Jesus and Money

We're at a series of messages I'm going to be wrapping up today, calling it the top three.

What we're doing is looking at things Jesus talked about a lot.

So I went in, I did a word study, I looked at a lot of the concepts, the things that Jesus repeated himself on, and uh doing three messages that are the things he was uh quite redundant and we would be wise to learn from uh what Jesus thought worth repeating.

I want to start off by uh referring to something that I talked, I talked about, I think it was last year, it was in a previous message, but I mentioned something called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Uh the Dunning-Kruger effect is something that was discovered in 1999 by two psychologists, Dunning and Kruger, that uh were psychologists at Cornell University.

And here's the concept the Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that they noticed a correlation between someone's uh how low their ability, experience, or expertise is in an area or subject, and how high their confidence is.

You would think somebody who was low in expertise, experience and knowledge would not be confident, but they found it to be uh the quite the opposite.

And and you've seen this on display, usually in a cringe-worthy environment, someone who seems to be the only person that doesn't know that they can't sing.

You see what I'm saying?

You ever heard somebody try to sing and you're like, dude, she really thinks she can do it?

You know, he really believes it.

Um people that think they're funny, okay, they they found people that scored themselves really high, thinking that their joke was funny or that they were funny, and they just weren't.

Other people didn't find them to be funny.

Uh, you've seen this, especially if you have an area where you know a lot, okay?

You know a lot.

And you've ever heard somebody speaking on a subject that you know better than they do, and yet they're really confident that they know what they're talking about, and you're just dying a thousand deaths.

Like, I can't believe this person's this stupid.

Well, uh it's it's just nature, it's human nature that when we see something on the front end, we tend to oversimplify it.

And I think we're more prone to it now than ever because of the information age, right?

I'm as guilty as anybody.

I watch, I watch one Netflix documentary on the stock market, and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna start managing my own stocks.

You know what I mean?

I think I can time these markets, you know.

I think I got this.

Uh, you know, you watch one documentary on health and wellness and diet, and all of a sudden, you know, I'm changing.

Okay, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm I'm tracking my macros.

All right, I don't even know what they are, okay, but I'm tracking them.

Um, you know, people tend to do that.

And and here's the challenge is often the sign of a great teacher, someone who really does know a lot, is their ability to take complex things and make them simple.

Right?

But you have to understand the complexity to be able to turn it into simplicity, otherwise, you're prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

So if you hear two people taking a complex thing and making it simple, you want to be finding out how qualified are they to do so.

Because one person might be completely not understanding the complexity, the other person went in, understood the depth of the complexity, because that's the thing, the more you know about something, usually the more you realize how much you don't know.

It should bring humility.

But ultimately, if you know it well enough, now you can bring it into simplicity, put it in layman's terms.

I bring this up because I think this is always a factor in our theology and in our approach to God's word.

Often you see people who know just enough to be dangerous about God's word, getting out there memeing their little hearts out, getting in the comment section, trying to be superstars, talking about things they don't really know about.

What I want to do is actually, I want to show you the complexity of God's word, and then we're gonna look at how to bring it into simplicity, okay?

Um, all right, I I found this chart.

I was listening to actually a lecture in the book of Genesis, and I uh the lecturer used this chart, so I'm gonna bring this up and show it to you.

This pretty amazing visual.

All right, so what you have here is on the bottom of this, okay, you see the white line across the bottom, represents the 31,000, a little bit more, but right around 31,000 verses in the Bible.

Okay, you see the lines underneath, okay, on the white line, and those verses, those lines represent every time that verse is referred to by another verse in the Bible.

So you'll see some of those lines are longer than others, but how the Bible is is uh hyperlinked essentially, that it's connected to other uh references to correctly interpret that verse.

You see all the colors, right, and and and how connected they are.

This represents 64,000 cross references.

A little bit more, actually, closer to 65,000, between 64 and 65,000 cross references.

64,000 opportunities to interpret a theological concept or a scripture correctly or incorrectly, let's do some more math so we can be adequately demoralized.

Some of you are like, dude, I already felt like the Bible was overwhelming when I knew it was 66 books.

Now you got 31,000 verses, 64,000 cross-references.

Let's do a little more math.

If you and I had the same birthday, and when we turned 15 years old, we decided every day of our lives without missing one day, 365 days a year, we're gonna study this.

All day.

No working out, no hanging out, just this.

Alright?

No, no internet, uh, uh social media, we're just doing this.

And we did it for 70 years without missing one day.

It's 80, our 85th birthday, we were of sound mind.

We would get to about 25,000.

A little over.

25,000.

Be careful.

Be careful how incredibly dogmatic you are about all this.

What's the answer?

Because if we're not careful, we just go, yeah, that's why I don't read my Bible.

You know, it's just what's the point?

Um the answer, the hack, the code crack, is Jesus.

Right?

Jesus is perfect theology.

God sent Jesus to die for our sin, to resurrect, to go to the cross, to pay the debt we did not owe.

It's the gospel, it's the good news.

But God also sent Jesus so that we wouldn't drown and die in confusion of 64,000 opportunities to botch up an interpretation.

Jesus personifies all of that.

And it says, by the way, in Mark 4, that when Jesus taught, he never taught without using stories and parables.

Why?

Because the story and parable sums all of it up, it brings it into simplicity.

So God, knowing this, didn't want you and I to drown in the complexity.

So part of the reason he sent Jesus was to personify this.

This is why we make much of Jesus.

This is why every sermon runs through Jesus.

It didn't matter if we're teaching in Leviticus or Ezekiel, we're coming through Jesus because God sent Jesus to cause the complexity to get simple.

I'm gonna go a little further and offend a few folks, but I don't mind.

Every once in a while you gotta clear the place of Pharisees.

It's not enough for you to simply ask the question on a subject, what is biblical?

Being biblical is not enough.

That's not even the right question.

Because you can find all kinds of biblical backup for whatever you want.

Slavery is biblical.

Wars of conquest is biblical.

Women as property is biblical.

I could go on.

Death for adultery is biblical.

The question is not, is it biblical?

The question is, is it Christ-like?

Is it Christ-like?

Jesus was sent by God to die for our sin, but to give us perfect theology, to take 64,000 opportunities for a misinterpretation and to bring it into humanity and simplicity.

This is why we want to know his top three.

All right.

Today, what I want to do is I want to talk about what Jesus talked about.

15% of his recorded words, Jesus talked about money.

15% of the time.

There's about 23,000 verses, or sorry, 2,300, 2,350 verses in the Bible dealing with money.

It's a little less than 10% of the Bible.

Um, if you go to the Old Testament, let's say you go to the book of Proverbs, you're gonna find a lot of teaching that's very concrete, it's very logistic.

Like if you read the book of Proverbs, you you can darn near get a master's degree in how to manage money.

It talks about debt, it talks about co-signing, it talks about saving.

Uh, it just talks a lot about how to maneuver your money.

When it comes to Jesus, who talked about money 15% of the time, by the way, Jesus talks more about money than he talks about heaven and hell combined.

The Bible talks more about money than it talks about faith and prayer combined.

It's a huge topic.

When Jesus talks about it, he takes it much, much deeper.

And he goes beyond just the logistics of money into everything money's connected to.

And today what I want to do is I want to give you three things that money's great for.

I I think the reason Jesus talked about money a lot is because there's three things that I think money is really great for.

And so write these words down.

You ready?

The first one is learning, the second is loving, and the third is serving.

Learn, love, serve.

Learn, love, serve.

I don't so much want to teach a sermon on money today as much as I want to encourage you to listen to the sermon money is trying to teach you.

Money will preach to you all the time.

Money is so connected to you.

It's connected to your values, it's connected to your fears, it's connected to your insecurities.

All of us in this room have a relationship or a psychology of money based on the era you grew up in.

Uh, people that grew up during the Great Depression have a certain attitude toward money.

People that grew up with money have an attitude toward money.

People that grew up without money had an attitude toward money based on your personality type.

Um, you you know, if you talk to any psychologist, you read any um uh any survey about why people get divorced, money's always like in the top three arguments about money, issues with money.

You you know who has issues and arguments with money?

People who have money.

You know who has issues and arguments with about money?

People who don't have money.

Whether you have it or don't have it, there's an opportunity for an argument.

By the way, for whatever it's worth, when couples are arguing about money, they're never arguing about money, they're arguing about values, they're arguing about fears.

Why would I get so upset that you're spending so much money?

Because I'm a saver.

I value saving.

Why?

Because I'm afraid of running out.

Why would I get so upset that you're such a tightwad?

You got the first dollar you ever spent, you're still gripping that thing like crazy, right?

You're holding on to that first dollar.

Why why why am I so upset you won't spend money?

Because my values, I want fulfillment.

What's the point of us dying with all this money?

Come on, let's go out, let's live a little, let's let our hair down, let's have some fun.

We work hard, let's play hard.

We're arguing about values.

I'm afraid I'm gonna get to the end of my life.

I never had any fun, I didn't enjoy, I didn't get to tick off my bucket list.

That's what we're arguing about.

Fears, dreams, values.

So connected, so connected.

Money has the allure of freedom.

Like, for example, think about this.

Let's say right now I gave you a billion dollars.

A billion with a B.

You had a billion.

Money's no longer an issue.

What would you do tomorrow?

Think about it.

How many of you would quit your job?

Come on, be honest.

Come on.

How many of you would go to the person you've been forced to kiss up to and now you tell them to kiss off?

Come on, come on, somebody.

Come on, you can be honest.

You you how many you tell at least one person off?

Okay, come on.

I mean, think about it.

It has the allure of freedom.

I've got money, so nobody can tell me nothing.

I can do whatever I want to do.

I don't have to, I don't have to hold back, I don't have to measure my words.

You can't take anything from I have this is my I'm free now.

I can go to the places I wanted to go to, I can buy my way into the stuff I want to buy my way into, I can get the stuff I've always wanted to have, I saw other people have.

It gives the allure, it gives the promise of freedom, but it carries with it the liability and the risk of bondage.

When Jesus talks about it, he talks about an inanimate object in an animated way.

He says it'll put you in shackles if you're not careful.

And it's hard to know the difference.

Because you think you're free, but you're not free.

If you're waking up obsessing about this thing, if this is how you measure yourself, if this is how you value yourself, if if when you have it, you feel proud of yourself, if you don't, you're ashamed of yourself.

It's what you why you get up early, why you stay up late.

You think you're free?

If you're stressed about it, if you have it and you're worried about losing it, or if you don't have it and you're worried you're never gonna get it.

You think you're free?

I talked to a guy one time who said, he said the biggest myth in the universe, this guy owned a business.

He said the biggest myth is that anyone owns a business.

The business owns you.

He said I wake up thinking about it all the time.

I stress about it all the time, I worry about it, it's always on my mind.

And so Jesus talks about this a lot because it affects our greatest relationships, it affects our mental health, it affects our emotional well-being.

It's just so deeply connected.

Um, the first thing is learn.

I I think there I think money is a great opportunity for deep learning.

Deep learning.

That's why Jesus took it.

Deep learning.

He he says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6, he said, don't store up treasures here on earth where moth can eat them, rust can destroy them, thieves can break into steal, you can all pass away.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Wherever your treasure is, there your desires of your heart will also be.

I think it's worth noting here that you can kind of invert that.

Like you can treat that statement where your treasure is, your heart will be also.

You can treat it as reactive or proactive.

In other words, you could go to your bank account right now, you go to your Excel sheet right now, you could just go down and look at how you spend your money, and it would tell you what your values are.

Doesn't matter what you wrote on the wall, doesn't matter what you tell everybody you value, you just go look where your treasure is, and that will tell you where your heart is, where your values are.

So you can do it reactively, you can go, oh, my heart feels this way, so I'm gonna I'm gonna put my treasure there.

Or you could do it proactively and actually have the discipline to sit back and go, what do I value?

I'm gonna decide my values, I'm gonna think out my values, I'm gonna pray out my values, I'm gonna determine and decide my values, and then I'm gonna bring my treasure in alignment because if you're not careful, something you really value or want to value, if you're not focused on it, and I'm putting my treasure over here, all of a sudden my heart shifts as well.

So if you determine your values, now I can be a person of integrity.

My thinking, my saying, and my doing are all in alignment.

So I'm gonna determine my value, and even if my heart uh is wandering away, I'm gonna put my treasure there and watch my heart follow where my treasure is.

Anywhere where you put your money, you pay attention.

Your heart is there, you're passionate.

And so he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Now look at this, verse 22.

This is very interesting.

He says, Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body.

So he goes from talking about money to talking about your eye.

He said, When your eye is healthy, your whole body's filled with light.

When your eye is unhealthy, your whole body's filled with darkness.

And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is.

Now look, verse 24.

No one can serve two masters.

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

You cannot serve both God and be enslaved to money.

So let's deconstruct it real quick.

Jesus talks about money, then he talks about your eye, and then he talks about money.

Money, eye, money.

Why?

Because Jesus knew that whatever your eye focuses on and fixates on, your values start to migrate there.

And so he's going, ultimately, if you look not only at your bank account, here's another diagnostic.

Go look at what your screen time is.

What do you focus on?

I'll bet you, okay, again, I'm not in your business.

Go let money preach to you.

Go look at your the relationship between what where your heart is, where your screen time is, and where your money is.

Bank account, screen time, heart.

That's why Jesus talks about this.

Jesus doesn't need anybody's money.

He's saying, look what your eyes focused on, and that's what's starting to take your heart.

Um there's a bunch of great stories, and I'm gonna give you the cliff notes of a few of them because they're just great.

There's one time Jesus is teaching on a totally different subject, and this guy interrupts him in Luke 12, 13.

It says someone calls out from the crowd, Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father's estate with me.

And Jesus replied, Friend, who made me judge over you and to decide such things as that.

And then he said, Beware, guard against every kind of greed.

Life is not measured by how much you own.

That's kind of weird, honestly.

I mean, think about you know, Jesus' teaching guy interrupts him.

Hey, tell my brother to share my father's estate.

You'd almost expect Jesus to go, yeah.

Where's your brother?

Hey man.

Share.

Why aren't you splitting your dad's estate, man?

That's that's kind of shady.

Move.

You gotta split your dad's estate.

Jesus says, He says, guard against every type of greed.

Well then he gives a parable and he says, hey, there was this guy.

He had enough to fill a barn.

His the land was fruitful, his business was humming, and and when he had more than he needed in his barn, you know what he did?

He knocked the barn down and built a bigger barn.

Because one barn full of grain wasn't enough.

So he's like, I'm gonna get a big so he knocks down the barn, builds a bigger barn with more stuff, and then he gets done and goes, Man, life is good.

I must be blessed.

It's time to get fat, sassy, happy, eat, drink, and be merry.

I don't ever have to work another day.

And Jesus says, You fool.

You you might die tonight.

You die tonight with a barn full of stuff.

And then that's where he says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Why did Jesus not scold this guy for for the The father's estate.

Well, I think Jesus knew more than what we know about this guy, which is chances are maybe the one who was saying it, right?

There's a reason Jesus picked that story.

Maybe the guy who was saying it had more than he needed, and yet he's still fighting for half of his dad's stuff at the expense of his brother.

I mean, we we we can go technical.

I mean, you can make a, yeah, you know, we're both sons, we deserve half.

But what would honor your deceased father more?

That you each get half, or that his two sons, that they would fight over his estate, or that his two sons would sit there and prefer the other and go, what do you need?

What do you need?

Are you good?

Do you have all that you need?

That the brothers would be trying to outgive one another.

Why?

Because that's the father's heart.

The father's not about math, it's about relationship.

And so Jesus could have easily said, Yeah, you all ought to split it.

It makes sense.

No, he takes it deeper, man.

It's more complex than that.

It's about your heart.

And he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And he's talking about your relationship to God, but your relationship to somebody else.

Dude, you're ready to blow up your relationship with your brother over your father's estate?

No.

He said, Guard against every kind of greed.

There's no amount of money worth that.

I'll keep going.

Mark 10.

Rich man runs up to Jesus, starting out on his way to Jerusalem.

A man running up to him knelt down and said, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus, you know, he's like, hey, be a good dude.

You know, I mean, just take care of your parents, honor your father and mother, be moral, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't be a scumbag, be honest, be good.

And the guy's like, Well, I'm a good dude.

I'm a really good dude.

And Jesus goes, Okay, that's cool, cool.

Uh before you go, he's like, um, uh tell you what, verse 21, go and sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven, and then come follow me.

Jesus, by the way, isn't trying to get the guy to sell his stuff so he could leverage for himself.

He wasn't doing it so that he could fleece the rich man.

He's saying, sell your stuff and give it to somebody else.

I don't, I don't need your stuff.

Give it to somebody else.

And it says at this, the man's face fell and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

And this is, I've I've talked about this verse before.

It's so good because it's a profound diagnostic.

Jesus was not trying to get him to buy his way into the kingdom of God.

God is not impressed with anyone's money.

He's oh, this rich guy, maybe I can.

No, he didn't care about any of that.

He simply wanted the rich man to taste the contents of his own heart.

To just go, the very thought of selling everything, the very thought of not having his stuff, showed him what he valued, caused him to literally have a physical reaction.

And then watch this.

Jesus goes into some deep learning.

He turns to the disciples, he says, How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Now look at this, verse 24.

This amazed them.

Why did it amaze them?

Well, we to we've talked about this before.

Deuteronomy 28 was a covenant God made with the nations.

So they, the disciples and everyone at this time, they drew the conclusion that if you see someone with wealth, they're blessed by God.

You see someone who's poor, they're cursed by God.

You see someone with health, they're blessed by God.

You see someone who's unhealthy, they're cursed by God.

Remember, they walk up to the, they see the man blind from birth, and they say, Jesus, who sinned?

This man or his parents?

Jesus, like, neither of them sinned.

And so when it says they were amazed, they were amazed because for the first time in their life they had considered the fact that actually money, although there's so many good things, by the way, there's nothing wrong with having money.

It's when money has you.

There's nothing wrong with having money, but there is something wrong with loving money.

With loving it.

And for the first time in their lives, they considered the idea that money could be an obstacle to seeing things clearly.

And then Jesus uses, it's almost like the southern part of Jesus comes out.

He says, in fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

It's a famous verse with Jesus kind of being funny.

He he takes the largest land animal in Palestine, the camel, and comes up with the smallest opening, the eye of a needle, and he's saying, you know, I'm stuffed like a tick on a Tennessee coondog.

You know, he's a you know what I'm talking about?

Like, you know, that lady could start an argument with an empty house, you know.

He's like, you know, it's it's it's like a camel trying to go through the eye of a needle.

He's being a little humorous.

But what he's doing is he's saying to them, it's it's it's tough.

Why?

Because there's something.

Money, money is the thing that makes you feel godlike more than anything.

The only thing I could think more would be like superpowers.

Like if you could fly, or you could make yourself invisible.

Like if you had a superpower.

That would be other than that, money.

You can just make it happen.

I want two of them.

Give them to me in every color.

Book it, change it, fix it.

You're in, you're out.

It's powerful.

Think about the way the rich man approaches Jesus.

Good teacher.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

He wasn't coming to Jesus as a savior.

He was coming to Jesus as a guide, not a God, as a guide.

Help me crack the code so I can save myself.

You know, when you're successful, yeah, it's okay for you to feel some self-esteem and some self-confidence and to feel good about your hard work.

That's good stuff.

That's okay.

But man, this is why Jesus talked about it 15% of the time.

Because so easily your success, you don't even know it.

It just starts to get in your bloodstream a little bit, and you start puffing the chest out a little bit too much.

And you it because you did, you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.

You got up early, you worked hard, you put yourself through school, you started that thing, you went and raised the money, you got the thing done.

So you got money because you know how to get stuff done and figure stuff out, and it's good, and you should feel good, except if you're not careful, that money starts giving you a quality, a quantitative assessment of your value, and you start valuing yourself, other other people, and you start thinking that all I need is God to be my guide.

I'll be the one to make it happen.

So the guy comes to Jesus.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Help me save myself.

Instead of seeing Jesus as his provider, and what does Jesus do?

He offers him a chance to let him be his provider.

Rid yourself of what you're confident and come follow me.

I'll teach you faith.

I'll take you on an adventure.

No thanks.

Thank you, brother.

I appreciate it.

I have two more points.

I'll be quick.

I think Jesus talked about money a lot because it's great for deep learning.

It's also great for expressing love.

I'll summarize.

Uh Mark 12, you can look it up, 41 through 44.

It's a story of the widow's might.

And that day, people gave very publicly.

They don't we don't give publicly really.

I mean, we pass the buckets, but no one's looking at what you're giving.

A lot of you give digitally, you give the QR code, it's just happening.

No one really knows.

And that day it was very public, so people come with these large quantities, and it's like, whoa, ooh, ah, ah, ah.

A lot of gawking, a lot of standing around.

That's what's happening.

And so everybody's attention is that the people with means and the people that are doing all this, doing the most, and all of a sudden there's this lady over here, and she's poor, and she's invisible.

She's invisible because her gift doesn't move the needle.

And Jesus is like, gets his boys.

He's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, right there, right there, right there.

You see that?

That's it.

Because of her generosity, he's like, they gave out of their means, their excess, their surplus.

She gave all that she had.

Wow, the faith.

Wow, the love.

I mean, you know this.

You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.

People give for all kinds of reasons.

They give manipulatively, right?

Paul talks about this.

Don't give out of manipulation.

Don't let anyone manipulate you to give.

God loves a cheerful giver.

Well, why would you give cheerfully?

Because love is a love language, is giving.

You love someone, you want to give you, you're plotting and thinking, how can I give them?

How can I surprise them with this gift?

Oh, I've got the it doesn't even have to have monetary value.

It's I remember when I was a kid, my we um, I called my dad on this story because I wanted to make sure I remembered it right and how old I was.

I I was uh he said it I would have been a six or seven years old.

When I was six or seven years old, my dad was pastoring a church in the Akron area, and and our TV broke.

And we didn't have a TV for a long time.

And my dad's telling us, he was teaching in a sermon, he was telling a story, and the story wasn't about our broken TV, but our broken TV was in the story.

And so he tells a story, whatever.

That night we go home, knock on the door, open the door.

There's a lady in our church standing there with a TV.

She's like, hey, I had an extra TV.

I had two TVs.

You guys don't have one, I don't need two TVs.

Here you go.

Like, my parents were like, Man, I can't believe that.

We hugged this lady, man.

I had a moment.

My dad, when I called him this morning to get permission on the story, he said he remembered her name.

He called her by name.

Hour later, open the door, another person in the church standing there with a TV.

My dad's like, We're good, man.

You know, we got one.

Another hour, another person with a TV.

People just kept showing up at our house with TVs.

I don't remember what kind of TV it was.

Probably it didn't really matter.

I remember at six or seven years old feeling the love.

Even at six or seven, when I was excited about having a TV, it really wasn't about the TV.

I remember thinking, like, dang, a bunch of people love us.

Like, we're really loved.

Because money and giving is a way of showing love.

Don't get upset and overwhelmed, and don't diminish the your capacity to give.

Okay?

Please don't get hung up.

What what what an error to get hung up in.

I wish I could give as much as they're given.

I wish I could do as much for my kids what they're doing for them.

Of course you do.

We'd all love to be able to do more.

It really doesn't matter.

I promise you, if I pass this mic around the room and you started talking about the most loving, meaningful gifts, quantity would mean almost nothing.

It would be the person that gave it to you and why they gave it to you and the loving gesture that was behind it.

So I think Jesus talked about it a lot because Jesus thought love was kind of a big deal and wanted to make sure that we didn't get so caught up in all the other things intertwined in money that we missed the opportunity to do what we can and to express love.

The last thing, and really do have to summarize, is to serve each other, serve, right?

So we said learning, loving, serving.

Um, there's a great story in Matthew 17.

Quick summary, it's when Jesus puts the fit uh the the coin in the fish's mouth.

So he goes to the temple tax.

There's a temple tax, they gotta pay taxes to the temple, and the Pharisees had come up with this.

And if you were a good Jewish man, you would do it.

If not, you tried to avoid it and find a loophole.

So the Sadducees did not like it, so they wouldn't pay it.

And then the Essenes basically would pay it one time and then say, Well, I'm doing it for a lifetime, and da-da-da, get their way out of it, because it was an obligation.

So they come, the Pharisees come to Peter and they're like, Does your does your teacher pay the temple tax?

He's like, Actually, he does.

I see him paying it all the time.

And he goes to Jesus and Jesus reads his mind and he says, Hey, um, he says, The kings of the world, when they tax people, do they tax their children or do they tax strangers?

I said, They tax strangers.

He's like, exactly.

King doesn't tax his own kids, so we have no obligation.

But ultimately, I do it to honor God, and I do it because I don't want to offend these guys and no need to do that.

But he said, I tell you what, man, let's pay the temple tax.

You go down, you're a fisherman, go catch a fish.

When you pull it out, there'll be four coins in the mouth.

It'll be enough to pay my taxes and yours, and then go take it down there.

This is between you and I.

So Peter goes to do his job, fishing, pulls a fish out.

There's four coins in the mouth.

Jesus does a miracle, right?

Well, what's he doing?

Step back from the story.

One, he's letting all of us know we're sons and daughters.

There is no obligation.

There's no obligation.

When you give to God or you give it to honor God, there's no obligation.

There's no arm twisting.

There's no, I'm not trying to buy him off.

I'm not trying to put him in a good mood.

I'm not trying to butter him up.

I'm his son.

You're his daughter.

I love to honor my father.

So Jesus does it willingly.

I don't have to, I want to.

And then he serves Peter.

He's like, hey Peter, go do your job.

But listen, I want you to remember this because you're a fisherman and you probably think that the fish are your provider and your nets are your provider and your boat is a provider.

But I want you to remember that when the fish ain't biting, I can put a coin in a fish's mouth.

I created the fish.

I own a cattle on a thousand hills.

That person that fired you wasn't paying you anyway.

The person that hired you, they're not responsible for your career.

All your provision comes from me, and I'll put a coin in a fish's mouth if I want to.

And I'll do it in my own free will.

And so he honors God and he serves his brother.

I think Jesus talked about money a lot because it's good for learning, deep learning.

It's good for expressing love, and it's good for serving, honoring God, and serving one another.

I'll tell you what, I found money to not be good for when it's your master.

Money is not a good master.

Money's not good when it's your identity.

When I value myself based on my symbols of wealth and success.

If I have it, I feel real good.

If I don't, I don't know who I am.

If I was the lose, if you have money as your identity, you will stress all the time because if I lose it, I now have an identity crisis.

I don't know who I am.

You gotta know who you are with nothing.

So it doesn't do good as the center of your identity, and it definitely doesn't do good as your security.

So let's do this.

Let's allow the Lord to illuminate his word and to preach a money message to you and I.

Let's start it now, but over the course of your life, continue to come back and let God preach to you through your money about your hopes, your dreams, your securities, your insecurities, your fears, your values, and your discipleship.