Jesus A nd Money Jan 15 2023

Heidi ho, Heidi ho, Heidi ho! It's Tuesday night. It's freezing outside. At least it's not freezing in here.

That's good news.

Yep, got a little fireplace over to warm your hands.

Bust out the imaginary marshmallows.

Alright, so whacked out simple stuff. This is what I was thinking we would do.

If you're able, we're going to do it together.

Alright, what is your favorite book of the Bible and why?

If you can't get your favorite, just give us a good one and tell us what's good about it.

Tony Tate.

I knew you were going to say that.

How did you know?

First Peter's up there too, but Colossus is so cool because it talks about the supremacy of Jesus.

I don't get into it, but I can show you so much. I love the idea of where we get to see God, the visible and the invisible.

And then also just before that, it talks about how we've been brought out of darkness, not to wonder what it's like, but in a different way.

And the redemption of the sudden loves us and the kingdom of light.

It's just so good to wait and call, just to put it out there.

And that first chapter in 2-3-4 is also good.

That's why I like Colossians 1 and I've memorized it so much because I always love that peace blood shed on the cross.

I pray that prayer many times through Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

It's like one of my hit verses, so that's why I love Colossians.

Alright, so in how many chapters is the book of Colossians? Do you remember? Four chapters.

Alright, so now I need someone, anyone, to volunteer to read the book of Colossians between now and next Tuesday.

Four chapters. Sherry will do it. Sherry volunteered to do it.

Alright, I saw another hand back there. We'll get you. We'll get you a nice long book in a minute.

Alright, somebody else give me one. Alright, Sherry, what's your favorite book? Or a good one.

I like the book of Ruth. I like the story, family, loyalty, devotion, giving, rising out of the constitution.

Yeah, that's good stuff. Do you happen to know how many chapters that is? I don't know, off the top of my head.

I think it's around eight, something like that.

Alright, so now I need somebody, it's a little longer, to volunteer to read the book of Ruth before next Tuesday.

Great story. Back here, okay. Oh, that's an easy one. No fair taking your favorite.

Okay, that's fine. Alright, so Alicia will do it. Alright, somebody else give me one.

Alright, Caleb.

Genesis is my favorite because I love how it all, because I like the way that God can just say, let there be light and there's light. Let there be animals and it's always the beginning of the earth and that's why it's my favorite.

You like to start at the beginning, in the beginnings. Genesis means the beginnings. Alright, I need somebody to volunteer. This is a big one.

Alright, this is your 52 chapters.

Are you volunteering? Tony, you volunteering? Alright, Tony's got Genesis. Alright, somebody else give me another one.

Ariana.

Because Jesus is born and it's probably the most detailed account of his birth. That's very good. Luke 2. Very good. Okay, and I don't know how many chapters that is. It feels like a lot. That's a lot. That's a big one too.

Okay. He's looking at it. He's using the crib sheet. Okay, so I need somebody to volunteer to read the book of Luke before next week.

Tony's got a lot of chapters. Come on somebody.

Anybody? Book of Luke before next week. You can't volunteer on your own. I'm sorry. I won't let you do it.

Ariana said it's her favorite. Read it and you'll be able to tell us why Ariana thinks it's awesome.

Alright, so Ariana's got Ruth and Alicia's got Luke. Okay, we've got time for one more. Somebody else tell us a book you really like and why.

Isaiah. Why?

There's a lot of really good things that I've used from there to help in struggles and get a lot of wisdom.

Isaiah is the major prophet who spoke the most about the coming of Jesus. One of the most classic scriptures.

That is a really long one. I don't think it's longer than Genesis though. Maybe 66, but I don't think it's longer.

I still don't think it's longer. Alright, so we need a courageous Isaiah reader before next week. Who will read the book of Isaiah before next Tuesday?

Somebody. Dive in front of the Isaiah bus. Alright, Aaron. Dive in front of the Isaiah bus. Aaron took one for the team.

Alright, so then what are you going to do? What's that? It is a long book. Alright, so you can listen to it or read it.

Either way is fine. And then we're going to check back next week. And I would like you during the Wacked Out Simple stuff next week, try to bring something.

And you know, if you can't read the whole thing for some reason, you should be able to, but some of them are kind of long.

If you don't get through all of it, get through what you can and then bring something out of that next week for Wacked Out.

Just quick, like a sentence or two. I'm not asking, not a Tony Tate sermon, but just like a sentence or two.

Yeah, how are you going to do 50 plus chapters in a couple sentences? I don't know, just tell us something cool about it.

Alright, let's pray together. Then we'll do one more song and then we'll release the children.

And I'm kind of excited about this. It's a relatively simple, but kind of really important lesson.

Father in heaven, I do thank you for this night, this opportunity to be together.

Lord, we know we need you. You have demonstrated to us your incredible care, your ability to take care of us in so many ways.

Your purpose for our lives. You called us out of the darkness, out of lostness, truly out of death, unto life.

And just like Caleb said, you spoke and said, let there be light or really just light be.

And you said, Dan, I want you to be. And I first said, no, that's the reality of it. I said no.

And I'm grateful that eventually I did say yes. And I am living now. And in this room are folks who are living.

And we are grateful for that. We ask you Lord to provide for us. We do pray for Sherri. She made it here.

She's here to worship you. We pray that even while we're worshiping together today, even while we're learning together today,

that you would take care of her blood pressure. And she leave this place and say it was good to be in the house of the Lord.

And our God is a healing God and a strengthening God.

We pray, Lord, for those across the city of Toledo who are struggling with having heat in their homes for the trailers that caught fire.

Lord, I drove by one today I saw and I just saw it last week and it was fine. So I know it just burned.

And I pray, Lord, for folks who are truly suffering in ways that we don't know. We aren't in it right now.

And then there have been changes. Things happening with jobs and with health and with relationships.

And we just pray you'll take care of all of it. Your will be done here on the earth as it is in heaven.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

My strength when I am weak, you're the treasure that I seek. You're my all in all.

Seeking you as a precious jewel to give me a fight, be a fool. You're my all in all.

Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.

In the kitchen, in the top oven is hot dogs and buns. So you can do those for kids now.

They're already warm. They're just staying warm.

You're my all in all.

When I fall down, you pick me up. When I am dry, you fill my cup. You're my all in all.

Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.

Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.

Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.

Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.

Alrighty, at this time we'll dismiss the children and their teachers to the classroom.

Never mind music, only our description to the moral and moral world.

To walk in hope or comprehension like nothing ever seen or heard. Who can grasp your infinite wisdom?

Who can fathom the depth of your love? Beautiful beyond description, majesty enthroned above.

And I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you.

Holy God to whom all praise is due. I stand in awe of you.

I stand in awe of you. Beautiful beyond description.

To marvelous for words. To wonderful for comprehension like nothing ever seen or heard.

Who can grasp your infinite wisdom? Who can fathom the depth of your love?

You are beautiful beyond description, majesty enthroned above. And I stand, I stand in awe of you.

I stand, I stand in awe of you. Holy God to whom all praise is due.

I stand in awe of you. I stand in awe of you.

Thank you sir. Thank you ma'am.

Okay. Sorry I'm stealing your stool. Candy bag. I'm going to get a new candy bag this one's ripped.

Didn't fly very good.

That'll work. I'll transfer it later. Okay. We're going to talk about mammon. Mammon. Jason, what is mammon?

Alright see it's a good thing to be talking about right Tommy what's mammon? Don't remember either? Alright let's see RJ? No? Okay. Tony Tate.

White stuff they ate in the morning is manna. Yeah it's manna. Mammon is either it's a god or it's the desires of our pleasures. They call it mammon.

Okay so really it's wealth or prosperity that you would desire. Okay so you got to get in there. So Jesus will quote and I don't want to ruin the end of the story but it says that you cannot serve God and mammon.

Okay alright so we're going to be in the book of Luke and we're going to be in like chapters 15 and 16 so who took Luke? That was Alicia right?

She want it with Luke? Alright so she would have got a head start but I think she's kiddling right now so alright.

So if you'll notice we're on the upper left part of the worksheet it looks like a house and then there are some lines right below the house and then it says the reference Luke 15, 11 through 17 you should have there.

Or Luke 15, 11 dash 11 and following. Okay so those three lines are the three things that are going to be given by the man in the story.

Okay so we're going to read the story and then we'll pick out the things that he gave.

And these are the things that he gave in the first half of the story so don't get confused because the overall story adds a couple more.

Alright so the first goes like this.

And we'll stop right there actually in 16.

So first of all we know what swine is right? Pigs. Swine is pigs.

Why would it be so bad for a Jewish man to be a job of feeding the pigs?

They're unclean animals. Yeah so after Noah there were animals that were considered clean, could be used for sacrifice, animals that could be eaten and they were neither.

They're not allowed to be eaten and they're not allowed to be sacrificed. So really a Jewish man wants nothing to do with them.

But if you're hungry you'll take a job doing whatever you got to take a job doing to put food in your mall and he wasn't doing a very good job with that anyway.

Alright so there's three things that the father had given the son and the first is wrapped up in his choice to be able to leave.

Okay so if I say it starts with the P and he had the choice to be able to leave what word would you use? Say it again? Personhood? Kind of.

But I think personhood probably entails more than just this. Permission. He had permission. Okay so you could do permission or power.

Either one would work. He had the power to leave. He had the permission to leave. Right? Okay. And then the second one was what he was giving up.

He had it from his dad but he's giving it up to go out on his own. Also starts with a P. What would you say? Kind of peace?

Not so much peace I don't think because he feels pretty much at peace at that time. You're right he does eventually give up his peace.

Okay. He gets out there, spends all his money and winds up not having enough food. Not protected. Right? So he has no safety. Right?

Somebody said another word that also could have worked there and I missed it. What was the other word? Privilege. So privilege or protection either way could go there.

So he was taken care of by his dad. His dad had a fortune and he was going to divide his fortune between the older brother and the younger brother.

And then now all of a sudden he doesn't have that. He has his portion. He's out there on his own and as we see he winds up wishing he had his dad's protection or his dad's privilege because he winds up with nothing.

So we've got power or permission and we've got privilege or protection and then the last one is a little bit trickier. It's very much like protection and I put provision.

So he had been provided for. This is old money. Right? He didn't earn this money. This is his dad's money. It's his provision.

And so he takes his power, his protection and his provision and he's leaving. Because he has the power or the permission either one, he has the right to leave.

Because he has the money, he feels confident to leave. Right? I have the money. I'll be alright. I'll be protected. I'll be okay.

And then he essentially squanders the provision. He uses it over and over and over again until it's gone.

He eats out a lot. He parties a lot. One translation says he spends it on loose women. You know that kind of thing. It's pretty bad.

Bottom line is he's enjoying his life so much that it's gone. He squanders the power, protection, provision or permission if that's the word you use.

He squanders all of it. Now he followed the arrow around to the right. As you go...

I was going to say when the famine came he had nothing saved up anyways. Nothing just squandered it. He wasn't prepared for anything bad would happen.

Exactly. So there's three lines right there next to the man. The reference is Luke 15, 11. The three lines are I put power, protection and provision.

You can use your own words there if you want. Now you'll notice as we're going to the right that there are three lines up on an angle.

You're going to leave those empty for now. We're going to get them on the second time around the page.

We're leaving those empty. They each relate. Power relates to something. Protection relates to something. Provision relates to something.

But we're leaving them empty for now. Follow the arrow over to the right. Now what you see is bags and whether or not you believe in my ability to draw this, this is bags of money.

Those are bags of money. You'll notice at the top that there's some P's. This is what money does.

Believe it or not, if you have a lot of money, you feel like you have power, protection and provision.

You ever want to pay a bill and you can't and on Sunday you got the money and you're like, oh, provided for.

Or a bill comes in and you already have the money and you're like, oh, protected.

Or you come home from work after a long hard day and you don't want to cook. I'll just go out to eat. Oh, power.

So this is what money does. It looks like power, protection and provision. And for a while he had it.

As Brother Tony Tate pointed out, if famine would come or a real problem comes, he doesn't have the level of power, protection or provision that he had while he was at home.

He's out on a limb, but he feels like he's okay is the point. So money has a tendency to do that.

So we're going to read now Luke 16. This is Luke 16 verses 24 and 25. So we're going over to the right one chapter.

Luke 16:24

There's quite a lot about money in these chapters. The one thing that you will not find, by the way, is tithing.

We're not going to talk about that, but I will side note mention that that is one good way to learn how to handle money in a godly way.

So Luke 16, 24 and 25, and it says, He cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.

So this is the story of a rich man who had plenty of power, protection and provision in his life. And he winds up burning in hell.

During his lifetime he met Lazarus. In fact, Lazarus used to lay at his gate. And he never helped Lazarus, despite the fact that Lazarus had a great deal of need.

He chose to never help him. The dogs would come and lick his sores. But this man wanted nothing to do with the sick man, Lazarus.

Now he's burning and he's saying, Father Abraham, just send Lazarus to dip his finger in the water and cool off my tongue.

Can you imagine? This is the guy who wanted nothing to do with the sick sore-ridden man during lifetime. And now he wants him to dip his finger in the water and stick it on his tongue.

That's extremely intimate. He just wants a drip of water and he's even willing to have Lazarus' finger in his mouth.

I'm going to say to you, other than maybe my dentist under those circumstances where it's absolutely necessary, I don't want another man's finger in my mouth like ever.

Unless I'm choking and they're getting it out or I'm going to the dentist. That's it. And he's willing to let Lazarus, who was a sick poor man,

who wanted nothing to do with him during life, even though he had plenty of power, protection, and provision for himself, he didn't want nothing to do with that guy.

Now he wants him to stick his finger in his mouth. But listen to the answer. Abraham said, Child, remember that during your life you received your good things.

And likewise, Lazarus, bad things. But now he is being comforted here and you are in agony.

So that was Luke 16, 24-25. That's your blanks there.

Now if you look up on the bags up there, there's some blanks on the bags.

So the big bag has two blanks and those are worship me!

Now here's the problem, and we'll get there to break this down, but here's the problem with money.

If money is a god, all gods want one thing.

It's not even power. All gods have power by their very nature.

Now false gods I'm talking about compared to the real god. The real god has real power, right?

But the false gods, do they not bestow you? That's what we're talking about. Do they not bestow you with power?

They must have power in order for you to have power.

If you've got five grand in the bank and you want to go to Mickey D's and grab a Big Mac,

you've got the power to go buy a Big Mac anytime you want for the next ten years without, you know,

as long as you keep working and making basic money, you're never going to not have that power.

So these false gods, they do have power, right? But they want something.

They want worth. They want worship. So what goes on the bag is worship me!

What money wants you to do is it wants you to declare its value to everyone else

because it has built in power, protection, and provision during this lifetime.

But somebody don't necessarily think that.

You may come from a good family background and you may be enchanted with your family.

You really like your siblings. You really like your mom and dad. You really like the situation.

You may have a good family background. So to you, time with your family is more important than money.

And you take a day off to go to the family reunion in a heartbeat.

You take a day off to take a vacation.

Or you get off work early to see your daughter's dance recital without a question.

You never let your money interfere with your family.

But if money can get your attention and get you thinking how much it's worth,

then now it can interfere with your relationship with your family.

Now be careful because what I just described there is a war between two idols.

That's all I'm talking about. Neither one of those things, not family nor money,

will actually get you what you really want.

They'll just keep you going for a while and family can provide protection.

If you can call your mom or dad when you're sick or hurting or financially in trouble or whatever

and you say, Mom or Dad, I need 50 bucks. Can you bring me medicine?

Or how long do I bake the turkey?

Then you've got power, protection, and provision in your family.

And the same thing is with money.

Now we're talking about money specifically because Jesus uses that as an illustration.

Elsewhere, by the way, Jesus does use family.

That's where he says you must hate your father or mother.

Not literally hate them, but you have to decide that Jesus is more important than your family

in order to truly be a disciple of the Lord.

So the first bag says, worship me.

Now here's the problem.

Let's say you did agree that money was worth a lot and you started earning money.

You're workaholic in it.

So you're putting in 60, 70, 80 hours a week and you're making money.

And you're rising in the ranks and your investments are going good.

And pretty soon, you're a 30-something millionaire.

And you're like, wow, yay me.

Here's the problem. There's a second bag of money back there.

It's got two blanks too. It says me too!

Because it's the same...

Once you put the money in the bank or in the mattress or whatever,

it's not the money that you've got so much that you're after.

It's the money that you need, the money that you want.

And so you get pursuing the money that's yet to come and maintaining the money that you already have.

And basically what happens is you don't have time for anything else.

If you're so busy pursuing or protecting the money you have,

using it the best way, exercising its provision, exercising its power in your life,

all that kind of thing, putting it to work well,

and pursuing what comes next, then you don't have time for anything else really.

So it's worship me and me too.

And what was the result of that and what we saw right here?

If you are successful and you use the money well, but Christ is not in it,

ultimately you wind up in hell and you may get the same message from Father Abraham or from God

or an angel of the Lord or whatever that this guy got, saying,

you got your good things in your lifetime. You're done!

Now you're paying. You received all that then, now you're paying.

And so a lot of people think that money is the finish line.

And if you'll notice, it goes down to the left to a guy running through the finish line.

That is what that is. It kind of also looks like a very skinny necked dinosaur facing to the right.

But it is what it is. So no, the answer is no. Money is not an end.

It is barely a means to an end. And it is only a means to an end if it is used properly.

So in other words, if God gives you money and you don't use it for God,

then it has become essentially an end. You're the well, you're holding it,

and it may be draining out the bottom, but you're not using it for what God gave it to you to use it for.

And that's a real problem. So money is not the finish line.

So don't think, if I could just get, if I could just get.

In the early days of church planting, we really, really wanted the church to do well.

And we wanted to win people to Jesus and stuff. And we were hurting for money.

We just didn't have no money. Like our offerings were $34 a week

because everybody was still typing at their home church and stuff.

And so we had $120, $150 a month to do something with.

It was next to nothing, really. We didn't have hardly any money to do anything.

We'd go to conferences and stuff, and they'd say,

well, we can give you some money. We can give you some money. But they never would.

And we kept thinking, if only we just had money.

And this is what God told me. God said, if you had the money,

you wouldn't do any better than if you don't have the money,

because it really isn't about the money. Right?

It's about what you do with whatever you have.

And so we learned somewhere along the road, and then we wound up with the $2 million building

and add on all of these other things that we never could have afforded.

In the life of this church, this coming year, it'll be 20 years since we started planting new heights.

And in that period of time, we never would have accumulated $2 million.

And if we right now wanted to borrow $2 million, we probably couldn't do it.

Even with our regular income of the church and everything, because $2 million is a lot of money.

And if you did buy a $2 million building, then you wouldn't have any money to maintain it. Right?

So the point is, you get after the money, and then you keep getting after the money.

And meanwhile, the money seems to provide the power, the protection, and the provision that you desire.

So it sounds good, and you tell other people about how you did it.

Just watch Facebook, YouTube, etc. Why do you think it is?

What's the purpose behind anybody that's made $120 million in all these different ways

on Reels, Facebook, YouTube, all those places, getting out there and teaching everybody else how to do it?

Why do they care? Why do they care if you do it the same way they did it to get $120 million?

And how many people that go after them and try to make the same $120 million ever make it?

Almost none. Right? Very, very few. One in thousands or ten thousands.

But there's money in telling others the value of money.

So they're making money and telling others about how they made money.

And that's what happens. And it's just a cycle. You won't make the money that they made the way they made it, probably.

Typically, only the first guy does that. Right?

And then they sell the plan to everybody else, and one in ten thousand or one in a hundred thousand can repeat the process.

But everybody else pays to get in, but they don't make any money.

So don't follow other people's testimony or worship of money because it just doesn't work.

Otherwise, if you go that road thinking money is the finish line, you will wind up like this guy did. Right?

But there is a yes road. Okay? There is a road down the other side.

And the blank right there just says, yes! on my paper.

And when you write it down, I want you to think to yourself, I want to handle my money.

I want to handle the blessings of God the way He gave them to me the way He wants me to.

I'm saying yes. Okay? Before we go on any further, who's got three peas?

Anybody on the back row got the three peas under the house? Sean, what do you got?

Okay. I'm going to throw candy and then you can pass it out because everyone who eats all this will get cavities. Okay?

Come here. He got one and a half. He caught one and a half out of five. Okay, that's pretty impressive. Okay.

All right. We're going to go, as I said, we're working our way around. All right.

So the yes road takes us to the cross. Imagine that. Okay?

And also notice there's a little New Heights logo down to the right.

Because once you get to the cross, the idea is not you just get saved and life ends.

Actually, it's the opposite. You get saved and life begins.

And you start living and growing and taking new steps and God taking you new places

and God cutting old bad nasty things out of your life and adding good things into your life and like that. Okay?

So the reference under the cross is there. In this case is Luke 16, 10 through 15. Luke 16, 10 through 15. Okay?

This is Jesus speaking. Everything that I'm going to read through the end of the 13th verse is all in red in my Bible.

So Jesus says, He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.

And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.

Now, before I go on, I want you to see two things in that one verse.

The first thing is he, and by the way, our Arjun is over there going, yes, I learned this just recently.

He's going, I totally resonate with that verse. That's your verse right there, Arjun, right?

That you've been preaching for the last two weeks.

He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. It means two things.

Number one, it means if you do the small things godly, the way God would want you to do,

then by extension you will become somebody who does the big things well or godly.

So if you leave out the little things, at some point in time you will not stay the course and make the big things godly.

In other words, if you can't, and I'm not trying to get on that topic, but if you can't tithe, if you can't run a spending plan,

if you can't manage your schedule, if you can't take care of yourself physically, yourself mentally, yourself emotionally, your body, your children, your friends,

if you can't manage the little day-to-day things godly, then when you get to something that's huge,

like whether you're going to deny Christ at death or whether you're going to win some guy to Christ that winds up going to win thousands more people or whatever,

when you get to the big thing that God wants to do, whatever that might be, you're not going to be ready.

What you eat for lunch tomorrow is a small domino in the chain of whether that guy gets saved.

What you wear to work or to school tomorrow is a domino in the chain of whether that guy gets saved or whether that bill gets paid

or whether you show up at the heroic moment to do the right thing.

And so it's figurative, but it's also literal. He's saying, if you're faithful in a very little thing, much.

So the first part is to understand it's a training process.

The little things you're being faithful in lead to a big thing or to the next big thing.

And in fact, sometimes those little things are the big things. You think they're little.

How many times do you talk to people about Jesus and they don't get saved?

And then that one time you talk to somebody about Jesus, they do get saved.

And 17 times you try to bring up Jesus. I don't want to hear it. I'm busy. I want to talk about it.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I'll think about it. It's all that.

And then the 17th time you bring it up and the guy, the person is like, oh, thank God, God sent you.

I've been wanting to know. I'm so ready. And they're bowing their head and tears dropping on the table in the middle of the restaurant.

And you're like, what just happened? 17 times I've been through this. It's been an ordeal every single time.

All 17 of those times we're building up to that one moment in time that that one person gets saved.

Then they go home and they save their family. They change everything about their lives.

Get baptized, start telling people about Jesus. Right. And they wind up somewhere across the world and they share the gospel 17 times.

You're 17 times plus there's 34 times the gospel shared and nobody heard it.

And then they lead one. Right. And then that person becomes and that happened with DL Moody.

And it happened with Billy Graham. And it happened.

You look up every evangelist who has ever lived and supposedly won thousands.

And you'll find that the person that won them, they weren't won by some big name evangelist.

None of them. None of them. And so our little pieces are sometimes the big pieces.

They just suddenly look back and go, holy cow, I get it now. God did something.

That little piece was a huge piece of what God was trying to do.

Like when a lady in the church called me up on the phone and she said, hey, you know, they got that.

There's that school building over there and they're going to tear it down.

Maybe we could just ask them and see if they'd give it to us. And I chuckled like Sarah and went, nah.

Well, that hurt to ask. And here we are.

You know, it's that moment in time at which you think it's just ordinary could be the actual huge thing,

which is exactly why this is what I'm getting at is exactly why those who are faithful with the little things

will also be faithful with the big things because the little things are the big things.

Somebody needs your smile. Somebody needs your hug. Somebody needs your word of encouragement.

Somebody needs you to be there. And you may feel like you're being there doing nothing.

But that nothing is the something that God is building the kingdom out of.

So that who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.

If he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.

If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon.

In other words, money that you've gotten.

You didn't get it specifically by following God or doing a miracle or doing anything like that.

By the way, if you did do a miracle and got paid for it, that would be unrighteous mammon too, right?

Because we don't do our works for God to get paid.

Because therefore you have been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon. Who will entrust the true riches to you?

That's a rhetorical question. You know the answer.

If you've been unfaithful, right? If you failed to be faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, of money.

Who would entrust the true riches to you?

Nobody. Nobody would do that. You wouldn't do that.

If you loaned a guy a thousand dollars and then next day found out he went and spent it on crack

and turned it up all in one weekend, you'd never loan him money again.

Why would you do that? You might buy him food sometime if he was hungry, right?

But you'd never give him money again. That'd just be nuts.

God's the same way. If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon,

who will entrust the true riches to you?

And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, in other words, that doesn't belong to you.

If you can't be faithful in the use of what you borrow or what is given to you to steward,

who will give you what is your own?

Why would God invest mighty things in you if the things that you're already getting from like your spiritual guests,

the opportunities that you have, etc., you're wasting?

Why would God keep giving you stuff if you're wasting what you're already getting?

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other,

or else he will hold to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon, Jesus' words.

You can't serve God and money. If money, provision, wealth, prosperity,

if those things are a thing for you, God is not a thing for you. That's all there is to it.

Now does that mean God hates money? No.

Does it mean money hates God? Money doesn't hate anything. Money's paper and coins.

It doesn't have emotions, right?

They're not hating each other. The problem is, if you love money and God says you have to give,

you're going to have a problem. And God does say you have to give.

If you love making money and God says you have to serve, and then you serve,

how long is it going to take before the enemy or an evil spirit or whatever mentions you,

hey, you know, you didn't get paid for that. You worked really hard and you didn't get paid.

That's wrong. You got something?

Yeah. And it's good for the youth as well as anybody, but I was a church lady.

I used to go to a friend with this girl and this one encourager, and she said, she wanted to,

I said, what do you want to do? What does God call me to do?

And she was like, well, I'm going to be a missionary in Tokyo.

I was like, that's really cool. I love that.

And so remembering this verse, I, this is just how I would, you know,

I share it, but I thought it was really good to make it really relatable.

I told her, I go, this is your Tokyo though. You start here.

Because how is God going to get you over there if you can't start here?

God wants to see you trust him here. And she did.

She began to work on her tithing in her college because you're just about to go to college and all that stuff.

She ended up being a missionary, but wasn't for Tokyo.

And she didn't go any major missionary, but she did go into missionary.

But if she didn't start there, you know, she could have ran to Tokyo, you know, and did all this.

And then she would just came on back over here where you had to start in the first place.

It's a good illustration. It's a good illustration.

Okay, we got to go a little further. Fourteen.

Now the Pharisees, remember who they were.

These are the educated, essentially evangelical pastors of the day, even though they weren't pastors.

They didn't have Christian faith, but they were Jews who preached and taught and tried to win people over to Judaism.

They were teaching the Old Testament.

And they were fasting two days a week and they were memorizing whole books of the Bible.

Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money, ouch, there it is.

They were lovers of money, were listening to all these things, everything that Jesus was saying, and they were scoffing at him.

And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men.

That is, you're doing what is necessary to look good or for people to judge you as correct.

And they were doing that. They were doing a very good job of it.

But God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

Now I'm going to ask you this plain and simple.

Among men, is money, wealth, prosperity, highly esteemed?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Who doesn't want the 12 million dollar mansion with the infinite pool in the backyard?

What young man in their 30s who's not saved?

I'm talking about lost people in the world, right?

They all want the Lamborghinis and the Ferraris and the girls in the bikinis.

They all do.

Now when they're 50, they're going to realize they wasted their life.

But in the meantime, it's well esteemed, right?

Why do people watch the reels on Facebook and everything else, trying to figure out how to make their millions?

Why does everybody want a side hustle?

Because money is highly esteemed.

If you're wealthy, you're going to do well.

You're going to be fine. I'll be taken care of.

I'll never have to wonder where it's going to come from again.

Let's read the verse again. It says,

God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed amongst men is detestable in the sight of God.

Alright, so we go to the cross and we realize what Jesus has given us,

we're supposed to use for God, right?

And then it takes us back up there, the arrow goes up to the left.

And there's two ways to get there.

You can go down on the swoop, up to the pigs.

See the pigs? Those are my pigs.

What do you think, Jason? What do you think of my pigs?

Jason?

You could have done it better, couldn't you?

Yeah, probably.

One out of three pigs?

They're half dog, half pig?

Half dog, half pig, yeah.

Okay. They're going to be very fat dogs.

Alright, anyway.

And then the other way, we get the shortcut and we don't go through the pigs.

So you get to pick which arrow you go by,

but either way you wind up there at the trail back to dad, if you will.

Okay? Alright.

Before we go, we're going to ask a question.

Jason, what's on your second bag of money?

Does it have an exclamation point? Yes?

Okay, then we get the full amount of candy.

But there's no exclamation point and you get one less.

You're not allowed to take it.

Apparently that was a curve ball.

Okay, sit next to Jason.

Run the risk of getting candy thrown at you, I guess.

And Kashan, right down the middle.

Okay, so we're following the arrows back up to the left.

Now the beauty of it is the story was not done,

so we have to go back to Luke 15 for our conclusion.

Okay? And we're going to read Luke 15, beginning in verse 17.

Okay, so he's feeding the pigs.

Remember that's where we left him off in his story.

He was longing to fill his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating.

No one was giving anything to him. 17.

But when he came to his senses, he said,

How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread,

but I am dying here with hunger.

I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me as one of your hired men.

And he got up and came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him

and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

And he didn't quite get the last part out,

but that was the prepared speech exactly,

but he didn't quite get the last part out.

But the father said to his slaves,

Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him.

Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

Bring the fatted calf and kill it.

And let us eat and be merry,

for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again.

He was lost and has been found.

And they began to be merry.

Now the story doesn't fully end there,

and I would encourage you to read the response of the older brother

because there's some interesting thing there.

But it's not necessary for what God is trying to show us

through these passages this evening.

So we're going to stop there.

So now you'll notice we've got two blank lines right there above the arrow.

These are the two blanks that he now gives him that he previously didn't have.

So the first one is purpose.

So in the text he puts sandals on his feet.

Sandals represent purpose.

Because you put your sandals on so you can go.

If you're sitting around the house you don't have to wear your sandals.

You just sit around the house.

Put my sandals on to go.

And in their society it represented purpose.

And so if you'll notice there's a line there that says purpose.

Over to the right there's a diagonal line going down.

That's sandals.

So purpose goes on the top line.

Sandals goes on the line next to that.

The symbolism that he gave him purpose was when he gave him sandals.

Now there's another line there.

And this one is in the story.

But it's tricky.

It's something that we don't really realize is there.

They went to the party.

Who went to the party?

The man who had returned home.

Who else went to the party?

All the servants.

Who else went to the party?

The dad or the father.

So this line is presence.

This he lost.

He gave it up.

But if you think about it he kind of didn't have it.

He looked at his dad and he said dad I want my part of the inheritance.

And he tried to leave.

That's all he wanted to do.

So I'm out of here.

I just want my part of the inheritance.

He already wasn't really.

He was living in the same house as his dad.

But he wasn't really with his dad.

He already had a heart to be separate.

His dad falls on him, kisses him on the neck.

His dad is back.

His dad is in his life full form.

And he takes him home to party.

And he goes to the party with him.

And so it's presence.

And then the diagonal down line there is himself.

He's present in the young man's life again.

And it's symbolic or the symbol in the story is himself.

Now follow the trail up.

You'll see we had power, protection, and provision.

Let me ask you.

Does he get all of those things back again?

He does.

He gets them all back again.

In fact, he gets them all back again and more.

Now he already spent his portion of the inheritance.

So he kind of gets a huge bonus.

Because now he gets inheritance again.

He's brought back into the family completely.

So he gets a better inheritance than he ever

would have gotten in the first place.

But it's not about the money.

So he's got purpose, presence.

Now we already said power.

Or I think somebody said permission.

We've got protection, provision.

All right.

So that's my piece.

Now the diagonal lines up.

In the story, he returns home.

God puts a ring on his finger.

Or the man in the story who represents God

puts a ring on his finger.

That ring represents power.

In the olden days, men would wear a sigil ring or whatever

to have their little family crest on it.

And they'd say, take this 3,000 coins, silver coin,

whatever, talents, whatever, and go pay for it.

And then use my ring to stamp the contract.

And so you give the ring to your son.

The son goes in there.

Nobody knows your son.

And they might not even know what you look like.

But if he's got the ring, he's got the power.

So he puts a ring on his finger.

It represents power.

Then he puts a robe over top of him.

That represents his protection.

If he puts that robe over top of him, that's his boy.

You mess with him, you mess with me.

This is not some shabby thing from the goodwill.

This is what protects him.

This is what marks him as belonging to that family.

Here you are.

You've been through it.

Let me put my robe, my best robe on you.

And so protection is represented by the robe.

And then the provision is represented

by the party or the calf.

So he kills the fatted calf to provide for him

and his friends and his servants and everybody

to eat and celebrate.

And he can do that again the next night if he wants,

because he's wealthy.

He can do as often as he wants.

And so the power and the protection of provision are there.

And I submit to you that they are there in earnest

for the first time.

Before, he had what he thought was power, protection,

and provision, but he didn't really have it

because his heart wasn't in it.

He was ready to go.

He took what looked to him like power, protection,

and provision and left.

And then he spent all of that and wound up in want.

Then he came to the realization that he had sinned

against God and his father.

And then he went back and he said,

forgive me, I'd better be a hired man in your house,

a servant even.

I don't want to starve to death.

But he didn't even get that part out because his dad said,

no, I love you.

You were lost and now you're found.

So on the gospel side, this is our great story.

I was 25 years living apart from my heavenly father.

Now not truly apart, right, because God is everywhere,

but under conviction, not having a good relationship,

not living for him, not using things correctly,

et cetera, et cetera.

And then I one day realized that, hey, I needed a relationship with him.

You get saved.

You're invited in as a son,

not as some outsider who just gets to rent a place in the kingdom of God,

but you're taken in and you get power, you get protection,

you get provision, you get purpose, and you get his presence.

That's about being saved.

But this lesson is about money.

And what we learn from these associated texts,

and there are other places we go and read that,

what we learn is we have to be careful.

Because mammon or money can seem to give you power, protection, and provision,

and you can settle for that, and it's not enough.

It will run out.

You can save your whole life, go into retirement,

and not have enough to live the way you'd like to live.

I met that guy on the bench at the library, and he had gotten cancer,

and he was cancer-free.

He was sitting on a bench crying.

I said, what is going on?

I was trying to witness to him about God.

And I said, what's going on, man?

Let me pray for you.

How can I talk to him about Jesus?

And he said, I just found out I'm cancer-free.

And I'm like, well, that's awesome.

I thought for a second, he doesn't look like he's crying tears of joy.

He looked like he was really down.

I'm like, something's not right.

We're cancer-free, bawling like a baby on a park bench in front of the library.

And he said, the problem is he worked his whole life,

gave up his time with his children, worked overtime,

worked his whole life to accumulate.

And when he retired, he had whatever number he gave me, 400 or 800,000,

a ridiculous amount of money in the bank when he retired,

plus what's supposed to be his retirement, whatever.

And he said, they took it all.

They took it all.

He said, I would pay all my medical bills.

He said, all that extra medical treatment, everything they did to save my life,

none of it was covered by insurance because it's all extra.

He said, none of it was covered.

And they took everything I have now.

I'm retired.

I'm too old.

I have to work.

He said, I might be able to, but I'm beat up pretty bad.

He said, it pretty much can't work.

I have to work part-time probably and live on Social Security,

and that's all I've got.

Social Security and whatever I can earn in a small part-time job.

When I retired, rich.

And he said, what's killing me is not that they took my money,

but essentially when they took my money, they took my life

because I spent my whole life to get that money.

I gave up everything.

And he said, so I don't know who to be mad at.

The people who took my money are me because I should have known better.

This is what money does.

Money buys for once your worship.

You go after it, and then there's more, and it's me too, me too, worship me too,

worship this, me too, me too.

You can have this, you can have better, you need better, sell that, get a better one,

et cetera, et cetera.

And it becomes an end unto itself if you let it, but you can't.

Instead, you have to say, no, I'm going to go to the cross,

and then if God puts money in my life, I'm going to use it for a way that glorifies God.

Remember, that which is considered good by men,

if people pick up and say, yeah, that's awesome, that's considered detestable by God.

And we're at the point now where people look at Christians and they say,

yeah, you're a Christian, you seem to live faithfully or whatever,

but they kind of look down on us for it a lot of times.

You could get real persecution out of it or whatever, who knows what God has planned exactly yet.

But the bottom line is, get money in its proper place, or money will become a God,

and the truth is, man cannot have two gods.

You cannot do it.

Now, you might be sitting here thinking, the principles of this applies to some other god,

my family, my recreation, my entertainment, my vehicles, my house, and it's absolutely true.

And that's what Tony Tate was getting at when he was mentioning how mammon can actually be other things as well.

Whatever you can collect, it becomes important to you,

important enough that having it drives you, motivates you, pushes you, entertains your thoughts.

If any of that, then that's becoming a god in your life, and a man cannot have two gods.

You'll wind up loving that thing and hating God, or if it's your family, wouldn't this be terrible,

if you wind up loving God and hating your family?

Or what if it's your job and you like your job, you enjoy doing your job,

and you realize one day that it's becoming a god, and you start to really think how valuable it is,

and then you go, but I love God, so now you hate your job.

How many men I've had come to me over the years and say, well, if I could just not work at all,

I could serve God all the time, and I hate my job, I hate my job, I hate my job.

That's what happened. The job became God, in a sense.

Now we don't want that anymore, we want God, God the most important.

And so then we're going to cut that out.

But you know how many people out there serving all over the Kingdom of God have said,

I want to serve God, and I'm going to work 25 to 40 hours a week to do that,

and then they go out and they'll serve God 40 hours a week.

On top of that, pastors, 51% of churches in the U.S. that have a pastor serving in the pulpit,

they're bivocational, including me.

Church doesn't pay me a full salary, I get paid through the life station.

And so are you willing to do, are you willing to work and serve and spend,

and whatever it takes, manage your health, manage your eating, manage your sleep,

manage your relationships, manage all of that, so none of that gets up on a pedestal and starts to become,

hey, worship me, hey, me too, me too.

And that's what's going to happen.

And if you can do that, put Jesus first, and then everything else He puts in your wheelbarrow,

you can use it to glorify Him.

But if you won't do that, then it's going to be Jesus and, Jesus and, Jesus and for your whole life,

and that's a hard road.

And unfortunately, eventually, when it's your deathbed,

or the deathbed of a family member that you love so much,

it's going to be that person or Jesus.

And you'll choose that person, or you'll choose that situation or whatever,

and Jesus will just sort of fade away.

And that's not good.

Let me pray for you, and we're through.