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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:00 You are listening to Waters Church podcast. Waters Church is a multisite, multigeneration community of faith on the East Coast of America. Now for a message from our pastor.0:13 How to handle money without losing your soul. Take out your nose. They look like this. And we also wanna welcome in our Norwood location who is joining us at this point in the message. Everybody in North0:25 Adderbergh, would you welcome all of our locations and all of those on YouTube and pray dot com. We're so glad. 1 church of many locations. Oh, you can do better than that. Give them a big hand. Come on. Alright.0:34 Alright. How to handle money without losing your soul, James part. 5, you read any portion of the bible, eventually you're going to come to a text that deals with money.0:47 There are 31102 verses in the bible. 23 50 of them. 2350 of them deal with money. That means that 1 out of every 150:58 verses in the bible is talking about money. 1 out of every 15. 7.4 percent of the bible's text deals with money. It seems that god has something to say about1:10 this very serious issue. I think God understands. I know that God understands that God that that money will be the main the main attraction to your heart1:22 to take you away from God. Because what money does is it will promise you what only God can give you. Money promises you significance, power, security,1:34 authority, all kinds of things like that. Listen. Those things don't come from money. They come from God. God can promise you and provide for you security, sustenance, significance,1:45 power, authority, and protection. Not money. Money flies away. Somebody once said, if money talks, all it's ever said to me is goodbye. God knows that your heart will be drawn away from him
1:57 through money more often than any other thing on this earth. And so when you read the text, you're eventually going to come to money. There's things to be said about money in every book of the bible. In fact, most often,
2:09 God speaks about money through the words of his son Jesus. There are 32000 words in the gospels recorded by the Lord Jesus. 32000 spoken words of Jesus
2:21 recorded in the 4 gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Out of the 32000 words of Jesus, 5000 of those words deal with money and possessions.
2:33 That means that Jesus is talking about money. 1 out of every 7 words or 15.7 percent of the time Jesus is talking about money. So don't get on
2:45 me when I talk about money. Jesus started it. And he knows that you need your heart right with God when it comes to this. And if you read the book of James chapter 5, you
2:56 see that he is talking to the rich. And some of you automatically say, well, that's not me. I'm not rich. If you're an American, you're rich. By every
3:07 measurable metric compared to the rest of the world, the average American is filthy rich. What is the definition of rich? I know what it is in your mind.
3:19 The definition of rich in your mind is whoever has more than you. That's rich. You're not rich. They're rich. Got news for you. You're rich to somebody else.
3:32 I've been to the third world developing world countries. I've seen their houses. I've watched how they live, and I've met children that we sponsor through Compassion International
3:44 in in these developing world countries, and I've seen the joy in their faces without PlayStations and Xboxes. It's a beautiful thing to behold.
3:55 Take note of that during the Christmas shopping season Because some of you are under the impression that if you can make your children happy, they will be happy forever. No. They will not. They
4:08 are going to be happy for approximately 32.7 seconds or or minutes on Christmas day after they rip through their presents and open them. And then you will be calling tech support and finding out that you bought the wrong
4:19 batteries and all hell will break loose and the day is ruined because you have made it about what it is not. It is not about what we give to each other. It's about what God gave to us, Jesus Christ, the son of God who
4:31 died and rose again for our sins. So James takes on the rich in this text, he's already addressed the rich in several texts in the book of James thus far. In chapter 1 verse 9, he said that the rich should boast in their
4:42 humiliation because like the flower of the field, they will pass away. What you have will not last. What you own will not ultimately sustain through the course of eternity. It all fades. It all
4:53 deteriorates. And in chapter 2, James warns the church and says, do not show preferential treatment to the rich people. They come in with their rings and their bling and all the things that make them look rich and
5:05 important, but don't be like that. That's a worldly mindset. God has given faith to the poor and the disadvantaged, and they are rich in faith even though they might be poor in their finances. And that's not how God sees
5:16 the world. So don't favor people who seem important. That's a mentality of the devil, not the mentality and mindset of God. And in chapter 4, he warns the rich who boast about where they're gonna go and what they're
5:27 going to do for a job and how much money they're gonna make and how long they're gonna spend there. And he says, don't you know that you don't even understand what's gonna happen tomorrow? So now he says the most
5:37 hardened words for chapter 5. And in chapter 5, James throws the hammer down. He says, come now, you rich weep and mourn for the miseries that are coming upon you. And immediately, of you
5:49 will say, what does that mean that it is a sin to be rich? No. It is not a sin to be rich. Many of God's most faithful servants were wealthy. Abraham was wealthy. The bible says Abraham had
6:01 318 armed men in his home. That's a big stinking house, and he lived in tents. He was wealthy. Isaac, his son, was extremely wealthy. He
6:12 was so wealthy that the Canaanites were so jealous, they actually stopped up his wells and filled them with dirt to try to impoverish him. But God just more and more abundantly blessed him. Jacob was wealthy. David was
6:24 wealthy. Solomon was wealthy. In every generation of the Bible's text and narrative, there are godly men who can handle wealth and godly women who can handle wealth. And there are, demonic or devilish counterparts who
6:36 cannot handle wealth, fleshly counterparts. For every Abraham, there is a lot who is seduced by the spirit of Sodom. For every Jacob, there is an Esau who is seduced by the starvation of his
6:48 stomach. For every James and John and Matthew, the tax collector, who were probably wealthy disciples of Jesus, there is a Judas in their midst who feigns care for the poor when he really dips his hand
7:00 into the treasury box to fund himself. Understand that it's not about the money that you have, it's about how the money has you. You can be rich and greedy. You
7:12 can be poor and greedy. When you look at other people and demand that they give you what they have so that you can live the life that they have, that's another form of greed, and some politicians
7:24 call it a policy proposal. You've got to understand that money will play a significant role in your spiritual development, and I think James is taking on the
7:35 attitude of the rich in the congregation that he writes to because money can spoil and delude your soul. I want you to write this down at the top of your notes. Money can blind our heart or benefit the world.
7:48 Money is not immoral. Some of you think the bible says money is the root of all evil. It does not say that. It says the love of money is the root of many forms of evil. It's not about money. Money is amoral. Just like
7:59 the internet is amoral. The television set is amoral. It's about what we use it for that determines whether it is good or evil. And so when it comes to money, this is not James saying that being
8:11 rich is sinful and being poor is noble. That is not that is not at all what he's saying. He's talking to people who exploited the poor to fund their own pockets. He's talking to people who did not pay those
8:23 who worked for them and instead rob them and in some cases took them to court, sued them, and in other cases, more extreme cases, they even killed them. James calls them to account
8:35 with strong, denunciations, letting them know God's eyes are on their actions and not only they, but all people, including me, will be
8:46 accountable for how we handled God's money. And so today, I wanna give you 7 points. Pray that I get through them all. Amen. 2 sections of these points. The
8:58 first 3 have to do with the danger of riches, and I think James is calling on us to discern the danger of riches. Number 1, write this down. The first danger of riches is the delusion of the
9:10 mind. Nothing has more potential to make you think you're all that than money. Nothing has more potential
9:21 to elevate your pride and arrogance than success. In fact, I think that, historic history bears this out that people people,
9:33 traditionally, bear not having enough far more faithfully than having more than enough. Watch out for when you have that extra in your account because that's when the enemy will come and whisper
9:44 sweet nothings into your ear, making you think you're all that. And James doesn't want that for the church, and he says this in verse 1, come now, you rich. Weep. The word for weep here in the Greek is the strongest word
9:53 for crying in the Bible. It actually is the word for weeping over the dead, like you're crying over the coffin. And he says, howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. This is the
10:05 delusion of the rich. We think that more money will be a blessing. Sometimes more money is a cursing. We think that having things will make our house more significant. It really actually doesn't do that. And here's how
10:16 the rich got rich in James' text. He says in verse 5, these are in verse 3, these are not in your notes. This is not on the screen. It's in your bible. Look with me there in chapter 5 verse 3. You have laid up treasure
10:25 in the last days. That means that they stockpiled extra supply. He says the wagers wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, you kept back by fraud. That means that they swindled their servants. That also means
10:37 that you should pay your landscaper. Amen, somebody. In verse 5, he says, you've lived on a on the earth in luxury and self indulgence. They stuffed themselves. They boasted of themselves. And in James chapter
10:49 5 verse 6, you condemned the murder and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. That means that they suppressed and silenced the servants of the Lord. And what they thought was so good for them, God says,
11:00 is actually deteriorating their spirit. Proverbs 18 11 says, a rich man's wealth is a strong city for him. He says, it's like a high wall in his imagination. In other words, there there
11:12 was a delusion that comes upon the mind of the human that thinks that because I have all of this money, am safe. God says, not so fast. I have lived through and I have preached through the
11:24 financial recessions of this country. They come and they go. I walked through the great, quote unquote, recession of 2008, and I've seen the COVID pandemic do what it did financially to this
11:36 country for good or for ill. And it's never about the money, friend. It's about the heart. It's not about the amount. It's about the heart. And what James is calling on the
11:48 people of God to witness here is that money can so so often spoil your spirit. You don't even realize it. And he reminds us of
11:59 what Jesus spoke about money in regular texts in the gospels. And fundamentally, think you need to understand something about the money that is in your pocket. That money doesn't come from your hard work
12:11 alone. That money comes from God who provided it for you. Write this down so I know you're getting it. Wealth comes from God. Wealth comes from who? God. This is what Israel was
12:23 warned not to forget as they entered into the promised land. Deuteronomy is a collection of 5 sermons that Moses gave to the people of Israel on the heels of their 40 years of wandering through the wilderness. And he's
12:35 preparing their hearts to enter into the Canaanite land and take possession of it, where they will be blessed in a land flowing with rich and rich with milk and honey, and and they will be prosperous, and they will, or
12:45 ascend to a state of financial security that they had never known before. And in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God's word to them is this in verse 17, beware lest you say in your heart,
12:58 my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. And so many Americans do that exact same thing. Well, I went to school and I did the job and I took the internship and I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and
13:09 I did all the things necessary and I crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's, and I have made myself who I am. And God says, watch out for that attitude. You're a disaster waiting to happen.
13:21 Verse 18, you shall remember that the Lord your God is the 1 who gives you the power to get wealth. Again, it is not about wealth. It is not about the amount. You can have a lot of money and still be faithful
13:33 to God. God actually wants to bless his people, but he doesn't want those blessings to become God in their hearts. He He doesn't want your aimed trajectory
13:44 of income status to be the defining characteristic of who you are. Because you could be faithful with a lot. You could be faithful with a little, and God has chosen the poor in this
13:56 world to be rich in faith. So watch out for the delusion, the mental deterioration, if you will, of your spirit because your
14:08 increased net worth goes up and up and up. And usually in America, if you do the right things and you show up on time and your hard work, is there and your effort is there, you will increase over
14:19 time. But be mindful, don't let your heart now trust in your riches. Number 2, the deterioration of the flesh. 1 of the hardest things for people to understand, and sometimes
14:31 you get it eventually and sometimes you don't, is that everything that we lust for and long for and save for and spend for. No matter what it is, eventually, it just
14:43 rots, just deteriorates. And all that is necessary for those things to deteriorate is time. It just happens. James chapter 5 verse 2, he
14:55 says, your riches have rotted and your garments are moth eaten. That was before they had cedar closets. Amen, somebody. Their gold, their silver corroded. Their corrosion was evidence against them, and they would
15:06 eat their flesh like fire. You've laid up treasure in the last days. That's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You have to understand everything
15:18 that we see in this world will eventually come to nothing. During a performance on The Tonight show, Jerry Seinfeld shared this hilarious bit from 2014, and I thought I would share it with you
15:29 verbatim. Allow me to read it because it is hilarious. He says, quote, all things on earth only exist in different stages of becoming garbage. Your home is a garbage processing center where you buy new
15:41 things, bring them into your home, and slowly crapify them over time. You're all excited when you get something. You read the instructions. You fill out the registration card, and then some time goes by and slowly dawns
15:52 on you that you're not as keen on drying out fruit and storing it in your basement as you thought you would were. So what do you do? You demote it. Objects start in a visible living space in your home, and from there,
16:03 they go into a cupboard or a drawer. That's why we have cupboards or drawers so that we don't have to look at all the whole little terrible mistakes we made buying all that stuff in the past. From the closet, it goes to
16:15 the garage, 1 of the longest phases in classification. No object makes it into the garage and then back into the house. Some head to a personal storage unit, the saddest location of all.
16:27 Now instead of free garbage, we pay rent to visit our garbage. Everything is thrown out in the end. We are thrown out in the end. And when someone requests to be buried with a significant
16:38 special possession, I'm all for it. Please take your crap with you. Jerry gets it, and he's worth millions of dollars. It's not
16:50 about the amount. It's about the heart. Where is your heart when it comes to money? This is why Proverbs says in Proverbs 23 4, do not toil to acquire wealth.
17:02 Be discerning enough to deceive. Some of you gotta get to the place where say, I could go and make a lot of more money over here. Maybe that's not what God has in mind for me. May maybe my children don't
17:14 need to live in a multiple hundred thousand dollar per year household. There are bigger things at stake than the paycheck at the end of your week.
17:26 He says also, don't light your lies on it when it is gone and suddenly sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. Money can disappear before you even have a chance to enjoy it.
17:39 Some of you pray for the lottery. Oh, you pray to win. You want to make it rich quick thinking, oh, your problems will go away. And that's true. Your current problems will go
17:50 away, and you will wake up to a whole another set of new problems. Who's really interested in you now? Who's really your friend now? Are your relatives suddenly coming out of the
18:02 closet because they really care for you, or are they just interested in what you can give them? Money can corrupt a reputation and spoil a relationship faster than you
18:14 realize. And that's what James doesn't want for the people who are rich in the church. He says in verse 3, their corruption their corrosion of your things will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh. You'll just
18:25 get burned, burned by all of these things that you thought were so significant, but at the end of the day are just deteriorating objects in your closet or storage facility. Number 3 danger
18:37 is the denunciation of your soul. There's judgment coming, and part of God's judgment includes, listen, how we handled
18:49 his money. In Jesus' parables, we see regular revisiting of this theme. The master
19:00 entrusting to his servants a certain portion of his wealth. His wealth is God's money, not your money. The money that you bring to Waters Church is not
19:12 my money. It's not our church's money. It is God's money. And time and time again in Jesus' parables, we see the story goes that God entrusts. The master entrusts. The king entrusts
19:24 his money, his possessions, his servants. And then he goes away for a long time, and he comes back, and he measures their productivity and judges them accordingly. And for those who
19:36 amass an extraordinary amount of wealth to satisfy and indulge their flesh, the most damning denunciations come upon them. Just as in James chapter 5 verse 4 says, behold the wages of the
19:48 war workers who mowed your fields you withheld by fraud are crying out against you and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the lord of hosts. The word lord of hosts,
20:00 that's a military term. That the lord is the captain, the general of the armies of heaven, the angelic armies, and he's coming with vengeance in mind for
20:11 those who exploit and defraud the poor. This is all over the books of the Old Testament. Leviticus 19 13, you shall not oppress the neighbor nor rob him. You shall
20:24 pay the wages of the hired worker before the morning. In other words, somebody does a job for you, you pay them, then you don't wait. Jeremiah 22 13 says, woe to him who
20:35 builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages. Proverbs 22 22 says, do not rob the poor because he is poor or crush the
20:47 afflicted at the gate for the Lord will plead their cause and rob of life those who rob them. These are strong words. These are denunciations of
20:59 those who exploit their fellow man. Pockets, and our world is filled with these things. We call it financial savvy. God calls it sin. 2
21:11 weeks ago in Singapore, the trial started concerning a man named Noon Zi, the Manning Jing director of, get this name, NV Global Trading. Zi ran a fake nickel investment scheme promising
21:23 high returns to investors aka Bernie Madoff. The scam defrauded investors of 1500000000.0 dollars, and he faces life in prison. The company name Envy Trading could not be
21:35 more appropriate. For sometimes, we exploit other people in paying them just to pat our own pockets to impress other people who really don't care.
21:48 This is God's heart for his people so that they are not captive to the spirit of the age, to the idea that more money will make them happier. And
22:00 James is bringing down the hammer with intentionality so that God's people wake up and and put God rightfully in the first
22:11 place of their life. Lord, over not just my body. Lord, not just over my home. Lord, not just over my children. Lord, not just over my job, but lord over
22:23 my finances. And so if James left us here, I would say that it's just bad news, but I've got good news because I think that he carries this theme forward into verse 7. Verses 1 to 6 are the
22:35 denunciation of the rich who exploited the poor, but verses 7 to 12 are the encouragement of the faithful on how to approach money practically. And so I wanna talk to you about the proper use of money. Write that down.
22:45 The proper use of money. And I think James chapter 5 7 to 12 ties to 5 1 to 6 because of that word therefore in verse 7. He says, be patient therefore. In
22:57 other words, let's tie what I just talked about concerning the rich who were exploiting the poor to those who are either rich or maybe not rich and how you can faithfully walk with the Lord financially. And
23:09 there is something to be said about this. So I got 4 points for this, and then we're done. Number 1, patiently invest over time. In matters of making money
23:21 quickly, ladies and gentlemen, see if you can finish this phrase. If it sounds too good to be true, it it is or it probably it is.
23:33 When I was in college, I had a professor actually do this to us and, promised that he had talked to his lawyer about a get rich quick scheme and was offering the opportunity to get in on the ground
23:45 floor of what ultimately became a multilevel marketing scheme selling phone cards to friends and family. That'll date me. This is back in the 19 nineties. And I remember jumping on the phone and calling my mom and
23:56 saying, mom, I'm gonna make it rich. I'm getting in the ground floor of a phone card company. She said, oh, no, Tim. That is a multilevel marketing scheme. You're a part of a pyramid and only the person at the top is
24:06 gonna make any money. I said, no. You're wrong. I was absolutely certain. My 18 and a half year old self was absolutely certain that mom was oblivious to truth. And 100 dollars
24:18 left my wallet that never came back. That's how it works in our country. That's how it works in our world of get rich quick. The lottery winnings could be the worst thing to ever
24:30 happen to you. James advises us, be patient. Verse 7, be patient. Oh, I don't like patience, but we need it. He says, be patient therefore, brother, until the coming of the Lord. You wanna be faithful with money? Keep
24:41 the coming of the Lord in mind. You wanna be faithful with money? Keep the coming of the Lord in mind. Because when he comes, all this stuff will be immaterial. All the things that you measure your life by will no longer
24:53 be the measurements by which you measure your life by. Now you will enter into the glories of heaven that will far surpass anything on this earth. Says, be patient until Jesus comes. Then see
25:05 how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth. What does a farmer do? He plants, and he waters, and he fertilizes, and he weeds, and he
25:16 waits, and he plants, and he waters, and he fertilizes, and he weeds, and he waits, and he plants, and he fertilizes, waters, and he waits, and he does and it repeats over and over again. And he learns the process that
25:25 slowly over time, regular investments pay off in big ways. And then he says there's early rains, and there's later rains. In other words, there's
25:37 immediate blessings when you step out in faith, but then there are later blessings when you step out in faith. And you just have to trust that God is gonna send the rain on all of your all of your efforts at the
25:48 right time because God knows you better than you know you. And he knows not just what to bless you with, but he knows when to bless you with what he blesses you with. So
26:01 over time, the bible says in Proverbs 13 11, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers it, what? Say those 3 words. Little by little will
26:12 increase. Ultimately, we have to remember that God's money is our money is God's money. Our stuff is God's stuff. Our kids are God's kids. My marriage is God's marriage. My
26:24 body is God's body. It's all his. You don't you don't bring you don't give to God. You bring to God. You can't give what is somebody else's stuff. You just bring it back
26:36 to them and show them that you honor him with it. And I want you to write something down so I know you can leave it with the service with this. Every time I get paid, I take a test. Every time I get
26:48 paid, whether it be weekly or biweekly or monthly or however commission wise you get paid if you're in sales, You are taking a test, and I know that you don't get checks anymore. Everybody gets the direct deposit. I want
26:58 you at this point to start looking at those direct deposit numbers, and I want you to say, God, help me to be faithful with this test. Finances are a test from God. Will you put him first?
27:10 Here's how I have been passing that test for 25 years of ministry and 40 years of life. My first tenth comes back to this church where
27:22 I worship God with you. My first tenth, we call that the bible calls that not we. The bible calls that the tithe. The word tithe means tenth.
27:35 And I have done this my whole life, and some of you here could stand and totally corroborate this testimony. God has blessed
27:46 the 90 percent that I have left over way better than I could have ever done with 100 percent in my own hands. You buy also need to
27:58 understand that our church receives offerings from you. We don't pass the bucket. You go to water church dot org slash give. You give at the back of the sanctuaries, and we take 1 tenth of all that you
28:10 bring to God, and we bring it to God by funding missionaries outside of our church. We've been tithing as a church since February of 2013 when we were 2 churches in 2 locations, and now we are 1 church in
28:22 7 locations and up and down the eastern seaboard with many more locations and souls and baptisms to come. Because God blesses those who understand that their
28:33 finances are really his finances. And so I passed the test by telling my wallet the rest of that money is not even mine either. That's God's as well, and I need to be a good steward of that By bringing the
28:45 first tenth to God, Jesus said in Luke chapter 16 verse 9, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth. Unrighteous wealth is mammon here. It just means with money. Make friends with money. Sounds like a
28:57 funny thing for Jesus to say. But here's what he's saying. So that when it fails, and money always fails. When it's done, when it's gone, when it's no longer part of your life, when you're in the box and everybody's
29:09 weeping, but they're gonna go back to the fellowship hall and eat potato salad when that's over. Understand that's the failure of money. But when you turn the page from this life to the next life and you
29:20 walk through the door that's called death into eternal blessings, you'll be greeted by people who got there because you funded the churches that brought the gospel to them.
29:32 Fear for some of you walking through the pearly gates, you're so cheap toward God. You're gonna walk through the gates and there's gonna be no 1 there.
29:44 Tumbleweeds. What Paul the apostle says, you're saved as by being snatched out of the fire because though you are saved by grace through faith, you added nothing to it.
29:56 You sent nothing up ahead. You can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead. Amen, somebody. And yet some of you have been so faithful for so many years. You have funded the ministry of this church and not just
30:08 the ministry of this church, but the ministry of other organizations and operations to bring the gospel to the to the nations, and and and there's going to be a crowd. I just can't wait. You're gonna you're gonna go
30:18 through the door of death, and you're gonna walk through the door of death. And not only Jesus is gonna be there, but so many other people are gonna sit there and wait to shake your hand because you helped them get there
30:28 with your faithful giving. That's what Jesus is talking about in this text. That's what he's talking about. Make friends here on Earth with your money so that when it fails, they will welcome you into eternal
30:40 blessings. I don't know if you know the name Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. You probably don't, but I'll introduce you to him now. In the 17 hundreds, he was born to wealth and privilege in Germany. And
30:52 he was destined for a life in government and in a life of wealth and influence and pleasures untold in his generation. And 1 day, he was walking through a museum and he saw a painted picture of the Lord
31:04 Jesus Christ on the cross. And at the bottom of the picture was the statement, this is what I've done for you. What will you do for me? It gripped his heart, and he resigned any ambitions for government power
31:16 in Germany in the 17 hundreds, and he determined to use his wealth for the education of his generation in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he took his, vacation residence in Hermut, Germany and transitioned it
31:28 into a refuge location for Moravian missionaries who were the most persecuted missionaries in the 17 hundreds spreading the gospel across the Atlantic Ocean time and time again. And many of those Moravian ministries
31:40 reached countless tribes and unreached people groups over the course of Zinzendorf's life. And years later, fast forward on 1 particular transatlantic ship that went from
31:53 England to America, there was a group of Moravian missionaries who had been supported by Zinzendorf's wealth. And the storm was in the and the and the ship was in the midst of a storm and was tossed to and fro, and
32:04 everybody on the ship was scared for their life. And the Moravians were singing hymns to God and praising him because they knew if they drowned that day, they'd be in glory with the Lord. And sitting on that ship was a
32:15 man named John Wesley who was assigned an Anglican bishop Anglican priest ship in, in Georgia in this country, but he had not yet truly converted to the lord. How many know you can be
32:27 a preacher and not even know the lord? John Wesley questioned his faith when he saw the faith and the and the passion of the Moravians as he feared for his life, and they rejoiced that they might soon see the lord Jesus
32:38 in death. And their faith inspired him to come to Christ later on in his life. And you say, well, what does that matter? John Wesley founded the Methodist Church, ladies and gentlemen, and reached hundreds of millions of
32:50 people across this earth. Don't measure the Methodist Church of today by the Methodist Church of John Wesley's day. It was a powerful evangelistic tool in human history. And on John Wesley's deathbed, he wrote a letter
33:01 to 1 William Wilberforce in the parliament of Britain in the 17 hundreds encouraging William Wilberforce who was sick and down on his luck and trying to pass the the bill that would end the slave trade, the
33:13 transatlantic slave trade in Britain. And on his dying day, John Wesley wrote a letter to William Wilberforce, and William Wilberforce received that letter and took upon himself to fight for the next 18 years to make
33:25 sure that the slave trade industry was abolished in England, which led to the end of slavery in this country and the fighting against slavery to this day. And all of that started because
33:37 1 rich man decided to use his wealth not to indulge himself, but to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. You have no idea what God can do with your giving, with your funding of the gospel
33:49 of Jesus Christ. Some of you say it's just about the church having more buildings and having more people. And I always say, what's wrong with that? We need more buildings and more people because more people make a bigger
33:59 impact in the kingdom of God. What kind of construction worker do you want working on your home? A God fearing construction worker or a pagan? What kind of what kind of teacher
34:11 do you want in your school? A God fearing teacher or a pagan? What kind of dentist do you want working on your teeth? A god fearing dentist or a pagan? I'll take the god fear. The only way we get more god fears is by
34:23 funding the gospel and preaching Christ to a generation that desperately needs the news that Jesus Christ is alive forevermore. Some
34:35 of you have been failing the test time and time again. You wonder why your life is not where it should be. You wonder why you're always stressed financially. It's because you don't honor God with a tenth. You don't honor
34:45 God with a tenth. No matter how I talk about this deal, I'm blue in the face, and you still don't do it because you make all kinds of arguments. Oh, that's Old Testament. Nope. It's New Testament as well. Jesus affirmed
34:53 the tithe in Matthew 23 verse 23. And please don't tell me that the blood of Jesus allows you to be more cheap toward God than the old covenant people. You bring the tithe. You honor the tithe,
35:05 and God honors you back. God says in sec first Samuel chapter 2, those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. And I've seen it in my own life that the Lord builds
35:17 me over and over every single year, increased measure upon my life. I'm more blessed than I have ever been. Faithfulness in the tithe has been a big part of that story,
35:30 which brings me to point number 2, prioritize character over capital. Prioritize character over capital. What you have to ask yourself, which has to has ask have to ask the Lord is, father,
35:42 make me who you want me to be with this money. And this is good news for everybody listening to me right now because God can work with any amount to shape you. He can work on your heart through the
35:54 low financial seasons, making you faithful, making you start to thank God for what you have instead of worry about what you don't have. He can also work with you and work on your
36:06 heart in the rich seasons, reminding you that those riches don't last and ultimately are not the definition of your life. So what you wanna do with little money that comes into your heart and comes into your life is you
36:17 wanna say, father, shape my heart through this amount. What James says in verse 5, in chapter 5 verse 8, he says, you also be patient to establish your hearts for the coming
36:29 of the Lord is at hand. Scripture teaches us that money actually doesn't change us. We are who we are no matter the amount. Let me say that again. We are
36:41 who we are no matter the amount. Over a decade ago, I was here in this church when a certain dead body was discovered about 300 yards that direction.
36:54 And news broke that 1 of the New England Patriots players was ultimately responsible for the death of that individual, and everybody had the same question in their minds. How could
37:06 he be so foolish to act so wrongly when he had so much money? And the answer is simple. You are who you are no matter the amount.
37:19 Jesus said in Luke chapter 16, he who is faithful with little be will be faithful with much. And he who is dishonest with little will with little will be dishonest with much. Write this down. Money doesn't change who you
37:30 are. It reveals who you are. Some of you would complain no matter how much you get. Some of you would be happy no matter how much you lose. Because money doesn't actually change you. It just
37:41 reveals who you are. I I I I think that some of you got to learn a tactic that I've I've come to appreciate most recently in my life. I'm I'm at a stage in
37:53 my life where I just lay my head on the pillow every night, and I I say thank you, Jesus, for what you've done today. What a way to go to sleep. Amen, somebody.
38:05 Instead of complaining and worrying, just saying thank you. I've been brought safely to this pillow to rest my head for the next few hours. Amen. Proverbs 22 verse 1 says a good name is to be
38:17 chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. Which brings me to point number 3, pursue contentment. Be happy with what you have. Be
38:29 satisfied with what God's given you. Stop measuring your life against other people. James chapter 5 verse 9 says, do not grumble against 1 another, brothers, or you will be judged. Behold, the
38:41 judge is standing at the door. Here's what he means in the context of money. In the context of money, it can apply to all other areas of life, but it also talks mostly about money here in this text. And I think what itShow more
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