God’s Way - First Things First: Part 3 - Financial Discipleship Q&A
1 Corinthians 16:1-2; Malachi 3:6-10; Proverbs 22:1-7; 1 Timothy 6:6-10; Deuteronomy 14:22-23
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Hey everyone, before you dive into this week's teaching from Pastor Chris, we just wanted to say thanks so much for listening. If you find this podcast to be encouraging or helpful in growing deeper in your faith, would you take a few seconds and share it with someone? They too could be needing the very same thing that you received. Again, thanks for listening, and we pray that you have a wonderful day.
We are continuing in our God's Way First Things First series. And if you haven't been around maybe the last couple of weeks, we've been diving into and understanding what it means to put God first in everything in our lives. And that until we let God's glory and His goodness shine into all the dark areas of our lives, we will continue to be in bondage in those places. And if you've been with us, we've been talking about and processing this foundational lie that began in humanity all the way back in the garden in the beginning of the Bible in the book called Genesis. And this was the lie that the serpent told Adam and Eve in that garden: that God is holding out on you. That you don't have enough, so you have to look out for yourself. You have to control everything. You have to say, "Hey, God, you're not providing, so I'm going to do it my way."
We've walked through maybe what it looks like, how we live this lie out today. We live this lie out in how panic drives who we are. Our anxiety and our worry—the stats as of late, they are through the roof in society. That we over-schedule ourselves, running here and there, everywhere, to make sure everything gets done. We focus on being self-providers to make sure that we have enough. But we know that this lie, that we don't have enough, that God is holding back on us, is truly that: a lie.
And then it comes down to a point of real trust. And we talked about Abram, who then became Abraham. He had all this wealth in the world, but he had no heirs. He had no children to pass that wealth on to, and he was angry with God. He was frustrated. He's like, "God, how could you even let this happen?" And God goes, "Let's go outside, buddy. Let's look up at the stars. See all those? Try to count them." Abraham ran out of fingers and toes real quick trying to count stars. And God said, "Those stars represent the descendants that you are going to have." And Abraham's like, "We don't have any descendants." And God goes, "I know. I got a plan." He's like, "Well, but what about this? And my wife and I, we are way past those days of when that is to biologically happen." Sarah, even at one point, laughs at God.
I had a frustrating conversation with God two weeks ago in the middle kid's room down in this hallway. And I found myself going, "I am no different than Abraham and Sarah." And I have personally been on a journey along with you guys in this of what does it mean to be truly obedient to God in everything that we are and everything that we have. And I love it because I'm having conversation with you guys as well. Many of you have been hearing from God. You've been having the conversations. You've been praying. You've been saying, "Okay, God, well, I don't know what this fully looks like, but I'm here and I'm listening. God, speak to me." Many of you are stepping into financial discipleship and biblical stewardship. And I love this because honestly, I have just been asking you to have a conversation. I haven't even put a challenge in front of you guys yet. But you're being intentional with this. You're hearing from God.
And we too, as a staff, we've been having conversations of, "Hey, maybe how we have gotten in the way." The first of which is, I haven't really ever talked this bold about money in the church before. Hi, my name is Chris. I'm your friend. And you guys have been so receptive. You've been so gracious. I thought by week three, there'd be like two of you right here. That would be it. But you're here and you knew it was coming. Maybe not all of you, but.
And today I want to kind of walk through maybe a little bit different of a talk this morning, but some Q&A to maybe answer the why behind why we live the way that we live and why God calls us to live this way. And so the reality is that when we look at money, we look at how we spend our money, how we save our money, how we use our money, it reveals who we are at our core. And that this relationship with money has instructions given to us by God in His word.
And we're going to be in a few different scriptures this morning, but the first of which is going to come from First Corinthians chapter 16. And this here is Paul writing a letter to the church in Corinth, which is another small church that started around the Mediterranean area. And he's telling them, kind of giving them some instruction when it comes to finance. He says this: "Now regarding your question about the money being collected for God's people in Jerusalem, you should follow the same procedure I gave the churches in Galatia. On the first day of each week, you should put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don't wait until I get there and try to collect it all at once." So Paul here is talking about this idea of don't wait to the last minute to try to figure all this stuff out. And Paul isn't necessarily talking about what the Old Testament talks about—we're going to say, walk through in a minute—of this principle of first fruits. I don't know if you guys have heard that before. But Paul is echoing this idea of when you put your finances together in order, there is a system in which you should do that. And he is echoing this idea of honoring God with every single aspect of our lives.
No different than maybe when you get to work and you pray, "God, I am your servant here at work. Use me how you desire." Or maybe at home, you come home and you go, "God, use me in this place how you wish. I am your servant." Maybe in parenting, for me as a father, I pray regularly, "Lord Jesus, give me your strength. Give me your hope. Give me your help. I am your servant in this place as I father the children that you have steward to me. My children are not my own. I just have them for a certain amount of time. They're God's. But I am called to lead them and to instruct them and to teach them into God's word."
And so a theological posture for us would be that honoring God in every single sphere of our lives begins with what we do first. And that this idea of first fruits is about not a transaction. It's not a transaction, but it's about worship. We talked about that week one. It's about trust. We talked about that last week. And it's about priority realignment. We're going to dig into that a little bit more.
But the first question that I commonly get when talking about money and finances is this in the Bible: Why does it have to be first? What matters for these things to be first? Does it matter if it's in the middle? Does it matter if it's the end? Like if it comes from the same pot, why does it matter? And I, honestly, that's a legitimate question. And I think it's something that for us to think about and to discuss. The logistic reality is what matters most receives our first attention in our lives.
If you are married and you have a spouse, my spouse is right here. This is Lauren. As an earthly relationship here on this planet, she is my number one. God is my ultimate number one. But as an earthly relationship, she is my number one priority. And so she deserves the best of me. She doesn't deserve my tiredness. She doesn't deserve my leftovers. She doesn't deserve my second best. She deserves my number one. And so as we would say, I think, in here, those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus and Christians, God deserves our number one, right? And things in our life are really important. They become a top priority. And so this also carries into our other relationships and our other things in our life. They are set in a certain particular order. And so we will carry this into our whole lives.
Side note, if you're in here and you are unmarried, I want to encourage you: make God number one in your life right now. Because it is only going to carry into your future marriage and relationships in a way that is going to be a solid rock foundation in ways you can't even imagine. And it's just going to set everything in order, perfect the way that God instructed. But when we think about our finances, the biggest chunks take priority and get to the front of line, right? I think for most of us, that would probably be a mortgage or a rent, right? Probably our largest expense we have on a regular basis. Now, if you own your home, I'm very jealous of you. But when you were paying that baby off, okay, that was your largest thing. And then that brings the largest thing, then puts other things in order and perspective, right? And so as an order, this top thing, everything else just kind of slides into place as you go through your finances.
This is about priority realignment and putting God first in our finances reorders our priority with everything else. Because God is in first place, then that puts everything else in their right place. I think I got a slide for that. I want to put that up on the screen. When we put God in first place, it puts everything else in right place. See, our financial world falls in the right place when God leads.
We talked about this a few weeks ago, the different levels of financial engagement with the church. Maybe you never have given before, and that's fine. That's okay. Maybe you've given one time to something like our Operation Christmas Child, where we send shoeboxes with practical gifts and toys in the gospel around the globe for kids to hear about Jesus for the first time, and you gave to that. Awesome. Thank you so much. Maybe you have a monthly thing where you are regularly giving. Maybe it's $20, $50, $100 a month. Maybe you're putting something in on the regular saying, "God, I want to be in a relationship of financial discipleship with you." I know some of you others have stepped up into tithing regularly. And we're going to talk about what a tithe means. But you look at your whole sum that comes in, you get, "God, I'm going to give 1% of all of this back to you." And then maybe 2%, 3%, growing in that, in your generosity. And then you have tithing, which is 10% of that. And then it stops right there, right? No. God asks for extravagant generosity. And I've said for the last few weeks, and I'm gonna say it again: you are a recipient of extravagant generosity.
This space, this facility, this building would not have happened without extravagant generosity. There are people, a part of this church and others who are no longer with us, that sacrificed big time for us to be able to purchase this facility and to move here to have a place to call home. Because we were just bouncing around before that. We started in a school in 1999. Set up and tear down. There was no home for us. But God opened up doors for rental facilities. They were a place, but they really weren't our place. And then God allowed a place like this for 24-7 ministry to happen. For youth group during the week. For children's ministry. For Bible studies. For events. For weddings. For funerals, for things that we can call home and a place to take a foothold in the community for the kingdom of God.
So however you are regularly paid, maybe that's weekly, twice a month, monthly, quarterly, however you get that income, you give God the best and the first and this puts everything in order. And when we do that, put God first, we have our fixed expenses, then everything else kind of falls in line. And you may come to a point where you get to the end of the month and there isn't another trip to TJ Maxx in store. Sorry, ladies, I just stepped on some toes. I apologize. Man, we can't go back to Bass Pro or Home Depot or, I don't know, where are guys spending money these days? Golf. There you go. Golf. There's not another round at the end of the month. But when we put this in order, everything orders out the rest. And when we are intentional about something, it orders our priorities.
Now, sometimes there may be a situation where you don't get the tithe to be like the first thing, auto-pay bills. They'll sneak in there on you sometimes. But it's a personal practice of worship. For my wife and I, we get paid around the 15th and the end of the month. And I will intentionally that morning when I wake up and my phone says, "You got money, a direct deposit," I try to take a moment and to worship God and literally write the check right there to say, "God, this is the absolute first thing that is coming out of this blessing that you have given." I know some of you will take a moment and utilize our online giving portal and you will set up a moment. You will sit down, you will pause, you maybe turn on some worship music, maybe you sing a song to God and then you click the button and you give the tithe. Others of you, you write the check during week, you come in, that is the first stop that you do and you go to that drop. You will not talk to anybody else. You're like, "I am going to worship and you walk in, you drop, and you're like, hello, I can talk to you now." But it's a priority. It's your first thing that you do.
And when we put God first in things, the other things that kind of just suck up our finances become less of a priority. "Ah, you know what, Pastor? There was a lot of stuff that happened this month and just, we got to the end and it just, there just wasn't enough." Okay, it happens. But maybe you need to reorder some of those things so that it is a priority, is a first thing, it is something that is done at the beginning. Now I'm not saying this: get this right, you have to pay your mortgage and rent, that's just reality of life, okay? I wish it wasn't the case, it is, and in California stupid expensive, let's be honest, we just call it what it is, so that is a big chunk. All right. I realize you have that. I realize you have to put food on your table. Okay. You have to provide maybe for your family, for your kids. You have to take care of them. I get that. I don't think anybody came in here this morning hungry intentionally because you did not have enough. So I know if you did come in this morning and you don't have enough and you're hungry, please come talk to me. We have people in this church who have asked, "Pastor, when someone comes in, they are hungry, send them my way. God has blessed me and called me to take care of them." That is the purpose of the church. Okay?
But when we prioritize, what gets cut at the end of the month isn't God. It's what's less essential. The less over becomes less and even less wasted if you want to talk about it. Last two weeks, I've asked you to go home and have a conversation with God, if your spouse, if you have them, with your family, maybe even with your kids, about what this means. This week I want you to begin to maybe pull out your bank statement and begin to evaluate where you are spending your money. And then just let the Holy Spirit speak.
Because I know for me, I am the first, things can just slip in. I've been trying to make iced coffee on my own during the week. I love me some cold brew. Okay, I have some like right here in front row. And I've been trying to make it at home because it's now stupid expensive, but we went on vacation and we came home and I got out of routine and then I didn't have this and I was out of beans and all this stuff. Like a week has come by and I've gone to Starbucks like four times. Don't tell my wife, okay? And I'm literally going order and I'm like, because I know it's not, I'm not being wise there. There's better ways to do things and it might take us some time to sit down, and it's not going to be fun. It's not going to be comfortable, okay? I'm telling you that. But on the other side of that, oh, guys, let me tell you what that is. It is amazing. So ask ourselves, is this honoring God with the provision that He has given us, or are we feeding extra just stuff?
Question two, I get asked: how much should I give? What is tithing? Great questions. I get asked this lot as a pastor and people come to me. And I want to go to a scripture in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And it says this, it says, "You must set aside a tithe of your crops, one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year. Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship, the place the Lord our God chooses for His name to be honored. This applies to the tithes of your grain, new wine, olive oil, and the firstborn males of all your flocks and herds." Anybody a farmer or cattle or rancher in this room? No, this makes no sense to us, right? Let me translate this a little bit. This was their currency, their grain, their crops, their wine that they would grow their grapes and turn into wine, the olive oil they would get from their trees to press out, the firstborn males of their flocks and their herds. This was all their money. And God is saying here, I want you to set aside a tithe of all of that, a tenth of what you bring in.
Did you know that we don't get the best pineapples? Did you know that? A couple of people have been to Hawaii here lately. The best pineapples stay on the island and they are the first crop. I think that's called a plant crop, I think is the correct term, you guys will correct me later. But this is the initial pineapples that are grown on the plant and I guess they will just, you can see the future if you eat them. I've never had one personally, I hope and dream and wish one day I can, but they are the first pineapples. Hard because they are the main one off the plant and then everything that grows is kind of an uproot sprout outside of that. It's secondary and that plant puts everything into that first pineapple that it grows and they will just, they will blow your mind. You guys ever thought about extra virgin olive oil? It's the first press, right? Oh, it's the best. I don't know how or why they came up with that name, whatever. But then you have like extra virgin and the next press is virgin and then after that it's just like it just gets like blended up, I guess. I don't know how it works. But when we go to the store and we're like, "I'm gonna buy olive oil, what you got?" Extra virgin? I'm not going to muscle anything else. It's the first. It's the best. You guys have had like, we had friends who went to Italy and came back and brought us like true extra virgin all the way from Italy. Oh my gosh, guys. I want to just like spoonfuls of this stuff. It is amazing. But it's the first. It's the best.
And this is what God is asking of us is that He has a system and an alignment for us that He wants this best for Him and for us to learn in that. And this tithe piece is the foundational piece of scripture about financial generosity. And it's a process of growth. Talked about all those different phases. Stepping into that next phase, and I trust you, God, more. That next phase, I trust you, God, more. Next step, I trust you got more, to lead us to a place that is ever blessed, that we're going to talk about in a moment here, comes with a promise only found in a certain part of scripture, only about tithing and finances.
So what does that look like practically? Chris, like break it down for me. Well, if you get whatever your paycheck is, $1,000, $2,000, $100, whatever that is, you just move the decimal over one, and that's your amount. So if you made a hundred bucks, you move it over one, it's $10. That's what that breaks down to. And God here isn't saying, "I have to have your money." Okay? That's not what this is. God is greater than all of this. He is beyond that. He has Everything at His disposal. It's a step in relationship with trust with Him. And I will tell you, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Wait, pastor, you just said, yeah. Don't want to do it? Don't do it. You got free choice. You got free will to be able to do it if you want. And especially don't give grumpy, please. Nobody likes a grumpy face. I'll use other words, positive relationships in church. Don't give grumpy. We're gonna, we're gonna read a scripture on that in a moment. But but the the reality is asking, "Lord, what do you want for me to do? Where do you want me to begin?"
Now people get lost in the weeds: is it pre-tax? Is it post-tax? Is it net? Is it gross? Is it off my retirement, investments, birthday money? Is it over if I get cash back on a return? Is it like people can get so lost on this stuff. I found a quarter on the ground. Now I got to find two and a half pennies to give to Jesus. I can't break a penny in half. Do I round up, round down? I'll just give a whole quarter to God. I don't want to. And that's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is a heart posture with Jesus. And I'll tell you, I have some thoughts on it. I have my own personal thoughts. These are Chris's thoughts, not God's thoughts. So if you want to talk, love to talk. And you might have different thoughts than I do. I know some of you in this room have different ideas about some of those little details in that. But it's a heart, a posture, giving that to Jesus, growing in relationship with God.
And here, there is a promise that is given to us out of Malachi chapter 3 and it is an incredible thing and it's only found in that scripture with no other topics besides that one. And that when we step into the tithe there is an incredible blessing and a promise from the Lord that comes with that. And I know some who have stepped into tithing were like, "I couldn't be generous. I stepped into tithing and now I can be generous in ways that I never imagined. I have money to just buy somebody a meal on the street. I have money to be able to..." There was a time when Laura and I were going through a hard time in life. And we had friends who didn't have a whole lot of money. But they were really good about this stuff. And they just sent us like 200 bucks. Blew our minds. I'm like, "I think you guys are actually making less money than we are. How? What the...?" "We want to bless you." And it's an amazing how God works this out. Because I will tell you, one plus one equals infinity with God. The math doesn't math with God. I've tried to figure it out. I carry the one in the movie, He does something just awesome in the middle of it and He just makes it incredible. But it has to start with this: Malachi chapter three.
"I am the Lord, I do not change. This is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me," says the Lord, "and I will return to you," says the Lord of heaven's army. "But you ask, how can we return when we had never gone away? What do you mean? Should God's people cheat you? You have cheated me," says Lord. "But what do you mean? When do we ever cheat you? You have cheated me in the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do," says the Lord of heaven's armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great that you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it. Put me to the test."
This tithe is the only time in scripture where God guarantees an outcome when you are obedient to God. He's saying, if you trust me in this, then I will open up the heavens and I will rock your world. Is it always financial? No. Okay? I'm not saying, well, if I start tithing today, then God, you better send me that $20,000 check in the mail. It's not what He's talking about. He's talking about a blessing over your life and your family and your family's family and generational things here, guys, that will change everything about who you are.
But this blessing, this storehouse, heaven, what does that mean? Well, that's a great question. If I remember correctly, from the Bible, in heaven, the streets are made of something that starts with G, ends with old. They're with, okay, that's your part. You say that back to me. I give you a clue and you say, okay, perfect. Okay, so the streets in heaven are made of gold. Guys, they are paving with gold in heaven, paving. What are they making their storehouses out of? And then what are they putting into those storehouses? Like, you guys ever thought about that before? I had this moment of like, what? This week. That's where they keep the good stuff. And God is saying, "Will I not open up the gates of heaven? I will not pour out upon you." Whoa. And the Israelites over here have been stingy with God. "Well, we haven't cheated you." "Yeah, you have." "Well, what do you mean we haven't?" "You're not being generous. You're not tithing." "Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry, we forgot." God says, "Trust me in this and I will take care of everything. Trust me in this and I will take care of everything."
And there's a discipline piece here that is required of us. And I'm not saying having a lot of money is bad. Do not, I did not say that. Okay? Don't try to go there. I did not say that. And I don't know how it all works. God gives money to some people and less over here. I don't understand. He creates it all. But the obedience principle is exactly the same no matter where you're standing. Honestly, sometimes a lot of money means a lot of tithes. And that might be honestly sometimes even harder than having less in a smaller type. But it's an obedience piece. And it's the same calling that we all have. Asking ourselves, am I honoring God first?
So where do we give? Where do we give? That's a good question. Where do we give? Well, how many are traveling to Jerusalem, to the temple on a regular basis? No? No? Nobody? You're not weekly flying over there and depositing? No? Okay. It's a joke. But what I'm saying here is that today, the modern temple or synagogue is the local church. The storehouse is that piece. And so He's calling us to bring all the tithes into the storehouse. Another translation says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse.
And I've been asked this before, and some people say, "Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, What if I put like 3% over here into this really good thing, and I give like 5% to Spring Valley, and then like 2% like goes over here." And I will say, I love your heart of generosity. That is phenomenal. Don't stop being generous. But I would like to provide maybe an alternative perspective here from Scripture that says to bring the full tithe, the full 10%, into God's house. And then out of that, live your generous life. Give to missionaries around the world. Give to parachurch organizations. Help pastors plant churches in different places around the world that don't have the gospel accessible to them. Yes, be generous in that. But the way we live our lives, how we live and give, is interpreted of what we do. I've heard it once said, give where you are being spiritually fed. And it's a heart check for us. Because generosity follows God's lead, not our obligation.
All right, I got two more questions. I got to go hurry here first. How should I give? It's a great question. Some people have asked, how should I give? Well, I see three pieces to this. That it's first intentional, it's accountable, and it's accessible. What do I mean by that? Well, intentionally: when when COVID happened we stopped passing the buckets or passing the plates, if you grew up in church or whatever it was called, and we moved to just a drop box because we didn't want to, here you go, here's your COVID, like we didn't want to pass that around, okay. And some of you that was a hard move. You were used to coming in church, worshiping, singing a song, doing the the offering tithing piece during worship, and you just like, we just went to a box. But we've gotten used to the box, right? And it's not necessarily in front of us. Sometimes something that's in front of us reminds us on a regular basis what needs to be important and how we need to live our lives. We are talking about possibly bringing back the buckets because it's an act of worship as a family together rather than just a boop in the back of the room. And we have to be incredibly intentional in that, that we are doing on a regular basis. It's a deliberate choice to honor God so we don't forget and we have to be intentional.
Is it accountable? And this isn't just tax purposes, okay? I'm talking about a financial shift that might happen in our lives when our, and that usually tends to be our giving changes. And this, I will tell you as a pastor and as our team and our pastoral care team, you don't necessarily bring us in on the loop. You don't necessarily tell us. And so when there's some tracking systems of finances in the church, when those things change, that can be an indicator that we need to just touch base. And not in the sense of, "Hey, where'd your tithe go? You're not giving, you're used to." No. "What's going on? Can we help you? How can we come alongside you? You lost a job? Okay, well, we know this person, they're looking to hire over here, and this person over here, how can we connect these things?" It's a family. You'd want to know, I think, as a parent, if your child was struggling through something, right? And so part of tracking that, writing on the envelope, we don't fingerprint the money in the back, guys. So if you're just dropping cash back there, awesome, God bless you. We don't know. And there's another accountable piece in that for you to be able to begin to track of like, "Hey, pastor was challenging me to give and I started giving and I've given this much and like my finances haven't dipped. Like things are still good." And it's a moment to go, "God, you are amazing," but you're not tracking that. You don't know. We don't know. We can't help you in that.
Is it accessible? I talked about this, trying to figure out, do we begin to pass the place? Do we have some sort of other way to do that? We're making sure our online giving is always 100% secure. We are working to make sure that there are easy ways for you. If God prompts you to be able to be generous in things like even Camp Awesome and Operation Christmas Child and being able to have you guys as a stirs in you to be able to have a quick avenue, an easy avenue with no barriers, to be able to engage with that and to be obedient. It says this, 2 Corinthians 9-7. "You must each decide in your heart how much you will give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves a person who is giving cheerfully." God loves a cheerful giver. I said earlier, don't give grumpy. Right here in scripture.
Fifth question, what about debt? What if I have it? Oh, great questions. Love this. I want us to think in this way, okay? Because we probably have it, the reality is. And when I'm talking about unsecured debt, I'm not talking about like housing, like a mortgage. That's more secure because you have the problem. I'm talking about like credit card debt here, okay? Three things I want us to think about this, okay? Think mission possible, not mission impossible. Because sometimes we got debt, it feels impossible, right? It feels impossible to get out from this mound. One, avoid it when possible, okay? There's times it's going to happen. Happens in life. It's happened in our life where you're just like, "Oh, man. Did not see that coming." Life happens. I got to put something on the credit card. Okay. There's grace in that. Okay. But when possible, avoid it. Don't just be like, "Charge it, charge it, charge it, charge it." Like, don't do that. Two, pay it off as quickly as possible. Don't make minimum payments. You will never get out from underneath it. It is set up in a system that is to just destroy your soul. Don't. And then don't take on more debt when possible. Figure out how to realign. It's going to be hard. It's going to take work, I promise you. But it is worth it to get out of that. And we have resources and different things we'd love to connect you with to help you if you are finding yourself in that place right now. God wants you to have freedom from that.
I want you to hear me this morning. God does not want you. But we live in a world, right, where it's like, "I have to have a good credit score and have a good credit score. I've got to have debt. But if you have debt, then you have a bad credit score. But if you don't have debt, then why do you need a good credit score?" Something there going on that's fishy. Proverbs 22. We're going to close with this. "Choose a good reputation over good riches. Being held in high esteem is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord made them both. A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. A simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. True humility and fear of the Lord lead to riches, honor, and long life. Corrupt people walk a thorny, treacherous road. Whoever values life will avoid it. Direct your children onto the right path, and when they're older, they will not leave it, just as the rich rule the poor so the borrower is servant to the leader. Choose a good reputation over riches."
I don't think we hear that in life very much. But what about the cool dude who has all the stuff and the toys and all that? Yeah, he's probably up to his eyeballs in debt, let's be honest. And one missed payment, all of that fun stuff goes away. Talk about finance with your children. Prepare them. I was a product. I had a grandfather who was so financially sound. And he taught me at an early age. He brought me alongside me and said, "Hey, this is this. And this is what this means. And this is like, it's your tithe. And this is how you got to pay your taxes. And you got to invest." And like he set me up and taught me some core principles I'm so grateful for today. Teach your children about these things. Plan ahead.
I don't know if you guys know when you drive your car, your tires start disappearing. They just poof, go away. And if you bought any lately, you know they're not cheap. Right? So the scripture says a prudent person saves away for the future. Maybe we need to start putting away some money on a regular because you know those tires and those new tires are coming. And if you don't have the money, it's going to get you into a bad place. Think ahead. Plan ahead. How do I set new healthy financial habits? 1 Timothy 6. It says, "Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. Pouring out the riches of heaven, right? Remember that scripture? After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into this world, and we take nothing with us when we leave it. So if you have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The love of money. And some people craving money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."
That's interesting, pierced. I did a cultural background on this. Did you know when you borrowed money from somebody, you owed somebody, they would pierce you with their name. I owe somebody 20 bucks for both of these. I'm just kidding. But that's what they would do. And to walk around with piercings was actually shameful. You would walk around and you would see a loop maybe in someone's nose and it says, "Doug." Like, "Oh, you owe Doug money." What does that year say? "Susan?" "Susan?" But people would appear, and it would be a cultural shame. We don't have that today, do we? We tout, right? We're like, "Woo, look at us." You don't want to know my credit score. I get emails every month. I'm like, "Delete." I don't care. I'm not buying anything. But it's a cultural shame. Great wealth is actually true godliness and contentment.
So as we close, how or what has God told you today? Maybe there's a question. Maybe you had a question and I gave you an answer today. Maybe you have more questions. Maybe it's about debt. Maybe it's about financial discipleship. Maybe it's about first fruits. Maybe it's about contentment. But what will you do about it this week? And on your card, on your program, you came in your little response card. I want you to check the box. Maybe if God said something to you today about financial changes that may need to happen in your life. And I'd love for you, we're gonna have ushers in the back on the way out. Drop that in there. And we wanna be praying alongside of you. We're not gonna be like, "Hey, what did God tell you you're supposed to start giving?" No, it's between you and God. We are presenting the gospel and the scripture. And it's your choice on how you want to respond to what God is saying to you.
But don't forget, remember, I want to leave you with three things right here. Ask Him, trust Him, and align with Him. That's what it's about. And it's a journey. You're not going to figure this thing out overnight. You never will. It's a journey with Jesus as He leads you deeper into trust and faith and hope and freedom in Him. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this morning, God. We are so grateful for your encouragement, God, for your grace, for your love and care. God, even as we mess up with this stuff, God, you are still there saying, "I love you. You are my child. I have better things for you." And so Jesus, I pray that we would listen to your leading, listen to your calling in our lives. God, maybe we need to have a conversation about our finances, about our budget, maybe where we're spending some things, maybe how to focus in on getting out of debt. But God, at the same time, you don't say, "Hey, if you got debt, make sure you pause that giving. You can get out of that debt first." No, God, you ask us to be obedient in the midst of it all. And so God, I pray that we would step forth and trust and faith in you. God, that we would know who you are and the better calling and the better life that you have for us and the freedom that is on the other side of that. And you want to pour down, God, the blessings of heaven and just blow our minds. God, I pray that you would do that this week. We love you, Jesus. Amen.