How to Be Financially Free | Brad Straarup

Has anyone ever made a financial decision that you just regretted?

Anyone ever made a financial decision that you regret?

You're like, that was a bad decision.

Like, why?

Why did I do that?

I shouldn't have done that.

Like, I remember that when Paige and I, when we first got married, uh, you know, we were broke.

We were just married.

I was deported.

Y'all, we were so broke that when we walked through a park, ducks would throw us bread.

It would just be like, hey, I think you need this a whole lot more than I need it.

And it would just go ahead and throw us the bread and just be like, here is everything that you need.

But I remember I was in South Africa and and and we had saved up all of this money because we were like, okay, one day we're gonna go back to America and we're gonna need all of this and we're gonna start our lives and it's gonna be great.

And then I had a friend come up to me and they were like, Bro, I just found the best investment ever.

And he was like, There's this dude that what he does is he trades, and he trades in such a way that you get an 8% return every month.

He's like it's like compounding interest.

He's like, This is this is amazing.

And the crazy thing is, you know, when you hear stories like this, it's always like some dude that you don't know.

Like, we actually knew this dude.

Like, he our family knew him, and and for some reason he just became this insane trader.

So I went and I met with him, and he has an office and he has a secretary, and I'm sitting down with him, and he's like, Hey, you should probably not invest with me.

And I'm like, Why?

I take that as a challenge.

And he's like, you know, it's risky.

And I'm like, that that sounds really good.

I like I like risk.

I'm like, it's great.

And that made me just want to do it more.

So I went to my wife and I was like, Hey, I really think we need to do this.

And she was like, I really think we we we should not do this.

And I was like, this is God.

I'm like, can you can you imagine 8% per month?

We're gonna be we're gonna be wealthy, we're gonna be a blessing, and then we can bless others.

This is this is the Lord providing.

And she was like, Well, I you know, I trust you, so whatever whatever you think.

And I was like, Great.

So I went and I invested with this guy, this literally our entire savings, everything that we had.

I was like, here, take it.

And you know, the first month he returned eight percent, and I was like, that's that's decent, you know.

And then the next month he returned eight percent, and I was like, oh, this is amazing.

And he had been doing this for six years.

I mean, people had you know built houses and done all of these things.

I'm like, this is this is amazing.

And then month three, the crypto market crashed, and uh, this dude was nowhere to be found.

He literally fled the country, and we lost everything.

Everything.

And I remember feeling so much shame.

Because I went up to my wife and I was like, hey, trust me.

And I I I knew everything about pyramid scheme, and I knew all of that, and I was like, no, no, no, you just need to trust me.

And I got us into such a financial hole that I was like, I don't know how to get myself out of this.

You ever felt like that?

Made a decision that you so regretted.

Maybe it wasn't because of an investment, maybe it was because of debt.

You just got yourself so into debt that you got to this place and you're like, man, I I don't actually know how I'm gonna see myself out of this thing, I don't know how I'm gonna get through.

And I think the challenge is so many of us, we know what that feels like.

Maybe for you it doesn't look like that.

Maybe it's that credit card that you said that you're gonna pay off next month and you said that 14 months ago.

Or maybe it's the car payment that is now bigger than your rent, or the fact that you and your spouse, you don't fight much, but for some reason when it comes to money, you fight.

And I just need you to know this that if you've ever felt that you're not alone.

And what I want to do today is I want to help anyone who is in this place and you feel like you're in a financial trap, anyone who feels like they need to step into financial freedom.

But I only don't want to talk to people who are just struggling financially.

I want to talk to anyone in this room and you find yourself in any kind of hole: a relational hole, a physical hole, a spiritual hole.

There's some part of your life, maybe it's a relationship or a secret or something that has happened, and you're like, I'm so down deep, and I have no idea how to get out.

And I need you to hear this that if you're stuck today, no matter what it could be, by the Spirit of God, it doesn't matter how deep you are, you can get out.

Come on, it doesn't matter how deep you are, by the power of God, you can get out.

And to help you do that, I want to share a story in the Bible that's a really famous story.

And if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 15, Jesus tells a story.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

The Bible calls it a parable, and it's one of the most famous parables that are shared, and it's about the prodigal son.

And it shows us two things how one man can get himself so trapped, but also how God can bring him out of that thing.

Starting in verse 11, it says this Jesus continued, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate.

What he's saying in this moment is, Dad, I wish you were dead.

So the dad has this inheritance that he wants to give to the son, and the dad, the son is saying, I don't want to wait for you to die in order to get my inheritance.

I want it now.

He's like, Give it to me now.

It's so rude.

Y'all, if I say that to my dad, I wouldn't get an inheritance, I would get a funeral.

In that moment, he would just be like, and I'd be like, gone.

I'd be like, take the money, I can't I can't spend it now.

But for some reason it says this the dad actually divided the property between them.

And it says this, not long after that, the younger son went and got together all that he had and he set off for a distant country.

And there he squandered his wealth in wild living.

I think that's so sad.

He was willing to destroy relationships because of something his appetite wanted.

And I think sometimes we're willing to do that.

God has given us principles, he's given us things that we need to follow, but we're willing to destroy that, to break God's commandments, to break his principles because there's something that our appetite really wants and we want it now.

It says, after he spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.

Come on, doesn't that just feel like life?

He began to feel in need.

I want you to notice this is that he gets this famine, and in that moment he's broke.

And there's this thing called Murphy's Law, and that's whatever thing that is bad that could happen will happen.

You ever heard of Murphy, our friend Murphy?

Like it happens all the time.

In this moment, I need you to get this.

The famine didn't make him broke, it found him broke.

It found him broke.

And so often that's what happens in our lives is we break God's principles and we get ourselves into such a situation.

We live without limits, we say yes to everything, and then we are one famine away, one job loss away, one medical emergency away.

We have so lived according to the limits that we don't have anything in case something happens.

It found him broke.

This is what happened in 2008 with the housing market crash.

We so ever we so overextended ourselves as a nation that it came to a point that people started defaulting on their loans and it caused this massive crash.

And I wish I could say that we've learned from that, but we haven't.

There's a stat that came out that said one in three Americans don't even have the ability to cover a$400 emergency.

We've lived so to the limit that when crisis comes, when famine comes, we're not ready.

He finds himself in this place.

And it says this verse 15 so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him in the fields to feed pigs, and his stomach longed for the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

You need to know this.

For a Jewish person, this would have been the worst thing.

They're not allowed to eat pigs, they're not allowed to touch pigs.

He's not only not wanting to eat pigs, he is literally wanting to eat the food of pigs.

He so got himself in a hole, and I think there's things that we do that get us into this exact same hole.

What did he do?

What do we do that sometimes get us into a hole?

Here's how we get snared.

The first thing is this we believe a lie.

We believe a lie.

It says this, and he says to his father, give me my share of the estate.

We believe a lie, and what we want is we want what we want, and we want it now, give it to me now.

We live in this culture of consumerism, instant gratification.

We're like, I want what I want, and I want it now, so why would I ever save up for something that I can't afford when I can put something I can't afford on my credit card right now?

I can just buy it right now.

Prime will have it at my house in a couple of hours.

But literally, we we buy into this consumerism and materialism and stuff, and we believe this lie that more equals better.

If I can just have more, it will be better.

Man, if I can have one car, then two cars is better.

If I can have one house, then two houses are better.

If I can have one million dollars than two million dollars is, better.

If I can have one wife, then two wives is wrong.

Wrong.

We just came out of a memory series.

You all need to know, okay?

I was testing you, making sure that you're awake.

But we live in this world where we're like, no, no, no.

If one is good, then two must be better.

And we live in this two handfuls kind of life.

The Bible talks about the Solomon writing in Ecclesiastes 4 6 says this better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.

In other words, it is better that you have less with peace than more stuff, and you are filled to the brim with debt.

Let me say it this way it's better an old couch with no payment than a new couch with easy 12-month payments of$9.95.

I wish it was$9.95.

It doesn't work that way.

But we think this thing that more will mean better.

If I can just make more money, everything will be easier.

The problem is this the more you get, your appetite gets more expensive.

Y'all remember college?

That$5 McDonald's meal was it.

You were like, this is amazing, this is great.

And then you start making more money.

And now that$5 McDonald's meal, it just doesn't work because we want sushi.

You know, I want a steak.

You know, I want to I want to do something.

So our lifestyle, what happens is we start making more and we adjust our lifestyle to match.

There's a study that they did here in the States, and they said this they said, How many of you would actually define yourself as wealthy?

They they surveyed a whole bunch of people.

99.1% of people said they were not wealthy.

And they said, What would make you wealthy?

And the majority answered 20% more than I have right now.

Here's the challenge, though.

We can get that 20% more.

What do we do?

We adjust our lifestyle.

When you get more, what we don't do is say, Oh, now I got 20% more in savings.

You're like, no, I can now afford that car.

I can and what we do time and time again is we go to the limit.

We're not saving, we're not following God's principles.

We're like, nah, I'm good.

The Bible talks about this.

In 1 Timothy 6, verse 9, it says this those who want to get rich fall into temptation.

1 Timothy 6:9

Now I need you to know this.

The Bible is not against wealth, but what it is saying, Solomon was one of the wealthiest people.

What it is saying is this there can be such a desire to be rich that we break God's principles and get us in trouble.

It says, those who want to get rich will fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, and they plunge people into ruin and destruction.

That's exactly what happened to me.

I was like, I'm gonna get rich quick.

And what happens is the enemy comes and he's like, Let me introduce you to something.

That, my friends, is called a trap.

If you don't know what that's it's a trap, and what happens is he he he creates a trap that we then go and actually bait ourselves and we get ourselves trapped in.

If you want to catch an animal, there's a couple ways you can do it.

Okay, you can go hunt for that animal, or you can lay a trap and wait for that animal to come to you.

The enemy, in so many ways, he works the same way.

He's like, I can go after them, or what I can do is I can just start enticing them with something that they don't need.

And what they will actually do is they will actually come and entrap themselves.

He begins to lie to us.

I want you to notice this the enemy will lie to you.

Consumerism, mammon, all of these things, the world says, No, you want this, you need this.

No, no, no, you need that extra card, you need that extra thing, and we'll say, Yes, yes, I can put it on the credit card, I can do this, I can do this.

And then we find ourselves in a place where we believe the lie and we're trapped.

But then you have Jesus, who the enemy tempted him with the same thing.

He said this, he said, Jesus, you're hungry.

Turn those stones into bread.

But Jesus did not settle for instant gratification, he settled for delayed gratification, and he said, This man will not live on bread alone, but on every power, every word that comes out of the word of God.

What would it look like if we didn't just give in to our temptations, but we confronted them with the word?

And we said, No, I'm not gonna do that.

We believe the lie, and then before we know it, we're actually trapped.

We're in that place.

It looked like a deal, but now we're trapped, which leads us to the second thing that we do.

We start a self-destruct.

It says that he squanders his wealth on wild living.

What that means wild living in the Greek, it means he was unable to hold on to anything.

In other words, he lived with no limits.

That's what we do financially, we live with no limits.

That's what we do socially, we live with no limits, that's what we do emotionally, we live with no limits.

So we say yes to every purchase, we say yes to every social event, we say yes to everything, and we bring ourselves to a place that we're one family emergency away, one medical bill away.

We have so taken ourselves to the edge that we have absolutely no margin, and we begin to self-destruct.

When an animal is in a cage, there's a couple things that it will do.

Like if it's a dog, it will bark, you know, or it will try to get itself out of that, or if you try to help it, it will bite you.

As people, we do the same thing.

When we find ourselves in a trap, what do we do?

We blame.

Or like my parents never told me.

It's the economy's fault, it's my boss's fault.

That's why I'm in this place.

So I'm taking responsibility for the fact that we skipped into that cage.

We're like, no, we're just gonna blame.

And I'm not making you wrong for that.

I've done that.

I got ourselves in this place, and I was like, my friend told me this was gonna be a good investment.

No, no, no, no.

I had to come to a place where I was like, oh my gosh, I did this.

Or what we can do is we kind of break out of it without own strength.

It's just brute force.

We buck, we're like, we're gonna we're gonna get out of there, it's gonna be great.

But then we find that we're not able to get out there by ourselves, and if someone tries to help us, what we actually do is we bite.

And we're like, no, I like my cage.

This is a fun cage.

We're like, I'm gonna decorate my cage for some fairy lights.

You know, it's like make it home.

And then we make our bed in the place that we're entrapped.

And when people ask us, we say, no, we want to be here.

You see, we believe the lie and we begin to self-destruct, and the final thing is this we hide from others.

We hide from others that says us that when he began to be in need, he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him in the fields to feed pigs.

That hiding took him all the way to the bottom, and we can be in that place, and we can be like, no, no, no, I'm just gonna decorate my cage.

Guys, I think we do this more than anyone, especially when it comes to things financially.

Because I know that as a dude, you have a heart and a desire to provide for your family, to provide for your wife.

And sometimes what can happen is your wife could be like, oh, we should buy this.

And then you know you can't afford it, but what you want to do is you're like, no, I want to be a provider, so you end up saying yes to something that you should have never said yes to.

And we hide.

We hide.

I need you to understand this that if you find yourself in that place, that there's something that you can do to get out.

There's something you can do to get out.

I love what the Bible says.

This is Psalm 88, verse 8.

Psalms 88:8

It says this some have driven my friends away, making me repulsive to them.

It almost feels like sometimes when you're in that place, the world is mocking you.

He says, I am in a trap with no way of escape.

But here's what Solomon says Proverbs 28, 13.

Whoever conceals their sin, whoever hides, does not prosper.

But the one who confesses them and renounces them finds mercy.

Come on, the longer you hide it, the deeper you can get.

But if you come to a place where you can expose it and say, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have made that mistake, I shouldn't have taken that investment, I shouldn't have said yes to that thing.

When we bring it out into the light, all of a sudden you're able to step into mercy.

I think when we're in that place, we feel like God is so distant.

But I need you to understand us that He's attracted to your repentance.

He's attracted to it.

The Bible says in Psalm 34, 18 that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit.

You do not have to get your mess together to get to God.

You just have to get to God.

You just have to come just as you are.

Man, I love my kids.

My kids, they mess up all the time.

It frustrates me.

The color on the walls.

Take away their crayons.

I'm like, stop it.

And my son Saint finds a red block with red paint, and he's like, This wall will be red.

I don't like it when they do something I don't want them to do, but I love it when they come to me.

When they come and they're like, Dad, I did this, I'm sorry, dad, I need help.

I think we get to understand what the father's taught us.

So, how do we get free?

There's things that we do when we believe a lie, we self-destruct, we hide, we don't want people to know what happens.

Things that he did that makes him abound, but now I want to show you the things that allows us to step free.

Luke 15, 17 says this when he came to his senses, and I'm praying right now that there's some people in this room, and you're coming to your senses.

You're like, I have to get out.

I have to do something about this.

And when he came to his senses, he said this, how many of my father's hired servants have no food to have food to spare?

But here I am, and I'm starving to death.

He says, I will set out.

He's getting a plan and go back to my father and say to him, I've sinned against heaven and against you.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Just make me like one of your hired servants.

He comes to him and he's like, I don't even want you to make me a son.

Make me a servant.

Have y'all ever been so broken before that you're like, God, I don't even need you to prosper me.

I just need you to help me get out.

Can I get out of this addiction?

Can you just help me break free?

Like, I'll I'll serve you.

I'll do it.

Just just help me get out of the hole that I am in.

There's a couple things that he did.

There's there's there's four principles that I want to give you.

The first thing that he did in order to get out of this place is he told the truth.

He told the truth.

It says it said he says, I am starving to death.

In other words, he's saying, I'm not good.

I'm dying.

I've made a mistake.

I shouldn't have done what I've done.

The problem is this we often don't tell us the truth.

We don't say how things actually are going.

We minimize things.

So we're like, I just made a mistake.

No, we sinned.

It's just a little bit of debt.

No, we're in bondage.

The Bible says this that the borrower is slave to the lender.

So what do we do?

We repent.

And so often the church wants to make that a bad word.

It's not a bad word, it's a positive word.

Repent, what does that mean?

It means that we have gone our own way, we haven't been humble, we haven't been following what the Bible says, and we have come to a place that we are trapped.

And what repentance means is we say, Father, forgive me, and we turn.

And we're like, I'm walking the other way.

The challenge is so often, we have so walked ourselves into a trap that the second we repent, we expect that we're all of a sudden gonna be back there.

No, we have walked our way into it.

You've walked your way into a financial mess, and what we need to say is, God, forgive me, and we turn, and we start following his principles, and then we slowly start making our way back to where we needed to be.

That's what repentance is.

We walk our way out of it, but we have to come to a place where we're willing to admit it.

David with Bathsheba, when he sinned with Bathsheba, when he slept with Bathsheba, here's what he said in Psalm 51:1.

Psalms 51:1

He says this, have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.

Have great compassion and blot out my transgressions.

He wasn't hiding it.

He said, God, forgive me.

Forgive me.

He told the truth.

And God is so attracted to when we confess Psalm 32, He continues, which this would have been actually chronologically after what we just read.

He says this.

He's recalling.

What that means is sometimes we can be following things that aren't God's principles, and we're like, God, why does this feel so heavy?

Why do I feel like your hand of discipline is on me?

Why is this so hard?

And what he's saying is, son, you are going to a place, daughter, you are going to a place that you are about to be trapped.

And what I'm doing is I'm letting you feel my discipline that you can stop and you can turn.

Sometimes God will discipline us, He will allow us to feel something.

Because what He's actually trying to do is He's trying to save us.

It's the same reason I don't let my son run into the road.

I say, Sam, no.

That discipline is actually meant to help him.

He says, Your hand of discipline was heavy on me.

My strength evaporated like water in the phoenix heat.

So you see it in the scripture.

Water evaporated in the phoenix heat.

Water doesn't survive here.

It's hot.

It's real hard.

It says this finally, I confess my sins, though.

And I stopped trying to hide my guilt.

And I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord, and you forgave me, and my guilt is gone.

Isn't that beautiful?

My guilt is gone.

He admitted where he was.

The second thing that we have to do is we have to make a plan.

Verse 18, he says this, I will set out and I will go back to my father.

That's why, as a church, if you are in trouble, we have groups, we have freedom groups, we have financial peace university, we have counselors that we can send you to.

We want to give you every resource that you can have so that you can get out of the mess that you're in, whether it's financial or financial or emotional or whatever it may be.

Bible says that the plans of the diligent leads to profit.

As surely as haste leads to poverty, you can be free.

What does that look like?

If you're stuck in a financial hole, there's a couple things.

That you need to do the first thing you need to do is you gotta stop the bleeding.

You gotta stop spending.

You gotta cut up those credit cards.

Amen, somebody.

Cut those things up, throw them away, delete them from your digital wallet.

Move your payments from your credit cards to your debit cards.

Do something.

The second thing you have to do is you have to create margin.

What does that mean?

That might mean for a season for you to get out of the mess that you're in.

You might need to earn more.

You might need to take a second job.

I've had to do that before.

Where I'm like, I need to get my way out of that.

Or you might need to cut expenses and say, no, I'm gonna back off some things.

I don't I don't need Starbucks every day.

Glory of God.

I'll get Dunkin' Donuts.

No, don't do that either.

Make it at home on a cure rig.

Praise God.

We don't need all of the things.

We don't need every subscription.

We don't need to watch all of these channels.

We don't need all of those things.

We need to cut back, we need to allow margin, and then get rid of your debt.

Do a debt snowball.

Get the the the least amount of debt to the highest amount of debt, and then take the minimum payments and then take the margin you just created and pay off the first one and then pay off the second one, and then take that money and pay off the third one.

And every time you get free, go celebrate.

Go buy tacos.

But make them cheap because we're trying to get out of debt.

I need the cheap tacos, I need I need the tiny ones, you know.

The I need the 50 cent tacos because I'm trying to get financially free in this place.

That's what's what I gotta do.

Thank you, Jesus.

He had a plan, but that wasn't all that he had because I think the thing that's most beautiful is he had a plan, but then he went and he asked the Father.

Let me just say this that God wants you to ask him.

It says that he said, Father, I've sinned against heaven and sinned against you.

Usually we plan first and then we forget we've done this entire plan, but the last thing we've done is actually ask God about it.

God wants to help you.

But I need you to understand this he will help you, but he's not gonna do it all for you.

Sometimes we're like, God help me, but we won't even start following the principles that he has for us.

No, he wants to help you.

But he wants you to follow his principles, and I've seen this, man, so many times where people are like, okay, I'm gonna cut out my debt, I'm gonna start following God, I'm gonna start following his principles, I'm gonna save, and I'm gonna spend wisely.

And it's crazy.

They they they they develop this plan, they're like, I'm gonna be out of debt in six months.

And what happens is so often they make a plan and they start following what God has for them.

And I don't know how this happens, but I've seen it time and time again.

For some reason, God is just able to come in and accelerate what that is.

They're able to get free quicker.

The Bible says this humble yourself, humble yourself.

God opposes the proud, but he shows favor to the humble.

Humble yourself.

What does that mean?

You have to come to a place where you stop trying to do things your way and you have to follow God's principles.

We're like, Brad, I like my credit cards though.

I'm like, tell me about it.

They're like, I get points.

Oh my gosh, I love me some points.

Like, I love me my points.

You know, they did a study, MIT did a study, and they went to a sold-out sports game and they were selling tickets, and what they found is that people who paid with cash versus people who paid with a credit card, those who paid with a credit card paid twice as much as those that paid cash.

There's something about swiping a credit card that you do not feel pain.

No, but I get points.

This is gonna help me, it's gonna be amazing.

That dopamine hit, hear me.

Even if you pay it off every month, it is changing the way that you spend, and there's a reason why they have big buildings and you don't.

It's because they're not in the business of giving money away, they're in the business of taking money.

Eventually, you're like, I can do this, I can be faithful.

But I've seen it so many times.

People end up getting trapped.

Getting trapped.

We just have to come to a place where we're like, okay, I'm humbling myself and God, I'm not gonna get into debt that I can't afford to, I'm not gonna do any of that.

It says this, humble yourself under God's mighty hand in the Bible.

That's his hand of blessing, that he may lift you up in due time.

There's a prayer in the Bible called the prayer of Jabbes, where he says, Oh Lord, may you bless me, may you enlarge my territory, may you protect me, may your presence go with me.

And God answers that prayer.

Yo, you can pray, Lord, can you bless me so that I can be a blessing?

But I'm gonna follow your principles, I'm gonna follow your word.

I've got myself in a hole, but whether it's relationally, financially, spiritually, whatever it may be, God, I'm turning to you, I'm repenting, and I'm saying, God, help me.

Help me.

He asked the father, final thing that I want to encourage you to do.

So, whatever that plan is, I need you to do it today.

I need you to do it today.

It says as he got up and he went to his father.

I think sometimes we're like, I'll fix this in January.

No, we need to fix this now.

In the Bible, it's crazy whenever you have signed security for someone else's debt.

Um, whenever you co-sign, the Bible has a verse just about how quick we need to get out of this.

It says this Proverbs 6, verse 4, allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids.

Proverbs 6:4

Free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of a hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

Y'all, you you may be snared, but you are not stuck.

And what you need to do is free yourself as quick as you can.

Do it and do it today.

And if you're like Brad, I don't even know how to start.

We have a resource for you.

You can tap the circle disc right in front of you, and we have a financial plan that can help you.

Set a budget, understand how to get a death snowball, how to get out of debt as quick as you can.

Encourage you, do it today.

Because y'all let me say this.

We we came out of relationship series.

You know the number one predictor of divorce is financial issues.

Number one reason people get divorced is financial issues.

Yo, we need to get that right.

We need to be a church that's strong.

If you're single, yeah, do your hair, take a shower.

It's beautiful.

But you know the most attractive thing that you can do is manage a budget.

It's crazy.

Girls are like, I like that.

I like me a budget.

That's a cool hairstyle, but how's your budget?

Yo, we have to get this right.

Paige and I have done it wrong before, I've told y'all.

I haven't always gotten on this right.

There's times that I have, there's times that I haven't.

But one of the things that we've done is we've made a money covenant.

We were taught this by our postors who came to a place where there's some decisions, there's some conversations that we had, and we're like, when we come to money, we need to pre-decide how we're gonna spend.

Predecide.

So we wrote up a couple of things that we wanted to do, and then we signed it at the kitchen table.

It's beautiful.

We're saying, okay, this is what we're committing to.

And if you download that resource, the last page is that covenant, it's ours.

Make it yours, but sign it.

Commit to following God's principles.

There's a couple things that we have in there.

The first thing is this we're gonna ask God first.

Can you imagine what would happen if we actually spent our money as if God owned all of it because He does?

He owns everything, we're just to steward it.

And sometimes we use the money that God has given us to steward to actually fund our addictions.

What could it look like if we just said, Okay, Father, before I spend, before I make that decision, ask him, should I buy this?

Slow down and pray about it.

People are like, it's gonna be gone tomorrow.

It's not, this is America, it'll be there tomorrow.

It's like, but it's on a sale, great, they're gonna run that same sale next week.

It'll be there, I promise.

Slow down, take a second.

We asked God, the second decision that we made is that we're gonna tithe to our local church.

What's that?

We give 10% of our income to the church, to God.

We've done that our entire marriage, we've never regretted it.

And let me say this: I've I've preached about this last year.

I talked about how tithing is is is in the New Testament, we are not under the law to tithe.

It is life, not law.

I've talked about that.

How it was tied to the Levitical priesthood.

But you need to understand this that under Jesus, yes, grace removes a whole bunch of that.

But what grace doesn't do is grace never lowers the bar, it increases the bar.

And so often we can come to a place where we're like, I'm not under the law, I don't need to give, I don't need to sow generously into the mission of God.

Are you serious?

Jesus gave his entire life, and we're like, oh, thank you, Jesus, for giving your life.

You just dealt with the Levitical law, so what I'm gonna do is nothing.

Y'all, that makes no sense.

Jesus, out of out of the kingdom of God, what he talked about more than anything else outside of the kingdom of God was money.

Why?

It is the only rival master that competes for your heart.

It's the only idol that wants to sit in the throne of your heart.

Why?

We're supposed to go to God for comfort, but we go to money.

We're supposed to go to God for security, but we go to money.

We're supposed to go to God for strength, but we go to money.

We're supposed to go to God for identity, but we go to money.

The way you break that idol is you're generous.

So it could be different for you, but the New Testament does command that we give systematically, proportionally, sometimes sacrificially.

And I think sometimes we can hear that and we're like, oh no, I'm good because I'm a New Testament Christian.

Y'all, Jesus gave everything for the gospel.

What are we giving for the gospel?

So y'all need to make a decision, you need to wrestle with God.

We say, ask you to ask God.

Y'all, I'm begging you, ask God.

Because I'm a bad pastor.

If I teach you how to follow Jesus in everything else, but I'm too timid to talk about your finances.

I want to help you in everything, our mission.

We say that we lead people to fully follow Jesus, which means this if we don't talk about money, I'm not helping you fully follow Jesus, I'm helping you partially follow Jesus.

And some of the best things that you can do for your discipleship is get to a place where you realize that money has a hold of my heart, and I'm gonna do something about it.

That's our decision.

You all need to make whatever decision is for you.

The third thing is we avoid debt.

So we don't have that cash going into a wrong place.

We don't spend all we make.

We're gonna live with margin and we're gonna be generous.

I think Howard Daydon said it best.

He said, debt is bad, saving is good, giving is fun, and stuff is meaningless.

Ain't that good?

We will never take our stuff to heaven.

Like, literally, your house at some point is gonna be broken down.

Sorry.

That investment that we're gonna give to our kids, there's gonna be some great great grandkid that is gonna make a bone-headed decision like I did and invest in something, and all of that's gonna be gone.

The only thing that we can take to heaven is people, is people we're here on this earth not to build big houses but to build a big kingdom, which is Jesus, which is the gospel, which is going on, that's what we're giving up to your job.

You're not there just to do your job, you are not there just to earn a paycheck.

No, you are Christ's representative in your job, you represent Christ in everything that you do so that people can meet him, which is why Christians, we need to have the best work ethic.

Because when people see our work ethic, they should see God.

Yes, should be the best in the business world, the best in everything.

Why?

We are his ambassadors when they see us.

We're an image of him, and when they see us, they should see him, his excellence, his creativity, his generosity.

We give our lives for the mission and the mission alone.

There is no holier calling.

We talk about our dream team.

Yo, I think you should serve on the dream team.

It's fun.

You should welcome people into the kingdom of God.

But let me say this: every single one of you is on the dream team.

Why?

Because you're reaching people out there too.

Yes, greet at a door.

That's awesome.

Can you pray for someone in your workplace?

Can you do that too?

Can you help that person who's struggling?

Can you do that too?

Can you share a scripture with someone who needs that?

Can we do that too?

The father runs when he sees his son.

All we have to do is come back to him.

It says this that the son came to his father and he said, This father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

And he doesn't even get to say, make me a servant, because before he's even got those words out, the father says, My son has returned.

Kill the fattened calf, put a robe over him, and he accepts him back.

God is waiting on the porch of your life, and he is waiting for you to return.

And some of us, the thing that we need to break free from, you can stop for that.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, that you are waiting.

Some of us, yes, it's financial.

We're like, Lord, can you help me?

Some of you, though, the challenge is actually spiritual.

And you're like, Brad, I'm spiritually in a hole, and I don't know what to do about that.

Y'all, I love the Bible.

The Bible says that we were snared.

We were in a snare, we were in a trap, but because of Jesus, he broke free the snare when we couldn't.

Because of Jesus, when we come to him, he gives us the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gives us what we need to follow the word.

We were not able to do it by ourselves.

We can't follow God's principles by ourselves.

We cannot take on an idol like Mammon by ourselves.

We need Jesus.

We can't take consumerism by ourselves.

We need Jesus.

We can't take on materialism by ourselves.

We need Jesus.

We need his strength.

We need the Holy Spirit.

I need you to help me.

I need you to give me strength that I can walk.

And what you want me to do, and if you don't have Jesus, you're gonna be unable.

And some of you are here and you're spiritually bankrupt.

And today I would like to make you rich spiritually.

What we need to do is you need to come to Jesus and say, I've been trying to do this by myself.

I put myself in the hole, and Jesus, I need you.

And if that's you, I just want you to pray this prayer with me.

Just whisper it out.

Just say, Dear Jesus, I need you.

I know you came to this earth, you died on a cross, and you were raised for my life.

You were raised to life, Lord.

I make you my Savior, I make you my Lord.

Set me free.

In Jesus' name.

Lord, I pray for every single other person.

Lord, who's making a decision.

Today's the day that they're saying, I'm getting a plan and I'm asking you for help and I'm gonna do this your way.

And Lord, I thank you that people through the Holy Spirit are gonna be able to walk into freedom that they never would have expected.

Lord, we love you.

May we honor you in Jesus' name and everybody's head.

Amen.

Come on, give it up for everyone who just said that for the first time.

We love you, church.

And hey, if you just said yes to Jesus, I want to be the first to tell you that this is the best decision you could ever make.

Congratulations! And we do have a next step for you.

We would love for you to let us know and text the keyword Jesus to 480-485-3405.

Because we want to send you a devotional called You Said Yes.

It's a 21-day devotional that we'd love to get in your hands so that you don't have to walk this journey with Jesus alone.

And hey, if this ministry has meant anything to you, has impacted you, we would love for you to pray about two things.

First, I'd love for you to pray about sharing this message.

You never know how much a simple share could impact someone's life.

And the second, we'd love for you to pray about partnering with us financially because your giving enables us to get this message not only in your hands, but into the hands of people all around the world.

And so thank you for the way that you give.

And if you want to do that today, you can go to spiritchurch.co forward slash give.

Well, we love you, church, and we will see you right back here next week.

And remember that with God, there is more.