A MISSIONAL
APPROACH TO PROSPERITY
“Prosperity” may rank as one of several “dirty” words
among evangelical Christians. We know of the “Prosperity Gospel” and its focus
on the success of every Christian, if they have enough faith. We know that
“health and wealth” are very attractive goals in themselves but we can lose
focus if they become all that our faith is about.
We live
in a time and place where we are enjoying prosperity like no other. This is the
Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. We are extremely blessed. And let’s
face it; we enjoy the benefits of living in a prosperous nation.
Well
over a hundred years ago, a German philosopher by the name of Friedrich
Nietzsche foresaw a shift in culture that would engulf the West. Nietzsche saw
that with the absence of God growing in Western culture, we would replace God
with money or prosperity. He wrote:
“What
induces one man to use false weights, another to set his house on fire after
having insured it for more than its value, while three-fourths of our upper
classes indulge in legalized fraud…what gives rise to all this? It is not real
want – for their existence is by no means precarious…but they are urged on day
and night by a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth pile up slowly, and
by an equally terrible longing and love for these heaps of gold…What once was
done ‘for the love of God’ is now done for the love of money, i.e., for the
love of that which at present affords us the highest feeling of power and a
good conscience.”[i]
In
short, Nietzsche foretold that the accumulation of wealth would become the main
idol of the West. He was not wrong.
Does God
want us to be poor? Is there something spiritual about being materially
destitute? Prosperity is not in and of itself a bad thing; the problem is
forgetting where it came from. Prosperity is a good thing if we remember that
it comes from God but a curse if we forget where it came from.
1. God’s People get tested
a) Testing our
resolve to be faithful – Moses continues to prepare the Israelites to enter
the Promised Land through these sermons known as Deuteronomy. In ch. 8 he
prophetically warns them to be aware of the contrast of where they have been
and where they are going.
“Be
careful…” Moses says, and he repeats this warning in v. 11, “Be careful.”
Leaving the barren wilderness for a rich land of potential has its challenges.
Be careful to do what? “Be careful to
follow every command that I am giving you today, so that you may live and
increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your
ancestors,” (1).
We can
see that God’s plan was to prosper His people and to do well in the Land. God’s
mission would be spotlighted by the success of His chosen people IF…and this is
the caveat…IF they followed His every command. The LORD was not trying to be
restrictive and limiting; He was giving them a plan for life that would sustain
their success. Obeying the LORD was the primary key to this prosperity.
God
tests His people. He wants to see who regards Him seriously by keeping His
commands.
b) Looking back on
tough times – Moses recalls the great test of Israel’s faith in the
wilderness. The people well remember how God led them out of Israel by bringing
ten plagues on the Egyptians, how they crossed the Red Sea and so on. But
Israel was still getting to know Yahweh; they didn’t know how faithful Yahweh
would be in future situations. So they put Him to the test in the wilderness.
The
irony is that in that very classroom, the wilderness, the Israelites thought
they were testing God, whereas in fact it was the other way around; God was
testing them. We must understand that “test” does not mean to tempt someone
into doing something they would not otherwise do. This is not the kind of test
Satan issued Jesus when he urged him to jump off the temple roof. To test God
in this way is foolish. To “test” in this context means to “prove” a person’s
word and intentions. Israel wanted to know if God could really do what He
promised after the exodus; Yahweh wanted to know if the people would do what
they promised when they made a covenant with Him.[ii]
God does
not need to prove anything to Israel. Moses said, “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness
these forty years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your
heart…” (2). God took care of them and they could see it. When they came
out of the wilderness, Israel was not a shabby, starving rabble. Their clothes
did not wear out and their feet did not swell. More than that, there was no
place to plant a crop or garden – the wilderness was not a place to settle down
- but they had food to eat. Manna! Bread from heaven!
Here’s
the test: God allowed them to become hungry, shrinking any shred of
self-sufficiency, and then gave them manna. What God was proving to them was
that the key to life is not in the food one eats, but in the nourishment that
comes from the mouth of God – His Word. This is why Moses says, “man does not live on bread alone but on
every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (3b).
Bread is
a staple on our tables; human life needs more than bread, however. We need the
mouth of God that first breathed breath into our nostrils. We can eat bread
but, like the wandering Hebrews, we will die eventually. But the Word of God
gives life meaning, shape, purpose, value.
Crowds followed
Jesus after He fed the 5000 (John 6). They were caught up in the provision of
bread so that they did not see the bigger picture. Jesus had led them into a
wilderness of sorts where there was no food; they grew hungry. Jesus fed them
miraculously. Jesus tells them of a better bread that would satisfy them even
more. Give it to us, they said. Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and
he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35).
c) Looking ahead
to the greater test – Wilderness experiences teach us to depend on God. You
will easily recall your wilderness experiences where you grew hungry for God.
The LORD tests us in those moments, He proves us, to see if we will run to Him,
seek Him out in our pain and longing. God does not do this to torture us but to
show us that He is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do. God
will not fail you in your wilderness.
I find
that my darkest days cause me to pray more passionately. The greater test is to
rely on God when all is well. That is what Moses is concerned about. Moses
describes the land they are going to enter as practically a Garden of Eden:
brooks, streams, crops, and minerals aplenty. There will be limitless
opportunity and prosperity for all.
When
times are good, human nature dictates that we grow careless. We become fuzzy
about the commands of God. It is easier to bend the rules. Moses underlines the
problem: “When you have eaten and are
satisfied…” (10). When we are satisfied we tend to forget the lessons of
the wilderness.
2. How God’s people respond to the “Prosperity” test
a) Recognizing the
dangers of self-sufficiency – For the second time, Moses warns his flock to
be careful. “Be careful that you do not
forget the LORD your God…” as they enter into this period of prosperity
(11). This is the heart of the passage. We are a forgetful race. We forget
where we came from and that other than by the grace of God we would still be
there. We are so forgetful; we must admit it.
Victor
Borge told about a couple going on vacation, standing in line waiting to check
their bags at the airline counter. The man said to the wife, "I wish we
had brought the piano." She said, "Why? We’ve got sixteen suitcases
already!" He said, "Yes, I know-- but the airline tickets are on the
piano!"
Moses
outlines the progression to self-sufficiency (see list vv. 12-13). As these
good things build up, we forget the tough times we had in the past. The danger
of self-sufficiency is pride. Moses warns, “…then
your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God…” (14).
This is
a problem that does not go away. Centuries later, Israel still suffered from
spiritual dementia. Hosea wrote, “When I
fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me (says the LORD)” (13:6).
Success
can be more dangerous than failure. “You
may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this
wealth for me’” (17). Farmers might be very pragmatic about their success:
I cleared the land, I cultivated, planted, weeded, sprayed and harvested the
crop – what did God do? Some of you have a mind for making money, you know
where to invest, what to build and when – what part does God play? We can all
view our accomplishments as the work of our own hands.
b) Responding to
God’s gifts with gratitude – Yet every service we render has its roots in
the gracious gifting of God. He is the One who called us to be farmers, engineers,
real estate moguls, teachers, and pastors. Every achievement is possible only
because the LORD God has graciously given us the abilities to think, plan, and
work. You are NOT the source of your own success. It is irrational to think
that way.
Moses
preached, “But remember the LORD your
God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms
his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today” (18).
The
incorrect response to God’s test of prosperity was revealed as pride. The
correct response to the test comes in three parts:
First, “Remember the LORD your God.” More than
merely acknowledging God as the source of your giftedness and prosperity, we
are to take seriously the presence of God and what He is doing all around us
all the time. Remembering God means observing and obeying His commands. If you
read on in Deuteronomy 15 you will find that God’s commands include using
prosperity in His service: forgiving debts (3), providing for the poor “there
should be no poor among you” (4), if there are poor among you “do not be
hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother (7), and be openhanded to
the poor and needy (11).
Second, Remember “it is he who gives you the ability
to produce wealth.” You work really hard. Even so, you and I must recognize
that the skill and energy to work are a gift from God.
Third, Remember his covenant. Yahweh gives
strength not only for our good and prosperity, but also to confirm what He said
in His covenant to Israel. Israel’s prosperity, and now ours, is actually
supposed to be a witness of His presence. We are a light to the nations in how
we respond to the wealth around us – with gratitude to God and generosity to
people. God’s honor is at stake in how we handle these good gifts.
c) What happens
when we ignore God – What if we forget? I am loathe to conclude with 19-20.
But there it is in God’s Word. If we forget God as the source of our
prosperity, if we make an idol out of wealth and luxury, we will be destroyed.
Now this was said to Israel thousands of years ago and I have jumped from the
context to application (very bad hermeneutics).
As a
historian I can testify that no nation in the history of the world was ever
able to maintain their dominance economically or militarily. Canada will not
always enjoy prosperity as it does today. In large part, I believe that our two
nations, the U.S. and Canada, have forgotten where its present glory came from.
As Christians, we cannot afford to forget from whom all blessing flow.
How does our approach to prosperity make us a missional
church?
David
Fitch writes, “The question is, how do we make sense of the Christian claim
that ‘Jesus is Lord’ in a postmodern world where old ways to truth have broken
down? The answer is we display what these words mean in the way we live and
worship so that its reality, once displayed, cannot be denied, only rejected or
entered into. We will persuade through living displays of truth, not rational
one-on-one arguments.”[iii]
Displaying
our gratitude to God for all that we possess is a powerful witness. Allow me to
share an attitude of prayer and a practice of prayer to illustrate one way of
applying this truth:
The
attitude in prayer comes from the sage in Proverbs: “…give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I
may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” (Prov.
30:8b-9). Striking a balance rests with us. Generosity in light of how much God
has given to us helps to achieve balance in the midst of prosperity.
The
practice of prayer will appear simple to you. Someone shared a story with me of
how they had bowed their heads at a restaurant and thanked God for their food.
Another patron had taken note and commented how touched they were by that act.
That patron was a Christian but had given up the practice of praying over the
meal for frivolous reasons. How can we ignore such a powerful discipline and
witness of thankfulness by omitting prayer, even at the restaurant table?
When my
family visited Quebec City, I was tickled to hear a lady comment on our table
prayer when we were done asking God’s blessing. She said, “Oh, those must be
born-agains.” We do not want to make a spectacle of ourselves or pray so loudly
that the whole restaurant hears us, but we do want to honor our God in public.
If we can do this one act of gratitude of thanking the Lord for our gifts, we
are being a witness; we are being missional, in regards to our approach to
prosperity. We are confessing that we know the One from whom all blessings
flow.
AMEN
