WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:33.440 Every now and then in between our regular episodes, I take you back to the pulpit at Eagle's Nest Church for a message that sits right where your faith and your finances meet. That's what today is. So grab something to write with, open your heart, and get ready to deal with money a little differently. I'm coach Lee Jenkins. This is the Stewardship Stewardship Coach Podcast where we help the financially frustrated make, manage, and multiply money God's way. 00:00:33.600 --> 00:01:23.920 Let's get into Let's give the lord a hand clap of praise, everybody. Sometimes you have to praise god in advance no matter what you're going through. Our series is called money talks, and a lot of people don't realize that money really does talk. The story is told of a lady who kept her money underneath her bed in a shoebox, and it was different denominations of bills. And the money started talking to each other. 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:47.115 They were talking to each other in the shoebox. The $100 bill, he said, hey, y'all. I've been all around the world. I have been used at some of the most luxurious hotels in France and in Italy. The other denominations of money, they were pretty impressed. 00:01:47.970 --> 00:02:11.905 Then the $50 bill, he spoke up. He said, well, that's pretty cool, but I have been at some luxurious or or or some of the upscale stores all around the nation. I've hung out at Neiman Marcus. I've hung out at Saks Fifth Avenue. You see, a lot of people use me in department stores, and other money, they they were impressed. 00:02:11.985 --> 00:02:31.845 Then the $20 bill, he spoke up. He said, well, I haven't been to Italy, I haven't been to France, I don't go to Neiman Marcus a lot, but I get used a whole lot at restaurants. People use me as their tip. So I have been in some of the top restaurants in the nation. They were pretty impressed. 00:02:32.165 --> 00:02:51.150 Then the $10 bill, he spoke up. He said, well, I haven't been to Italy, I haven't been to all these restaurants, but I've been to a whole lot of sporting events. I've been at some of the best stadiums in the world. People have used me to buy hot dogs and popcorn. So I think I'm pretty pretty awesome too. 00:02:51.630 --> 00:03:12.770 Then the $5 bill, he spoke up. He said, well, I don't wanna be left out of this. He says, I've been at convenience stores all around the nation. When people are driving, they stop at convenience stores, and they pull me out of their wallet and their purse, so I get used a whole whole lot. Everybody was pretty impressed. 00:03:12.770 --> 00:03:22.370 They said, okay. And then they all looked at the $1 bill. They said, what about you, $1? Where have you been? He started looking real sad. 00:03:23.005 --> 00:04:20.005 He held his head down. He said, the only place I've been is to church after church after church. And so one of the reasons some of y'all will get that, like, in about ten minutes, it's gonna hit you. One of the reasons god's kingdom doesn't get advanced is because we don't understand the power of this tool that God puts in our hands called money. And it and some of the reasons is, as I've said the previous weeks, we didn't learn about it in our family, we didn't sit around at the kitchen table, and our parents mostly did not take us through a budget and did not talk about investments and and the stock market and and debt and credit cards. 00:04:20.005 --> 00:04:34.670 Most of us did not get that. We didn't hear about it in school. We should have. We learned about, you know, economics and we learned about social studies, but but we didn't learn about personal finance. At least most of us did not. 00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:56.265 But the most tragic thing is we didn't learn about it in church. And there are over 2,000 verses in the bible that deal with money. 16 out of the 38 parables in the Bible deal with money. Jesus said more about money than love, than heaven, than hell. And we know those are important subjects. 00:04:58.025 --> 00:05:30.850 So this area is vitally important. So I want to deal with an area today that everybody, all of us have to deal with. But before we do that, I want to share the the main verse with you, taken from Proverbs twenty one twenty. And so we're gonna be going through a lot of scripture today, but Proverbs twenty one twenty from the New Living Translation is our primary verse, and I want you to look at it. Check it out. 00:05:31.490 --> 00:05:52.945 It says, people somebody say, wise people. Wise people. And I certainly hope you are. Wise people have wealth and luxury, but fools spend whatever they get. I wanna speak to you today from the subject, telling your money where to go. 00:05:53.905 --> 00:06:20.465 Telling your money where to go. Why is it important to tell your money where to go? Here's why. If you don't tell your money where to go, you're going to wonder where it went. I'm sure you all will will agree with that. 00:06:20.945 --> 00:06:42.020 Some of us don't know where it went at the end of the month, at the end of the week, at the end of the year. We're like, this is how much I made. I know how much I earn on my job. Where did it all go? Well, if you don't tell your money where to go, you're gonna wonder where it went. 00:06:43.195 --> 00:07:10.910 So why is it important to tell your money where to go? Here is the most important reason. Because every spending decision is a spiritual decision. Money is not some kind of ancillary issue to the to the Christian faith. We know if if I was doing a series on prayer, all of you would be like, okay, yeah, we know that's important. 00:07:11.095 --> 00:07:37.380 If I would be doing a series on praise and worship, oh, yeah. We know that's important. It was if I was doing a series on how to love your neighbor and on on justice or something like that, oh, we know that's important. But when you do a series on money, people are like, what are you talking about? Because we don't view that sometimes as being spiritual, and it is very spiritual because every spending decision is a spiritual decision. 00:07:37.380 --> 00:07:58.470 Why? Because God is the owner of what we have, and you and I are a steward. And the assignment of a steward is to be faithful, to faithfully manage what God has given you. Because one day, we're all gonna have to stand before God. It's called the judgment seat of Christ. 00:07:58.550 --> 00:08:31.550 And we're gonna be judged by what we did or what we did not do in every area of our life. And so I want God to be able to look at you in this area and say, well done, thy good and faithful servant. And so we're going to be talking about spending today. How to spend your money wisely. Now today is going to be what I call a sermonar. 00:08:32.350 --> 00:08:43.745 Half sermon, half seminar. A sermon ar. Okay? Well, let's go back to our main scripture, Proverbs twenty one twenty. Look at what it says. 00:08:44.065 --> 00:09:13.355 It says, wise people have wealth and luxury. Let me just break that down. Unless you're doing something illegal or unless you get lucky or win the lottery or unless you inherit money, most of us will have to work for our wealth. We will have to save for it. We will have to, as you'll see a little bit later, spend less than we earn and put put it in some kind of vehicle where it can grow. 00:09:13.915 --> 00:09:44.755 And in order to do that, you have to understand something about being wise. You have to use wisdom. So most people have wealth and luxury because they make wise decisions. However, it says, but fools spend whatever they get. In the bible, there are numerous numerous contrasts between wise people and foolish people. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:10:33.545 In fact, in the gospel of Matthew chapter seven verses twenty four and twenty nine, you don't have to turn there, it describes a wise person and a foolish person, how they were both building a house. Simply put, the passage goes on to say that a wise person is a person who hears the word and puts it into practice. A foolish person is a person who hears the word and doesn't put it into practice. So you can have two people who know the same thing, who hear the same thing. So the difference in their finances is not necessarily their knowledge. 00:10:34.505 --> 00:10:57.785 The difference in their finances is their application of the knowledge. What they do, not just what they hear. And when it comes to this area, a lot of us have heard all of our lives what we should do. That's not the problem. The problem is, do we do what we know to do? 00:10:58.985 --> 00:11:27.355 Look at how the good news translation puts Proverbs twenty one twenty. I mean, this is really this is really a trip right here, y'all. It says, wise people live in wealth and luxury, luxury, but stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it. Whoo. Now now to be stupid about money doesn't mean that you are stupid, it just means we can all be stupid when it comes to money. 00:11:27.915 --> 00:11:48.940 Now, I don't know about you, but I have a couple of stupid stories in my life when it comes to money. In fact, raise your hand, just be honest, if you've ever done something we got hands going up already. If you've ever done something stupid with money, raise your hand. I know I have. I have I I got a couple of stupid stories. 00:11:48.940 --> 00:12:25.065 I wanna share one or two with you quick. My one of my stupid stories I was thinking about last night is in the early nineteen nineties, Martika and I went to this sleepy beach town. There was nobody there, hardly, just a handful of restaurants, and it was called Destin, Florida. One of my friends had bought a he bought a condo down there, and he said, Lee, you ought to invest in a condo down here. And Martik and I went down there. 00:12:25.145 --> 00:13:01.100 We you know, it was it was great beaches, but there was nothing else down there. So instead of me investing like my friend who's now a gazillionaire, instead of me investing in a condo in Destin, Florida, no, I was a young stockbroker and I wanted to impress people. So guess what I did? I bought a new Mercedes. Well, thirty something years later, that Mercedes is sitting in somebody's junk pile. 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:24.055 K? That Mercedes decreased in value from the time I bought it. That condo I could have bought is now worth millions of dollars that I could have bought for maybe a 100,000, 150,000. So that's one of my stupid stories. That Mercedes cost me a million dollars. 00:13:26.030 --> 00:13:47.955 That's an expensive million. Some people say, have you ever spent a million dollars on a car? Yeah. I did. It just wasn't really worth a million dollars, but that decision cost me a million dollars because I wasn't educated about money, because I didn't have my priorities in the right place, because I cared more about impressing people. 00:13:48.195 --> 00:14:40.875 I cared more about this about looking wealthy than being wealthy. Another story I thought about just last night is in the mid nineteen eighties, I went up to Chicago because one of my former teammates at the University of Tennessee who was on the football team with me played for the Chicago bears. So I go to visit him, I go to I stay at his home, I go to the game, and the game was on a Sunday night, and after the game, we got home late, and my friend who played for the Chicago bears says, hey, Lee, I gotta get up like at 04:30 in the morning, and I would like for you to come with me. He says, I'm supposed to be on this TV show called AM Chicago, something like that. I said, man, I ain't getting up at no 04:30 in the morning. 00:14:41.035 --> 00:14:56.000 He said, well, you know, there's this lady, man, you know, you're a young stockbroker, you're just starting in the business, and you know what? She might be somebody you wanna meet. And he told me her name, and I never heard of her. So I said, no, man. I'm just gonna sleep in. 00:14:56.640 --> 00:15:19.285 So I slept in, he went to the TV show, he came back, and it was no big deal. Well, a few months later, I started seeing this lady on TV. So I called my buddy back. I said, hey, man. You remember when I was visiting you, and you wanted me to meet this lady, and you want me to go to this TV show with you, and hang out with you and this lady? 00:15:19.930 --> 00:15:39.155 Please tell me that was not Oprah Winfrey. He said, oh, yeah, man. It was Oprah Winfrey. So I had an opportunity to meet Oprah Winfrey before she was famous, But now I wanna stay in the bed and sleep. So I say, wow, man. 00:15:39.155 --> 00:16:12.265 What could have happened in my life? I don't know if she would have done business with me, but the bottom line, maybe she would have. So, Oprah, if you're listening to this message right now, we're in a campaign called project SOAR, and we're really trying to do some great things in the community. And I'm sorry I didn't come to see you in 1984 or '85, but it's never too late, Oprah. So so my point is my mindset just wasn't right. 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:36.785 Dave Ramsey says it this way. Look at this statement. He says, financial success is 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. 20% knowledge. So I want to focus on some behaviors today and pry and the primary behavior that I believe could take us to another level. 00:16:36.785 --> 00:17:08.690 When I started this series, I told you three things, and I said, I want this series to draw you closer to Jesus, and it should. Some of you, it this series ought to increase your prayer life because you need God to do something in your finances. When you find out how important this is to money I mean, to to Jesus, you you you ought to be able to handle your money better. Better. So I I want you to grow closer to Jesus. 00:17:08.690 --> 00:17:40.450 I I also want you to go to another financial mean, level. Whatever your goals are and your dreams are, as long as those goals and dreams glorify god, I pray that you'll be able to meet them. And then I want you, again, to know what your money says about you. So I wanna talk about spending today, how to get it under control, how to tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. Why spending? 00:17:41.490 --> 00:18:11.230 Because it all starts with spending. If you don't get control over your money, if you don't start treating what you have like like this belongs to God, I can do what I want to do with it, but whatever I do with it, I want it to glorify God. How about this? And just because I have it doesn't mean I'm supposed to spend it. You see, it's easy to say no to stuff when you're broke. 00:18:12.295 --> 00:18:43.295 It's easy to go to the mall, you just say, I can't afford that, so let me just look. But when you have money, that will be the test for you in terms of how spiritually mature you really are. Will you hoard it or will you just spend it frivolously? So I wanna give you just a few things, a few behaviors that I believe will help you to spend money wisely. Five things. 00:18:43.695 --> 00:19:04.980 Now there are more that I could talk about, but I just want to give you just a few today. Behaviors that will help you to spend money wisely. Number one, you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Oh, let me say that again. Stop comparing yourself to others. 00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:46.915 Just because somebody has a new Tesla doesn't mean you go and buy one. Just because somebody just bought a new house doesn't mean you need a new house. See, some of the old school saints, we used to say this, don't try to keep up with the Joneses because half of the time, the Joneses are faking and broke too, and you're trying to keep up with them. You see, sometimes, we allow peer pressure, even grown folks, to mess us up financially. Because other people are doing things and we feel like we ought to do it, so we compare ourselves to to them. 00:19:47.395 --> 00:20:05.075 Why don't we have this? Or why can't we do this? Or why can't we go on this vacation? I'm saying you have to stay focused on what God has called you to do and not look at what other people are doing. You know your finances, you know your goals, you know your dreams. 00:20:05.075 --> 00:20:36.775 You know your family, and that's what you have to focus on. You have to be very careful not to compare yourself to where other people are. Let me tell you what this is an issue of. This is an issue of contentment. And one of the things this world tries to do, and sometimes people will, is make us discontent, make us unhappy with what we have. 00:20:37.095 --> 00:20:59.020 That's why they they change the cars every year because they want you to get a new model, a shiny model. You know? And I I'm not saying that some of these things like iPhones and and different things aren't better, you know, but the bottom line is they want you to keep spending money. Keep spending money. Continually be dissatisfied with what you have. 00:21:01.635 --> 00:21:40.375 I mean, that thing has hit me before. Thank god that's not the case in this season in my life, but I remember, you know, twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, fifteen years ago, I mean, Martika and I had a really nice home, and I would go over some of my friends' homes, and my god, they were palatial mansions. I was like, wow. Then I go back to my house, and I'm like, man, this I feel like I'm in the ghetto. I wasn't in the ghetto, but it was when you're not content, the enemy can speak to you and start talking to you, and you become dissatisfied with what you have. 00:21:41.340 --> 00:22:03.935 All of a sudden, it's not good anymore. All of a sudden, it's not a blessing from God anymore. Let's read Philippians four eleven through 13. I want you to see what the apostle Paul, how he dealt with the ups and downs, the vicissitudes of of being on the top and at the bottom financially. Look at what he says. 00:22:03.935 --> 00:22:27.515 The apostle Paul says, I have learned to be content. It's something you have to learn because you probably won't be like this naturally. He says, I've learned to be content in whatever the circumstances. He says, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. Apostle Paul, I can say amen to that. 00:22:27.515 --> 00:22:59.475 Then he goes on to say so y'all there is a secret he's gonna tell you in a minute. He says, I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation whether fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. And then he tells us the secret. I can do all this through him, Christ, who gives me strength. In other words, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. 00:22:59.475 --> 00:23:30.705 So the secret of contentment is a relationship with Christ. That's the secret. When you have a relationship with Christ, you don't focus as much on what other people are doing. One of the ways you know your relationship with Christ is waning is materialism starts to seep in. Jealousy starts to seep in. 00:23:31.425 --> 00:23:55.835 Envy starts to seep in, and you start feeling like what you have and what you're doing is nothing. Stop comparing yourself to others. Number two. Now we're gonna get really practical. Start tracking your spending. 00:23:57.915 --> 00:24:19.525 Start tracking it. In other words, find out where your money is going. Now some of y'all have it in your head, but if you really tracked your spending, you would be shocked where it was going. Some of you say, well, pastor Lee, I really do wanna give more. I really do wanna give tour project SOAR. 00:24:19.525 --> 00:24:27.930 I really do wanna do this. I I just don't have it. Well, how do you know you don't have it? I'm I'm not trying to offend anybody. Okay. 00:24:27.930 --> 00:24:54.305 Let me give you a scripture to look at, and maybe this can bring some clarity to it. Proverbs 27 verses twenty three and twenty four from the good news translation. Now it's talking in farmer or agricultural terms, but it certainly relates to our finances. Check this out. Look after your sheep and cattle as carefully as you can agriculturally, farming talk. 00:24:55.360 --> 00:25:25.430 Because wealth is not permanent, not even nations last forever. So if in other words, if you don't if you're a farmer and you don't take care of your cattle, you don't take care of your land, if you don't look after it, if you don't make sure things are going right, guess what happens? You're not going to have money. You're not that wealth, whatever you have, it's not gonna last. So we have to look after what god has given us. 00:25:27.030 --> 00:25:58.110 So the first thing you wanna do if you have a financial goal is you have to look at where you are. That means you have to look at where your money is going. One of the best ways to do that is you can look back on your bank statements or you can just start tracking your spending for the next thirty days and you will be shocked. Hey, parenthetically, let me throw this in there. I remember when I first started tithing. 00:25:59.470 --> 00:26:30.710 And first of all, let me say that it was supernatural what god did because it did not line up. Once I gave 10%, I'm like, well, where is that gonna come from by the end of the month? How how am I gonna reconcile this? Well, supernaturally, was able to reconcile it, but let me tell you practically what happened. Practically, I became a better steward of the 90%. 00:26:31.305 --> 00:27:00.870 I stopped wasting the other 90%. I paid more attention to the other 90%. And then god, I believe, saw that I was faithful with the 90%, and he said, let me go on and bless this boy with more because he got it now. He he he knows what being faithful is. So I'm just telling y'all, you have to first know where you are. 00:27:01.635 --> 00:27:14.355 Start tracking your spending. Now, here's a big one. Number three. Spend less than you earn. Let me say it another way. 00:27:15.520 --> 00:27:32.665 Live below your means. Let me say it another way. Stop spending more money than month. Because some of us, we get to the end of the month and we run out of money. Spend less than we earn. 00:27:32.665 --> 00:27:58.880 Now that is almost un American to spend less than you earn because most people, we have grown accustomed to spending more or right at what we earn. So when our income goes up, we raise our lifestyle. And then the income goes up, and we raise our lifestyle. And then the income goes up, and we get a new car. We raise our lifestyle. 00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:49.540 And then the income goes up, and we get a new car, and we just keep raising it, and we are in debt or we are under financial pressure, some of us, our entire lives. Because we haven't learned how to spend less than our income, and it takes a lot of discipline. I have seen multimillionaires live from paycheck to paycheck, from month to month because they did not abide by this principle. It has been said, I love this statement, if your expenses exceed your income, then your upkeep will be your downfall. Did you all catch that? 00:28:50.900 --> 00:29:18.820 And a lot of us, our upkeep is our downfall because we got all of this stuff and it's hurting us. So how do you spend less than what you earn? Well, you first of all have to develop a realistic splint spending plan, also called a budget. Nobody likes to talk about budgets. That's why I don't call them budgets, I call them spending plan. 00:29:18.900 --> 00:29:46.720 It's just a plan for your spending. It's just telling your money where to go. Now for some of us, in order to live below our means or to spend less than what we earn, we're gonna have to start making some tough decisions to cut some things. Maybe temporarily, you might have to cut something or do without something, and that's not a bad thing. Or you can increase your income. 00:29:46.800 --> 00:30:30.185 Maybe maybe you're in this situation because God is trying to push you out of your comfort zone to start that side hustle that you've been thinking about. You see, some of us, we pray for God to do a miracle, and the miracle might be in you just stepping out on faith and obeying God and starting that business, or obeying God and applying for that new position. But the bottom line is you have to spend less than what you earn. Number four, stop impulse spending. Impulse spending. 00:30:31.865 --> 00:30:43.020 That means going to the mall, and all of a sudden, the holy ghost gets a hold of you. And you say, woo. Yeah. Woo. 30% off. 00:30:43.580 --> 00:30:55.065 I'm so glad the lord led me down here. No. That's called impulse spending. Proverbs twenty five twenty eight. Look at what it says. 00:30:55.065 --> 00:31:20.715 It says, like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self control. You have to be able to tell yourself no. You have to be able to tell yourself not now. You have to understand what season you are in. You have to discern the season that you are in, that your family is in. 00:31:22.955 --> 00:31:46.695 And by the way, this is a family issue that I'm talking about. If you are married or you have children, this is something you have to decide on together. This is something that married couples need to talk about. Do you know one of the number one causes of divorce is money, finances? Because husbands and wives don't know how to talk about it. 00:31:46.695 --> 00:31:56.135 So because they don't know how to talk about it, they just say, okay. You handle your money. I handle my money. So it's my money, your money mentality. That's not what a marriage is all about. 00:31:58.230 --> 00:32:31.320 The two shall become one flesh. So it's interesting that you can share everything else except your money. If you're married out there and you can't pray together and if you can't talk about money without fussing and fighting and getting super emotional, then you are lacking something in your marriage. You see, one of the things about talking about money is it forces you to communicate. Parents, you ought to be communicating with your children. 00:32:31.320 --> 00:32:59.020 A lot of you are way more successful than your parents. And so what what what some of us do as parents is we want we want to do for our children what maybe our parents couldn't do for us. So we spoil them. We give them what they want. And when we do that, we're not building financial character in them. 00:33:00.780 --> 00:33:35.555 And and so if anything, we're making them lazy. So just because you have the money to give to your children and you can buy them all kind of Jordan tennis shoes, 2 or $302.02 or $300, that doesn't mean that you do it. It's okay to say no. I remember when one of my children, when he was about six or seven years old, and at that time we were living in a eight or 9,000 square foot home, I mean, I was a business person making a ton of money, and and he asked for some a new pair of tennis shoes. And and we told him, I'm Martik, and I said, no. 00:33:35.555 --> 00:33:51.140 We're not gonna do it. He said, I don't understand why. You got the money. That's what my kid told me. So and by the way, that was my youngest son, Ryan, who the the the preacher the preacher. 00:33:52.580 --> 00:34:03.695 So what we would do is we would say, okay. If you want these shoes, we will invest $50 in it. You gotta come up with the other $100. Well, I'm only eight years old. Hey. 00:34:03.695 --> 00:34:17.930 That's not my problem. And I am not lying to y'all. A couple of weeks later, $100. I said, how did you get this? Well, I went next door and asked them, did they want me to pick up their leaves? 00:34:17.930 --> 00:34:28.645 And then I went down to the house down the street, and I asked them, did they want me to take the trash can to the street? And then I went to this house. Uh-huh. Yeah. You what will happen if you just don't give kids what they want? 00:34:28.645 --> 00:34:40.085 Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Number five, and actually, I have six points. I gotta move fast. Stop being a conspicuous consumer. 00:34:41.550 --> 00:35:05.625 Conspicuous means a show off. How I used to be in my early thirties. I'm just gonna read this scripture and I'm not gonna elaborate on it because I believe it says a lot. One person pretends to be rich yet has nothing. Another pretends to be poor yet has great wealth. 00:35:07.305 --> 00:35:38.405 My question to you is, are you a pretender? Lastly, and really most importantly, what you need to do in order to get your spending together is to seek godly counsel. Ask the lord what you should do. Ask people who have wisdom to help you. Proverbs twelve fifteen says it this way. 00:35:38.660 --> 00:36:00.575 It says, the way of a fool there we there it is again, that fool. Way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel. Here are three sources of counsel that you have to have. The word of God. If it's against the word of God, you shouldn't do it. 00:36:00.975 --> 00:36:35.245 If you have to cheat on your taxes, if you have to lie, if you have to sleep with somebody to make money and to get a promotion, if you have to sell yourself out from an integrity standpoint to to to do a business deal, that's not God. But then the people of God. God puts people in our lives, but some of us are too proud to ask for help. But all of us have blind spots. There has never been a major financial decision I've ever made in my adult life. 00:36:36.760 --> 00:36:58.165 Major stuff that I didn't run it by one of my mentors. And then the peace of God. Sometimes God will give you the money you can afford it, but he might tell you, no. Not now. He may not give you peace about it, and so you have to listen to the word of God. 00:36:58.165 --> 00:37:25.595 I wanna leave you with this scripture. It's the apostle Paul's charge to his protege, Timothy. Timothy was his mentee, and it is the same charge that I want to leave each and every one of you today. First Timothy chapter six verses seventeen and eighteen. Let's look at it as we close. 00:37:26.155 --> 00:38:02.930 It says, command those who are rich. Now right away, you all are saying, well, this is not talking to me. Yes. It is. As I often say, if you have a reliable means of transportation, if you have heat in the winter, if you have air in the summer, if you can open your refrigerator and you have five days plus worth of food, if you can look in your closet and you see two to three weeks worth of clothes and you don't have to keep wearing the same thing over and over every day. 00:38:04.690 --> 00:38:26.455 Just that alone puts you in the top 15 of the wealth in the world. Now see, we think about American wealth, but the bible is not just for Americans. When God talks to us, it's about the world. So we are the rich people in this passage. Command those who are rich with things of this world not to be proud. 00:38:26.455 --> 00:38:50.315 Don't get the big head just because you got it going on financially. He says, tell them to hope in God. Why? Not in their un not in the uncertain not in, rather, their uncertain riches, and riches are uncertain. It says, God richly gives us everything to enjoy. 00:38:51.915 --> 00:39:18.435 It says, tell rich people to do good, to be rich and doing good deeds, to be generous and ready to share. So I wanna pray with you today, and I want to encourage you and I wanna challenge you. Start looking at your money. Start being a good steward. Start making some tough decisions. 00:39:18.435 --> 00:39:45.925 By the way, whatever you do in this season of your life doesn't mean it's gonna be that way next year or six months from now. It's almost like losing weight. Sometimes you gotta no to certain things to get your weight down or to get in shape. And then once you get where you need to get, you know, you can loosen up a little bit. I believe this is a season for us as a church to really hone in on our stewardship in every area, not just giving, in every area. 00:39:46.325 --> 00:39:54.405 So let me pray for you. Father, we love you. We praise you. We thank you. We need you. 00:39:56.340 --> 00:40:18.915 You said if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and you'll give it to us, Lord. And so right now, Lord, we need your wisdom financially. We need your touch financially. We need you to bring peace to our situation financially. We need you to mend broken relationships, maybe husbands and wives who can't talk to each other. 00:40:18.915 --> 00:40:47.890 Father, we need unity in our home in this area. So, Lord, help us not to do the things that the world does, but help us to do things the way you want it. Lord, we love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. If something in this message challenged you or gave you a next step, that's what it was for. 00:40:48.050 --> 00:41:04.235 Don't just sit on it. Do something with it this week and let me know what resonated with you the most in the comments. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. God bless you. Now see you in the next one.