Purging Materialism

They got 40 years on the anniversary today.

Look at those balloons.

They love marriage so much they did it twice.

Oh man, talk about repeat your first fruits.

So hope he didn't mind me saying his business.

Where did your wife?

Oh, there you are.

So was y'all here last week?

There she is 40 years.

Woo, yeah, 40 years of putting up.

But Rusty deserves a lot more than balloons.

I'll tell you that Woo Well, so we're starting something.

Who was a part of the growth track yesterday?

Who in here was a part of it yesterday?

Got a couple of hands.

Why are y'all shy of it?

Come on, man.

Oh, there we go.

There you guys are.

We had about five or six people in it yesterday.

So we're starting another class at the end of this month and Sister Stella talked about it last week.

She's going to talk.

I'm not going to steal her thunder on this, but if you need healing or help or you know somebody that needs healing and help, this is a class specifically for women.

They said no men allowed, also no children.

So you need to make arrangements to go to the class because you need it and it'd be nice to get a break from the children, right, and the husbands or whatever else y'all got going on.

Sister Stella, if you'll come, she said we needed a rail.

I said just take off running, you'll end up somewhere.

Well, y'all, I've got three pages today.

I really don't, but I do, but I'm not going to go over all three.

So every night, for about three nights, God keeps me awake and I keep writing stuff.

And I said to my family this morning I said what am I going to say?

And I read all three of them and it was like I don't know about that one.

But anyhow, good morning ladies.

And did you come this morning, ladies, with your chains, your baggage?

Some of us did.

We came bound with chains of unforgiveness, shame, guilt, anger, maybe even regrets, and not knowing who you are in Christ.

You might say well, I'm saved, but who am I really in Christ?

The Lord, I mean the devil's bothered my throat this morning and you wonder why you keep going around the same old mountain every time, the same old things keep coming up and you're in the same old situation.

So it's time now to get ready to come to this class, to get rid of your pains, from your past, from the present, and the past may be an hour ago of something that happened.

So come two weeks from this coming, a week from this coming Wednesday, August the 24th at 630, and the class will be about 10 or 11 weeks.

Come and sit before the Lord and let him fill your cup, Let him heal you of the things in your life.

And you know also, when you get healed, then God can use you more in what he's called you to do.

And I know each one of you ladies have been called for something in your life.

And so come, sign up in the foyer and the class will close next Sunday.

So no one after next Sunday will be able to attend, because once we start this class, you don't want somebody to come in the middle of it and go oh, I missed all of this.

Can I get caught up?

No, so you need to come that first night, because I'm closing the first night, you know, because it's too hard to get caught up, because this is kind of like a snowball.

Once you get started with this class, God starts doing so many things and you go oh, wow.

And listen, I'm going to tell you many years ago, when I stepped into a class like this, I didn't want to stay.

It got hard.

I cried.

I cried going, I cried coming, I cried all week and said I don't want to do this.

But I thank the Lord today that I came, Because if I hadn't have, I wouldn't be standing here today to share what God has done in my life.

So, ladies, come, come and sit before the Lord and let him heal you, and so I'm looking forward to seeing you.

All right, we got one more.

You still gonna do it.

She showed me something last week.

You still going to do it.

She showed me something last week and she said I don't know why God keeps healing me.

I said well, we're going to figure that one out together.

Yeah, hey, can you put that slide?

back up.

Thank you, Pastor.

Thank you, Pastor and Miss.

Jessie, Jessie I'm sorry for doing that.

They just made my heart jump when I seen it and it was like wow, you know.

I'm not going to take credit for that when Jessie did it, so she's got a testimony.

Anybody like to hear what God has done for people?

That's all I'm going to do.

Thank like to hear what God has done for people.

That's all.

I'm going to plug for that class.

I took that class twice 22 years ago and it works.

It's really, really awesome.

I'm going to lean up against this kitchen table here.

A couple of months ago I stood up here, sat, I think I sat, and I gave my testimony about how God had raised me out from almost dying last year with COVID and respiratory distress and previewed to the year later.

You know what we had been going through and it's been a hard year.

We put my mother on hospice, we lost my mother on hospice and in the middle of all that, jeff and I had to go to the doctor to do our insurance physical.

So, excuse me, so we wouldn't have to pay $1,000 a month premium and you go, get lab work and everything done.

So we went in to the doctor's office and we sat down and he of course looks at Jeff and five seconds, yep, you're fine.

Next.

And then he comes to mine and he starts looking and he's you know, some things were off.

I have lupus, so we were expecting some of the things to be off.

But then he rolled down to my liver enzymes 40 times the normal limit, the high limit, and words like autoimmune hepatitis, liver cancer, non-alcoholic cirrhosis words like that started coming out of his mouth and saying we got to get you into a specialist, we got to get this fixed.

Okay, tests, specialists.

So I go see the gastroenterologist who wants to put me on a tree bark, dirt grass, river water diet, don't eat vegetables, don't eat fruit, don't eat anything.

Okay.

And I walked out of his office and I looked at Jeff and I said I ain't doing that.

Um, and so a couple I get.

No Tuesday this past week I went and I had some follow-up labs drawn for something totally unrelated and they started chiming on my phone and they said you know, your labs are done, your labs are done, here's the results.

And I looked on there and I went straight for the complete metabolic panel, went all the way down to the liver enzymes.

Guys, they're normal.

They're not only normal, not only normal, they're like way on the lower side of normal.

So he still heals, he still heals and he still and I don't know why he keeps doing it to me, but he does.

So I can pester Stephen a little bit more every day.

I love you, I'm done, I'm done.

She said I don't know if she said Pastor Stephen or Pester Stephen.

I picked up a skill of being married twice.

I just hear what I want anyway.

So it was Pastor Stephen, we're getting more of y'all trained.

Good, yeah, we're getting trained.

Let's stand for the reading of God's word.

So we're going to be looking today in Matthew, chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

This is going to be our key verse verses 24 through 26.

And when Jesus said this, jesus was so ahead of his time.

And the cool thing about the word of God is, if you don't have a relationship with the word of God, if you don't have that daily ingestion of the word of God, if you're not digesting the word daily, it's not going to come alive to you when I read it.

It has to be a personal relationship.

And the cool thing about the word of God is that even from the beginning of time to now, it's still relevant.

It's as if in that moment in time they knew what was going to happen in today's world, because the Bible is alive and active.

So let's look in chapter 16, 24.

It says this Then Jesus said to his disciples if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross and follow me.

Verse 25, it says this If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it, but if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

And this is our actual key verse.

This is really where we're coming from today, but I wanted to give you some context.

It says in 26, and what you do or what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?

Is anything worth more than your soul?

Let's pray, father.

We thank you so much.

I thank you, lord, even for the distractions, that you give us opportunity to persevere and keep pushing on.

I pray, lord, that your presence that has already been so evident in this place continue to move in this place, that people who are lost and undone come to a knowing salvation of your Son.

In your name, we pray amen, amen.

I have a few friends that live over in the Tyler area and I tell them because sometimes they're idiots and I tell them and I say, listen, I'm praying for you, and they're like oh, thank you, thank you.

I said no, no, no, no, you're confused.

The way that I pray it sounds like I'm thank you, thank you.

I said no, no, no, no, you're confused.

The way that I pray it sounds like I'm praying against you, because usually what we really need is something that seems that it's working against us, but it's actually working for our good.

And so in this, jesus is talking to the disciples Listen, he's got a whole congregation of priests too, but he looks to his disciples and he said listen, if you really want to follow me, you've been physically following me, but if you really want to step out and do what is really required of you, you see, salvation is a free gift, but the purification is a process and it requires something.

Salvation he freely gives.

He went to the cross for everybody, no matter what you look like, no matter what background you come from, no matter what denomination you claim.

He came for everybody.

But the purification, there's an exchange that has to happen.

You have to start emptying yourself out, getting rid of things that you want to hold on to, and even so, sometimes listen.

Here's the difference between when I was a child and I cleaned my room, and when my mommy would come in and see that it really hadn't been cleaned, because in my eyes I thought that I had cleaned my room, but when she would come in with her mature eyes, she would see that I just shoved a bunch of stuff in my closet and under my bed, but I could walk in the floor now so it was clean.

We do this with our spirits as adults.

We say, oh God, whatever you want to do in my life, whatever you want to do in my life, and we start shoving things under the bed.

Just clean me as much as you want.

We're shoving things in the closet, we're pushing the doors closed and they barely bend and close.

Y'all knew I grew up in an old house with paneling when I had doors that go like this instead of the ones that open.

But we shove things in closet, we try to hide it from God and we say, look God, you can walk around freely all you want.

Look God, you can see carpet again.

And that's the same thing that our children do, and God knows this.

And so he said to them he said what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?

He was trying to teach them that there is nothing more value that a person possesses than a soul.

That's why it is so important to do the challenge of 17, where you're building up your faith and your relationship with God.

Five minutes in prayer, five minutes of reading the word, five minutes in praising, and you got one person to invite to church.

Every week and every day.

One small act of faith.

Why?

Because we want you to become mature.

How do you get big and strong?

Tristan is going through this at school right now when they have athletics.

The kid is a beanpole.

He's skinny, there's no meat on his bones, okay, but he thinks he's going to come in my office and also my gym and he's going to lift my weights and he gets this little.

To me it's little, okay, follow me here.

To me it's little, it almost is no weight.

But he goes and he's like all of his little chicken leg strength, he's got it and he's all one.

And then he's like oh, I can get two, I can get two, half, that counts, that counts.

So he gets to one and a half.

And we do this constantly in our spirit.

We do things or we try to pick up things that maybe is somebody else's and they don't fit us.

We're not there yet.

We try to carry that burden and we haven't reached that point because we haven't.

We don't want to go through the valley.

But through the valley is where God shows up.

God can't heal if we're never sick.

God can't help us become mature if we're not immature.

He can't help us to get closer together if there is not conflict.

You see how things that seem like they don't make sense actually are for your good.

We want God to remove things, but actually when God helps us mature, he moves us through things.

There is no greater thing that is in existence than a soul.

Now Jesus, like usual, really understood this issue that we suffer from, called materialism, and today we're going to be talking about purging materialism, because it's a purge.

If you've ever seen someone purge before, it is not pretty, it's ugly, it's messy and it is gross, but we oftentimes allow these things to take a place of authority and position on the thrones of our heart.

That actually is a place that belongs to God.

We suffer from materialism.

Even back in his lifetime it was a serious problem.

So people constantly chasing after what they didn't have, constantly always looking for what others have, and we feel so strongly that we need it.

So what is this rule that I say around here all the time?

To achieve spiritual maturity, you identify what the lie is and you replace it with God's truth.

If you want to become spiritually better, spiritually mature, advancing in your relationship with God, you have to identify.

If I spent my entire marriage to my wife and saw, or we had, issues and I never tried to stop and identify what those issues were, we would soon I would be on my third wife.

That's assuming that someone else would take me.

If we don't stop and identify what the problems are me, if we don't stop and identify what the problems are like, my biggest issue is that I would get mad and never say anything.

She's the same way.

So what do we have to do?

We have to go to each other sometimes when we're both upset, and we have to talk, even if it's just saying what the problem is, and then we go and think for a little bit and we come back Sometimes.

That's best.

So we don't want metals infusing like that.

So first we have to see what fruit we are producing.

We allow seeds to be planted in the gardens of our hearts and they produce the wrong fruit and we just think, because it's fruit, it's okay.

And if we end up getting the wrong fruit, what do you have to do?

You don't check the fruit.

You deal with the root.

Do not.

Do not mow down what is plaguing your garden and think that you've taken care of the problem.

You've only hidden it for a minute.

You have to take care of the root.

You have to pull it out by the root.

So if we're talking materialism, what does that look like?

So we're going to go through an example, and I'm going to mention credit cards.

If you like credit cards, that's fine.

Whatever, this isn't a sermon about credit cards, so don't get all offended and up in your feelings.

We're going to assume that we have Christmas coming up and we did not plan for it, which means you ain't got the money in the bank.

So you get all of these ads in the mail that say no interest for 12 months.

That's perfect.

That's 12 months where I could pay this off easy, okay.

So here we go.

We have this credit card, we got this new credit card.

We paid off tons of debt.

I get like 20 of them a week.

It's stupid.

I'm not falling for you.

So purchase without planning.

Okay, it's the end of the year.

We have a holiday coming up Christmas, all right.

So instead of saving up all year for a little time, right here, we use a credit card, someone else's money, so what does that do to us?

If you use somebody else's money and not your own, you're always paying it back.

Okay, so that Christmas's gift bill hits on January 1.

Okay, you bought in December, before Christmas, and then January.

Now it's there, depending on how big you went.

It's easier to spend when it ain't your money.

It's easier to swap when it ain't coming out of your account.

So January you're now paying for December's mistakes.

Uh-oh, like I said, that was the only credit card example we're getting.

Paying for December's mistakes.

Uh-oh, like I said, that was the only credit card example we're getting.

I'm moving on.

Now what happens?

Okay, february comes and you know the wife needs something expensive Because she's got good taste and she needs something that she's like.

Y'all ever heard of James Avery.

She loves James Avery.

I could win every day if I could go afford James Avery every day.

I don't know if she's wearing them today, but she's got rings for every single finger and, I think, a few toes and a necklace.

So February oh well, we got to get a gift for the wife, and my mother used to.

She would always.

Every Valentine's Day she would do this little heart things with chocolates in it.

That's probably where my addiction started.

And she would put it on our pillow.

We come home from school and it would be there.

She would sneak it in there.

So you got flowers.

You got anybody bought flowers lately.

Those things are not cheap and you almost have to take out a loan to get them.

Same with gas Chocolates, the little candy hearts.

Then you have March and April.

Well, now you have spring break coming, so you got to take a family vacation.

Do you see how this is compiling from something that you did dumb in December and that you try to pay for it?

But every single month something pops up, every single month it starts compiling.

Well, now you have March and April.

We got spring break.

The kids are out of school, we can't just stay home, we have to have a family time.

So then you go out for spring break and you have to go and get Easter.

And get, oh Easter, oh April's here, easter's here.

Well, obviously we have to get the Reese's Easter egg peanut butter cups.

I don't know what the deal is, but they taste better.

I don't know if it's the shape or the thicker construction, I don't know, but it's something about it.

If y'all ain't getting the hint, I like those For some reason.

They're better.

Well, we got to get a bunch of those to for the kids.

Right, I'll get them for your baby.

Oh, your baby can't have chocolate.

I'll just take them home, it's fine.

Yeah, it doesn't.

Yeah, yeah, true, true, it likes them.

Now you got may, june, july and august, so now it's summertime.

Now we have to have some sort of family vacation that the kid's out of school, oh, and now we come back from vacation.

Now the kids have camps that we have to pay for.

If you got multiple kids, sorry for you.

I'm glad I got one, but he went to two camps, so I don't know what the I still lost Might as well.

Have two kids, wink, wink to you, all right, then you have.

I apologize, that's going to get me in a lot of trouble later.

I'm preaching here.

Leave me alone, all right.

Then you got the camps.

Then you got some sports that start up.

Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You start traveling with sports and they got something going on during the summertime.

Well, then you have to buy fireworks, because now it's 4th of July and, oh, my kid can't live without a thousand dollars worth of fireworks.

And then school's starting very soon.

August is approaching.

Well, now we need school supplies.

And oh, we got things at church where we're buying stuff for kids for school supplies.

So now we've got to buy for other kids too.

So not only do mine need stuff, other people's need stuff.

And it's only almost in August.

And then you get September.

School sports start stronger than ever Now.

Tristan's about to be starting in football.

He was going to that kind of camp stuff before he left the country.

I don't know where he is now.

If y'all see him, please let us know but before he left he was doing a camp up there that Pine Tree was having.

Well, then you have September, where you're back in school, reality and normality is trying to come back, and now you got to do school lunches and you got all these other things you got to afford.

And now it's October, and now it's time for the greatest day that ever happened in America is when pastor was born just saying if they save those easter eggs and they're still good, my birthday is October 11th I'm gonna gain that COVID-19.

All right, now's October.

So now you got tons of candy, those big bags of candy.

They're stupid, expensive.

It's like if I could have a way to make this at home, I'm going to get one of those little toy kits and just make a thousand of them.

You ever seen those?

Now I got to buy candy.

We got things at the church happening.

We got kids that are going to come in our neighborhood.

We didn't know it was such a big deal in our neighborhood.

Last year I'm like we didn't get any candy.

Turn that light off.

They ding dong.

No one's here.

I'm sorry y'all.

I'm in a weird mood today.

It was just meant that all that stuff to go wrong.

And then November's here.

Well, now we got to travel.

Kids are out of school again.

Now we got to do a Thanksgiving thing.

We got family.

Now they're all in one state, missouri, and then her family's over in the Bullard area.

Well, some of you may have family out of state that you go to see every year, or maybe you take a vacation then because you don't want to see family.

That time of year.

You know, whatever makes you stay sane is completely fine.

And then some of you have thousands of desserts because you got 20 requests, people asking, hey, are you going to do this this year.

So then you got to spend all your time doing that.

And then here comes December.

Oh no, we're having vacation again, but now it's Christmas time.

So now we're back to where we began and we couldn't pay off anything the entire year because we spent this whole time doing other things that was calling for our attention.

And this was just stuff that I came up with off the fly for a couple things in the month, when in reality y'all probably have stuff in real life every single day.

That sounds a lot like this list I just went down we are.

We can see very clearly, when we map that out month to month and year to year, that material things can run our lives and really control what happens in our life and dictates what happens in our life.

And even though I named a lot of stuff that demands your time and your finances, you probably got 20 more that I missed, and that's just in the first month.

Finances you probably got 20 more that I missed, and that's just in the first month.

And, just like you, millions of other families, they go through this same cycle year after year after year after year and then wonder why we cannot get ahead.

It's because we have allowed materialism to take the place of our master.

It's an endless cycle.

What do we do?

We work, right, we have to work.

We have to have electricity, we have to have gas in our car, so now we have to have 10 more hours of work just to get that tank, and then we spend.

Anybody else like to spend?

There are two types of people.

There are savers and spenders, and I am the spender.

I am the spender.

I've gotten a lot better, but when we first got married, money meant nothing to me and I found my second love, amazon.

And then I found out they have a prime membership where you don't have to pay for shipping anymore.

That's a no-brainer.

And now I buy stuff for my companies Tax deduction, write it off, charge it cha-ching.

We work so we can spend.

We spend and we charge.

Well, then we have to work harder, because now we've accumulated more issues and then we spend more and then we charge more.

This is the price of the admission of this game.

Commercials are tailored to make you feel guilty about not being a good parent if you don't get your child something that they're trying to sell.

There are waves and waves of types of people that want to make you feel guilty if you don't eat a certain style of food or a certain thing that they saw on TikTok, like, oh, you didn't see that yesterday.

I don't care, I work, I do things that actually matter.

And we have this endless cycle of over and over and over and over work, work, spend, work, spend, work, spend.

And what are we doing?

All we're doing is working, spending and spending no time with God.

And then we wonder why we come to church and we feel so empty inside, because you can literally get depleted from materialism.

It will suck the soul out of you and everything in your life that you've worked so hard for that.

In the moment when you have it that instant gratification, when you have it in your hand and you love it so much it's like somebody buying a boat.

Y'all probably understand this.

Have you heard the saying the best time, the best day of your life of having a boat is when you first buy it and when you sell it.

That's how things are.

When you buy it, it's amazing and it's good, but then you have what you have and then you see somebody else have something and you're like, well, maybe I should have got that, maybe I could take this back, or maybe I could sell this and all of a sudden you start this inner cycle again to where you're trying to wheel and deal so you can get what somebody else has got.

My son is bad about that.

This kid came up to me Now.

Son is bad about that.

This kid came up to me Now.

Granted, he did end up going to the beach with my dad.

They'll actually be here today sometime.

They went to Alabama, actually I think same beach I went to, and he's been asking me for six, eight months.

We have never, ever in the seven years of our marriage, ever as a family went to the beach, never.

So somebody finding something and then he's saying, oh, dad, I want the.

What is it?

A boogie board or whatever?

That real flat piece of wood where you run and jump and you go on the waves where you're at the shore.

I said, tristan Anthony, you have never been to the beach with us.

Why are you asking me for that?

I just I really want to.

I really want to go to the beach.

I was like, well, that's great that you want to go to the beach, but I ain't buying it until we go to the beach.

Come to find out his little friend in the neighborhood.

They go to the beach all the time and he has one.

He asked for something else.

I don't even remember what it was it was.

So you ever, after you get older and you start seeing more practically like that's a dumb purchase.

You ever do that.

You're like, okay, maybe when I was 20, but now that I'm almost 40, that's stupid, I ain't spending my hard-earned money on that.

Tristan still is not understanding what money is and where it comes from, except when I tell him, no, spend your own money.

And he's like well, I don't have any.

Yeah, that's the problem.

He wanted something else and I said what would you use it for?

He said I just, I really want one.

I said, oh, yeah.

So he made this little video on his phone and he was showing it to me and I said that's that thing you said you wanted.

It's at your friend's house.

Well, yeah, he's got one too, but I'll say you would never use it.

Oh, yeah, I would.

There was actually no reason he wanted to accept.

Somebody else had it.

So if we can all agree, if your kid's ever done that, they've ever been in the store and they throw a little fit because they're not getting what they want at the store, when it's really not a life-altering decision whether you have it or you don't have it, but it's a state of immaturity.

Okay Now, we all just agreed on that.

If you can't feel the trap, it's coming.

Now, we all just agreed on that.

If you can't feel the trap, it's coming.

We do the same thing in our spirits in the church house Is we want what everybody else has got.

We want the new lights, we want the new cameras, we want this, we want that.

Why can't we have this?

When I heard a pastor tell me a pastor of a huge mega church, he said the way we started growing, the way we actually started doing things that mattered, is we stopped trying to be outside of the box and we started using what we had.

If we did that in your life and you stopped pursuing the things that really don't matter, imagine how much more fulfilled in life you could be because things that you're actually spending your time on.

Because we all have the same amount of time every single day, every single week, every single month.

None of us can do something now to earn more day.

At the end of the day, it's all the same for every single one of us.

So imagine if you took the time, the limited amount of time that we have here on this earth.

It's just a blink and it's gone.

What if you spent that time, stopped chasing after things that don't matter and you started pursuing a God that cares enough about you to give you the blessings that you have?

Imagine if you took the time that God has blessed you with and started really doing something that mattered to make a difference in someone else's life.

It's not glamorous.

Matter of fact, when Jesus told his disciples this, he said you need to pick up your cross and leave behind everything that you love.

Now I'm not telling you to go to some third world country, leave your car, leave your house, and some of y'all are like leave my spouse.

No, I didn't say that.

Did not say that.

What I'm saying is every day, god has designed opportunity for you to live in purpose and to feel fulfilled where you are now, and a lot of times we pass it up because we're so focused on the things that are material and we forget about the purpose from the master.

But this is the price of the admission if you want to keep up and play the game.

This desire for wanting what we don't have starts at a very young age.

We want the latest and greatest toy, bicycle, gi Joe, barbie, now it's video games, and so on, and so on and so on and so on.

And we do this as an adult.

Has anybody else been guilty of that?

You see somebody else's car and like man, that looks good.

Well, yeah, the payment's hefty too.

That looks good.

Well, yeah, the payment's hefty too.

You walk into somebody's house.

You're like, oh, this is a good house.

Oh, I wish I had that.

No, you don't, you would have to pay for it.

So what do we do?

We want to shine the light on the lies and replace it with real truth.

So let's look at what Solomon says.

Solomon is known for being one of the wisest men in the Bible, and probably still to this day.

Look at Proverbs, chapter 13 and verse 7.

Proverbs 13 · chapter mention

And this listen, there's a.

It's a TikTok.

I think it's also Instagram real, and it's like playing some cool music.

And it says Instagram, it goes versus real life.

And it's like you see this beautiful mountain with beautiful colors and then it goes and there's like people everywhere like just ruining your shot and it's like a Instagram shot versus actual real life.

A lot of times we want to post the highlights.

I'm not telling you to post your problems on social media that's not how you solve them but oftentimes we see other people's posts and we think, oh, that must be nice, oh, that's nice, that's real nice.

And you don't see all the issues they're having.

Like the kids are throwing fits or somebody got sick on the cruise ship and they're throwing up and they had to spend the whole time in the room.

But they post one sunset from the balcony of the room and you're like, oh, my goodness, that's so amazing.

And you don't see reality, because reality is something that we all want to hide.

We don't want to show what's really going on behind the closed curtain.

So look at this Proverbs 13, 7.

It says one person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing.

Another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.

There's a saying on.

I work with a lot of builders and stuff and they say if you pull up on a site and you see a bunch of nice trucks, look for the.

Now, this is kind of a blanket statement, but I found it to be pretty true.

Look for the truck.

That's old, beat up and paid for and that's the guy who owns the company.

I was like that.

I like that.

Now we're going to look at some basic research of psychology.

I was a psychology major over at Sagoo, at Waxahachie, so that's the first college I failed out of.

The second one was in Florida.

We won't talk about that one today, but psychology was so cool to me because you get into people's brains and you can see things that they try to hide and you get to look in that.

The Bible says that the eyes are windows to the soul.

Like you can lie to me and I can look into your eyes and I can tell whether you're being serious or whether you're joking around or whether you are, unless you're just really good, and then we'll have altar call in a minute.

But psychology research says this about materialism linking to happiness.

You know, oftentimes we get this where it's a feeling of a rush, when you get something nice.

In 2020, we went and got me a truck.

I was like, oh, I got a truck Finally.

I was a car person up until that moment and I was like I am now in the new club.

I waved at every truck driver not the 18-wheeler guys, but the other people in trucks.

I'm like, hey.

And Jesse was like do you know them?

I said, no, but we're friends.

Now we drive trucks.

I would seriously wave and I would laugh.

I'll be by myself A lot of things happen in the car by myself and I would be laughing and giggling because I'm like, yeah, we're hey, hey, there, I see you.

You know I'm doing a country accent, I'm talking to somebody that can't actually hear me, but I'm having fun, I don't care what they think.

And so I thought I was in this cool club.

It was a 2020 and it was year 2020, and I'm like, oh, I got a new truck, son.

And then I got to where I matured a little bit and realized that I could sell that for the same price that I bought it from, after 60-something thousand miles on it, and I'm like, well, let's go get an SUV.

So I got a 2016 SUV and it's got some problems.

Thank God the air conditioner has not quit yet.

And it's got some problems.

Thank God the air conditioner has not quit yet.

But that thing out there is a blessing to me, because I came home that same day and we paid off our largest credit card with the check that the company that I bought it from wrote to me I didn't want to let go of that.

You ever have buyer's remorse.

I didn't have it one time in that truck.

But when I was driving home and there was a knocking noise and I was looking through a cracked windshield that they didn't tell me about until about an hour away from them, I was like man.

I called my wife and she was like are you okay?

You don't sound like you're too confident in your purchase.

I said, baby, I am.

I said like a question mark at the end I am, I think.

But the more I drove it, the more I realized that I just made a mature decision for my family and all of a sudden I wasn't worried about what somebody else was driving.

If that thing gets hit by a shopping cart with the morons at Walmart, I don't care.

It's got plenty of dings and scratches.

Another one ain't going to matter.

Matter of fact, I'm so embarrassed I actually pointed out when anybody looks at it from the outside.

Oh yeah, these scratches are right here, it's no big deal.

I was like whatever, if I pointed out first, it didn't hurt as bad.

But we have this materialistic mindset that is ingrained in us from childhood that when somebody else has something, we want what they have we think that we need it to complete the perfect picture of life that we have.

But if you don't have Jesus in the center of your heart, if you don't have God in the center of your life and on the throne of your heart, anything you buy, anything you want, will never satisfy, you will never be fulfilled.

Only only in Christ Jesus will you ever find exactly what you were looking for.

So we have.

This connection between materialism and well-being is the longest standing strand of research in the materialistic literature.

So at the University of Sussex their research showed the negative turn to your neighbor and say negative the negative relationship between materialistic materialism and well-being.

All across any kinds of measure of materialism and all types of people and culture.

Every single time it came back negative.

That's 100% return on negativity and negativity.

With materialism they found that the higher people endorsed materialistic values, the more they experienced unpleasant emotions because it was never enough.

It was never enough.

They always had to chase after something else because what they had was never enough.

And see, here's the thing.

This is what I'm talking about.

We take God out of that authority place in our lives and we replace it with materialism, and then we chase after something that will never satisfy, when only the one thing that will satisfy you in your heart, to the very core of your soul, is Jesus, christ, christ.

The more people were endorsed with materialistic values, they experienced unpleasant emotions, depression, anxiety, the more they reported physical health problems such as stomach aches, headaches, and the less they experienced pleasant emotions and being happy, and they never felt satisfied with their life.

This reminds me so much of the story in the Bible with the woman at the well, and Jesus came and sat and just talked to her and he said listen, you're not married, are you?

She said, no, I'm not married.

He's like, you're right, the man you're not with you're not married.

And then revealed a little bit more of herself just to validate who he was for a second, and he explained to her the same thing that Jesus was trying to explain to the disciples here in Matthew is that what you are tasting of, you will once again be thirsty, but what I have for you, the well that you will be drawing from, you will never thirst again.

People of God, jesus has a well for you to drink from that you will be so satisfied that the things of this world will grow strangely dim.

World will grow strangely dim, that the things that you once chased after no longer matters to you relationships, jobs, money.

They will slowly fade away and you will see your purpose clearly, because now you're seeing yourself clearly.

We live in a culture that conditions us to believe that the more stuff that we have, the happier we will be, the more fulfilled that we will feel, and it is always the opposite.

Let me help you.

Anything that comes out of the world is a lie.

It can be disguised in truth, it can be butted up next to the truth.

It can be painted with some pretty glittery truth type of paint to make it more appealing.

But it is false and it will wither and die compared to the real truth.

Listen to what Paul says in Romans, chapter 1, verse 25.

Romans 1:25

He simply says this.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served, created things rather than the creator, who is forever praised Amen.

The creator who is forever praised Amen.

It says.

Paul just knew, he just saw into the future and what we were going to be experiencing.

This tells me that back then it was a problem too.

They wanted the next best chariot with the gold and the rims.

You know what I'm saying.

Got a little shine to it.

They're chasing after things that didn't matter the necklaces, the attire, all these things the same issues for generations before Paul was still an issue In the Garden of Eden.

We see this.

They had everything they could want.

They even had a specific time in the evening where God would come down and walk with them in the cool of the day, and it wasn't good enough, because there was something that they didn't have.

The one thing they couldn't have is what they fell into, desiring and sinning.

Now the Israelites did the same thing some of the dumbest people, all that they saw God do, and they still worshipped idols.

Does that sound familiar to the modern church today?

It's easy to call other people stupid when we see they're dumb, but we don't want to look at us.

Oh, we're not making idols.

Let me ask you what is taking the place of God's time in your day?

Because if something is robbing you of time with God, it has become an idol to you.

This isn't going to be a shouting I didn't expect it to be, but there's some truth is that things in our lives we chase after and pursue with such anticity and such a fire.

We want what everyone else has.

Oh, we got to have the next best thing.

I'm like that.

Look, I'm a photographer and videographer.

I love gear, camera gear, lenses, lights.

Sometimes I just look up what I want for six months from now.

I love it.

And Amazon makes every day feel like Christmas, and I don't even have to go to the store to do it.

Just a couple of clicks and it's there in a couple of days.

Come on somebody.

How many times have I done this in so many areas of my life?

Things that were convenient, and I've turned into the biggest consumer instead of the contributor.

Luke 14 says this, and this is the cost of being a disciple A large crowd was following Jesus, just like always, and he said this in verse 25,.

It says a large crowd was following Jesus.

He turned around and said to them now listen, in the modern preacher today, the boy had some numbers, but instead of coddling and tickling their ears, he turned around and said listen, this is the real, this is what needs to happen.

If you want to follow me, you got to do what.

If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else.

That's serious.

By comparison, hate everyone else your father, your mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life.

Otherwise you cannot be my disciple.

I'm not saying this, this is Jesus.

And if you do not carry here, he says again, if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

When you come to the knowing salvation of Jesus Christ, there has to be some sort of exchange.

You cannot accept God as your Lord and Savior and say that he is Lord over your life and still follow your sinful nature.

These are two beasts that will wrestle inside of you day in and day out, and chances are, because I have been such a sinner myself, I know that sinful nature will always, always prevail unless I cut the head off of the monster, off of the monster.

I cannot allow that in my heart.

I cannot allow that to have roots in my heart.

I must get rid of it.

Like last week we talked about Joseph and the coat of many colors.

You cannot, when sin tries to grab you, and say you will stay with me.

You leave whatever they grab a hold of, leave it behind and take off running.

Because if you try to wrestle with sin, you will lose that battle Every time.

If you have a problem with looking at women, gouge out your eyes you think that's a joke.

If you have a problem with pornography, maybe you shouldn't have internet access, including your phone, or you should have someone.

We do this with our son because we found out within a month we can't let him just have a phone and connect to the internet.

You got to shut that down quick.

He can't text a new number, he can't receive a phone call from a new number, he can't Google anything he wants without a code from mommy and daddy, and it at first made him mad.

But he will understand one day, when he himself reaches maturity, that that level of lack of a better word suppressing whatever it is.

He needs that, that accountability, because he himself is not mature enough to handle that on his own.

Throughout the Bible, jesus was the friend of sinners.

Some of you are not mature enough to do that yet, and that's okay.

To say that that's okay.

If you went in the lion's den, let's be honest you get eat up.

If you went into the furnace, you would be burnt.

You may not be there yet, that's okay.

It's our job here at this church to help you get to that place, to where you can go up to the devil and throw, punch him as many times as you want and he can't touch you, because you are beginning to understand your authority that you have through the word of God, through the Holy Spirit and the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

That's what we are promised, that's what is offered to us, but God wants you to really start cleaning up house and allowing the spirit to clean up what's inside of here, and for us to stop chasing after material things and allow the only thing that we pursue, the only thing that we pursue, is a relationship with God.

That's so easy to say.

You want that, but it's so hard to live out and actually do it.

He said to hate your mother, hate your father.

That's serious words because he wants you to abandon it all.

That doesn't mean that he will ask you to, but he wants your heart to be in that position to where you are willing if he says, and if you love God, your heart needs to be at that submissive position to the almighty God that whatever he says, you will do.

Whatever his word says to stay away from, you will stay away from the things, the ties you need to cut from your past.

Get the scissors out, because God doesn't want you to be weighed down.

He wants you to soar on the wings of eagles.

He wants you to rise up beyond where you are, because shame is the enemy's game.

Freedom and salvation is God's.

He desires every single person.

That's why I'm so excited about this class.

He desires every single person to live daily in freedom.

He desires every single person to live daily in freedom, no longer bound by what was, but I'm living in what God is going to do in my life.