Dream You – The Order Matters

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Some years ago, I decided that I needed to drop a few LBs.

I needed to lose a few pounds.

And I had noticed that my wife and some of her friends had done this one uh diet plan together called Weight Watchers.

Anybody do no, don't raise your hands for that.

And so I decided I was gonna do Weight Watchers.

And so I'm a I'm a researcher, so my wife gave me all the books and all the information, and I flipped through it and I pretty quickly figured out that every diet has its strengths and weaknesses.

Weight Watchers, years ago, was all about counting calories.

That's all it was, was count your calories.

And here's what they did to make it make sense.

Every person, based on your height and weight, was given a certain amount of points every day that you could spend on food, and you could eat kind of whatever you want, but you had to stay within your certain amount of points.

So as I started doing the math on it, I figured out pretty quickly that back then, the way the calories worked is for every one point you got, you got 50 calories of food.

Back then, my calorie limit was something like 1900 calories a day, which meant I had 38 points that I could eat throughout the day.

Well, I did this for a few weeks and I started noticing I was dropping a few pounds looking real good, might I add.

A lot dropped a few pounds.

And um after doing this for a while, one day my mother-in-law called Liz and she said, Um, I've seen what you and Jason have done.

I want to do it.

What do I do?

We said, It's easy.

Weight watchers, we'll explain it easy.

Based on your height and weight, you get one point for every 50 calories you can have.

And so she did it.

Six, seven weeks later, she calls us.

She goes, I'm so frustrated.

What?

She goes, I've been doing this as hard as I can for seven, six, seven, eight weeks now.

Haven't lost a single pound.

She goes, I love this diet.

She goes, I'm never starving like I am on other diets, but I can't seem to lose any weight at all.

What's the deal?

So we started asking questions, and pretty quickly we found the source of the problem.

For whatever reason, instead of giving herself 50 calories for every point, she misunderstood and gave herself 100 calories for every point.

She was eating double the amount of calories every single day that she should to lose weight.

Now, you all understand that it's really simple.

If you eat too many calories, you gain weight, you don't lose weight, you understand this, right?

But in this system, if you get one detail wrong, everything else in the system falls apart.

The last few weeks, we've been talking about money and how money has this way of being inextricably tied to our hearts.

I said a few weeks ago, God doesn't need your money.

He's fine.

The stock market in heaven is fine.

Gas prices and egg prices don't bother God.

He's not worried about a 401k or a Roth IRA.

He's not worried about his job performance.

He's not worried about the stock market.

He is fine, he is good, and he is God, right?

You understand this.

So, what I've been talking about is I've been talking about this idea of giving.

And when we put God first, how he puts us first.

And there is this one detail that a lot of people get wrong.

In fact, if you get this wrong, it messes everything up.

Here's what you need to understand we do not give to get, we give to worship.

If you give to get from God, you reduce God to nothing more than a cosmic heavenly slot machine.

You put your money in and pull the lever and hope that he's gonna come through for you.

That's not how it works.

We don't give to get, but instead we give to worship.

We give to honor God.

This is how we honor him.

It shows where our heart is.

Now I want to explain this to you with two stories.

Both stories kind of involve some emojis.

A few years ago, I got a call from one of my buddies, and he sent me a screenshot of a text.

My friend's name is Jason.

Jason had been a missionary to Southeast Asia, specifically Malaysia, for many years.

And he had come back to the States and was living in California, and he happened to live providentially next to a man who was from Malaysia.

So they had lots of stories and lots in common.

And Jason told me the story about how one day he led this friend, this neighbor of his, to into a relationship with Jesus, which was awesome.

Then a couple months went by, and Jason got a text from his neighbor, and it said, Jason, um, I've done everything I could.

I made the decision to follow Jesus, I've been giving, and I've been giving for eight weeks, and I still don't have a Mercedes.

And then it followed with this emoji.

That reveals a heart of giving to get from God.

Then this week, actually last Sunday after church, I got home and I made the mistake of checking my email.

And usually you're the most encouraging, wonderful church, usually you're incredible with your kindness and your kind words, but every once in a while, one of you sneaks through with a nasty email, and I got this email and I want to read it to you, and um, it turns out better.

Okay, the email starts with this.

Today, I was just annoyed with your message.

Solid start.

It said, um, I had taken a big pay cut to get my foot in the door with this new company, but last year we increased our giving it access, supported missionaries we love, and we gave to Ukraine.

At the end of the year, we couldn't cover our property taxes.

I was upset with myself for not paying attention to the amount that was going out and not planning.

We found out when my husband's work changed payroll companies that he had missed the check mark on the W4 form and didn't withhold taxes for a chunk of the year.

So now we owe a bunch of taxes, and then if it can't get any better, this week our refrigerator broke.

And I'm like, where's this going?

Is she gonna murder me?

And then it goes on to say, so I just didn't want to hear it.

I've heard it my whole life.

You can't outgive God.

My grandfather was so generous, and I want to be just like him.

I love giving, and honestly, it's always easier for me to give and drop money for others than it is for our family.

I know we shouldn't give to get, but I also don't want to give until I'm in debt.

But the email goes on.

After church today, my parents showed up at our house out of the blue and gave us a check that more than covers everything that will get us back on track.

His timing is always obviously God, and wow, on the day I start to doubt again because you brought it up again, and then she put this emoji so sweet.

God always comes through, like when we give with the right intention.

So I wrote her, I was like, this is incredible.

Last night I thought about that email and I messaged her and I said, Is it possible for me to share the story?

I don't want to embarrass you, I'll keep it anonymous, but I don't want to embarrass you.

Can I share the story?

And she wrote back, sure.

I also got a promotion with the rays last week, and then she sent this emoji.

Isn't it funny how this tends to work?

What you need to understand is we do not give in order to get from God.

We give to worship God.

And when you get this mixed up, it changes everything.

It messes the whole system up.

In fact, I could say it like this: if all you got was my message last Sunday, you got half of the whole message.

If all you got last Sunday was we give and we're generous, and we give the first 10% to God, which is bringing back to God the tithe.

And when we do, scripture says in Malachi chapter 3 that God will open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing on us that we can't contain it.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

Beautiful message last week.

Spilled a ton of cheese balls on the stage.

If you missed it, you should watch online because it's pretty funny.

Anyways, and so, but if that's all you get, you miss part of it.

If all you do is give, give, give, give, give, but you don't live with your finances in order.

If all you do is give generously, sacrificially, but you don't have your finances arranged the way God wants it to, you miss out, in my opinion, on the supernatural blessing of God.

Jesus himself made it really clear.

Matthew chapter 25, he says this.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

He says, For the kingdom of heaven is like, just pause here.

If anybody would know what heaven was like, wouldn't it be Jesus?

He says, the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

Who does it own who owns it?

He does, not them.

And he gives his stuff to these servants, and to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his own ability.

Just pause here for a moment.

I want you to notice if you read this quickly, you might think talent means ability or skill set or opportunity to do something with your talents, your abilities, but it's not that.

Talent in this story is the sum of money.

I'll explain it in a few minutes.

So he gave one, five talents to one, and two to another, and another one, to each according to his own ability, and then immediately he went out on a journey.

Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and he made another five talents, doubled it, pretty good.

Likewise, he who had received two gained two more also.

But he who had received one went and dug it and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money.

After a long time the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

So he who had received five talents came and brought another five, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents.

Look, I have gained five more talents beside them, and then I want you to see this.

His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant, time out.

If you were raised in church, if you grew up going to church, especially in the 90s or early 2000s, this was often said in messages about how you live your life.

Don't you want to stand before God, before the great judgment throne of Christ someday?

And you stand there and you want to hear God say these words, well done, good and faithful servant.

All of us want that.

Did you know that this phrase is talking about how you managed your money?

In fact, this is the only place.

It's this, and then one of the next verses is this phrase found.

One time earlier, Jesus says in another story, Well done, good servant.

But this is the only place where he says, Well done, good and faithful servant.

If you want to hear these words from God someday, like many of us have said and declared over our lives, God, I want you to say those words to me.

You will be judged not on your actions, not based on your heart, not based on your intentions.

You will be judged based on how you handled and managed.

Listen to me, not your money, but God's money.

Are you with me on this?

God will say, Well done, good and faithful servant, based on how you handled his resources.

He says, Well done, good and faithful servant.

You were faithful over a few things.

I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord.

He also, he also who had received two talents, came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents.

Look what I did.

I've gained two more talents besides them.

And here's the phrase again.

His Lord said, Well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful over a few things.

Now I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord.

And then it's like if this was a movie, the music would change, would get dark and somber.

Then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you have not sown.

I was afraid.

So here's what feared had me do.

I I went and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, here you have what is yours.

And he just gave him back the one talent that he had been given.

His Lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, it's kind of the opposite of well done, good and faithful servant.

You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

So you, at the very least, you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming you would have received back my own with interest.

Here's what I want you to do: take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents, for to everyone who has more will be given, and he will have abundance.

But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

Jesus tells this fascinating story.

And he uses this interesting language.

He talks about talents, which is literally money.

I'll explain what it means in a moment.

But the point of the story is so simple.

You can't read the story and miss the point.

The point is that God expects us to manage his resources.

God's expectation of you is that whatever he has entrusted to you, your money, your job, your family, your house, your career, your car, everything you have, all of your stuff, God's expectation of you is that you will manage his resources.

We said this on week one.

This is what stewardship is.

Stewardship is the management of the property of another.

It's when you take care of something that doesn't belong to you.

It's like if you've ever stayed at someone else's house when they're out of town.

Don't you stay a little differently?

When you're visiting someone's house and maybe they said to you, Will you stay and take care of our pets for us while we're gone for three days?

And you stay differently.

You take care of it differently.

Why?

Because it's not a hotel, it's not yours.

It belongs to someone else that you know and someone you love.

Stewardship is taking care of something that doesn't belong to you.

Well, week one, if you missed it, we said this, and this is such an important principle for you to get.

Everything that you have belongs to God.

And I know that there's this pushback in you, like where you look at your bank account and you think, oh, well, that's mine because I worked really hard and I put blood, sweat, and tears into it, and I'm the one that pulled the all-nighters, not God.

And I just would hear God say to you, but who gave you the energy?

And who gave you the wisdom, and who gave you the skill set, and who gave you the ability to take a breath in your lungs today?

It wasn't you, it was me.

And all throughout scripture, from Genesis all the way to Revelation, there is this refrain that everything in the world is the Lord's.

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says this.

He says, For the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

This is him quoting uh David in Psalm chapter 21.

Psalms 21 · chapter mention

This is the whole idea.

God wants us to understand that everything we have is his.

Ladies, the diamond on your finger came from God's coal.

The house that you woke up in was built on God's ground, using wood from God's trees, using cement kind of crushed up from God's rocks, using glass from God's earth, using minerals, all kinds of stuff that came from God.

That car you drove in today came from metal that was made from God's, or oil that came from God's ground, all of it is God's.

Ladies, that pearl that you have came from God's oyster, getting annoyed and aggravated by a piece of God's sand that had gotten trapped inside of it, causing there to be a pearl.

The pearl belongs to God.

All of it belongs to God.

It is all God's.

And when you see it as all God's, giving is easy.

But here's what you need to understand.

Stewardship is not just the giving part of it.

Stewardship is how you manage and hold on to and take care of that which belongs to someone other than you.

Now, in the story, the story, this master gives different amounts of money, five, two, and one, to different people.

And the word it uses is the word talent.

And I want to explain to you what this is so you can understand the heart of God.

A talent in Jesus' day was 10,000 deniri.

Now, we don't use deniri in our modern society, but a deniri is the plural form of the word denirius.

A deniere us is one day's worth of work.

So think about your money for a moment.

Think about your job.

Think about how much you earn in one day of work.

That would be one deniary us.

Okay.

In Matthew chapter 26, there's this story where a lady comes to Jesus and she's so broken and so in love that she takes an expensive jar of perfume and she breaks it and she pours it on him and she she washes his feet with her tears.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

It's this beautiful act of extravagant giving.

And one of the disciples is so annoyed, he says something that many of us would think, which is, why would she do that?

Why would she pour that expensive jar of perfume on him?

It was valued at 300 deniri.

Okay.

300 deniri would be 300 days of work, which if you think about a year, and you take out the days that are reserved for Sabbath, holidays, and feast, that's like a whole year's worth of work.

Okay?

300 deniri, one year's worth of work.

Think about how much you earn in a year.

Okay.

In Jesus' day, the belief was that you would start working around age 17 and you would work until you were around 50.

You'd work roughly 33 and a third years.

33 and a third times 300 gets you to 10,000, which is one talent.

So one talent is a lifetime of work.

Okay, to kind of contextualize this.

Uh, if you made$50,000 in a year as a household, a talent to you would be$1.65 million, give or take.

If you make$100,000 as a household, that number would be$3.3 million.

This is a huge sum of money.

And I want you to notice the heart of God in the story.

To one, he gives one whole lifetime amount of money for him to protect and to grow and to steward over.

To one, he gives two talents, and to the next, he gives five talents.

Think about the huge sum of money that this is.

And what is his expectation?

Well, we said stewardship is managing the resources of someone else.

Let me give you another definition of stewardship based on the story we just read.

Stewardship is to protect and expand the resources of another.

It is not enough for God to bless you and for you to sit on your hands and hold it for yourself.

The goal of God blessing you is that you can be a blessing to someone else.

It is a faulty assumption to believe that all of the extra is for your consumption.

The whole idea is that God wants to bless us, but not so that you can just pad your lifestyle.

God wants to bless us so that we can be a blessing to others.

He's called us to be a river and not a reservoir, to pass through us as blessings, not to hold on to it all for ourselves.

Here's the problem.

I start with an assumption that all of you want to be generous.

In fact, I'll say it like this: most people want to be generous.

We just don't know how.

And we look at our money, or it's really God's money, but we look at our bank account and we think that how can I make this work?

And it just doesn't make sense, and the mental math never seems to add up for us.

So, how do we do this?

Like, how do we become the most irrationally generous people?

I'm gonna give you a simple way.

We learn to see money the way God sees it, and we learn to put it in the order He would have us put it in.

You see, money is one of two things for us.

Money is a resource and a tool, or money is a master.

And I need you to get this.

Jesus is talking in Matthew chapter 6, in Matthew 6, 21.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

He needs you to understand that the reason it's not to be a master, but it is to be a tool, is wherever gets your money, that's where your heart's going to follow.

That's why God cares about your money.

He doesn't need it, he's fine.

He cares about you and he cares about your heart.

Three verses after Jesus says that, this is in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this.

He says, No one can serve two masters.

Only one can be number one.

No one can serve two masters, only one can be number one.

Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

And then if it wasn't clear enough, Jesus says, you cannot serve both God and money.

How do you know you're serving money?

You spend it all on you.

It's all about me.

It's all about my needs and my happiness and my desires and my joy and my fun.

And listen to me, nothing wrong with having fun.

There's nothing wrong.

I want you to have a mortgage, I want you to have a car payment, I want you to do whatever you need to do in your life.

But at the end of the day, God has to be first.

When you get this backwards, when money masters you, you will constantly find yourself stressed out, worried, and anxious all the time about your money.

So it's funny because this is the Sermon on the Mount, and this is the end of the section on money, and literally the next verse is about fear, anxiety, and worry.

Skip down just a few verses.

Jesus says, So do not worry.

Pause here.

This is not a suggestion.

This was not like a, hey, if it feels good to you, just take a deep breath, you'll be fine.

No, no, this is a command.

Do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

All those questions are me centered questions.

He says, for the pagans, which are people who don't know God, they run after all of these things.

Like people that don't know God, they're in the same rat race over the same financial issues and they're always stressed out.

He says, in your heavenly Father, he knows you.

And because he knows you and he loves you, he knows that you need them.

And then next is one of the most famous verses in the Bible, and I bet you've never connected the dots to money.

Here's what he says Jesus said, but seek first.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

And then all these things will be added to you.

When you put God first, the implication is he puts you first.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

But seek first what God wants, and then God's gonna take care of you.

And then if it wasn't clear, Jesus goes on, verse 34, and says, Therefore, which means that's therefore the fact that you've put God first.

Therefore, when you do that, you don't worry about tomorrow.

Why?

For tomorrow, it'll worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Here's what Jesus is saying there is a recipe for getting out of the rat race.

Financial worry.

You put God first.

Now, if you were here week one, I had these four buckets that represented the four ways we spend money.

Here's what they were.

The ways we tend to spend money is we spend, we pay debt, we save, and then if there's anything left over, we give.

Quick recap.

When we spend, what are we thinking about?

Me now.

It's what I want now.

When we pay debt, what are we doing?

We're thinking about me, but yesterday.

It's the things that I bought that I couldn't afford in the past.

I've got to pay for them now.

When we save, we're thinking about me, but it's me for the future.

And then the way most Christians tend to live their life statistically is after we've said, me, me, me, if there's anything left over, we say, well then God, you can have whatever's left over.

If this was a pie, this gets the biggest chunk.

This gets a little bit, this gets a little bit less, and then God, if there's any crumbs left over, you get it.

Here's the funny thing.

I've been pastoring, I've been preaching about money for so long.

I always know that there's three audiences when I talk about money.

There's the Christians who love to give and they've experienced the supernatural blessing of God.

They love messages like this.

The second group is there are the people who are new to faith, they're new to all of this, and this is brand new.

This is enlightening to them, and they love this because it's helping them grow.

And then there's the group that emails me.

These are the Christians who know what God's word says, but choose not to do it, and then get mad when He doesn't intervene in their financial circumstances.

God help me! Help me, help me, help me.

But I'm not gonna put you first.

How does that make any sense?

If we're going to be the kinds of people who get it, the kinds of people who live stress-free, not stressed out, not anxious, not worried, the only way to do it is to flip the script.

It is to do it God's way.

Let me give you a simple principle for how you do it.

It's really simple.

Give, save, and live.

Give, save, and live.

Let me give you a way to understand this even differently.

I want you to think about your money differently, and I want you to think in percentage, not amount.

Think in percentage, not amount.

Here's the truth.

All of us spend a certain percentage of our money, don't we?

What is the percentage of your money that you spend every month?

Some of you are like, I have no idea.

All of it.

A hundred percent.

That's what it is.

I spend a hundred percent of my money.

Statistically, so many Americans spend more than a hundred percent of their money.

This is fascinating.

Research came out just a few months ago that said there's eight million households in America that make over a hundred, that make over a hundred thousand dollars a year that are living paycheck to paycheck.

And if you don't make a hundred thousand a year, you might think to yourself, if I made that much, I would never be stressed and I would never live paycheck to paycheck, and yet eight million Americans are there.

Statistically, it's over 80% of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck every single month.

This is a recipe for financial stress.

If you don't know where your money goes, between your desires and your spending, between marketers coming after you and selling you on something that you don't need, between you paying for stuff that's debt that you paid in your past and the government getting their share, there will be nothing ever left over except for stress, worry, and fear and anxiety.

When you think of percentages, it changes everything.

Remember, I told you the goal is give, save, live.

Let me give you my standard, and this is, I believe, the biblical standard, first of all.

We should give 10%.

10% is tithing.

This is literally putting God first in the area of our money.

And I've said this and I want to say it one more time.

The order matters.

Remember Jesus' words, but seek first the kingdom of God.

Tithing says, God, I'm bringing you back the first 10%.

Everything I have is yours.

This is all you ask of me is to bring you the first 10%.

It belongs to your church.

Every once in a while, I'll have someone say something to me, like, Well, Jason, you know, I believe in tithing, but I just, I've been hurt by the church and I just I don't trust.

Okay.

I've had food poisoning before.

I don't stop eating.

I just find a place that's healthy and not going to hurt me.

Let me say this to you.

If you come to this church and you don't trust this church to tithe, I love you.

Find a church you do trust.

We have incredible systems in place.

There is unbelievable financial integrity in everything that we do.

I could tell you stories, I could show you examples.

There's full integrity when it comes to money.

This is God's money, and we don't mess with it.

You might have excuses, you might have pain, you might have hurt.

I just want to say to you, God's way is still the best way.

The first 10% belongs to God.

And then the second 10%, save.

Save for your future.

I hope you retire someday.

I hope you get ahead.

I hope all those things happen for you.

And then live on the rest.

And here's the part that a lot of Americans struggle with 80% doesn't seem like enough.

We have to keep up with the neighbors and keep up with the Joneses and get the new car and get the new house and get the new technology.

And what if the game was not to live on 80%?

What if the game was to live on 70 or 60 or 50%?

Think about how much fun you would have if you lived with that much financial margin in your life.

Think about how you would rest.

Think about how you would sleep.

Think about how you wouldn't constantly check your bank account every single day, freaking out and getting nervous as you log in that something came out of your account that you didn't know about.

Think about how amazing that would be.

When we flip the script, when we understand that we put God first, and when we put God first, he says he's the one who will take care of us.

So do not worry about tomorrow.

How do you get there?

By trusting God first.

Save and live.

Let me remind you of what I said earlier.

We do not give to get, but instead we give to worship.

There's this fascinating moment in Jesus' life.

Jesus was at a temple one day, and at the temple there was what they called the treasury.

It was their offering box.

And people would come, and when they came to give, it was like this game.

It was like this showmanship.

See who could outgive each other.

And when they'd come, most of their money was coins, and they'd come and they put their money in.

And when they put the money in, it's like everybody would know, oh, that dude's a baller.

Hear how much he just gave.

Oh, I bet he's got a vacation home.

He's got so money, so much money he misses the box sometimes.

And they would give, and all of their giving was a show.

Look how much I have.

Look how blessed I am.

Look, I I have so much.

And they gave and they gave and they gave, and their giving was nothing more than a performance for everyone else to see.

And then came in this little lady.

She was a widow.

And when she came in, Scripture says she had two small coins.

We call them the widow's mic.

Two small copper coins valued at nothing more than a couple cents.

She quietly comes in, she takes her offering, she puts it in, and Jesus is sitting by the side and he goes, Whoa! Whoa! Disciples, boys, did you see that?

Did you see it?

Did you see how much she gave?

Disciples were like, No, it didn't even make any sound.

What are you talking about?

The guy before her put in way more than that.

And Jesus goes, No, no, no, you don't understand it.

He says this, Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

They all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on.

The reason I love that God invites us to give on percentages and not dollars is it makes it the same and it makes it worship for all of us.

Told you this last Sunday, last Saturday night, my son Joey came to me.

He just got a job at Publix.

I've been calling him PubSub, which is so funny to me.

And he came and he had his debit card.

He goes, Dad, I want to start tithing.

I just got paid, I want to start tithing.

And so he tithed.

And like this was from one week of work.

He works like one to two shifts a week.

I'll just tell you what it was.

I think it was like eight dollars.

And he tithed.

And for Joey, that is sacrificial.

That is huge.

And he tithes.

And in God's eyes, Joey giving eight dollars is no different than a person who makes eighty million dollars a year and tithes eight million.

One is a million times more than the other, and yet in God's eyes, it's exactly the same.

And I love this.

God could have set up the rules and he could have said, okay, here's the rules for everybody.

You have to give$1,000 every month, no questions asked.

If you want to love me, give a thousand dollars.

And to someone like Joey, it would be immeasurable and impossible for him.

And to the person making$80 million, it would be nothing at all.

And yet God set up a system of sacrificial living and giving that says the first 10% belongs to me.

And here's what I need you to understand.

So many Christians get part of this stripe.

And what happens is their life feels like riding a bicycle with one flat tire.

They're either sacrificial and generous, they put God first and bring God the first 10%, or they manage their money really well, but they're managing it all for themselves.

Listen to me.

If you want to walk in the supernatural provisional blessing of God, it takes two things happening at the same time.

The first thing is we tithe.

The first 10% belongs to God.

Throughout scripture, we see that when we put God first in this area, the rest is blessed.

Last week I taught the principles of multiplication.

If you missed last week, please watch it online.

That topic changed my whole life.

When we put God first, when we bring the first 10% to Him, it's blessed.

And then it's blessed so that we can be a blessing.

Not so that we keep it all for us, but so that we can be a blessing to others.

This week is the other half.

The other half is if we're going to honor God with our money, we have to put our money in the proper order.

We have to be sacrificial and give first.

And then live.

We live in a world that will tell you, spend your money, do this for you, go on this vacation, buy this house, buy this car, do this experience.

And I'm for all of those things.

Don't don't miss this.

I want you to live a fun, fulfilled kind of life.

But what I really want for you to do is I really want for you to live a life that honors God in the area of your money.

One last time.

Why does it matter?

And why does God care?

God doesn't need your money.

He's got God doesn't need your cash, he's fine.

The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, all of it is his, he's good.

What God is after is your heart.

And what God is after is you.

So will you join me?

And let's flip the script.

Will you join me and make this decision to say, God, listen, I'm going to put you first in the area of my finances, and after I've put you first, I'm going to order the rest of them in a way that honors you.

I'm going to steward your money.

Every week I've given you homework.

Here's your homework this week, and then we're going to pray and go.

I want you to do a couple things for me.

The first thing is this I want you to have courage.

And this week I want to ask you to go to your bank account, look at your money, and ask God this question.

What does how I spend my money on say about my love for you?

God, when I look at this money, all that you've entrusted to me, what does it say about my love and my trust and my devotion to you?

Start there.

And then secondly, I want you to look at all of your money and I want you to think in percentages, not dollars.

And I want you to ask the question is the first 10% going to God?

Am I taking care of myself and saving for the future?

And am I living within my means?

Some of you, you have so much financial margin that what you can do is so fun.

This is a fun season.

You can compress the amount you live on and you can be more generous.

You can compress the amount you live on and you can save more.

It just changes the game when you put your finances in a way, in an order that honors God.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes with me all across this room?

Let me pray for you.

So, God, this is one of those messages that's way easier for me to talk about than it is for us to actually live out.

God, today I pray that you'll give us courage.

Courage to look at our bank account and ask you the question, what does how I spend my money on show about my heart, love, and devotion to you?

And God, for others of us, give us the courage today to go back and look at our money and ask the question are we living your way?

Does our money reflect the order you would have for us?

God, I know for some of us this is going to require some drastic change.

But give us courage to not just be hearers of your word, but to be doers of your word as well.

We love you, God.

We thank you for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.