Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / God Doesn’t Want Your Money, He Wants Your Heart - August 31, 2025

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God Doesn’t Want Your Money, He Wants Your Heart - August 31, 2025 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

0:00
Good morning. My name is Daniel.
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I'm one of the lead pastors here at Res Church.
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Welcome. If you're new, welcome.
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We're excited that you chose today to join us.
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We are in week four of a series in the book of Proverbs called
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The Way of Wisdom. And we have been looking at the
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practical life application of the truths of Scripture,
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particularly in this little tiny book called Proverbs.
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And last week we covered what, you know, for a lot of people is
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a pretty sensitive subject. We covered sex and this week
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we're going to cover money and some of y'all are squirming and
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like let's go back and talk about sex again because it meant
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are they're not a sensitive subject.
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I mean, this is a sensitive subject.
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I was listening to Pastor Andrew Spradlin over at Valley.
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He preached on money like a couple months ago.
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And I was listening to this sermon and he started off with
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like, man, I'm, I get so nervous preaching about money that I
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only do it once a year. And I was like, oh gosh, right.
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I was like, well, OK, let's just, let's just open it up and
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talk about it. But I don't, I don't think it's
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a coincidence at all because we planned this sermon series like
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four months ago. I don't think it's a coincidence
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at all that here in the midst of a lot of transition and struggle
1:12
around finance in our church, that oh, look at this, what do
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you know? We just stumble right upon a
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sermon that was already planned to talk about what God has to
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say about finance. It's almost go with me here.
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It's almost as if God is sovereign and in charge, despite
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how messy and sometimes dumb we are, right.
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OK, so maybe, maybe, just maybe some of us here, elders,
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deacons, and maybe even you absolutely need to hear what God
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has to say about money and finance today.
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And I, I think God has something significant to say because I,
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you know, look, there are a lot of opinions about money.
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Amen. So, but there's only one opinion
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that you should be worried about, and it's not your own.
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It's what God has to say about it.
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And so the good news is we don't have to guess, He tells us.
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And so if you'll lean in today, engage in the word of God, I
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think you're going to get some significant things out of what
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God has to say about this today. Now, if you get nothing else out
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of this whole sermon and you remember nothing else, I want
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you to remember this key point that Scripture really will will
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tell us throughout Scripture. And it's this, God doesn't want
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my money, He wants my heart. God doesn't want my money, He
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wants my heart. It's just that I often hide my
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heart behind money and that's a problem.
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So we're going to start in Proverbs chapter 3.
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We'll we'll be covering verses 5 through 10 today.
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Let's read together the Lord's word says this Proverbs 3 verse
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five. Trust in the Lord with all your
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heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
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In all your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will make
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straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes.
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Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
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It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
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Now we're going to read two more verses in just a minute, but but
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I want to stop right here and just look at that first part.
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And from from week one in this series, we've been talking about
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that it is God who defines what knowledge is, God who defines
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what wisdom is. And so again, right here in all
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your ways, so in all the practical application of your
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life, in all of your perspective about the the the things in
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life, your perspective of money, your perspective of sex, your
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your perspective of of parenting of life of your life goals of
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work. Acknowledge that he sets the
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standard, not me, not you lean not on my own understanding.
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That's what it's telling you. Be not wise in my own eyes, fear
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the Lord that's saying, God, you're right, I'm wrong.
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At any time there's a gap between your perspective and my
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perspective, I'm going to acknowledge that you're right,
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meaning that I'm wrong. And the only way to close that
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gap is by acknowledging that he's right.
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He's perfect. He sets the definitions and he
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sets the standard, and then it says he will make straight your
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path. So how do you get that path
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corrected? You acknowledge that he's right.
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Do you see that? OK, now what does he have to say
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about money? Verses 9 and 10 Here's what he
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says. Honor the Lord with your wealth
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and with the first fruits of all of your produce.
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Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will
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be bursting with wine. Just two really important terms.
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They don't mean the same thing. We're going to look at them here
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today because this Proverbs was originally written in Hebrew.
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And so the word in Hebrew for wealth, this we use here is
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mahoneka, and it means possessions.
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It's my stuff. Everyone's got stuff.
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You remember the, the scene from Thor where the guy goes, behold,
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my stuff. We all have stuff.
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Amen. OK, wealth, possession, stuff,
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things of substance. So what that word means and then
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the second word that we see here when it says first fruits,
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there's a Hebrew word here that's being used.
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It's to be tabuatuka and it means increase or, or anything
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new that would come in. So, so income harvest is kind of
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what it's alluding to here for us nowadays, probably just think
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payday, right? And they're two different
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things. It's all the things you own,
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plus the things that come in and, and it's saying in both of
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those areas, honour God with my stuff, honour God with my
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income. And So what we're going to do is
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going to look at it, what that means, What does it look like to
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honour God? And, and, and we got to start a
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little bit further back for us here.
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And here's why. Like we here in America, I don't
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know if you realize that this it's yeah, I know it's Oildale,
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but still America technically, OK.
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We have a really distorted view of ownership and individualism.
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This is an incredibly individualistic society.
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So, so, so we have like my property, my rights, my
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liberties, my money. It's a very Western view, OK,
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but it's an especially an American view.
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And so we have to start fixing that distortion in Psalm 24.
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One, this is what Psalm 24 one says.
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It's going to establish a baseline for us.
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It says the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, the
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world and those who dwell therein.
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So the Bible says like full stop, everything that exists
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belongs to God. That's not my car, it's not my
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house, it's not my kids. This shirt that I'm wearing, God
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owns everything. God, I am borrowing the air in
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my lungs. I didn't create it and I don't
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own it. God does.
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So you don't own anything. In fact, there's nothing in your
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life that God doesn't rightly and justly look at and go,
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that's mine. We don't like that.
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See, you don't have a bank account, God does.
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You don't have a house, God does.
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You don't have a marriage. God has a marriage.
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The the things that you think you have, those are not actually
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yours. It's not actually mine.
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Say it with me. It's not actually mine.
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So, so, so, so that thing in your life that you're kind of
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stingy and greedy over, it's not even yours.
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So if I don't own it, what is it exactly that I'm supposed to do
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with it? You see, everything that you
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have, God has given to you in order for you to steward or
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manage for His glory, for His pleasure, for His purposes.
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You're a money manager for God. Didn't know that, did you?
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Didn't even go to school for it. You're a money manager for God.
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In fact, you're more than that. You're a talent manager for God.
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You're a time manager for God. You're a parent for God.
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You're a spouse for God. You're an employee at your work
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for God because everything is God's and and you and I are
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simply the people he chose to manage those things.
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Does this make sense? OK, so that lesson is most
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clearly articulated in a story that Jesus tells.
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Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 25 called the Parable of the
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talents. A talent was a huge sum of
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money. It's like 700 and some $1000 in
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in the equivalent of what we would look at it today.
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And so in this story, there's a master and he he gets 3 servants
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and he gives 1 servant 5 talents, it's millions of
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dollars. And then another servant, 2
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talents, and then another servant, one talent.
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And then he leaves it says for a long time.
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And then he comes back at some point and here's what happens.
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He says give me an account, give me a report on what you did with
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my money. And he has an expectation in
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that story not just that his money is still there.
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No, no, no, no, that his money has been invested and there's
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been a return on it. Now, the Bible tells us in the
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book of Second Corinthians, chapter 5 that there is going to
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be something called a second judgement.
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Now, if you are a believer, if you call yourself a believer of
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Christ, a Christian, a follower of Christ, we know that
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salvation, it's not something that we can earn or did earn.
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It's something that is a gift of God.
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So, so as a believer, your name is written in the book of life
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and there's a judgement coming between the living and the dead.
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And if your name's in the book of life, you get to go to
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heaven. But there's a second judgement
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for those of us who are Christian.
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According to Second Corinthians 5, at some point later, everyone
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who is in heaven is going to stand in front of Jesus and give
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an account for how they managed the resources that God gave you.
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How did you invest my money? How did you invest my time that
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I granted you? How did you invest my talents
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that I gifted you? You're going to give a report.
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I'm going to give a report. Think about how that moment
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that's coming for us might change how you view a few things
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in your life today. Before I buy that new car,
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should I spend God's money on this car as God's money manager?
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Is this a good investment before I take out that high interest
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loan so I can do something that I really want to do and I'm
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impatient about getting it done, Is that the best investment of
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God's money? What would honor God?
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Now, I'm not saying that that that means that you like you
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don't ever take family vacations or you don't ever have nice
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things. That's not what I'm saying at
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all. I'm saying you're managing God's
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money. And it means that every
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financial decision for a Christian, we should look a
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little bit different. We should be thinking about it
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because we know whose money we're spending and we know who
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we're going to ultimately answer to about it.
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Does that make sense? Like do you know how many dumb
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financial decisions I've made over the years?
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If I could have learned and accepted this perspective
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earlier in life how I would have lived so much differently.
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Y'all ever been young and have money?
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I bought like a motorcycle at 19.
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It was a very bad financial investment.
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Let's go tell you right now. Especially the speeding tickets,
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Like I've spent money on some really stupid stuff in my life
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and I've had a, I've had, I'd say for the majority of my life,
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I've had a really difficult time even living on a budget.
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It'd probably be more accurate to call it a smudge it.
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Yeah, some of y'all, some of y'all, I mean, just think about
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y'all. Remember how much money we
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wasted on Beanie Babies? Some of you young people
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laughing, but y'all got some la Boo boos and some of the broke
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bank accounts. I went from in my life recently,
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I went from making a lot of money to being a pastor, which
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is another word for poor. So like my wife and I are
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learning how to count like every single dollar.
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And, and you know, when I think about how I used to view money,
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maybe some of you can relate to this.
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Like, like your paycheck comes in and this is the way I would
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think my pay, my check paycheck would come in and I would go,
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how can I maximize this money for me?
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How can I, how can I invest this so that my, I feel secure?
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How can I use this for my pleasure, my comfort, my
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security? I guess it's just me and one
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person in there. Thank you for crowd
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participation. But that's not actually the
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question that we're supposed to be asking as believers.
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The the question we're supposed to be asking is how can I please
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God? How can I honor God with what he
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has given me to manage? And I'm telling you, you start
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asking that question, then it changes everything.
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You see, when when I'm the master of my own life, then I
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make decisions that please me. But, but, but, but if I've
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supposedly surrendered my life to a new master, then I'm
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supposed to be making decisions that please him.
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So, so then let me ask, let's, let's practically look at how do
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we honour God with our wealth, with our possessions, with our
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stuff. 2 two things. 22 real fundamental things.
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Number one, we invest it in Kingdom purposes, we invest it
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in Kingdom purposes. And secondly, we manage it well.
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We manage it well. So I want God to look at my
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finances and and he does. He's God, by the way, I want him
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to look at my finances and I want him to say well done.
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When we according to the verse, when we honor God, he blesses
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us. That's what verse 10 tells us,
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right? In fact, even in the Matthew 25
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story, if you're familiar with it, he the, the, the, the
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servant that invested the money and got a return, He says, well
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done. You have been faithful over a
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little. Now I'm going to put you over a
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lot, which is a crazy statement considering he gave him millions
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of dollars. You have been faithful over a
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little Now, now I'm going to entrust you with more.
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And I, and here's what I would ask you like right off the RIP.
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It made me think about this like man, if I can't manage and spend
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my own money well, why would God entrust me with more?
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If if God giving me wealth doesn't lead me to honor him,
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why would he give me more? In fact, the opposite.
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If if God giving me wealth leads me to dishonor him, wouldn't it
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be, wouldn't he be a bad dad if he gave me more?
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And, and, and I've I've found myself in this position
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personally before with my own finances.
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Like I, I want God to bless me more.
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Let me ask you, anyone in here want God to bless them
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financially? Oh wow, look at that weird.
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We all have the same one. OK, I want God to bless me more
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financially, but I'm not honoring him with what I have
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now. So why would he do that?
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What's the ourselves in as a church right now?
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We have invested so much money and Kingdom purposes recently,
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but we haven't paid enough attention and managed it well.
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So, so over the past 18 months, the church is giving decline by
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36%. And I was thinking about this,
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as you know, I think if, if we want God to put us in charge of
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more, we need to manage it well. And we haven't managed it well.
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If you came to the business meeting last week, we have a, a
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Consulting Group that came in to do some audits and help us with
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finances. And the CEO of that group's
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name, Brad Hobbs, really, really cool guy, loves Jesus, great
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guy. And so he led the audit, the
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team that did the audit. And when we got on the phone
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after the audit was done, he his first thing to me, he says,
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Daniel, you guys have overspent doing some really phenomenal
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ministry. And he started laughing.
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He goes, you spent too much money, but man, you did some
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awesome stuff. You just spent it way too fast.
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And here's here's my point. Because we didn't pay enough
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attention. If we at the church want God to
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increase the blessings here at Rez to put us in charge of more
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than we need to honor God not only with what we invest in, but
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how we manage God's money. Amen.
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OK, So then you look at the second part of this verse.
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It says if you'll do these things right.
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So if you'll, if you'll invested in, in, in wise things and if
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you'll, if you'll, you'll keep careful account of it, if you'll
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do these things and honor God, it says with what you have it
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says and with what your first fruits.
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OK, probably not a lot of us living on the barger system
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anymore where we're trading like apples and chickens, right?
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No, maybe. So let me, let me, let me, let
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me break first fruits down real quickly.
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It means 1st and best. That's all it means 1st and
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best. I'll make it simple.
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So, so for thousands of years in the Bible, there's been this
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concept of 1st and best in Genesis 4, right after Adam and
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Eve get thrown out of the garden.
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The very first story is about the first fruits bringing the
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1st and best to God. And, and then you flip over to
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Genesis 14 and there's this guy named Mikhilzadek and Abraham
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gives him 110th of everything. And then just all throughout the
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Old Testament and even into the New Testament, there is a
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standard that God has established where we, he gives
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us everything that we have and then we give the 1st and best
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back to him. And in the Bible, that's called
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the tithe. The tithe now that used to be
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110th of like your flocks or your herd or your, your, your
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harvest. And, and for us now that's like
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paycheck, right? But the tithe, TITHE, it just
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means 110th. That's the actual literal
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definition of the word 110th. So what does that look like
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practically for my wife and I, we get our paycheck.
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We look at the gross total before the government takes its
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significant check and chunk out of there.
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We, you know, we look at our paycheck and we go, what is
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1/10, which is easy math for all of us because we just moved the
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decimal point. And then we write a check back
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to the church for 110th of what we receive.
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It's called our tithe, or our first fruits, or in this case,
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our first and our best. Now in the New Testament, it
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gets spicy. Because they take the tithe and
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they get into some ridiculous stuff where they're like selling
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all their belongings and they're selling off possessions and
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they're selling off fields, and they're giving all their radical
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sacrificial generosity that is supposed to show us Jesus Christ
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because of the way Christ lavished us with gifts.
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But the starting point in all of that was always the tie, the
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baseline for every Christian throughout all of Scripture and
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from the early church all the way up here, 2000 years of
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church history has always been the tie.
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Now then, that leads us into this idea that giving should be
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more than just a tie, that should be Holy Spirit LED.
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We are called to live lives of radical generosity in response
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to the radical generosity that we've received from God when he
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sent his son. And So what does that mean?
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It means my, my wife and I, we tithe, but then we're
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prayerfully considering when God would bring opportunities for us
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to be generous, not to the necessarily to the church, but
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to, to our neighbor or to a church member or to a brother or
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to whomever. Like we believe that God is
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going to bring those opportunities.
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And our job is to respond with generosity.
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And listen, if you've, if you've hung around this church at all,
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then you, you've heard all the crazy stories of radical
21:25
generosity. Amen.
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Like people gifting cars to people and putting roofs on
21:30
their houses. And I mean just wildly generous
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acts. I've had the absolute immense
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joy of being on both sides of that equation, getting to
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surprise someone by blessing them extravagantly, and also
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being blessed by people who, through the Holy Spirit's
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prompting, come and bless my family when when the Bible says
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that we should be joyful givers. Let me just tell you from
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personal experience, it is super fun to get to bless someone.
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Amen. Like the opportunity to just
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bless someone who has a need and you get to meet it is actually
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just really, really fun. And, and, and it's, and it's
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particularly fun to get to show people Christ through generosity
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when they don't deserve it. It's actually even better when
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they don't deserve it because it shows them how Jesus treats us.
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Now maybe we're talking through all this money stuff, right?
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And generosity and you're sitting there like, pastor, I
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can't even consider these things because I can't even pay my
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bills. Like how would, how would I
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even, how would I even think about generosity When, when,
22:45
when the ends don't meet? That's a great question.
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That's a great question because listen, and maybe this is a good
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time for the the caveat, this is not a sales pitch for you to
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give money to the church. Like this is an investigation on
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how God views what he's given you.
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And so like, if you're sitting in here like freaking out that
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somehow this sermon is going to end in like a call to give a
23:08
bunch of money you can't afford, you can exhale now chill out.
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That's not happening. My wife and I, when we got
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married, we didn't tithe at all. In fact, I'm not even sure we
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started giving until after we were married for a little while.
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And but we didn't tithe. And that's, that should be that,
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that if you knew my, my, my childhood, that that would be a
23:31
real surprise to you. Because I grew up in like, I
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probably have the greatest testimony in terms of my family
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and my parents of God's faithfulness and what it looks
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like to be obediently generous than anyone I know.
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I grew up in a family of 6 on a single income of $18,000 a year.
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And so on, on, on the off day, on the days off, my dad and I
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mowed lawns to get enough money to pay bills when I was like 9.
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I didn't mow them very straight, but they got cut all right.
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And, and, and we were the, you know, we were the family that
24:07
like, like other families dropped off bags of food so we'd
24:10
have enough to eat on the porch. And I remember, in fact, I
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remember more than one of these stories, but one in particularly
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my parents had some medical bills and they were going to be
24:20
$1000 short that month. Now gross, they made $1500 a
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month. So $1000 is like a lot of money.
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And they were still tithing. They refused to stop tithing.
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And in the mail that month comes a handwritten letter from
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someone from another church long ago.
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And in it says, I've been praying for you.
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And while I was praying, I felt the Lord impressed upon me that
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you needed this and it was a check for $1000.
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Come on, that's some craziness. This is pretty Internet days.
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How'd they know? I remember as a kid, my parents
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are crying and I'm crying because that's what you do when
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your parents are crying, right? And, and, and, but I knew.
25:06
I understood what it meant. And so I grew up under that
25:09
testimony, got married, and still didn't tithe.
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You know why? Because I am a selfish little
25:13
creature. I am a selfish, greedy little.
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I didn't want to go through the difficulty of having to figure
25:22
out how to live on less. I'm greedy with my money.
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I'm greedy with my time, I'm greedy with my energy.
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I don't want to do all the hard work to figure out what it would
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mean. And listen, it took real hard
25:38
work from God on my heart to start trusting him more in this
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area. And guess what?
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I'm still greedy. I'm just a little less greedy.
25:52
Why would I was thinking about the just the the weird
25:55
relationship of tithe and doesn't it seem odd that God
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gives you all this and says now give 10% of it back?
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Like why'd you give it to me in the first?
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Like it just seems weird, right? Like I was thinking about it,
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why, Why this relationship of wanting 10% back right at the
26:10
beginning or this this first fruits idea that this first and
26:13
best back? Why does he do that?
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And here's here's here's why I want to explain this because I
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know it seems weird and you need to understand it.
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The Bible says that nothing in this world will grab hold of
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your heart like the love of money.
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But the love of money is the root of all evil.
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It doesn't say money is evil. It says the love of money is the
26:35
root of all evil. Why?
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Why is that? Here's why.
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Here's why. Understand this because it makes
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me think I'm in control. It makes me think I can be God
26:47
with enough money. And if we go back to the very,
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very beginning of what started this whole broken, fallen,
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distorted world, it was a man and a woman who decided that
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instead of trusting God, they wanted to be God.
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And the love of money does that to you and to me because it's
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powerful. And we talked about this last
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week. Anything powerful can be
27:12
amazingly productive or dangerously destructive.
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Listen to me, some of you there that are, you know, here
27:21
listening or online watching and you're you're cynical that that
27:28
God or the church or whoever, they just want your money.
27:30
And actually, no, God doesn't want your money.
27:32
He wants your heart. But there's nothing in this
27:36
world like money that will steal my affections from God and in no
27:41
time at all have me worshiping at the foot of the idol of
27:45
wealth. So tithing this, this first and
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best, it's not just to help me honor God.
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It is God's protection on my heart against a common and
27:58
insidious idol. Got to establish this idea of
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tithe to protect my heart from the love of money.
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This call, this command to honor God is followed with a promise
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in verse 10. This is what the promise says.
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Then if you'll honor God, then your barns will be filled with
28:24
plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine.
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That if we will do this, if you'll honor God with your
28:30
possessions and you'll honor God with your income, that that,
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that their barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will
28:36
be bursting with wine. What does that mean?
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Let me tell you what it doesn't mean.
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It does not mean you're going to become super rich.
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You're not going to become like the next Elon Musk.
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Now, anyone teaching you that if you give to God, you're going to
28:50
be wealthy is teaching you a false doctrine.
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And we've actually named that false doctrine because it's been
28:56
taught so many times in history. We call it the prosperity
28:59
gospel. It's not true.
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It's not in the Bible. This isn't about becoming the
29:07
next Elon Musk because you honored God with your money.
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The point of the promise is God is saying if you honor God with
29:13
what you have, you will always have more than enough.
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That that's exactly what he's trying to say.
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You'll always have more than enough.
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That's what Barnes of plenty and vats bursting with wine is
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supposed to mean. Do you know the the call to
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honor God with your wealth is the only command in all of the
29:30
Bible that God says. Test me on this, because
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actually on everything else it says we shouldn't test God.
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You know why? He's king and kings don't give
29:39
suggestions. So all the other commands are
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just do this, Do this except for this one, except for honoring
29:46
God with your wealth. This is the one he says try me,
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try me. Taste and see if I'm good.
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Try me. Now let me, let me let me
30:01
address. Maybe there's a couple of you
30:02
guys here today you're visiting or you just, you know, maybe
30:05
you're watching online or what have you.
30:08
And and you're not, you wouldn't call yourself a Christian.
30:11
You know, maybe you're not into this whole Jesus thing and
30:13
you're just kind of checking this out and on everything we're
30:16
talking about right now sounds really weird and foreign, right?
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I mean, this sounds pretty odd. Let me just give, let me let me
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ask you to consider two things. If if you fall into that
30:24
category of I wouldn't call myself a Christian.
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Let me just ask you to consider two things.
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Here's the first the very God who who who created everything
30:34
and who is commanding his people to give their first and their
30:37
best back to honor him. He, he actually demonstrated
30:41
that very idea to us because the Bible says that when humanity
30:45
broke relationship with God, we were incapable of fixing the
30:49
problem. So God sent his first and best
30:54
to us in the form of his Son Jesus to walk among us, to
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willingly go to the cross, to die for us so we could be
31:05
restored to God. So before God asks you for your
31:10
first and best, he sent his first and best to make a way.
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Secondly, the God of the Bible is not some some distant God
31:22
who's like aloof, some some some mythological Greek God sitting
31:26
up in the clouds staring at you and judging you.
31:30
He is personal, He is intimate and loving and he cares so much
31:37
for us. He cares so much for us that
31:39
every part of his rules and his guidelines and his commands are
31:42
actually intended to win our hearts and our affection.
31:48
This is the God of the Bible. Even his commands are for our
31:54
heart. Because God doesn't want my
31:56
money, He wants my heart. And if you don't have a
32:01
relationship with him, I want you to know that He loves you
32:04
and he's calling to you. He is wooing you to him.
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How is he wooing you? Well, you're here, aren't you?
32:16
Or you're watching this. You're listening to this sermon.
32:19
Why are you listening? The very God who teaches about
32:28
generosity demonstrated that generosity first.
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And while we were yet enemies of God, His Son came and died for
32:36
us. When God saved me, I wasn't
32:40
looking for God. I didn't even like God.
32:44
I was running from God. But man, he got long legs, and
32:51
he chased me down in my sin, and he's calling you, He's chasing
33:00
you. Will you respond to him?
33:04
The Bible says you can in Romans 10/9 and 10 Because if you
33:08
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in
33:14
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you can be saved.
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For with the heart 1 believes and is justified.
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With the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.
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You can stop running from God today.
33:29
You can surrender to him today. And I want to give you that
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chance in in these closing moments of our service.
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Will you bow your head and close your eyes if you're willing to
33:41
ask God for forgiveness and salvation with every eye closed
33:46
and every head bowed, just quietly or or or silently repeat
33:51
this prayer after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I
34:00
can't save myself. I want you to save me and adopt
34:08
me into your family. I surrender everything to you
34:13
and I receive your promise of eternal life.
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Be my Lord, please Jesus, if you prayed that prayer for the very
34:27
first time right now, would you be brave and raise your hand for
34:30
me to see? Thank you, thank you, thank you,
34:33
thank you, thank you. You can put your hands down.
34:37
Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. OK, real quick, look up here.
34:46
If you just committed your life to Christ for the first time,
34:49
welcome to the family. Just a moment as we respond to
34:59
this sermon. They're going to be tables in
35:01
the back. They say I raised my hand.
35:02
There can be people standing there.
35:04
They want to celebrate with you. They want to pray with you that
35:07
the the the road of discipleship.
35:09
That's the road of following Christ from this moment on is a
35:12
long road takes a lot of Bible and a lot of black coffee and we
35:16
want to walk it with you. So when we respond in just a
35:20
minute, I want you to get up. I want you to go back to that
35:21
table. I want you to talk to them so we
35:23
can start walking this walk with you.
35:25
Now, how do you and I put a sermon about God's perspective
35:33
of money into practice in our lives?
35:36
What if this week you asked a couple questions of yourself
35:42
about your finances, about whether or not they honor God?
35:47
So here's the first simple question from here.
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Am I tithing? Am I tithing?
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Am I giving my first and best back to God?
35:56
In the United States? This study was done just this
35:58
spring. In the United States of America,
36:00
there are 247,000,000 professing believers. 247 million people
36:06
say they're Christian in the United States.
36:08
Of that 0.6% tithe. I'm, I'm pointing that out
36:17
because we live in one of the wealthiest moments in history
36:23
and you live in one of the wealthiest countries in history.
36:28
And so this idea that if you just had more money, then you'd
36:30
start being obedient to God as baloney because God, we have
36:35
plenty of wealthy Christians in this country and they ain't
36:37
tithing. It's going to take a lot more
36:40
than that. You know what it's going to
36:41
take? It's going to take a very
36:42
intentional faith and it's probably going to take moving
36:45
your smudget to a budget. You're going to have to plan for
36:51
it. Second question, do I have the
36:56
margin to be generous? Do I have the margin in my
37:01
prayer life when God begins to move and the Holy Spirit begins
37:05
to prompt me to an act of generosity towards someone?
37:08
Do I even have margin baked into my budget so that I can do that?
37:13
Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it?
37:15
You have to plan for that. You have to be intentional about
37:19
that. Third question, You don't have
37:23
to write all these down. I wrote them down for you. 3rd
37:27
question, am IA good steward of my wealth?
37:32
Am IA good steward of my wealth? Is God honored by my money
37:35
management? I, I was talking to a guy, this
37:37
is years ago and, and he was like, yeah, I'm going to buy, he
37:39
was going to buy a $35,000 Harley, right?
37:43
And so I'm talking, I'm like, OK, you know, like that's a,
37:45
that's a big, you know, and he's like, yeah, he's going to help
37:47
me reach people for God. Now, here's the thing.
37:54
Look, maybe I don't know, he doesn't have to answer to me,
38:01
but he's going to have to answer am IA good steward of my wealth?
38:07
Does it honor God? Now, if the answer to any of
38:10
those three questions for you this week is no, or I'm not
38:13
sure, maybe I don't. Maybe I don't have a good
38:17
financial margin. Maybe I don't feel like I'm a
38:18
good manager. It doesn't honor the Lord.
38:21
Maybe 3 suggestions to consider how you might address that, to
38:24
take steps. Here's the first start small,
38:27
but be disciplined. Again, test God.
38:32
He wants you to test him. Start small in generosity, but
38:37
be disciplined. Second, even more practical,
38:41
sign up for a financial management class that we're
38:44
going to offer in the fall. You can Sign up today.
38:47
I'm going to definitely take one of these because I need help
38:49
moving my smudget into a budget. And maybe you do too.
38:53
So you can sign up for a financial management class.
38:56
We're going to be offering these in the fall.
38:58
Third, open yourself up to accountability.
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You know, we talk about accountability in every other
39:05
area of our life. If I'm, if I'm struggling with
39:09
sexual temptation, I, I, I get accountability in my life.
39:11
I, I put an app on my phone and I, and I, and I put limits on,
39:15
on the Internet or I do whatever is necessary.
39:18
Radical accountability if necessary to ensure that I have
39:24
people helping me in this process.
39:26
Why not with finances? Why not with finances?
39:31
So go to your small group, go to that accountability partner, go
39:35
to that mentorship group and say, hey, I need help with this.
39:39
I need accountability. Don't do it alone.
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Those are things for you to prayerfully consider this week.
39:46
All right, will you stand with me?
39:47
We're going to close this service with with a song.
39:51
And as we sing, our prayer team is going to come up here.
39:54
Now, we love praying for you. And I've told you before, it's
39:59
not weird to get prayed for. It's weird to believe that
40:02
prayer works, but then not want to get prayed for.
40:04
That's weird. So don't miss an opportunity as
40:09
we close the service to be prayed for.
40:11
If you need to be prayer for healing, if you need prayer for
40:13
some situation in your life, you need prayer for relationships,
40:15
you need prayer cause prayer is just generally a good idea.
40:18
It's a prayer checkup. Let's go.
40:20
We want to pray for you. You move as the Lord leads.
40:25
I love you.