“Trust Funded” 

Pastor David Moore  

Old Testament reading: Malachi 3:1-7 (NIV)  

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.  But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.  “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.  

“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them.  Return to me, and I will return to  you,” says the Lord Almighty.  

Theme today: We’re set to get this great inheritance from God and in the meantime we are drawing hope and love and grace and the Holy Spirit and its presence right now, month in and month out, much like a trust fund.  

New Testament reading:Ephesians 1:12-23 (NIV)  

…in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory.  

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.  I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has  called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.  

I like the idea of a trust fund. I’m sure we’d all like a real one. The trust fund is a foretaste. ~D. Moore  

We have all the glorious riches of God and yet we’re depressed or frustrated, or disappointed and it doesn’t feel like God’s glorious riches are mine. We know now we are loved and adopted and forgiven and accepted no matter what. What we feel often interferes with what we know God works. His plan will move forward even involving our sin. ~D. Moore  

So there is this wonderful freedom we have in Christ. We have been adopted (past tense) we are a part of God’s Kingdom, present (present tense) and for the future. ~D. Moore  

Your draining on your trust fund in the present tense is the down payment, and actual piece of Christ of what is coming later. We get a bit of the life of heaven given to us now, in our death, the sealing of the Spirit. It is vital that we live as Christians; knowing what is coming. ~D. Moore

If we can see and understand more completely how much God loves us, how much we are protected and valued, then we will be able to handle the curve balls that come our way. ~D. Moore  

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it. ~Maya  Angelou  

The rubber hits the road when people are on their deathbed.  Some people struggle because they really don’t know God that well. Others die well and are at peace. ~D. Moore  

The difference between these two groups of believers is that one group develops a heart for God through prayer and reflecting on how much God has loved them. The other group has not prepared themselves for when they meet God. Our spiritual development of knowing God takes time. ~D. Moore  

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. ~Saint Augustine  

The Holy Spirit in our lives is a deposit, the initial payment of our trust funds. If we believe the Word, if we accept Jesus’ lordship and authority over us, the Holy Spirit is coming to heal and prepare and shape us in preparation for meeting God. ~D. Moore  

What I am ultimately saying is that either everything matters, or nothing matters. It depends on whether or not history is moving towards an end, or a climax, or whether it never ends or loops around again and again. ~D.  Moore  

Scripture says we have an inheritance, which means there is something coming which is not here now, and that means we are moving towards something, a better time, a redeemed time when the universe will be rewarded.  ~D. Moore  

Hearing is one thing, believing is another; believing biblically means to trust and rest. To put our hope in something is the same as believing in it. ~D. Moore  

…if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important.  Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again. ~William P. Young  

Being a Christian is wonderful because a lot of it is remembering ourselves of who we are. When we stress, it is because we are forgetting who we are, and where we are headed. ~D. Moore  

The Holy Spirit, who is first a seal and a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. A seal refers to a royal seal that only a king can give. So how do I know I belong to the King?
1) He renovates our character.
2) The Holy Spirit gives us assurance by letting us sense the presence of God. ~D. Moore  

HOPE is not a philosophy, it’s a person, JESUS.  

Try to live this day with the thought that God loves you. He willed you to be and He desires for you to love forever, to always exist. Never to be blotted out from His memory.  

God thinks of us as a wonderful possession. He thinks how lucky to have us and He feels wealthy when He looks at us; we are God’s cherished possession.

This week: Rest in the thought of how God looks at us.

God bless you.