Well, how's everybody this morning?
You know, sometimes I get on Pastor Igor's case on that.
Because sometimes we ask those kind of questions.
Just, how are you doing? We don't really want to know.
It's just a greeting.
I threaten to say, I can't do it because it's a bad confession.
But I'm threatened to say, I'm horrible, man. Everything's going wrong.
It's just falling apart.
And see what a person does when they say, how are you doing, Pastor?
It's just horrible. I mean, everything's going south.
And see what they do with that.
Because we usually ask the question and we don't want anything but a positive answer.
Like, oh good, great.
So you got something else to think about?
All right, this morning we're going to review
We're into a topic that many times people look at as being negative.
Shouldn't be talked about in the church.
Things like that.
And it's, we're finishing a subject that the last message I spoke on it was October 12th.
And of last year.
And since then it's just been interrupted, interrupted, interrupted.
So I've got, I'm going to get her done now between this Sunday and next Sunday.
Mothers, we're going to honor you, but I will finish this just in case we hit the ditch again on my plans.
And that's fine. God can do whatever he wants to do.
But it's been prolonged.
We've been talking about financial giving.
This is the fourth in a group of series on this.
And we're dealing with tithing now.
And many times people look at that as being a taboo subject.
You shouldn't talk about it.
People get uncomfortable.
And, you know, so why would you bring it up?
And we're not understanding all the positive sides to it.
There are a tremendous amount of benefits to financial giving.
So we're going to jump back in.
And since it's been over six months, coming up on seven months now,
since we've touched this, I thought I better just take the whole morning and do some reviewing here.
Get us back on the same page.
We probably have some new people with us.
So they have no clue what I talked about.
So we're going to just spend this morning reviewing and talking about some of this stuff to remind us what it's all about.
The first benefit in financial giving is not for God.
It's for us.
That's the first benefit.
And it's for us in ways that many times we don't think about,
because we're Americans and we're selfish and we like people to give us money,
whether it be raises at work or more business in our company or whatever.
But one of the things that financial giving does that benefits us,
it's right there with fasting in my mind.
It really challenges the flesh.
Because our old nature does not want to participate.
Our old nature doesn't like to fast.
And our old nature does not like to let go of Abraham Lincoln.
We just hang on to him.
And we've got all kinds of reasons and excuses why we have to hang on to him.
And one of the reasons in my opinion, and we'll give you several which fall in the same category,
but one of the reasons is to challenge our flesh.
It helps us grow and mature emotionally and spiritually.
Folks, I don't...
If I go the direction of my old nature, my fallen nature,
I don't like giving any more than you do.
I mean, let's be real.
If you follow your old nature, it does not want to give.
It'll receive real well.
But it doesn't want to give.
That's why it's a challenge for us.
We have to step out of that realm into our new divine nature realm
and start seeing things from God's perspective
so that we can participate in what that divine nature is offering us.
So it helps us grow emotionally and spiritually.
I mean, there's times that he'll ask you to make a choice that just seems like,
wow, really, God?
And we're going to have one really good testimony at the end here this morning,
but I've shared this before because it was so traumatic to my flesh.
We were in Colorado.
We had 401 or $2 in the bank.
And God asked me to be in sales.
It's like, God, really?
And it was to teach me some things, you know, faith specifically.
And we were running out of money.
Call it what it is.
And so we're searching and trying to say,
okay, God, what do we do?
And he said, here's what I want you to do.
I want you to give $400 of that to a certain ministry.
I knew I heard God.
I didn't want to.
It's like, are you serious?
That's the first time he had ever asked me to do something like that.
Are you serious?
I'll be left with a buck or two?
Rent's coming.
How are we going to eat?
I mean, really, God?
It will challenge our old nature and our emotions.
At the time, I thought, well, if we're going down,
let's go down with a flame of flash, you know.
Let's do it big.
God did not have that intended.
God had something way better intended.
And as a result, you can see, we didn't go down.
But by submitting number one,
well, there's a number of things that happened,
but the biggest thing that happened is we kicked open a door
so that he could get what we needed into our hands.
Because that $400, if he had just left us with that
and nothing came on top of that,
wouldn't have paid our bills.
We needed more.
So he said, kick the door open.
And everything inside me, you know,
if you're going to call it just really what it is,
everything inside me said, this is nuts.
This is...this is...
Okay.
But it did open avenues,
and that's one of the reasons for giving,
avenues of blessing that are closed if we don't do it.
And I'm going to touch something next Sunday.
I just mentioned it here,
so it's a double thing so you remember it.
We are no longer under the curse of the law.
So if you don't give financially or tithe,
you are not cursed.
However, blessing comes with the obedience of giving.
So you might say, well, I'm not cursed.
Yeah, but are you blessed?
You haven't opened the avenues or the doors
for the blessing to come through.
There is a difference,
because a lot of times Christians are,
are you telling me I'm cursed if I don't give?
No, we're not under the law.
But I am telling you this,
if you don't give and open those doors,
you're not going to walk in that blessing.
It's just how it works.
So number one, the first benefit for us,
secondly, it shows God if we can,
if we love him and how much we love him,
I'll show you scripture in that this morning
to remind you, if we can be trusted by him.
And lastly, it's the way he chose to finance his kingdom
to spread the gospel, provide for the ministry.
And like we heard last week,
it's the way that God stakes his claim in areas or territories
by establishing, you could call them altars,
you could, in our case, you could call them welds,
it's churches.
God uses it to establish churches.
You know, I just heard yesterday.
How, in Texas, how alarmed they are,
because of the, I just got to say it the way it is,
can't water it down or you won't get it,
because of the Muslim influx into Dallas
and some of these cities, I guess Epic City
or what it's called, just received its approval
and now they can build their own little compound
or city setting.
And some people are very, very alarmed about this
and how it's, and they were, I was watching a video
and they were showing the mosques.
The place where the Dallas Cowboys used to train
and work out and where the,
both the team and the cheerleaders,
it was the hub of where everything happened
for the Dallas Cowboys.
That's all gone now and it's a big mosque.
And they were all very upset about that.
Well, my mind went back to last Sunday's message.
You know what they're doing?
They're staking a claim.
We're here.
And we're here to stay.
And everybody who looks in and says,
you know, if they'd set up a big mosque in Cambridge,
we'd say, wow.
They're taking a stand like we're here.
Well, exactly.
That's what church buildings do also.
And last Sunday's message that Josh gave,
I mean, he just laid that out so clearly that,
hey, one of the reasons God wants this to happen
is he wants a presence of churches
in lands where he is Lord.
And they're doing the same thing
because the principle works
and they're just staking the claim in the other way.
So, before we review,
I want to answer a couple of questions that came in.
One is common.
Pastor, why are we talking about money?
That's just a common one.
Tied behind that was a suggestion.
Wouldn't it be better to talk about something encouraging
rather than money and giving?
Well, what that tells me is you don't understand it yet
because one of the most encouraging things is
to understand this because if we know it,
then you're not destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Do you know that there's more Bible references?
I'll give you some numbers a little later.
There's more Bible references that deal with finances,
wealth, lands, properties, et cetera,
and how God looks at that and wants us to participate in that.
It's five to one.
In the Bible, that God talks about money, wealth,
that realm versus love.
Wouldn't it be better if we just talked about love?
Well, God talked about it five times more in Scripture
than he did love.
So maybe we should talk about it.
Well, it bothers me.
Well, maybe you need to grow.
Pastor Igor, he's helping teach in the Children's Church
this morning.
If he was here, I'd say he's Pastor Igor.
That's syncretism.
Have you been watching our podcast?
You know what syncretism is?
Come on, people.
It's another way to get you a little further down the road.
You've got worldviews, biblical worldview.
Four percent of this nation has a scriptural biblical worldview.
Four percent.
And yet we're a Christian nation.
The biggest thing now is syncretism.
Ninety-two percent of this nation
and the number is almost the same
for industrialized countries around the world.
People, their worldview is syncretism.
What is worldview?
Worldview is how we interact and exchange in life.
It's what we believe.
It determines what we think.
It determines our decisions.
It determines how we act, what we do,
our goals, our priorities.
It's how we view life.
Syncretism is a cut-and-paste approach.
You grab like a buffet or a smorgasbord.
You grab the things you like from wherever.
It could be eastern mysticism.
It could be whatever.
I like that.
So I'm going to take that
and bring it into my belief system.
I'm going to believe that,
and I like this, believe that.
And so we build our own belief system
of how we're going to live life
and view the world through a cut-and-paste
approach.
And it's based on three things.
Comfort, convenience, and what makes us happy.
Can you imagine raising a child with that?
Honey, you know everything we tell you,
you just decide what you like
and we'll let you live however you want
to according to whatever makes you comfortable,
what's convenient for you,
and what makes you happy.
You would raise a living terror.
But that's syncretism.
That's the worldview.
So you say, well, I don't, you know,
it makes me uncomfortable to talk about money.
Well, maybe it should.
Maybe you should get rid of your syncretistic approach
and say, well, I don't do anything
that doesn't make me uncomfortable,
or that makes me uncomfortable.
And get back to Scripture
where he actually not only makes us uncomfortable,
but he asks us to die to the things
that are wrong.
Death is always uncomfortable.
Nobody's involved with dying to their flesh here.
That should have been a, oh, yeah, death is hard.
It's uncomfortable.
Amen, brother.
Well, that's what this is all about.
So let's talk about it a bit.
You need to see this Scripture
to really understand God's review of this,
why we need to talk about it.
The love of money is the root of all evils.
Just don't think about that.
All evils.
They're not attached to money.
They're attached to the love of money
and us craving it.
So big question is, who or what do we love the most?
Do we love God the most?
Do we love money the most?
The definition for love there is not a copy.
It's that Greek word, number 5365,
and the definition is to have an avarice
or love of money.
Well, avarice is an excessive
or insatiable desire for wealth or profit.
Excessive or insatiable desire
for wealth or profit.
Well, so the question is,
if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength,
we should have an excessive
and insatiable desire for God.
Not for money.
In other words, insatiable, I can't get enough.
That's what that word means.
I can't get enough.
I don't have enough. I need more.
That should be directed towards God, not money.
When it gets directed towards money,
it becomes the root of every evil thing in our life
because we start building everything around,
I have to have more.
The excessive, insatiable desire for wealth or profit
is the root of all evils.
So here is a question we should ask ourselves.
When do we have enough?
Because that will answer
whether we have an insatiable desire.
When do we have enough?
You know, we set goals on almost everything.
If you're going to exercise, you've got a goal.
You know when enough is enough.
I'll go this much, I'll push my body this hard
and then I'll have enough.
Raising children, when is enough?
How many are you going for?
Everybody's got a goal on that.
No matter what we do in life,
we have a, well, this would be enough.
How many of you have set that same goal with money?
Once I get this much, it would be enough.
You know what, I bet you none of us.
You know why?
Because we're Americans and our culture tells us
you never get enough.
More, more, more.
The more the better.
That is exactly what Paul said,
don't do.
Isn't this good?
Some of your faces are kind of like a donkey.
They're just getting longer and longer.
There's never enough.
You know, my brother brought this up to me.
He said, why are Christians, because he was talking,
he knew a number of Christian businessmen
who were multi-multi-millionaires
and he rubbed shoulders with them.
And he had gotten to the point
where he didn't want to expand anymore.
And one of the guys asked him, he said,
it looks like you quit buying homes
and this, that and the other.
He said, what's the deal?
He said, and he asked that question.
He said, well, you know,
how have you determined when it's enough?
You know what the guy said?
He said it's never enough.
You always keep moving forward,
leveraging your properties, buying more.
You just more, more, more, more, more.
That is an insatiable desire
for money or wealth.
That is the exact thing
that we were warned about.
Don't do that.
How much do we need until we have enough?
He said, well, why is that a big deal?
Because God's watching.
And he's wondering if you have the same heart
towards him as you have towards money.
I don't ever have enough.
I don't know if you can see it from that side.
I don't know if that appeared overnight.
You won't see it on the cameras,
so this is an inside joke here.
We just had spring cleaning yesterday.
Either that appeared overnight or oops.
So now that I pointed out, just ignore it.
Those of you who can't see it, you're going to be like...
It's so obvious to me.
It's like, if I can see it that well,
other people are seeing it too.
Anyway, back to the question.
How do we know when we've had enough?
Why? Because God is watching.
Does money or wealth have you or do you have it?
Which one is in control here?
I'm going slow on some of this stuff
because it's not the kind of questions we typically get asked.
But yet, scripturally speaking,
what did Paul tell Timothy in 1 Timothy 6?
He said, and I'll paraphrase it to my language,
the people who are continually after money or wealth
fall into many harmful desires.
And some have even left the faith over,
I need more.
I got to accumulate more.
You say, well, how do we know?
Well, Scripture gives us some insight into it.
2 Timothy 3, verse 2.
For people will be lovers of self
and utterly self-centered, talking about our day.
Lovers of money and aroused by
an inordinate, greedy desire for wealth.
That's America.
Whether we have a little or whether we're billionaires,
that's America.
It's a last day's characteristic,
and I'm sure it's the same around the world.
I just don't travel around the world, so I don't know.
But one of the ways you can tell,
if you're worth 100, let's go for something
that most of us are not,
because then we'll listen to it.
If you're worth 100 million dollars,
you probably don't need that much to live.
Okay?
So, how much do you need to live?
What is enough?
What is enough to live on?
Is 5 million enough for you?
Is 10 million enough?
What is enough for you?
And you say, oh, I need 10 million,
which is okay.
That's your perspective.
I need 10 million to live on.
Okay? That's cool.
Why are you holding the other 90?
Why are you holding on to it?
Do you know how we can tell
whether money has us or we have it?
By our giving.
That's why it's so important to God.
And you know, you can be a person
who's living in poverty and money owns you.
Well, I got nothing to give, sure you do.
God, in his word, says he always gives
seed to the sower.
It may not be thousands of dollars,
but you know what?
You only need one kernel of wheat
to plant and get a harvest
and then take two or three of those
kernels off the harvest and plant them again.
And it only takes a few cycles.
You'll have a bushel wheat off of one kernel.
And a bushel is thousands and thousands of kernels.
Our giving shows whether money owns us
or we own it.
And even go back to my illustration,
that's what God was checking on Mary and I
in that $400.
Are you going to serve me or are you going to serve it?
Who has who here?
And it's a step of faith, obviously,
but God's saying, are you going to obey me
or money has you?
And it's like, no, I can't give that away.
I'm just kind of trying to come from a different angle here
as we push through this to help you see it.
God uses money, worldly wealth, as a test of our heart
to see what we're actually serving,
what we're loyal to,
and to find out what we love,
do we really love Him?
Let me give you a few scriptures on this.
No servant can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other
or else he'll be loyal to one and despise the other.
Notice love and loyalty are in this set of scriptures.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
That's the new King James money is the NIV.
Amplified says the same thing.
Amplified enlarges it to say riches
or anything in which you trust
or on which you rely.
Here Jesus is saying
you can't love money,
have an insatiable desire for money
and love God.
You're either going to have the insatiable desire for money
and despise God
and we'll see that here in a bit
with the Pharisees and Jesus.
He gave us a story to show that
or you're going to be loyal to God
or you're going to be loyal to money.
You can't do both.
Isn't that interesting?
2 Corinthians 8, just the underlined part.
He's talking about giving here and he says
I'm testing the sincerity of your love
for you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ
that though he was rich
yet for your sakes he became poor
that through his poverty
you might become rich.
So now there's two things
that show up in this scripture.
Jesus had it all
and gave it all for us.
Sacrifice.
What you love you sacrifice for.
So now
and I'm not saying the advice is bad
but there's and it can help
move us forward financially
but you can get caught in the mindset
that you're actually serving money
rather than money serving you
and that is
squeezing down your budget
to the point you can't hardly live
because we're going to get
the cars paid for
we're going to get the house paid for
and those are all good things
need to get those done
We're going to get our debts paid for and we're going to get $50,000 in savings.
But we're not going to spend money on anything.
Anything. Unless it's absolutely vital to live.
You're sacrificing yourself, probably your wife, your children.
You're sacrificing all kinds of things.
And you'd say, well, it's to get ahead financially, is it?
So I ask you the question, when is enough enough?
When is enough enough?
Do you have that set?
Because what he's talking about here is what you love, you sacrifice for.
The way Jesus sacrificed himself because God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.
Love sacrifices for its goal, number one.
And the end result is another benefits for our sacrifice.
Well, when we're serving money, what benefits is our bank account?
Not the people around us.
Yet what's eternal? The people or the bank account?
You're thinking this morning, aren't you?
It's okay, keep thinking.
We're going to talk about this.
Matthew 6, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal.
Lay up treasures in heaven.
Verse 21, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
Okay? Two points here.
Lay not up for yourself treasures on earth.
There's something that is huge in America and I'm not against it.
I'm for it.
But when is enough enough?
Laying up treasures for yourself on earth.
First line.
Why is America so bent on?
We will struggle, we will suffer, we will keep ourselves from doing what first Timothy 6 says.
God gives us everything in life to enjoy.
And he put that right into the money area.
We will cut ourselves short.
I remember a story of a man in Colorado.
He said, he was shocked.
He said, I got a story, he was a fellow minister.
He said, I got a story to share with you.
He said, I was out to eat with my father-in-law and mother-in-law.
And they would rarely buy anything going out to eat.
He said, I always had to buy for him.
Because he would always look at her and say, honey, do we have enough money to buy something?
Maybe we should just buy some fries and we'll split them or something like that.
And he'd say, no, no, I'll buy for you.
Don't worry about it.
He said, well, they're getting elderly.
They just announced to the family they own between 6 and 10 homes.
Debt free.
Rental homes.
In the Denver area.
And at that time, those homes were probably worth 200,000 a piece.
Easy.
So they're worth over a million dollars.
But they can't buy a burger at the restaurant.
What's wrong with you?
You say, well, they were paid off.
The rent was nothing but gravy.
He looked at me, he said, what do you think people are that way?
Well, he's a minister so I could say it without him getting angry with me.
I said, because they're serving money.
They're not serving God, they're serving money.
When is enough enough?
I mean, once you got between 6 and 10 homes,
he said, so once they die, he said, I'm going to be fairly wealthy.
There's not many kids in the family.
He said, we're going to get three, four of them.
He said, if we hold on to them any length of time,
he said, I'll be a millionaire off of what they just gave me.
He said, well, what makes them like that?
Literally, they were cutting everything out to accumulate more.
Well, when is enough enough?
An insatiable desire.
That's what God warned against.
Now, I like inheritance.
You know, that's a good thing.
I like to inherit.
When my parents died, I inherited a little bit.
They were millionaires, so I didn't get much.
But what I did get was helpful.
So I'm not against it, but again, it goes back to the question of
why are Americans so driven to just keep accumulating more and more and more?
One of my... I'll call him a friend,
because if I say too much, we're online and people can figure things out.
One of my elderly friends asked me, he was in his mid-topper 80s.
He said, you're a minister. You should have an answer for this.
I thought, oh, man, this is a trap. Here we go.
And he named a certain person that both of us knew,
who was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
And the person was in their 80s.
He said, they're still traveling around buying property, making deals.
Why would you do that?
Well, there's only one or two reasons.
Either you really like that, and it's what you just love to do,
or you have an insatiable desire.
I mean, once you're worth hundreds of millions, when is enough enough?
When does it come to the point of, okay, we got enough. We're good.
Because we approach our inheritance in that that way.
Same thing, you know, what we pass on.
Don't store up treasures on this earth.
Do you know statistically, wealth lasts two generations past the person who earned it?
Businesses, if they don't get them out of the family's hands
last two generations past the person who built it.
The person who built it, sweat and blood, 80, 100 hours a week.
And the kids saw that, and either they liked it or they were despised it.
But they're going to get the benefit of it because they pass it on.
They say usually there's enough in that next generation who appreciate it
that they'll continue it, keep it going.
But they don't have to work as hard for it.
They're just kind of coasting with it because it's already built.
Which means the grandkids never see the labor that was put into it.
Statistically, after the third generation, everything that grandpa built is squandered.
It's gone.
You have to get outside blood in to that, make it a corporation, do something
to get the family out and get outside blood in
because the grandkids will spend everything that grandpa worked on all his life.
That's statistics.
Sometimes it goes quicker, sometimes it goes slower, but that's how it goes.
Well, I'm going to take care of my kids and my grandkids.
I'm going to lay up for them, really.
How much do they need?
When is enough enough?
Do you know that?
Well, there's a number of very wealthy people.
If you go online, you'll find this stuff.
Some of the most wealthy people are not giving their full inheritance,
their billions, to their family.
And I can name one person to you as far as I'm concerned.
They're not even saved.
They're not living for God.
And they're worth billions.
And they were interviewed and said,
well, how much does each child get?
It was compared... I mean, they owned billions.
It was like two or three million.
He said, I'm giving them each two or three million.
And you got billions?
Why are you doing that?
He said, because if I give them more, I will destroy them.
I'll destroy them.
He said, I don't want to destroy my kids.
I'll give them enough to give them a good start.
I could have started on two million.
That's not a bad start.
But I'm not giving them each five billion.
Because I will destroy my lineage.
These are unsaved people who recognize this.
Don't lay up for yourselves, treasures.
Well, we're going to have good inheritance for our kids.
Yeah, and you might destroy them.
Just saying.
So let me see here.
What do I want to touch yet?
So we've seen some scriptures on how we handle money.
It's a test to us.
God wants to know if he can trust us.
Look at this scripture, Luke chapter 16.
I didn't see this this way.
I always had a question over this scripture until the last week or two here.
It's like, oh, it just jumped off the page.
And I went, wow, that's what he's talking about.
I couldn't understand that scripture.
The first seven verses, he's talking about an unjust steward,
a manager of a business who the owner of the business
caught him ripping things off and not running it right.
So he said, I'm going to fire you.
Get rid of you.
I'm going to get a different manager.
There was a number of people who owed the owner money.
So the manager, verses one through seven, went to those people
and said, hey, one was oil, one was wheat.
You own 100, you all 100, pay 50.
The other one, he said, you all 100, pay 80.
And Jesus commended him.
Verse eight.
The master, the owner, this is how Jesus is explaining it now,
so we jumped in, commended the dishonest manager
because he had acted shrewdly.
What was he doing?
Well, if you go back and read verses one through seven,
he thought, well, when I'm out of a job, where am I going to live?
What am I going to do?
So I'm going to cut these people breaks, so later they owe me.
You know, they were supposed to, I'm still the manager,
so I have the right to let them get by easy.
They owed $100, let's say, and I cut it to 50.
Well, later they owe me and once I'm out of a job,
then I can go and collect what they owe me.
The owner said, you know that, that's quite shrewd.
Then Jesus makes the application.
For the people of this world are more shrewd
and dealing with their own kind than are the people of light.
I tell you, now here's the direct application.
Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself
so that when it is gone,
you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
That made no sense to me.
It's like, well, how can I, if I use worldly wealth
to make Jim my friend,
what does that have to do with eternal dwellings?
I didn't get it.
Because verse 1 through 8, he's talking about this manager
dealing with other humans.
And then Jesus grabs that and says, that's wise,
and I'll make the application, verse 9.
Use your wealth to gain friends for yourself
so that when your wealth is gone,
you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Use your wealth to gain friends for yourself.
Eternity and you is not what he's talking about.
He says, while you're on earth,
use your wealth to gain some friends.
Where do we need friends when we die?
So that when the wealth is gone,
how much do people take with them when they die?
Use it while you're alive
to get this thing set up right,
because when you die and it's gone,
you will be welcomed into heaven.
I never saw that before.
It's like, really?
How I spend my money
is going to have an effect on my welcome into heaven?
I never saw that before.
It just confused me,
because I was trying to apply it purely to the physical realm.
So now, with that in thought in mind, go on.
Whoever can be trusted with very little
can also be trusted with much.
And whoever is dishonest with very little
will also be dishonest with much.
He's still talking about this shrewd manager.
So if you have not been trustworthy
in handling worldly wealth,
who will trust you with the true riches?
And if you have not been trustworthy
with someone else's property,
who will give you property of your own?
If you have not been trustworthy
with someone else's property,
what's he talking about?
Tell me, that one's easy.
Who owns the earth and the world?
Oh, my.
This is all over the charts.
The scripture says,
the earth is the
and the fullness of it.
So who owns it?
So everything that we consider ours
is actually his.
He wants to know if he can trust us
with his property.
That make sense to you?
If you can't be trusted here,
you can't be trusted there.
If you're dishonest here,
you're going to be a dishonest person.
So if you have not been trustworthy
for the unhandling worldly wealth,
who is going to trust you with true riches?
What are true riches?
True riches are eternal things.
Remember, verse 9,
he switched it over to eternity.
Eternal dwellings, eternal things.
Read on.
No servant can serve two masters,
and here's the one we already read.
Either he's going to love the one,
be devoted to the other,
or he's going to despise one and love the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Now he's going to really slap somebody.
Sometimes when people say,
what would Jesus do? He'd slap them.
We always think,
oh Jesus, he's so nice,
he's got this halo and he folds his hands
and everything that they want.
No, he actually slapped some people.
So he just gave this example
about money.
And he said,
Pharisees, hey guys,
if you want a warm welcome into heaven,
you got to handle your money right.
You got to make sure this friendship
is established before you
leave the earth.
The Pharisees who loved money.
The beginning of the verses
that we were talking about
was dealing with
loving money.
The Pharisees who loved money
heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.
That's typical.
Ah, what a fool.
Listen to him just...
He knew that, so he said to them,
you are the ones
who justify yourselves in the eyes of men.
Well, it's for our kids
and it's for their inheritance
and we're going to get that free
and we're going to buy a bigger house
and you justify
everything, your love of money,
you're justifying yourselves
with people.
But you're not justifying yourself with God.
God knows what's going on
in your heart.
And what is highly
valued among men
is detestable
in God's sight.
What is detestable?
Money?
No.
The love of money.
The Pharisees
who loved money.
The love of money is the root of all evils.
Jesus saying, you know what?
You guys have this
totally upside down
and backwards.
He could be talking to
the Americans
who loved money
heard all that Pastor Vern
was saying
and
sneered at it.
Yeah, what a jerk.
So Pastor
Vern said to them,
yeah, you're the ones who justify
yourselves, you got all the excuses
and everybody who you tell, oh yeah,
they agree with you, but God knows your heart
that
you love money.
And what you value
so highly
is detestable to God.
So it's a good question
to ask ourselves.
Am I guilty of that?
I don't want to be guilty of that.
I don't want to get in front
of God on judgment day
and Jesus looks at me and says, well,
you're saved by grace through faith, you're here.
But you know how you lived?
I detest you.
I don't hear that.
You know the decisions you made?
Detestable.
They were so contrary to me.
Whoa.
How we handle money
is a big deal to God.
According
to scripture, he wants us to have it.
He wants us
to be made rich, and that is
the actual word that applies
to money so that we can
be generous on every occasion.
Not so we can hand on millions
of dollars of inheritances.
Not so we can hand on
all kinds of
prestige and honor.
Well, you know the
peltzes. They were very
well to do.
That's not what we're after.
God says, I want you to be rich.
Why?
So you can give it away.
Amen.
See, that makes a good
American blood goal.
Let him who stole
steal no longer, let him labor
working with his hands, but what is
doing what is good that he might have something to
give
to him who has need.
So, we're not going to get through this
whole thing this morning, so it'll take me three Sundays, and that's okay.
I think I got you thinking.
And I think we need
to be thinking about some of these things.
Here's one to think about.
If God would ask you for some
of your money, would you give it to him?
Oh, it depends how much.
Because
in reality,
that question is already
answered according to Scripture.
He's already asked us.
In fact, you know that when we entered into
Covenant, we gave it all up.
Covenant is a full exchange.
Everything I am or I have
becomes his.
Newsflash,
it was his before we
ever got saved.
He's just
checking our attitude and making sure we're
going to reciprocate.
Once we know, oh, I'm in Covenant
with God, this is all his.
It was all his
before you were ever born.
So it's not like
all of a sudden it became all his.
It was his.
Remember, Psalms, I'll just give you some of things.
This is review. Psalm 24 verse 1,
the earth is the Lord's a fullness of it.
Remember in message number 5 of Tithing,
we went through all kinds of things
that God said, this is mine, this is mine.
The world and everything living in it.
All bodies and spirits.
All the silver and gold. The heavens are
his. The secret things are his.
Interpretations to dreams are his.
Mountain peaks are his.
I thought, you know that, I thought
when I said that back in message 5,
I thought, mountain peaks, what's the deal
with the mountain peaks?
Why would you want the mountain peaks?
Coming out of last Sunday?
Now I know why he wants
the mountain peaks. I want all the high places.
I want to own it all.
They're mine.
Salvation, glory, power,
everything.
100% of what we consider ours
is actually his.
So since it's his,
here are some questions we could ask ourselves
to determine our own attitude, our own heart.
When you buy something,
do you ask him if you should do it?
I'm not talking about a stick of bubble gum.
You know, it's...
I think there's room for that.
Now if you have diabetes, he might say don't buy that.
But,
I'm talking about
stuff we spend money on.
God, are you okay with me spending
5 bucks a day on coffee?
It's your money.
Where are you at on this?
And my wife does it too, so now we're at
10.
Yeah, we're not going to get through it anyway.
I'm going to share the story.
When we were back in Colorado
early years of being back in Colorado,
so this is
late 80s, early 90s.
Mary and I had two ATVs
and we were
criticized for having two ATVs
because he,
your pastor, he probably got too big
a paycheck that you can afford two ATVs.
Now the ones we owned were actually
three-wheelers.
Not the quads, they were the early three-wheelers.
But anyway, we were criticized
for having ATVs.
The person who was criticizing me
and I'm not trying
to be mean or anything, I'm just,
this is what caught my attention
and probably was God.
This is not long enough, but
yeah, pastors
they got all this money.
Apparently you get too big a paycheck
because you got two ATVs.
What does a pastor need with an ATV?
This caught my attention.
Everybody's at where they're at,
they're growing, doing whatever, but
and I heard this still small voice
in me said,
yeah, go ahead and say it.
So I thought, okay, let's go for it.
I said, different subject, got a question for you.
How many packs of cigarettes you smoke a day?
Well, I don't see where that applies.
Well, I'm just curious.
Well, I'm about two, two a day.
Now back then you could get them
for like $2.50 a pack.
They were still a lot cheaper.
$2.50 a pack. Is your wife smoked?
Yep. How much she smoked?
Well, she's not quite as much as me.
Maybe a pack a day.
So we're talking three packs a day.
$7.50 a day.
How much is that a week?
Well, it's over $50.
How many weeks are there in a year?
No, it's 52.
So now we're spending $2,600 a year on...
Is that how long you've been smoking?
Oh, I've been smoking since I'm a teenager.
I said, that's cool.
When you plan to retire.
When I'm 65.
So let's say you start to work at 20.
So you've got 45 years.
You've been smoking two packs a day.
Yep, pretty much all my life.
I said, do you know how much you're going to spend
in 45 years
of you two packs and her three?
$2,600 a year.
10 years is $26,000.
40 years is $104,000.
Another five years is $13,000 beyond that.
You're going to spend between $115,000
and $20,000.
He had a cigarette.
This is not a cigarette.
I said, you're going to spend between
$115,000, $120,000
and you will have nothing
to show for it but smoke.
And you're telling me
I can't own an ATV?
All the money you're wasting,
I'm not. I'm not smoking.
White entered the head.
It's just kind of like all the blood drained out.
The poor guy had never
thought of it like that before.
You know how many ATVs
I can buy in my lifetime for $120,000?
I can just line them up every year, get a new one.
Then I'll get criticized.
You're set every two weeks to get a paycheck.
We give, we tie whatever
net after bills
kind of deal.
But then we...
She got pregnant, David
with her first born
and when it was coming time
to get birth towards the end
her water broke
what we thought her water broke.
It was eight weeks early.
So we go in the hospital
and David pushed
through the placenta.
So he...
she was basically...
he was losing fluid.
So...
doctors said, well, we have to
wait a week so the lungs
are fully developed.
Then we can induce her
and go from there kind of deal.
So we waited a week
and then
when the birth started coming
so basically she was in labor for seven days.
We saw people come in, give birth,
leave and we were just walking around the halls
and watching babies get born.
It was kind of frustrating
for those seven days.
But when
labor started
he went Billy up
and it was a dry birth.
There was no liquid or nothing
and when he went through
he stretched his arms in her hips
and got stuck in there.
And then I can hear
the monitor from the heartbeat
boom, boom, boom
boom, boom
and done.
And then it was like cold
red, cold yellow.
There was only two nurses and a doctor
and the doctor, I got surrounded
by like 40 people in this little tiny room
and I'm freaking out.
I wanted to go in there and grab them out.
So the doctor went in
they had to do an emergency
they had to cut my wife basically in a half.
The doctor went in
broke my son's collar bone
his arm
and pulled him out
and I'm expecting a baby
like crying or whatever
it's black, purple, blue
not breathing.
It's all right
little expression of emotion
is appropriate.
And then my wife's like
hey, why is he not crying?
Then
I turn around and look her
her eyes roll back and she's bleeding out
my wife's gone.
And at that second I see this doctor
coming in with a syringe.
It was huge, eight inches
and stabbing my son.
That's not breathing right into his heart
and they got his heartbeat
and then they shove a tube down his throat.
So for the first eight hours
he didn't breathe.
A machine gave him oxygen
they put him in a little incubator
and rushed him away
and then I'm looking
where I'm supposed to go
with David or with...
we didn't name him maybe yet
it was Bruce Bennett
we didn't have a name for him
it was Jolietzky Boy or whatever
so they told me
they're like hey you gotta sign the papers
we gotta take him to
Ronald McDonald's
Kids Emergency
where premies are.
He was seven weeks old
and doctors told us he was supposed to be five pounds
he came out eight pounds two ounces
21 inches long
seven weeks early
he was massive
to me he was a baby
so I signed the release
to have them go because
he had to be rushed because
if he wasn't going there he would not
made it or if it was a 50-50 chance
and it was a 50-50 chance
with my wife surviving because
at this point she's pale
not responsive
and they're trying to stitch her up
put her butt in her like
I got on my knees and it was the first time
like I was a lukewarm Christian
like I went to church
we tied
I did all the motions I prayed
But I never... I still drank, I still partied, I had my past life never stopped at that point.
I got on my knees and I wanted to pray to God. God saved my wife and son and at that moment
I realized, no matter what I prayed, it's His will. So I asked God, I said, God, let it be
a will if they live, or not to be a will if they live. It's up to you. So I gave Him the benefit
of doubt. It's like whatever the outcome is, I'm still going to praise you. That was like a prayer
of repentance at my... That was the first prayer in my life where I felt my spirit praying, not my
world body. So she came to and then I had her sister come to watch her because she was not mobile
for about a week. Then I went to see David at the Children's Hospital and that was heartbreaking.
When I went to see him, his eyes opened and I saw him and he was a fuzzy, dark, bruised cast.
He was just beat up. It looked like he went through a washing machine. He didn't look like a cute
baby. But at the same time, going to go see him, I went through all the units where all the
preemies were. I saw babies the size of my thumb, my hand. It was so heartbreaking. I thought my
kid was small. When I saw him and I saw his eyes open up and then eight hours later, they took
the breathing tube out and he breathed on his own and our fingers touched. And then I looked at
him and I was like, man, you look like a David. You're like fuzzy. David from the Bible. That's
what we named David. He's a miracle baby. Going forward, they all survived. Six weeks we spent
in the hospital. At this point, I started, this was December 2014, May of 2014, I opened my company,
my business. But I was still working at the factory. And it wasn't much money. I mean,
after taxes, you make three to four thousand. So our budget was that. And then the church we were
attending, so side note, at the hospital, I signed to buy a flipper home while my wife was in labor
under her social screening number. So I was like, great, we got this. Not including the medical
debt that we were going into. So you understand what like, I was like, sweet, you know, my wife's
going to quit her job. She's gonna be at home mom. So I need to use her credit now while she has
employment to get this house kind of deal because I couldn't do it under my name. So
in my mind, it was working out like great, you know, this would be great. So she didn't know
she was signing. She was miserable. So she signed the papers. I ran downstairs, gave it to my
my relative. I was like, here you go. She signed them. I'm like, yep. I don't think she knew what
she was signing. But then after we came home, brought David home six weeks later,
or almost about two months, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald's house. We were at the
NICU for like four weeks there. And we were the only parents that spent night with our baby.
It was heartbreaking. I saw so many premiums, so many kids there that just no parents, no love,
no touch, no nothing. And I almost got kicked out twice myself by yelling at the nurses by
manhandling David because he had a broken collarbone arms. And they'll take them,
toss them around like a pinata to change them. I'm like, we don't. He's crying. It's
Christmas we came home. Day after Christmas. And then we had to go back and forth for physical
therapies, arm is cast, moving forward towards, I think it was springtime. The church I attended,
I used to pray for kids and offerings for the service. And at this point, I'm not working
for about two months. My wife's not working, and I didn't have any leave. I worked at a
factory. It's like, all right, so bills are piling up. No money. We had five grand in our savings,
or check in. We had one account. That's all the money we had. And the pastor's like,
hey, I want you to pray for offerings and bless it. I'm like, okay, well, that Sunday,
then the next time I was supposed to do it. And then that week, we get hit with medical bills.
Now, the way the insurance worked, there was a health HSA health savings account,
12 and a half thousand out-of-pocket deductible, then 70% they cover. David was born December 10th,
like I hit with 12 and a half grand. January 1st, I hit with 12 and a half grand. 25 grand,
right there, right there, right away. And then my wife's side came in. So between me and my
wife, we owed about $125,000, $130,000 in debt, just medical, just for those two months.
And then I'm supposed to go preach next Sunday and pray for offerings.
And I was heartbroken. I didn't know what to do. And then I was reading the Bible that
this is the God factor. God says, trust in him. Be bold. And the only place in the Bible that
tells us is to test them on is our finances, our money, our wallet. And I gave them all.
I told my wife, it's like, if we give 500, it's not going to scratch. We're done. We're going to lose
the house. We just signed on. We're losing everything. We're done. We're finished, basically.
So I'm going to trust in the Lord. I was bold. I told the Lord, here's all my money. Here's my
$5,000. I blessed it. We prayed at church. I gave them that check. And so basically,
we went to zero. We didn't have a dollar. We didn't even have money to fill up our gas tank
at all. Like, it was everything. Because I was like, God, you said test you. So right now I'm
testing. I'm giving you everything I have. Because even if I keep that extra $500, it won't
even scrape a portion and make a difference to get me out of what I'm getting out of.
And it'll take me 20 years to have the warehouse job to pay it off. And I opened that business,
no advertisement, no contacts, no nothing. That Monday, I got a job for about four grand.
End of that week, I made $25,000. First week and within... It was about that, right?
And then by the end of the 10-month period, I paid off all of our debt, moved into our
new house. And financially, we've been giving our gross. Every sometime, I get a check from
my job or anything. I don't think about taxes. I don't think about anything. I know by what
I prayed and I promised the Lord, I told him, I was like, I'm going to give you my first 10
always. Always. And I've done that. And he's always blessed us back. And we went to a point...
We've housed three families that moved here from different countries. We supported
family with three kids. They had nowhere to live. They lived with us for a year. We had
multiple families we supported by going through tragedy. God gave us more and above.
Instead of just tithing, we started giving more and more. And it's just one of the
God says, test them on it, do it. Because he's gonna... He's... How do you say? He always
make things work. And to this day, I've been self-employed since 2014. I don't have the
security of every other Friday. I get a paycheck. There's months, seasons in life where
there is no work. Winner. But God makes a way in the small things. Every month,
all the bills get paid. Finances always come. Get a deal.
That's cool. You got it. That was good. That was good. I got two things to say or ask. I got
one question and I got a statement. So your business that God blessed after you gave that
extravagant giving, your business was a baby business. You had no advertisement. If I heard
right, you had no advertisement. You had nothing. Nothing. Okay. So it was super natural that that
business came to you. Yeah. Everything that came to that business was a God factor. If it wasn't
for God, I don't know where the clients came from. I don't know where the builders came
from. They just appeared. They called me. They found me. So God sent people to me
and gave me the way of the finances. Without that God factor, I wouldn't have a business. I wouldn't
have anything at all. Yep. That's what extravagant giving does. No, I just have one little piece
of information. If you were a lady, an eight-pound baby is a big baby. I know.
You might look at it and go, I was a little baby. She's looking at it like, holy moly, looking
the size of that kid I just broke. Imagine if he went full term. Well, yeah. If he
didn't went full term, that could have been. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
And Natty, the only advice I got for you is now you just have to accept that's what
happens when you marry a big guy. You're gonna have big babies.
It, I'm not that big, but my lineage, especially on my mother's side, is big.
And back in, my mother shared this with me so all ladies can feel good after I share this story.
They would have midwives back then. They didn't go to the doctor. This was early 1900s. And
there was a couple of times it didn't work out. I don't know what the issue was.
But my grandmother on my mother's side, they had huge men, big guys. She and one,
she gave birth to numerous babies that were more than 12 pounds. But she gave birth,
one particular one that my mom shared. She gave birth in the bathroom on the floor
during the night to buy herself to a baby that was between 14 and 15 pounds. And she did not
wake anybody in the house. So that eight, nine pounder you had that?
Of course, I'm a guy. I can talk. We would not have a population problem in this world if
guys had to give birth. Maybe one. Maybe. After that, we'd be done.
So my hats off to you ladies. Powerful, powerful story of what God can do.
And, you know, he had his own business. So it's easier for God to just infuse all
kinds of finances in when you got your own business. But even as a wage earner,
God would have found a way to reward extravagant giving. And that I just thought before we're
done with the series, we got to hear one testimony on extravagant giving. And I know
there's other sitting here that you've shared and it's been like, really? But here we are.
And God came through and we all have a story and God was faithful.
So Lord, thank you. Help us to see this whole thing from your side. Not from our side,
not from this earth side, not with the American culture side. Help us to see it from your side
so we can get our attitudes and our motives and everything readjusted
to line up more and more with you. Because that's where the blessing really flows.
So help us with that. Lord, we're asking for it. We believe your word is true.
We believe what you've done in these people's lives is true. We've had numerous testimonies
over this series. We believe every thing that they're sharing. They're not lying. This is
truth. This is what you've done in their lives. And we give you all the credit and the praise
for it in Jesus' name. Amen.