SUMMER BREAK: Quid Pro Quo
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
A Phony Call
On Thursday, I just got back in my office, and I got this phone call. The number was blocked, and the person that called said, “Well congratulations! You just won, like, $850,000 from Publishers Clearing House.” Right? “You won the sweepstakes.”
Now, I have never filled out any information for the sweepstakes, and so—but you are excited. I mean, anybody’s excited when you hear it’s like, hey there’s $850,000. There’s a couple of projects that’s coming up. I know Hailey needs to go to college at some point; that’s gonna cost $850,000.
And then they said, “Yeah, $5000 for the rest of your life every Friday.” It’s like, well sweet! And this guy was really good. I mean, very convincing. He kind of cheered on the other end, and he’s like, “Is your driveway clear?”
I said, “Yeah, my driveway is clear.”
He said, “Because the media will be showing up, and you also get a pickup, so we have three color options—a white, a blue, and a red. Which one?”
I said, “Well, I prefer black, but I’ll take white, you know, in this case.”
And so he just is like going on. He said, “There’s gonna be a CPA. Do you want the CPA to go with you to the bank to verify? Because you’re gonna get the big check and the roses and the champagne, right, that you see on tv when you win this thing.”
So it’s like, I’m excited. So and then he’s like, he goes on, and he’s like, “So what are you gonna do with the money?”
And I said, “Well I’m just busy here with Nick in my office; we’re working through some SKC stuff and the sermon. I haven’t really thought about all of this.” But I did say, “Hey I’m gonna give money to my church, and I’m thinking about a missions trip next year with my family—I know that’s gonna cost some money.” And so we talk about that.
And so now this guy’s like, “Praise Jesus!” on the other end.
It’s like, this guy’s a Christian now, sweet! Right? I mean, he’s ready to just preach it and let it rip, and it’s like, well now it’s legit, right? It’s like, “I should call Venessa,” like, “Venessa, you better—I don’t know what you’re wearing right now for work and stuff, but put some makeup on. You’re on TV!” Right? “Look for Fox 9 to show up.”
So he’s like, “But, so a couple things—you need this number,” and he gives me this official number that I need, and he says, “Have identification ready,” and he says, “You need to go to Kwik Trip or,” (names a list of stores). He said, “Which one is the nearest to you?”
I said, “Well, Kwik Trip.”
He said, “Well go and get this card, register this card, and you have to deposit on it $500.”
I was like, “Well I thought I’m winning $850,000. What’s up with this registration card piece?”
He’s like, “No no, because now they’re gonna deposit this $5000 every Friday in this account.”
I said, “But I need $500. What makes you think—I’m in ministry, I don’t have two cards.” And it’s two cards because Venessa’s getting $5000. I’m getting $5000, right? And good thing is, I didn’t think about retirement or writing my resignation letter for you guys, so that’s a compliment to all of you.
And so he’s like, “Okay, so go to Kwik Trip. How long do you need to go to Kwik Trip and then go home so that you can receive the group that is coming?”
I said, “Well probably half an hour, hour,” right? But I kind of hanged up when he said, “Go to Kwik Trip.”
And so he calls back. I said, “Why did you call back?” I said, “Because I’m assuming this is a scheme, right?”
And He’s like, “No no no, your life is gonna change, and they say ‘seeing is believing.’ Praise Jesus.” Right?
And so I listen to the story. I have to hang up, call Venessa and said, “Did you fill anything in? Sweepstakes?”
She’s like, “No, we didn’t do anything.”
I said, “Well, here’s probably a scam, blah blah blah,” and didn’t go to Kwik Trip, didn’t get the cards, right?
And so he calls back, like, “Do you have the cards?”
I said, “Yes I have the cards.”
He said, “Did you load the money?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “What type of cards?” And I couldn’t remember what card he wanted me to get. So he’s like, “You’re not just saying that you’re having this card, right?”
I said, “Well no, I have the card. Where’s my truck?” Right? And so then he hung up, and it’s like, there goes the dream, right?
Discernment
And so first of all, I hope that’s a warning to you when you get that phone call. It’s like, hey, I hope this will be helpful. But it was so convincing for that moment when you hear your life is gonna change, somebody’s bringing a pickup, right? Or $850,000 or $5,000. It’s like, you don’t always think straight in that moment. And so you really need discernment. And so that’s one small piece. But in our life, in all the things that we are dealing with right now in our world, with what is going on with the news and politics, we need a lot of discernment and a lot of wisdom. Charles Spurgeon gives this quote. He says:
“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
That is very, very true. So I want to just even share with you this morning—if you are a believer, if you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you and I can experience and we can have discernment. The Holy Spirit giving us the discernment, so we don’t have to fall for all of the enemy’s tricks and things that we face in our life. So just some practical things this morning:
Make Bible reading a daily habit. When you read God’s Word and when you understand His Word, that will really give you a lot of wisdom for the things that you and I will experience. Because again, there is a lot of lies out there.
Regularly pray for God’s wisdom and guidance. James 1:5 encourages us to ask for wisdom, and God generously gives it to us. I’m so grateful that we can pray and ask God for wisdom. And again, I want to encourage you, do that every morning. When you get an opportunity in that morning, say, “God, give me wisdom. I need wisdom to maneuver through all of the complexities of what this day might bring.”
Then, rely on the Holy Spirit for understanding and application of Scripture. The Spirit helps us discern truth and gives us insight beyond our natural ability. Part of the Covenant Church, we talk about the Six Affirmations. One of those affirmations means to rely on the work of the Holy Spirit, right? To make that conscience dependence on the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit needs to be such a vital part of the believer’s life. It can’t just be something that’s on the outside and that we don’t tap into. We have one of the greatest gifts, the gift of the Holy Spirit inside of us, and for us to actually get to know his voice, to listen, because the Holy Spirit will guide you, and it will give you those little flags and warning signs to say, “Hey, stop. This might be a scheme of the enemy,” right? Or, “Go ahead. Here’s some direction.” And so it’s an area that, as believers, we really need to tap into more.
This past week, you maybe even saw just the Surgeon General’s call to action on social media. I don’t know if anybody saw that, right? And so the call is this: he said they are seeing the danger of social media when it comes to—especially to our kids. And they’re saying that the profound impact that it has on our mental health. And so he is recommending to put a label on social media. Nobody knows what that’s gonna look like. Almost like when somebody’s smoking, and on the packs, you know, back in the day, it’s like, “Hey, warning, this can cause cancer.” And so there’s some political pieces around this, but it was interesting. And now I believe—I haven’t seen it yet, but I am pretty sure social media will fight back and say, “Well, here’s all the research. There is no consequences in the life of our students. It doesn’t cause mental health,” right?
And so just in some of these areas, then how do we make sure that we have discernment? Because there is so many different messages out there, and sometimes you can even have three or four different messages within a church. And so then what do you do? Well, it’s really important, again, that we look at God’s Word.
Prosperity Gospel
Now, when we think about the prosperity gospel—kind of a definition, “The prosperity gospel often takes scripture out of context, leading believers to think that financial success is a sign of God’s favor.” Right? And I grew up a little bit with it. I’ve seen that a lot in South Africa, and in Africa, where there’s a lot of deception. And obviously, definitely in America, because a lot of times the deception that is coming into Africa and some of these communities is American influence with some of these bad teachings. And it can really have major impact on people’s lives.
The prosperity gospel shifts the focus from God’s glory and the advancement of his Kingdom to personal gain and comfort. It’s a faith that says, “What can God do for me?” instead of, “How can I serve God and others?”
And so the impact that it can have on our culture is this—and that we have already seen, is when the promised prosperity doesn’t materialize, believers can feel disillusioned and think they lack faith or that God has abandoned them. This can lead to a crisis of faith, where people walk away from God altogether. And if we’re honest and we look at the last twenty years, we have seen a lot of this. And not just in our culture, but all across the world. And we have been promised these bad theology and lies, and then when we go through hard things and challenges in our lives, then people think, “Whoa, it is my faith that’s not enough,” or we think that, “I fell out of favor and God is just punishing me,” right? And this can be really dangerous, and then people fall away from the faith. And we will continue to see it.
Back in the 80s and in the 90s, I grew up, you’ve maybe seen a lot of this stuff on TBN, right? Many years ago, I was still in Fairmont. There was friends of ours that invited us to California. They were part of a megachurch, and they were gonna have a conference. There was no cost for the conference, and our friend said, “Hey, we’ll fly you guys over and you can stay with us. Come and be part of this conference.” And we did. And so the first night, there was one of these prosperity preachers on—and if I share her name, you will immediately know who that is—but I left that service, and I felt so discouraged because there was nothing about Jesus. And it was all about these principles about making money, being wealthy, and, you know, when you give, then, you know, God is gonna bless you, and all of these things. And I was just so—because it was a packed house, big auditorium—and I was like, man, this does not line up with God’s Word. And we said, hey, if there’s another of those messages during that conference, that we would not return. And praise the Lord, it did change, and hopefully the leadership had some conversations with the rest of the speakers.
Quid Pro Quo
Even in a sense, when we think about this—you know, I think we’re more familiar with this in political terms. You’ve maybe heard this a lot lately, the quid pro quo. But this can be true in our faith as well. So quid pro quo is a Latin phrase that means “something for something.” In essence, it refers to an exchange where one party provides a good, service, or favor in return for something of equal value from another party. Quid pro quo means “something given or received for something else.” There’s nothing inherently illegal in giving or receiving something in exchange for something else, but in legal contexts, quid pro quo often refers to something that is, in fact, illegal, such as if a company gives a government official money in exchange for receiving a contract that rightly should be given to whatever company is best able to meet the requirements for that contract.
So how does that play out? Well, even when we look at Old Testament, New Testament, right? If you needed physical healing, then you would go and sacrifice to one of the Greek gods. Apollo, right? And it’s like, “Okay, I do this. Now I’m gonna receive my healing.” Or, “Hey, I need—I’m struggling to have a kid, and I’m just gonna sacrifice to whatever god is convenient in that moment, and then I will get pregnant.”
And a lot of times we treat God like he is a genie in a bottle, right? And it is so easy for us in our context and our culture to think that God needs to dance according to whatever request we have. And we have lost sight of God’s sovereignty and who God is. You and I are absolutely nothing in comparison to who God is. He doesn’t own us anything. We don’t just, you know, rub and say, “Okay, Lord,” and just kind of almost like gambling, put in some coins and then say, “Okay, I’m gonna do this. Now I can bribe or twist God’s arm.” At the end of the day, God is God, and he is still sovereign. And we need to pray according to his Word.
And we don’t have to just go back to Old Testament and New Testament—even within the Catholic Church. That’s why we had part of the Reformation. Before the Reformation, the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church had made indulgences common practices. The basis of this tradition was based on the belief that divine favor could be obtained through human merits, especially financial ones. In other words, by giving money to the church, God forgave sins and caused the donor to spend less time in purgatory after death. Can you see all of the deception, right? And again, it is still in our day and age as well.
Let me give you one example. Deuteronomy 8:18 says:
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 his ancestors as it is today.
So how do you interpret this verse? And then what is the correct context? When you look at Deuteronomy 8:18, a lot of times you will see this being misused within the prosperity teachings. So just look at that, okay? And, you know, you and I can come up with all kinds of interpretations, but if you have done your work and you’ve looked at some commentaries, then you’ll see here is kind of the full context of that:
Deuteronomy 8, Moses is reminding the Israelites…
So this message wasn’t written for us today. This was written fully into the context of God’s people, to the Israelites.
… to remember God’s provision as they entered the Promised Land. The “ability to produce wealth” refers to the means to thrive in the land through God’s provision, not a guarantee of individual riches. It’s a call to gratitude and faithfulness to God’s covenant, recognizing that all blessings come from him. The focus is on God’s overall provision for his people, and not personal prosperity.
And so again you can have a fancy, good communicator/preacher, and he brings that verse up, and without any context, right? And God in this context is saying to the Israelites to say, “Hey, I brought you out of your slavery, and everything that you have right now is because of me.” And that’s the context. This is not a formula to get rich.
How Rich Am I?
So talking about being rich—I think this is another lie that we believe within the western culture. So I gotta say this, so hear me this morning. It’s very important. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being rich. If God has blessed you with a lot of wealth, right, and you’re using it for his glory, praise the lord! We are super grateful for you and that the Lord has blessed you. That is great.
But again, in our culture—I remember back in the day when I started in Fairmont, there was a family that invited us for lunch or for dinner, and they said, “Hey, I apologize, we live on the wrong side of the tracks, so our house isn’t looking the greatest when you come over.” So they’re already apologizing for what their house looks like, right? And so we went for dinner, and inside they are remodeling their whole kitchen, right? And just a beautiful house, but at least in their mind, they’re like, “We’re poor. We’re on the wrong side of the tracks.” It’s like, you have no idea what is poor, right? You don’t say you’re poor, and then there’s a kitchen remodeling going on. But there’s a concept in our minds in how we compare with one another.
There’s a link in the Bible app. If you go—not now because you still got to listen to my message. But when you get home, I want to challenge you—homework. Go to that link, and you’re gonna fill in your annual salary. Just put a number out there. I took mine and Vanessa’s, put it in there, and we ended up being in the 9% of the richest people in the world. In the world, right? So are we poor? Well, in our eyes, we’re middle class, right? I would always like, “Hey, well, in comparison...” But in the rest of the world, I am so rich. We are all so rich. So when God’s Word talks to the rich, he’s talking to all of us.
648 million people in the world, about 8% of the global population, live in extreme poverty, which means they subsist on less than $2.15 per day.
That’s poor, right? And so we need to have a new concept and a better understanding in global perspective on what it means to be rich.
Scriptural Rebuttals of the Prosperity Gospel
Now, here’s something important. Kind of, I want to take on the whole prosperity gospel. Luke 9:23 says this:
Then he said to them all, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
It doesn’t say, you know, it’s like, “See how rich you can get out of this deal.” It says to take up your cross and to deny yourself. When we look at the Greek word here, it means “to deny, to forget oneself, to lose sight of oneself and one’s own interest.” Even if you’re not in the prosperity gospel, I think we will all agree that this is hard for all of us every day in any case, right? To deny ourselves. It is not easy.
Luke 6:35:
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.”
They’re saying, “Hey, help your neighbor. Give them a hundred bucks so that you can get a thousand dollars back.” And that’s what’s being preached, right? “Well you give today. Give a thousand dollars because tomorrow you’re gonna get that ten thousand dollars back.” And it doesn’t line up with God’s Word.
“Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”
Here are some common traits of many prosperity preachers or false teachers. This is from GotQuestions.org.
The core of his/her messages is always God’s desire to bless everyone.
There is little mention of Jesus’ words about self-denial, taking up our crosses, or dying to the flesh
Almost all their teachings focus on the gratification of fleshly desires rather than spiritual transformation
Forgiveness is emphasized, but with very little explanation of repentance that was so important to Jesus and the disciples
Why Believers Should Give
Now let me add this this morning. Should believers give? As followers of Jesus Christ, should we give? Absolutely. So why should we give?
It reflects God’s generosity. When we think about John chapter 3:16, it says, “God gave his son.” You and I will never outgive God. But because the Spirit of God is inside of us, we need to have a spirit that is generous. And I want to give.
Number two, it cultivates a spirit of generosity. You can look at Proverbs 11:25. I don’t know about you, but it is so easy—especially when you see all of the different needs that’s out there sometimes in our lives, right? Different things, it’s like there’s always something bigger, better that we want, and it’s easy to fall into the trap to just not to be generous, not to give. And God wants us to cultivate a spirit of generosity. We need to, and to be people that live with an open hand and not with a closed hand.
And then Romans 8:17, we have received much. We have received so much. When we think about all of the blessings, all of the good things that’s in our lives, why not give? Right? And at the end of the day, God has provided all of these things in our life.
Treasure in Heaven
I want to close with this passage, Romans 8:17 and verse 18. A great passage. At some point, we will work through the book of Romans again. It says:
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—and heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
What is Paul saying here? Well, a couple of things. The good news this morning is that you and I are heirs of God and of Jesus Christ, right? We are his sons and his daughters. He is sharing his inheritance, in a sense, with us. How cool is that? Is that exciting for anybody? Okay, there’s four of us. I might have to—I’m gonna give your number to that telemarketer or schemer, right? That is wonderful.
And so—but then Paul continues to say, right? He says when we deal with suffering and things in this world, nothing will compare to the riches and the glory that we will experience in Heaven, right? And so Paul was able to say that all the things that he went through—the beatings, the persecution—to be able to endure that, to say, “Okay, here’s all of this, but in comparison to what I’m gonna experience at some point with Christ, man, this is nothing.” And that’s exciting. It’s exciting for us to know that even though we go through suffering, we do struggle with all kinds of illnesses, and there’s a lot of pain in this world, right, for us not to think, “Oh, as a believer, I’m not gonna deal with any of those things,” because we have all experienced those things. James reminds us that we will go through trials, right? And God will use that. When we are believers in Jesus Christ, the promise is this—that God, when we go through hard things and challenges and we bring that to God and we stay faithful, that he will turn that around for his glory and that we will look better at the end of the day after we walked through some of those things. But do not fall into the trap to think that you and I will never experience pain, you and I will never experience challenges—hey, we live in a broken world, but God is with us. God is with us. And at some point, when we lay down this physical body here and we’re with Jesus Christ, like, man, it’s gonna be worth it, and it’s gonna be awesome. But don’t fall into the trap to think, “Man, I got to just chase after physical things.” There’s a place—it’s nice to have pretty and good things, but man, let’s keep our eye on the ball, and that is Jesus Christ. Let’s use discernment in all that we do.
Discernment in Politics
Do I have—I can do two more minutes. I want to share with you one more thing here. There’s just kind of—on my heart with this political season that we’re in. Can we talk a little politics? You’re gonna be okay? You gonna be okay? Okay, good.
In Colorado Springs we’ve got kind of—part of our family tradition is to try and get Hailey out on horseback riding every time we’re in a new place. And I want to be the father of the year, so I always go over and set this stuff up. Am I the father of the year? Okay, good. And there was this kind of real cowboy-looking dude. You know, Colorado out west. And so we got to talk about politics and about faith and God, and he’s like, well, he’s a believer. Great conversation.
I said, “Where do you fellowship church?”
And he had some interesting opinions about church and different things. And so, and then he said this, he said—we talked about politics and just this year, and he’s like, “Well,” he said, “the setup is that—the setup works like this, that in a sense, we are all set up to hate each other. And when we hate each other, other people make money. And that’s what the news sell at the end of the day.” Right?
And I was listening to a podcast. I don’t know how I am even ended up on this, but it was talking about we’re so either you’re on the right or on the left, and we believe—so this comes within the discernment piece—sometimes when… if you’re… maybe you’re a conservative Republican, right? And it’s like, man, we want to just keep going to the right, and whenever you’re at the end of that right piece and this whole piece falls off to the right, then Jesus is there. And then maybe the other view is sometimes to the left. We constantly hear people, it’s like, “Well, we’re just gonna go more and more left.” And I don’t know where’s that drop off, but whenever you get to that drop off, you have Satan on that end. And that is such a lie in some of these views on what is happening in our politics.
And what is making me so frustrated within the church is that we don’t have the discernment to have just conversations through hard topics anymore. And we put people immediately in different boxes when we hear these triggered terms, right? And so in our lives at least, the last several years, Venessa’s had an electric vehicle. And so when I joke and have conversation with people about Venessa’s electric vehicle, right, it doesn’t matter—I might be right here on this edge of this right-wing piece, right? I might be so conservative; I might be the face for the Republican party (which I’m not, okay?), but because I’ve said my wife drives an electric vehicle, guess what? There’s not gonna be conversation. I am now gonna be put wherever it is on this leftist piece, right? And so how then can we—and I have—it is not a climate thing for me, right? But it’s like, I like to save—I’m lazy to go to the gas station, so this works for us. So there’s not a political piece, but don’t say, “This is an electrical…” Now it’s like—but we do that. And then when we hear these triggered terms, now what we do is we create kind of a false identity, and then we say, “Well, that idiot.” As soon as somebody doesn’t agree with my views or some of these things, then we say, “What an idiot.” And we do it. We all do it.
And so I want you—I want us, because I do it too, same thing. When there’s some of these hot topics that I feel very strongly about, when there’s somebody on the other side, I immediately put them in a box, and I say, “What an idiot.” We do it. And so what if we start to have a spirit of discernment even in all of these things and to pay attention to say, “Where is Satan in some of this,” where he’s trying to break the unity within our families, break the unity within our church, right? So let’s not just put people in a box, but let’s have that conversation. And praise the Lord, God is so much bigger. There’s not Jesus on the one end of the scope and Satan on the other scope of things. God is way bigger and way more sovereign than all of these things. Amen?
