Sunday Sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 23 April 2023 

Acts 7: 9-10-9“And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him 10 and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favour and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

• Praise God for His Word! The beginning of a new financial year started this month. I have been wanting to pray for the financial year, but couldn’t do so. But would like to do it before this April ends.

May the Lord make this year the one which is most financially blessed! 

• God was with Joseph. What happened because of that? God delivered him from every challenge and struggle. Some people have 100 struggles and some have 1000! But God delivered Joseph from EVERY one of them! And He will deliver you too. 
• May the power of this Word deliver you from EVERY struggle. May the heavens deliver you and fill you with the joy of the Holy Spirit. May those that came in with heaviness and sorrow and depression, go out of here, set free! The same Lord who set Joseph free from EVERY struggle will deliver you also.
• Joseph named one son Manasseh and another son Ephraim. Manasseh means God has caused me to forget. Many of us have memories of being betrayed, or being hurt or being neglected or unheard. Today the Lord will deliver you from every thought and memory that has been tormenting you. If Manasseh is revealed, then Ephraim will certainly follow

being doubly fruitful! 

Double fruitfulness is coming your way! God will cause you to forget your pain 

In the place of your struggle and pain, God will make you grow and increase!In the midst of my struggle and where I was defeated and broken, fell and was put to shame and dishonoured, that is the very place where I will be honoured and lifted up. 

10 and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favour and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

• Joseph was honoured with favour and wisdom with the Pharaoh. He did not receive favour and mercy from his brethren or with the slave traders or in Potiphar’s home. ButGod gave him favour in the place where he needed it most.

This is a Word for someone- Heaven has appointed favour and mercy for you in the places that are most relevant for you in order to make up for the places and times that you never saw favour either in your family or among your friends. But you will see favour at such high places of influence that will cause your levels to shift.

From this April to the April of next year, God will honour and favour you!!

Only when the right people favour you do the right doors open. God’s opening big doors for you.

• Joseph received favour and wisdom. He received wisdom to build a nation. May the Lordgive your wisdom to build a business, build a home, and build your life. If you are a politician, may the Lord grant you favour to build your party. May you receive wisdom to build your homes and your families.
• God gave Joseph authorityto govern. He was given full control of that nation and fullcontrol of the house of Pharaoh. May the Lord give you full authority.

The Lord is giving some of you the keys of authority to take full control. People in Joseph’s home and community bowed before him.

God blessed Joseph in EVERYTHING. May this blessing become yours at the beginning of this financial year. 

A man of God John G Lake, one of the most powerful men of God was used for a mighty healing ministry. He was my spiritual hero. I used to read his books. When John G lake went to Africa for the gospel. In the Kalahari Desert, when he was preaching the Word, his wife died of hunger. He had 7 children and the children said they did not want the god of their father. They said that if our mother had to die of hunger without having a husband who could feed her, we don’t want that God. They backslid. They left the Lord. 

• You may be people who pray, who worship, who fear God but if you can’t feed your family, you need the blessing of cash flow. The poor and the rich will always be there but we can decide what we want. Many disciples have decided that they don’t want wealth and they have mentioned that they want only spiritual giftings and blessings. Don’t complain later. However, there are also those that ask the Lord for material, financial and spiritual blessings. God has blessed them too. 

Cash flow comes with a decision of what you need. God is ready to give you both.

• ‘Lord, in my life, in my generation, I want to be blessed both financially and spiritually.” Nobody should turn their back on GOD because of your poverty! Your children must be blessed. C’mon ask the Lord to bless you. 

There are 300 scriptures about prayer, 92 scriptures about the second coming of Christ, 98 about baptism and there are 2150 scripturesabout finances! 

• Jesus spoke 37 parables. Of these 23 are related to finances i.e., 61% of the parables are related to finances. In the name of Jesus, heaven is going to bless my finances. 

PARABLES

FOR EXAMPLE, THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS

• We have the talent to pray, worship, to sing songs. But that is not the ‘talent’ that the Word is talking about here. If someone has told you this, they are fooling you. • The talent here refers to a gold bar. One talent is 58.9 kilo gold. 5831 Rs is the value of gold for 1 gram. Therefore, one talent gold is worth 34 crores of rupees! The Lord gave only one talent. We think it is too less! It is not!! One talent is more than enough to run our lives, isn’t it? It is 34 crores. God gave some 2 and some 5 talents. The ones who had two and five doubled it. But the one who had one just buried it and kept it. God called him a wicked servant! If he had placed it in the bank, it would have at least given him interest.

Whatever finances God gives you, you need to double it! Whatever blessing God has given you, you need to double it. Take it and receive that blessing. 

THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SILVER TALKS about the one silver coin that is lost.

THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SON talks about the son who asked for an inheritance from the Father. As long as the father is alive, you needn’t ask for the inheritance, inheritance is only once the father dies. Do you know that you have a loving Father in heaven? Don’t think your heavenly father is dead. He can remove your issues; your struggles and He can make you increase and bless you in the midst of your problems. If you are convinced about that, let the spirit of poverty be broken in Jesus Name.

Let every power of hell that is reducing your financial capacity be destroyed and uprooted from your life. Let there be an increase in Jesus name. Let there be cash flow in Jesus name. 

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER 

• The sower here doesn’t know where to invest. He put some seed on the wayside and some among the rocky places. This year, may you have the wisdom to know where to invest the seed that God gives you. Neither by the wayside nor in rocky lands, but investing it in a place where your money will double. God will give you resources and you need to know where to invest, into which property, into which share and into which building. God wishes to prosper you.

And YOU have the capacity to limit God or to see an increase in your life. CURRENCY- WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN? CURRENT- MEANS FLOW. 

• Currency must flow into you. And not out of you. If God needs to bless your financial year, you need to have a clear picture of how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. Once I understand these scriptures, I started to make a note of everything. 
• That is a responsibility and that shows that you are a good steward, you know where the money is going and coming from. You can’t bless people otherwise. How many of you can show me a record of your finances for the last ten years? 
• This is a difficult sermon to preach for most pastors. But I still am and hope you will listen to it with an open mind and be blessed. 

Cash flow in the name of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 8:9- For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich 

• You need to know this grace. This scripture is not about your spiritual blessing but clearly about your financials. You need to read and internalise both chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians and then you will understand. At least internalize verses 8 and 9.

WHAT IS A MISSION FOR CASH?

1) To meet the needs of your family

You need to pay your child’s school fees. You need to get your children married, you need to build your own home. In all these years of ministry, what I have understood is that people struggle the most with disease and with finances. Jesus has a solution to both these problems. Don’t you want to run your family well? 

2) To serve Jesus with it 

God needs to increase you and bless you so the church is blessed, so we can buy a bigger land for God and serve people for Christ.

3) To touch your world 

There are people with difficulties and challenges. You need to help them out. Open your hand and hearts and bless and help people. People who really know that God has blessed them will help others.

4) To make your life good. 

God doesn’t have a problem with you wearing good clothes and driving a good car. Money is not evil. The love of money is the root of evil. 

• A person who fears God, walks with God and walks righteously following the rules and laws, dealing with the finances correctly and legally, will definitely be blessed in finances. • If you are asking God for it and if you are walking in wisdom for it, God will give it you. But you can’t go only after it.

HOW DOES CASH FLOW COME?

2 Kings 4:2 (AMPC version)-2Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me, what have you [of sale value] in the house? She said, Your handmaid has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.

Here was a woman steeped in debt. Her husband had served God. He had feared God. Her sons were going to be taken away by the debtors. She had nothing in her hand. The prophet asks her “What do you have of sale value in your house?” 

1. Therefore, only if you sell something will something come into your hands. If you have something to be sold, sell it.
2. Do you have any skill set? You need to have the skill set to do something (baking, stitching, plumbing etc). It may be the skill to write or to create music.

You need to nurture, build and grow these skills. A skill set is saleable. • There are people who studied in Oxford and Harvard who still don’t have any jobs and no money. Just because you are educated it doesn’t mean you will become rich. Don’t follow your passion as opposed to most people’s advice.

Don’t follow your passion, instead follow a problem. 

• If you are able to see a problem and are able to solve it, that will become a channel for you to receive cash and financial blessing. That is wisdom. Joseph had that wisdom. He knew how to solve the problem of the famine. He asked God for wisdom to identify the problem and addressed it.

If you identify the problem and you pray and ask God for wisdom in prayer to help you solve it, that is what will bring you the blessing. 

There was a man whose machine broke down. He called for a repair guy, and in less than two minutes, he fixed the machine. This person gave the owner a bill of Rs 10000. The owner was taken aback and he asked the mechanic, why a bill of 10000 for something that just took two minutes of your time? The person took the bill back and wrote behind it, 1 rupee for the two minutes of fixing the problem and Rs 9999 for thinking and assessing where the problem really was and understanding what to do about it.

This financial year, may the Lord grant you wisdom.

Deuteronomy 28:5 says three things: 

1. The Lord will bless the work of my hands 
2. He will fill my basket 
3. God will bless my storehouses.
4. The first level of the financial ladder is the Skill and the Work of my hands. However, this year, you need to figure out your basket. The blessing that is dependent only on the skills of your hands is limited.
5. The second level is that of the Basket-You need to start thinking of your basket, maybe a business.

The Lord can fill your basket. The bigger the basket, the bigger the blessing. 

However, for example, if you are a beautician, you have a skill set and there is a limit to what you can do. But starting a beauty parlour as a business is your basket. 

III. The third level is that of a Storehouse -Let’s move the next level of the ladder, the storehouse. If your beauty parlour has expanded to Aluva, Edapally, Vytilla, etc, that is where is your storehouse 

• When God blesses your financial life, you go up the ladder. When you have a BASKET or at the basket level, you do everything yourself, you take the measurements, you stitch, you buy material etc, but when you move to the Storehouse level, you don’t do everything yourself you have a system in place. 

Learning from Rebekah

When Isaac was about to die, he asked Esau for his favourite red soup. Esau went out hunting for the catch to make the soup, whereas Rebekah had a plan for Jacob to make the soup faster. She had asked Jacob to untie the lamb that was tied in their backyard and that she would make the soup while Jacob would deliver it to Isaac. 

What do we learn from this? 

1. SAVE 

Rebekah had first told Jacob, don’t eat the lambs, find a male and female and tie them up in the backyard. Don’t eat them up though you are tempted. That refers to savings, don’t eat up all that you have. Keep it tied. SAVE. 

When the male and the female goats come together they will reproduce, there will be kid goats and there will be an increase. That is a system. That was Rebekah’s wisdom. 

2. SYSTEM 

When you save and put a system in place that makes your finances grow, you will prosper. On the contrary, if you run to every bank asking for loans or expect your brother-in-law in the USA to lend you money each time you have a need, you will not grow. 

May the Lord’s wisdom be poured forth into your business to put systems in place, and let there be a continuous flow of finances in your life.

WHAT IS POVERTY?

If you don’t have a job for 90 days, will you survive? If not, you are poor. 

COVID came, the company shut and you lost your job, what will you do? Will you die of hunger or will you beg? The Lord’s desire for you is not to stay at this level. 

The Lord will not be put to shame. Walk in accordance to His Word God will give you wisdom and grace.

The first thing needed for a financial flow is that levels must change. 

Salary is slavery. Cutting down life’s experiences, turning off the power, putting kids in cheaper schools, waking up in the morning and wondering how to get through the month 

with the salary you have Is not your portion. This is an issue that I am spiritually battling for the church, I know that many of you are struggling with this limitation. 

There are three boys who decide to go to Delhi. One decides to go walking. The other decides to drive in a car and the third decides to go take a flight. Who reached Delhi first? Obviously, it is the third person who takes the flight. Did this third person reach early because he fasted and prayed or because he/ she was highly qualified or because he/she scored very high marks? No! it was only because of his choice of vehicle. What is your vehicle? 

The vehicle that you use is what will get you to your destination. 

WHAT IS LEVERAGE?

Suppose the second person gives the person walking a lift in their car. That is what is Leverage. Similarly, God has kept a few things for us to get leverage to get us to the financial level that He desires for us. 

The following are the leverage: 

1. OPM- Other People’s Money

Somebody else is willing to share their wealth with you to help you get to where you are supposed to. They may ask you to pay back after you make a 10% profit. That’s fine. Nothing wrong with it. It’s not a loan. It is a vehicle to help you reach where you ought to reach.

I was reading that the richest people do not put their own money into a business but the banks’ money. They have an idea and they are certain to profit. They take the money from the bank and use it for this purpose. That’s ok. That is not a bad debt. 

2. OPC- Other People’s Credibility 

God connected you to somebody that benefits you. The credibility of that person works well for you. You can’t misuse it. If Azim Premji invests in you, others too will come forward to invest in you because they know that Azim Premji is investing after studying extensively about the venture. 

3. OPK- Other People’s Knowledge

It is necessary. No matter where you are in life, you need this.

There is a saying- if you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel as a team.

When you pray for a financial blessing, God will send you financial helpers. They will take youto Delhi in their vehicle and take you there at their expense. Understand that this is God’sfavour! May you encounter such destiny helpers in your life this year. Glory to God. Somebodyreceive it!

It is not just in finances but also in a ministry. You need a team. Not alone. You need a legal consultant, you need a financial consultant, a spiritual covering. You also need a nutritionist. Don’t depend on Google. You need real people.

This year, for cash flow, the vehicle that you need will be sent your way from the heavens.  There will be a cash flow! 

There are four things that will prevent you from attracting financial blessings into your life: 1. Arrogance, 2. Envy, 3. Selfishness and 4. Anger. You need patience, you need to be teachable, you need to learn to love, you need to learn continuously and they become your vehicle to bring cash flow to your life.

Rivers of Paradise (also The four Rivers of Paradise) are the four rivers described in Genesis 2:10-14, where an unnamed stream flowing out of Garden of Eden splits into four branches: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris), and Phrath (Euphrates). 

In the Garden of Eden, God created the garden even before Adam and Eve were created.

There were four rivers. This signifies multiple streams for one family. There were four streams for a family. Not one. Let multiple streams come forth into your life. 

1. Pishon- It means free flow. Every month, let this flow freely. May the Lord open a free flowing financial river for you! 
2. Gihon- It means sweet water- It refers to sudden favour and gift from someone. May you enjoy sweet water. For example, my father-in-law decides to bless me with a car. 3. Hiddekel- It means rapid like an arrow- some blessings may come speedily into your life this financial year- hitting the target, whether it is in your company or for your need. 4. Euphrates- It means breakthrough- It means break open with force something. It breaks forth into your life without not you struggling to get hold of it.

Let the curse of poverty be broken in Jesus name. Financial rivers and streams to open up. A release of cash flow in Jesus Name.

The same God who delivered Joseph in the nation and from every difficulty he faced, deliver you too. I pray for open heavens for you. Let every bondage that keeps you away from your financial blessing, be broken. May you have breakthrough money.

Everything has its own language. Only if you understand the financial language can you experience financial blessings. God is trying to get resources to you but you need to understand the language. Have you seen doctor writing prescriptions? You think he is drawing a train and only the pharmacist understands it! Even in the Bible, we need to understand the financial language. Assets, liability, tax, income, investments- you need to understand all this. 

A cash flow is coming!