Kill The God Of Consumerism

Crossing family, it is so good to be with you.

I want to welcome those of you joining at all of our different

locations, those of you watching online and those of you who are

part of the crossing inside. I also want to welcome those of

you who are here for the first time or the first time in a long

time. And I want to talk specifically

to those of you who are here for the first time in a long time.

I've been in ministry a long time.

And so, you know, there are times where people kind of get

bumped off track and they go through a season of despair or

frustration or pain, and all of a sudden, for some reason, their

spiritual trajectory kind of got bumped and they found themselves

in a spot that they never thought that they would find

themselves in. And I know that sometimes it

takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength to be able to come

back. And I just want you to know that

as a church, we're just rooting for you every time you decide to

do it. I come in on Thursdays and I

kind of run through the sermon in the early afternoon and then

I takes time from 4:00 to 4:45 is just kind of an opportunity

for me to kind of get a meet with different people.

And I got a meet somebody this week who used to be a part of

our church a long time ago and kind of going through an awful

lot of hurt and heartache. And this weekend is going to be

their first weekend back. And so when I welcome those of

you joining for the first time or the first time in a long

time, I'm thinking about you. You know who you are.

You have one of the sickest wrist tattoos of anybody I've

ever seen at one of our campuses ever.

Is me looking at wrist thinking, I wonder if this is the person.

If I had a cooler wrist, I'd rock one too.

He was sick. I'm glad you're here.

And I want you to know our church is rooting you on.

I also want you to know I come to you today with kind of a, a

pretty, pretty messed up self esteem.

I found out on Thursday night that Joe Biden's a better golfer

than me. And that's just, that's just

hard to take the end. But when I said I was bad, I'm

28 strokes worse than him. So that's a real, that's a real

humdinger. OK, but we are in a two week

sermon series called Map Makers charting a path to better

stewardship, less stress and greater impact.

And the statistics are in. People are stressed out and in

large part due to financial pressure.

Marriages are ending in divorce in large part due to financial

pressure. I think at our core, we want to

chart a path to better stewardship so we can honor God

and love people and love God. We want to chart a path to less

stress because we are sick and tired of financial pressure.

We want to chart a path to greater impact so we can do so

with our lives and with our money.

The good news is that the God of the universe, the Savior of the

world, has a plan. God is big enough to make the

heavens and the earth strong enough to put them in orbit and

determine their rotation. Smart enough to create an

ecosystem to sustain us, a brain to guide us, a heart to inspire

us. And yes, he has a plan for our

finances. As I say to this series was kind

of born out of a broken heart because I came across these

statistics. 48 .6% of Americans consider themselves to be broke.

If they were to define themselves financially, the word

they would use is I'm broke. 66.2% of Americans feel like

they are living paycheck to paycheck.

If these statistics are true of America, if we were to put them

at those who call the crossing home, to the people who are

listening to the sound of my voice, if I were to run those

numbers against how many people participated with the crossing

last weekend, here's what that means. 5546 of you would

consider yourself broke. 7555 of you feel like you are living

paycheck to paycheck. I don't want anybody at the

crossing to be in that state of life or that state of mind.

I don't want anybody that you love to see themselves as

having, seeing themselves as being broke or having to deal

with the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.

You've heard me say this over and over and over again, and

you're going to hear it as long as you come here over and over

and over again, that I genuinely believe that God's way is the

best way in absolutely every area of your life.

And this includes how we handle our finances.

You've also heard me say that God blesses obedience.

We cannot expect God's blessings in an area where we are

rebelling. The challenge of following God's

plan for our money and God's plan for our finances is that

God's plan requires a great deal of faith.

But remember, without faith it is impossible to please God.

Psalm 24 verse one says this. The earth is the Lord's and

everything in it, the world and all who live in it.

The first plan for God that God has for you financially is to

realize that everything you have comes from Him.

Everything belongs to Him. He's the one who has given us

absolutely everything that we have.

The breath in our lungs, our family, our bodies, our money,

our ability to produce wealth, all come from Him.

You and I are simply stewards of what God has given us.

And a good steward does what God wants us to do with what He has

given us. And a bad steward does whatever

they want to do with what God has given them.

And God calls bad stewards robbers in Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

So after we recognize that it all belongs to God, the second

thing that we're supposed to do is we're supposed to bring God a

tithe. A tithe means a 10th or 10%.

Malachi chapter 3, verse 10, bring the whole tithe, all 10%

Malachi 3:10

into the storehouse, the church, that there may be food in my

house. Test me in this, says the Lord

Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of

heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be

room enough to store it. God's blessing.

The pouring out happens after obedience, the bringing of the

tithe into the storehouse. Remember, blessings flow in the

direction of obedience. This is actually echoed in

Proverbs Vice us when Solomon is talking to his son.

Now Solomon, for those of you who aren't church people, is the

wisest man born of natural birth.

So you have Jesus and then you have Solomon.

As far as on the wise meter of people who have lived, look what

he says in Proverbs chapter 3, verse 9 and 10.

Proverbs 3:9

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all

your crops. Then your barns will be filled

to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine.

The blessing comes after the obedience.

Now some of you are church people and you're going Proverbs

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. That sounds familiar.

I feel like I've heard something from Proverbs chapter 3.

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

You would be right. In fact, one of the most well

known verses in all of scripture is found in Proverbs chapter 3,

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

just a couple of verses before the one we just read.

You know what it is? As soon as I open it up and be

like Oh my goodness you're kidding me.

Watch. Trust in the Lord with all your

heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways.

Submit to Him and He will make your path straight.

And then a couple more verses he starts talking about bringing

stuff to the store or house. You see, we are to trust God

with absolutely everything and to lean not on our own

understanding. Now look at the blessing follows

obedience and all your ways. Submit to Him, that's obedience

and He will make your path straight.

That's the blessing. God's blessings flow in the

direction of obedience. Now, this is one of the reasons

why we tithe. Now there's lots of reasons why

we tithe. We tithe because God commands

it. We tithe because God deserves

it. We tithe because we love God.

And we've talked about this before, that you can give

without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

And we want to be in alignment with God and God will not make

straight an area of your life where you are not submitting.

Sir John Templeton, one of the world's most respected investors

and investment counselors, who was the creator of the Templeton

Growth Fund. Some of you may actually have

money in the Templeton Growth Fund was once asked what is the

best investment? And he said, I'm quoting him

that he never hesitated to offer this simple and surprising

answer. Here's what he said.

In all my 52 years before I retired as an investment

counselor, we were helping people, literally hundreds of

thousands of people with their wealth.

And in all of those years there was only one investment which

never proved faulty, and that was tithing, giving at least 10%

of your income to the church. He goes on to say in all my

history, I have never seen a family who tithes for as long as

10 years that didn't become both prosperous and happy.

That is the best investment anyone can select.

So whether you make $100 a $1000, a $100,000 or $1,000,000,

every time you experience an increase, God tells us to tithe.

If you're self-employed or you own your own business, or maybe

you're a farmer, you're going, hey, this is a little bit more

complicated. You're 100% right.

And the people that I've sat across the table from that have

asked for help in this area. Here's what I've just told them

to do and how to navigate it. Every time you pull out money

out of the business for you and for your family, you just pull

out an extra 10%. So that way you can give to God.

So if you're getting ready to pull $10,000 out of the

business, you pull out 11,000, you give $1000 to the Kingdom of

God, and you keep the 10,000 for you and your family.

Do whatever you were wanting to do.

And then at the end of the year, when you're trying to get right

with the government, you use that time to make sure that you

get right with God if there's any adjustments, because that's

usually when you're getting ready to buy a work vehicle or

you're trying to explore tax benefits.

So that's the perfect time for you to fine tune things and get

things right. So we're supposed to remember

that everything that we have belongs to God.

Second thing we're supposed to do is we're tithe.

So what do we? What's the next step?

What's the very next thing that we're supposed to do?

And this one, you guys are going to be like, what?

You got to be kidding me. But listen, I'm not kidding.

The next step in your financial plan is to spend less than you

make. I know this is like rocket

surgery. Ready.

Proverbs 21, verse 20 In the House of the wise are stores of

Proverbs 21:20

choice, food and oil. But a foolish man devours all.

He has two kinds of people. You know how you can tell if

they're a wise person? There are stores of decent stuff

all around the house. A foolish person devours

everything they have. In other words, a wise person

spends less than they make. A foolish person devours,

consumes everything that they make.

And in most cases in America, we are consuming more than we make.

We are living on 105% of our income.

Now I'm going to show you three areas where we kind of get

tripped up and then I'm going to tell you a little bit about me

and then hope at the end I'll tie it all together.

But we're going to kind of go on like a weird rabbit trail

together. And what I want to do is I want

to show you like 3 areas where we can sometimes get ourselves

put in a spot that add an A crazy amount of financial

pressure on us, which puts strain on our parenting and

strain on our marriages. OK, here's the first one.

Cars. The average car new is $40,000

and the interest rate 7% financed for 72 months.

For those of you who aren't math people, that's six years.

It's a long time. The total amount of interest

that you're going to spend over that six years is $9101.14.

The good news is in six years you will have spent $50,000 and

that car will be worth 24. You know what?

That's called a bad financial investment.

Oh yeah, we're going to spend 50 grand and it'll be worth 24.

But we do it all the time. If you were to take the amount

of money and set, if you were to just buy a cheaper car and pay

cash for it and you were to have the bank give you the $126.

And you're saying instead of spending $126.00 a month on

average on my interest on paying for a car that I couldn't

afford. And you were to put that into a

savings account. At the end of those six years,

you'd have $12,500 in the bank and you would have earned $3500

in interest. In other words, if I was a used

car sales, and this is what I would say pay cash and buy this

car and it comes included with a free all inclusive vacation for

your family. I'd be, I'd be inking deals all

day. Like just give me the 126 bucks

a month and in six years you get to go on vacation.

We end up spending more than we need to know.

Listen, there's nothing wrong with having a new car.

There's nothing wrong with having a nice car.

There's nothing wrong with having an expensive car if you

can afford it. But most of us are not asking

ourselves the question, can we afford the car?

We're asking ourselves, can we afford the payment?

And then we're wondering where all of our money went.

I can't wait to drive a new vehicle.

Oh, I'm always spending money trying to give my car the new

car smell. I can't wait till at least one

day in my life. It just comes with it.

I want to know how long the driver's seat lasts when my

booty is the only booty that broke in that leather.

You know what I'm talking about. Like, you get in there.

Like, what was this person doing?

Like, why is it always right next right when you open the

door that all that part always rips out.

Like, does somebody have a saw in their pants when they're

getting in the car? Yeah.

I just can't wait. Can't wait, But I'm not there

yet. Here's another area where we're

getting bit pretty hard consumer debt.

Here's the average credit card balance by generation.

And this is what you guys do. I know you.

You. I've already heard you.

You are going to look at this and you're like, hey, we're

doing better. And then some of you are doing

worse. And those of you who are doing

better, like you're like pinky high five and like we're going

to make out later. OK.

Gen. Z Gen.

Z has $3200 in a credit card balance.

Millennials 6500 Gen. X $9000 on credit card debt,

Baby Boomers $6600 Silent Generation 3400 dollars.

You're like, where are they putting it?

Well, they're putting it on a bunch of different credit cards.

Look how many credit cards they have.

Silent Gen. has 3.5 credit cards, Baby Boomers have 4.3,

Gen. X has 4.3, Millennials have 3.5,

and Generation Z has two credit cards.

The average consumer in America today has $6200 in credit card

debt, which means that the average household in America,

husband and wife, are sitting on $12,000 in credit card debt with

an average interest rate of 22.6%.

Which means that it is requiring the typical family in America to

spend $430 a month on interest on the stuff they've already

purchased. Here's the 3rd place we get bit.

We get bit in the houses that we buy.

I have purchased two homes in my life.

I still own both of them. The 1st house I bought when I

lived in Macomb and then things changed in Macomb and so my

house was no longer worth what I purchased it for.

And so I could not sell it. And so I rented out.

And if you're watching, keep it nice.

OK, 15 more years and I'll just give it to you.

But I got to get out of it all right?

Now, both times I've gone in and I've sat across from the bank,

they've told me what they would loan me for a house.

And both times, the number that they gave me made me sick to my

stomach. Because what a bank will give

you is a lot more than they probably should give you if you

want to live a life that is low on stress and high on impact.

So here is kind of how I've always navigated house buying.

Jennifer and I both work, but I I don't count on her income in

case she changes her mind on what she wants to do.

I don't want that burden on her. Like she has to work for us to

be able to make things work. Does that make sense?

So I take her out of the equation.

OK. And if she's listening right

now, I love you. I'm so thankful for you.

OK. Now then on the other side, I

just take my income, just what I make and I times it by three and

that is the maximum that I allow myself to purchase in a house.

Now here's why I do that. That means that I am buying a

house that is less than what I make, which means that making my

house payment is never a stress point in my life.

That means I don't have to worry about am I going to get behind.

It means that my payment is incredibly reasonable when I do

this. A typical bank, if you were to

go to a bank tomorrow and say how much money will you give me,

they're going to probably say in really cool terms 45% of your

debt to income ratio. So they're going to say add up

all the payments that you have towards debt and we're going to

give you 45% Max on what you make.

So if you made $10,000 a month they would say we will give you

enough money that you can finance up to $4500 a month.

Which means that just that just leaves you with 55% left for

everything else. And if you do that you will put

yourself in a spot where you have no wiggle room.

Here's what now I want to be clear, I am not a you have to

live your entire life debt free guy.

Although there are strong biblical principles about being

debt free and I plan on getting there, just not there yet.

But I have a car payment on my truck, I have a house payment on

my Macomb house and that's it. And what I try to do, and this

is for a long time, I try to keep my debt to income ratio

below 20%. Now I could go way higher, I

could drive way nicer vehicles and live in way nicer houses,

but I intentionally live on less because Can you imagine me

stressed? Can you imagine being married to

this guy if he was stressed? Can you imagine what kind of dad

I'd be if I was stressed? By keeping my debt to income

ratio very low, I increase the margin in my home.

When I increase the margin, I decrease the stress.

See what happens? You know what else I do before I

make big purchases? This is going to sound crazy.

I ask people to speak into it. I want people on the branch.

I want counsel about what I purchase.

Now I don't want to brag, but I buy some stuff without asking.

Like I bought some tea tree shampoo this week, didn't ask a

person about it. You do like eucalyptus.

You know how you kind of get like that brain freeze when you

use that? You guys will be buying tea tree

stuff, Amazon will be delivering.

And I bought the beard wash that matches it.

So I got 3 little pump things. I didn't ask Jennifer.

I just went out and did it. Yeah.

I'm the man of my house. I can buy $9 things anytime I

want without her approval. But when I got, I also bought BB

guns that are automatic this week for the boys.

Didn't ask for opinion on that. And she was not happy.

She wasn't. She was not happy at all.

But you couldn't pull the corners of my boys's mouth out

of their ears because when they started, like, yeah, Dad's rule,

Mom's drool. And but in every other purchase,

Mom's, I'm joking. Gee whiz, we met her too.

I was just. Did you buy your kids ABB gun?

No, you didn't. That's why dads win.

Now when I get ready to buy a house, I invite people in and I

go, hey, do you think this is a wise financial move?

When I get ready to buy a vehicle?

I actually pulled some leaders in our church together and I

said, hey, guys, I'm thinking about doing this.

Do you think this is a wise move?

I want to be careful that I don't put myself in a position

where I'm strapped, where I'm struggling, where I'm stressed.

And when you invite people in, it changes how you behave

financially. I want to make sure that I'm

being a good steward. I want to make sure that my

present desires don't rob me of my future impact.

First Timothy Chapter 6 says this.

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

For the love of money is a root. So money's not bad.

The love of money is a root, not the root.

It's a root of all kinds of evil.

Some people, eager for money and stuff, have wandered from the

faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

We buy and we buy and we buy with money we don't have.

And what we find ourselves is, is we're weighed down and we're

pierced with many griefs. I want to keep myself in a

position where I'm not pierced with many griefs.

I was talking to a staff member who used to be in the banking

industry and the car industry and he said so many people have

so little margin, so little wiggle room that they can't do

the things that they want to do for God.

They can't go on a mission trip, they can't go into ministry,

they can't do big things for God because their past and present

self have robbed them of the margin, the flexibility and the

freedom that their future self desires.

Right now many of you are navigating decisions that old

you made and if you could go back in time, you would kick old

you's butt. What were you thinking right

now? Here's the tougher question.

What are the decisions that present you is making so that

future you will high five you? Hebrews chapter 13 says this.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content

with what you have because God has said never will I leave you,

never will I forsake you. Keep your lives free from the

love of money. A 2006 study found that somebody

making $20,000 a year will be happier than somebody who's at

the poverty level because they're not worried about where

their next meal is coming from and whether or not they're going

to have shelter. But more money does not

determine a person's level of happiness.

Someone who makes $100,000 more or $100,000 annually is not all

that much happier than somebody making $20,000 a year.

There is a huge difference in salary and a minimal difference

in happiness. The study go went on to conclude

that as a matter of fact, the wealthier people become, the

less happy they become because they spend less time pursuing

enjoyable activities. They went on to say the belief

that a high income is associated with happiness is mostly false.

Today, Americans, American Christians, are in a constant

state of buying things we don't need, to impress people we don't

like with money we don't have, because in so many ways we have

been broken to see our worth through the lens of our net

worth. I think I've told you the story,

but a long time ago I worked at a place out in Oklahoma, and I

worked there many years, But for the first two years, I was a

Wrangler. So every morning I got up.

I know. Picture this.

And I saddled 30 horses, and I trained kids on how to ride

horses. And then I took them on trail

rides. I had boots and everything,

guys. Yeah.

And my feet were dragging the horse when I was riding the

horses. My feet were just dragging

trails in the dirt. And but during the during the

afternoons, we got an opportunity to go play with

everybody else and we were getting ready to go on to the

rec field. And I went to go grab my shirt

and put my shirt on because there's a girl I liked.

And I'd, you know, and I, I wasn't as dialed in as I wanted

to be. And I went to put my shirt on

one of the guys who was a couple years older than me.

So what are you doing? I said, oh, well, I'm putting a

shirt on because, you know, I'm not as dialed in as I want to be

for so and so who's out there. And he goes, Clayton, the kind

of woman you want to marry won't care what you look like with

your shirt off. And that was like one of those

light bulb moments for me. Like what are the things that

are actually going to matter in my life?

It made me think back to when I was in high school.

I'm going to share a little bit more about this next week.

But all the all the fun, cool people in high school were

wearing Abercrombie and Fitch. I don't even know if that's

still a thing, but it was a thing.

And if you know, you know, and I wanted Abercrombie and Fitch

clothes. And if you know Abercrombie and

Fitch, you know that I'm not their demographic.

Their demographic is like 5-2 and malnourished.

And so like I walk into the store and they've got their hip

little guys and I walk in there like me and we were looking all

over the store for something that would fit a guy like me.

And to give you context, their their 2X is like a Carhartt

small if you guys trying to make sure this makes sense to you

guys. And so I bought a sweater.

It was, I think it was about 7580 bucks in 2001.

And I put it on and it was basically a crop top.

And the shirts, the sleeves on this long sleeve sweater stopped

like right here and now just wear it to school in May.

Just sweating trying to get this thing to fit.

I remember wanting Jinko jeans. Glad I didn't buy any of those.

I'd I'd hate myself if I wore Jinko's.

But if you did, don't tell anybody, OK?

You can still come here. Just don't tell anybody because

deep down inside I was willing to spend an ungodly amount of

money to fit in with certain people.

And that is what the world has conditioned us to believe.

It conditions us to think that if we have the stuff, we will

finally have everything else that we're chasing.

It will constantly over promise and under deliver because no

amount of money and no amount of stuff can fill the hole that is

in your heart. Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 10.

Ecclesiastes 5:10

Whoever loves money and stuff never has enough.

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

Said another way, if you love money, you will never be

satisfied. If you long to be rich, you will

never get all you want. When we went through the sermon

series, Weeds in My Garden, you guys, some of you may remember

that we did it a couple years ago.

And when we were going through that series, I had a weed in my

garden. And on Hope Weekend, we had

everybody come up and kind of write their thing down.

And I had a thing to write down too.

And I'm going to go more in depth about this in a future

series, but the thing that I wrote down was that I cared too

much what of what people think about me and not nearly enough

about what people think about God.

I care more about approval from men than I do the approval of

God. And a lot of us have found

ourselves in a similar trap. And so we buy things so we fit

in. We do things that way.

We look like we got it all going right.

But if your friends are only your friends with you because of

how you look, what you wear, what you drive, where you live,

those people are not your friends.

They're blood sucking leeches who are going to pull the joy

and happiness out of your life. And we know this to be true

because we see it in our kids and we go, well, that person is

not your friend and our kids can't see it.

But when it comes to us, we find ourselves trying to keep up with

the Joneses, whoever they are. And if you are a Jones, come

back. It's just, you know the saying,

and I can't help that. That's the name you got.

That's not I didn't, I didn't name you.

So it's your family, actually. But so much of our worth has

been tied up in our net worth. And the God of money wants us to

believe that our significance comes from what we have made of

ourselves. But for Christians, our true

identity is what Christ has made in US.

Our value is found on the cross when Jesus died for us.

But when you worship the God of money, a person's worth is no

longer determined by the cross. Their worth is determined by the

symbol of a dollar sign crossing family.

The God of consumerism will kill you, but the God of heaven was

killed for you. If you try to worship the God of

consumerism, he will kill you because he will take all you

have. He will steal your future, He

will steal your kids future, He will steal your marriage.

He will steal all the margin that you have.

He will consume all that you offer him.

But conversely, the God of heaven came on your behalf.

That means that my value, my purpose are found in a God who

was rich in mercy, So rich in mercy that he was willing to

send his Son on my behalf to die on the cross.

People have walked out on me because of what I've done, but

Jesus ran towards me. People have abused me, ridiculed

me, mocked me. But Jesus was abused for me,

ridiculed for me, and mocked for me.

People told me that I have to change in order to be with them,

but God changed for me. You see, He left his palace in

heaven, took on the very nature of a servant being found in

human likeness, and humbled himself and became obedient to

death, yes, even death on a cross.

John first John chapter 3 says this.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we

should be called children of God, and that is what we are

lavished is. How do I explain lavished?

Hopefully you've all been to Texas Roadhouse and you've had

the rules. People who hate God don't eat

the bread. People who pretend like they

love Jesus put just a little bit of butter on their bread on

their roll. But people who've been saved,

people who've been sanctified, people who have the Holy Spirit

in their life, they know what it is to lavish.

You start piling that that butter on that bread until you

can't see the bread, am I right? And then you let a little bit

fall off into your hand, a little bit of butter.

So that way when you eat it, you get like a butter chaser

lavished. Now, can I contrast two things

for you? Look at how awesome I am.

My house has three floors. God knows the number of hairs on

my head. He knows what how much hair I

had before the shower, ladies. And after the shower, That's I'm

awesome because my vehicle's super cool.

Is it when a Sparrow falls out of a tree, our heavenly Father

takes notice of it. How much more will he take

notice of you? I go on super cool, epic

vacations. Totally fine.

But if your identity is found in your ability to go on awesome,

super epic vacations, what happens to your identity when

there's a downturn in the market?

What happens to your identity when there's a change in the

interest rate? What happens to your identity

then? My identity is found in a blood

stained cross. The Bible says at one point in

time I was an enemy of God, an enemy, and in my state of being

an enemy, He sent his Son on my behalf.

That's how much value I have, that not only did He cleanse me

of my sin through his son Jesus, but He also made me an heir to

the Kingdom and he made me his child.

That is how much He has lavished his love on me.

So my identity is not found in my stuff.

My identity is found in my Savior who has purchased me,

ransomed me, and rescued me. Do you see the difference?

When my identity is found in Him, you can't give me anything,

because all I could ever need is in Him.

If your identity is in your stuff, your identity is found in

things that can be lost, taken away, rust, destroyed, But this

is found in the identity of an unchanging God who holds the

world together, who holds me together.

He is offering us to find our identity in him and when your

identity is found in him, you don't need as much of the other

stuff. I want you to think about that

as we're moving to this time of decision.

There are some of you here watching online and, and you're,

you haven't started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

yet. I just want to level with you.

Instead of spending all of your time and all of your energy to

buy stuff that you can wear around so that way you feel

cool, look cool and all that stuff.

What if you were to do what Galatians says, and I know this

is going to sound weird, but I'll make it make sense in a

second. Galatians chapter 3 says for all

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves

with Christ. What if you were to find your

identity not in your stuff, but in a Savior?

What if you were to clothe yourself as Galatians says in

Christ? Being clothed in Christ is like

the letter jacket of the saved. You guys remember letter

jackets, ladies, You remember that guy?

He had a letter jacket. You're like, Oh my goodness.

He's like, you know, he's was a letter winner in all four sports

all four years. Well, he's fat now, isn't he?

Right. He was me.

You should have seen him, but now he's got gout, right?

You have a choice. We can clothe ourselves in

things that will fade away. We can clothe ourselves in

things that will change over time, or we can be clothed in

Christ in a couple months. We're going to get we're going

to unpack this at like a way deeper level, but this is

functionally what's happening. God is allowing you when you get

baptized to be clothed in his son.

You put on his son. Jesus is holy, righteous, pure,

good, kind, faithful, self controlled.

You're putting on him. So when God looks at you, the

Sinner that you are, the Sinner that I am, he doesn't see the

sin, he sees his son. And so when God looks at you,

when your family looks at you, when your wife looks at you,

when your husband looks at you, you have been clothed in Christ.

So you are equipped to be holy and righteous and good and

caring and kind and self controlled.

You have been clothed in him. And some of you are going, yeah,

that sounds great, but I got to get some stuff figured out

first. If you could fix you, God

wouldn't have sent his son to die on your behalf.

This is not about you stitching together a new outfit.

This is about you going, I'm done dressing myself.

I'm ready to be clothed in him. And if you're here today and

you've never started an intimate, personal relationship

with Jesus Christ, you can begin that journey today.

You might have questions that you want asked.

Ask them today. And in just a few moments, when

the people around you start to stand and sing and some of them

come to the steps and pray, I would encourage you to walk

right over there underneath that screen next to the baptistry.

And there'll be somebody there who would love to talk to you

and answer some of the questions that you have to those of you

who already have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The God of money will keep you from all that God has for you.

And all that God has for you to do, the God of consumerism will

kill you. But we can rejoice in the fact

that the God of heaven was killed for us.

And as Christians, we need to live our lives in such a way

that we don't just honor God, but we reach people for God.

And for a lot of us, the statistics are in most people

who call themselves Christians are not functioning the way God

wants them to function financially.

That has spiritual implications on their relationship with God,

and it has spiritual implications about whether or

not other people will ever find God.

And I think that should change. And so if you're here today and

you're a Christian and you've already been on this journey,

you're already being obedient to God's plan financially, I want

you to pray for people. Maybe you want to come up to the

steps and pray for them because you know the challenge that

they're facing the the step of faith that they're getting ready

to make others of you. You've got serious pain and and

sorrow and struggles and strife going on in your life.

You've got worries and fears. I'm going to tell you, spend

some time on your knees praying that God would give you wisdom

and direction about whatever it is that you're facing, that God

would clearly show you what it is that you're supposed to do,

and then give you the courage to walk it out.

Would you guys stand with me? God, right now I'm just trusting

you, begging you to do what only you can do in ways that only you

can do it. You know exactly what every

person needs right now. So, God, I'm asking you to take

the ground that only you can take to do a work in US and do a

work through us. You know my pray.

Amen.