Provide For Your Family And Those Around You – Part 1 of 2

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Today we are kicking off a sermon series. It is a two-part sermon series so make sure to come back next week for the conclusion. It is about the importance of being a provider. Now what does that mean?

What is a provider? A provider is someone who provides for others, oh okay well you used the word in the definition itself. No, it means that you are supplying their needs, that you are taking care of them and being a provider.

In a Godly sense, this is so much more. It is not simply providing for your family [or] providing for your children. God, of course, in the Old Testament, all the rules were this way, and then Jesus took them further. He raised the bar.

He said, “Hey, if someone wants you to go a mile, go two miles. They want your cloak, give them your tunic. Hey, take it further. If you look this says ‘Do not murder,’ but if you even think about it in your mind it is committing it. So do not even think about it.”

Jesus made it way more difficult to follow. He raised the bar. He said, “I know you can do it.” He raised the bar so being a provider is not simply about providing for their needs now and then when they grow up and they go off to college, “All right we are good, they are out of the house, I do not need to provide for them anymore.” Wrong.

Raise the bar. You are to provide for not only your children but also your children’s children, so further on even long after you are gone, you need to be providing for them. That is pretty serious. We are going to dive into that a little bit more next week but that is pretty serious; that is a tall order.

How do you do that much? To provide for them for years to come, generations to come, even. Well, start out with a little doomsdayer here: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy 5:8; it is a good verse, [it] hits hard though.

If you do not provide for your relatives, especially for your own household. That is saying, you live with your immediate family, spouse, kids, okay provide for them, but your relatives. So that could even mean providing for your parents, maybe even providing for your grandparents, maybe providing for your cousins, your nieces, your nephews.

Providing for your relatives, especially your own household, if you do not do that you have denied the faith and you are even worse than an unbeliever. That is serious, you need to treat your family way above and beyond. Now who is your family? That brings up a good point, if you do not provide for your relatives, especially for your own household. Who is your family though?

Well let’s go to Matthew to look at that. Chapter 12 Verses 46 to 50, “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, waiting to speak to you.’

He replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’”

Okay, what does that mean? Obviously, Jesus had a mother, Mary, born on Earth. He had other siblings because Mary and Joseph had more kids, so He had what we would call brothers and sisters and a mother and an earthly father, exactly like we have.

We have brothers and sisters if you are fortunate enough and you may have a mother and a father, whether they are in your life or not, you have a mother and an earthly father and you have a heavenly Father, so we have that.

But Jesus says, “Who are my brother, my sister, my mother?” If you are an only child or your parents are not in the picture anymore or something like that, you still have brothers and sisters and mothers and a heavenly Father. You still have it. Who are they? Anyone who does the will of God is your family.

Now 1 Timothy 5:8 goes to a whole new level. Anyone who does not provide for their family, especially for their own household—okay, so your family, anyone who does not provide for really the other believers, so you are not only to provide for your own household, you are also to provide for the body of Christ, for all the other parts in the body.

Remember you are part of the body of Christ. You are to provide for your members of the church. Other people who are Christians. You are also to provide for them. Holy moly, you are going to have to make millions of dollars a year to provide for all of them.

Well, of course, you are not going to be able to provide for everyone. The point is you need to be providing for your own household, and then when your own household is good, you got to be raising up your kids so that they have the mentality that they need to help others outside of their household, especially within the body of Christ.

There is a sermon we did before, you can check it out up here about helping others. Again you cannot help everyone and you cannot say “Yes” to everything, but some at least you are supposed to listen to the request and consider it, and bring it to God. So check that out. That is a great message there. If any of them, anyone needs help with anything, you have to try to make it work. This is especially your own household.

I would say your own household could include your cousins, your aunts, your uncles, your family, anyone in your blood or married into your family, that would be your household. Now of course, they are not living with you, but they are part of your immediate or your extended family. Those are the people you must provide for.

Then beyond that, your whole family should be working to help provide for the needs of those who are also believers in Christ. God wants you to try to make it work. This means money, time, helping people out, work, moving, advice, even phone calls etc, any of that.

But remember you are only to help them do things that are righteous or that are not sinful, if you are helping them sin, that is bad. They say, “Hey, come on help me out, I need your help pulling one over on my insurance company.” No way. “I need your help driving a getaway car.” Nope.

Obviously, those might be a little more serious, but things happen all the time. “Can you sign this paper so I can get this extra whatever?” If it is not right, do not do it. Do not help them do sinful things, help them only do good things.

Matthew Chapter 18 Verse 6, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones—who believe in me—to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” That goes two ways.

If you help someone else sin, boom, depths of the sea. It would be better for you to be drowned in the depths of the sea than to face what is coming. Again if you are asking someone to help you sin, you are leading them, so again drowned in the depths of the sea.

Basically, if you go sin with another person, you guys are each sinning together, you are helping each other, it is better for you to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Do not do it. Only help people with righteous things.

Remember, you are to provide for your family. If you do not provide for the people that God has given you, then you have denied the faith and you are worse than an unbeliever. Remember, God has given you this stuff. He is giving you a family. How you take care of it determines how it will grow.

We have talked about this before in another sermon on the importance of asking and receiving more and getting more with the parable of the talents and that is a very very important lesson on if you are going to get something, for example, a toy.

You give your child a $10 toy and they break it or they do not take care of it or they leave it out in the rain or it is never taken care of, you are not going to give them a $50 toy because they cannot handle the little one.

Similarly, God gives us things and if we do not take care of them, why would He give us more? The same goes for your family. Provide for your family. If God sees you can provide, He will give you more.

Now, of course, whether or not you can provide, sometimes maybe things are beyond your control, but in that instance, it is what is in your heart that matters. Are you trying? Are you working?

Are you doing what God wants you to do and His stuff is just not working out? Talk to God. God knows your situation and He knows how to help you through it. He will provide for you. You have to have faith, that is the key right there.

If you say, “Hey, well I work at a home for damaged people,” or “I work at a church and the budget is not that big,” or, me, “I preach sermons” or whatever you do, you are doing something for the Kingdom.

You are a missionary and the money just does not come in. You have to have faith that God will provide for you. Have faith. He knows what you are doing is for His Kingdom. He knows that if you want more, He will give it to you but you have to have the faith.

He will provide for you and your household. If you stop providing for them in any way, you stop and only provide for yourself, not only is that very selfish but remember you have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever. Why? Because you are doubting that God will be able to provide for you. You are doubting God’s ability, that is why. You are doubting His ability.

Let’s go to James 3:16. James 3:16 says, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” If you stop providing for others and you are starting to only provide for yourself, you are filled with envy and selfish ambition and the only thing that results out of that is more and more evil.

Greed, desire, lust, all of these things, idolatry—because you will start valuing money over God. If you start to become like that and stop providing for those who need you, you are starting to be filled with selfishness. Cast it out. Do not doubt that God can provide for all of you.

For example, when you are broke you might say, “All right, we got nothing to lose, let’s write the checks to the church, let’s donate money here, let’s send some to Social Media Ministries, let’s do this, let’s do that,” you are sending your money out and all of a sudden you start making money and you are careful.

“Okay, well now we got to save up to buy this, we got to save up to buy this, we got to cut down on our donation.” Wait a minute, that generosity got you where you are now, you are going to stop providing for others and become selfish, you are denying the faith that God has the ability to keep giving you more so you can continue to provide for others. Do not deny the faith. Have that faith that God can provide for you, your household, and all those other people that you are called to give to.

Whether it is your time, your money, your advice, your work, maybe you are doing things for free to help out other people. Whether you have website design talent or online or you are a mechanic and you are fixing the pastor’s cars for free, whatever it is, keep doing it. Do not deny that faith that God will continue to provide because He will. He will provide.

Keep that faith instead of denying that faith, make that faith bigger. Say, “All right God”—maybe you are a mechanic—“I am fixing two of the pastor’s cars for free. Our books are balancing at zero, we are donating 10 percent of the business to charity and 10 percent of my personal income to charity.

So our household is living on 90 percent. The business is operating on 90 percent and we are fixing two pastors’ cars for free. All the maintenance, oil changes, rotate, balance, anything and anything and everything for free.”

Instead of saying “We are balancing, I am going to cut back to 5 percent,” or “I am going to cut back and only do the main things for free, and if they have a repair they have to pay and I will give them half off.” Instead of cutting back, say, “All right, we are balancing at zero. God, things are tight. I want to do more. I am going to get four pastors in here for free and do it.” Make the call. Commit. God will provide.

Increase your faith, do not decrease your faith. Increase your faith. Write it down. Increase your faith. Live on extra faith. God will provide for not only you, your family, your household, but for all those that you want to provide for. God can do it. Let Him do it. Let Him do it.

1 Corinthians 10:24 says, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” Do not seek your own good. Seek the good of everyone else. Live in faith. God will provide. He will give you everything. You must all serve the Lord, that means everyone in your house.

If you are the only one in your household serving God and other people are going doing sinful things and you are saying “Why are we not getting more, why are we not able to provide for more people?”

It could be because there are sinful people in your household. Remember one reaps and the other sows. So if someone else in your household is sowing sin, your household can be reaping that.

We talked about that before so check that out in another sermon here, it is called “One Reaps and The Other Will Sow.” If you are sinning, other people could be reaping the bad things of that and if they are sinning, you could be reaping that.

So make sure your entire household is of God and then God will continue to pour out more and more blessings upon you so you can bless other people and provide for them.

Joshua 24:15, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Who are you serving? Are you serving God? Are you saying to God “Everything you give me, I am helping others, I am going to provide for my family, my family, the body of Christ, all those other Christians out there”? I want to help them.

Just start picking certain ones, certain places, whether you are supporting a missionary, whether you are supporting a ministry, whether you are supporting a church, however it goes, start doing it. Then maybe you are going to take on more stuff.

You say, “Hey, I am not a mechanic but I have online skills.” All right, how are your online skills? Maybe you are going to help with SEO, search engine optimization for some church, maybe you are going to help with social media management, maybe you are going to help with marketing, you are going to help with something, and guess what?

Maybe you are going to help discounted or you are going to help free, you are going to give it to them as a part of providing for the Kingdom of God. Keep it in mind. Do everything you can do.

Maybe you do not have a lot of money to give away, but you have talent. We have talked about that before too, the importance of using your gifts. Use them. Use your gifts, help the Kingdom grow. That is what is important.

What is the Kingdom? The Kingdom is all those who believe that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. We need to grow. We need to be fruitful and multiply. We need to get more and more people into the Kingdom of God and provide for not only your immediate family, your household, your extended family, but also the rest of the Kingdom of God as much as possible.

As we will talk about next week, not only do you do it while you are alive but you got to have a plan so that it can continue after you are gone. Your children’s children, that is a lot of people. How do you do that? Well, we are going to talk about that more next week so make sure to come back for the conclusion of this awesome sermon series.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You very much for everything that You are blessing each and every one of these people with. Whether they have extra time, maybe they are not working right now and they have all this extra time, inspire them to do something with that time. Maybe volunteering, maybe helping.

Lord, You have given all of them gifts. Inspire them to do something with those gifts. Whether it is helping a church, helping a ministry, helping people, businesses, whatever it is. Maybe they are working a lot.

Maybe they are fortunate enough to have a job and have a bunch of overtime and they have all kinds of money, inspire them to do something with that money now. Not just give it all away, but to really think about it and ponder it.

What are they to do with their time, their skills, their gifts, the things that you have given them, money, the extra vehicles, their house even? What are they to do with everything you have blessed them with? Help them provide for their family, their household, their extended family, their relatives, and the body of Christ. Help them do that.

Allow them to live in extra faith, to always be taking those leaps of faith, to never ever be comfortable. I pray that in Jesus’ name, that they would never be comfortable. That they would always be out of their comfort zone taking those extra steps in faith, living life to the maximum for you, in Your name.

Not foolishly, like credit cards and all these loans and taking wild chances. But that they would live wise, righteously, for You. In Jesus’ name, help them all provide for their family, provide for everyone You wish them to provide for, and help them to seek You so that they know exactly how they are going to do that. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I hope you enjoyed this message. If so, share it, like it down there, hit the subscribe button as well. Remember to do what you can to provide for those around you and those even that you may not know. Come back next week and we will wrap up this sermon series. God bless.

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