new skills, a language, a hobby.

Go to a different town, go to a different restaurant.

These can create new connections in your brain.

Read.

Oh my goodness, read.

Read anything.

Reading consistently increases cognitive function, vocabulary, knowledge, and you can learn literally about anything you want to know.

Here's good news for me: fiction has the same benefits, though I'm not going to learn like home repair skills or learn to speak Russian.

But it's the same.

Reading fiction gives you the same benefits as reading nonfiction.

And stay social.

Your brain learns from interaction how to gauge behaviors and access memories and assess situations.

We know what's useful and what isn't.

We know when there's enough, but not too much, of TV or screens or phones.

So what makes this so hard to change?

What is our struggle?

Often when we think of resources, the first thing that comes to our mind is money.

It's kind of the classic resource.

So how we spend and plan and manage or don't do anything around those things creates financial freedom or financial stress in our lives.

Who was here yesterday for the finance thing?

Cool.

I have been in the space of working with people and their money even longer than I've been a therapist.

This is a resource that we have nearly complete control over, and that can make a huge difference in our lives depending on how we use it.

Clear case here.

Clear case of boundaries and limits.

Before credit cards, it was much more difficult to spend money that you didn't have.

Credit cards started in the late 50s, and now the average credit card debt in the US, if you looked at every single person, man, woman, and child, is$6,500 each.

God speaks on money so often in the Bible.

He knew it would be a problem.

He knew that we probably wouldn't do great, so he gave us a ton of advice.

Money, riches, or possessions are mentioned in the Bible.

Are you ready?

Two thousand times.

Two thousand.

This was a big deal, and he knew it.

When you sift through, there's a clear set of principles, and the first is stewardship, which is what we talked about here.

It all belongs to God from the start.

We are being entrusted to use it according to God's teaching and direction.

Generosity is consistently spoken.

Giving and tithing are an act of worship and not just our will.

We are called to give a part of what we've been given and to do it cheerfully.

When I work with people new to giving and tithing, this one is tough.

Right?

There is a belief that, well, I did this work.

God wasn't sitting next to me at the computer.

He wasn't there.

And though I get that, the further you get into your spiritual life, the easier that gets.

And the concept of God owning everything comes back to focus.

This is a resource for us, not a possession.

Scripture advises against debt.

Our culture is full of debt.

Our culture encourages debt.

And my experience has been that most people do what has been modeled in their families.

If you're raising kids, how do you want them to manage money when they leave your house?

How do you want to help them now learn to do this well?

Many kids leave home without any idea of how to manage their income.

You can teach them so much while they're here that will set them up very well for adulthood.

Work hard at the work that you've been given.

This is a twofer, right?

First, if people know you're a Christian, everything you do, everything you do points back to Christ.

We are called to be a good visual.

Second, if you work hard, you will probably succeed.

And that's a win for you and for God.

Working hard always has benefits.

Saving and planning for the future sets you up for emergencies.

That will come.

They will certainly come, whether it's a broken car or a broken water heater or a broken leg.

We are called to provide for our families and ourselves now and into the future.

The Bible says in different places, first, not to be concerned about what we eat or wear, and also to dress and eat well.

Clearly, there's a balance.

So what are wants versus needs and the finances to be able to supply for both?

God wants us to be responsible, but also enjoy the fabulous world He has created, including money, setting money aside for entertainment and perhaps a really good Ross find.

Spending less, no, I'm sorry, yes.

All of this leads up to the fact that spending less than you make is the fundamental principle of responsible financial living.

Financial freedom isn't just for you.

Financial freedom is so that you can heed God's call when He makes it.

Whether it's funding a move to a real church, thank you so much, or helping one of your kids in an emergency, saving for retirement so you can care for yourself.

Those with more than they need have huge decisions to make as well.

What is God calling you to do with your extra?

What giving is sacrificial?

How much in retirement savings is enough?

If you can afford more than you need, sometimes it makes those decisions both harder and easier.

How much is enough?

My daughter told me if I buy one more gray sweatshirt, she's taking them all.

She's cleaning out the closet.

Enough is enough.

How many shoes?

How many vacations?

How big the house?

God does not call us to live all the same.

But he does call us to listen and respond to his direction.

If we took like 20 minutes and shared our financial lives with each other in this room, which most of us would rather die than do, we would find different levels of wealth, different balances on credit cards, different types of stress associated with these numbers.

Some people of wealth give a lot, and some don't.

Some people can't sleep with any balance on their credit cards, and some don't worry until it gets to 10,000.

These are personal things.

But it still comes back to what God wants for us.

And it's less debt, less stress, and more ability and willingness to take direction from Him.

You will never know the results of what God calls you to fix.

I worked with a couple at my church for a little under a year, and they spoke on Easter of their process with that.

In under a year, they paid off$30 out of$40,000 in their credit card debt.

They repaired their relationship, which was disintegrating before their very eyes.

They became a model to their children on how to do this.

And on Christmas Eve, the man of the couple accepted Christ.

You don't know what God has in store by following his direction.

If things haven't gone well financially, you probably know the reason.

It may be hard to change, it may be very inconvenient to change, but it can in fact be changed.

You have no idea the feeling that you'll have when you are out from under whatever stresses finances are causing.

Imagine not having that feeling anymore.

Managing this great this resource is great for every part of your life.

So what makes it so hard?

What stands in the way of making our financial lives better?

Our earth, astounding.

This amazing gift given by God.

And as we have fulfilled the command, excuse me, to be fruitful and multiply, the world has gotten much more crowded with all of the accompanying stuff and dirt and waste that comes with eight billion people.

As things have gotten better and smarter, and the world with inventions created by the big brains God gave us fills, it seems a little of the awe and care of the world has been lost.

In Genesis 1, God's thought was to make man in their image.

Oh, thank you so much.

Applause.

It is actually much better than the water in my cup.

I don't know what you did.

You pray over it?

Like what did it magic water?

In Genesis 1, God's thought was to make man in their image, and he would have dominion over all the animals of the earth.

And then he gave them plants and fruit trees to feed themselves and feed the animals.

In Genesis 2, he said Adam, and I assume the other 7.99999 billion of us should work in the garden and take care of it.

Is there had been less focus on how we take care of the planet and more focus about how we take care of us.

Just like anything else, I don't think it was intentional.

Inventions were made, and that horrible toxic waste had to go somewhere, right?

So into the waterways it went, thinking it's a huge ocean.

What could possibly happen?

When Nathan Wyeth invented the plastic water bottle for carbonated beverages, no one had any idea that this incredible invention would become the icon of a convenience that causes tremendous harm in our waters, in our air, in our ground, and in our bodies.

Plastic water bottle sales increased 2,767% from 1997 when there were 3 billion units sold to 86 billion units in 2021, a 25-fold increase.

And of the 86 billion plastic water bottles sold in 2021, only oh, I'm sorry, in 2021, 61 billion of them were not recycled.

Where do you think they ended up?

Take that, multiply it by however many years and numbers of bottles were sold and thrown into the oceans and put them into our landfills where they take from 20 to 450 years to break down into smaller pieces where they then leach into the soil.

They never go away.

Who knew?

No one knew.

No one knew this would happen.

This was not intentional, but it became lack of care, and we're still doing it in so many ways.

In some ways, we're tons better than when things just happened.

We now have regulations that at least help slow down the damage.

But when you hear about consumerism and greed being first and take care of taking care of the planet being a far-flung second, this isn't sustainable.

Like global, it's a thing.

Global warming is a thing.

Here's some of the basic resources we're using up on Earth.

Food, water, and land.

Wow.

Food, water, and land.

We are using them at a rate 1.7 times greater than the planet can regenerate.

These are the basics.

Food, water, and land.

It's not going to disappear in our lifetime.

But I think with our grandchildren's grandchildren, things will not have any resemblance to the life we live now in terms of natural resources.

And I think God shakes his head at us for many reasons, but the lack of care of our planet's got to be up there somewhere.

And he might, in his wisdom, just make a new one and move us all over there.

But more likely is the fact that we're going to have to bring this around.

We have to make changes now to slow down what's happening.

And there are two schools of thought here.

One is that what one person does really doesn't matter.

Really doesn't matter.

Most things don't really get recycled anyway, they just throw them in the trash.

If there's one piece of trash in recycling, they just throw it all away.

The other is that just like anything else, what we do as individuals matters.

What you do as a church matters.

There's a line in the West Wing that says that never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world.

Do you know why?

Because it's the only thing that ever has.

You can have an effect on the earth.

You can make a difference in the world for your great, great-grandchildren, but it's got to start now.

Genesis 2.15 said that God placed man in the garden to work it and take care of it, and he also created boundaries.

You can have all of it except that.

We all know how that went.

And I think this time is similar.

We have all the world's resources to use, but we are plundering them.

We need to slow this down.

So what can we do?

We know this.

Reduce our overall consumption of nearly anything food, water, clothing, travel, cars, necessities, and wants, but eliminate waste.

How much food we throw away in this country is criminal.

Buy less.

If you need more, you can always get it.

Make sure everything that can be is being reused.

Nothing should go into a landfill that has any further use for anyone.

And recycle everything humanly possible.

I am so I'm a big recycler.

And uh I am so impressed.

In my hotel, the garbage can has a garbage side and a recycling side.

I've never seen that in a hotel before.

Yay, Memphis.

Very cool thing.

This is basic, but we can do stuff about it.

Read up on this.

I'm I'm sorry to say the Tennessee ranks low in recycling.

But oh, that thing just fell off.

Um, but you can do more.

What do I do here?

Is that it?

Yep.

So get on board, change your habits to reflect values that you have or values that you can grow in this area.

The reason we know what to do and don't do it is about the reasons that we change.

We only change for one of two reasons: either to escape pain or to move toward pleasure.

Those are the only two reasons we change.

As people, we are much more reactive than proactive.

So for us, we react more to pain than we do to possible reward.

If we aren't changing, then the pain we're feeling isn't strong enough, and the reward doesn't seem good enough.

If you want to change and you're not motivated, you can ask God to provide it.

Ask for more sensitivity, ask for more pain.

How we use the resources that we have been given speaks to our gratefulness and to our sustainability going into the future.

Is there something that you think God is asking you to work on where you can make a difference in your own life and in the world around you?

I am entirely convinced that the work we do as individuals every single day matters.

You can compound it by doing it as a church, doing it as a city, and doing it as a country.

But don't think for one moment that your work is negligible.

Your heart changes with whatever growth you make.

And if no one else notices, you can bet that God does.

Oh Lord, you've examined my heart and you know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up, you know my thoughts when I'm far away.

You see me when I travel and when I rest at home, you know everything I do.

You know when I'm gonna what I'm going to say even before I say it.

You go before me and you follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand.

I can never escape your spirit.

I can never get away from your presence.

If I go to heaven, you are there.

If I lay down in the grave, you are there.

If I ride the wings of the morning, isn't that beautiful?

What a phrase that is.

If I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me.

I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night.

But even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as the day.

These verses have always been in equal parts comforting and terrifying to me.

But to know that our God is a God who blesses efforts, know that.

So choose a resource to protect and feel God's pleasure.

Thank you for your time and attention.