Skip to content Rooted: Rooted in Wisdom - Managing Money God's Way Oct 21 · 36 min ...more
Rooted: Rooted in Wisdom - Managing Money God's Way
October 21, 2025 · 36 min
What if managing money God's way could transform not just your finances, but your entire spiritual life? Pastor John Mark unpacks biblical wisdom on stewardship and finances.
Series "Pastor Talks" with John Mark Caton October 21, 2025 · 36 min · "Pastor Talks" with John Mark Caton
What if managing money God's way could transform not just your finances, but your entire spiritual life? Pastor John Mark unpacks biblical wisdom on stewardship and finances. ...more Show the full description Show less What if managing money God's way could transform not just your finances, but your entire spiritual life? Pastor John Mark unpacks biblical wisdom on stewardship and finances.
Series "Pastor Talks" with John Mark Caton Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
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John Mark is the Senior Pastor of the thriving Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, Texas, where he has served since 1995.
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Managing Money God's Way 0:00 What a blessing it is to hear you worship and sing and celebrate. If you're a first timer with us or new with us, in person or online, a couple of months ago we started our annual fall0:11 spiritual growth seminar. Basically we're saying, hey, we wanna develop some spiritual momentum in our lives in certain areas. And so we did in the spring and early January and through the spring, we began0:23 to look at what are people in North Texas struggling with? And here's how you can tell. What are they googling? What are they going to chat GTP, GPT about? You wanna you wanna find out how to raise your0:35 kids or manage your money or overcome anxiety or depression or something like that. And we can see the top searches. You can see those. And so what we then did is said alright, let's develop a spiritual growth campaign0:46 that deals with the top 8 most searched things that people in our area are struggling with. And so if you're new here, week 1 we talked about salvation and Christ. A lot of people,0:58 who is Christ, who is Jesus, how can I know I'm saved, is saved? Salvation by faith or works? And we answered that in week 1. Week 2, a lot of people are struggling with their mind. Man, how can I1:10 overcome anxiety or depression? How can I, help my husband or my wife or my son or my daughter navigate through their anxiety? And so we talked about week 2, how do we win? What does the bible say1:22 about winning the battle in your mind? Week 3, we talked about honoring God with our body. A lot of people Google, hey what's the best diet out there? What's the best workout regimen? How can I get in better1:34 shape? And so we looked at what God's word had to say about how we honor God with our body, we only get 1. So we talked about taking care of it God's way, the biblical way. Then that1:45 next week we looked at the idea of honoring God in our marriages and in our relationships. A lot of people going through some things and saying man, what are some things that I can say or do to improve my marriage? So we1:57 talked about God's word, what does God's word have to say about all of our relationships and our marriages so that they honor God. Then we talked about the idea that God did not create Christians to do life2:09 alone. And the place that God created in the New Testament is called the church. We're supposed to live in community and we talked about the reality just like a2:20 camper is drawn to the campfire, a Christian should be drawn to the church. Now we acknowledge there are no perfect churches including ours. Because imperfect people come to them, imperfect2:32 people lead them, and so we talk about really what it means to be the church. Last week, we talked about the purpose and meaning of work. What does God's word say about work and the meaning of2:44 work? And if you missed that, I wanna go go back encourage you to go back and watch it, they're all available online. Here's why, because I think there's a lot of things, a lot of times people if we aren't careful, we2:55 think that what I do right now, me preaching, is more sacred and more spiritual than what you do tomorrow morning at the office. And I will tell you, that is not the biblical way. Can I tell you what you3:07 do tomorrow morning, Monday morning, when you go into the office is just as sacred and just as spiritual as what I'm doing right now, right? And I only preach 1 day a week and I take the other 63:19 days off, right? And so you gotta go work hard. No, the reality, we looked at what does God's word say? And don't think what I do is spiritual and sacred and what you do isn't, because that's not what God's word says at3:31 all. And then today, 1 that people always hate to hear a message on and it's called money. So let's all give us a give a collective sigh, everybody go, oh.3:45 That's more enthusiastic than most of the sermons I preach right there. Just your all. Because here's what we know, you look at what people are searching and how can I develop a budget? How can I start saving money? How3:56 can I get out of credit card debt? How can I do this? How can I overcome my bankruptcy? How can I lower my mortgage payments? Man, that's what you're looking. So today, we get the opportunity to talk about managing our4:07 money God's way. Let's go back to our key verses. Colossians chapter 2 verse 6 and 7. Here's where we wanna grow in all of these 8 different areas. Says so then, Paul says to the4:19 Colossian church, just as you receive Christ Jesus, that means you're saved, you're now a believer as Lord, it's not a 1 and done. Christianity is not a 1 and done, we've gotta constantly be downloading,4:31 updating, upgrading, we need to be always getting better in our life. He says, just as you receive Christ Jesus, continue to live your lives or walk in him. How do we do that? By being rooted4:43 and built up in him, we wanna dig deep into God's word on all these areas that we struggle with. We wanna be strengthened in our faith as you were taught. We wanna hear the teaching of the word, God's word, we wanna read4:54 God's word with our daily devotion. But then it says, an overflowing with thankfulness. Now when it comes to money, I want you to know, you've probably heard this before, Jesus says more about money than5:06 heaven and hell combined. As a matter of fact, if you go from Genesis to Revelation, money is probably the most or possessions or wealth, probably about the most talked about5:18 specific topic in all of God's word. Depending on your translation, anywhere between 2323 hundred and 50 verses deal with money,5:30 wealth, and possessions in God's word. You say, why would the bible talk about it so much? Why would Jesus talk about it so much? Half of all the parables that Jesus told had to do with somehow somehow5:42 of money and wealth and hoarding and and holding on to things. So why would Jesus talk about it? Why would the Bible talk about it so much? Because we think about it all the time.5:54 We think about it all the time. So what it what we see is God's word addresses how we should use money. If you look at the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 1 out of every 6 verses deals6:06 with the idea of possessions, wealth, and money. Did some research on money this week, ran across a couple things I'll share with you and I want you to know. Doesn't matter what6:18 income bracket you are in, in this room today or online, you are struggling. Most of you are probably at least in some small extent, struggling with money.6:30 Recent Harris poll said 57 percent of Americans, regardless of their income bracket, are living paycheck to paycheck. They're living paycheck to paycheck.6:42 Well See, a lot of times people think, well this is just a lower income problem or a middle income problem or upper income problem. Let me tell you, it is an all of us income problem. 57 percent according to the Harris6:51 poll. Here's another 1, only 11 percent of Americans, according to Investopedia, only 11 percent of Americans last year considered themselves to7:03 have achieved financial freedom. Only 11 percent. So guess what that means, that 89 percent have not and probably so as you look to your left or right or in front of you or behind you, don't sit7:15 here and think, they probably don't have the same money problems I do. The truth is they probably do. They have the same money problems you do because if only, you know 11 percent said we've7:27 achieved financial freedom, that means everybody else says, I'm not there yet and sometimes I'm not close. Here's here's another study, that struggling and worrying about money7:39 affects every aspect of your life. It affects your mental health, it affects your sleep patterns, it affects your relationships, it affects your marriages,7:51 and money problems affect your decision making. What about just in relationship to marriage? That it is estimated that between 30 and 408:03 percent of all disagreements in marriage is over money. Just over money somehow, whether you spent too much or didn't spend enough or what you did with your money, etcetera. In divorce,8:15 those couples who divorced and they said, why did you get divorced? 35 to 55 percent of divorces listed money as 1 of the top 5 to 7 contributing8:27 factors. Now, in about 20 to 25 percent of the divorces, money was considered the primary cause of the divorce. So when we talk about money, we8:39 think about money, man we need to make sure that we understand what God's word says. So let's go back to Solomon's words in Proverbs chapter 3 and let's begin to look at wisdom and how we handle our money and how8:51 we should handle money God's way. Proverbs chapter 3 verse 9 says this, honor the Lord with your wealth. Now let me just stop and put a pause right now. God's not after your money,9:03 he's after your heart. K? And he's after your after your heart, not your money. He says, honor the lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all of your crops. Now notice, he says9:15 first fruits of all your crops. See some people give God what's right, most people give God what's left. Do you get that? Some people9:26 give to God what is right, the first fruits of their crop, but many other people, just because of money management, we're gonna talk about that here in a little bit, managing God, they can only give God9:38 what's left. And so what we want to do is we want to change that. We wanna begin to develop some biblical principles starting this week that maybe maybe 3 months or 6 months or a year from now you're out of credit card9:50 debt and you're financially secure and you're blessing God in the way he wants you to. He says honor the lord with your will, with the first fruits of all of your crops, not some of them. Then what happens? Look at10:02 verse 10, your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. Listen, I love this idea, when we honor God,10:14 here's what he's saying, when we honor God financially, it opens the doors for God's provision in our life. So the more faithful I am to faithfully give God of my first fruits,10:26 the more it opens the doors for God to bless me and provide for me in a real way. Let me give you a couple other verses, staying in Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 6 verse 6, he says10:38 go to the ant. Now, I love this little verse, this tiny insect will teach us a giant lesson about work and about money. He says go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its10:49 ways and be wise. Look at verse 7, it has no command commander, it has no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in the summer and gathers food at its harvest. So11:01 here's what it says, hey go to the ant. There there there's not some chief ant up on top of the ant pile screaming at all the other ants. Go do your work. Here's11:13 the analogy, he's saying listen, just like the ants, understand this, that they need to work and they need to work diligently, they need to store their food in the summer. Why? Because winter is coming.11:26 And they don't have a commander telling them, the ant just understands it and understands it without being screamed at, without being yelled at, without being preached at, that they want to do everything they can to work11:36 in the summer, to store up their food in the summer because winter is coming. Child of God, I want you to know, there is a winter coming in your life, I don't know what it is. But now is the time that you would11:48 store up in the summer. Why? Because this tiny insect teaches us a giant lesson of working hard and storing up and preparing wine. Not12:00 because they're being attacked and told to do so. See, money management doesn't need to be me screaming at you or someone else screaming at you, it needs to be a personal discipline that you do every day. That's what the12:11 ants did. They just work, work, work, and then when winter comes, they just kinda settle in. But they enjoy what they have already had. Here here's your next verse, you ready?12:23 Proverbs chapter 21 in verse 20. The wise, everybody say wise. The wise store up choice food and oil, that's savings, that's stewardship, but fools12:35 gulp theirs down. Man, what makes someone wise? Someone who works diligently? Someone who invests wisely? Someone who saves steadily? Man just said, I'm12:46 gonna start saving? Someone who entrusts everything to God. That's what it means to be wise financially. I could preach a sermon just on that. Man, you and I, we wanna work diligently, I wanna invest wisely, I12:58 wanna save steadily, and I can't save it all up in 1 day. If I'm gonna get financially free, I usually don't do it 1 day at a time. I don't do it at 1 time, I have to do it 1 day at a time. Then I'm gonna entrust13:10 everything to God. God will just trust you long term. So here's another verse, ready? Proverbs chapter 23 verse 5, cast but a glance at riches and they are gone.13:22 For they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. How many of you, understand what that verse means? You're like, where did it all go? You ever do that? You log in, you download13:34 Quicken at the end of each month like I do and go, yeah where did that go? Where did I spend money? Then you go to your budget categories, you go, ah that's where it went. It says, cast at a glance, it could go away.13:46 We never know. You never know when your money is gonna go. You never know when the stock market's gonna fall apart, you never know if somethings gonna happen with another war or something. Man, all of a sudden you can13:56 just see it go away. Ran across this article, you can go look this up if you wanna see it. It was published July 20 third of 20 25 this year14:08 at a place called Nerd Wallet. Go look it up, always some interesting things in Nerd Wallet, about money and money management. It gives 27 surefire ways to save money. I won't give you all 27 of14:20 them but a couple of them jumped out at me. 1 says create a budget. Apparently just creating a budget will encourage you to save more money. Number 2, track your spending14:32 every month. Where did we spend our money? What category did they go in? Here's number 3, what with the price of groceries up? They say prepare a list for the grocery store before you14:44 go. Don't do what I do, go in there and I see food and eat food and buy food and stuff like that. Prepare beforehand, these are all the things we're going to buy. Here's another 1, lower your14:56 TV and internet bills. They just kinda talked about chances are there is a cheaper package that you would be just as happy with for your internet as well as your TV. Here's another 1, switch to a15:08 cheaper cell phone service. What's your plan? Go find the cheapest plan that is out there. Here's another 1, cancel unnecessary or unused subscriptions.15:20 Look at all your subscriptions. What do you have subscriptions to that are unnecessary that you don't use or you don't need? You probably don't need 4 different TV apps. How many of you know?15:33 You might have some things that you say, listen I I don't need that. You can save money. Minimize restaurant spending. K? If you're in the restaurant business in here, sorry about this.15:46 And 1 of the key things if you read it says, hey go in there, order what you want, don't waste, particularly don't waste money on what you drink. I will let you define that, okay? But you15:58 can spend half as much on what you drink as what you actually ate. Here's another 1, restrict online shopping. And all the men just elbowed their wives.16:13 And you'll sit there and you'll jump on your wife because she bought some 19 99 dollar thing and then you spent 4000 dollars last month on your boat. Or deer season.16:25 Oh, yeah. Now you talk about Yeah. So you're actually more angry that I'm talking about deer season than money. I mean, I've kinda gotten over that, right? But just restrict online shopping. It's just too easy to say I16:36 need this, right? And just boom, it shows up, it is there. Here's another 1, I'll make all the insurance agents mad. Shop every 1 of your insurance policies.16:48 And then raise your deductible, so your premiums go down and then you have to immediately take the premium savings and put it into a savings16:59 account, so if you need to ultimately pay for that bigger deductible that lowers your premium, you're saving the money. So that's just NerdWallet. Go look at those 27 things. I'm not gonna get into your budget, I'm not17:11 gonna get into your business. Well, Jesus got into your business, but here you go. So whatever you do with your money, don't waste it. Don't waste your money. Man, just don't give it17:22 away. Don't love it either. Man, money? Terrible, friend. So don't love, don't trust it. Whatever you do, don't trust your money. It's17:34 not always gonna be there and and don't ever expect a bigger paycheck to satisfy you. If you're struggling in your own heart, your own mind, your own discipline, with with your own17:46 struggles and your own relationship, a little more money isn't going to satisfy you. The biggest need is to know who God is. So here, remember I told you that Jesus half of all the parables that Jesus17:58 told had to do about money? Let me give you 1 right here. Luke chapter 12 verse 15, it says, then Jesus said, watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed. I want you to know, greed18:10 is the only appetite appetite that gets stronger after you feed it. Did you get it? Greed is the only appetite you will ever have that actually gets stronger and wants more once you start18:22 feeding it. He says, watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greeds. In other words, it comes in many shades. Life does not consist in abundance of possessions. And he told them this parable, the ground of a18:33 certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, what shall I do? He says, I have no place to store my crops. Notice this verse 18, Then he said, this is what I will do, I will tear down18:45 all my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store all my surplus grain. Now listen, he says, I need bigger barns. He may have had full barns but he had an empty soul.18:58 And so notice what it says, and I will say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry. Man, if all your treasure on earth, you are19:10 going to die empty. Notice this is gone. He said, but God said to him, you fool. Everybody say fool. He says, you fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you.19:22 Then who will get all that you have prepared for yourself? Jesus here is not condemning the man's wealth. I want you to hear me. If you read this over and over again, at no point did Jesus condemn him19:34 for being successful, or being prosperous, or needing bigger barns. What he condemned him for is you fool, you put all of your wealth, in your earthly possession, all19:45 your in all your hope in your earthly possession. Look at verse 21. He says, this is how it would be for those who ever store up things for themselves, but is not rich toward God. Man, we end up dying a fool.19:58 This guy forgot God, he obsessed over his stuff, he overlooked, others, didn't share. He said, man what why wouldn't he have said, I've got all this all this increase, why20:10 don't I learn to share more with others? He lived for today and forgot about eternity. That's what makes you a fool. And so child of God, I want you to hear me in this. Here's what I know is gonna happen. We're gonna20:21 give you I'm gonna be an acrostic, for wealth and and wisdom along the way. But, here's what I know. Anytime I preach about money, someone is gonna probably go out of20:33 here and or maybe online and say every time I go to church, he preaches on money. Alright? And they're gonna they're gonna say that on Google. That's all they want is that proof Well, here's what I want you to know.20:45 If the last time you heard me preach on money was 2 years ago this fall. So you need to come to church more, is what I'm saying.20:57 K? You need to come to church more. If you're gonna go out of here and say, he always preaches on money, let me tell you what took place 2 years ago. Remember, we were in a make room campaign21:08 that you committed to give 14 and a half million dollars to build a student building, atrium, more parking, ingress, egress, more bathrooms, all of those things. And guess what you've done in those 2 years?21:20 You've given almost 12600000.0 dollars already. Give God a hand and give yourself a hand. I actually don't preach about money a lot. I preach out of the bible a21:32 lot. And I want you to know and I want you to hear me, why do I preach out of the bible a lot? Because I know when God gets your heart, you'll be a generous Christian. You'll learn to manage your21:44 money well and we all want to manage it well. And let me tell you what, I'm sitting up here saying, there have been seasons we have managed well, there have been seasons we haven't. There were times that we were doing21:54 well. I had a nice house at 1 time. I had 4 kids. We're going broke and we weren't going anywhere as your pastor. And guess what? Your pastor and his wife, we downsized. I was sitting there looking at my credit card22:06 debt going over and going, we haven't been on vacation in 2 years. These kids are expensive. No 1 told me how expensive 4 kids were. Especially if they were active. And so we finally just22:17 said, man, you we've got to go somewhere else. We've got to do something else. We can't keep doing this. I don't want to see my credit card debt going up. So I want you to know, I'm not sitting here going I'm perfect.22:27 But we're continuing to work on it and we're blessed. So let me just give you a quick acrostic on being rich in God's eyes. Number 1, everybody say r. R. R. Here it is. Recognize22:39 God is your source of wealth. You say where do you see that? Go over to Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 18, children of Israel are preparing to go into the promised land. God wanted to give them some encouragement22:50 through Moses and he says, but remember everybody say remember. The Lord your God, alright? Don't ever forget God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce23:02 wealth. So here's what we need to understand, whatever you do, man, if you are, in the upper income bracket or the middle income bracket or lower income bracket, whatever you were doing, God23:14 gave you the ability to do what you're doing. So here's what we need to understand, God is the source of my ability, I need to be a good steward of my resources. So God gave me the23:26 ability, I need to be a good steward of what God has already given me. So let me continue to read. He says, for it is he who gives you the ability to do what? Produce wealth. And he wants that.23:38 And so confirms his covenant with us or with you, which he swore to your ancestors as it is today. So God's provisions, listen to this, flow23:51 the best when we are faithful stewards of what we have. So we need to understand this, recognize God is the source of everything that you have. The ability to work, to save, to do whatever24:03 it is. Here's another 1, how does it apply in the church? First Corinthians chapter 16 verse 2, Paul is talking to the Corinthian church. He says, on the first day of every week, everybody say Sunday. Sunday. That's24:15 Sunday. That's when the church started meeting to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He says, here's how you give. He says, on the first day of every week, each 1 of you should set aside a sum of money.24:27 Well, then the question becomes, how much is a sum of money? Alright? Should everybody in this room set aside 500 dollars? Absolutely not. For some of you, 500 dollars is a24:39 lot. For some of you, 500 dollars is chump change. So it's not the same. So how much should you set aside? Here it is, I love this fairness24:51 principle, in God's kingdom. He says each 1 of you should set aside a sum sum of money, how much? In keeping with your income, that's the fairness clause.25:03 So if you make 200000 dollars, it's in accordance with 200000 dollars. You make a hundred thousand dollars, it's in accordance with the hundred thousand dollar. If it's 25000 dollars, it's in accordance with 2500025:12 dollars. In accordance with the sum of money, according to your income, saving it up so that when I come, no collections will have to be made for me. Now I love this, if you look at this25:24 passage, when you think about giving, think of 3 firsts that are right there. On the first day of the week, your first fruits,25:36 alright, and God your priority. Those are the 3 firsts when it comes to giving. First day of the week of your first fruits and make25:48 God your first priority. That's where we go and that's where we give and we need to understand that. That we need to system, systematically give. As we get paid, we give. Now here's what I26:00 understand, some of you get paid once a month, some of you get paid, you know, twice a month, some of you get paid every week. I would say probably for most people including us, and most people are, it's26:11 basically in accordance of when you get paid. In that day, most of them were agrarians, they made their money day by day or they were traders of some sort of linen or clothes or silver or something like that, so they had26:22 money coming in every week. He says, listen, set it aside. See, God's not looking for your giving, he's looking for your heart. He just wants you to simply say, Lord thank you for giving me the ability26:34 to make money, now I want to give it back to you. Here let me put a quote up here on the screen by George Barna, here it is. Practicing Christians who give 10 percent plus, in other words26:46 they tithe, truly tithe, are 2 times more likely to describe their lives as joyful and content than those who give less than 2 percent. Interesting. Those who26:58 are more generous and more faithful in tithing, actually are more joyful and more happy. You say what's the correlation? You can dig a little deeper, you can go find that27:10 quote, it's because people who tithe over 10 percent, they're not necessarily richer. But what they've done is they've done a great job of managing their budget. They've27:22 done a great job of saying, Hey, we're going to give to God first. So that's all number 1, recognize God as the source. Here's the I, you ready? Invest in God's kingdom first.27:34 Invest in God's kingdom and the key is first. Remember I talk about first day of the week? First fruits, God's your first priority. Here's another first, Matthew chapter 6 verse 33. Says, but27:45 seek first, everybody say first, his kingdom and his righteousness. Alright? So my job, so here's the deal, my job is to seek God's kingdom. And all these things will27:57 be given to you. So here it is, I love this. So what is my job? Seek first the kingdom of God. What is God's job? All these things. Did you get the difference?28:09 See my job is to seek the kingdom of God, God's job is to provide all these things. Most of us, I will submit to you, flip that. We make our number 1 priority is seeking28:21 all these things and then we try to fit God in, right? So we sometimes just say, hey God I'm gonna go after all of these things and if there's anything left over, I'll give some to you. You've28:33 heard me preach over and over again, I'm gonna continue to do it. Here here at Cottonwood Creek, we strongly encourage people to live by the 10 10 80 principle. 10 10 80, that the28:45 first 10 percent of everything you make goes to God. That's the tithe. The second 10 percent you make goes to you. Pay yourself, save. And the28:57 last 80 percent, do whatever you want with it. You do whatever you want with it. If you can fit in a a boat and a hunting lease in that 80 percent or a lake house or you29:09 know a a house up in the mountains, introduce yourself to me in the atrium. Cause I wanna strongly pray for you and encourage you, in those spaces. No. And here's the29:20 deal, man, if God if God has allowed you to give him 10 percent, save for you Why do you wanna save 10 percent? Either for you and your retirement or your spouse or your family.29:32 And then you live on that 80 percent. And you want to make sure that all works. That man, let me just tell you, he says bring the whole side into the storehouse. Can I just tell you this? When29:44 God's people tithe, God's house thrives. You get to give God a hand on that, alright? We are about to do fall29:56 festival. We will have literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people on our campus this week. Guess how much we're charging? Why?30:08 Because God's people have been tithing. Now you say pastor is that cheap to put on? Trust our stewardship team. No. Then how can we say yes to doing30:20 it? Because God's people have just faithfully given, Faithfully given, faithfully given and we say yes we can do this and yes we can do this and yes we can do this. Why? Because when God's people tithe, God's30:32 house thrives. Alright, here let's just look at the next verse real quick. Look at Malachi chapter 3 verse 10. It says bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that means tent, that there may be what?30:44 That there may be food in my house. God's people tithe, God's house thrives, test me in this. That's the 1 time God said test me in this, the Lord God Almighty. And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven30:55 and pour out to you much blessing, that you will, you will not be able to store it all. Look at verse 11, and God says not only will I bless you, but then I will prevent the pests from devouring your crops and the vines31:07 in your fields will not drop their fruit before it's ripe, says the Lord God almighty. Man, what an incredible thought that I want to make sure I invest in God's kingdom first. Here's the31:18 seed, cultivate generous habits. Cultivate generous habits. They don't happen by accident. Generosity doesn't happen by accident.31:31 It's a learned trait for the believer. We had 4 kids. I didn't have to teach any of my kids to be selfish. I didn't ever have to look and31:42 sit down with Jace or Jordan or Jensen or Jared and say listen, I'm just gonna need you to be more selfish. Because that's natural. See, unselfishness,31:54 that's supernatural. Saying, you know why I want to get on a budget? I want to do the 10 10 80 principle because I want to be all in on what God's doing in God's house. I'm gonna pay myself the second 10 percent because32:06 there's gonna come a day when I'm gonna be ready to retire and I want to be financially independent so I can serve wherever God wants me, whatever with whatever life I have left. I'm gonna spend that 80 percent and we're32:15 gonna have a whole lot of fun. And child of God, in here some of your 80 percents are way more than others. Some of yours are way smaller. But remember in God's32:27 kingdom, it doesn't matter. There's a fairness clause. Here's the 8. You ready? Hold earthly wealth lightly. Just hold on to it lightly.32:40 This is what Paul said in first Timothy chapter 6 verse 7. He says command those who are rich in this present world. Let me just stop you right there. I did a little research, I didn't don't have time to bring it up.32:52 But my guess is if you look at the world statistics on wealth and riches, The poorest person in this room is in the top 1 percent33:06 of all the people in the world as far as wealth. We don't realize it. Now you might look around and you might live in a neighborhood where you're far from the top 133:18 percent of those living around you. But folks, we are rich. We are blessed. So what do we want to do? I want to hold my earthly wealth wisely. I33:29 command those who are rich in this world, that includes me not to be arrogant and not put their hope in the wealth. I want to hold it lightly which is so uncertain. But put their hope in God,33:42 why? Because he's the 1 who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. See, when you begin to manage your money well, then33:53 you finally can enjoy your money. When your money manages you, it is a horrible master. Does that make sense? I I love34:05 a quote by John Wesley. He said, earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can. Child of God, make every dime you can.34:17 Child of God, save every bit you can. Then child of God, give everything you can. Man, what an incredible thought. He's just so uncertain. He said command them to34:29 do good and be rich in good deeds. I want you to hear both of this, To be rich in good deeds and generous and willing to share.34:43 See generosity comes in deeds and digits. Did you get it? I want to be generous in doing good deeds.34:55 Serving others, signing up to serve, signing up to go on mission. But I also want to be generous in digits. When I faithfully manage my money and understand that God is the source of it all, it ought35:07 to be easy for me to turn around and give a tenth back to God. Some of you just because of where you are, it's gonna take you a season of managing your money well where you can work that35:19 in and incorporate that in. That's okay. But the day that you get there, where you're just naturally letting your generosity flow back to God,35:31 is that you'll truly and only then enjoy your money. God, thank you so much for this day. God, thanks for the opportunity to talk about money. God, I know there are35:43 all kinds of people in this room that are in different spaces, in different stages with their money. Some have been laid off, some have are more blessed than they ever thought they would be. God, let us35:55 all learn to manage our money God's way. God as we leave here today let us celebrate your goodness and your grace. God let us be a people36:07 that are generous with our deeds and with our digits and our giving. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen.In this video 0:00 Managing Money God's Way
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