The Good Life: Trusting God, Even When It's Hard - September 21, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

Hey, we were talking about the good life. You know, last week we talked about

the start of this short series about the good life and what it means to live

as God would have us to live.

And we've discovered in the first sermon anyway, that the good life is about generosity.

Really, when you get down to it, it's about being generous. Think about how

generous God is with us and what God has done for us. And I want to extend that

into this week's sermon.

And then I'll extend it one more time into next week's sermon.

And then we'll be done with this short series.

But I was thinking the other day as kids were getting back into school,

how excited I used to be for that.

And, you know, I was done with summer and ready to begin, ready to study,

ready to get in there because I wanted to finish out high school and get on with life, right?

And something I noticed though in school from the time I was a kid going up

through grade school into junior high and then into high school that sometimes

the words that were cool last year weren't cool anymore.

And sometimes they changed even mid-year. And now there's a whole other language,

especially by middle schoolers.

I don't even understand something about riz and something about something else.

I won't say because it might be something bad. I don't know.

I've just lost touch with that meaning.

Our little Annika that we bring with us now and again, and she's here today,

she's taught me some words I didn't even know existed.

And she's only in fifth grade they're really

starting early but think back maybe to some of the words that were used the

vernacular that was used in your day i don't know if this predates you but when

i was in junior high they started using this word dope man that is so dope that's

a dope looking bike you that you got there that's a dope ride man i love your car,

I thought dope because I've got law enforcement in my family,

my uncle. That's not a good thing.

He was an undercover officer, man. If I was to talk about dope with my dad, I'd be in trouble.

There might be some restriction or some testing that was being done.

There's another word that's still used even today, sick. Oh,

man, what a sick place you got here. This is great.

This ain't no hospital. What are you talking about? out.

Sometimes words have different meanings. And I'm going to tell you that sometimes

meanings change as well.

When my wife would put on this nice dress, we're going to go out and we're going

to have some dinner together.

And I would tell my wife, man, that's a terrific dress you got there. You look so great.

If I would have told her, oh, honey, that's an awful dress you got on. You just look so great.

Which compliment would she like the best? I think she liked terrific, right?

But did you know that the word terrific didn't used to mean what it means today?

Break down the word. T-E-R-R. Terror. It used to mean something horrible.

So when I tell my, babe, that's a terrific dress you got.

In the old days, much longer time ago, it would have meant something that evokes

horror in somebody else.

But at the same time, meanings of flip because awful used to mean something

that invokes awe and wonder.

And words are tricky like that. You got to be careful which words you use.

And don't even get me started with trying to translate something into another language.

I remember going on a mission trip, and I was already, I'd taken four years,

three years of Spanish in high school, and I was ready to give my testimony in Spanish.

Well, something I said along the way wasn't too right. And so the guy up here

trying to fumble through his broken Spanish didn't say, they wouldn't tell me what it was.

I'm probably grateful to the Lord, but whatever word I used that I thought I

was translating correctly did not translate right.

They didn't stone me or anything. So I guess whoever came up next and rattled

off whatever I was supposed to say did a good job of covering that for me.

But even when we look in the scripture, sometimes there's words there that we

see that when you get right down to it, maybe it doesn't bring out the full

meaning or the full understanding of what the scripture passage is talking about.

And so we're going to examine one of those words today. And I want to point

this to the good life, to what the good life is all about. And what's the source of that good life?

What's the source of life? We said last week, it's not about stuff.

And we're going to continue that today.

The good life, living the good life is not about the stuff you have or the stuff

you want or the stuff you hope to get. It's,

but live in the good life of something more tangible for an eternity,

something that lasts forever.

And so this morning, I want to invite you, if you would, to stand with me as

I read the morning scripture passage from the Gospel of Matthew,

Matthew 6:19–24

chapter 6, verses 19 through 24.

Hear the word of the Lord from the NIV today. Jesus said,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy

and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures

in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other

or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word this morning.

May it impact our hearts, Lord. These words of Jesus, dutifully translated into our language, God.

We pray, Lord, this morning that, Father, you will hit us right at the source of our need.

Lord, help us to live the good life and God, help us to bless others as we do

that. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

There's one word in that passage, a scripture that I read that was here in the

NIV and really several translations that really is one that is hard to grasp

the concept just looking at face value.

It's this one word at the very end of the passage that the NIV here translates money.

We can't serve both God and money. And we've got to look at that word to really

grasp the whole word because it's not just money.

It's not just the stuff you have in your wallet or maybe don't have in your

wallet or any more. There's no cash money. It's all card, right?

But it's the meaning behind that and to really key in on what Jesus was trying

to tell us in this scripture passage here.

Again, Matthew 6, 24, no one can serve two masters.

When you think about the word master, or you think about the word Lord,

you might even say your boss, your boss,

your CEO. And I don't know if you've ever had two CEOs, two bosses.

Has anyone ever had two bosses? Wow, you, oh, okay, I see one.

That's hard, isn't it? Because sometimes the bosses don't agree.

One's telling you one thing and the other one's telling you something that's

totally opposite and you're stuck trying to decide, well, what do I do?

Sometimes in parenting, that can be true too. Who's the boss,

the mom or the dad when the kid's getting disciplined? Well,

I learned a long time ago, it's mama.

She gets to be the bottom, not in everything. I can say that today because she's

not sitting on the front row.

She might be listening to the live stream right now. I better be careful.

Thank you for the reminder, Pam.

It's hard to have two people that you place in preeminence, whether it's your

job or even in your family or even in whatever relationship.

Jesus said, no one can serve two masters. And he went on to say,

you're going to either love one of them so much and you're going to despise

the other one because they're not like the one that you love or vice versa.

You know, when we think about what the scripture lays out to us today,

every single time there's been an instance where there's tried to be two CEOs,

two bosses in charge, it just ends up in disaster.

There was one company that wanted to go this direction because at the time in

the late 90s, they were so excited.

This was the trend to have two CEOs of a corporation.

Well, that blew up in their face. And consultants thereafter said,

no, that's a bad idea. Do not do that.

Do not have two CEOs. And then they tried something else that,

of course, still didn't work.

Did you catch what Jesus said, though? You can only have one leader and one

Lord of your life. There's only room for one.

Anything that you put above God means that you will end up not loving and being devoted to God.

Whatever you place that's higher than the standard of your love for God, that's really your God.

That's really what's going to get all your attention.

And Jesus just lays it out there. It's the only time in Scripture where Jesus

says, you can't serve God and this.

You can't serve God and you can't serve this as well.

It's not an either or, or it is an either or, it's either this or that.

It's not a both and, that's what I meant to say.

You cannot serve both God and not money, but it's this word we don't use today,

but it's this word mammon.

What a weird word, right? It does have to do with money, but it's not money

itself. It's not this itself. This isn't mammon.

When we think about what money is, this is just something that is, it's a tool.

I can use this $5 to buy something good, or I can use this $5 to buy something

that's not so good, maybe even considered bad.

You know, I could buy myself a box of Twinkies since my wife's not home.

I could sit back, watch a NASCAR today and shove them Twinkies in.

No, I can't because she'll be home.

Before I get home, I could watch a little bit of the end of the football game,

eat all them Twinkies, and then she'll come home and I'll be sick the rest of the day.

Or I could use this $5 to buy something healthy to feed myself,

or better yet, to buy someone else something else.

Money's a tool. In fact, money is neutral.

It's a tool that we use. I mean, we bag a lot on the internet and stuff,

on the online stuff, but that's just a tool.

It could be used well for good things, or it can be used poorly for horrible, disgusting things.

We think about what the word mammon is, it's deeper than just money.

We think about mammon, this word that Jesus used, it was an Aramaic word.

And it's one of those words in scriptures where it doesn't like having an easy

transfer over into English because it's the idea or it's a concept of what this word is all about.

And so this word mammon that Jesus used, Bible translators have struggled.

What do we call it? Do we just throw mammon in there?

Let the preachers hash it out with the people? Or do we just put money so it's

a little bit understood there?

And while money is good, it's really incomplete.

When we think about what this says, some of you might be thinking,

well, doesn't the Bible say money is the root of all evil?

Well, kind of, but not really, because in 1 Timothy 6, verse 10,

1 Timothy 6:10

it says, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

So just having this up here doesn't defile the pulpit.

And if you're lusting after this $5 and you really, really want it and it's

going to consume the whole time that you're here, it's the love of this $5 and

what you want to do with that for your own self.

And maybe that's a silly example, but when you just want and you want and you

want and it's never satisfied, that love, it's the root of all kinds of evil.

Not just the money itself. So, okay, what does Jesus mean?

When you study in the Greco-Roman world, the phrase love of money,

that was used quite often with the phrasing, the pairing of that.

So it's not really that. It was a common word.

Jesus didn't use some other words for money or some other words that could have

described mammon. He used mammon in particular.

And so this morning, I just want to try to broach it, at least start it,

the conversation, what is mammon? And maybe what did Jesus mean by this?

And what I want you to know today is that mammon is, it's a selfish spirit, man.

It's a false God that vies for your attention.

It vies for your direction. It means it's competing with your attention and

with the direction of your life.

Don't be freaked out because I said it's like an evil spirit or it is a spirit.

You can even say demon. Just because Ephesians 6 says, hey, we wrestle not against

flesh and blood, but against principalities and the rulers of this dark world and stuff.

So we know there's a spiritual battle that's engaged, but I think it goes deeper into that.

It goes just deeper into our fallen, broken sin nature, if we let it.

That sin nature, that's just all about selfishness. It's all about me, me, me.

Forget about anyone else. I want my needs met and I want them met right now. I'm not going to wait.

It's this attitude, this idea.

You can do a deeper dive into the spiritual realm if you want with mammon.

I would caution you doing a Google search for mammon.

There's some scary things that come up when you type in the word mammon in Google,

but it also illustrates the seriousness of it.

I mean, there's words in comic books and in modern day folklore about mammon.

But I just want to really key on this. What is mammon?

Again, I think that mammon is a false God. Anything you put above God is a false God.

You can put your spouse above God. Your spouse would be a false God in your

eyes. If you revere him or her more than you revere God.

What is mammon, that false God that promises you that you can trust money,

wealth, stuff, to give you only what money can give you, and God can't give you that.

Really, God can only give you what we need from God. Money can't do it.

The root word for mammon is that in which one trusts.

So at the root word, it's already vying to be number one. It says that I can

trust money to meet all of my needs.

But the problem is mammon is a liar.

The concept of mammon, of having something else above God, it's a liar.

We say, well, if I have enough money, I can buy security.

I can have an entourage to make sure no one harms me.

I can be secure in my life. If only I had more money, if only I made more money,

then I would have X amount in my retirement fund and I would be all right.

See, money can meet all my needs.

It's a lie. Say, if only I had more money, I would have a better marriage.

Because what do spouses fight about the most?

That's what mammon will tell you. If only you had more. If you only had more

of this. Well, more than five dollars in the way.

If only you had this, then your marriage would be great.

Anyone else have any stories as to why that is not great? Anyone have any stories

about couples that were torn apart because they had more.

We think about our families, our kids.

If we just had more money, all of those needs would be, my kids would have everything

they want, everything they need. I wouldn't have any worries in life.

We see that mammon promises happiness.

Mammon promises joy. Mammon promises peace within your life.

But you know, only God can give you security.

Honestly, only God can bring peace to your relationships, true peace that lasts.

Only God can bring true joy to your family.

Only God can bring about this happiness.

As the scripture says, even the peace that passes all understanding,

when you shouldn't be peaceful, God could bring that to you.

But yet we get hung up, we get stuck by the lie that mammon throws out there.

If you had more money, you could do all those things yourselves.

And guess what? Or guess who you wouldn't need?

You wouldn't need God. Yeah.

If I had all the money in the world, I wouldn't need anything. I wouldn't need God.

To tell you a quick story. When I was dating Melanie, I remember her name. Sorry.

We've been apart too long.

Oh, Lord, help me. When I was dating Melanie, there was a couple that Melanie

used to watch the kids for through high school and such.

And when she graduated, there was still a tension there. And there was this

family and they were poor.

They were struggling to get by. And I got to tell you, that $5 I was flashing

around, that would have blessed them for a week.

Came about that. The husband got a great job. Great job earning lots of money.

And I got to tell you, they were so involved in their church.

They had a bus ministry and the husband did the bus ministry running around

the apartment complexes, the houses to pick up kids to bring them into church. It was awesome.

And she was so involved, not just with her kids, but in the Sunday school and

the children's church and the life of the church with the women's ministry.

But as time went on, and the money became bigger in their lives,

their involvement in church and with the Lord became less and less.

And it ended up, even though they had all this stuff now, all this money now,

but the marriage tragically ended in divorce.

Because they started putting other things in front of God, ahead of God.

They believed the spirit of mammon, if you will, to say, no,

this will meet all of our needs.

After not having so much for so long, they were easily deceived.

But it just comes down to this. Even when you look at a dollar bill,

$5, whatever, it says, in God

we trust on the back right there above the Lincoln Memorial on this $5.

But the question is, what is the God we're talking about?

Is this the God? Is Mammon the God or is the Lord God Jehovah?

Is he the one that is truly God?

You see, what Mammon tells you is, I'll make you happy, you just have to consume

as much as you can. And then when you consumed enough Consumed some more.

Lemon is this thing that's got to be fed. It's never enough.

No matter how much you make, you can't ever make enough money to satisfy the need that's there.

When your focus is consuming, there's never going to be enough.

I need more. I've got to have more.

It's never enough. Your thirst is never quenched is what I mean to say.

You just get thirstier, hungrier even.

And so I just got to ask you, how do you break free from this?

How do you break free from mammon? That's just one simple phrase and some steps you can take.

I won't say simple because it's difficult.

But what you got to do is you got to change your life's focus from consuming to giving.

Simple as that. Well, that's easy for you to say, I ain't got nothing,

Mike. How can I give if I don't have anything?

Well, maybe we don't start with the money. Maybe all you find is a penny.

Start with that. Maybe it's not having anything to do with coins. Maybe it's your time.

Some of you got a lot of time that you could bless others with.

Maybe time just spent listening.

Maybe time spent serving. Or maybe you're like my grandparents that I've told

you about before that just had a whole garage full of stuff, all kinds of stuff.

Maybe someone else can use that stuff.

You know, when we think about how do we break free, we change the focus from

me, me, me, consuming, consuming, consuming.

I need to have this to one of generosity where we're looking, how can we give?

How can we give to others? How can I get rid of this stuff that I have?

Said it this way, Acts 20, 35, it is more blessed or blessed to give than to receive.

The higher virtue here is in our giving and what we can give away.

In other words, generosity destroys the power of mammon in your life.

It destroys the hold that it has on you.

The lust for more and more and more destroys that.

Man, it's the knockout blow to that in your life, to getting rid of it once

and for all to say, I don't need that anymore.

God, what would you have me to do with my time, with my treasure, with my resources?

Mammon's ugly, but it sneaks into every part of our life, man.

It can even sneak into the church if we let it.

We've got to guard against that. So here's some practical steps, man.

Take them or leave them or make fun of them, whatever you want.

But these are time tests. The first thing is to understand that we're only managers

and not owners of everything we have. I'll even say even of our children.

We're only stewards of that. I know there's probably a business owner here that

says, Mike, you don't know how hard I've worked to build up my business.

You don't know the sleepless nights that I've had trying to make payroll.

You don't know what I've had to do in order to build this great business up.

And I'll say, yeah, I probably don't, unless we've had a good conversation about that.

But it's my business. I say, yeah, I know you worked hard, but hear this from the word.

Deuteronomy 8, 17 and 18. You may say to yourself, my power and the strength

of my hands have produced this wealth for me.

But remember, the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.

Gave you the brains to do what you do. God gave you the strength to do what you do.

God gave you the skills to do what you do, to have the job that you have.

It all originates in that source.

Everything we have belongs to God.

And so what does that mean? It means that every decision we make really is a

spiritual decision when it comes to our stuff, when it comes to even our money.

It's a spiritual decision that we make because it belongs to God.

God, what would you have me to do with this? So understand, guys,

that we are managers of what God has given us.

Even while raising our children, we're stewards because someday we'll release them.

And God will guide them after we've done our best to teach them the ways of

the Scripture, how to live as a believer in the world, and really a proper view on stuff, on money.

Another tip for you is live on a budget. How can you manage someone else's money

if you don't have a plan, right?

Appreciate our church, our church leadership, our church board. We have a budget.

We have a spending plan in place as God brings the resources to which ministries,

where we're going to put that money and where it's going to go.

Jesus said it this way. Luke chapter 14, verse 28 through 30 says,

Luke 14:28–30

Hey, if someone's going to go out and build a tower, don't they first count the cost?

What it's going to cost to make sure they have enough resources to finish the

tower so they're not the laughingstock of the community saying,

ha, that guy, he started the tower but he didn't have enough money to finish it. What an idiot.

That's my paraphrase. When we think about it, we're not going to trust our money

to someone who doesn't have a plan.

Like when you're coming out of Albertsons and if there's a guy there with a

table that says, written in crayon, so-and-so money investor, free advice.

You're not going to sit down with that guy with the crayon sign and say,

you know, I've got $300,000 for my retirement. What would you suggest I do with this?

Well, he's going to open his pocket and say, put it right in here, buddy.

Someone's got to have a plan. And when it comes to our families,

even, you know, we've got to have a plan for what we do with our resources.

We've got to have a plan, even, as I'm learning, for when God calls us home

with the stuff that's left, what do we do with it?

How do we continue to bless others in that?

Mammon will say, no, you don't need a plan. Just whatever comes in, let it go out.

We don't need to hang on to this. Remember, mammon's a liar.

A third practical step toward generosity is this. Just learn to be content.

Luke 12, 15, Jesus says, life doesn't consist in the abundance of your possessions.

It's not about your stuff. Be content with what you have.

Be content with the relationships that you have around you. Be content with

where God has placed you.

Be content with those things that come into your life. You're like,

I don't know why I'm having to deal with this, But I'm going to deal with it

And God you're going to be glorified on account of this.

Content, it takes away that power of mama to say, no, you need more.

No, that's not good enough. You need more.

I mean, what do you think our advertising industry is all about?

It's making you dissatisfied with what you currently have, so you will buy the

newest and better product that's out there, even if it's not the newest and the best.

They're smooth operators when it comes to that. A fourth step that I would say,

that's just get radical and paying off all your debt.

As much as you can. Get rid of that stuff.

And why I say that is because Proverbs 22, 7 says that if you're in debt,

you're a slave to that debt.

God doesn't want slaves. He set us free from sin. We don't need to be enslaved to mammon as well.

So as much as you can, I know there's different philosophies on that,

different ideas, but I just know what the scripture says here. A debt is a slavery.

Let's pay it off as much as you can. Okay, these are all practical things I've

only given you four, but the main thing to remember is that generosity destroys

the power of mammon in your life.

Again, it's the knockout blow to get rid of that craving that you just need

more and more, and it's just never enough.

But let me give you the ultimate test because this comes from God.

I want to give you a challenge this morning.

Did you know that the baseline, the bare minimum in scripture for giving is a tithe.

What's a tithe? Well, it's easy. It's 10%. 10% of your increase you give to God.

You're like, man, I knew this was going to be a tithing sermon.

You tricked me, like a bait and switch. The good life is about tithing.

Well, yeah, because it's a reorienting of your desire that the money places

within you, that mammon places within you.

Is my life going to revolve around what I make and what I earn,

the stuff I get? Or is my life going to be placed and revolve around God?

Even that which I need to survive.

Here's what the scripture says. I won't read the whole thing,

but it starts out saying something like, will a man rob God?

And with the rhetorical response being, well, how have I robbed God?

And God says to Israel, in your tithes, in your offerings, and it comes down

to verse 10, where this word says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,

that there may be food in my house.

Test me in this, says the Lord God 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.

There's that word blessing again, or blessed.

See, tithing is the only place in Scripture where we're told to test God.

Remember, even when Jesus was being tempted, what was one of the responses?

Thou shall not test the Lord thy God.

But here we're invited to test God when it comes to this tithing,

when it comes to giving this 10%.

God says, test me. See if I'm trustworthy.

See if you won't be blessed by just a simple action of recognizing that I'm

reserving 10% of this to give to God, to give to his work.

We believe in storehouse tithing here at the church where we believe that the

10% comes to the local congregation.

And then through the church board, through our spending plan,

our budget that's given out each year at our annual meeting,

that's how we use that to bless those around us, to bless our congregation.

Jesus, or excuse me, God says, test me in this, see if I'm trustworthy.

Mammon says, you can't trust God.

Don't do it. You're not going to have enough for groceries. Don't do it.

You won't have enough to make your rent.

Don't do it because you won't have enough for Netflix and Stranger things is

starting up again soon. If you watch that.

Doing? None of you are picking up rocks yet. That's good.

Test God in this. Has anyone tested God in this?

Have you tested God through the tithe? And has he blessed you through that?

It's okay to raise your hand on this one. If not, I got to preach harder.

All right, a few of you. Yes.

I want to tell you, it's between you and God. Yeah.

I want to tell you that there's some question, does this carry over into the New Testament?

My opinion is yes, not just as a pastor, even before I was a pastor. Test God in that.

I have to make an admission to you. If I don't, then my testimony is void here.

Melanie and I hadn't paid our whole tithe through the summer.

It's a mistake. I ask you to forgive me for that because as the pastor, I'm supposed to do that.

The story is, I thought she was paying tithe on her check and she thought I

was paying tithe since I worked the money on hers.

And so the miscommunication, boom, look what happened. Are we paying our tithe now? Yes.

Are we going to make up the others? Yes. It's going to take some time. Yes.

But it's not something to get

legalistic about. It's something in your own heart. There's grace. Okay.

God's merciful. It's not a law.

Matter of priorities. It's a matter of busting the devil in the nose when it

comes to tithing, when it comes to who's really boss.

Are you going to let the devil tell you who's boss? Or are you going to trust

God and say, no, God, you're the boss.

You're the Lord, as Jesus said. I'm going to serve you in this.

I'm going to trust you in this.

When we think about this whole idea, you're like, Mike, I already tithed,

man. I'm glad you're talking to all these other sinners out here. No.

Seriously, though, if you are tithing, have you ever considered increasing it?

That's my challenge right now, now that we're past our mix-up, Melanie and I.

Increasing it. There's a man that did this. He's very well known in our theological circle.

No longer living, of course, but the testimony, the record of him.

His name was John Wesley.

At one point in his life, especially after the early years as he grew in Christ,

he was tithing, giving away 80 to 98% of his income.

Isn't that astounding? He wasn't going hungry. He wasn't wearing ratty clothes

or no clothes. He still had all that he needed.

And he wasn't making millions by today's standards or even by that day's standards.

But God blessed him in that. That's what conviction that God had put on his life.

I'm not sure what conviction God has put on your life.

Maybe some of you are overextended right now. I get that. It's easy.

The economy of the past decade has been topsy-turvy ups and downs and ins and

outs. I mean, all this kind of stuff.

But maybe you start out committing just 1%. God, I want to test you in 1%.

And when you see that 1% of your increase works, guess what?

And up that to 2%. Get going to see how the Lord will bless you,

what God will do in your life.

And I'm not wanting your money. It's not about what I want.

That's what God wants. You see, the question we have to ask ourselves is,

are we trusting God with what's best in our life?

What's best in our marriage? What's best in our finances?

Are we still going to trust mammon? Are we still going to trust the spirit of

selfishness even within us that says, no, I got to kind of manage this myself.

I got to make sure I got this. I'll do it on my own, God. Thanks.

That might work for other people. It might work for your church board,

but I don't know if it'll work for me. I don't want to be on the church board anyway.

Thank you, Eldon. Are you willing to trust God with that?

The beautiful thing is God trusts you with his stuff, right?

Going back to what I said earlier, we're managers of all that God has given us.

God's trusted us with 90% of what he gives us. Wow, that's a lot of trust.

Are we sure it's not reversed?

But trust God in that. He's going to see you through.

An old saying, it's a cliche. It's a Christian cliche even. You can't out give God.

But the reason it's a cliche is because it's true. You can't.

You can't out give the one who will return blessing to you. And this is not

a message of give and get.

That's prosperity gospel. We don't believe in that.

We don't give to get something else.

But we know that when we do give, that God blesses us with more.

The scripture said that in Malachi.

Hey, look, and I'll throw open the windows of heaven and pour out so much blessing on you.

There's not going to be enough room in your house to receive it all.

And what that tells me is that as God's people, we're not supposed to be reservoirs

of all God's resources, but we're supposed to be rivers and letting that go

downstream to someone else.

And here, I'm not just talking about money. Not just talking about this $5.

I'm talking about all aspects of your life. We're supposed to be rivers, not reservoirs.

Letting God funnel that to someone else. That's what we say with faith promise.

Faith promise is something we give above our tithe. Saying, Lord,

whatever you give me, I'm going to give that to missions.

That's another aspect for another sermon another day.

But what has God blessed us with to give to others? I'll close with this quick

story again and just another challenge.

When I think of the good life, I think of Melanie's Uncle Bill.

Uncle Bill was a businessman in Oklahoma, and he invented something that just

took off, and the federal government said, this is great for military application.

And so his business in Oklahoma grew like crazy.

Now, Uncle Bill could have just looked at that and said, okay,

man, look how wealthy I am. I can be a big tycoon in Oklahoma.

Get me one of them cowboy hats and everything, but he wasn't like that.

Bill did. He blessed his local church. He blessed other ministries in the area.

Of course, he took care of his family, but he became known. And if you talk

to him, if I brought him here, he's not alive anymore.

That would be really weird if I brought him here. But if he were to come when

he was alive and you got to meet him, you wouldn't know he was this multimillionaire.

He was as humble as anything. And he understood that concept I just shared with

you, that we're supposed to be rivers and not reservoirs.

Guess what? Even though he gave away a lot of what he made, God still blessed

more and more and there was more to give away.

He's the only one of any relative I've ever had that had his own airplane.

And someone flew him all the way out to California and me and Noah,

and we got to go out and we got to tour the airplane. Didn't get to ride in

it, but it was fun just checking it out.

And he was embarrassed by that airplane, but it served a function,

a valuable function for his business.

Folks, when it comes down to mammon? Are we letting that dictate what we're

going to do with our life, what we're going to do with our resources?

Are we going to trust God?

And are we going to test God in our giving to know that He's going to take care of us?

God gives us more when He knows that we're faithful and when we'll give more, not keep more.

So the question you have to answer is who you're trusting.

Are you trusting God or are you trusting mammon?

Pull out your budget later. Maybe not. Maybe look at your bank statement Where's

all God's stuff going to?

Life is living a life of generosity, completely trusting in God,

but not trusting in mammon.

Let me pray for us today. Father, Lord, thank you for the opportunity we have,

Lord, to live the life that you want us to live.

And Lord, I know it's never easy to talk about finances. Lord,

it's never easy to talk about money, and we get weird when that happens.

And Lord, I pray there's none of that awkwardness today.

Lord, I'm not asking for people to have a meeting with me to see if they're

tithing or not, but Lord, I know you have a meeting with each one of us in our hearts right now.

And Lord, we know this sermon's greater than just tithing, but Father,

have we submitted our whole life to you?

Even that stuff that you gave us, that you continue to give us,

do we have an outlook on that, that that belongs to you?

Lord, help us not to believe in the lies of the world. Lord,

help us not to believe in the lives of the enemy.

Father, help us to trust you and to continue to believe that you're going to

do something incredible and awesome with what you have given to us.

Lord, may we be faithful to give to you as you have asked us to give to you.

Father, thank you. I love you. This congregation loves you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.