FBC Morning Light – November 16, 2022

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. I hope you had a good night of rest and your day's getting off to a good start today. Well, you remember yesterday we looked in in the little letter of John to Gaius, his friend.

In our Bibles it's the book of 3rd John, and in the second verse he has this request for his friend Gaius. He says this, he says, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, but then he adds this caveat to that, just as your soul prospers.

So he's not praying merely for material prosperity or for good health. He's praying that those things would be commensurate with his soul's prosperity. So he wants to see him prosper spiritually, that he would grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he would prosper in that spiritual growth, but wants the material and physical prosperity to correspond to that.

Now here's why that's important. Here's why it is critical to connect a desire for prosperity materially and physically with prosperity spiritually, and not disconnect those two things, and not neglect the spiritual prosperity for the others.

We see an example of the importance of this in the book of Hosea chapter 13. Listen to these verses 4 to 6. The Lord says this to his people, he says, Yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but me, for there is no Savior besides me.

Alright, so the Lord is referring back to his delivering of the Israelite people, the Hebrew people, from Egypt, making them a nation, making them his own people, setting them aside, calling them to himself, and choosing them to be a people of his own.

And he says there's nobody else who would have delivered you from Egypt, I alone am your Savior, and there is no God but me. You owe your loyalty, you owe your life physically and materially, but spiritually to me.

I am your God, I am your Savior, there is no other. The same is true for you, and for me, right? He says, I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. When they had pasture, they were filled.

So here the Lord is talking about the Exodus, and in the wilderness wanderings, and in that wilderness experience, there were many times that they didn't have anything to drink or eat, but the Lord faithfully provided for them, and he filled them.

He filled them to the full. And his greatest expression of that filling of them was when he gave them the promised land, this land of milk and honey, a land of great prosperity in terms of its day. And the people had plenty.

They entered into a land where they were able to take houses that they didn't build, they were able to receive vineyards that they didn't plant, and harvest crops that they didn't cultivate. God gave them great prosperity in the land.

But listen to what he says as he continues. They were filled, and their heart was exalted, and they forgot me. They were filled, and their heart was exalted, and they forgot me. Notice the progression of those three things.

They were filled. They experienced great prosperity, so much so that they just enjoyed it. They were in the land of milk and honey. They were filled. But then, their heart was exalted. They became proud.

They became self-sufficient. They thought they were self-sufficient. And in that pride and in that self-sufficiency, the Lord says, they forgot me. They forgot me. There is the danger of prosperity that is disconnected, a physical and material prosperity that is disconnected from spiritual prosperity.

I know people who are like this. They have been a part of the Church at some point in time. They became very successful in their career, and in that success and in that prosperity, you could see it coming.

They began to distance themselves from the Church and from God's people, and I believe also, therefore, from God. You can't claim to be closely connected to God and be disconnected from His Church. That is a disconnect.

That doesn't work. It doesn't happen. No. In their prosperity, you could see it happening. They became more and more successful in their career. They gave themselves more and more to it, and they became less and less involved with the Church, until finally, they were hardly ever there, if at all.

They became very prosperous materially and exalted in their heart and forgot God. The same thing is true with people physically, with their physical bodies. We have a great deal of emphasis in some circles today on taking care of the physical body, and there's not anything wrong with that.

You ought to do that, but if that is not coupled with spiritual prosperity, the body becomes a God, and you worship that physical health and well-being to the neglect of spiritual health and well-being.

I know people like this as well, and in their physical health, which is incredible, you know, great shape, eat well, they're the epitome of good health, but when it comes to spiritual health, not so much.

Now look, let's be sure that when we pursue prosperity, that we are pursuing spiritual prosperity first and foremost, that it may guide properly material and physical prosperity, lest we become exalted in our heart and forget God.

I'm sure that is not what you would want to do. Let's pray. Father, help us to keep this perspective in mind and this balance of the pursuit of prosperity, being first and foremost concerned about the prosperity of our soul.

We pray in Jesus' name and for His sake, amen. Alright, well listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday. I hope God will bless you richly.