Everyone Else’s Biggest Problem

Cal Jernigan • August 28, 2022

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Morning church. Welcome. So glad to have you here. And I'm talking to those of you who are in this room, and I wanna say, oh, we're greeting to those of you who are on any of our campuses or you're online. However, you're seeing this, but I also. Uh, I want us to make some noise because we have a group of hundreds of women up at Williams at the women's getaway. Can we make some noise and just let them know that we appreciate them. All right. All right. So here's the deal. Um, I wanna remind you again and again and again that we have started a Thursday night service and it's awesome. I just wanna let you know, six o'clock Thursday nights. If you're traveling on any given weekend, uh, you can catch the service in. And, uh, more and more people are doing that. So I just wanna let you know about it. Okay. So we started a series in the book of James, uh, about a month ago, and we're continuing to work our way through it slowly. We're not in a hurry, we're trying to learn. And so if you would open your Bible to James chapter one, we're gonna pick up where we left off last week in the study of living a genuine life. And, uh, I want to just say something to you as you, you find the book of James. I, I'm gonna read a passage here to you from James in just a moment, but I really wanna encourage. That when you come to church, bring a Bible. Okay. So if I say, Hey, let's go fishing. You wouldn't go fishing without a fishing pole. And if I said, Hey, let's go play golf. You wouldn't show up at a golf course without golf clubs. And, uh, I wanna encourage you not to come to church without your Bible. Uh, I believe with all my heart, that the more you're in your Bible, the less intimidated you'll be by the Bible and you'll understand it. And that's our goal. And so I just wanna encourage you to do that. So James chapter one, uh, versus nine to 11, listen, very, very closely as I read this. Alright. Um, believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. That's interesting, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers to the plant it's blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed in the same way. The rich will fade away even while they go about their business. Well, let me just close in prayer and we'll go home now. is it just me or does it seem like this is incredibly abrupt? Is it just me or does it seem like this is like over the top intense is James just in a bad mood when he wrote this? What is what it seems have against people with money? What's he got against the rich, I mean, what is going on here, folks? There's absolutely no way you can conclude. that James, um, didn't mean what he said. There's no way you can say he accidentally empt it up. He accidentally got in our dish. He didn't do that. He did that absolutely on purpose. And you have to ask yourself, why would he say that that was incredibly offensive if you were here last week, you know that we're talking about the idea of trials and troubles and difficulties and, you know, adversity. Uh, he talked about that. He talked about the value of that in our lives. And, um, it, it's interesting that, um, you get the feeling. In fact, if you remember this, a big idea from last week, remember this all growth comes from discomfort. Remember that it it's as if what he's saying is, is there some things you, you need to be discomforted in, you need to be uncomfortable about. okay. Now I, I don't know if you know this, but, um, we're talking. So in the context, we're talking about troubles and difficulties and, and did you know that most marriages do not break up because of sex? They do not break up because of in-laws sex and in-laws are up there, but you know, the number one it's money. I've been a pastor. If you talk to people you say what's stressing you out. The number one stressor in our life, generally speaking is money. Uh, it gives us trouble. It makes life difficult for us. And it's as if James is just going, I'm just gonna make you uncomfortable about this. And, and there's some areas we might need to grow. Uh, I wanna say this, uh, sometimes the only way we'll ever hear a message. If it's said to us strongly directly intensely, like sometimes you have to get hit upside the head with a two by four before it finally sinks in and you go, oh, I. It that's what an intervention is, is when you get people and you go, I can't go. There's nowhere to go here. Everyone I know is telling me the same thing. If you, if you've ever had somebody or you've ever tried to communicate something important, but you wanted to do it subtly and nuance it and discreetly. So often you get frustrated cuz you go, they didn't hear a word. I said it's as if James knows what's at stake, here is so critical. I'm gonna up the amperage and I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable. That's what you feel. What, what he said it, it says if, if I don't get this right, I don't have a chance at genuine faith. If I don't get this right. I don't have a chance. So let me just say this. I, I don't think now let me just throw a general. I don't think we should become uncomfortable when we talk about money. Now I know that we do. I know. and, and when, uh, Jordan shared his testimony, uh, and you heard that, and then the presider, uh, Courtney here, but wherever on your campus, I sudden you go, oh, here we go. Here we go. And we kick into some kind of a mood. Okay. I don't think that should happen. I just don't. I, but if it does, I think it's a sign, a, something that we ought to pay a little bit of attention to and figure out, okay, what's actually going on here. So. We're gonna talk about this passage and it might make us uncomfortable, but it might not be the worst thing that could happen. So let me pray. And for real, I wanna pray just God would open our eyes and God is just that simple. This is not accidentally put in here. This is not a coincidence that we just read this. This was not a mistake. This was a direct challenge to. And God, I just pray. We just cause, cause us to wrestle. That's all I want. Just cause us to wrestle with it in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So what we're talking about when we're talking about money is how do you see it? How you see it is your perspective. It's it's, it's what you interpret. When you think about money, all of us do this, uh, all of us, you have like an outlook. It it's your perspective. Your perspective would be like when somebody says, is the glass half full or is it half empty? How do you. How, how does it come across and, uh, how you interpret it matters. All right. So let me just give you, I'm gonna tell you a story, um, of a couple that went out to dinner, a married couple went out to dinner and, uh, they each had very different experiences with the dinner. And then after the day was over the dinner date was over. They each wrote in a journal, I'll read you their journal entries. Let me rehearse first. She said, um, tonight my husband was acting very strange. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner, the conversation wasn't flowing. So I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk more freely. He agreed, but he still wouldn't say much. I asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn't upset that it had nothing to do with me not to worry about it and that I couldn't fix it. On the way home. I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, but he just kept driving. When we got home, he just sat there quietly and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent and uninterested in the two of us. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. I kissed him goodnight, and he kissed me back halfheartedly. About 15 minutes later, he also came to bed. still couldn't get his attention. He was so distant, so distracted. So uninterested, his thoughts were somewhere else, but where he fell asleep, but I couldn't, I don't know what to do. What does all this mean? He wrote in his journal, nine words, nine words, rough day. Boat. Wouldn't start. Can't figure out why and every guy's going. Exactly. And every woman's going. Exactly. It's your perspective on the day it's perspective on the moment, it's your perspective. It's how you interpret it. And just to be clear. My wife wanted me to tell you that was not a story about her and me just so we're good. All right. All right. Um, one of the most important perspectives you have that you interpret data in to try to make sense of it is how you think of money. What, what is, what is money? What is it? Money, what's it for? What's it not for all of that kind of stuff. It's your interpretation of money? And you have a view. You have an opinion, you have an outlook, you have a philosophy how you should handle it, how you. What you should do with it, what you shouldn't do with it, what it should mean to you and what it shouldn't mean to you, how you should attain it and how you shouldn't attain it, how much is enough? And what's the purpose of it? Anyway, Hey, here's one of the hardest realities is we tend to think that everybody sees money, the same way that we see money, but they don't. And, and again, at some point you wake up and you go out, that's just not the way it happens. Um, you have a certain perspective that other people don't have and they don't see it the way you. And by the way, one of the key ways to interpret how you see money, if you really want to figure this out is you've gotta go back in your past to your childhood. You have to think about the lessons you learned from your parents. You have to think about the things your parents said. You have to listen to the echoes of you, the words of your parents when you were growing up, because that shapes you and you carry it. And it's part of how you, your perspective, how you see it. Um, Jesus, again, not worried about offending anybody. Jesus talked a lot about money, just so, so you know, he talked about money all the time and, and if you were prone to just get put out when a conversation turns to money, you'd be put out with Jesus big time. He had this expression that I have thought a lot about. He talked about, this is what he said, the deceitful of wealth. What exactly is the deceitfulness of wealth? Well, I mean, what, what does it mean? Could wealth be duping me? Could I. Could I be fooled by wealth? Could you be fooled by wealth? Let me look again at this text. Let me, I'm gonna put it up on the screen this time. Listen, very carefully. Look at the words. All right. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers the plant its blossom falls and its beauty is. In the same way, the ritual fade away, even while they go about their business. Now we wanna go. Okay. All right. Woo. Good thing. Uh, he is not talking to us cuz he's talking to the church and he's talking to people outside the church he's talking to, uh, except he's not James won. One tells you exactly who he's talking. He's talking to us. And he's basically saying we're in one of two categories. You are a believer in humbled circumstances, which in the early church most were, or you're the other one? You're the rich. and we go, wow, we'll slow down here. Wait a minute. Uh, wait a minute. I'm not rich. I'm really glad I'm not rich, cuz it doesn't sound good for people who are rich. See, most of us would not describe ourselves as either poor or rich. Most of us would go, no, no, no. I'm not that. And I am not that, uh, I, I mean, I I'm, I'm not, I'm not rich, but I'm also not poor. And we would say it that way, which, which means that James must be talking to everybody else. in the church, but me. So in fact, I entitled this message, everybody else's biggest problem. That's the title. This, this sermon is called everybody else. It's not my problem. I don't have this issue cuz I'm not poor and I'm not rich everyone else. It it's interesting to me, the, the term, uh, the, the, they translate into English, humble circumstances. It's the Greek word. Um, TABOS TABOS means in Greek insignificant in the world's eyes, lowly relatively poor and powerless lacking in material possessions. Now, interestingly, they get the honor of being named first and they get, they get praised. You know, you should glory in your high position. If you're that, it just go, wait, wait, what? how could people without money be better off than people with money? I'm gonna explain something. I'll, I'll tell you what happens when you get money, money, skews, your view of money, wealth, skews, your view of wealth, and I'll show you how that happens in just a moment, but you know what? The poor have that the wealthy don't have. They have not been skew. by the promises of wealth that don't deliver young, young people over here, right here. You, you have the opportunity to make a decision to either buy into the world's values when it comes to money, which everything around you is trying to shape you into that belief system. Or you can go, no, I, I don't want to go there. I don't want to be that money. Will change your perspective on what life's all about and anyone who's lived any amount of life. You, you really don't wanna argue that. Okay. In fact, let me put two statements out here, a as to how, uh, how, how messed up money can make us. Okay. So let me first make a statement that will just be, let's use this as a baseline. All right. Statement. Number one, Americans are arguably the wealthiest people on the. And by that, I, I, I mean, if you take all the wealth in America, distribute across the path to the pop, you know, per capita and, uh, you're gonna come out, uh, maybe not the most. And again, this could be argued, but very, very likely at the very top. All right. Here's the second truth. The thought of going to heaven does not hold appeal to most Americans. No. What, what do I mean, I don't mean just dying and go. No, the thought would you trade what you have now for heaven now? Heavens no. No, I don't wanna go to heaven. Heavens just stepped down. I will forfeit too much if I go to oh yeah. Streets ago. That's awesome. But no, I like the life I have now we have been so richly blessed. The thought of heaven. Sounds like I let down. I don't wanna let go of this. I don't wanna go. You know, the rest of the world does not feel that about. the rest of the world's going. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? No hunger, no thirst, no tears, no pain. No. Are you, is a mansion. Are you kidding me? We look at it and go, oh, is that all you got God, in any case, most of us would not say we are or want to be of humble circumstances. We don't wanna be in that group, man. And I'm glad I'm not all right. That's let me put something in perspective. Okay. Because I'm not in the humble circumstances, but I'm also not rich, just so we're clear. I'm not rich now here's the problem. All right. So let me just do something. I, I did a little research on this. You can check it. Um, I wanted to know in America, what's the poverty line, uh, in 2022, what's the line of poverty for a single person. If, if you make this or below, you are considered impoverished in. Right. And the answer is $13,590 of annual income. And most of us go, oh, good. I'm not poor. Some of you and students, you might be going, are you kidding? I can't wait. all right. Uh, but you're students. That's cool. No, no problem. Uh, but most of us would go, oh man, I I'm glad I'm not living at that wage. Um, so if we're not that. And he only gave us two options. You of humble circumstances or you're rich. Well, what, what that means I must be rich and you go, no, no, I'm not rich. I I'm certainly not rich. I mean, Elon must come on. He's rich. I mean, Jeff Bezos, he's rich. He's not Kardashians. Come on. LeBron, James, he's rich. I'm glad I'm not one of them. Those guys sucks to be them. What they have. Okay. So I thought about this. So I thought, what, what income does it take to qualify for the top? 1% of all the world's most wealthy people, the entire world. I, I thought, okay. The one percenters, what is it to be a one percenter? Are you ready for this? If you make above $32,500 of annual income, you're a one percenter. Yeah. It's all perspective. It's all perspective compared to Bezos or LeBron. No, I'm not a one I'm not rich compared to everyone else on the planet of which you are one of. And by the way, that impoverished person at 13,500, who you know, is like, I live, I that's me. I'm in poverty. If you're that person, you are still in the top 14% of all people on the planet, 15%. you're you're you're at the top. It's all perspective. Uh, now most of us could easily explain. We can go look, let me, I know what's wrong with being poor, but we couldn't explain what was wrong with being rich, because most of us just go look. The goal is to get as much money as you can. I want to get rich. I wanna make money. I wanna make money. I wanna make money and you, but there's no into podcast. There's no into TikTok telling you how to get rich. We we've got this one down, but we couldn't tell you what's wrong with being rich. Ha having all the money in the world, man, are you kidding? That's the good life. That's the rich life. I wanna suggest that nothing screws us up quite as much as money can screw us up. And, and in fact, let me take you back to James. One, 10 and 11. Now, listen, listen, listen, listen carefully. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will be. They will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises of scorching heat and Withers to the plant its blossom falls and its beauty is. in the same way, the ritual fade away, even while they go about their business. I, if money is gonna trip any of us up, let me explain this. It's gonna trip you up by changing your perspective on what really matters. That's what's gonna trip you up. And in fact, here's the big idea of today. All right now money doesn't have to destroy us, but money destroys us when it changes our focus from the eternal. to the temporary. This is the point James is driving home. Uh, money is not eternal. Money is not ultimately what matters in life money. Isn't gonna buy us a place in heaven, whatever amount of money you attain on this life in on this planet, in this life. It will not last. That's what he's trying to tell us. Yeah, I was thinking about this. I was trying. Put this in perspective in my own life. And I, I gotta tell you about something that happened. Now, I'm gonna describe something. This is not normal. This doesn't happen to me often. Don't hear. And this happened again. I had an event happen in my life and I don't really remember say four years ago, somewhere in that ballpark, that was just, I was just different. It was really different. I got an invitation, uh, and this again is gonna sound really like out there, but I got an invitation from, I believe the government of the United Arab Emirate. Uh, to, uh, come to Abu Dhabi and to convene with some other leaders to have a discussion. And what they were doing is they were pulling across the planet, 10 Christian pastors, 10 Muslim EAMS and 10 Jewish rabbis. And again, I, I think it was the government who basically convened this meeting, but they said, we wanna sit you in a room. And we wanna have a conversation about what it would take for all of us to live on this planet peacefully. And I'm all for that. And so I, uh, agreed, uh, I will go, I'll go. And I did go, they, they said in the invitation, all expenses will be covered. Don't worry about it. We'll get you there. Get you back, take care of you, blah, blah, blah. And I said fine. That's that's normal. Okay. For, you know, when you, a pastor, you go somewhere and somebody invites you to go somewhere. They cover. What I didn't understand at the time was that, um, what they were doing was that they were gonna fly me first class. Okay. Now I, I, I, I sometimes get upgraded to first class, but I don't fly internationally first class and I certainly don't fly it on a middle Eastern airline, like air Emirates or, uh, ed hot air. If you know anything about middle Eastern airlines, they're opulent on to an excess. Right. You know, this, I. Until I got my first class cabin. I'm telling you, it was incredible. You get your own little room and it's just yours. And it's got all kinds of stuff in it. It's amazing. I mean, you got a bed in there and you got a big screen TV in there. I mean, it was seriously, you get slippers in a robe and you get all kinds of stuff and they come by and they kinda look over your door. The Butler. and he says, uh, sir, we're, uh, wanting to know what you'd like to have for dinner. And they give you a menu. This menu has, I, I, I don't ever eat in a restaurant with a menu. That's nice. he was like, are you kidding me? It was the most incredible flight of my life hours across, you know, the Atlantic to get there. And, uh, I just need you to know, I have never been on a flight. I wanted to end less than that flight tragically. The land, the plane had a land and you know what happened when it landed? I got asked off the plane. I don't wanna leave I let's go back home. Now you see all a plane flight is, is a journey from where you are to where you're headed. That's all it is. It starts it's a middle and it ends. And if you've given no thought to where that plane's gonna land and what you're gonna do when you get there. In other words, if you don't have any thought about your destination, you're gonna arrive incredibly unprepared. Could it be all that life is this life we're living is the plane flight that we're falling in love with as if this is going to last forever. James is trying to tell us this isn't gonna last forever. It just isn't. Um, our problem is, is that we put all of our focus. This is our struggle. We put all of our focus on the here and now, and we disregard it there. And then as if they're there and then isn't gonna come, this plane will land, it will land. It will go somewhere. I, I wanna read you a story that Jesus told they won't take, but a moment, but it is found in Luke chapter 16. I wanna read this. And, and, and what he says in here can be so offensive. I just need you to understand this is really important. You might wanna write this email address down Jesus heaven.com. Okay. Because if this upsets you, uh, please realize I'm just quoting to him. It was his story. All right. Don't don't don't I'm just a messenger. Okay. This is what he said. Listen carefully. He's gonna talk about three players. All right. There was a rich man. We got a rich man, uh, who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. Couldn't be me. I don't, that's not. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazare. He's got a rich man who's living a good life. And he got a beggar named Lazarus. Uh, and he was covered with source and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Okay. So this guy's so hungry, just gimme crumbs off your table. It says even the dogs came and lick to a source. Let me translate. Dogs were more compassionate to east the suffering of this man than the rich man. who wouldn't even be generous with the crumbs? Well, the time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham side, now's the third player. Abraham's, uh, uh, the patriarch of the, you know, old Testament. Yeah. So this is heaven. He, he dies, the beggar dies and he goes to the side of Abraham up in heaven. The rich man also died and was. In Hades where he was in torment. What, what, what, yeah. See the, the, the beggar landed the plane and he ended up in heaven and the rich guy landed the plane and he ended up in Hades where he was tortured. Uh, he, he looked up and he saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. Lazarus is the, the man, the poor guy that is now. Next to Abraham. So he called him father Abraham had pity on me and said Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger and water and cool my tongue because I am an agony in this fire, but Abraham replied son listen carefully. Remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in ago. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been set in place so that those who want to go from here to you cannot nor can anyone cross over from there to us. He answered, then I beg you father sin, Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers, let him warn them so that they also will not come to this place of torment. Abraham replied, listen, they have Moses and they have the prophet. Let them listen to them. No father Abraham. He said, but if somebody from the dead goes to them, they will repent. Jesus said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced. Even if someone rises from the dead, at some point on this journey, we should pay attention to where we're headed. What are the consequences of the flight that we got on you? You probably have noticed, um, these down here, this is one of the nicest things guys we could ever do for our wives. Can I get a name in every guy should buy flowers for their wife? Okay. I just, that's free. I just write that down in your notes. um, I love buying flowers for my wife and, and I love the look on her face and I just, I love them in our house when they're. And, uh, man, they're awesome. They're, they're costly. They're not cheap to go buy a, you know, a bouquet, you know that if you've done it, but there's something incredibly frustrating about the process of buying flowers, right? Because what starts out as that ends up like that. Now, I don't know how clearly you can see this, but this is what that's gonna become in just a few days. This is vibrant and beautiful. and this is dead and dying. And this is what James says. This is what wealth will do in your life. It's not gonna last it it's, it's great while it's there and in that moment, but ultimately it's not gonna be what you thought it was gonna be. The big idea of this message just simply money destroys us when it changes our focus. From the eternal to the temporary and here and now becomes far and more important to us than there. And then, Hmm, the most chilling words to me and that entire paragraph that we've looked at this morning are the last words in that sentence. The last sentence ends with these words, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. That's chilling. You know, why that's chilling because what's gonna happen is I'm just gonna do my thing and all the while I'm dying out to eternity. And I think James is trying to make us incredibly uncomfortable. So what's your perspective on money? What do you think of when you think of money? Um, what's its purpose in your life? You can use it to acquire more and more of it. or you could, um, use it to, I dunno, some greater purpose. My wife and I, and this does not have to be your deal at all. My wife and I have made a determination that we will not let money become our God. We will not let money be the driving force. Behind our lives. We will not let money determine our value or what values we hold. We have determined. We will not let money kidnap our perspective on life and you might go, wow. That's great. That's great. That's a great vow. That's a great, so we created a rule that we live by. You don't have to do this, but this is our rule. And we've done this for a long time. Our rule is simply this. The largest line item in our budget will always be what we give away. And we give the majority of what we give away. We give away to the church, cuz I certainly believe in the mission of the church, but we give beyond the church we, which, which means that rule means we have to interpret certain things. So we don't live in a house that costs us more to live in than we could. We don't drive cars that cost us more than we, we would have to pay for them than what we give. We don't go on vacations. That would cost us. I don't have a boat that costs more than what we give. We don't save more for retirement than we give that's our rule that doesn't have to be yours, but you know, it's done incredible things for my wife and I it's helped us to keep God as God and the eternal eternal and the temporary temporary. What, what, what, what's your rule? How, how do you see money? How do you handle keeping it from becoming too important in your life? Money destroys us when it changes our focus from the eternal to the temporary. So let me just a couple things to close here. All right. I wanna tell you something. I read this summer on my study. Leave that just stop me. And I just went. Wow. Uh, it was a conversation that took place on shelter island, uh, at a billionaire's mansion a while back, and it had a couple of author. The very famous authors. Um, uh, the one is Kurt VGO who wrote slaughter house five. He has since died. And the other one's Joseph Heller who wrote the classic catch 22 book. Uh, all these, both these authors, all, you know, they've done great, but they've since died, but they were at this billionaires house. Now the billionaire was a hedge fund manager and Vogan said to Heller, he said, you know that guy right there, the guy that owned the mansion, he. He makes more money in a single day Heller than you have made over the entire career of your writing and over what you've made off catch 22. And then Heller said something back to Vogan that was recorded. This is what he said. Yeah. But I have something he will have and Monica say, what's that enough? I have enough. Uh, you, you could be pretty miserable when you have a lot, but it's not enough. I, I love this passage, Proverbs 30. It says two things I ask of you. Lord, do not refuse me before I die. Two things keep falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, who is the. Or I may become poor and still. And so dishonor the name of my God. God, just gimme enough. Don't let it change me into a person. I don't want to be now. Listen, I'm I'm gonna close right now by saying this. If, if this has made you uncomfortable, uh, number one, I'm sorry, not sorry. don't think money should ever make you uncomfortable. I don't think you should handle money in a way that discussing it makes you uneasy. I just don't think you. , I don't think it should have that power over you, but if it does and you're going, pastor, you've just put so much out there. I'm so I don't even know where to begin. If I were to try to get this thing squared away, I want to end this message by letting you know that we have a ministry in our church dedicated to helping people get it right. When it comes to money, it's called the enrichment ministry of our church and David Briggs heads. This thing up, he's a world class leader, and I'm just telling you, we have all kinds of tools available to help you get this. I've gone through this. It has changed my life. I would do anything to get you to go through this. I want you to know that coming up here on the 20th of September on the Gilbert campus for nine consecutive weeks, we're offering financial peace university. If you've never gone through that, now's the time if you've gone through it and you feel like I need a refresher. Now's the time. If you wanna know more detail, just contact dave@enrichcentralaz.com and he'll get you connect. hard subject, uncomfortable subject, incredibly relevant subject. Please, please think about this beyond this hour. A lot is at stake. Let me pray. So God, uh, again, we all deal with money. We all have money. We all don't have money. We all have priorities. We all struggle with our priorities. We all are in this together and all of us are pretty much the same as the rest of us. God help us to just realize that this is not about everybody else. This is about me. And this is about you and it's about them and you and God. Um, we should not be uptight when it comes to talking about money. It, the UN did, the uncomfortability is a sign of something that we need to grow. So help us to grow, help us to grow, become who you wanted us to be. God do not allow us to sacrifice. The there, and then for the here and now what a tragic mistake that will be, this plane will land. And we ha we will depart to the destination of which we were headed. God, wake us up in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen. Bless you guys.

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Morning church. Welcome. So glad to have you here. And I'm talking to those of you who are in this room, and I wanna say, oh, we're greeting to those of you who are on any of our campuses or you're online. However, you're seeing this, but I also. Uh, I want us to make some noise because we have a group of hundreds of women up at Williams at the women's getaway. Can we make some noise and just let them know that we appreciate them. All right. All right. So here's the deal. Um, I wanna remind you again and again and again that we have started a Thursday night service and it's awesome. I just wanna let you know, six o'clock Thursday nights. If you're traveling on any given weekend, uh, you can catch the service in. And, uh, more and more people are doing that. So I just wanna let you know about it. Okay. So we started a series in the book of James, uh, about a month ago, and we're continuing to work our way through it slowly. We're not in a hurry, we're trying to learn. And so if you would open your Bible to James chapter one, we're gonna pick up where we left off last week in the study of living a genuine life. And, uh, I want to just say something to you as you, you find the book of James. I, I'm gonna read a passage here to you from James in just a moment, but I really wanna encourage. That when you come to church, bring a Bible. Okay. So if I say, Hey, let's go fishing. You wouldn't go fishing without a fishing pole. And if I said, Hey, let's go play golf. You wouldn't show up at a golf course without golf clubs. And, uh, I wanna encourage you not to come to church without your Bible. Uh, I believe with all my heart, that the more you're in your Bible, the less intimidated you'll be by the Bible and you'll understand it. And that's our goal. And so I just wanna encourage you to do that. So James chapter one, uh, versus nine to 11, listen, very, very closely as I read this. Alright. Um, believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. That's interesting, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers to the plant it's blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed in the same way. The rich will fade away even while they go about their business. Well, let me just close in prayer and we'll go home now.

is it just me or does it seem like this is incredibly abrupt? Is it just me or does it seem like this is like over the top intense is James just in a bad mood when he wrote this? What is what it seems have against people with money? What's he got against the rich, I mean, what is going on here, folks? There's absolutely no way you can conclude.

that James, um, didn't mean what he said. There's no way you can say he accidentally empt it up. He accidentally got in our dish. He didn't do that. He did that absolutely on purpose. And you have to ask yourself, why would he say that that was incredibly offensive if you were here last week, you know that we're talking about the idea of trials and troubles and difficulties and, you know, adversity. Uh, he talked about that. He talked about the value of that in our lives. And, um, it, it's interesting that, um, you get the feeling. In fact, if you remember this, a big idea from last week, remember this all growth comes from discomfort. Remember that it it's as if what he's saying is, is there some things you, you need to be discomforted in, you need to be uncomfortable about. okay. Now I, I don't know if you know this, but, um, we're talking. So in the context, we're talking about troubles and difficulties and, and did you know that most marriages do not break up because of sex? They do not break up because of in-laws sex and in-laws are up there, but you know, the number one it's money. I've been a pastor. If you talk to people you say what's stressing you out. The number one stressor in our life, generally speaking is money. Uh, it gives us trouble. It makes life difficult for us. And it's as if James is just going, I'm just gonna make you uncomfortable about this. And, and there's some areas we might need to grow. Uh, I wanna say this, uh, sometimes the only way we'll ever hear a message. If it's said to us strongly directly intensely, like sometimes you have to get hit upside the head with a two by four before it finally sinks in and you go, oh, I. It that's what an intervention is, is when you get people and you go, I can't go. There's nowhere to go here. Everyone I know is telling me the same thing. If you, if you've ever had somebody or you've ever tried to communicate something important, but you wanted to do it subtly and nuance it and discreetly. So often you get frustrated cuz you go, they didn't hear a word. I said it's as if James knows what's at stake, here is so critical. I'm gonna up the amperage and I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable. That's what you feel. What, what he said it, it says if, if I don't get this right, I don't have a chance at genuine faith. If I don't get this right. I don't have a chance. So let me just say this. I, I don't think now let me just throw a general. I don't think we should become uncomfortable when we talk about money. Now I know that we do. I know.

and, and when, uh, Jordan shared his testimony, uh, and you heard that, and then the presider, uh, Courtney here, but wherever on your campus, I sudden you go, oh, here we go. Here we go. And we kick into some kind of a mood. Okay. I don't think that should happen. I just don't. I, but if it does, I think it's a sign, a, something that we ought to pay a little bit of attention to and figure out, okay, what's actually going on here. So. We're gonna talk about this passage and it might make us uncomfortable, but it might not be the worst thing that could happen. So let me pray. And for real, I wanna pray just God would open our eyes and God is just that simple. This is not accidentally put in here. This is not a coincidence that we just read this. This was not a mistake. This was a direct challenge to. And God, I just pray. We just cause, cause us to wrestle. That's all I want. Just cause us to wrestle with it in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So what we're talking about when we're talking about money is how do you see it? How you see it is your perspective. It's it's, it's what you interpret. When you think about money, all of us do this, uh, all of us, you have like an outlook. It it's your perspective. Your perspective would be like when somebody says, is the glass half full or is it half empty? How do you. How, how does it come across and, uh, how you interpret it matters. All right. So let me just give you, I'm gonna tell you a story, um, of a couple that went out to dinner, a married couple went out to dinner and, uh, they each had very different experiences with the dinner. And then after the day was over the dinner date was over. They each wrote in a journal, I'll read you their journal entries. Let me rehearse first. She said, um, tonight my husband was acting very strange. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner, the conversation wasn't flowing. So I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk more freely. He agreed, but he still wouldn't say much. I asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn't upset that it had nothing to do with me not to worry about it and that I couldn't fix it. On the way home. I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, but he just kept driving. When we got home, he just sat there quietly and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent and uninterested in the two of us. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. I kissed him goodnight, and he kissed me back halfheartedly. About 15 minutes later, he also came to bed.

still couldn't get his attention. He was so distant, so distracted. So uninterested, his thoughts were somewhere else, but where he fell asleep, but I couldn't, I don't know what to do. What does all this mean? He wrote in his journal, nine words, nine words, rough day. Boat. Wouldn't start. Can't figure out why and every guy's going. Exactly. And every woman's going. Exactly. It's your perspective on the day it's perspective on the moment, it's your perspective. It's how you interpret it. And just to be clear. My wife wanted me to tell you that was not a story about her and me just so we're good. All right. All right. Um, one of the most important perspectives you have that you interpret data in to try to make sense of it is how you think of money. What, what is, what is money? What is it? Money, what's it for? What's it not for all of that kind of stuff. It's your interpretation of money? And you have a view. You have an opinion, you have an outlook, you have a philosophy how you should handle it, how you. What you should do with it, what you shouldn't do with it, what it should mean to you and what it shouldn't mean to you, how you should attain it and how you shouldn't attain it, how much is enough? And what's the purpose of it? Anyway, Hey, here's one of the hardest realities is we tend to think that everybody sees money, the same way that we see money, but they don't. And, and again, at some point you wake up and you go out, that's just not the way it happens. Um, you have a certain perspective that other people don't have and they don't see it the way you. And by the way, one of the key ways to interpret how you see money, if you really want to figure this out is you've gotta go back in your past to your childhood. You have to think about the lessons you learned from your parents. You have to think about the things your parents said. You have to listen to the echoes of you, the words of your parents when you were growing up, because that shapes you and you carry it. And it's part of how you, your perspective, how you see it. Um, Jesus, again, not worried about offending anybody. Jesus talked a lot about money, just so, so you know, he talked about money all the time and, and if you were prone to just get put out when a conversation turns to money, you'd be put out with Jesus big time. He had this expression that I have thought a lot about. He talked about, this is what he said, the deceitful of wealth. What exactly is the deceitfulness of wealth? Well, I mean, what, what does it mean? Could wealth be duping me? Could I. Could I be fooled by wealth? Could you be fooled by wealth? Let me look again at this text. Let me, I'm gonna put it up on the screen this time. Listen, very carefully. Look at the words. All right. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers the plant its blossom falls and its beauty is. In the same way, the ritual fade away, even while they go about their business. Now we wanna go. Okay. All right. Woo. Good thing. Uh, he is not talking to us cuz he's talking to the church and he's talking to people outside the church he's talking to, uh, except he's not James won. One tells you exactly who he's talking. He's talking to us. And he's basically saying we're in one of two categories. You are a believer in humbled circumstances, which in the early church most were, or you're the other one? You're the rich.

and we go, wow, we'll slow down here. Wait a minute. Uh, wait a minute. I'm not rich. I'm really glad I'm not rich, cuz it doesn't sound good for people who are rich. See, most of us would not describe ourselves as either poor or rich. Most of us would go, no, no, no. I'm not that. And I am not that, uh, I, I mean, I I'm, I'm not, I'm not rich, but I'm also not poor. And we would say it that way, which, which means that James must be talking to everybody else.

in the church, but me. So in fact, I entitled this message, everybody else's biggest problem. That's the title. This, this sermon is called everybody else. It's not my problem. I don't have this issue cuz I'm not poor and I'm not rich everyone else. It it's interesting to me, the, the term, uh, the, the, they translate into English, humble circumstances. It's the Greek word. Um, TABOS TABOS means in Greek insignificant in the world's eyes, lowly relatively poor and powerless lacking in material possessions. Now, interestingly, they get the honor of being named first and they get, they get praised. You know, you should glory in your high position. If you're that, it just go, wait, wait, what? how could people without money be better off than people with money? I'm gonna explain something. I'll, I'll tell you what happens when you get money, money, skews, your view of money, wealth, skews, your view of wealth, and I'll show you how that happens in just a moment, but you know what? The poor have that the wealthy don't have. They have not been skew.

by the promises of wealth that don't deliver young, young people over here, right here. You, you have the opportunity to make a decision to either buy into the world's values when it comes to money, which everything around you is trying to shape you into that belief system. Or you can go, no, I, I don't want to go there. I don't want to be that money. Will change your perspective on what life's all about and anyone who's lived any amount of life. You, you really don't wanna argue that. Okay. In fact, let me put two statements out here, a as to how, uh, how, how messed up money can make us. Okay. So let me first make a statement that will just be, let's use this as a baseline. All right. Statement. Number one, Americans are arguably the wealthiest people on the. And by that, I, I, I mean, if you take all the wealth in America, distribute across the path to the pop, you know, per capita and, uh, you're gonna come out, uh, maybe not the most. And again, this could be argued, but very, very likely at the very top. All right. Here's the second truth. The thought of going to heaven does not hold appeal to most Americans. No. What, what do I mean, I don't mean just dying and go. No, the thought would you trade what you have now for heaven now? Heavens no. No, I don't wanna go to heaven. Heavens just stepped down. I will forfeit too much if I go to oh yeah. Streets ago. That's awesome. But no, I like the life I have now we have been so richly blessed. The thought of heaven. Sounds like I let down. I don't wanna let go of this. I don't wanna go. You know, the rest of the world does not feel that about.

the rest of the world's going. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? No hunger, no thirst, no tears, no pain. No. Are you, is a mansion. Are you kidding me? We look at it and go, oh, is that all you got God, in any case, most of us would not say we are or want to be of humble circumstances. We don't wanna be in that group, man. And I'm glad I'm not all right. That's let me put something in perspective. Okay. Because I'm not in the humble circumstances, but I'm also not rich, just so we're clear. I'm not rich now here's the problem. All right. So let me just do something. I, I did a little research on this. You can check it. Um, I wanted to know in America, what's the poverty line, uh, in 2022, what's the line of poverty for a single person. If, if you make this or below, you are considered impoverished in. Right. And the answer is $13,590 of annual income. And most of us go, oh, good. I'm not poor. Some of you and students, you might be going, are you kidding? I can't wait.

all right. Uh, but you're students. That's cool. No, no problem. Uh, but most of us would go, oh man, I I'm glad I'm not living at that wage. Um, so if we're not that. And he only gave us two options. You of humble circumstances or you're rich. Well, what, what that means I must be rich and you go, no, no, I'm not rich. I I'm certainly not rich. I mean, Elon must come on. He's rich. I mean, Jeff Bezos, he's rich. He's not Kardashians. Come on. LeBron, James, he's rich. I'm glad I'm not one of them. Those guys sucks to be them. What they have. Okay. So I thought about this. So I thought, what, what income does it take to qualify for the top? 1% of all the world's most wealthy people, the entire world. I, I thought, okay. The one percenters, what is it to be a one percenter? Are you ready for this? If you make above $32,500 of annual income, you're a one percenter. Yeah. It's all perspective. It's all perspective compared to Bezos or LeBron. No, I'm not a one I'm not rich compared to everyone else on the planet of which you are one of. And by the way, that impoverished person at 13,500, who you know, is like, I live, I that's me. I'm in poverty. If you're that person, you are still in the top 14% of all people on the planet, 15%.

you're you're you're at the top. It's all perspective. Uh, now most of us could easily explain. We can go look, let me, I know what's wrong with being poor, but we couldn't explain what was wrong with being rich, because most of us just go look. The goal is to get as much money as you can. I want to get rich. I wanna make money. I wanna make money. I wanna make money and you, but there's no into podcast. There's no into TikTok telling you how to get rich. We we've got this one down, but we couldn't tell you what's wrong with being rich. Ha having all the money in the world, man, are you kidding? That's the good life. That's the rich life. I wanna suggest that nothing screws us up quite as much as money can screw us up. And, and in fact, let me take you back to James. One, 10 and 11. Now, listen, listen, listen, listen carefully. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will be. They will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises of scorching heat and Withers to the plant its blossom falls and its beauty is.

in the same way, the ritual fade away, even while they go about their business. I, if money is gonna trip any of us up, let me explain this. It's gonna trip you up by changing your perspective on what really matters. That's what's gonna trip you up. And in fact, here's the big idea of today. All right now money doesn't have to destroy us, but money destroys us when it changes our focus from the eternal.

to the temporary. This is the point James is driving home. Uh, money is not eternal. Money is not ultimately what matters in life money. Isn't gonna buy us a place in heaven, whatever amount of money you attain on this life in on this planet, in this life. It will not last. That's what he's trying to tell us. Yeah, I was thinking about this. I was trying. Put this in perspective in my own life. And I, I gotta tell you about something that happened. Now, I'm gonna describe something. This is not normal. This doesn't happen to me often. Don't hear. And this happened again. I had an event happen in my life and I don't really remember say four years ago, somewhere in that ballpark, that was just, I was just different. It was really different. I got an invitation, uh, and this again is gonna sound really like out there, but I got an invitation from, I believe the government of the United Arab Emirate. Uh, to, uh, come to Abu Dhabi and to convene with some other leaders to have a discussion. And what they were doing is they were pulling across the planet, 10 Christian pastors, 10 Muslim EAMS and 10 Jewish rabbis. And again, I, I think it was the government who basically convened this meeting, but they said, we wanna sit you in a room. And we wanna have a conversation about what it would take for all of us to live on this planet peacefully. And I'm all for that. And so I, uh, agreed, uh, I will go, I'll go. And I did go, they, they said in the invitation, all expenses will be covered. Don't worry about it. We'll get you there. Get you back, take care of you, blah, blah, blah. And I said fine. That's that's normal. Okay. For, you know, when you, a pastor, you go somewhere and somebody invites you to go somewhere. They cover. What I didn't understand at the time was that, um, what they were doing was that they were gonna fly me first class. Okay. Now I, I, I, I sometimes get upgraded to first class, but I don't fly internationally first class and I certainly don't fly it on a middle Eastern airline, like air Emirates or, uh, ed hot air. If you know anything about middle Eastern airlines, they're opulent on to an excess. Right. You know, this, I. Until I got my first class cabin. I'm telling you, it was incredible. You get your own little room and it's just yours. And it's got all kinds of stuff in it. It's amazing. I mean, you got a bed in there and you got a big screen TV in there. I mean, it was seriously, you get slippers in a robe and you get all kinds of stuff and they come by and they kinda look over your door. The Butler.

and he says, uh, sir, we're, uh, wanting to know what you'd like to have for dinner. And they give you a menu. This menu has, I, I, I don't ever eat in a restaurant with a menu. That's nice.

he was like, are you kidding me? It was the most incredible flight of my life hours across, you know, the Atlantic to get there. And, uh, I just need you to know, I have never been on a flight. I wanted to end less than that flight tragically. The land, the plane had a land and you know what happened when it landed? I got asked off the plane. I don't wanna leave

I let's go back home. Now you see all a plane flight is, is a journey from where you are to where you're headed. That's all it is. It starts it's a middle and it ends. And if you've given no thought to where that plane's gonna land and what you're gonna do when you get there. In other words, if you don't have any thought about your destination, you're gonna arrive incredibly unprepared. Could it be all that life is this life we're living is the plane flight that we're falling in love with as if this is going to last forever. James is trying to tell us this isn't gonna last forever. It just isn't. Um,

our problem is, is that we put all of our focus. This is our struggle. We put all of our focus on the here and now, and we disregard it there. And then as if they're there and then isn't gonna come, this plane will land, it will land. It will go somewhere. I, I wanna read you a story that Jesus told they won't take, but a moment, but it is found in Luke chapter 16. I wanna read this. And, and, and what he says in here can be so offensive. I just need you to understand this is really important. You might wanna write this email address down Jesus heaven.com. Okay. Because if this upsets you, uh, please realize I'm just quoting to him. It was his story. All right. Don't don't don't I'm just a messenger. Okay. This is what he said. Listen carefully. He's gonna talk about three players. All right. There was a rich man. We got a rich man, uh, who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. Couldn't be me. I don't, that's not. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazare. He's got a rich man who's living a good life. And he got a beggar named Lazarus. Uh, and he was covered with source and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Okay. So this guy's so hungry, just gimme crumbs off your table. It says even the dogs came and lick to a source. Let me translate. Dogs were more compassionate to east the suffering of this man than the rich man. who wouldn't even be generous with the crumbs? Well, the time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham side, now's the third player. Abraham's, uh, uh, the patriarch of the, you know, old Testament. Yeah. So this is heaven. He, he dies, the beggar dies and he goes to the side of Abraham up in heaven. The rich man also died and was. In Hades where he was in torment. What, what, what, yeah. See the, the, the beggar landed the plane and he ended up in heaven and the rich guy landed the plane and he ended up in Hades where he was tortured. Uh, he, he looked up and he saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. Lazarus is the, the man, the poor guy that is now. Next to Abraham. So he called him father Abraham had pity on me and said Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger and water and cool my tongue because I am an agony in this fire, but Abraham replied son listen carefully. Remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in ago. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been set in place so that those who want to go from here to you cannot nor can anyone cross over from there to us. He answered, then I beg you father sin, Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers, let him warn them so that they also will not come to this place of torment. Abraham replied, listen, they have Moses and they have the prophet. Let them listen to them. No father Abraham. He said, but if somebody from the dead goes to them, they will repent. Jesus said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced. Even if someone rises from the dead, at some point on this journey, we should pay attention to where we're headed. What are the consequences of the flight that we got on you? You probably have noticed, um, these down here, this is one of the nicest things guys we could ever do for our wives. Can I get a name in every guy should buy flowers for their wife? Okay. I just, that's free. I just write that down in your notes. um, I love buying flowers for my wife and, and I love the look on her face and I just, I love them in our house when they're. And, uh, man, they're awesome. They're, they're costly. They're not cheap to go buy a, you know, a bouquet, you know that if you've done it, but there's something incredibly frustrating about the process of buying flowers, right? Because what starts out as that ends up like that. Now, I don't know how clearly you can see this, but this is what that's gonna become in just a few days. This is vibrant and beautiful.

and this is dead and dying. And this is what James says. This is what wealth will do in your life. It's not gonna last it it's, it's great while it's there and in that moment, but ultimately it's not gonna be what you thought it was gonna be. The big idea of this message just simply money destroys us when it changes our focus. From the eternal to the temporary and here and now becomes far and more important to us than there. And then, Hmm, the most chilling words to me and that entire paragraph that we've looked at this morning are the last words in that sentence. The last sentence ends with these words, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. That's chilling. You know, why that's chilling because what's gonna happen is I'm just gonna do my thing and all the while I'm dying out to eternity. And I think James is trying to make us incredibly uncomfortable. So what's your perspective on money? What do you think of when you think of money? Um, what's its purpose in your life? You can use it to acquire more and more of it. or you could, um, use it to, I dunno, some greater purpose. My wife and I, and this does not have to be your deal at all. My wife and I have made a determination that we will not let money become our God. We will not let money be the driving force. Behind our lives. We will not let money determine our value or what values we hold. We have determined. We will not let money kidnap our perspective on life and you might go, wow. That's great. That's great. That's a great vow. That's a great, so we created a rule that we live by. You don't have to do this, but this is our rule. And we've done this for a long time. Our rule is simply this. The largest line item in our budget will always be what we give away. And we give the majority of what we give away. We give away to the church, cuz I certainly believe in the mission of the church, but we give beyond the church we, which, which means that rule means we have to interpret certain things. So we don't live in a house that costs us more to live in than we could. We don't drive cars that cost us more than we, we would have to pay for them than what we give. We don't go on vacations. That would cost us. I don't have a boat that costs more than what we give. We don't save more for retirement than we give that's our rule that doesn't have to be yours, but you know, it's done incredible things for my wife and I it's helped us to keep God as God and the eternal eternal and the temporary temporary. What, what, what, what's your rule? How, how do you see money? How do you handle keeping it from becoming too important in your life? Money destroys us when it changes our focus from the eternal to the temporary. So let me just a couple things to close here. All right. I wanna tell you something. I read this summer on my study. Leave that just stop me. And I just went. Wow. Uh, it was a conversation that took place on shelter island, uh, at a billionaire's mansion a while back, and it had a couple of author. The very famous authors. Um, uh, the one is Kurt VGO who wrote slaughter house five. He has since died. And the other one's Joseph Heller who wrote the classic catch 22 book. Uh, all these, both these authors, all, you know, they've done great, but they've since died, but they were at this billionaires house. Now the billionaire was a hedge fund manager and Vogan said to Heller, he said, you know that guy right there, the guy that owned the mansion, he. He makes more money in a single day Heller than you have made over the entire career of your writing and over what you've made off catch 22. And then Heller said something back to Vogan that was recorded. This is what he said. Yeah. But I have something he will have and Monica say, what's that enough? I have enough. Uh, you, you could be pretty miserable when you have a lot, but it's not enough. I, I love this passage, Proverbs 30. It says two things I ask of you. Lord, do not refuse me before I die. Two things keep falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, who is the. Or I may become poor and still. And so dishonor the name of my God. God, just gimme enough. Don't let it change me into a person. I don't want to be now. Listen, I'm I'm gonna close right now by saying this. If, if this has made you uncomfortable, uh, number one, I'm sorry, not sorry. don't think money should ever make you uncomfortable. I don't think you should handle money in a way that discussing it makes you uneasy. I just don't think you. , I don't think it should have that power over you, but if it does and you're going, pastor, you've just put so much out there. I'm so I don't even know where to begin. If I were to try to get this thing squared away, I want to end this message by letting you know that we have a ministry in our church dedicated to helping people get it right. When it comes to money, it's called the enrichment ministry of our church and David Briggs heads. This thing up, he's a world class leader, and I'm just telling you, we have all kinds of tools available to help you get this. I've gone through this. It has changed my life. I would do anything to get you to go through this. I want you to know that coming up here on the 20th of September on the Gilbert campus for nine consecutive weeks, we're offering financial peace university. If you've never gone through that, now's the time if you've gone through it and you feel like I need a refresher. Now's the time. If you wanna know more detail, just contact dave@enrichcentralaz.com and he'll get you connect.

hard subject, uncomfortable subject, incredibly relevant subject. Please, please think about this beyond this hour. A lot is at stake. Let me pray. So God, uh, again, we all deal with money. We all have money. We all don't have money. We all have priorities. We all struggle with our priorities. We all are in this together and all of us are pretty much the same as the rest of us. God help us to just realize that this is not about everybody else. This is about me. And this is about you and it's about them and you and God. Um, we should not be uptight when it comes to talking about money. It, the UN did, the uncomfortability is a sign of something that we need to grow. So help us to grow, help us to grow, become who you wanted us to be. God do not allow us to sacrifice. The there, and then for the here and now what a tragic mistake that will be, this plane will land. And we ha we will depart to the destination of which we were headed. God, wake us up in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen. Bless you guys.

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