Overdraft Protection I

We'll be looking at 1st Timothy for just a bit and starting a new series. So let's get this set up. Thank you, Steve. Take a look here. Carol and I took some time just to get a little bit of a break right after the Halloween weekend and which was really inspiring to be part of the trunk retreat event down and and Helen Faye's on and we I don't think realize quite how emotionally spent we both were as many of you know most of you probably. Carol's mom passed away last month and there's so much that happens that you don't really fully as Paul alluded to process in the moment. But I want to thank all of you who prayed for us and particularly Carol and and sustained us and many of you sent lovely cards and notes and emails and it was it was extremely meaningful to us and I thank you for that. I remember the day that the phone call came about her mom from the home where she'd been staying for 23 years. Actually admitted herself. She lived to be just 99 and a half. Phone call came early on a Monday morning. Carol and I got in the car and one thing that Carol always said was he wanted to be there when her mom went to be with Jesus. So we hustled on over there which got us there around 2.30 or so and we're walking in the room and just sort of softly but very noticeably were some of the wonderful hymns you know. What a friend we have in Jesus. How great thou art. Those kind of just great old hymns. Being sung by Alan Jackson. Alan Jackson if you don't know is a big country star. Now I knew right at that moment that Carol's mom wasn't gonna be with us long because you see she'd been listening to those hymns for months but she could only hear them when they put the earphones and the CD player into her ears and then the CD player would turn off after 15 minutes or whatever. So she couldn't hear it but the room was filled with those sounds and it wasn't 45 minutes after we arrived that Carol's mom went to be with the Lord and we then had a wonderful memorial service. It was early thereafter the family was able to all get together and just shared the great legacy that we had been given through her life and the one bit of conviction came to me and I want to just confess a moment here of failure really in leadership. Lots of other ones probably I could but here's the one. I started thinking about those Alan Jackson hymns and I looked him up and started listening more and more and then I realized you know for the 30 nearly 30 years I've been leading this church I've been sort of like anti country music and I started thinking that's just not right. Wait a minute. I mean there's I started to look into this. There's some really, now there's some raunchy stuff but there's a lot of really good, really good content. Some stories. Yeah well you know there's a few there's a few fans still left but it's amazing and I watched the CMAs on Tuesday night. Brad Paisley, Entertainer of the Year. I listened to some of the things and they're not afraid to talk about God. They're not afraid and I'm just telling you we're gonna be doing a couple of I don't know if we have a steel guitar player but we're working on that and but here's the funny part you know I I'm not I'm not alone in this. It was funny I was I gave Rob Burkey a copy of a CD of worship to listen to then he didn't give it back to me right away in a couple weeks maybe a month later I said Rob where's that CD and he handed it back to me in the jacket pulled it out put in my car and look at it and it was Taylor Swift and if you don't know Taylor Swift's a big country. Rob Burkey's a closet country guy so we we've got it going now okay so anyhow it was yeah this was it was a very wonderful time for us and and we thank you all so much for your support. Well you know on your outline let's read together the text. I didn't do this last night and I don't want to miss it so let's read the text at the top of this page. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth which is so uncertain but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. Is there one hint by the way of guilt or objection to wealth in that passage? Not at all. Yet when we come to talk about money in church we're gonna see as we always do people get a little bit uptight and and if this is your first time here I want to just set you at ease we're not gonna we've already taken the offering so they're not there's no big appeal coming up here at the end that you know you know pour out your everything you brought with you and watches and all that kind of no we're not that's not how we operate but you know I would read passages like this and I would always think this is for somebody else because I'm not rich and I'm I'm betting that most of you read that right now you say well that's not for me either because I'm not rich but I want you to think about this and maybe a couple of other different ways I want to help you clearly understand what the Lord thinks about our resources our finances and its place in our life and our psyche whether or not we're conscious of it and how much it drives us after all listen Jesus talked more about money than he did prayer salvation heaven and hell combined why do you do that because he knew that the thing that would compete most of all for the affections of our life and for the for the concentration of our energies was money that's why he said in Matthew you cannot serve God and money because that God and you know political influence or God and whatever you know but it was money isn't that interesting that little wallet that little purse that you carry has such power to control your life and if you don't wrestle this one to the ground love one I'll just tell you right now it will stay in side of you and turn you up throughout your entire Christian journey and by the way you may have to come back to it a few times you may think you get it nailed down then God will put you through a test because it isn't always up right I mean everyone I want to be real sensitive I know there's some of you right now that are in a dip and so what I may say today may not exactly apply to you because I'm gonna say some things that are a little bit off the reservation but one day you'll be back and you'll understand what I'm talking about see rich people really do have extra stress in their life and that's why I think Paul addresses them and Jesus does other times I mean here's a few stressors that rich people have they have to pay to send their kids to college I mean they don't qualify for scholarships so they have to pay and so and their kids need to get around so they have to get them a car right and they have to give them spending money that and those kind of decisions and and all that stuff that's a lot of stress rich people I mean they they have so much money that they need some called a financial planner you know anybody that rich that has a financial I mean someone that really helps them figure out what to do with their money and how to save it so that they can use it near the end of their life and maybe give it someplace else imagine that and then then there are people who are rich they're so rich that they can eat as much as they want and they still have food to throw away that's how rich they are there are people who are rich enough that they can walk into their kitchen and say you know I'm just tired of where this kitchen looks and rip up the towel on the floor and the and the you know the countertop and and a perfectly good refrigerator that's we're gonna pull that thing out and create dust and mess and complain about it all but because they want it to look better but they can do that because they're rich and that's just one of the you know one of the that they have and then there's those people that you know they they have to keep a certain look if you're rich you got to look a certain way right I mean you can't just walk around and so you know they do really crazy thing like they paint their toenails now let me help you with that if you're rich and you're worried about your toenails put on a pair of shoes does a great job they look great just something I've noticed okay or how about this I mean I've never heard this said but I've heard that some rich people open up their closet look in there and their closets full of clothes and they're ready to go somewhere and they say wow there's a lot of rich people here yeah and I mean and that's I've never heard that said but I've heard that said about some people you know some rich people have houses for their cars they're called garages they're nicer than the homes of most of the people in many parts of the world there are rich people who get this they're so rich that they don't even have to go to work and they get paid it's called like a vacation they get two or three or four weeks off and they get money for it but they don't even have to come now do you understand that most of the world doesn't function with any of those parameters that's just for rich people hmm a couple of you are putting your eyelids up and you're thinking all right you're trying to trick me into thinking I'm rich aren't you well did a little study here's just just so we get real honest real frame of reference here the average income nationwide now in America keeps growing is fifty thousand five hundred and seventy four dollars that's I mean from top to bottom from seven years old to 17 okay fifty thousand dollars now I know some of you don't make that much I know a lot of you make a lot more than that if you ask the person a fifty thousand dollars they would they say no I'm just barely met so ask that same person what would it take for you to make in order to feel rich and well just here's a good part someone did this for us gallops a matter of fact Gallup poll organization and they asked those people and to a person everyone said if I made between a hundred and a hundred and twenty thousand I'd be rich and they always scaled up to just about double what they were making and then they would feel rich now let me say this if you went to a person making a hundred thousand dollars and said are you rich they'd say I'm not rich and here's the reason the reason is being rich is a moving target it doesn't really have a definition in terms of dollars that we can put our minds around it changes all the time but keep this in mind if you make over forty thousand dollars internationally speaking now globally speaking you're in the top four percent in the world if you make over fifty five thousand dollars you're in the top one percent in the world now right now everybody's thinking well that doesn't really make me feel any better about the fact that I got bills I know that but I want you to understand something about just how God might see you and just how some of these scriptures might apply to you because my point is this if I were God our Heavenly Father looking down and you're making top one percent money I would hope that you would say thank you father I would hope that you would say Lord I understand that of all the people in the world you somehow allowed me to be rich and that's the first point in your outline when it comes to wealth the good news is you are rich most all of you are rich most all of you and here's the best definition I've come up with is that you have more than you need you really do you're rich you know it's hard for us to say that isn't it and maybe I'll put in more spiritual terms about this God has blessed me so much that I have more than I need I'm rich I've said it now would you say it God has blessed me with more than I need no sorry this is my fault God has blessed me with more than I need say that I'm rich that's hard to get over our lips sometimes really and you're hoping your nine-year-old doesn't go home and tell all our friends hey guess what we're rich I said pastor said we're rich I mean that's you know but think about it and it's odd for us to you know saying that and and true I mean these are real terms these are real measurable parameters I'm giving you listen it's important you understand the blessing of that it's funny it's hard for us to say that it's not as hard about other things if you're six foot three and I say to you are you tall you'd say yeah I guess I'm tall right if you went you have your college degree or maybe master's degree and I said are you smart you'd say yeah I guess I'm pretty smart I've got a good education but when I say this you don't want to say that because you think that somehow well you know I'm not really rich like some people are rich and that's by the way the real issue for me is we compare ourselves with the super-rich you know the people that just have these extravagant sort of lifestyles the ones that used to be that show the lifestyles of the rich and you knew that wasn't you right these are the people that just you know they just have more than they know what to do with but they don't have really I mean you have more than you need to I mean if a person who's six three looks at a person who's six eight they could say you're taller than me but I'm still tall right and then you got it so one of the mistakes we make is we look at the people that have way more than we can imagine having and we think well they're the really rich people but not according to Scripture that's the point I'm making not according to what the international statistics of economics say and it's important that you understand that it's okay it's a good thing that you're blessed that way and I want to take guilt off the table and for you to be able to say you know I am rich and God has given me more than I need the appropriate response for that is not guilt but gratitude that's why we have Thanksgiving coming up so we can give thanks to God for being rich that's something I hope that you'll all participate in our Heavenly Father loves to hear that now there's also some bad news second here's the bad news about being rich the more that you have the more your wires tend to get crossed about what really matters this is a really odd thing one of the benefits of having someone that's just a little farther along in life as a pastor who's been able to watch people is to tell you this I'll just be sort of honest about this people who make more and more money get more and more attached to it it's very odd without being specific I'll just tell you for example that there are people I know them I don't know their specific W-2s or anything like that but I just know from personal chats and conversations and lunches and so they're making over $500,000 a year I remember doing a campaign a capital campaign a while back and one of those people we sat down and said how do you think you could help plant some seeds of faith and he said well let me think about it and you know a week or two later they he sent me his envelope and he sent in a pledge for $2,000 now as a pastor I said praise the Lord as a person I said what cheapskate you know I wanted to send that back to you $2,000 are you kidding me you're gonna spend that much this week on lunch on the other hand there are people that I can't I just can't tell you how many and there's more of these kind of people when something happens around here you know the flood in harmony or Aetna or the the Moldova thing that was the wonderful orphan care act whatever you find a way and I've had people come up and they'll say you know they'll hand me a check and I'll and they'll say here's something we just felt the Lord wanted us to give this and I kind of know what they do and they just maybe work with their hands and they don't make a lot of money at all I almost I've never said this to them because they're obeying God and who am I to tell them not to obey God I want to say to them why don't you just keep it God's gonna I mean and but they're smart because they know when they give God always gives back and see friends if you lose sight of that that's the place where you get into trouble God will be a so if you give to God you'll never have less as a result we somehow cannot get the math right in the kingdom of God look at this next paragraph the world tells us that we are owners of our wealth and that the riches equal success God tells us that we are stewards of our wealth and that riches are deceitful I want to talk about that for just a second because he's there there's a difference between owning it and if you think that what you have in your money and accounts and your wallet and your all of your savings and instruments and all that stuff if that's yours then everything I'm gonna say you're just gonna resist inside because it's yours you work for you earned it you you know the you work two jobs you did this and you know what I'm glad that you had that kind of ethic but friend there's a scripture I've skipped over I'm gonna go back to it I think it's in Ecclesiastes it's God let's put it that Ecclesiastes scripture please he's the one here when God gives someone wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them to accept their lot and be happy in their toil this is a gift of God so first of all understand that if you have money if you are rich which many of you just confessed you are then it's a gift from God it's not because you're like somebody really special that you worked hard you know here's something there is no correlation between hard work and being rich I know some people that work really hard and they're on the low rung of the being rich scale and some people who just sort of fall into it get the right deal make the right connection have the right friend you know and boom big numbers it's just not that it's just not as logical as you might hope and see the pragmatic piece of all this is that if we're not careful we start to think that we own this and we get blind to the fact that we're just called to be stewards what does that mean what is a steward well if I called my I have a financial planner I'm sorry cuz I'm rich I have to have one so I called my financial planner and I say how my investments doing and he says well you know all the money you've been giving me for the last 10 years I just been putting into the safe because you know I didn't want to take too much any risk of any risk with them so here I have all your money what would I say to him yeah I do a Donald Trump right you're fired what are you doing if he said to me well you know I just I made these investments and that investment and we had a little slump here but this came out and I've got five times what you gave me you know I'd say to him hey pretty good job I'll take that and if he said to me I got I got some really good things going and I've got ten times what you gave me I'd say whoa yeah let's go to dinner you did a great job I'll bring you some more friends and you know what I just told you that's the parable the talents in Matthew 25 and God goes as far as to say take the money you know the one that just stashed away and give it to the one who made ten times because that's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to multiply and benefit others through it and see friends this is so this is we just struggle with this so much somehow we think that money is gonna bring us what we need somehow we think of money and see turn your outline over the envy of your soul wants you to serve money to make money the thing that you go hard after if you serve money things start to go really crazy you serve money it can change overnight how do you know that it can change overnight you can have a lot and then suddenly you don't have much at all many of us experienced that a couple years ago if you serve money and not God something you really care about see ultimately the things we really really care about the things that Paul and Linda talked about money couldn't fix those things you might get the call one day from your son who has been wandering off and doing drugs and saying look I'm not coming home money can't fix that you might get the call from the doctor that says you know what so that last test really worried about that one see and we make the foolish mistake of somehow thinking if we have enough money all of our problems get solved they don't friends in fact this is gonna sound strange but I will tell you this people with a lot of money seem to have deeper problems the people who don't have much money that's my experience and it's just because of that constant battle how many saw the movie The Bucket List yeah I don't endorse a lot of movies but that that one really kind of caught me off guard snuck up on Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are the two leads and they play two people Jack Nicholson he's this super rich guy okay this magnet super and Morgan Freeman's he's a shop foreman in a body shop kind of thing and they both find out about the same time that they have terminal cancer so they create this list of things to do and if we had time we'd show you a clip of the movie is it's a funny movie but these are the things that they do before they die and you know it's climb Mount Kilimanjaro or whatever and and have lunch in the Riviera and jump out of an airplane with a parachute that doesn't work till halfway down or that kind of thing and race cars all but the one thing that Jack Nicholson has is that he's estranged from his daughter and as the movie comes to an end that's the one the most difficult thing for him to go and drive to his daughter's house and tell her that he's sorry for all that happened and then in the end I won't tell you but it it just proved that all the money that he had couldn't really fix the one thing that he needed so you learn to put the Lord first and then you're gonna have peace in your soul because there's two things we have to understand about this first of all look at your next one if we serve money we're never gonna have enough of it here's a simple question would you rather have eight million dollars or eight children easy answer right eight children because you'll have enough you got enough of that okay but yeah with money the answer that you should give is and this is what it always is given I think it's true enough is just a little bit more just a little bit more they don't have enough and we never get there we never have just enough and second when you serve money you might have things stored up but you don't have peace in your soul and that's something that can't be purchased with money it's something that you have to work out with God friends this is so important to grasp because if you don't you can move through life very quickly I want to stop and say something to the younger people here you know a lot of younger people I talked to by this sort of philosophy you know I'm young now and I need to work hard and I need to spend my money and you know invest in my stuff my billet my business and when I get to a certain age then I'll start giving to God again and I want you to know that's just a lie when our kids were little we would give them an allowance and we tell them that the first ten of that allowance went to the Lord and so you know whatever was out of their dollar they took ten cents and they put in the offering in the kids ministry and when they learn that you know what it's not a big deal but can I tell you if you don't learn to do that at a young age can I tell you that there are people who may it's more difficult for somebody who's making $50,000 a week to tithe than somebody who's making $500 a week to tithe. Why? Because a tithe, that's $5,000 a week? Are you kidding me? Yes. And if you're a young person that day when you're going to start giving just keeps getting pushed out. So I just want to urge you get God in on your finances at an early age and let him bless you along the way. And the outcome will really reward you. The funny part that people come back to me with is well you know when I make investments at a young age I just kind of know where it all goes. And when I was on vacation this is the kind of thing you get to do. You get to maybe read a little bit and watch a little bit and understand some things and I called my financial planner and I said well talk to me about some of my you know my investments and he said we have. And he started using terms I didn't know about. And see if you think you know where your money is going when you put it in to the you know to the investment places you know what are EFTs? What are derivatives? What are blanket bonds? What are cold funds? What are embedded options? I mean this goes on. I looked it up in the New York Times financial. There's 6,000 terms that these jokers use. I have no idea what they're doing with our money. Oh I have a deal. I've got 10% in this you know magnate blow up fund and it's probably going to blow up. You know that's all I know. Let me just make it simple for you. When you invest in the kingdom of God you know where your money is going and what your returns going to be. Simplest advice I can give you. Invest in the kingdom of God. And he will reward you. Look at Luke 638 as we close here. Luke 638. This is a verse that gets often quoted but never really taken seriously. Given it will be given to you a good measure pressed down shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap for the measure you use to give will be measured back to you. Wow what a wonderful promise from God. See in the end friends it's really about where are you putting your trust? Are you trusting in money? Are you trusting in the one who's the giver of every good thing? Because it makes no sense really logically when you back up to trust that which may not be. There's a great song and we'll talk about this next week a little bit more. I'm going to talk a little bit about gold. People are all freaked out about gold. There's a great old song it says. How's it go? A piece of bread will buy a bag of gold. I wish we'd all been ready. We'll talk about that a little bit next week. All the uncertainty that we're living in right now. Where are you putting your trust? And if this is just a little bit uncomfortable that's okay. It's good. It's good that you take assessment because nobody's condemning you. Nobody's. I'm just here to try to help you understand what God's plan is. I've learned to delight in this and you see in closing the only way to be generous of heart is to put your trust in God's promises. And when you do that you have the opportunity to do great things and see wonderful things happen. Yesterday this place was full of folks for the for the adoption care expo. It was just a wonderful event and just one of so many things that happens around here all the time. We made a little video to show you just what's been happening in North Way this past year at all of our different campuses. So we're going to play that for you right now and just take a look at this and give thanks to the Lord for what you're giving. What difference it's making. I'll take that for you. That's what we're gonna call this this little year end flourish of generosity. The next 30 years begins now. In your notes you received a little envelope with a little cityscape on it. I want you to take this home with you and begin to pray about it and say Lord what are you calling me to do? I want to hear your voice in this and not gonna be any pressure from us. You saw just that that's just the top of the waves of life change. We can't go into the small groups and the you know the care ministries and the counseling centers and all that's just deeper stuff. But your giving makes that all possible and I don't know if you're like me but I'm getting bombarded with all these requests now. So we want you to get this before the Lord because this is the place this is your place of being fed your place of being cared for. And so you bring that to the Lord and say all right Lord I'm going to trust you and see what God does when we all get on board together. I think it's going to be an amazing thing. Would you stand with me? Lord we are so grateful for changed lives as we saw in that video for the stories of people who are once lost but now found. The stories of healing like we we heard told today. The stories of reconciliation and restitution. Lord the stories that go so against the culture because you Jesus are like the song that we sang during the worship time. Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. If our God before us then who can be against us. And so Lord we go out today grateful to serve such a God and all God's people sin. Amen. Have a wonderful weekend. We will see you all next time.