House Money - Week 1

We uh, we're uh, we're moving into a brand new

series this uh, this Sunday called House Money. I want

to talk to you about money. Uh, but don't listen.

Some of you just I can see your face just

kind of shrivel up a little bit. Not talking about giving.

Uh we're talking about money. Come on, somebody not asking

you to give any more of it. We took up

the offering before I talked about money, so that lets

you know. I'm not trying to beat it out of you. Amen. Uh.

But uh, but there is a relationship that we all

have with money that uh, that we struggle with, that

that most people struggle with because it is a difficult relationship.

Doing scripture, we read, uh the Great commandment love the

Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

But I want to look just uh just for a

second at that the first part, love the Lord your

God with all your heart, with all your mind, with

all your soul, with all your strength, Love the Lord

your God with all And I did some study, and

I did a some research on that that word all

you know, that's a that's that's a crazy little word

all it means a lot. And when I looked up

that that word all in the original language, do you

know what it means? All? It means all it means

It means with everything, love the Lord your God, with

everything that's in you. There's not room. Uh, there's not

room for for slipping or sliding. It just simply means, hey,

I want to be the very object of your affection

and your life. That Jesus wants you to be in

love with him with a passionate, reckless abandon And I

don't think that's asking too much after what He's done

for us. So when we take that into context and

we understand that God's desire is for us to love

him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And then we look at relations at our relationship with money,

and what Scripture says about money. There are some warnings

that he puts in place. There are some warnings that

he puts in place because it's easy for money to

slide over into the place of God in people's lives. Amen,

I mean, how many of you have don't raise your hand,

how many of you have ever asked yourself or you've

gotten to this place in life, I don't know how

I'm going to make it because I don't have enough money.

Don't don't raise your hand. See the moment we say,

I don't know how I'm going to make it because

I don't have enough money. We've just allowed money to

slide over into God's spot because God is our provider.

God is able to do things for us that money

can't do. Amen. God's able. God's able to provide for

us in ways that the hornal nature of money can't provide.

So when we talk about those things, it's important that

we realize and understand our relationship with money. In one

Timothy chapter six, verse ten, it says, for the love

of money is a root of all kinds of evil,

for which some have strayed from the faith and their

greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. For the

love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

But you know I would also slide in there the

love of anything besides God. Amen. But money has a

particular place because of its because of its ability to

do things. And we have to understand relationship and relationship

with money in order to keep those things properly aligned.

We have three different relationships, or money holds three different

at places, the potential to have three different places in

our lives. The first thing, the first relationship with money

is the relationship of sower and seed Amen. That is,

money plays the role of seed in our lives. And

we talk about that a lot from a spiritual perspective.

In other words, we talk about sewing into the offering.

We talk about sowing into ministry, and that money is

seed sowing into the Kingdom of God. But it goes

beyond just that spiritual aspect. Money has power as a seed.

Beyond the spiritual aspect. It's not just that we sew money,

come on, somebody into the kingdom, but we can also

sew money into different areas so that that money works

for us. You know, Pastor Shame, where's Pastor Shane up there?

Not paying attention? I see him now, Pastor Shane, he

just had just had a baby boy. Come on, somebody,

I mean, listen, he may struggle, he may struggle doing

some things, but he can have babies. I mean, you know,

there's just he can just thank you for growing the church,

my brother. Uh, but he just had a baby boy.

And you know, here here's the power of understanding our

relationship with money as seed that let's just say that

that Pastor Shane sold all his gaming gear. He's not

going to but let's just say he sold all his

gaming computer and all that stuff. And let's say he,

you know, he was able to come up with three

thousand dollars and he took that three thousand dollars and

he invested or he planted that three thousand dollars, and

he put it in a place where you know, it

just averaged twelve percent per year, and he never put

anything else in it. He put it in there for

his Uh, I'm not even gonna call the baby's name.

I think there's some debate about what they're actually going

to call the baby, so I'm not. I'm calling him

Trey because he's the third kid, and that's just easy,

and I like to give kids names that nobody else

calls them. So for me, he's Trey. And he also

has three names, so that's also why I'm calling him Trey.

So that's he. Trey Clinton is who he will ever

forever be. From this pulpit, Amen, and he plants that

three thousand dollars in an account for trey. He doesn't

put anything else with it, and in fifty years, at

twelve percent interest, that baby's gonna have just over eight

hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Because seed grows. Seed grows.

That's that's what a seed does. It can't do anything else.

It just grows. That's that's its only purpose is to

grow into something that's a pretty significant power. And when

we realize that if we have the relationship with money

that it is seed meant to work for us, then

we can have a wholesome relationship with money that doesn't

cross over into the God realm, that it doesn't cross

over into dependency. Because what I would do if I

was shame is I wouldn't even tell him that he

had that money. I wouldn't even tell him it was there.

I would just let it be a surprise. Amen. I

wish when I turned fifty, my daddy said, Hey, got

your birthday present eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Listen,

that'd be a nice birthday. Amen. But see, we we

have this polluted, perverted relationship with money where we think

that everything is dependent on the amount that's in our

hands right now, and we think that it is a

right now organism, but money is not a right now organism.

If we interact with money like the only value of

money is the value that it has today, then we

miss the importance of treating it as a seed. And

the relationship of money as a seed becomes beneficial to

the believer because God has the ability and the promise

to multiply on the seed level. He supplies seed to

the sower, and he multiplies the seed so on. So

when we have that proper understanding of money at level

number one, that money is seed. I just I'm going

to ask a strange question here. How many of you

have ever looked in the garden as you were planting something,

and let's just say corn, and you looked at a

current corn and you just fell madly in love with

a colonel la corn. I hope nobody raises their hand.

We will be making an altar call later if you do.

But because that seeds don't have that power, seeds doesn't

that they don't have that relational power back to us,

all a seed can do is work for us. All

a seed can do is it's intended purpose, and that

is to grow. And when we understand money as a seed.

Then we can have a proper perspective, and then we

can see money as a tool for wealth rather than

as a tool for survival. See God never intended money

to be as a tool for survival. Our dependence upon

Him is a means of our survival. Money was always

meant to be a tool of wealth so that we

can expand and give and grow the kingdom. The second

way is that it's an instrument. You know. The second

relationship we have is money with money as an instrument. So, uh, Alan,

if you've got a bottle of water, but yeah, you

go get me a bottle of water, thank you. I

know I have a bottle of water sitting on my pulpit,

So I'm not not that bad yet. I know I

have a bottle of water on my pulpit. Uh but uh,

but but money can I also serve as an instrument,

an instrument of exchange, an instrument of of movement. But

in and of itself, it has no power. Money possesses

no innate ability to do anything. It's just there. As

a matter of fact, our money here in the United

States of America. The only basis of value for this

is the value that you give it. In other words,

this money doesn't need it's not even it's not even

backed by anything of value other than the value we

choose to give it. It's based on kind of just

what people think about our country, because there is no

gold to back this money anymore. Right, thank you, buddy.

I appreciate that. Amen. Just take it. And we exchange

money for things. It's just a means of exchange. It's

an instrument we use to get something that we don't have.

So I go to the grocery store. If I don't

grow my own food, I go to the grocery store.

I swipe my debit card. Hopefully you swipe your debit

card and not your credit card. Won everybody look at

me for just a second. If when you go to

the grocery store, if you're swiping your credit card. Now,

if you use your credit card like a debit card

and you pay it off, that there's so many ways

you can go at But listen, if you're financing your groceries,

I really need you to schedule a meeting with me,

and we need to talk. Uh. And I don't mean

that in a funny way, but we need to talk

about how you can get back on top of your

finances because you know you you shouldn't be financing canned

biscuits because that is uh that that that is a

commodity that will be gone and you can't pay interest

on something that's gonna be gone by Tuesday. That's that

that that's an improper relationship with money. Amen. Now I

understand sometimes we get in a hole, and a lot

of times we get in a hole is because we

don't understand what we're talking about today, our relationship with money,

because the enemy wants to use money as a tool

to beat you. But if you understand that it's seed

that will lead towards wealth, or it's an instrument that

will lead you towards just simply meeting the things that

you want today, the things that are going to get

you through life today. Only an instrument with no innate

power in and of itself. Because the reality is, you

know Alan would have gave well, it's I don't even

know where he got this bottle of water. I'm sure

Alan didn't buy this bottle of water. So I mean

he would have handed me this bottle of water without

any money exchanged. It was just a visual illustration. But

the reality is is that most of the things we

exchange money for we could exchange other things for as well. Amen.

I mean, I'm sure if I needed to eat, I

could call in and say, Hey, Len, I want to

come over to your store and I'm going to sweep

and clean in exchange for some fresh produce. That's the reality.

As a matter of fact, that's the way society used

to work, right, It's called the barter system. Money wasn't

even part of it. I have a talent, I have

a gift, and I share that gift or talent with

you in exchange for your gift and your talent. And

that's the way society operated, and it can still operate

that way. I trade things for things all the time.

I trade. I trade different different things for things that

I want or need on a regular basis. And that's

simply the way things work. It's just a modem of exchange.

That's all money is. It's a tool, an instrument that

allows me to have something I don't have. But the

third relationship with money is the one that most people,

is especially here in our country, find themselves in. And

that's money and the relationship as master. It's not a seed,

it's not an instrument. It's a master. And most of

us find ourselves allowing something that has no power and

no ability other than to grow. We allow that thing

to become our master. And Scripture is pretty clear about that.

That's what That's what the Bible says. In Proverbs chapter

twenty two, verse seven, it says, just as the rich

rule the poor, so the borrower is serve it to

the lender. In Matthew chapter six, verse twenty four, it says,

no one can serve two masters, for either he will

hate the one and love the other, or else he

will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Let me read it

to you out of the New Living Translation. It says

it this way, no one can serve two masters, for

you'll hate one and love the other. You'll be devoted

to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God

and be enslaved to money. See, Mammon was the pagan

representative of the monetary system of the day in which

Scripture was written. When people said mammon, they realized that

it was that symbol of the financial system of the day,

and the Bible says, you can't be in love with

money and also be in love with Jesus because you

can only have one master. You can only have one

person that's in control over you. Because the enemy also

understands the power of the seed. The enemy understands that

if he can bring the burden of money on you,

that he can enslave you with indebtedness. Just like that,

Just like that money that Pastor Shane could invest in

baby Clainton's life and it be a means to build wealth.

He could also borrow money right now in order to

give baby Clanton things, and baby Clainton can grow up

a slave to debt the rest of his life because

indebtedness brings pressure and weight that we can't that we

can't climb out from under. Indebtedness and a relationship with

money as money being our master immediately elevates money into

the place of God in our lives. And God is

a jealous god and wants to share his glory with

no one. God's desire is for us to have a

proper understanding of his place and money's play. And if

you always want more of one, you can operate with

less of the other. That is so tweetable. Let me

say it again. If your desire is for more of

one or the other, you have the ability to live

with less of the other. If your desire is to

always just have more, more, more, more money, and you

are always chasing money, and you have a love affair

with money and a passion for money, and you become

enslaved to it and it becomes your master, then you're

going to live with less of God in your life.

It's just a simple fact that now I'm not Now listen,

I'm not saying if your house is financed, you don't

love Jesus. That's not what I'm saying. So don't live

here and think I'm saying something I'm not saying. As

a matter of fact, there is good debt in our lives,

not all. There is debt that is grown. That that

that the asset is growing, that's good debt. My home

is increasing in value, it's good debt. When I sell

my home it's worth more than what I paid for it.

It's worth more than all of those things. That's not

really debt, right, that's seed planning for something that's increasing

in value. But my car, when I drive it off

the lot, I'm upside down when it when it goes

when it leaves Hardy Chevrolets parking lot, and it's Brown's

Bridge Road or Jesse Jewel or whatever it's called right there.

I don't know, it's the same road, uh, whatever it's

called right there. When I leave that parking lot, I

drive out not a new car owner, but a slave.

And now when I lose my job, the pressure is

to find another one so that I can make my

car payment. And then the pressure to make the car

payment leads me into stress and worry, both of which

are sin. When money is your master, it drives the

sin engine in your life, and it drives the sin

engine in your life, which is normalized in our culture.

Let me say that again, it drives the engine of sin,

which has been normalized in our culture. Do you realize

that there are some things that the Bible calls sin

that we think are completely okay in culture because everybody

has it to see. Fear is the enemy of faith. Sin,

anything contrary to the Word of God is sin. Worry, anger,

all of those things are sin. But we've normalized those

things so we don't worry about those things in our lives.

As a matter of fact, instead of bringing those things

to the Lord or correcting the root cause of those

things like we do with other sin in our life, Amen,

or that we talk about other people needing to correct

in their lives, we just buy a book from somebody

that has nothing to do with Jesus and we try

to just get a little self help so that we

can get over the symptom. But the root causes an

improper relationship with money, and we've allowed money to be

our master. Debt breaks us at the spirit level because

it takes the place of God. And when we have

allowed something to take the place of God in our lives,

it is a spiritual and physical whole that we must

dig out of as fast and passionately as we can,

because our relationship with Him is dependent on us loving

Him with all of our heart, with all of our mind,

with all of our soul. Money is a tool to

be used for good or bad, but it is never

to be our lover and in the place of relationship

that we exalt God or other people to I just

want to ask you, does it not that's my billfold? Oh,

here's another good one. Is It just sounds weird for

me to stand here and say that I have fallen

in love with my phone. That just doesn't make sense.

Or to say, oh, I have a spatula at home

and I just love it. I want to marry it.

I want I love my spatula. It is the perfect

It's got the perfect angle. It just scoops the eggs

perfectly and flips them over. No eggs taste as good

as the eggs I cook with that spatula. I'm in

love with my spatula. Y'all are laughing right, because it's

an in itemate object, just like money need. But yet

the Bible warns us not to fall in love with

money because he knows the propensity of mankind to do it.

So as ridiculous as it sounds, we still have this

love affair with money that holds us hostage and imprisons

us so that we can't have an active, thriving relationship

with Jesus. I don't want to start January preaching things

like this. I wanted to preach purpose and destiny and

hope and excitement, and but we can't get there. Until

we get here, I have a Bible College Professor, Clay,

you guys can come and get ready. I have a

Bible College professor that I hold in great in great esteem,

and uh doctor, baby, and uh doctor. He told us

in preaching class, he said, listen, y'all can preach anything

you want to preach. You can preach anything you want

to preach. People gonna shout you down, People are gonna

be excited. You're just gonna have people in your church

that love for you to You can preach anything as

long as you stay out of their bedroom, and as

long as you stay out of their billfol if you

preach about the bedroom, you preach about the billfol going,

they're going to replace you. That's what he told us.

He said, So listen, if the Lord puts that on

your heart, get your resume updated, because they're not gonna

put up with that. Well, you know what, I was

looking for a job when I found this one. And

I believe that God's desire it's for us to get

our lives in order so that we can be the

very best picture of ourselves for Him and for humanity.

I believe that today the hard things that we have

to address in our lives are not those invisible spiritual things,

but the things that we can open our bank app

and look at things that we can open those credit

card apps and look at. We can walk into the

parking lot and look at those things. We can look

back to last night while we were laying in bed,

and those worries that our mind went to. See this

is a very visible issue that we wrestle with. And

young people save until you can buy it with cash.

Save until you can buy it with cash, or learn

a skill and be so good at it, and people

will just give you things. Be the very best consultant

about whatever it is. People will line up to pay

you for the gifts and the talents that God has

put on the inside. I feel this for just a second.

Let me just let me just stop. We live right

now in the greatest time ever on the face of

the planet. Right now is the greatest time because we

live closer to Jesus coming back. But also we live

in a day and age where people are desperate for knowledge.

People will pay you for what you know, not just

what you can do. Young people learn something so effectively

that people will pay you for your knowledge. That people

will pay you for your expertise and market your knowledge.

And God will use it because it is spiritually based

and He will turn the world upside down and build

wealth in you so that you can fund the endeavors

to reach the world in the Kingdom of God. God

is looking for people that will step outside the ordinary

and become distribution centers for wealth and the Kingdom of God.

And you might as well be them. Might as well

be you, Isaac, might as well be you. I mean

everybody as well be you. Corey, I mean Riggie Marlowe.

You know more about music than anybody. I don't Mike,

it might be you start that podcast, Man. Share your

knowledge with the world, Steve, share that knowledge with the

world and eliminate the need to rely on money for anything,

because you've created a relationship and a flow that makes

you dependent on nothing. You know, if you're here today

and you wake up every day feeling that pressure, you

wake up every day, I don't know how I'm gonna

make it. My My finances are out of whack and

I and it affects my life. I come home and

I'm ill at my my family. I come home and

all I think about is the fact that I should

be working. I should be making just a few more dollars.

Or you're in a place where you're about to lose everything.

I mean, you're you're you're on the downhill end of

that thing, and it's caught up to you, and you're

about to lose everything, and and it's overwhelming you. If

that's you, the Lord wants to bring peace into your

life today. The Lord wants to set you free from

that worry and that struggle, because that's a way that

no one should have to carry. Everybody's staying with me

all over the room today, hmm. Don't let pride get

in the way of this altar call the average consumer

debt load, that's unsecured debt, that's credit cards. Okay, the

average credit card debt in America right now, it's thirteen

thousand dollars. That means the average person carries thirteen thousand

dollars on their credit cards and unsecured debt at over

twenty eight percent interest takes a lifetime to pay that.

It's cost more people their marriage and their relationship with

their children, drove people to addiction. It is a beast

that just keeps eating. And today the Lord wants to

step into your life. You're not the only one. So

if you're here today and you say, pastor, I just

I don't have the right relationship with money. I feel

the pressure, I feel the burden, I feel the pain.

I'm stressed out, I'm anxious, I'm worried. If that'st you,

and you'd say, pastor, I just I just don't have

the right relationship with money, and I want to. I

want to get those things fixed. I want to get

those things right, and I want to I want a

breath of fresh air from this pressure that I'm feeling.

That's you on the counter of three. I want you

to step out, and I want you to move I

know it's hard and it's difficult. On the counter three,

step out and move one two three, step out and

move right now, step out, move right now. Come on,

when you get here, lift your hands and begin a worship.

Come on, come on, Alter team, Come on, Alter team.

We just want to pray the prayer. We we just

want to pray hope. Piece of miracles, open, piece of miracles.

Just move over there to them there. They beat you

all down here, so y'all go to them. We got

we still got somebody right down here, Cindy, We still

got somebody right here that need somebody to pray right

past you, Church, we need your faith. The Bible says,

we're two or three touching any one thing over shall

agree it shall be done by our Father in heaven.

We want to break them that master's hold over people's lives,

that they can see the light to get a strategy.

I'm out. What's happening right here is miraculous. If you're

here and you still need to come, come, the band's

gonna sing. The authors are op